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I broke off, because a commotion was happening in the direction of the city. A large one. People were yelling loudly enough that I could hear them from here when the wind was blowing right, and every church bell in town had started ringing madly. Louis-Cesare and I looked at each other, and then scrambled to the path going down, the one I’d been following without realizing it.

It looked like our perfect day was over.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The terrace of the merchant’s house was crowded when we reached it again, with what looked like every servant in the place, along with a rotund gentleman in fine clothes and a vague expression who I assumed was our enthralled host.

He looked confused, but so did everyone else. Although in their case, it was for a different reason. They were crowded around the walls of windows, but didn’t seem to know what they were looking at in the square below.

Neither did we, but that was because we had yet to see anything. We’d had to fight our way through a tremendous crowd almost as soon as we reached the town, the kind that only festivals and riots usually brought out. This appeared to be related more to the latter than the former, although I couldn’t be sure.

But something was happening.

My companion had a word with one of the servants, who pointed upward. That meant nothing to me, but Louis-Cesare took my hand and led me across the room to another staircase. It led to a loft where some of the servants lived, but Mircea wasn’t there, either.

But a window was open letting out onto a roof, and I finally saw him crouched over by the edge, looking down.

Like father, like daughter, I thought grimly, and followed Louis-Cesare out.

The sun was setting, just a smear of dirty yellow remaining to stain the sky near the horizon, while darkness gathered overhead. Several people had lit torches while they could still see to do so, although there was also a bonfire shedding light, rich and rolling red. That surprised me, as that sort of thing was usually done on hillsides, where nothing would burn if it got out of hand, not in the middle of town.

And then I realized—

It wasn’t a bonfire.

“What is it?” I whispered, as an unholy creature writhed and twisted on the ground in the middle of the huge crowd.

It was man-shaped but oversized, and not covered in fire so much as made out of it. It looked like the lava I’d seen deep in a crevasse in Italy once, red-gold and boiling, with a thin black crust in places that did nothing to hide the anger inside. It didn’t help that there were no facial features that I could make out, except for an open yellow maw in its thrown back head, screaming something that no one could understand.

Or probably wanted to.

That definitely included the townsfolk who had ended up at the front of the crowd, and were now wishing they hadn’t. They were crossing themselves and looking around frantically, trying to find a way out. But the mass of people was hemming them in, with the ones in back pushing forward to see what was going on, not understanding the danger.

The creature could have attacked half of the town and there would have been nothing to stop it. Instead . . . I didn’t know what it was doing. “What is wrong with it?” I asked Louis-Cesare, but it was Mircea who answered.

“He is being opposed,” he murmured.

“By who?” There was no one around who looked like a witch to me, or a wizard, either. And the Dominican and Franciscan priests, who had just arrived from different directions at the head of a procession of monks, had just made a mutual decision. And turned around and fled.

I saw them go, their backs splashed by the unholy light the creature was shedding as they headed for the hills, possibly literally.

No, not creature, I corrected.

Demon.

But not like any I had ever seen.

“What could possibly fight that thing?” I asked, watching it roll against an abandoned wagon full of hay and set it alight.

Mircea turned to look at me, his body silhouetted against all that blazing color. The townsfolk screamed when the hay went up, some fighting each other to get away, while others were attempting to stamp out the blaze before it spread. He didn’t appear to notice.

The wind was blowing his hair about, and his dark eyes were gleaming, reflecting the flames even this far away. He had a strange look on his face, pride mingled with sadness, yet fierce and intense. It unnerved me, and had me stepping back a pace, even before he answered.

“You.”

* * *

“I have a sister?” I whispered, trying to understand the very hurried explanation I had gotten out of the two vampires.