The feeling of standing out like a sore thumb disappeared immediately once she was inside the hotel; everyone, even the porters and the hotel clerks, was dressed more or less as she was, with varying levels of success. People stared, but their stares felt more like appreciation of a fellow enthusiast than astonishment at a freak. She began to enjoy herself, a tiny little bit, and swept up to the receptionist, holding out her carte noir; it squirmed in her hand and turned into a business card saying Lady Sepulchravia de Mortuis, Artist and Authoress.
The receptionist's eyes ran over her with awe, and she was quickly handed a grey-on-black nametag with a little design of skulls and bones on it, a ticket entitling the bearer to one free drink at the Last Bar, and a calendar of events. Silently she flicked a glance at the receptionist, running a long nail down the events for that day, and the girl—who couldn't have been more than sixteen, with a healthy case of acne—jumped as if she'd been reprimanded and pointed out the lecture that was currently going on in the Ballroom. "It's 'Vampirism Through the Ages'," she was told, with deference.
Vampirism Through the Ages was popular, almost packed, but by dint of keeping her nose in the air and looking down it, Sea found the crowds opening up around her. She found a seat near the front and turned on the hidden recorder, sitting back to look around and try to figure out who was in for an assassination attempt. For her money, everyone here could use some assassination; this was a kind of obnoxious pretentiousness that made her want to shake its practitioners till their fangies fell out. She resigned herself to a long, long day.
In the Last Bar, hung with black and purple crepe paper and little sigils of bats, castles and Iron Crosses, Prince Radu Florescu the Handsome, last scion of the Transylvanian ruling line, sat and drank reconstituted blood through a straw. His equerry and his consort flanked him, both of them holding large black swords. "But why here?" said the equerry, or perhaps the consort. They were having an argument they'd been having for months now.
"Because it's an apolitical zone," said His Highness, slurping down the last dregs of blood. "Because we've already got a wide following here, because it's got an atmosphere that only gives us mild hives, and because I kinda like some of these Earth chicks."
"Earth girls are easy," said the consort, or perhaps the equerry. They looked almost identical, both of them in long black raggedy robes with lace trim and silver chains of office. Both had long black hair with silver streaks, and both wore a great deal of makeup, although not as much as His Highness.
"That's as may be," said the Prince and swung himself off the bar stool. "Deal with it. We're here. It's only for a week."
"Your Highness," said one of them, "we are concerned for your safety."
"What are you talking about?" said His Highness, grinning. It was a good grin; it showed teeth that formed the basis for many of the plastic replicas sold in vinyl-centric accessory stores. "They love me here. They love us. I mean, have you read some of this stuff?" He tossed a large gilt volume to the other one, who was probably the equerry, on the balance of probability and the lack of noticeable breasts. The name on the cover was that of a popular writer of vampire stories. "I mean, check that out, it's so complimentary!"
The equerry and the consort exchanged black-rimmed glances. "Your Highness, of course they appreciate you, but we were not referring to the natives of this planet. They're unimportant."
"Come on," said the Prince, adjusting his velvet leggings, "one's public is always important."
"Yes, of course, but our meaning was that it is not the terrans you should be concerned about. It is the......other races who may pose a danger."
"Your Highness is not exactly.....popular........in our neighboring galaxies," murmured the consort, her eyes downcast. "Remember the incident with the Brotherhood of Khi?"
The Prince's beautiful eyes flashed with brief anger. "The religious crackpots? They were a bunch of crazed monks who had some confused idea that Transylvania posed a moral threat."
The equerry made a noise which he hurriedly turned into a cough. "May I remind Your Highness that this planet is not without its, er, religious crackpots. I refer to the furor among the terrans when that so-called informational video was released to the public.....Your Highness is familiar with it, I believe."
"Ah, yes," said the Prince, licking his teeth. "That's the one with the terrans pretending to be us, yes? The tall one with the accent was really rather good, I thought."
The equerry seemed to have something stuck in his throat, so it was the consort who continued. "Yes, Your Highness. Of course, it was sadly inaccurate, but our methods and our ideals have changed since those days. Even then, there was a strong terran movement against everything they considered to do with us and our beliefs. This movement isn't limited to this planet, Your Highness; you must understand that this has not changed."
"You worry too much," said the Prince, absently patting his equerry on the back. "I'm sure everything will be fine. Let's go and see how the Gown Contest is going, hmm?"
