“I still don’t think it will work.” The bird creature started to feed, ripping great strips off a half-dead furred body that twitched in a vain effort to get away. I was reminded disturbingly of Radu’s dinner party, especially since those too-human eyes were still on me. They looked hungry.

“Because I was interrupted before I could explain my ingenious plan,” Caedmon informed me blithely. “It is simple enough: Dracula will see ‘Mircea’ arrive, and shortly thereafter, the wards will fall. Naturally, he will believe that you are fulfilling your part of the agreement and mount his attack. I will have enough of my supporters stationed around the perimeter of the estate to deal with him, and to rescue the Lady Claire.”

“And if he doesn’t have her with him?”

He sighed happily. “Then we will have to find a way to convince him to tell us where she is.” I got a momentary flash of Drac being tortured by the Fey. It was almost orgasmic.

“Sounds great,” I said sincerely, “except that there are about a thousand things that could go wrong, starting with your disguise.”

“It pains me that you have such little faith,” he reproached.

“You have to be seen being welcomed into the house as Mircea, or Drac won’t buy it. But if anyone sees through your disguise, the game’s up. Louis-Cesare will never let us lower the wards and endanger ’Du’s life. And with them still up, Drac can’t get within a mile of this place. So unless you have enough retainers to cover a perimeter that large, when we don’t even know from which direction he’ll come at us—”

“You should trust me, little one. In comparison to the machinations that occur every day at court, this is a minor intrigue. As I see it, there is only one possible snag—interference by the vampire.”

“Radu doesn’t make a habit of answering his own door. It’s Geoffrey you have to fool, at least long enough to get in, and that won’t be any easier. He’s one of Mircea’s stable. I think he’ll know his own master!”

“Not him. The other. Louis-Cesare.”

I eyed the Fey. I didn’t see any seeping wounds or missing limbs, so it looked like he had been able to handle Louis-Cesare well enough. “He isn’t likely to be hanging around the foyer, either.”

“No, but he may be, as you say, ‘hanging around’ other places, such as the source of the power for your uncle’s wards.”

“Which would be?”

“The first thing you will discover for me. The wards should let me in when I return as they already know me as a friend of the house. I will shut them down after I arrive, but I will not have time to search the house. Second, you will need to ensure that Geoffrey is out of the way and that someone with less knowledge of Mircea answers the door. One of the humans would be best. And third, you must distract Louis-Cesare long enough for me to lower the wards.”

“Is that all?” I asked sarcastically.

“It should suffice.” He smiled with amused tolerance. “I will arrive at nine p.m. tomorrow. That gives you more than twenty hours. I am confident you can manage in that time.”

The only reason I didn’t bite him was the certain knowledge that he’d enjoy it. “And why should I trust you? A strange Fey I only met yesterday?”

Caedmon smiled gently. “I think you know why.”

I thought I did, too. I covered his hand with mine. “As long as we have an understanding about Claire. No forcing her into Faerie against her will.” Caedmon gave me innocent eyes. I pushed his thumb onto one of the rose’s longer thorns, deep enough to hit bone. “If you betray me, I’ll gut you and feed the remains to Radu’s menagerie.”

Caedmon pulled his hand off the rose and brought the bleeding digit to my mouth, smearing blood along my lips. “You say the sweetest things.”

“I mean it, Caedmon.”

He bent his head and gently kissed away the blood. The taste of his lips was an explosion of sweetness, like summer condensed. “I know.”

Chapter Eighteen

Fresh blood at midnight isn’t red. It’s a purplish black that easily blends into the shadows. I plunged my foot ankle-deep into a frost-covered puddle of it and swore softly. The upper crust was only half-frozen, and the sticky sludge beneath oozed around my rag-covered foot sickeningly. I jumped to the side, scrambling for purchase on the icy rocks and slippery dead leaves, leaving a trail of dark gashes in the snow.

When I finally forced my eyes upward, I saw what I’d expected. The naked man impaled on a thick wooden stake above me had skin the color of the snow piled all around, and never moved except when the vicious wind tossed his limbs about. The eyes were frozen over with a thin layer of ice, making them glitter with a parody of life in the moonlight. I looked away, but all I saw was a line of similar corpses bordering the path down the mountain, disappearing into the dark. It looked like my quarry was home.

