by E. A. Copen
Genuinely creeped out, I let go of her. Marcus waited patiently and left his hand outstretched, but I knew better than to fall into that trap. I reached for the doorknob instead and opened the door. “Age before beauty, then.”
He lowered his hand and tilted his head as if to acknowledge me, but his smug grin didn’t disappear. One point for me, then. I was right, and this was about more than just me asking a favor of him. The extended hand had been a power play, and I had the sneaking suspicion he did mean to ensnare me, or at least play mind games with me. I’d have to be on my toes all night if I wanted to get access to his house and escape unharmed.
~
I learned two important things about Marcus Kelley before we ever pulled out of Patsy’s drive. The first was that he drove a white Range Rover Sport with a red leather interior, which he kept pristine. There wasn’t a spot on it, not even on the windshield. More importantly, he actually drove it. The first time I’d been in a car with him, he let a driver haul him around in typical rich guy fashion. Who needs a driver’s license when you can have a chauffeur, right? Apparently, Marcus wasn’t like that all the time. Maybe he was more like a politician than a CEO, having a separate public and private way of doing things.
The second thing I learned about Marcus was that he liked blues rock. The smooth sound of it filled the car as soon as he turned the key, and he reached over to turn it down but not off.
You can tell a lot about a person from the music they listen to. I hadn’t pegged Marcus as a blues guy, just like I hadn’t thought he’d drive himself around. Maybe there were other things I had wrong.
“I hope you like sushi,” he said as he buckled in. “My personal assistant has a thing for it, isn’t that right, Cynthia?”
For the first time, I glanced into the back and saw a woman sitting behind me. She was a delicate-looking lady with a sharp chin and bright, intelligent eyes in a sky-blue blazer and skirt. She sighed, moved one arm into her lap, and adjusted her glasses. “I can change it if you’d like, of course.”
Marcus looked over at me, and I realized he was waiting for my approval. Sushi wasn’t really my thing. To be honest, I didn’t care where we went as long as I got out of that dress as soon as possible.
“Sure,” I said, raising my shoulders in a shrug. “Why not?”
We pulled out of Patsy’s cul-de-sac and began our crawl through Paint Rock in silence. I studied Cynthia in the mirror. She had a forgettable face, one of those corporate secretary types that often faded into the background. She was too flawless. The more I tried to concentrate on her and find something to remember about her, the less I remembered.
“So,” Marcus said, seizing my attention, “I suppose we should clear the air.”
I crossed my arms. “There is absolutely nothing you can say that’s going to make me trust you.”
“You misunderstand. I’m not asking you to trust me, even though I have already done more for you than you know.”
“Are we talking about the bribery you tried when I first came to town? Or how about your blatant threats against me and my family?” I studied Marcus’ chiseled features, but they didn’t shift. “Or maybe the fact that you stole Andre LeDuc’s research and that quack, Doctor Han, is probably using it to do some really unethical stuff?”
Marcus smiled at that, and then belted out a laugh but said nothing.
“You couldn’t sway me with money. You won’t sway me with a smile, Marcus. I know what you are. You’re a criminal. Just because our goals align this one time doesn’t mean we’re pals.”
“The bribery was my darling daughter’s idea. She and her partner have interesting ideas about people.” He turned his head to grin at me. “But I knew before you even came here that money wouldn’t speak to you. The talk in the car yesterday was very much a performance. Threatening you will only make you buckle down harder.”
I set my jaw and stared forward, sinking further into the comfortable seat. Dammit, why did it have to be comfortable? I secretly wished someone would key his stupid car.
“Handle you like a cop, you act like a criminal. Treat you like a man, you respond like a woman. You are an interesting person. But truth you value, and so here is my offer for the night.”
We stopped at the border of the reservation, and Marcus waved to the border patrol officer who gestured for him to keep going. They didn’t even ask him for ID.
