by Faith Hunter
“I am possessed of a classical education,” Brian said with a pretentious sniff, “but that book isn’t Latin, Greek, French, Italian, or modern Castilian Spanish. It’s some archaic form of Spanish. I can make out the name of this vampire, however.”
He reached around me, his body heat enveloping me like a warm blanket, and turned one page back. I had sparred with the B-twins once and their body heat had made the windows of the room sweat. I was cold now and wanted to lean into him. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Grégoire’s blood-servant pointed at the subtitle on the top of the page. “‘Lucas Vazquez de Allyon. El Rival de la Muerte.’ Death’s Rival.”
I took a slow breath, the air painful against my tight throat tissues. Lucas had known skinwalkers. Had killed skinwalkers. De Allyon was not just Leo’s enemy. He was mine as well.
“I have to get back to the door,” he said. “You’ll need to talk to Leo about the text. He can read it.” Brian walked away.
I remembered seeing books in the Pellissier Clan Home before it burned, secured in small, locked cases in his library and in his music room. How could I ask Leo about the text without having him see the yellow eyes of the prostrated Indians and draw a conclusion I wanted him to avoid? He had already seen me in a partial shift. He knew I was some kind of supernatural cat, though not a were. I didn’t smell like a were. Unless I left the vamps, and the hefty paychecks they offered, the time was coming when my secret would be made public, whether I wanted that to happen or not. But I wanted it to be a time of my choosing, not something that I let happen with no direction, no control.
I studied the small painting beneath de Allyon’s name. It was a pen-and-ink miniature of a vampire in his fully human guise, his eyes and hair dark brown, his nose large and Roman, jaw firm, forehead wide, with a beard and mustache in the style that used to be called a Vandyke. He wasn’t pretty, not even handsome, but he looked powerful, forceful, domineering, a man who never took no for an answer. The artist had managed to catch the brutal curl of his lips, and his disdain for anything and anyone who wasn’t him.
The heavy paper moving stiffly, I turned the page back to the picture of the conquistador and his dead prey, staring at the yellow-eyed woman, terrified at de Allyon’s feet. I realized that he wanted all of his enemies beneath his feet, and probably all his women. Captive and fearful.
On the next page was another miniature, but now de Allyon was wearing cloth pants and an animal skin over his shoulders. It was a mountain lion pelt, the puma’s head propped on one shoulder, showing killing teeth. The chill I was feeling spread and my fingertips tingled. Lying dead at his feet were more mountain lions. One had a human head. Another had human hands and feet. One was a black panther, the melanistic Puma concolor, a mythical beast as far as science was concerned. All were bound and bleeding from many wounds, but the largest wounds were at their throats where fangs had torn them out. De Allyon had killed my kind and drunk their blood.
Sabina had said, “Your enemy will know you by your smell.” She knew.
The protectors of the Cherokee had been captured and slaughtered to feed the blood appetite of a Naturaleza vampire. I felt tears prick at the back of my eyes and I breathed deeply to control my reaction, but my hands grew icy and my breath came short and fast.
The vamp was sitting in a gilded chair, vamped out, fangs down, his eyes black and scarlet, and he was holding a golden bowl, filled with blood. Blood streamed from his mouth and down his naked chest. De Allyon looked odd. It took a moment to figure out why he looked so different from any other vamp I’d seen. He was . . . not fat, but not cadaverously skinny. Most vamps looked . . . starved. Yeah. That was the difference.
Things started to click into place in my mind as I stared at the bloody, violent creature on the page. With the blood flowing down his chin and chest, it was clear the artist had been trying to show us that de Allyon had been drinking blood. A lot of blood. When vamps drank a lot of blood, they were well fed and powerful. Only the Naturaleza drank as much as they wanted.
I had fought a Naturaleza once, but the fight had been too fast, too violent for me to pay attention to his body. That and the fact that he’d nearly killed me. I closed my eyes and thought back to the kaleidoscopic images from the day. Thomas had drained and killed several humans. When I killed him, he had been mostly naked, but I hadn’t seen any ribs, stark through his flesh. No jutting collarbones. No chiseled jaw or sharp cheekbones. Yeah. Vamps got flesh on their bones when they drank a lot of blood. This vampire drank whatever and whoever he wanted. This vampire was why there were so few of my kind left in the world. He had killed them. Killed them and drunk down their blood.