A flight of crows, startled by my presence, left their perch in the skeleton of a tree and wheeled out over the valley, a score of dark shapes dipping erratically in the wind. The full moon illuminated thick woods glittering with frost, cut through by a silver ribbon of river. It would have been breathtaking, if I’d had any to spare. I didn’t. I hadn’t dared take the main path up the mountain; even on a night like this, it was guarded. I’d had to crawl up a crumbling dirt path engineered by goats and practically impassable by anything not on four feet. The only sight that interested me now was the two cloaked guards standing in the shadow of a nearby stone overhang, the fog of their breath thick as smoke as they stomped their feet, trying to get some circulation going.

The massive slab over their heads had a beard of long icicles, like a mouth with sharp, jagged teeth. It almost looked as if the entryway were trying to eat them. The gray hulk of Castle Poenari rose menacingly behind them, sparkling with the same ice that crunched under their boots every time they moved. A bitter wind howled around the mountain, and I could hear one of them struggle to breathe, the air rattling wetly in his chest. But they hadn’t dared to light a fire. Their master frowned on any sign of weakness, and I guess they preferred pneumonia to ending their lives writhing on the end of a stake.

Since I shared that view, I decided that a frontal assault might not be the best plan. I was confident that I could take on a couple of half-frozen guards, but if one managed to raise the alarm, it would put an early end to my evening’s plans. I looked for other options, but there weren’t many. Despite being located at the peak of the mountain, the castle was surrounded by high, deep walls of natural stone and featured three tall watchtowers designed to keep people like me outside.

I became well acquainted with those walls, since I spent the next half hour scaling them, clinging to the few narrow ridges where the outer stones didn’t fit together perfectly. Every time I stayed in one place more than a few seconds, my hands froze to the rock, ensuring that when I moved on, I left a little more flesh behind. My movements caused chunks of ice to cascade from the edge down the fifty feet of dirt slope that surrounded the castle, to the steep drop-off below. I looked down once, and immediately regretted it. I didn’t look again.

The wind almost knocked me off twice, bringing with it stinging bits of ice that scoured my skin and threatened to blind me. It howled around my ears like an angry demon, seeming to take it personally that I continued to hold on by my fingertips. More than once, I was bashed against the stone hard enough to have me worrying about the state of my rib cage. And when I finally made it to the top, I had to wait, hanging on the almost featureless outer surface of the walls, until the guards on patrol moved away.

As soon as they did, I hauled my half-frozen body over the parapet and dropped to the ground. It was less of an improvement than I’d hoped. The biting wind was gone, only to be replaced by the bone-chilling cold of winter air trapped inside thick stone walls. Even worse, I had no idea where I was supposed to go and the castle was crammed with soldiers. Everywhere I looked, bodies flowed through the shadows before coming out into the moonlight.

I’d hoped that an assault in the middle of the night would find most people asleep, but I should have known better. Considering whom I was dealing with, night around here was probably busier than day. I finally lost patience and crossed the open courtyard at a run. For a wonder, no one saw me. It helped that most of the guards were huddled into their cloaks, more worried about not freezing to death than about possible intruders.

I entered the castle unseen. The cavernous arches of the corridors were immense above me, and even my softest footfall seemed to ring into infinity. I ghosted along the walls and somehow made it to the large main hall without being seen. The air was filled with the clatter of plates and goblets, and lanterns pushed at the darkness, spilling large puddles of light on the floor and dispelling the concealing shadows. It was obvious that I would have to wait for the group of soldiers gathered along one of the room’s long tables to finish a late meal before I continued. The smell of their food made my stomach growl; how long had it been since I’d eaten? I couldn’t remember, but the scent of beer and cold lamb caused my abdominal muscles to clench uncomfortably.

I turned my attention to the sight of a new-looking tapestry on the back wall. It showed an armor-clad figure at the head of an army, who I assumed was either the father or the son because he was riding a dragon. Both belonged to the Order of the Dragon, a group created to fight the Turks, which had given them their famous nickname. “Dracul” means dragon, so “Dracula” was literally “son of the dragon.” It seemed a good bet that the painting was of the son—he was spearing an enemy on the point of a pike.

The soldiers finally left and I moved into the echoing space, trying to keep to places that did not have dried rushes on the floor to crackle underfoot. The ceiling above was so high that it disappeared into darkness, and seemed to pick up every stray echo of sound. At last, I reached a high, arched door, leading to a short, dimly lit corridor. Nearby, a set of stairs wound up into blackness, the lack of torches an encouraging sign, as only my prey was likely to be able to see his way without them.