Hunger Pangs

by Joy Demorra

  “Well, I think. They’re helping Sage set up the new house over in Blackridge. They’ve already found two new potential witches there.”

  “Well, if they need anything, let me know.”

  “Full of chivalry, you are.” Jenee smiled up at him, and Vlad favored her with a pointy grin. “Anyway, what are you up to these days? Hiding away with your books, I take it?”

  “Some nights,” Vlad replied. Calmer now, he emerged from behind his pillar to join her as she stood looking out over the party. He smiled when he saw Riya waltzing on Nathan’s arm, her head tipped back as she laughed at something he said.

  “You’ve had your first dance stolen.”

  Vlad shrugged. “I’ll survive.”

  “What about the rules?”

  Vlad shrugged again. “Technically, Captain Northland probably outranks me. Well, his father outranks the Count. But you never heard that from me.”

  Her eyes followed Captain Northland. “I never thought I’d see the day when there was a werewolf loose in the castle. The Count must have gone spare.”

  “He did. But then I think he rather warmed to the idea of having the Wolf Lord’s son working under him.”

  “He’s been ill.” Jenee’s gaze grew distant as she stared beyond the mortal pale. “I can see it hanging over him. Silver? Why do I see silver?”

  Unsure how much he should disclose, Vlad hesitated for a moment. “Captain Northland was injured in Bhalein. He survived a silver bullet. Though not without complications. I took him to see Dr. Allan. We’re friends now. I think.”

  “You think?”

  Vlad shrugged awkwardly. “You know I’m bad at telling sometimes. Anyway, stop snooping, you.” Vlad gave her button nose a tweak, and she swatted him away playfully. “Not when you’ve got paying customers waiting to have their fortunes told by the great Madame Jenee.”

  “I wasn’t snooping,” Jenee retorted with a poke to his chest. “It’s right there hanging over him like sunrise pushing through fog.”

  “Very poetic.” Vlad’s mouth crooked to the side. “I hate to think what you see hanging over my head.” She frowned, squinting up at him, and Vlad held up his hands. “I don’t want to know.”

  “No, I know.” Jenee’s frown deepened enough that it left a dent between her brows. “But something’s… different.” She blinked, shaking her head. “I can’t tell what it is, though.”

  “Probably my hair,” Vlad replied flippantly, reaching up to tease his fingers through the dark curls.

  Laughing, Jenee smacked his arm playfully as she left his side to go prepare the room set aside for fortune telling.

  It was entirely worth it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  Nathan attempted to keep the three Collins sisters distracted. Dancing. Mild harmless flirting. Whatever he thought would keep them from insisting he have his fortune told. To no avail. As one, the trio seemed to reach an accord. Surrounding him, Kitty and her sisters led him from the dance floor to meet with the infamous Madame Jenee.

  “You can let me walk there on my own, you know. I’m not going to run,” Nathan said as he promptly belied that statement and tried to get away. Utilizing a surprisingly martial pincer maneuver, Sophie and Kitty stopped him. It’d be damned amusing if he weren’t the prey they were corralling.

  Grinning impishly, Kitty wrapped her hands more firmly around his bicep and said, “Yes, but this way’s more fun.”

  The door nearest to them snapped open and a plump, pale figure toppled out, closely followed by an even paler and much taller vampire. The pair spotted the werewolf and his escorts. Eyes widening under their mask, the vampire stepped in front of their partner gallantly before dipping an elegant half bow.

  “Was that Aggie under that mask?” Ree hissed, craning her head around to catch a glimpse of the couple’s departing backs. “Was Agatha in the closet with Rev?”

  “Yep!” Kitty exclaimed in a whisper, her voice breaking apart in a snicker as the sisters descended into giggles.

  “Who’s Rev?” Nathan asked, straining to get a look at the vampire again. He admired the cut of their suit; it was not dissimilar to the style Vlad favored: sleek and trim, with a boutonniere of purple violets and green carnations pinned to their lapel.

  “They’re one of the Southern brood,” Kitty replied as she continued shepherding Nathan down the hall. “Mama says they’re a lady-killer. Personally, I think they’re quite dashing.”

