“Your father must have been a very handsome man, then,” Gretl said with a dreamy look in her eyes that made me want to giggle. “I don’t believe you’ve ever mentioned him before.”
“He died when I was twenty-two,” Imogen said swiftly, her gaze now on the stones that she stroked with long, sensitive fingers. “He was destroyed by his two half brothers.”
“Oh, how horrible!” both Gretl and I said.
“It was very tragic. He inherited our family home, and they obviously coveted that, so they lured him into a forest one summer night and destroyed him.” She stopped, obviously hesitant to go on. “It is why I am here, as a matter of fact. The anniversary of his…death…is a few days from now. I try to make a pilgrimage to this area whenever I can, to remember happier times.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said as Gretl murmured sympathetic platitudes. “I should never have brought up the subject of genes.”
She sniffed back a few unshed tears. “No, no, I don’t mind talking about Papa. Before that horrible night, he was a good man, an excellent father, and I loved him very dearly.”
“You must miss him terribly. I assume they caught his killers?”
“They disappeared before they could be tried, unfortunately.”
“That’s so sad. But I’m sure that wherever your father is, he knows how much you loved him.”
She looked up at me, her eyes wide with surprise. “
Wherever
he is?”
I gestured toward the sky. “You know, looking down on you.” I had no idea what religion, if any, she subscribed to, so I didn’t want to be too specific in my attempt to provide her with a little comfort.
Imogen gave a delicate little shrug, returning her gaze to the stones. “Ah. Yes, I’m sure he does. At one time I had hope that Ben and I would find Nikola’s brothers, but we were unable to do so.”
“Nikola is your father?” I couldn’t help but ask. I didn’t want to be nosy, but my curiosity got the better of me, and she honestly didn’t seem to mind talking about him, so long as we kept off the subject of his manner of death.
“Yes.” She set down a stone she was stroking and looked up again at us, a little smile lighting her pure blue eyes. “Nikola Czerny, the fifth Baron von Shey.”
I blinked at her. “Your dad was a baron? A real baron? Does that make you anything?”
She laughed aloud, patting my arm for a second. “Yes, it makes me a woman.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I apologized again, blushing a little at the stupidity that had emerged from my mouth. “You have to excuse me—I’m an idiot. But I’ve never met someone who was from the aristocracy before.”
“Most of the nobility lost their power in Austria almost a hundred years ago,” Gretl said gently, giving me a little squeeze on my arm. “Although I, too, did not know that Imogen’s father was a baron. The title passed to Ben?”
“No, it didn’t,” Imogen said, her expression darkening for a moment before she gave us both a bright smile. “It was all a long time ago, and we have much more pleasant things to speak of, yes?”
It was a not very subtle hint that she was through talking about the subject.
“Of course,” Gretl said soothingly, and made a date for the next afternoon to have tea and pastries.
“I hate to bother you if you’re busy,” I said, not sure whether she had responded to my request for a photo session because she was polite or because she really wanted me to take some pictures of her. “If so, then I will totally understand. But if not, I’m sure we can find somewhere locally that would make a good backdrop.”
Imogen looked up with a genuine smile. “No, I am not too busy. I would love to be your model.”
“Oh, you must go to Andras Castle!” Gretl said, clasping my arm. “It would make a lovely setting—”
“No,” Imogen said quickly, her expression as brittle as ice. I blinked at the change in her demeanor. She suddenly relaxed and gave a forced little laugh. “I’m sorry. You must think me very odd, but Andras Castle holds…bad memories for me. I would prefer not to go there again.”
“Of course we won’t use it,” I reassured her, curious at such a strong reaction to a ruined castle. Perhaps she’d been frightened there—when Gretl had told me about the ruins, she said that it had a bad reputation by the locals as being unpleasant to visit. “There are lots of other places around here we could use.”
“The rose gardens?” Gretl suggested. “The town hall? The church? It is quite old.”
“Mmm…” I scrunched up my nose as I thought. “To be honest, I’d like to try something a little different as a backdrop for Imogen. Something to contrast with all that fair delicacy.”
Imogen laughed, her expression once again changing like quicksilver. “I’m sure you meant that as a compliment, but I assure you, I am anything but delicate. Fair, yes—I got that from my mother. But delicate? No.”
