The Lights of Prague Page 5

  “Sorry,” he said, turning to Anton. “Let’s go.”

  Over the course of her life, Ora had learned a great many lessons.

  She had studied a half-dozen languages, none of which stayed in her head for longer than a decade. She had learned the importance of carrying spare cash tucked in her bosom while traveling, since many pickpockets could work so lightly that even Ora couldn’t detect them. She knew the rules of dozens of card and dice sports, and had suffered through an equal number of tedious parlor games.

  One rule had served her best over the last decade: people would overlook an extraordinary amount of eccentricities when enough money was thrown about.

  As a widow, Ora had rights and privileges that single and married ladies, both poor and titled, did not. She could associate with whom she wished, had inherited an estate, and was invited to the best art events Prague had to offer. However, her odd behavior would still likely not have been overlooked if she hadn’t been able to distract people by smoothing her path with a steady flow of money.

  It also helped that Ora rarely gave a damn what anyone thought of her.

  Her townhouse was in Malá Strana under the shadow of the large castle on the hill. She was only two streets from Charles Bridge, which was enough of a convenience that she could excuse the tourists the area drew. The main arterial road off the bridge split off into capillaries, creating a complex system. Ora’s townhouse sat at the split of two of the smaller streets, like the fork of a stream. The façade was painted a soft yellow, and bright orange shutters framed the curtained windows. Ivy had been carefully encouraged to grow along one wall.

  The interior of Ora’s house, which had been mostly designed by Lina’s mother back when she had been Ora’s primary maid, was a show of theater that few would ever appreciate. The front room was well-lit and perfectly maintained, though Ora never set foot in it before dark. There was a fully functional kitchen and dining room, though Ora never ate. There was even a master bedroom with a large bed she had never slept on.

  Not all of Ora’s eclectic friends knew what she was, and she was wiser than to betray her secret lightly. There were forces beyond her control dedicated to keeping the existence of monsters in the shadows.

  When not entertaining guests, Ora spent most of her time either in her study, her painting studio, or the kitchens, watching her employees mill around. A household such as hers was expected to spend a certain amount at the local grocers, after all, and Ora had learned early on that keeping her staff well-fed earned more loyalty than a smile ever could.

  Ora’s friends, when they visited, took advantage of it as well.

  “I can’t believe you spend so much on food you can’t even eat,” said Sokol, plucking another canapé off the tray. Sokol cast an absurd figure in Ora’s lace-decorated sitting room. A lieutenant in the emperor-king’s army during the Seven Weeks’ War, Karel Sokol was broad and powerful. He dwarfed any piece of furniture he sat on, and the hors d’oeuvres looked like crumbs in his massive hands. They had already finished dinner—Ora had sipped on an opaque goblet filled with pig blood—but the men were insatiable. Her cook, prepared for the men’s hunger, had already laid a platter of bread garnished decoratively with pickles, cheese, and tomatoes, along with a tray of Russian eggs. “Does the cook ever get mad that it all goes to waste?” he asked, licking his fingers. “All you need is a liquid diet and raw meat.”

  While serving as a foot soldier, Sokol had been violently introduced to the existence of pijavice on a bloody battlefield. Though he wasn’t forthcoming on all the details, Ora gathered that his experience had qualified him for his current position on the mysterious Prague ministry concerning supernatural activity.

  Sokol’s job required him to consider pijavice a threat, so Ora had made it a mission to befriend him thoroughly. She never could resist a challenge. It helped that she avoided all talk of his work, and not just for his sake; she resisted politics like an allergy.

  “It’s not going to waste,” Ora pointed out. “If you’re not here to eat me out of house and home, she takes the extras back to her family.”

  “I just mean that it’s all so fancy,” Sokol said. “Luxury finger foods like this are supposed to end up in ladies’ stomachs, not feeding the emperor’s men.”