  “Here we are,” Ree said.

  The door to the room opened and a dark haired vampire wearing a witch hat practically bounced out. Her eyes landed on the group and a large toothy smile spread across her features.

  With a toss of her long dark hair, she said, “Madame Jenee is wonderful!”

  Kitty dropped Nathan’s arm, clapping. “Oh! What did she tell you?”

  “She told me I’d catch the eye of someone quite important. Of noble blood, even.” She eyed Nathan appreciatively. “I don’t think we’ve had the honor of meeting, yet. I’m Renae, one of the Southern brood, and you are?”

  Nathan sketched a bow over her extended hand. “Captain Northland, at your service.”

  “Are you really? I might have to take you up on that.” She smiled once again. “I’ll leave you to get your fortune. Perhaps they’ll be a match.” She sauntered away leaving Nathan staring after her in confusion.

  What was he getting himself into?

  Before he could beat a hasty retreat, Kitty grabbed his arm once again while Sophie knocked on the door.

  “Come,” a voice called from within.

  Nathan sighed, allowing himself to be shooed over the threshold. A low fire in the hearth was all that lit the room, and Nathan’s eyes struggled with the sudden darkness after the illuminated splendor of the great hall. Instinctively, he reached for the wolf, pulling it forward enough to see through the shadows draped over the room like a blanket. Which wasn’t all that far from the truth. Thick velvet curtains lined the walls, blocking out what meager light eked in through the windows, muffling the sound of the party until he could barely hear it.

  “It helps keep the noise out.” The lead witch he’d seen earlier smiled ominously at him from across the room. “And in. Welcome, Captain Northland. I’ve been expecting you.”

  “I should hope so,” Nathan replied, traversing the room, the tread of his boots sounding unnaturally loud on the carpeted floor. “Given your line of work.”

  Madame Jenee was seated in front of a table covered in the equipment of supposed psychics everywhere: a deck of cards, a single unlit candle, and a crystal ball took center stage. Nathan eyed them warily.

  “And given yours, I must assume you to be a hardened skeptic. But please, sit.” She gestured to the only other chair.

  Glad to get off of his feet, Nathan did as he was bade. “So,” he said, after a lengthy pause. “Fortune telling. That sounds fake.”

  Madame Jenee inclined her head to the side, blue eyes narrowing as she observed him. “For a creature of magic, you are rather cynical.”

  Nathan shrugged, feeling the now-familiar tug of his leather brace under his jacket. “I haven’t seen much to convince me. Though perhaps you can change that.”

  “Somehow I doubt that.” The witch laughed, a silent flutter of her eyelashes. “Though you are right; most of the people who proclaim psychic ability are frauds.”

  “But not you.” Nathan said, unable to keep the derision out of his voice. “You’re the real mystic deal.”

  Madame Jenee appeared unperturbed by his skepticism. “More often than not I merely listen to people and tell them what they need to hear. If you consider that mystic, then yes, I suppose I am.” Her eyes flashed in the dim light, hard as steel. “But I also have the gift of Sight, even if it rarely manifests for most people. Your choice, of course, dearie.”

  Nathan reached into his pocket and pulled out two coins. Despite his disbelief, he knew the legends: a fortune telling required payment. “Try me,” he said and se
t them down on the cloth covering the table.

  The witch swept a hand over the coins in a mystical gesture, lifting only one of them from the table with the grace of a practiced pickpocket. She reached for the deck of brightly painted cards, shuffling them like a blackjack dealer.

  “Pick a card.” She smiled and offered him the fanned-out selection. “Any card.”

  Nathan hesitated for a moment, considering. Left or right? Right or left? Not that it mattered. Anything she told him would be a flight of fancy anyway. Before he could change his mind, he plucked a card out of the middle.

  “Good. Now, set it down on the table and flip it over.”

  Nathan did as he was told. The image of The Lovers stared back up at him: two figures in a state of undress locked in a loving embrace with a third leaning over them to envelop them in the span of star-scattered wings. Despite himself, Nathan felt his stomach twist. He wasn’t sure why.