Lady Sepulchravia had withstood every effort to get her to join the other selected participants on the dais, but when the Prince and his entourage showed up, she was forced to take her place with the others; there were simply too many people pulling her. She kept the look of bored supercilious displeasure on her face, because it was painted there, but she was secretly having nasty flashbacks to her days in high school when the Homecoming Court was chosen—there had been one awful time when she had been dragged up there in her poofy home-made dress, as a joke—and she had only just managed not to cry.
However, this time the sea of white-painted faces staring up at her were transfixed with admiration, not with mirth, and she had to admit there was something really attractive about the tall young man with the feathery black hair who'd just come into the room and was making his way up the centre aisle. He was heading for the dais, along with the rest of the room, and his eyes were fixed firmly on her.
She wondered who the hell he was, but luckily someone in crushed velvet and leather at the end of the table stood up and tapped a microphone for silence. "His Royal Highness Prince Radu Florescu the Handsome," he announced in a voice choked with admiration. All the other chosen ones rose as the Prince approached the dais. Lady Sepulchravia found herself adjusting her cleavage self-consciously, and hurriedly turned to inspect the rank of her fellow finalists. She hadn't known—no one had bothered to tell her—that in her outfit she was quite likely to be chosen to participate in the Gown Contest; the other participants had certainly been aware of this possibility, and had banked on it. She counted four willowy young Draculae—or at least four willowy young men, wearing makeup applied with varying levels of skill and poofy shirts not unlike those worn by the better class of consumptive poet—and a number of undernourished-looking girls in tight black vinyl and lace. There was one girl whose hair looked naturally black, quite long and thick and attractive, and with surprising taste she had decided to point this out by wearing white. It was a very over-romanticized sort of white, the kind of lacy frilly gown one wears to be seduced by tortured phantoms and unscrupulous vampires, but it was nevertheless white, and the young woman wearing it was drawing a considerable fraction of the gazes in the hall. For her own part, Lady Sepulchravia contented herself with taking long deep breaths and watching people change colour as they glanced at her torso. I'm beginning to understand some of this, she thought, as wave upon wave of desperate self-consciousness from all over the hall battered at her mind. These people are so afraid of being unpopular that they strive to be unpopular together, and they have considerable fantasy lives. It was extremely sad.
She closed off her mind as much as she could, still aware of the waves of loneliness, of lust and fear, and turned her attention to the Prince. He was slowly walking down the front of the dais, inspecting the contestants one by one. She was dimly aware of a dark red mind close to her own, but it wasn't until he turned and she met his eyes at close range that she fully understood what he was.
I get it now. All the stories, all the films, all the tales about their mesmerizing, hypnotizing eyes, the way they can suck out your mind before they ever get close enough to taste your blood..........She swallowed, all her spurious self-confidence falling apart under the onslaught of those dark-red eyes. And I get why they're such an old story, and why they were so popular in their other guise, when people lined up for blocks to get into a midnight showing of a lousy movie spoof, why people long to dress up as them, to act like them, to take on one little tiny fraction of that power..........
He was standing directly in front of her. She forced herself to look up at him, to meet his eyes. Her mind felt like a dam full of holes trying to withstand the ocean; she could feel him picking at her shields, distantly interested in the difference between her and the others around her. I get why they've got so many enemies.
"Who are you?" he asked, and his voice was as lovely as she'd expected, pitched low and rich and velvety, a voice that could command without even raising its tone. She set her jaw and remembered her name.
"Lady Sepulchravia de Mortuis, Your Highness," she said flatly. A spark of something came and went in those eyes. The probing at her shields intensified, giving her the beginnings of a headache. Suddenly she was furious—at the alien standing in front of her without bothering to disguise himself, at this roomful of idiots wanting to be just like him, unaware they were nothing more than feeder mice to a beautiful snake, at herself for getting sucked into it, and at Kay for getting her into it in the first place—and she reached out with her mind, anger giving her strength, and shoved his probes away.
For a moment his eyes blazed red, actually giving out a small amount of visible light, and then a look of genuine admiration came into his face. He raised her hand to his lips—so cold they burned—and murmured, "Enchanted, my lady." Then he was gone, and he was out of her head, and she almost swayed with the shock of that freedom. The willowy dracula beside her put out a steadying arm, for which she was grateful. The other women on the line gave her nasty looks.