“Appearances are often deceiving,” I agreed. “I think I’d like to see you set against somewhere dark and gritty. That would make for some wonderful depth to the picture.”
“As you like. You’re the expert,” Imogen said with another of her little shrugs.
“I’m far from that, but I see you…” I narrowed my eyes and thought about an image of Imogen against the ruined castle. That would have been ideal, but there were other places that I could use. “Oh! Gretl told me about this haunted forest near here—”
“No!” Imogen all but squawked, drawing attention from the people moving past us. She shot them a reassuring smile before turning it on me. “I’m so sorry. You must think me terribly emotional, but if you are talking about the Zauberwald, the woods near Andras Castle, then I must again say no. It is not a good place, that forest. I will not step foot in it again.”
“I didn’t mean to suggest somewhere that would make you feel uncomfortable.” I thought for a moment. “I don’t really know many places around here, but surely there must be some other location we can use that would give the same sense of—oh, I don’t know—something otherworldly.”
“Otherworldly? Yes, of course I can do that.” She shot me a startled glance that quickly turned speculative, then amused, as if we shared a secret, something that struck me as hugely odd. I had only just met her—how could we share a secret? When Gretl turned to greet an acquaintance who had called her name, Imogen leaned over to me, saying with a little nod at Gretl’s back, “I had no idea you were not mundane.”
“Er…” Mundane? Was she making a dig at Gretl? I bristled righteously in defense of a much-loved cousin. “I’ve always thought of myself as something…different, but just because Gretl chose a more traditional path in life doesn’t mean she’s not a wonderful person.”
“Of course she’s wonderful. She’s been my friend for many years.” Imogen smiled and squeezed my arm briefly. “And we all feel
different
at some time or other, don’t we? At least until we settle in with our own kind. But who exactly are you? I realize it is rude to just come right out and ask you, but I’m sure you do not wish to speak of your true nature in front of dear Gretl.”
I blinked at her, once again taken aback and unsure of how to respond, but luckily Gretl finished her chat and turned back to us, so I was content to simply smile in answer to Imogen’s wink, and made a mental note to ask Gretl or her eldest daughter, Erica, to accompany me on the photo shoot. It was becoming clear that Imogen was a few apples shy of spiced cider.
“Oh, there are Benedikt and Fran. Come. I must introduce you both to them. Benedikt will be delighted to see you again, Gretl.”
I followed as Imogen bustled off with Gretl in tow over to where a tall man with shoulder-length black hair stood with a woman who was almost as tall as he was. The woman, who faced me, looked to be in her early twenties.
“Well, now, that’s interesting,” I murmured, eyeing the woman named Fran. No matter how good Imogen looked, she had to be nearing fifty for Gretl to have known her for thirty years. Which meant her brother was probably in his forties or fifties, too, or he was a whole lot younger than Imogen. “Even if there is a big age difference,” I said as I strolled toward them, “he would be close to my age.”
And yet his wife was probably twenty-two or twenty-three. I glanced at Gretl as the couple stepped forward to greet her. A puzzled frown pulled her brows together for an instant before she smiled, quickly returning to her usual charming self. When the man turned to greet me, I saw why Gretl had frowned. I stared at him for a moment, unable to believe what I was seeing. He was in his mid- to late twenties, at least ten years younger than me, which meant Imogen was old enough to be his mother. Not an unknown situation, but not a common one, either. I realized that everyone was staring at me as I gawked so obviously at Imogen’s handsome, much, much younger brother, and I pulled my wits together.
“Sorry,” I murmured, shaking first his hand, then Fran’s. She gave me an amused glance before leaning into her husband, her arm around his waist in a possessive move that I’d have had to be blind to miss.
I chuckled to myself, wanting to assure her that I might be single and not averse to finding a man, but I wasn’t about to stoop to husband stealing and cradle robbing. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” I murmured.
“Iolanthe wishes to take my picture tomorrow,” Imogen told her brother. “She is a photographer. She wishes to take me somewhere
otherworldly
.”
