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Page 4

 

  Knowing Michael's determination to bring the Darkyn out of the Dark Ages and into the twenty-first century, Jaus suspected the cost might be considerable.

  "This will take time," Jaus told his seneschal. "Drill the men on their forms until I return. " He walked with Sacher and his guards out of the lists and across the compound to the main house. "Aside from low tolerance to l'attrait, your grandson seems to be adjusting well, Gregor. "

  "If well means asking me a thousand questions about the Darkyn each day, yes, he is," Sacher said. His smile faded. "He reminds me so much of Kurt at that age. "

  Kurt Sacher, Wilhelm's father, had lived and worked in Jaus's household since boyhood. As was customary with tresori, Gregor had been training his son to assume his place. Kurt had grown up with the Darkyn and had been quite willing to serve the jardin. Then came the terrible night when Kurt had not returned from a trip into the city, and the police had come to tell Gregor that his son had been shot during a robbery attempt. Kurt's wife, Ingrid, fell into a depression, and three months after Kurt's funeral took an overdose of sleeping pills.

  The sudden loss had devastated Sacher, a widower with no other living family. For a time Jaus thought he might lose his most trusted servant as well, and had offered to release Sacher from his tresoran oath so that he might escape any painful memories caused by living among the Darkyn. But it had been Kurt and Ingrid's orphaned son, Wil, who had kept his grandfather from withering away in despair, and Gregor would trust Wil's future to no one but Jaus.

  I cannot look after him forever, master, Sacher had told Jaus when he brought Wilhelm to Derabend Hall. This only you can do.

  On the way to the main house, Jaus noticed that the elderly man's right hand was wrapped in a flesh-colored bandage, and recalled the minor kitchen accident that had caused the wound. "That burn has not healed. "

  "No, but it will, master. " Sacher tucked the offending hand out of sight in his jacket pocket. "Give an old human time. "

  Jaus wondered how much of that they had left together. Gregor had served as his tresora for seven decades, ever since losing his parents to the Nazi occupation of Austria. Tresori pledged to serve the jardin until death, but at a certain age retirement usually became a necessity.

  Had the time come so soon?

  Jaus paused and rested a hand on the old man's shoulder. The scent of camellias filled the night air. "Why have you not seen your doctor?"

  "My doctor wears braces on his teeth," Sacher said mildly. "I am not quite sure he has finished passing through puberty yet. Such things do not inspire my faith in his judgment. " He glanced down at Jaus's hand. "You had only but to ask, master. "

  "Forgive me. I worry about you. " Jaus removed his hand to input the pass code on the entry door's keypad, releasing the electronic lock. One of the four bodyguards escorting them opened the door while two took position on either side of it. "It is a pity Cyprien's leech remains with him in New Orleans. She is a gifted healer. "

  "That woman. " Gregor sighed and shook his head. "She frightens me more than the doctor with braces. " He checked his watch. "1 will have Wilhelm come in and attend to his schoolwork now. I hope his head is clear enough to cope with calculus, for mine, I fear, will never be. " With a bow, the elderly servant left Jaus.

  Valentin walked through the cool white lights and stark shadows of his home. He had commissioned three different construction firms to demolish the decrepit eighteenth-century mansion that had formerly occupied the lakefront property and had Derabend Hall built to his own exact specifications. The loss of the historic landmark house at first scandalized the city along with his wealthy neighbors, until its replacement rose from the ashes. Derabend Hall, a towering castle of black granite and gray slate, dominated the landscape. The finished product caused Valentin to be hailed as an architectural renegade and visionary by Chicago's elite.

  No one realized he had simply reproduced a modern version of his family's fortress in the Austrian Tirol. The original, Schloss Jaus, had long vanished, reduced to ruins by Napoleon's forces and then dust by succeeding wars and time.

  Bright colors, cheerful patterns, and most of the clutter of the modern world annoyed Jaus, so he commissioned an interior design firm to furnish his new home sparingly in solid black, white, and silver. One of the designers published photographs of Derabend Hall's stark rooms, which set off a minimalist, colorless trend in interior design that swept the nation. It was then that Jaus stopped employing humans outside the jardin to indulge his preferences, as the exposure made his already nervous jardin rather paranoid.

  The only color indulgence Jaus permitted himself was the midnight blue used in his bedroom and office. The latter was a large and efficient workspace with the very latest in information processing and storage technology. His computer database, a prototype designed personally for him by a billionaire software mogul, collected data from a hundred different sources for analysis, and could track the whereabouts and activities of anyone he chose to monitor.