Once we were on the highway and pointed toward Eden, he continued, “I will answer you any three questions of your choosing, and I will answer them with complete truths. In return, you will agree to do the same. If you lie, or if I do, the game will be over. I agree to send you on your way unhurt. However, if the night becomes such as that we complete our little game, I will answer the question that’s been making those wheels turn in your head since last night.”
I uncrossed my arms and looked over at him. His amused smile had faded, replaced by an arrogant smirk. “Oh? And what’s that?”
“I will tell you what the Kings do for me.” He glanced my way to gauge my reaction. It must have been exactly what he was expecting because he quickly turned his eyes back to the road. “What do you say? Do you agree?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “And if I play your stupid game and you answer my questions, I still get to walk away, right?”
“Of course,” Marcus answered. “So long as you keep up your end of the bargain we struck yesterday, you’re quite safe. Remember why you’re here in the first place, Judah. Don’t get distracted by a pretty face, whether it’s mine or someone else’s”
“You think very highly of yourself.”
Marcus gave a velvety chuckle that made my heart flutter and the hair on my arms stand up straight. “I’ve earned the right to be a little conceited.”
I thought for a minute longer. “How will I know if you’re lying?”
“That’s the interesting part,” Marcus mused. His eyelids were half closed as if he were fighting falling asleep at the wheel, but I very much doubted that was the case. He seemed to be enjoying himself more than anything. “You know that blood is sacred to my kind. As a practitioner of the arts of magick, you’re aware of its binding power, I presume, and so I posit this. For the terms of this game, you and I shall enter into a sworn blood oath with Cynthia as our witness.”
I didn’t like the sound of that at all, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. It was true that once we were bound, he couldn’t lie to me or I to him without the other one knowing, but I didn’t know the full ramifications of even a limited connection with a vampire like Marcus. I also fully expected him to exploit such a connection to his full advantage however he chose. Sal and Chanter had both been stonewalling me and a little girl’s life was at stake. If I backed out now, I could miss out on crucial information, not just in my effort to decide what to do about Sal. Mia could die. I had let someone else take responsibility for what happened to her for too long. Whatever the consequences were, they couldn’t be as bad as letting Mia slowly fade away.
“So long as the effect is temporary,” I said, and then changed my mind. “A limited bond. One that begins and ends tonight.”
Marcus smiled. “I agree to your terms.”
Chapter Eleven
The car slowed in front of an iron gate at the mouth of a private drive going into a rocky canyon. A guard leaned out of the gate house, a radio in his hand. The gate opened, and the car cruised forward at a snail’s pace. Peeking up, I expected to see armed guards patrolling the walls as I’d seen at his daughter’s house. I didn’t see so much as the red light of a camera. The canyon walls stretched up and butted against the sky, sheer black against star-speckled black. Low lights illuminated the front of a white mansion with palm trees stacked out front. The main house stood in the center of a collection of buildings connected via wooden walkways, awnings, and arched corridors.
It was meant to look welcoming. All I saw was how defensible the place was from attack. He didn’t need Kim’s security. The pl
ace had only one way in and one way out with plenty of sniper perches.
“I thought you had reservations,” I said, leaning forward for a better look.
“I do of sorts,” Marcus answered. “There was a prominent sushi chef turned in Honolulu last month. His mental state is such that his master was unable to keep him controlled and fed. I offered to take him on. He’s quite talented. However, I suspect his control is still quite limited and soon I’ll have to make a decision.”
“What kind of decision?” I asked, even though I thought I already knew. Turned vampires didn’t always adjust well to the change. BSI had put down plenty of crazy ones, but there seemed to be fewer and fewer of those as the government tightened regulations on who could and couldn’t be turned. There was more paperwork required to become a vampire than there was to immigrate into the United States, and there’s a lot of paperwork for that.
“I expect I’ll have to kill him.” He glanced at me and gave a half smile. “And I won’t count that question against you.”