She found herself wondering if she wanted to stop this............thing.........from being assassinated, and just as quickly knew the answer to that.
She did not win the costume contest, of course; that went to the girl in white. But she did find the equerry and the consort deftly detaching her from the crowd of convention-goers as the contest broke up and lunch was announced. She gave them her best look of haughty disregard, trying to figure out if one of them was female, and if so, which.
"His Highness wishes to speak to you," one of them told her. "He is intrigued."
Bully for him. She had just realized why these two made her feel so strange: she couldn't read them at all, not even when she took down the shields and made a concerted effort. Probably because they have to be around him, she thought. I'd have iron shields too if I hung out with His Highness for very long. As it was, she fed a little more strength into the shields she already had up. It wouldn't be pleasant having him pry at them, but it would be even less pleasant having him poking around in her mind.
They led her down a corridor and out of the main convention area, into a suite lavishly appointed with earthly luxuries and—even to her untrained eye—hastily redecorated in shades of black and red. His Highness lounged on an enormous black-draped bed and looked up as they came in. Again she was conscious of the power of those extraordinary dark-red eyes, and had to make an effort to remember who she was: Agent Sea, MIB Special Forces, here to try and figure out who was going to attempt to kill this....er...
"Ah," said the Transylvanian, rising and dismissing the two interchangeable companions, "my dear Lady Sepulchravia." He kissed her hand again, and she could feel that dark-red tide beating against her mind. Crossly she sat down, uninvited, in one of the black Louis Quinze chairs.
"Your Highness," she said."I must speak to you."
"Of course," he said, pouring himself a glass of something red. "May I offer you a drink?"
She raised an eyebrow. "No, thank you. My iron levels are perfectly all right."
He stared for a moment and then gave her a completely unaffected smile. "You're sharp, my lady. What's on your mind?"
"Can't you tell? You've been poking at it ever since you saw me." She was amazed how rude it sounded, but he wasn't offended.
"Yes, I have, which is why I asked them to bring you to me. You don't seem like the typical GothiCon participant. I can't quite read you. Everyone else on that line was an open book." He clearly wasn't going to admit what she already knew—that he was not of this world. He'd rather let that be taken for granted.
"I'm not," she admitted, lighting one of the black cigarettes absently. "I'm....." He was looking at her; it felt like little invisible hands walking all over her body, looking for cracks in her armour. "Your Highness, would you kindly stop doing that and listen to me with your ears. Sorry, auditory receptors."
He blinked, and the invisible hands went away. "Thank you. As I was saying, I'm here with a slightly different purpose than most of your adoring public. You're in danger."
He laughed, a low musical laugh. "Your concern is misplaced, cherie."
"No," she sighed, having run out of options, "it isn't." She rummaged around in her cleavage and pulled out the universal translator, tapped it twice, and said in perfect Transylvanian (with only the hint of a time delay) "One assassin has already been neutralized. Two more are still at large."
She was treated to the interesting spectacle of seeing a born-and-bred goth go pale. It was closer to blue-grey than pale, actually, but it was still fascinating. He took a long pull at his drink, and a faint bloom of colour came back to his face. "Who are you?" he demanded.
Sea held out her carte noir, and it became her MIB ID, listing her credentials in seven different interstellar languages. Prince Radu took it between thumb and forefinger, glancing from the file photo to her painted face.
"By the blood of my most holy ancestors," he said dryly, "you lot have come on a bit. Last time I was on this planet you went around in hideous black suits and your undercover agents were about as convincing as some of the large youths I've seen today trying to look consumptive. You have my congratulations, Agent Sea; you wouldn't look out of place on my planet."
"Thanks, but I have to repeat, you're in danger. I was sent in today to check out the convention and try to find out who's behind these attempts......we've had several weapons purchased on-planet in the past week, clearly for assassinations...and to protect you and your people."
The Prince leaned back on the bed, regarding her thoughtfully. "I hardly think it's that dangerous," he said. "Look at how many people there are downstairs just dying to get a glimpse of me. I'm a celebrity---all my people are celebrities here. No one's going to try and assassinate me with so many devoted witnesses."
Sea dragged hard on the cigarette, once more reassured that males all over the universe were really as thick as she thought they were. "Your Highness—"
"Radu, please," he interrupted, again using the silk-and-cream voice she found irritatingly effective.
