Free Masks by Karen Chance Page A

they?”
    “I explained about that!”
    “And I heard more than you thought. You can tell yourself whatever you like, but the fact is, they. Didn’t. Want. You. Martina does.” He glanced at Mircea and then away again. “She isn’t perfect, I know that. But she’s better than most. If you give her a chance—”
    “I wasn’t aware that I had a choice,” Mircea said mildly.
    Paulo flushed. “She’s . . . been a little tense lately. We all have. But when the current spectacle is over—”
    “Speaking of spectacles,” Jerome said, breaking in. And sounding strange.
    Mircea turned to look at the other vampire, who was staring at the crowd on the opposite side of the canal. And then at the guard on the nearby roof, who had just jumped to his feet. And then at the bridge, which had started shaking as if something, some massive thing, was crossing under its covered walkway, with heavy, clomping footsteps that echoed across the quiet night.
    It wasn’t quiet much longer.
    A new noise suddenly tore across the old city. One loud enough and strange enough to have Mircea flinching and Paulo making a very undignified bleat. Which no one heard over what sounded like a trumpet blast straight out of hell.
    And might well be one,
Mircea thought, staring in shock at what erupted from the mouth of the bridge a moment later, surrounded by the fire and smoke of a dozen torches. It was a monstrous creature, towering over the surrounding crowd, terrifying even in the glimpses revealed by the flickering light. Like something out of a nightmare: huge and misshapen and bellowing in anger.
    And then stampeding—straight at them.

Chapter Eight
    “Auugghhh!” Paulo dropped the pretense of elegance and knocked into Mircea, before running straight into the building behind them.
    Mircea grabbed him, which only seemed to make his panic worse. But then Jerome snared his other, wildly flapping arm, and together they started to pull him away, toward the safety of the nearest alley. Only to stop when they realized that it was already full.
    Of members of the Watch.
    They had a few locals in there, too, as if they been in the process of moving them to safer areas. But now they, the locals, and some of the urchin children who always seemed to be about, regardless of the hour, had all frozen. To stare past Mircea in shock.
    He spun around to find that the great creature had stopped in the street, just outside the portico. He couldn’t see it very well, since an expanse of weathered gray hide blocked the entire space between two columns and extended up beyond the roofline. But he could see its breath, great bellows that misted on the cold night air in front of it, like a mythical dragon spewing smoke.
    Mircea stared at the nearest one, as speechless as everyone else.
    Everyone except for Jerome.
    “
Elefante
,” Jerome said, with every appearance of delight.
    “What the devil is that?” Paulo squawked. And then jerked Jerome back when he started forward, as if to touch it. “Are you
mad
?”
    “No, I—it won’t hurt you. Well, probably not. I saw one in a menagerie once, when I was a boy.”
    Mircea and Paulo just looked at him.
    “You know,” he prompted. “Like Hannibal had?”
    Mircea vaguely recalled some lessons from childhood, which he had always taken to be myths. Legends. The kind of stories invented to keep bored schoolchildren focused on learning dull history.
    But apparently not.
    He looked at the great creature again. And then he slowly edged to the side of the portico, ignoring Paulo’s frantic whisperings. And looked up.
    And up.
    And up.
    At something with legs like tree trunks and ears like sails and a huge barrel of a body. Gigantic tusks, bigger than those of a great boar, big enough to savage a man with one swipe, gleamed in the torch light. Small eyes set in heavy folds of leathery skin had an alarming amount of intelligence in them, more than Mircea liked, frankly.
    Especially when they suddenly fixed on