Before, the fight against de Allyon had been a job. Now it was something far more. This thing that threatened me and my charges needed to be killed. And that was what skinwalkers did. We fought for our people.
Skinwalkers took vengeance on our enemies. I didn’t think that when God said vengeance was his, he meant for skinwalkers to act in his behalf. But I was. I was going to be the hand of God that took down Death’s Rival.
I turned another page and saw the last drawing, this one too tiny to see details. I looked around the room but didn’t see what I was looking for. I had been in Arceneau’s Clan Home and there was a library in the back, on the other side of the stairs. I hadn’t been invited to roam, but I carried the book with me, back to where I had once smelled books and the mold that clings to them. I opened the door to find the library empty and looked around. Books lined the walls from floor to the twelve-foot-high ceiling; comfortable reading chairs with low tables and ottomans were scattered around. A gas fire crackled merrily in a small hearth. There was a large magnifying glass on a bronze-hinged arm clamped to an antique desk, and I crossed the hardwood floor to it, holding the book’s page beneath. It was a drawing of a priest holding a sword in one hand, a cross in the other. He was running, his dark robe flying out behind him. The cross was blazing like a torch. In the distance a black horse raced, a man perched on its back. De Allyon outracing the Inquisition, maybe? It would explain why the man had disappeared so often. I wandered back through the house, the book in both gloved hands, one finger holding my place.
I was back in the dining room, surrounded by Leo’s priceless things and the stench of smoke, when I realized the most important thing of all. Lucas Vazquez de Allyon would know what I was the moment he saw me. The moment he smelled me.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I’d Save the Last Bullet for Me
I sat on my bed surrounded by readouts, stacks of printed paper, and a pad, as well as my laptop, with half a dozen tabs open online and twice that many files open. I was studying several things at once: the Vampira Carta, the deep background histories of Leo’s people and Derek’s Vodka and Tequila Boys. I was also looking for a way out of the trouble I was in, the trouble Leo was in, and was searching for the traitor we still had to have in Leo’s ranks. Though I couldn’t totally rule out anyone, I had narrowed it all down to two vamps—both longtime troublemakers: Amitee Marchand and Fernand Marchand—and two Tequila Boys, both new men on Derek’s team: Tequila Sunrise and Sneak Cheek. Both had been present at the raid on de Allyon’s three-story building in Natchez, and both had significant financial troubles. Worse, I didn’t know them well enough to make a judgment on their trustworthiness or lack thereof. Just in case, I sent texts to Bruiser, warning him to either keep all four away from the parley or keep eyes on them. I could deal with the problem people—alive and undead—later, when other situations were handled, and concentrate for now on the parley, and what I might do to fix things.
The day was mostly gone when I figured out what I could do. Could do. Maybe. If I could pull it off. I fell back on the bed and stared at the clean ceiling, thinking. Working it through. Crap. This was gonna be a booger. Leo and Bruiser were dead set (pun intended) on a parley with the murderer de Allyon and his scions, and I was going to be there, undercover, so to speak.
I’d had little sleep in days. L
ittle sleep, less rest. The parley was fast approaching. Beast, normally so active in my mind, had been silent, watching, as tense and expectant as I was. She knew we were about to face an enemy, and she chose now to put a paw on my mind and force me into a deep sleep.
* * *
It was nearly sunset, two days before the new moon, and I was dressed for hunting, not in pelt and claws, but wearing guns and blades and lots of silver. And, weirdly enough, wearing makeup.
“So. Whadda you think?” Christie asked. She was popping gum, a black eyeliner pencil in one hand and a large dusting brush in the other. Her clothes were opaque, thank God, or the lights in my bathroom would have revealed far more than I wanted to see.
“She looks hot,” Deon said from the corner chair, his voice awed. “And scary as a demon.” He crossed himself.
I didn’t react, except to turn, my reflection turning with me in the mirror. I was wearing thirteen wood stakes and thirteen silver-tipped stakes in pouches and loops. I wore armored leathers, butt-stomper combat boots, and I was carrying newly sharpened blades—three heavily silvered vamp-killers and four throwing knives—and my vial of holy water.