The emphasis Imogen put on the word seemed to have some meaning for them, because they both raised their eyebrows for a few seconds. Ben slid a gaze to Gretl before returning it to me, saying in a low voice that couldn’t have been heard by anyone but his wife, “Are you with the Court of Divine Blood? I don’t recognize what you are, but I’m not very familiar with members of the Court.”
“I’m a woman,” I answered, ironically echoing Imogen’s words as I moved a few steps away from him. Clearly there was some sort of mental instability in Imogen’s family.
“Yes, of course you are,” Fran said with a comforting smile that I didn’t for one minute buy. Ben turned to answer a question Gretl asked him, leaving Fran chatting with me in a low voice. “What Ben meant was what
are
you? You’re not a therion or a Guardian or a Summoner. I’ve seen those, and you don’t look like them.”
“I used to be an accountant,” I told her, feeling that diplomacy was going to be my best bet if I wanted to get pictures of Imogen. It wouldn’t do to offend any of Imogen’s family by calling them crackpots. “But Barry, my boss, kept hitting on me, and when I tried to turn him in, he got me fired. Illegal and reprehensible, but true.”
“No, I meant—” Fran stopped talking when Gretl turned back to us.
“Io, you don’t mind that Imogen has asked me to sit with her for an hour or so while she reads the rune stones, do you?”
“Not at all. I’ll just wander around the fair and see the sights.”
“We’ll take care of your cousin,” Fran told Gretl as we moved off. I couldn’t help but notice that Fran wore a pair of long black lace gloves that disappeared into her shirt cuffs. “We’ll show you around and introduce you to all the people who work here. You might find someone you’d like to photograph in addition to Imogen, you know. There are lots of interesting folks. My mother is— Ratsbane! What’s he doing here?”
Fran had been steering me down the center aisle when she suddenly froze and glared to the side, where a blond man with a short goatee was strolling toward us. The man also froze when he caught sight of us, an expression of joy on his face as he waved an arm in the air and bellowed, “Goddess Fran! We have returned!”
“I thought you said they’d gone back to Valhalla?” Ben asked in a tight, low voice.
“They had. Dammit, they promised me they wouldn’t come back until I asked for their help again…. Excuse me a minute, Io. I have to deal with an old…
friend
….”
She hurried off to the blond man, who was joined by a second man, who also enveloped Fran in a bear hug.
“Oh, Christ, not both of them,” Ben said, rubbing a hand over his eyes.
“You don’t have to escort me around the fair, you know. I’m quite capable of trotting around by myself.”
“I’d much rather show you around than deal with those two lunatics,” he said, nodding toward the nearest booth. “What would you like to see first? I can’t vouch for the tattooing, but the demonologist is a friend of mine and can be quite interesting if he’s holding a private group session.”
“I’m fine just people watching, if truth be told,” I said politely, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. The words “demonologist” and “private session” just seemed like an incredibly bad juxtaposition. “People are so fascinating if you have the time to really study them.”
“True words. I won’t ask you any more about yourself, since I’m sure Imogen will pump you for all the information you’re willing to divulge,” he said, laughter rich in his voice as we moved on at a slow amble. “My sister appreciates people watching, as well. Some might call her nosy, but in reality she just likes mortals.”
Keep in the open,
I told myself.
Stay around other people. Do not, under any circumstances, go off anywhere alone with this bizarre man.
“I really am not all that interesting, I assure you. I do feel bad about my horrible foot-in-mouth disease with Imogen, though.”
He paused in front of a booth dedicated to personal time travel, shooting me a curious look. “Pardon?”
I made a little face. “I said I wanted to take photos of Imogen at the place your father met his end.”
“My father?” Ben blinked. “My father is in South America.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” A blush warmed my face as I realized that once again I’d verbally embarrassed myself. “I thought you and Imogen had the same father.”
“We do. He’s in Brazil, I believe. Or Argentina. Somewhere with lots of nearly naked young women and a high level of debauchery.”
I stared at him in incomprehension. “He’s not dead?”
“No.” He leaned in close and said in a low voice, “My father is a Dark One. He can’t die unless someone goes to quite a bit of trouble, and I can assure you that no one has done that in several centuries.”
“Several centuries,” I repeated, just as if that weren’t the least bit startling, although, of course, my brain was screaming at me to run far, far away from the crazy man.