  “You’re not supposed to talk about ladies’ stomachs,” Válka said, elbowing Sokol sharply. He was a recent addition to Ora’s collection of friends, and still balked at spending time in her polished townhouse. Válka—Ora had never learned his first name—was as lean as Sokol was broad, with a scar on his cheek he had earned on some battlefield. He was several years older than Sokol, but the two had become unexpectedly close friends when Válka had been stationed at the Prague army headquarters to help train new recruits. When Sokol introduced them, Ora had appreciated his self-deprecating humor and thoughtful nature, which were hard qualities to find in a military man.

  Sokol scoffed. “Ora’s not your average lady.”

  “I’m genuinely not sure whether you’re trying to flatter or insult, and whether the target would be me or other ladies,” Ora said. “You’re both right, though. Sokol, never mention a woman’s stomach. Válka, in this case Sokol does know that I won’t actually take offense to anything he says. After all, I take the fact that the two of you are sitting here for dinner with me instead of shoving a hawthorn stake into my heart to be a sign of dear friendship.”

  Válka winced. “I’m not sure I can be as cavalier as the two of you.”

  “About my stomach or about my species?”

  Sokol chortled. “You’re going to send him into hysterics,” he said. “Válka is used to me being absurd. Even after the last few months, he still thinks you’re some sort of lady. I think he thinks the pijavica bit is just a phase.”

  “I try not to make assumptions about others based on their sex or…diet,” Válka said. “There’s a reason Sokol trusted me to learn your secret, Lady Fischerová. I know what most of your kind is like, but I’ve met other exceptions.”

  “So you keep hinting,” Ora said. “I’d still love to know who you’ve met.” Ora had avoided other pijavice since leaving her master’s family, though she knew there must have been others like her.

  Válka just shook his head and changed the subject. “Thank you for having us over. Tell the cook that we appreciate the food, even if the lady of the house can’t enjoy it.”

  “It’s not as fancy as you’re making it out to be.” When Ora had traveled abroad, though stuck with said liquid diet, she had become fascinated with the more delicate pastries served in places like Paris and Mumbai, and had come back to Prague with firm ideas about what her parties would look like. It had taken a combined effort from her cook and her friends to convince her to serve local fare at meals.

  “There’s garnish on these,” Sokol argued, eating another.

  “Let me spoil you. To quote the Buddha: ‘If you knew what I know about the power of giving you would not let a single meal pass without sharing it in some way.’”

  He laughed. “Of course you wouldn’t reference the Bible like a normal Czech.”

  “I’d burst into flames,” she deadpanned. Common folklore suggested that pijavice were as allergic to Christianity as they were to hawthorn and sunlight. Ora didn’t mind Christianity for the most part—they had created some beautiful art—but she preferred borrowing from various religions to cobble together a version that felt right. Traditional religions were rigid, while nothing about Ora had ever been. She was quite sure Jesus, Buddha, and all the other holy men would not approve of her. “I’m sure you’re just glad to be away from army rations.”

  Válka shrugged. “They need to give us a reason to want to come home.” He had served with Sokol in the Seven Weeks’ War two years before but had been kept busy since then with the recent absorption of Hungary into the Austrian Empire. Before returning to Prague, he’d been sent around the continent to quell offshoot rebellions sparked by the changes. If his shadowed eyes were any
thing to go by, Válka needed time away from the battlefield.

  “I hope you’re here to stay. The local offices would be lucky to have you.”

  Sokol nodded, his expression sobering. “There’s far too much going on in Prague to have time to focus anywhere else these days,” he said. “Speaking of… Ora, the note you sent this morning was quite interesting.”

  “Was it?” she asked. After her afternoon flirting with Domek Myska and walking through the museum, she had nearly managed to bury the upsetting event under a layer of honey-metal blood and delicate tapestry threads. “If you’re interested in the ravings of madmen, I’m sure you can find your fill in this city.”

  “Have you heard from any of your brethren here lately? Other than the mad ones in tunnels?”

  “Not when I can help it,” she replied shortly. “Like I said, they’re mostly uncivilized.”

  “You’re friends with Sokol,” Válka pointed out mildly.

