yes it is,” replied Valentin, opening the box again. “Would you care for one?”
Valeri stared coldly at him.
“Do you have no shame whatsoever?” he asked.
Valentin smiled, drew deeply on his cigarette and exhaled. The smoke floated up into the air in a thick cloud, enveloping Valeri’s head as it dispersed.
“Apparently not,” he said, lightly.
The two brothers faced each other for a long moment, until eventually Valeri spoke again.
“Our brother is dead,” he said. There was no emotion in his voice.
“I know,” replied Valentin. “He has been dead for more than three months.”
“You don’t seem upset by the news.”
“Are you?”
Valeri drew himself up, and glared at his brother.
“Alexandru and I differed on a great number of matters,” he said, slowly. “But he was still blood, still our blood. And now he’s gone.”
“That’s right, he’s gone. But we’re still here. Isn’t life marvellous?”
Valeri grunted, a deep, throaty sound that Valentin thought might be what passed for his brother laughing.
“You call this living?” Valeri asked. “Surrounded by lackeys and boot-lickers, in this castle of decadence?”
“Yes,” replied Valentin, and for the first time he failed to keep the steel from his tone. “I do. I also remember the size of your domestic staff in Wallachia, Valeri. There were times when I believe it numbered in the hundreds.”
Valeri stiffened.
“I was a different man in those days,” he replied.
You were actually a man, thought Valentin. That was certainly different.
Valentin got up from behind his desk and walked back to the window that overlooked the park. He motioned for Valeri to join him, and after a long pause, with a look of great reluctance on his lined face, the elder Rusmanov did so. Valeri stood beside his younger brother, and looked out at the towering lights of Manhattan.
“Have you ever been to New York before?” asked Valentin.
“Never,” replied Valeri, grimacing. “Until fifteen minutes ago I had never set foot in this sordid place, and I would have preferred for that to remain the case.”
“Of course you would. Yours are the dark open spaces, the wilderness of our youth. You are a creature of tradition, Valeri. I don’t criticise you for it; I’m merely stating the facts. But mine? Mine are the bright lights, the crowded streets, the noise and the bustle and the life of the city. An American writer once wrote that, ‘One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.’ Well, I’ve been here for more than a century.”
“Why are you telling me this, Valentin?”
The younger vampire sighed, and regarded his brother with a pitying look.
“You always were so literal. Never mind. I assume you have come with word from your master?”
“Our master,” said Valeri, his voice like ice.
“Of course. Our master. I apologise.”
But Valentin didn’t look sorry, not in the slightest. A half-smile played across his lips, causing anger to surge through his older brother. Valeri pushed it down as far as he was able, and focused on the order he had been given.
“He calls you home, Valentin. Your life belongs to him, as it always has, and he calls you home.”
Valentin bared his teeth.
“My life is my own,” he hissed. “Do you hear me?”
Red spilled into the corners of Valeri’s eyes. He took his hands from where they had been crossed behind his back, and let them dangle loosely at his sides.
“I disagree,” he said. “As I am confident our master will too.”
The two brothers stared at each other, violence pregnant in the still air of the study. Then Valeri smiled broadly, raising his hands in mock placation.
“Enough, brother,” he said. “I have no time for posturing, or children’s games. I must leave, with or without you. Will you refuse the call of our master, to whom you owe this gilded cage you call a life? Or will you honour him, as you swore you always would, and do your duty now he has returned to us?”
Valentin looked at his brother, and favoured him with a smile of his own.
“Of course I will,” he replied. “I will need two days to set my affairs in order, then I’ll return home like the dutiful lapdog.”
“Your affairs are trivia,” replied Valeri. “You are to accompany me tonight.”
“In which case, I would remind you of two things,” said Valentin, his smile still in place. “Firstly, that you are a guest in my home. And secondly, that I have not been afraid of you for more than five hundred years now.”
Valeri took half a step forward, a dangerous look on his face.
“Is that a fact, brother?” he asked, his voice little more than a whisper.
“It is,” replied Valentin. “A fact that leaves you with two options. You can allow me to conclude my trivia as I see fit, after which I will return home, as I promised. Or you can try to remove me from this house by force, which will result in one of us explaining to your master why we have destroyed the other. So what’s it going to be, brother?”
8
THE BIG LEAGUES
Jamie swung his legs out from under his bedding and sat on the edge of his mattress, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms.
He had headed straight to his quarters after leaving the detention level, his mind full of relief and his heart heavy with guilt. He always felt bad after seeing his mother; the sight of her in her cell was painful, and filled him with feelings of impotence. But his visits were the only things that she looked forward to, and he would not dream of denying her them. When Alexandru had taken her, he had feared, in his darkest moments, that he was never going to see her again, never going to get the chance to make it up to her, to make amends for being such a bad son. He was not going to fall back into his old pattern of complacency, of taking her for granted, even if the sight of her in her cell made his heart ache and his skin tingle with helpless anger.
She needs me. That’s all that matters. And I’m not going to let her down.
The electric clock on his bedside table read 8:55. Jamie hauled himself to his feet and raised his arms above his head, feeling the muscles creak and tremble as they stretched. He shook his head,