I carried the two red-gripped Walthers in Blackhawk vertical shoulder holsters, on top of a skintight vest and T-shirt, the M4 on my back in its old harness, a short-sword-length vamp-killer in one boot, and a nice little, dependable .38 revolver in the other. A nine-mil was strapped against my spine under the vest and another was at my waist in a belt holster, next to two CS canisters. Two flashbangs were on the other hip, so I didn’t get the canister-style grenades mixed up with the colloidal silver ones. My gold nugget necklace now also carried my emergency shifting tooth, the tooth of the biggest Puma concolor I had ever seen. I had wired the tooth into a loop and now wore the nugget and tooth on the double gold chain underneath the double vamp-collars that protected my throat from vamp-teeth and talons. I was carrying a good twenty pounds of gear, enough to clank when I walked. But I had spent the time adjusting everything to make sure that I didn’t.
Christie handed me a tube and I slashed on crimson lipstick, the same shade as the Walthers’ grips. My hair was in a queue so tight my scalp hurt, and my tiny derringer was knotted into the bun, a last-ditch weapon. I figured if I got down to that one, I’d save the last bullet for me.
I studied myself in the mirror, my coppery skin a rich hue against the black of my clothes and my hair. My eyes were all wrong, and that might save my life. I was sporting heavy eyeliner in an ancient Egyptian style, eye shadow in a storm-cloud gray, and—most importantly—a brand-new pair of colored contact lenses. I now had eyes so dark they looked vamp-black. They made me blink, but they weren’t completely uncomfortable. I looked like a pureblooded Tsalagiyi, not like a skinwalker. Not at all. As long as I stayed far enough away from de Allyon so that he couldn’t smell me, I should be safe. Yeah. Right.
“Well?” The single word was laced with emotion and meaning—sarcasm, mockery. If Christie had added, “You idiot,” to the question, her meaning would have been no clearer.
“I look like an Enforcer,” I said.
“Yes, you do.”
I turned to see Bruiser standing at my bedroom door and I almost did a double take. I had seen the primo in a tux, in a business suit, in casual dress, in night camo, and in jeans. I had also seen him soaking wet in my shower. But I had never seen him wearing Enforcer garb. Not ever. My breath drew in over my tongue, and Beast peeked out at the world through my eyes. I lowered my lashes, so he wouldn’t see my black contact lenses, knowing he would think I was being coy or shy, rather than devious.
“Now, that is hot,” Christie said, crossing the room to him. “To-tal-ly hot. Sugar, if you want to come work off some excess energy before the parley, I am your girl.” She ran her hand from his collarbones, across his chest, and down his abs. He caught her wrists before she could head farther south. I could hear Deon gulp from across the room, and the pheromones of lust and excitement filled the air.
A slight smile lifted Bruiser’s mouth, but his eyes never left me. “Thank you, Christie. But I am fine.”
And indeedy he was. Bruiser was wearing armored leather and weapons from top to toe, formfitting, clearly handcrafted, matte black leather, four guns that I could see, two knives, and the two short swords I had given him at his waist, the scabbards set for a cross draw, or whatever they called it in sword fighting. His brown hair was slicked back, the goop he’d used making it look nearly as dark as mine.
Bruiser crossed the room to me and stood behind me for a moment. Fast as a magician, he slipped my silver and titanium throat protector around my neck. I hadn’t seen it since that awful night in Leo’s lair when Katie had removed it from my neck and I had discovered just how little protection it really was. Bruiser latched it, the metal icy on my throat, his fingers hot. “I’m sorry,” he said. I nodded, the motion jerky.
He stood beside me, our reflections side by side in the mirror, his fingers still touching my throat. “We are perfect together,” he said. And though I didn’t know if he meant perfect as a fighting pair or as a couple, my Beast purred. Bruiser’s smile widened. He took my hand and lifted it, curling my knuckles under. His lips pressed into them, hotter than human, and that heat seemed to zing through me like lightning on roofies. A memory of big-cat scent followed on the trail of the heat. Rick . . .
Christie said, “Son of a bitch. I never guessed.”
Deon swatted her. “Language,” he hissed.
I never got the chance to ask her what she had never guessed because Bruiser turned me in a dance step as elegant as anything from a Victorian ballroom and led the way to the front door. Eli waited there, geared up in black-and-gray camo combat clothes, night-vision gear on a strap around his neck, with crosses, silvered blades, and trank guns in among his regular battle gear.
