The Gathering Storm (33 page)

This horror needed to end. Soon.

I tried to stay away from Elena the next day. I walked in the garden with Dariya. She was looking pale again. “It’s the night air,” she complained, pulling the budding leaves from the lilac bushes as we passed them. “And those horrible insects that keep flying into our room.”

I stopped walking suddenly and stared at her. “Have any of the insects bitten you?” I asked.

Dariya frowned. “I don’t think so. But I did wake up once with one on my face. Oh, it was horrid! I screamed into my pillow so I wouldn’t disturb anyone.”

I looked at Dariya in alarm. Was it a veshtiza that was making her ill? What about the hemlock that had shown up in her blood? I needed to learn more about veshtizas and the other vampires. I didn’t dare ask Princess Cantacuzene. Or the Montenegrins. We had to find a way to keep the window closed at night.

Elena found us in the hallway on our way to dinner. “Katerina! Where on earth have you been?” She did not wait for a reply. She was breathless, almost giddy. “You’ll never guess what happened. Princess Cantacuzene has been murdered!”

I
felt my blood run cold. “What did you say?” I whispered.

There was a wicked gleam in Elena’s eye as she told me. “Princess Cantacuzene. Has. Been. Murdered.”

“That cannot be,” Dariya said. “By whom?”

Elena shrugged. “She had enough enemies, I believe. I do not think she was a favorite at the Romanov court.”

“How did it happen?” I asked. How exactly did one murder a vampire? Surely not with a stake in the heart, as in the Gothic novels. Although that would certainly accomplish the task, no matter whom one was attempting to eliminate.

“I heard the headmistress speaking with the guards. Madame Tomilov said she’d been poisoned. But I think it must have been something stronger than that. Don’t you think?” Elena grinned evilly. “There were no marks on her, though.”

“Then why would you think it was murder?” I asked,
wondering how much Elena truly knew about the Romanian princess.

Dariya shook her head. “She could have had a heart attack or choked on a bonbon. Or just passed away from old age, for heaven’s sake. The woman was ancient.”

“Older than you think,” Elena said. “Are you two coming to dinner? I think we are having lamb tonight.”

She left us reeling in shock. And apprehension. Was Princess Militza responsible for Cantacuzene’s death? If it was true, she was much, much more powerful than I’d believed. The thought of traveling to Cetinje suddenly made me ill, and I lost all appetite for dinner.

“Elena’s not only dangerous,” my cousin said. “The stupid girl is mad.”

I followed Dariya to the dining hall, entering just as the instructors were being seated. I slid into my seat beside Elena, bowing my head for grace. Princess Cantacuzene’s death was the talk of the table.

Erzsebet leaned across the table to whisper, “Oh, Katerina, did you hear? It is so awful!”

I nodded, mechanically taking a roll from the bread basket.

“She was such an elegant lady, even if she was a bit strange,” Augusta said with a sigh. “Do you suppose the tsar will call for official mourning?”

“Why would he?” Elena asked. “She was no member of the imperial family.”

“But she was an important member of society. Didn’t she donate one of her palaces for a museum?”

“I did not know that,” I said. “How many palaces did she have?”

“Several!” Erzsebet said. “One in St. Petersburg, one in Tsarskoye Selo, one in Moscow, a summer palace in the Crimea, plus all the property she owned in Romania.”

“How do you know all that?” Dariya asked.

“Because I heard our mother talking with the princess at our uncle’s funeral. I know she did not have any children. I wonder who will inherit all those beautiful palaces.”

Princess Cantacuzene had been the mortal enemy of the Montenegrins, and Grand Duchess Miechen had led me to believe that her vampires had been the most powerful of the vampire families. Not to mention the warning from the ghost of Tsar Pavel. Could the dead tsar have been wrong? It seemed to me that whoever had killed the princess was even more powerful.

What this meant for the people of St. Petersburg, I did not know. Were we being caught in the middle of a war for dominance between vampire families? Vampires that were not even supposed to exist?

I
was summoned home the next morning to comfort my mother after the loss of her friend. Maman had taken to bed again. Dr. Kruglevski told me to give her a few drops of the sleeping potion he’d prescribed for me. I asked the doctor if he had seen the princess Cantacuzene’s body. “Do you know how she died?” I asked him.

“We have seen far too much death this year,” Dr. Kruglevski said, patting me on the shoulder. “It is not good for young girls to dwell on such things.”

“But if I’m to be a doctor, I must learn as much as I can about the human body.”
Even if the princess was not completely human
, I thought.

Dr. Kruglevski smiled kindly. “Katerina Alexandrovna, you should focus on taking care of the living. Your mother, for instance.”

I sighed and nodded.

After the doctor left, I went into Maman’s room to check
on her. I kissed her forehead, noting it was extremely cool. That was when I realized her respirations were slow and very shallow. I grabbed her wrist. “Maman?” I said, feeling a very faint pulse. “Maman!” I shook her by the shoulders.

“Maman!”

She stirred finally, opening her eyes once and staring at me with a drugged gaze, then rolled over and fell back into her coma.