The way he said it made it sound like he was being lenient. We hadn’t yet entered our pact formally, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t start counting my questions. It just meant he could lie to me, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I closed my mouth and decided not to ask any more questions until after the blood oath, even though his answer created more questions.
Normally, crazy vampires were supposed to be handed over to BSI for processing. The agency often looked the other way, however, if the head vampire decided to handle it personally. Marcus had said this sushi chef had been turned in Honolulu, too far for Marcus to have any real influence. It should have been the turned vampire’s master that dealt the killing blow and not a stranger like Marcus.
“Vampires all over seem to afford you such liberties,” I said. I’d been careful not to phrase it as a question and more of an open-ended observation.
Marcus pulled the Rover up in front of the house and put it in park but didn’t get out. He turned his intense, green eyes on me and smiled, pleased, when I averted my gaze. “Come now, Judah. You’re familiar enough with vampire hierarchy to have formed a theory. BSI teaches a course on that in the first year at the academy.”
I did, but that didn’t mean I was right. I’d long suspected Marcus might be making a grab at power. In Europe and Asia, vampire clans like the Stryx and Upyri ran things. They were very old, very powerful families, families that every other family of vampires reported to and worked for. A newly formed vampire in Madrid, for example, belonged to the Stryx by virtue of being turned on Stryx territory. He would be obligated to serve his creator first, coven leader second, and then the Stryx family. Everyone answered to the guy in charge of the Stryx, Alto Continelli. I’d run into Alto’s eldest son, Crux, not that long ago. If the rest of his family was as disgusting and underhanded as Crux had been, I wouldn’t want them in charge of anything.
A federal mandate prevented the formation of new vampire clans on U.S. soil. One of my jobs as a BSI agent was to prevent that from happening. I thought maybe Marcus had been setting himself up as a regional leader. If he meant to form a clan, that had even bigger implications. One of the reasons the supernaturals hadn’t ever managed any kind of revolt or political action was because BSI intentionally kept them from organizing in large groups. A full-blown clan could create even more tension between supernaturals and humans on both the local and national stage, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. All I had were suspicions. Marcus had built himself up to be a pillar of the community and kept his nose clean on paper. I couldn’t stop him from whatever he was planning.
Cynthia got out when the car stopped. A young man emerged from the mansion and jogged down the stairs two at a time. Marcus opened the door and tossed the keys to the Rover at him before coming around to the front of the car. Before he could open my door for me, I did it myself, and slammed it closed. Marcus offered me his arm but, again, I refused it and crossed my arms over my chest. He shrugged as if it didn’t bother him and went to join Cynthia. I followed.
Cynthia, who I had begun to imagine might fill more functions for Marcus than just answering his phones and emails, waited at the top of the stairs. She adjusted her glasses, the lenses catching sheen from the porch light. When we approached, it was her that showed us inside.
My footsteps echoed across the polished marble floor. The foyer had a high, vaulted ceiling that stretched all the way up to the second floor. A single staircase spiraled down from upstairs and a railing ran around the edge of a hall with brightly colored doors. The fountain and lush green trees under a skylight completed the illusion that I’d stepped into an oasis instead of a foyer. It was pretty, but I wasn’t detecting any of the usual signs of a haunting or presence of any kind. If there were ghosts in the house, maybe they were elsewhere.
I turned when I felt Marcus’ eyes on me. He waited next to a door, holding it open. As I stepped through the doorway into the room beyond him, I passed through a veil of power like the one I’d felt at Diabla’s. In fact, the same energy buzzed around me These wards, however, served more to welcome guests and ease them into a false sense of security than to make them uneasy like the wards at the roadhouse. The undercurrent of the magick still had the same, dark, smoky feel and smelled faintly of black licorice. Whoever had put the wards up at the roadhouse had also put these in place.