  “His brand of uncivilized I like,” Ora said. “It doesn’t involve murder or cannibalism.” To most pijavice, devouring humans was akin to eating beef, but Ora did not agree with that sentiment. One did not have conversations over a meal with cattle. Or marry them. She turned back to Sokol. “Why do you ask?”

  Sokol cleared his throat and sat up, moving his attention fully from the snacks to Ora. “There have been some interesting rumors. Your encounter this morning has given them some weight in my mind.”

  “What kind of rumors?”

  Sokol and Válka exchanged a glance. “The kind about a cure for the transformation. The pijavica transformation,” Sokol said.

  Ora laughed. “I’ve heard that one. It takes a sunny day and a hawthorn stake to the heart. Voilà. Cured.”

  “It’s no joke,” Sokol said.

  “There is no cure for the change,” Ora said more seriously. “No more than there’s a cure for death.” The thought was too tempting to think about. If there were a magic ritual Ora could perform to regain her mortality, to be able to eat, and drink, and sleep, and walk in the sun, she’d do it without hesitation. “Once you’ve burned a piece of firewood, you can’t reverse the process.”

  “That’s what we thought too,” Sokol said. “We’re starting to suspect that we were wrong. A source told us that there are reports of pijavice walking in the daylight. You said that the pijavica you saw this morning ran right out of the tunnels.”

  “He died,” Ora said, waving her hand. “It was suicide.”

  “Are you sure?” Sokol asked. “Did you see him die?”

  “He was in sunlight. I wasn’t going to risk my own life to watch it happen,” Ora said. “It was inevitable. He went outside. He’s gone. That’s the way of things.”

  “He must not have thought so.”

  “Or he was mad, or eager for death, or both,” Ora said. “There is no cure, Sokol. I shouldn’t have even sent you the note. I was shaken by the encounter, and I thought you’d …add it to an archive, or something. This isn’t worth an investigation.”

  “Your story isn’t the only source. Pijavice have been disappearing from their usual haunts, outside of the usual killing patterns. A source told us that they heard whispers that those pijavice were going to receive a cure.”

  Ora folded her arms. “What source?”

  Sokol shrugged, lips quirking in anticipation of her response. “Guttman.”

  “Guttman lives under a bridge and eats rats,” Ora exclaimed. “He lost his mind centuries ago. I didn’t even know you consulted him.”

  “We don’t have many options,” Sokol said. “Guttman hears things. He’s involved with the underground. People talk around him without expecting him to understand.”

  “That’s because he doesn’t,” Ora said. “Honestly, Sokol, I’d have expected this from your superiors, but I always thought you were smarter than them. No information is better than misinformation.”

  “This is my job, Ora. I look for the larger patterns of the pijavice in the city, and I make sure they’re not getting out of hand. I have to look into these rumors.”

  “Isn’t that what those lamplighters are for?” “They’re doing as much as they can, but they don’t have the resources to follow up on insubstantial leads like this,” Sokol said.

  “And you do?”

  “Not as much as I’d like. You know my funding comes from the Ministry of Security, and they pinch every coin they can. For the most part, as long as monsters stick with attacking the lower classes, and do it quietly, the police and military will stay uninvolved. The minutia of life outside of Vienna is not deemed worthy of the emperor’s attention, and there are always more human rebellions to be repressed.” He and Válka exchanged a knowing look, and Válka sighed. Sokol took another slice of egg but held it loosely in his hand instead of eating it. “Peasants kill each other more often than they’re taken as snacks for local monsters. My superiors told me that it’s too much effort with no quantifiable reward to dedicate too many forces to protecting them.”

  “It’s hard to get glory fighting a war no one knows about,” Ora said.

  Sokol nodded. “I’ve had to be creative. I was hoping I’d find some outside help here.”

  Ora froze, watching him cautiously. “You’re not implying what I think you’re implying.”

  Sokol leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Ora. You must have seen this coming.”

  He was wrong. She’d thought their friendship had developed enough that Sokol didn’t see her just as a bloodsucker.