  Information was the shield of the modern man. The more one possessed, the better protected one fought.

  Jaus pulled up his mainframe screen at the same time he picked up his phone and connected to the line that had been placed on hold. "Seigneur Cyprien, this is an unexpected honor. "

  "Suzerain Jaus, the honor is mine," Michael said, "but time, alas, is not. "

  "We shall move directly to business, then. " Jaus sat down in his favorite leather chair. "How may I serve, my lord?"

  "One of Jofferoin's scouts spotted Thierry Durand in Memphis six days ago. The scout tried to track him, but lost him in Copley Square. " Michael paused. "Evidently he is using the homeless and unfortunate as camouflage. "

  Jaus remembered Cyprien's description of the injuries inflicted on Durand by the Brethren, an organization of former priests who had been hunting, torturing, and killing the Darkyn since they first became vrykolakus. "He is still in such a condition? I had thought Dr. Keller's treatment successful. "

  "'She repaired the damage to his body, but not that inflicted upon his mind," Michael told him. "Thierry came to clarity briefly when he discovered, as we did, that Angelica was the traitor among us. I fear his wife's betrayal may have since finished what the Brethren started. "

  "If he can use cover and evade a tracker, then he is not completely mad. " Jaus pulled up a map of the United States and drew a line from the city of New Orleans to Memphis. The direction was unmistakable. "You believe he travels here, to Chicago. "

  "When Thierry left New Orleans, he took with him the file of data that you collected on the men who attacked Alexandra's patient, Ms. Lopez," Michael said. "He perhaps seeks vengeance. "

  Jaus, who had fought alongside Thierry Durand more times than he could count, sighed. "He never would tolerate anyone who threatened or harmed a female. Even in the times when swine were regarded as more valuable than women. I've always admired that about him. "

  "As have I. " The seigneur's voice changed. "He must be taken, Val. Taken alive and brought back to New Orleans. I will send you a supply of the drug Alexandra has developed. It will render him helpless. "

  "The Saracens attempted to do the same, many times. Do you remember it?" Jaus sat back and rubbed his eyes. "They always sought to capture the largest and strongest of us on the battlefield. How often did we watch Durand cut them down where they stood?"

  "I cannot say. "

  "He was like a scythe through new wheat. " Jaus gazed at the only photo in his room, a snapshot framed in crystal. It was the only photo that existed of Valentin Jaus. In it, he sat in a rocking chair, with a dark-haired toddler sleeping in his arms. "He will do the same to the police, or anyone who tries to drug him. "

  "Agreed, but we are the only ones who can stop him. The tranquilizer will help. "

  Jaus didn't have confidence in Cyprien's leech or her drugs, but with the proper precautions, he might lure Durand into a trap. "It will
be as you wish. "

  "Use whatever you need. If it is mine to give, you have but to ask. " Cyprien sounded rushed now. "I must go, old friend, but keep me apprised of the situation. Adieu. "

  Jaus hung up the phone and called in one of his guards. "Have Falco report to me as soon as he is finished with the men. " When the guard left, he picked up the phone and called the newest of the American suzerains, one whose council he trusted as much as Michael Cyprien's. It was the only thing, however, he trusted about him.

  "It is Jaus. I need some advice. " He explained the situation. "You brought him out of Dublin. How will it be?"

  "I had to swaddle Durand in copper chains simply to remove him from the Brethren's playroom. They'd broken his legs, crushed his feet, and cooked him in more than a few places, and still he tried to tear off my head. " Lucan, High Lord Tremayne's former chief assassin as well as Michael Cyprien's oldest adversary, smothered a yawn. "We have all seen the magnificent work performed by Cyprien's lovely little surgeon. Durand will now be very healthy, very strong—and mad as Monte Cristo. "

  "Yes. "

  "You need no advice from me, Valentin," Lucan said. "You already know what you must do. Kill him. "

  Jema stopped at a pay phone to call the coroner's office, and after receiving the details sat for a few minutes, debating whether to return to Shaw House or continue on to her night job. Meryl would be in bed now, and Dr. Bradford never waited up for her. The usual confrontation would be delayed until the morning, when her mother would interrogate her over the breakfast table.

  Where were you? Meryl often checked with the museum to learn when Jema had left, so she wouldn't be able to answer that one honestly. How late did you arrive home? That would have to be tailored to match Jema's first response. Have you no consideration for the feelings of others? That would be her cue to apologize for causing her mother to worry, which would not satisfy Meryl, but was still expected.