  “Interesting.” Madame Jenee leaned closer, her painted nails grazing over the card. “Are you married, Captain?”

  “No.”

  “You will be. Twice, in fact. Two great loves in a single lifetime. How terribly romantic of you. I see… family too. Great joy, success. Hardship…” She blinked, her eyes growing suddenly bright with unshed tears. “Heartache. You’re going to grieve a great deal. I’m so sorry.”

  Nathan crooked his head to the side. “You got all that from one card?”

  Her eyes refocused on him. “No, I got it from you. The card was just the conduit.”

  Nathan frowned, picking up the card and flipping it over, as though there might be something written on the back. “I thought these things weren’t supposed to be literal.”

  “They’re not. But sometimes the Fates have other ideas.”

  Flipping the card back over, Nathan snorted. “So, I’m going to grieve a lot and marry twice. Does it say why? I might try and save myself the trouble of the first marriage if it’s not going to work out.”

  “I never said that,” she countered. She plucked the card from his fingers and shuffled it back into the deck.

  “But I’ll grieve, so one of them has to die, right?”

  “You’re asking a lot of questions for a non-believer, dearie.”

  “What can I say?” Nathan spread his hands wide, forcing a grin onto his face. “You give a very convincing performance.”

  She laughed properly this time, the sound thick with stoppered emotion. Nathan watched as she reached inside her sleeve and pulled out a black lace handkerchief, the edges trimmed with little sequined bats. She blew her nose loudly before tucking it away. “Thank you, Captain. One could almost say the same for you. Is there anything else I can do for you, dearie? Good luck charm? Love spell? Potion to remove any embarrassing ailments?”

  Nathan shook his head, amused. “No thank you, Ma’am. You’ve been most entertaining. I should get back to my friends. They’ll be desperate to hear your prediction.”

  “As you say, Captain. Enjoy the rest of your evening. Please ask whoever is outside to wait a moment before knocking.”

  “You mean you don’t already know?” Nathan asked.

  Madame Jenee made a rude gesture at him in response. He had to admit, he deserved it. He could see why Vlad liked her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  Inside the darkened room, the future continued to twist and fluctuate, collapsing in on itself like a star going nova. Madame Jenee sat with her head in her hands and rubbed her temples. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but the sheer amount of magical energy pouring out of Captain Northland hadn’t been it. He’d left fragments of the future hovering in her peripheral vision like droplets of ink spreading out through clear water.

  She tugged at a few vibrant threads, trying to spool them together. But they refused to be led. Much like the werewolf himself, she thought with a snort. It was lucky she hadn’t attempted anything more showy. The crystal ball would have probably cracked. Or worse exploded. Her cards would need to be completely stripped and cleansed, that much was certain.

  She was just about to spread them out and start the process when her eye caught on the coin left neglected on the table. Whether he’d left it as some sort of gratuity or had merely forgotten, she didn’t know, but she picked it up warily, half expecting it to spark when she did. Which was nonsense, of course. There was too much iron used in coinage for it to hold a magical charge. But still, you never knew… Jenee rolled it distractedly over her knuckles for several moments before coming to a decision and pocketing it. She reached for her teacup, knowing she really oughtn’t look, but also rationalizing that, given the fact she’d be picking bits of his morphic field out of her third eye for weeks, the least he could do was buy her a cup of tea.

  Once she’d drunk the tea down to the last few dregs, she flipped the cup over into its saucer and swirled it around, muttering quietly to herself. When she flipped it back over, she frowned, unable to make sense of what she saw.

  A giant ‘X’ crossed the bottom of the cup. Not a single leaf out of place. That never happened.

  “What?” she demanded. Reaching for her tainted deck of cards, she pulled the first one from the top. An ‘X’ wasn’t a love symbol. It was a symbol of… she flipped the card over.

  Death.

  The card wasn’t meant to be taken literally. Everyone knew that. Death meant change. It meant transformation and new beginnings. It didn’t mean death death. Just in the same way the Lovers card could stand for choices or sacrifice.