"—Radu, your popularity isn't in question here; but you must know that certain factions find Transylvanians in general to be.....objectionable, shall we say? Even here, even once your people had left the planet back in the seventies, there was considerable ill-feeling toward those who had followed the Transylvanian credo. The film made to commemorate the events surrounding that encounter has been banned from some theatres. Religious people all over Earth have a strong dislike for anything that smacks of....hedonism, or of what they consider perverse sexual practices, and you have to understand that the beliefs your people shared with us back in the seventies could easily be seen as.....perverse."
A tiny wrinkle marred the perfection of the Prince's brow. "Perverse?"
Give me patience, she thought sourly. "I don't know enough about that landing to judge the accuracy of the film, but some of the events and attitudes in it were extremely offensive to certain factions of humanity. Homosexual encounters, for instance, have always been controversial, as have images of males dressing in female clothing and wearing makeup."
The Prince batted his perfectly mascara-ed lashes. "I can't imagine why."
She shrugged. "It's just the way things are on this planet; people are afraid of what is different. Moreover, several of the main religions condemn homoeroticism. And the way you are now—this whole beauty-of-the-night bit—also rubs some of our religions the wrong way; they think that being so morbidly obsessed with death and misery is blasphemous. That's not the point. The point is that you have enemies both on and off this planet, and we have already apprehended one Mertagensian mercenary with a weapon of mass destruction. We believe you, or someone in your delegation, was the target of the intended attack."
Prince Radu sighed. "This is so tiresome. I'd just begun to enjoy myself."
"I'm sorry, but it's my job to monitor and police alien activity on this planet, and to ensure that it remains an apolitical zone—which means I can't stand aside and let this take care of itself. Please, Your H.......Radu, you must agree to our protection until the threat is over."
Radu looked at her with lazy scarlet eyes. "It's only for a week. And I'm not without protection of my own, my dear Agent."
She gritted her teeth. "Am I to take it that you are refusing to comply with my superiors?"
He reached out and tipped up her chin with a finger. "Such hard words for such a lovely woman. Surely you can trust me to take care of myself? I'm a big boy now, you know, Agent Sea."
She slammed down mental shields over the thoughts that threatened to escape—thoughts which might possibly start a war—and put on an ingratiating smile. Maybe she could play his game, to some extent. It was worth a try.
Taking a deep breath, despite the dull pain of the multiple items down her front biting into her flesh, she slid towards him and looked up into his eyes with a wide innocent stare. "Yes," she breathed, "but I........you....I couldn't bear to think of anything happening to you....Radu."
As she had vaguely expected, the crimson eyes flickered brighter for a moment, then veiled themselves again. He put a chilly hand to her cheek, drawing her closer. "I often have that effect on women, my dear," he informed her, his fingers tracing the curve of her cheekbone. "You look so excitingly flushed. Is that all concern for me?"
Mentally she added Radu to the list of people for whom she was planning nasty things. "I.....don't understand.....I only just met you," she faltered, trying to remember her horror movies as she made her bosom heave enticingly. "It's as if I've known you all along."
His sparkling grin widened. Any moment now, she thought, he's going to say "I have traveled oceans of time to be with you." She was beginning to wish she hadn't started this. "Of course, my dear," he murmured. "I feel the same way."
"And......oh, please, Radu....I know your people are watching over you........please....I'm so frightened that something's going to happen....." She took the plunge and buried her face in his pristine shirtfront, hoping that the makeup department had put enough fixative on her skin to keep the foundation from rubbing off. His arms encircled her; one hand crushed her face against his chest, while his other hand crept down her back, exploring. She hoped the wig wouldn't come off. "Please......I beg of you.....you must leave this place.....you are in terrible danger." Now I'm doing every bad Forties thriller. Is it working?
Radu pressed his cold lips to her forehead. Nope. He just wants some. She tried another tack, edging down a few shields and pouring energy into her mindtouch, prepared this time for the onslaught of the alien's mind. Please, she ventured, filling the contact with desperate concern and what dregs of affection she could muster. I can't bear to think of you in danger...
Radu's warm red mind surrounded her, filling her, drowning her. It was like being drunk on undiluted Roman wine, like being wrapped in silk velvet and floating in thin fragrant oil. She fought for control, managed to slam down her last shields and hang in the red darkness while still recognizably herself. All around her the crimson voice was gently plucking at her mind. Of course you cannot....you are mine now........