He looked us over, expressionless, taking in our enmeshed fingers and our lookalike clothes. “Just so you know,” he deadpanned, “no way am I dressing up in leather. Not now, not ever. Don’t ask.”
“Never crossed my mind,” Bruiser murmured. “My lady, your carriage awaits.” He opened the door, I picked up my go-bag, and Eli pulled his headgear in place, crouched, and took point. Alex followed.
In a standard security detail, we had four vehicles, Derek’s men driving SUVs before us and after, his cadre of men geared up for battle, one I hoped to avoid. Wrassler drove the limo, Vodka Hi-Fi was in charge of the SUV in front. Angel Tit, redeemed and forgiven, drove the point vehicle, with Eli and Tequila Sneak Cheek in the back: Eli was keeping a eye on Sneak Cheek for any signs he was our mole. If he was, I wouldn’t want to be him if Eli went all Ranger on his butt. Chi-Chi and Sunrise were in an SUV directly behind the limo. The SUVs were full of Leo’s best fighters, all decked out in evening wear. Kabisa and Karimu—sworn to Grégoire and Clan Arceneau, and looking like Egyptian monuments—were in identical designer sheaths that sparkled with crystals sewn into the cloth and blades strapped to their thighs. Koun and Hildebert wore tuxedos, Koun’s Celtic blue tattoos stark on his pale skin, his sword at his waist. Sabina, the priestess, rode with them. I was surprised to see Lorraine and Cieran, who had been part of an uprising against Leo only a few months past, but maybe they volunteered to make points with the boss. Ronald, the Texan, heir to and sworn to Bouvier’s coleaders, was in jeans and boots, with six-shooters at his hips. Alejandro and Estavan, both of Spanish origin wore swords. Five others I didn’t know. Until tonight, I had been included in the decisions for choosing the vamps who would be present in difficult parleys, but I had left the plans to Bruiser and the details to Eli and Derek. I had other things to concentrate on. Like staying alive.
Derek and the rest of his men were waiting for Alex to tell them where to search for Katie. They were decked out for armed search and rescue and soon they would be waiting near Leo’s helo, and two armored Humvees ready to fly—or drive fast—as soon as we got coordinates for Katie.
Leo, Grégoire, Bruiser, Eli, and I r
ode in tense silence. Leo had something up his sleeve, something I had not been informed about. If I had been preparing security on this gig, that would have made me a tad antsy. Okay, it would have made me mad. But I was not security. I was an Enforcer. Except, not really. I had shifted enough and Beast had loosened—maybe broken—Leo’s binding on my soul, just in time to actually need some good vamp power. Go, me. My timing sucked. Bruiser had suggested I’d be safer if I was bound more tightly to Leo. I figured I’d rather be in danger, thank you very much.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
Leo said softly, “The Nunnery.”
“Ah. Of course.” The Nunnery was a converted warehouse in the Warehouse District of New Orleans, and was owned by the Council of Mithrans. It was used by the clans for soirees and events, and for self-help workshops on the top ten ways to seduce a human for dinner, for all I knew. It also had a steel-barred cage in the basement suitable for holding werewolves through the full moon, or a rogue vamp until it could be dealt with. I’d seen the cage once, when I was trying to help Rick deal with his first full moon. That seemed like ages ago now.
“Are you sufficiently prepared?” Leo asked.
I wanted to screech, “No!” like Beast, but I kept it in. “I’m good,” I lied. “I’m okay.”
Bruiser had sent me instructions on the parley and my part in the two-hour meeting. Vamps in parley used a form of parliamentary procedure similar to Robert’s Rules of Order, and Bruiser had sent me the words I was supposed to say when discussion turned to the accusation of murder and the trial. I had memorized the phrases that would keep de Allyon and his scions busy for as long as it took Leo’s people to locate and rescue Katie, but that rescue was no way guaranteed, even with Reach and Alex both working on invading every cell phone carried by the enemy and tracking every GPS, call, and text made on the units in the last two days. Yet, even if everything went off without a hitch, nothing about tonight was guaranteed. I might be forced into a trial. Katie might not be found, not in only two short hours.
