Barbara Hambly - 02 TRAVELING WITH THE DEAD

Karolyi, who had caught his balance on Fairport's shoulder, threw the fragile old man aside and flung himself after, shouting at the same time, "Stop, thief!" Coatless, unshaven, unknown to the hotel and still mute from the sticking plaster over his mouth, Asher could only redouble his speed down the front stair, swinging himself over the banister and down to the next flight as two stout porters in brass-buttoned green uniforms pelted up to meet him. He kicked his way through a rickety French door to a balcony that ran around two sides of the building's central court, scrambled down a rain gutter to the court where a red and white van, Lukas at the reins, was just lurching into the carriageway to the street. He veered as the coachman drew rein and one of the thugs dropped off the back to meet him, ducked through a door into kitchen quarters, dodged past two startled cooks and a scullery girl and out again into a lane, pursued by cries of "Dieb! Mord!" and hammering feet.

The cramped, medieval streets of the old city seemed filled with pedestrians,

either retreating from him in alarm or joining in the pursuit. He struck someone, blundered against a market woman and a postman with his parcels, ducked down an open gateway into another court and through another kitchen as half a dozen young officers in the blue and yellow uniforms of the Imperial-and-Royal Hussars sprang up from a table at a sidewalk cafe and streamed joyously after him, hands to their sword hilts and spurs rattling on the pavement.

He dodged into another gate and raced up the shadowy stairs, while police, guards, and passersby sped past him and into the courtyard, looking for a kitchen door or postern through a shop-finding it, they roared on through, while Asher pulled the sticking plaster from his mouth-with a certain amount of damage to his mustache-and, when they were gone, descended the steps and walked out to the pavement of the Dortheergasse again.

The ache in his side was breathtaking, and under the bandages he could feel the warm seep of blood. Gray afternoon cold cut through his shirtsleeves. He fought a wave of dizziness as he hurried toward the crowds on the Graben, feeling in his trouser pocket and praying there was something there besides his handkerchief.

He was in luck. He'd paid for the coffee last night with one of Karolyi's ten- florin notes and, owing to the pull of the wound in his side, had put the change in his trousers rather than the inner pocket of his jacket. It was enough, maybe, to get him a jacket at the flea market in the Stephansplatz if he wasn't too fastidious, and a tram ticket out of the immediate area, to somewhere that he could hide.

Asher remained on the Prater until nearly four, to give the hue and cry time to subside. He had a late lunch at one of the rustic cafes that lined the Volksprater's bridle paths, consuming Czech sausage and buchty with one eye on the broad, graveled way that led from the organ grinders and carousels around the great Ferris wheel off into the gray and rust fastnesses of the old Imperial hunting park. Once he caught a glimpse of the brilliant cobalt jackets of the Imperial- and-Royal contingent of his pursuers among the thin trees and heard their faint hallooing as they searched.

England, when war comes, I think you'll be safe on the Austrian front at any rate.

But his inner smile faded at the thought of Ernchester, no longer now entirely a volunteer. If there were any stipulations in the deal he'd made with Karolyi, any acts he wouldn't perform at the nobleman's behest, the rules had changed. Or would change, when they told him they held Anthea prisoner.

He shivered in his rag-fair coat.

How long had Fairport been a double? he wondered. According to Karolyi, as far back as the flap over the smuggled Russian guns. It wasn't as unusual as it might seem to outsiders that Fairport hadn't blown him to Karolyi then. The fact that Fairport was passing the odd fact along to the Kundschafts Stelle from time to time didn't mean he was entirely their man. Doubles- particularly men like Fairport- were frequently masters of self-deception, as Asher knew from having dealt with them. They always kept things back, from either side, sometimes for the most bizarre and absurd reasons: He remembered an American missionary in China who hadn't warned him of an impending rebel attack because he didn't want a Chinese patron of the mission to learn that his-the patron's-son had a mistress in the quarter of Tientsin through which the rebels were expected to come.

And perhaps Karolyi hadn't asked it of him, judging the matter too small to waste a trump on information he could learn some other way. Even in retrospect, however, the thought of how close he'd come to dying as his Czech mountain guide had died made Asher shudder.

Fairport's research was already an obsession back in the nineties. Top quality materials, facilities, research journeys were always expensive, and Fairport was not a wealthy man. The best agents, Asher reflected, were those without any weak points, any handles upon which an enemy could grip.

Like Karolyi. Smooth, hollow men for whom the Job was all.

He glanced back at the self-consciously rustic kiosk where the waitresses huddled out of the cold, and wondered if Halliwell could be trusted.

Fairport might not be the only one in Karolyi's pay. Better, certainly, to wait until six and leave a message at Donizetti's, arranging a meeting. If he could stay out of sight until then...

But after six it wouldn't matter.

Not to Karolyi.

Though Asher was already fairly certain what he'd find, he strolled to the kiosk and bought that day's Neue Freie Presse. On the back page he found a small lead line: lacemaker's body found in wienerwald Scanning the brief copy, his eye picked out the words "drained of blood." The name of the vineyard near which she'd been found was familiar, a quarter hour's drive from Fruhlingzeit. So. He stared blankly in the direction of the gay-colored midway, the shooting galleries and Punch and Judys, the panopticum where the murder of the Czar was on view in wax for the edification of schoolboys. A fleer of music blew from that direction, a distorted jingle of pipes and chimes, and then was gone. "The Waltz of the Flowers."

So.

A lacemaker. Like the prostitute in Paris, a woman no one would miss.

Of course Karolyi would pick a woman.

Ernchester would be there until sometime tonight.

Fairport was disposable. Even the knowledge of a scheme to use vampires was disposable. As Karolyi had said, most men in the Department weren't going to believe it anyway.

What could not be disposed of-what he himself could not relinquish-was Ernchester.

Today- now-Asher knew where the vampire earl was, where Anthea would be. Knowing Fairport- and Fruhlingzeit-were blown, they'd move tonight and, like true vampires, fade into the mists, leaving only a little blood and a muttering of rumor behind.

A fiacre drove by on the path, the coachman whistling briskly. The afternoon light had turned steely and cold. Asher shivered again and blew on his hands.

There was, of course, always the option of taking the first train back to Munich - cadging a ride in the baggage car, at this point, but Asher had done that in his time. If Burdon were still the head of the Munich branch-if there still was a Munich branch-he could at least get enough money to go back to England. Tell them Fairport was a traitor, Karolyi was in league with-well, a very dangerous man-and wash his hands of the business. Go home to Lydia, who might very well have sent him a wire at Fairport's... None of this was his affair anyway. He had done all he could be expected to do.

But that left Anthea in the hands of Karolyi.

And he knew where Ernchester was today. That was the crux of the matter.