A Matter Of Taste by Fred Saberhagen (ebook pc reader TXT) 📕

* * *

      And then, at last, the ghastly things were dead.

      There could be no mistake. Angie, with John at her side, watched the corpse of the last one dissolve in mist, mist that curled away across the floor, pushed back by the dank breeze still drifting in through the open window.

      The victors both slumped in exhaustion. Angie fell into a chair, in an exhausted near faint, as soon as the fight was won. Under the fresh stains of vampire blood, her face was hideously pale.

      John slowly sank down beside her.

      The whole apartment, or every part of it that they could see, was a ruin of bloodstained carpets, broken and disordered furniture.

      There was a sound from the direction of the front door. The door after being broken in had been propped back into place by the invaders, then pushed halfway aside again by John in his hasty return.

      Too late Angie and John reacted, stumbling to their feet.

      Someone was stepping in through the space that John had made. A man whom Angie could not recognize at first. The man gaped at John and Angie for a moment in astonishment, then drew a pistol and aimed it at them.

      With his free hand, working behind him, he started tugging the broken door back into a more completely closed position. And now Angie could recognize the breather who had come with Kaiser on his first visit.

      “Sorry for not knocking,” Mr. Stewart said, and smiled. “The door was open.”

Chapter Fifteen

      Thus two of my trio of old and bitter enemies had been disposed of. In the days that followed, I could not help reflecting grimly on the fact that, despite my years of unrelenting hatred, of intense and bitter planning, Basarab had been destroyed by forces having nothing to do with me—call those forces Fate, Chance, or what you will.

      Struggling against the feeling that much of my life over the last few decades had been completely wasted, I somewhat gloomily resumed my duties in the service of Duke Valentino. Privately, my first concern, of course, continued to be the still-surviving traitor Bogdan.

      For years I had been able to hope that when I found the first of the pair of surviving traitors that man would, willingly or not, provide me with some clue to the location of the second. But Basarab had been no help at all in that regard. Bogdan might as well have vanished totally from the face of the earth.

      In the most recent year of my search, I had talked to several informants who knew Bogdan or claimed to have known him, but none of them had seen or heard of him for many years. These informants were united in their opinion that the man was dead. None of them, however, had seen him fall, nor could any recall convincingly the specific circumstances of his demise. Therefore I was skeptical of the reports of his death and nursed my hopes of being able to catch him still alive.

* * *

      Shortly after I saw Basarab, Cesare Borgia dispatched myself and Michelotto, together, on a type of mission that was new for me in the Duke’s service, though familiar enough in my own land. We were placed in joint command of a handful of men and sent into the countryside to exterminate a nest of bandits. I should note here that in spite of his devotion to the arts of treachery, intrigue, and murder, Duke Valentino provided many of the Romagna towns the best government they had experienced in decades—not out of the goodness of his heart (if any such quality existed), but in accordance with a calculated policy to broaden his support as much as possible among the people. On this day Borgia had in mind another goal also: to test, in a comparatively minor matter, how well the pair of us, Corella and myself, could work together.

      Informants had brought word of where the bandits could be found—if only a punitive force could approach their lair without alarming them. I argued for a night attack, and my colleague was willing to agree. With our squad of half a dozen chosen men, riding in full moonlight, we approached the rocky hilltop nest—I suppose the building had once been a farmhouse—where our prey, or so we hoped, awaited us.

      We had timed our approach to bring us to the house at about an hour before dawn. At this time, we thought, any sentry that might have been posted was most likely to have succumbed to the lure of indoor warmth or sleep.

      For me the situation was rendered more interesting by the fact that neither Corella nor any of the men with us knew I was a vampire. For all I knew, none of them were even aware that such creatures existed outside of the fearful minds of peasants. Among breathers at that time only Cesare and Lucrezia, and perhaps their father, shared my secret.

      The former farmhouse was well situated to command the land around it and the winding road below. We established ourselves in the best available position to study the house, and Corella and I between us decided on our plan of attack.

      I voted for posting our men to surround the house, with orders to catch the enemy as they fled or retreated, whilst my co-commander and myself alone broke in, through whatever doors or windows might offer us the opportunity. Once inside, we would deal with the bandits as we found them.

      Michelotto studied me in silence for a moment or two. Estimates of our adversaries’ strength ranged from six to sixteen, and although bandits were unlikely to stand and fight with the discipline and courage of well-trained soldiers, the odds were certainly enough to give a prudent commander pause. So my colleague blinked, and hesitated, but in the end he was not one to let a challenge of this type go unaccepted.

      After dispatching our men as I had suggested, to take up their