Once I passed through the doorway, a calmness settled over me that only intensified when Marcus put a hand on my bare shoulder. I was suddenly more aware than ever that I’d only slept a few precious hours the night before. The polished surface of the dining table in the center of the room looked like a good place to lay my head and catch up on all that missed sleep. Someone had been thoughtful enough to fold the napkins so they looked like tiny pillows. I shook my head to clear it. The fog lifted only a little until I pushed it back with a little magick. Even then, I wasn’t completely clear-headed. I was sure I’d come into the dining room for a reason other than a nap, but I couldn’t remember what it was. The thought drifted just out of my reach, and I was content to let it stay there.
Marcus ran his fingers down my arm to grasp my hand. I watched his fingers with distant interest. Wherever they traveled, skin over skin, he left a small tingle behind. “What do you say we get our game started?” He lifted my hand toward his mouth.
There was a reason I wasn’t supposed to let him do that, but the reason seemed so far away, so silly. Why had I ever been afraid of him? After all, he hadn’t been anything but the perfect gentleman to me. In fact, hadn’t he been more pleasant than some of the other men I chose to spend time with? There didn’t seem any harm in letting him continue. Despite that, a small warning pounded away in the back of my mind. I struggled against it, calling it nerves.
It wasn’t until I saw Marcus’ fangs that the fog lifted, and I snapped back into control over my body against screaming alarm bells in my head. I jerked my hand away, balled it into a fist, and punched Marcus in the face.
Punching a vampire is a lot like punching a tree. They can take more damage than most, don’t move, and it usually doesn’t register. But I’d caught Marcus by surprise when I made contact with his jaw. His head jerked to the side and he blinked, dazed.
“If you ever try that bullshit with me again,” I spat at him, “it’ll be more than a fist, and it won’t be your face.”
He flexed his jaw and wiped a hand across his lower lip to make sure it wasn’t bleeding. Then he grinned like a fox. “You never cease to amaze me. I didn’t expect you to break my hold so easily. I won’t make that mistake twice.” He flicked his wrist over and I flinched, but the move hadn’t been an attack. Marcus had produced a pocketknife from somewhere and opened it to draw the blade over the inside of his thumb. Blood welled up where he’d cut himself, too pale to be human. He held the knife out to me. When I didn’t take it, he said, “If you want to continue, you promised me your oath.”
I frowned and plucked the knife from between
his fingers, careful not to initiate any skin to skin contact. After cleaning the blade on one of the napkins I grabbed from the table, I made a small cut over the end of my thumb just as he’d done.
“I swear to agree by the terms laid forth in the car earlier,” Marcus said. “I will answer your questions. I will give you full truth in my responses. You will do the same. When my obligations are met, you and I will part ways unharmed.” He held his hand out to me.
“Ditto,” I answered, and we shook on it.
The familiar buzz of power snapped up around us as we formalized the agreement. I still didn’t let my hand linger in his.
It wasn’t until we retreated to the table that I even remembered Cynthia was with us. She had a penchant for fading into the background, one that I was suspicious of. There are people who can do that kind of thing naturally. More often, it’s a learned talent. A magickal talent. With all the other magick buzzing around the room though, I couldn’t tell if she was doing something or not. Maybe she really was that boring of a person. I doubted it. Marcus didn’t attract boring people.
Marcus took his seat at the head of the table only after pulling out my chair for me, the one on his right, and helping Cynthia into hers on his left. The moment we were seated, a set of double doors behind Marcus opened and three waiters entered, each bearing a white tray that they sat in the center of the table. They lifted the coverings over each tray simultaneously. I wouldn’t call what was underneath the lid food. I’d call it art.
Sushi is always a colorful food, but I’d never seen it presented to look like dragons, koi fish, pandas, or other animals. One tray they brought out later had been done up to look like a peacock. The displays were so impressive, I almost felt guilty about eating them. Almost. Then my stomach reminded me how much effort it took to perform even simple spells like the oath and whatever I’d done to break Marcus’ hold on me. It growled impatiently.
