LITMIR.BIZ

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professional ability, and an admirable willingness to ignore the horrors that routinely took place beneath his master’s roof; he had served Valentin for forty years as a human, and almost seventy more as a vampire.

      His turning had been Lamberton’s idea; although Valentin had promised the butler that no harm would come to him while in his employ, a promise the ancient vampire had kept with great dedication, Lamberton had eventually been forced to confront his master with the problem of his advancing years.

      After discussing the matter over half a case of 1921 Château Latour, Valentin had reluctantly agreed that no other solution seemed acceptable and, after checking for a final time whether the butler was sure, had bitten Lamberton’s throat with the tenderness of a lover, allowing the barest minimum of blood to escape. He had then flown out into the New York night and found a young nurse from Oklahoma who was about to ship out to the battlefields of Europe. He had brought her home and given her to Lamberton, when the turn was complete and the hunger gripped him for the first time. Once the girl was spent, the butler thanked his master, and returned immediately to his duties, duties he had continued to discharge admirably ever since.

      Lamberton was now standing silently by the study door, waiting to be acknowledged before he spoke. When Valentin nodded in his direction, he spoke five words that his master had hoped never to hear.

      “Your brother is here, sir.”

      Valentin swore in Wallachian, his eyes flashing momentarily red. Then he regarded Lamberton, and sighed deeply.

      “Show him in,” he said.

      The door was flung wide, and Valeri Rusmanov strode into the study, as Lamberton exited silently. The oldest of the three Rusmanov brothers was wearing simple clothing: a black tunic, heavy woollen trousers and leather boots, and his grey greatcoat. He stopped halfway across the room, and looked around, taking in the opulence of his surroundings with obvious distaste.

      Ridiculous old fool, thought Valentin, from behind his desk. He thinks he’s still a general, commanding troops on a battlefield. Pathetic.

      Valentin opened a beautifully carved wooden box and withdrew a red cigarette from the velvet-lined interior. The cigarette contained Turkish tobacco laced liberally with Bliss, the heady mixture of heroin and blood to which he had become mildly addicted over the last three decades. He applied the flame from a wooden match to the tip of the cigarette, then leant back in his chair as Valeri, who had still not spoken since entering the study, paused in front of a shelf containing a glass tank in which three basketballs were floating in a clear solution.

      “What do you call this?” asked Valeri, his tone gruff and unfriendly.

      “I don’t call it anything,” replied Valentin, forcing himself to remain polite. “The artist called it Three Ball 50/50 Tank. It’s Jeff Koons.”

      “And this is art, is it?”

      “I would say so.”

      Valeri turned away from the shelf, waving a hand dismissively at its contents. He crossed the study in three long strides and stood before Valentin’s desk, his nose wrinkling at the smell of the smoke from the cigarette in his brother’s hand.

      “Is that Bliss?” he asked, spitting out the last word.

      “Why, 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,

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