  She drew another card. Then another, and another. In desperation, she fanned the remaining cards out facedown, flipping them over with a snap of her fingers. The cards flew through the air, arranging themselves into an unfamiliar formation.

  Endless spirals of Death stared back at her. The hollow visage repeated over and over into infinity. Searing into her mind’s eye. Filling her with dread.

  And the single card in the middle: The Lovers.

  A trio joined. Embracing amidst the sea of darkness.

  Shaken to her very core, Madame Jenee stared for several long moments. The future continuing to warp and writhe around her. Then got up, gathering her cards together. And tossed them into the fire.

  Some things, she reasoned, were better off remaining unknown.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  Vlad leaned against the stone pillar he’d claimed as a hiding spot earlier; the lit cigarette between his fingers trailed a lazy curl of smoke through the air. He’d done the dutiful thing and mingled for a while, keeping Lady Margarete company as she spoke to what felt like everyone at the party. But now Lady Margarete had retired for the evening, wheeled away in her chair by Swithin, so Vlad was almost free to do as he pleased for the rest of the evening.

  “Vlad!”

  Almost.

  He turned to find Kitty and Riya coming toward him with a bemused Nathan trailing behind them.

  “There you are!” Kitty exclaimed, stopping in front of him. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

  “Well, you found me,” Vlad replied as he disintegrated his cigarette.

  “That was quite the theatrical performance you gave earlier,” Riya said with a hint of reproach. “What happened to the speech you spent all week rehearsing?”

  Shrugging, Vlad folded his arms over his chest. “Read it too many times and got bored. What do you want?”

  “Captain Northland’s been telling us all about the Northern reel. Make him come dance with us.” Kitty’s face was flushed with excitement.

  He glanced over the top of their heads to Nathan, who lifted an apologetic hand in greeting. Vlad leaned forward, speaking in a loud whisper, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he’s right there. You could ask him yourselves. And besides,” he straightened, crooking an eyebrow at the sheepish werewolf, “I’m sure you’re far more capable of convincing him to do things than I would be.”

  “We have asked him. But we need the band to play something different, and Mama pre-
approves all the music,” Riya explained. “And we need a fourth partner to make the set.”

  Ah, Vlad thought. They need not one, but two pushovers to rope into their antics. Marvelous. He sighed as he glanced between the young women, already resigned to his fate but dragging it out because it felt like the brotherly thing to do. “Oh, all right, fine. Go tell the dance master. Tell him I said it was all right.”

  “Thank you, thank you!” Riya let out a giddy squeal and flung her arms around him before shooting off, pulling a giggling Kitty behind her.

  “I feel like the word ‘sorry’ should leave my mouth,” Nathan said.

  Vlad snorted. Their shoulders brushed as they followed Kitty and Riya, and Vlad felt a visceral thrill run down his spine. From his gut, a pang of guilt twisted up to meet it. “It’s fine.” Vlad waved the apology off. “Riya loves to dance, and I’ve been neglecting her all night. Might as well humiliate myself trying to remember the steps to a dance I haven’t done in over two hundred years to make up for it.”

  Nathan bumped his shoulder against Vlad’s in a gesture that was likely meant to be comforting but made Vlad want to melt out of his skin. “It’s easy. It’s like a quadrille and a two-step combined.”

  “Oh, is that all?” Vlad said with the faintest of smiles. The prickling heat under his skin spread to his chest when Nathan laughed, the sound making his heart do alarming things. You stop that, he scolded it. We didn’t die four hundred years ago for you to suddenly remember how to work now.

  “I have no doubt you’ll manage just fine. You’re light on your feet. And by the way, while I remember. This is for the little stunt you pulled earlier and making my heart almost stop.” Nathan flicked Vlad on the arm hard enough for it to sting.

  “Ow!” Vlad protested. He rubbed at his arm with more feeling than was necessary—another guilty twist of arousal flooded through him at the sympathetic noise Nathan made despite being the source of his pain. He realized with horrifying clarity that this scenario would also likely work its way into his fantasies. This is it, Vlad thought, a manic giggle bubbling up in his chest like the contents of a shaken champagne bottle. This is how I finally go mad…