The afternoon sun was beating down through an open window in the doctor’s exam room. The infamous Tibetan doctor Pyotr Badmaev was a middle-aged man with a kind face and dark, hypnotic eyes. He looked at me quietly as I entered and sat down in a chair by the window, clutching the bottle of his sleeping potion in my hand. He seemed to be examining me from head to toe without laying a finger on me or asking a single question.
It seemed like forever before he finally spoke. “Can I ask your name, please?” His Russian was perfect.
“Dr. Badmaev, my name is Katerina Alexandrovna of Oldenburg. I am not ill, but I came because Dr. Kruglevski has given my mother a sleeping medicine manufactured by you.”
“Oldenburg? Ah, I have met your father. He is a remarkable man.”
“Thank you,” I said. As a practitioner of Eastern medicine, he surely scorned Western science, did he not? “Do you remember giving this medicine to Dr. Kruglevski?”
He took the bottle from my hand, turning it around. Without a word, he placed the bottle on the counter and sat down in the chair next to me. “Your Highness, I am sorry, but I am afraid I cannot help you. Dr. Kruglevski has been coming to buy my medicines for several years now. I cannot recall when he was here to buy this elixir.”
“My mother was very difficult to rouse after taking this. I believe she has taken too much.”
“She will be fine.” He took my hands in his, turning my palm up to look at the lines. “The sleep potion is very potent and keeps one in a state of healing.”
“From what? I did not know she was sick.”
“You did not notice? You have the hands of a healer, Katerina Alexandrovna. But you also have the aura of death around you.”
“What is wrong with my mother?” I asked. I had not come here to talk about myself.
“Her aura is cloaked in shadow, just as yours is. You are aligned with the Dark Court, are you not?”
I hesitated. I wasn’t sure where I belonged. “How can you tell?”
“I can see the forces of light that surround every living being, and your light force is a dark violet.”
I wrinkled my nose, pulling my hand out of his. I hated the color purple. “What does that mean? How can you be certain my mother will be all right?”
The elderly Tibetan laughed. “You who walk the paths of the dead do not believe in the possibility that there are paths of the living as well.”
I was growing uncomfortable. “Did you cure that little girl? Was she really bitten by the upyri?”
“Yes, and no. It was a veshtiza that bit her. And that is curable with the right antidote.” He must have seen the stunned look on my face, because he smiled. “Come, Katerina Alexandrovna. I have something that may be useful to you.” He found a brown bottle on the shelf and handed it to me. “This is an antidote for the poison of a vampire bite.”
“How?” I could not believe in folk medicine. I wanted cold facts to back up his claims. I wanted to examine the medicine under a microscope—to identify the herbs and their chemical compounds. “It can’t be magic.”
He shook his head. “Of course not.”
“But the vampires cannot be studied in a lab, or dissected by scientists. How do you know your potion will work?”
The Tibetan smiled. “I know only from firsthand observations. Not all vampires drain one completely of blood. The veshtiza moths only take a tiny bit when they drink. It is their poison that is deadly.”
“Poison!” I shivered and thought immediately of the girls at Smolny and the members of the Order. My worst fears about Elena and her sisters were confirmed. Elena was turning into a moth at night and poisoning us while we slept.
“Veshtiza moths are particularly fond of hemlock leaves.”
“And the moths inject the poison into whoever they bite?” My mind was reeling. Dariya needed the Tibetan’s medicine immediately. “Frankincense is the antidote for the veshtiza’s poison,” I deduced in a whisper.
He closed my hand over the bottle. “You come back and visit me, Katerina Alexandrovna. I am sure we have much to discuss.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
I needed to return to Smolny with the antidote right away, before all the girls went home for summer vacation. I decided to believe in the kind-looking Tibetan doctor. But I asked the coachman to take me to the Oldenburg Hospital first, because I had several questions for Dr. Kruglevski.
The doctor was looking more and more like a peasant drunkard. His hair astray, his eyes slightly glassy, the doctor shuffled from patient to patient in the large hospital ward, blinking several times as he tried to read each patient’s medical chart. I went and brewed some strong tea in the samovar in his office and found Rudolf.
He confirmed my fears about Dr. Kruglevski. “The poor man is exhausted. He has been working all night.”
I convinced the doctor to lie down in the morgue and get some rest. There was no other place for him to sleep. Dr. Kruglevski finally agreed, after admitting he had not left the hospital in several days. I covered him with a blanket, and he was soon snoring softly.
Rudolf shook his head. “I must go make rounds on the patients. Will you excuse me, please?” With a quick bow, he left me alone with the doctor. And with the body of Princess Cantacuzene.
I knew it was her, even though the body was covered with a sheet. I walked over and pulled the sheet from her face, surprised at her coloring. She was pale but did not have the familiar bluish tinge of death to her skin. There were no marks on her body that I could see. I pulled the sheet down farther and picked up one of her hands. It was cool, but decay had not set in yet. I was surprised. She had been dead for over forty-eight hours.
Suddenly, the princess’s eyes opened and she awoke with a horrid gasp. “They have taken the talisman!” she ranted. “Protect the Dekebristi!”
I jumped back, dropping her hand. “Your Highness!”
Eyes still fixed straight ahead, the Romanian princess drew in a ragged breath. “Blood … I must have blood.…”
I backed away to the door, bumping Dr. Kruglevski’s bed. The doctor stirred in his sleep.
Princess Cantacuzene sat up, looking at the doctor.
“No!” I screamed. I ran over to the doctor and tried to shake him awake. “Dr. Kruglevski, you must wake up!
Hurry!”
The princess stood up off the morgue table.
“Get away from him!” I screamed.
Rudolf appeared in the doorway. “What is going on?” he demanded. His face paled when he saw Princess Cantacuzene upright. “Holy Mother of God,” he said, crossing himself.
I managed to wake Dr. Kruglevski, and he muttered the same thing as he saw the vampire princess coming for him. Still groggy, he stumbled off the bed he’d been sleeping on and tried to push me ahead of him to the door.
I turned around to see the princess grab him by his hair. She was trying to bite his neck. I’d never noticed her tiny fangs before.
“No! You mustn’t!” I grabbed the doctor’s walking cane from the corner and struck her shoulder. This distracted her long enough to let go of the doctor.
“Katerina! No!” Dr. Kruglevski said. He took the walking cane from me and pushed me into the hallway, then shut the door on me. I heard it lock with a click.
“No!” I beat on the door. “Do you have a key?” I asked Rudolf.
He shook his head. “Move aside!” he said. He proceeded to ram the door with his shoulder, but he was not a large man and it didn’t give way. He tried a second time, with the same result.
“What is the meaning of this?” a familiar voice asked.
I spun around. It was, of course, the grand duke George Alexandrovich. He had an uncanny habit of showing up whenever bad things happened. “Hurry!” I said. “The doctor is in there with a vampire!” We could hear horrible noises from inside.