“Maman!” I was frightened. I picked up the bottle of elixir and read the label.
ELECAMPANE AND BELLADONNA, TO PROMOTE DEEP, DREAMLESS SLEEP. BOTTLED BY DR. BADMAEV, #72 BETOSKY PROSPEKT
.

I remembered that Dr. Kruglevski had mentioned using the Tibetan doctor’s herbal remedies. I put the bottle in my purse and ran to find my maid. “Anya! I believe Maman has taken too much sleeping medicine. Make a pot of strong tea!”

We sat Maman up and coaxed her to drink the tea until she was alert. She seemed annoyed that we had disturbed her rest. Anya promised to stay with my mother while I ran an errand.

When I got into the carriage, I gave the coachman the address for Dr. Badmaev’s office. I had to find out more about the mysterious Tibetan.

The sun was already making the day warm. Soon it would be time for everyone to remove themselves from the city and take up their summer residences in the country. Most of the nobility would follow the imperial family to the Crimea. Papa swore the air was healthier at our summer residence on the Black Sea. But I knew Maman preferred Biarritz, on the
coast of France. There the entertainment carried on all year round.

Dr. Badmaev’s pharmaceutical shop and clinic was tiny, tucked into a large building on a crowded, dusty street in St. Petersburg.

Inside, I stared at the floor-to-ceiling shelves along one wall, lined with hundreds of bottles of herbal potions.

There was no place to sit except for an old bench, already occupied by a babushka with a dirty child sitting on her lap. The old woman slid over to make room for me. I smiled gratefully. The child cried and clasped the old woman’s neck.

“What is wrong with her?” I asked, trying to make conversation.

“She has been bitten by the upyri.”

I looked at the little girl, who must not have been any older than four or five. “What is your name?” I asked her. “My name is Katerina Alexandrovna.”

The little girl peeked at me from behind the old woman.

“Oxsana Yulievna,” she finally said, after deciding I was not going to hurt her.

“Pleased to meet you,” I said, smiling.

“Did the upyri bite you as well?” she asked.

I thought of the kisses from Prince Danilo and felt sick to my stomach. I thought of the nightmares about moths I had been having for months. I thought about poor Dariya and her illness caused by poison. I shook my head sadly. “I am not sure, Oxsana. Perhaps the doctor can tell me.”

Soon after, the babushka took Oxsana into the exam room to see the Tibetan. The old woman tried to convince
me to go ahead of her, but I refused. I did not want the little girl to wait because of me. It was not long before the babushka and Oxsana left the clinic, the little girl smiling. Perhaps the doctor did have a cure for vampire bites.

The afternoon sun was beating down through an open window in the doctor’s exam room. The infamous Tibetan doctor Pyotr Badmaev was a middle-aged man with a kind face and dark, hypnotic eyes. He looked at me quietly as I entered and sat down in a chair by the window, clutching the bottle of his sleeping potion in my hand. He seemed to be examining me from head to toe without laying a finger on me or asking a single question.

It seemed like forever before he finally spoke. “Can I ask your name, please?” His Russian was perfect.

“Dr. Badmaev, my name is Katerina Alexandrovna of Oldenburg. I am not ill, but I came because Dr. Kruglevski has given my mother a sleeping medicine manufactured by you.”

“Oldenburg? Ah, I have met your father. He is a remarkable man.”

“Thank you,” I said. As a practitioner of Eastern medicine, he surely scorned Western science, did he not? “Do you remember giving this medicine to Dr. Kruglevski?”

He took the bottle from my hand, turning it around. Without a word, he placed the bottle on the counter and sat down in the chair next to me. “Your Highness, I am sorry, but I am afraid I cannot help you. Dr. Kruglevski has been coming to buy my medicines for several years now. I cannot recall when he was here to buy this elixir.”

“My mother was very difficult to rouse after taking this. I believe she has taken too much.”

“She will be fine.” He took my hands in his, turning my palm up to look at the lines. “The sleep potion is very potent and keeps one in a state of healing.”

“From what? I did not know she was sick.”

“You did not notice? You have the hands of a healer, Katerina Alexandrovna. But you also have the aura of death around you.”

“What is wrong with my mother?” I asked. I had not come here to talk about myself.

“Her aura is cloaked in shadow, just as yours is. You are aligned with the Dark Court, are you not?”

I hesitated. I wasn’t sure where I belonged. “How can you tell?”

“I can see the forces of light that surround every living being, and your light force is a dark violet.”

I wrinkled my nose, pulling my hand out of his. I hated the color purple. “What does that mean? How can you be certain my mother will be all right?”

The elderly Tibetan laughed. “You who walk the paths of the dead do not believe in the possibility that there are paths of the living as well.”

I was growing uncomfortable. “Did you cure that little girl? Was she really bitten by the upyri?”

“Yes, and no. It was a veshtiza that bit her. And that is curable with the right antidote.” He must have seen the stunned look on my face, because he smiled. “Come, Katerina Alexandrovna. I have something that may be useful
to you.” He found a brown bottle on the shelf and handed it to me. “This is an antidote for the poison of a vampire bite.”