Barbara Hambly - 02 TRAVELING WITH THE DEAD

And what, above all, was he going to do when he did find Ernchester. Kill him? He knew already that he would never sleep easy again if he didn't kill Anthea as well.

With a soft, oiled click, a key turned in the lock. Asher's mind fumbled tiredly for the Hungarian for This room is not to be disturbed as he rose and crossed to the door, which opened to reveal Bedford Fairport.

"Asher!" The little man blinked in surprise and adjusted his spectacles as if Asher were some trick refraction of the light. "What on earth...?"

Deportation telegram, thought Asher automatically, his mind still sluggish with sleep. And then, How did they trace me...? He was mentally framing what he was going to tell Halliwell about the layout of the Batthyany Palace when, with panther quickness, Ignace Karolyi stepped around the side of the door and put a knife to Asher's throat.

Fairport bleated, "No!" as the blade gashed like splintered glass. "Not here!" The ape- browed coachman and two burly thugs Asher had never seen before were already in the room and closing the door. One of them caught Asher's elbows behind his back, thrust him against the wall; the other walked straight to the window to pull the curtains shut. Blood from the small cut on his neck burned hot on Asher's skin, but Karolyi had already turned his attention elsewhere, though the blade remained cold against the flesh.

"Find it."

Asher tried to turn but was pushed against the wall again. Over his shoulder he saw Fairport staring at him in a kind of aghast astonishment; one of the thugs took the medical bag out of Fairport's hand, opened it and pulled out a paper of sticking plaster, which he slapped over Asher's mouth. With his free hand Karolyi took something from his greatcoat pocket, a silk scarf, with which the thug tied Asher's hands. Probably the same one, thought Asher, he'd used to strangle the woman in Paris.

Only then did Karolyi take his knife from Asher's throat, sheathe it in an inner pocket of his jacket. The man who'd been holding Asher's arms kicked him roughly behind the knees, thrusting him to the floor, a minor theater of operations while the others pushed through the doorway into the next room. Asher tried to cry out, a warning, protest, appeal against the hideous vision of them prizing open the double lids of the trunks...

Then he realized that Anthea was perfectly safe.

It was Karolyi who'd had her house searched-probably Karolyi who'd written Vienna Express on the timetable.

He'd had her followed here from the station.

"This has to be it," he heard Fairport say in German.

"You're not gonna check to see?" asked the coachman.

Fairport squeaked protestingly; Karolyi said, "Let it be, Lukas," his voice casual, but the henchmen stepped quickly out of the room. "Did you think she would not follow?"

"To tell you the truth, I didn't know."

Asher turned his face against the thick, dust-smelling carpet, saw them standing together in the doorway, the old man looking up into Karolyi's face like a retriever who's just lugged in a pheasant nearly its own size. He thought, Fairport's a double. Something about the distance between them, the tilt of Fairport's head, told the whole story. Has been a double for years.

On reflection he supposed he should feel anger, but he didn't. It was something that happened in the Great Game, like stray whores being strangled or those who learned too much getting shot.

Karolyi looked down at Asher with an expression of rueful half amusement. "So tell me, Dr. Asher-was it just coincidence that you were the man assigned to follow me? Or was Ernchester wrong in believing that the British are not also using the Undead?"

Asher inclined his head. He reflected that it might even be the truth.

Karolyi laughed. "Not many, I daresay. They're good, rational, God-fearing, Church of England, university men in your Department. Civilized, the way they tried to civilize me all my life." He came over and squatted beside Asher's shoulder, slim and soldierly even in the impeccably cut brown suit he wore. A hot blade of sunlight flashed across the gold and ruby of his cravat pin, red and gold repeated on his signet ring.

"But being raised in the mountains does something to you. I suspect I got from my Moravian nurse, at the age of five, what you got from years of comparing legends and collecting odd facts that don't fit into the curricula of Oxford and Innsbruck. Was that why they picked you to follow me? Surely they don't think I'd miss a familiar face?"

Unable to reply because of the sticking plaster, Asher only met his eyes. You know I'd never answer your questions anyway, his look said, and the full, red lips curved in a mocking smile.

"Well, I admit I didn't realize it was you in 'ninety-five until I saw you in the Munich train station. Our good Dr. Fairport kept that little secret from me back then." Karolyi stood up. Behind him, the two thugs carried Anthea's trunk to the door which the coachman Lukas held open; Fairport stood by, watery eyes flicking nervously from the trunk to Asher and Karolyi. "You know, I'd have thought you'd have been promoted past field agent by this time. You always struck me as being smarter than that. But maybe that was luck."

He took his gloves from his pocket, started to put them on but glanced down again at Asher and returned them to the pocket again. A small gesture, but Asher knew at once what it meant.

White kid was expensive, and blood would not come out of it.

" Remember my instructions, Lukas... all of my instructions..." he called out, and then turned with an admirable casualness to say, "Dr. Fairport, perhaps you'd best go with them."

Fairport nodded, his gaze behind the massive spectacles glued to the trunk as the stevedores maneuvered it through the door.

"Of course," he breathed, "they can't appreciate... Klaus! Klaus, please, a little more gently!"

By the way the old man flinched, Asher knew he'd guessed right. Absorbed, fascinated, obsessed by the prospect of taking a vampire alive, Fairport had forgotten. Had forgotten what Karolyi did with those inconvenient to him, if he'd ever known. The old man turned back, not quite in time to catch Karolyi smoothly withdrawing his hand from the front of his coat.

Asher met Fairport's eyes, forbidding him not to guess what was going to happen the minute he left the room. The old man's eyes, pale blue and tiny, distorted behind enormous rounds of glass, flinched away. Damn you, thought Asher, if you're going to let him kill me, at least admit to yourself what you're doing...

"You'd best supervise them," Karolyi said gently, nodding after the departing men. You don't really want to see this, do you?

Karolyi's eyes met Fairport's, held them, and Asher understood the unspoken barter: If you don't want to have anything further to do with vampires, of course that can be arranged, too...

Fairport turned uncertainly, as if Karolyi had implied that only his intervention could prevent the three stevedores from heaving Anthea's trunk out the window or riding it down the stairs like a bobsled.

Then he turned back. "Someone, er-might have seen us come in," he said hesitantly. "They'll certainly have seen the name on the van." He looked apologetically down at Asher and twisted his hands in their gray cotton gloves, as if that were the best he could do. Asher wanted to kick him.

Karolyi fetched a long-suffering sigh. "Have you chloroform in your bag, then?" Fairport went to his instrument case, but the tremor of his hands, increased by nervousness, spilled the chloroform as he tried to pour it onto the cotton pad.

Karolyi strode over to steady him, and in that moment Asher twisted his wrists against the hastily knotted scarf. The silk wasn't like rope, with rope's matted fibers; one knot tightened hard while the other slithered and loosened. As Karolyi turned back with the drug-soaked cotton in hand, Asher chopped hard with his legs at the Hungarian's ankles, pulled free one arm from the scarf, rolled to his feet and bolted for the door.