  “I’m not involved in pijavica politics,” she said, and then snapped at Válka, “Stop flinching every time someone mentions pijavice. I know you work with Sokol. I know you kill pijavice for a living. Pretending that all three of us are not just what we are is useless.”

  Válka held up his hands. “I know full well what you are.”

  “I’m starting to see that,” Ora said.

  “Ora, we’re coming to you because we trust you,” Sokol said.

  “You’re coming to me because you’re desperate for an insider who won’t turn around and rip your throat out.”

  “Precisely,” Sokol said with a shrug.

  “Sokol and I talked about this at length,” Válka said. “We didn’t bring it up to the larger ministry yet. We know that you want to stay away from others of your kind as much as you can, but there’s no other way to figure out the truth.”

  Ora stood up. Válka flinched slightly, just a blink, but Sokol was unmoved as she started pacing. “You haven’t thought this through. First of all, the entire idea of a cure for the transformation is absurd. Finding someone to go sneak around to prove this insane theory wrong is a waste of resources. Secondly,” she continued, interrupting Sokol when he started to speak, “I’m not sure I see the trouble with a cure, if there were one. Doesn’t that solve all your problems? A pijavica without their additions is just…human. I was your average girl before my transformation.”

  Sokol leveled her with a long look, making her think he could hear the wistfulness that covered her heart like a fog. “We need more information. What is the cure? Is there a contingent of pijavice looking to regain their humanity and leave all aspects of the demonic abilities behind? Or are they looking for a way to simply break the normal laws so that they can expand their hunt to daylight hours?”

  “The pijavica in the tunnel still smelled like one of us. Even if it was immune to sunlight, it was no human.”

  “Then maybe it had not taken the cure yet, or only thought it had. It might not be a voluntary choice on the pijavica’s part, either,” Válka pointed out. “From your description, that pijavica was mad. Maybe a human found the cure and has started implementing it to stop the pijavica problem on their own. They could be clearing out the nests by force.”

  “And if that’s the case, I assume the Empire will soon be funding it?” Ora asked.

  “Don’t be stroppy,” Sokol said. “Of course we’d fund it. Once you start thinking clearly, you’ll come to th
e same conclusion.”

  Válka cleared his throat. “Maybe try for some delicacy,” he suggested to Sokol.

  “You hate that your brethren treat human like prey as much as we do, despite the side you fall down on,” Sokol pressed. “You can’t blame us for trying to stop them. This is our fight.”

  “That’s your fight,” Ora said. “I’m not on either side. I’m not one of the pijavice you’re afraid of.”

  “But you could help us stop them. I’m not asking for much. Just ask some questions, poke around where we can’t. We’ve been friends for years now, Ora, and this is the first favor I’ve asked of you. Help us find out what’s happening. That’s all I’m asking.”

  Ora sighed and leaned against the fireplace. “I suppose I can ask around and see what I can find out,” she said finally. “As a personal favor. You won’t convince me to don your uniform and join the good fight.”

  “They’re not your best colors anyway,” Sokol said breezily.

  Ora made a sour face at him, and he returned it.

  “Thank you, Lady Fischerová. We’ll be with you every step of the way,” Válka interjected.

  “In spirit,” Sokol corrected. “We can’t send men in with you, not where you’ll be going.”

  Ora shook her head. “I can always rely on you, Sokol, to not sugarcoat these things. I’m not making any promises. Something like this—a cure, and a concentrated effort to administer it—is more than the average sewer rat could manage. Any pijavica worth its teeth knows that I don’t associate with them anymore. Those who know me won’t speak to me, and those who don’t won’t trust me. And that’s if anyone I talk to knows anything worth talking about.”

  “And if they do know something?” Sokol asked. “If you find out something that could give the government a way to reverse the affliction, would you tell us?”

  “If you don’t trust me, why are we having this conversation?” Ora asked. When Sokol just raised his eyebrows, she said, “If there is a cure, I want to know about it. You can trust that.” She straightened up. “Let’s discuss the details over cards. I’m filled with the sudden urge to take every krejcar you two have.”