Bond of Blood

by Diane Whiteside

  How had he survived seventy years without learning even a trace of caution? "Do you truly believe Don Rafael's men aren't watching every place that has what we need? And couldn't tell when someone has had their memories wiped by a vampiro?" He finished easing out the cork and poured himself a glass.

  "Madame is impatient."

  Ah, now we come to the real problem. She has you by the balls, my friend, and you're only thinking about what she wants. "Is she ready?"

  Devol snorted. "Certainement—and she'll be back any minute."

  "Where the fuck have you been?" snapped an electronic voice.

  Both men swung to face the screen. Beau bowed as elegantly as the centuries had taught him.

  Madame Celeste was pacing the room in front of the bed, dressed in an almost transparent mini slip dress. Eleven o'clock and she hadn't fed. Damn.

  "A pleasure to see you again, madame."

  "Why is Don Rafael still alive?" she snapped. "You've had over a week to kill him." The videoconference connection between them conveyed her foul temper all too well.

  At this distance, she couldn't kill him immediately and Devol was too young to be a threat. Beau chose to speak part of the truth. "The only compañero we managed to subvert was immediately discovered and executed. We can only buy spies in the cities, not in the Hill Country near his estates. He's smart enough to stay where we can't reach him."

  "Or cowardly enough," Devol sneered.

  "Don't underestimate him, Devol," Madame Celeste retorted. "If he's staying at Compostela, it's probably because he can best control his damn spies and saboteurs from there. We must stop him now before I lose any more money."

  "I'll have to spy on him personally, in order to plan the ambush," Beau offered. Give me permission to go in close, bitch; you still hold the purse strings.

  She pursed her lips as she considered his suggestion, her magnificent breasts displayed to full advantage by the dress's deep neckline. "You could shoot him from hiding, as you did that party flunky in Kazakhstan. Just tell me before you do it, so I can be ready to move in and take over."

  "No!" How the hell was anyone supposed to crawl across ten miles of rough country, every inch guarded by the best mesnaderos in the world? Even Kazakhstan hadn't had such strong defenses.

  Devol started to pull a Smith & Wesson revolver. Irritated beyond endurance by his idiocy, Beau whirled and gripped his wrist, stopping him before the revolver had lifted so much as five millimeters from its holster. He snarled and Devol jerked, then glared back.

  Beau tightened his grip, impatient to end this. Devol's lips tightened stubbornly. Beau ground the bones together, breaking the man's wrist. The gun slid back into the leather. Beau released the fool and Devol sullenly retreated to the bar.

  Beau finished his champagne. Devol would heal within a few hours, sooner if he killed someone before then.

  Madame Celeste's chilly voice cut through the room again. "No? Why are you refusing me, golden boy?"

  He poured himself some more champagne. When would the young bitch start thinking about what was readily achievable, not what she wanted? "Do you want him to die that easily? Don't you want him to suffer before he dies? To humiliate him?"

  "What are you thinking of?"

  "Making Don Rafael crawl."

  "Ce n'est-ce pas possible, cher," Devol remarked and opened his beer bottle with his teeth.

  "If I destroyed something that he valued above anything else, he'd break." Beau was certain of this, more certain than anything else. If Rodrigo's wife and children had faced the rack then died, Rodrigo would have broken.

  There was a long, considering silence. Devol glanced at his mistress for guidance. She studied Beau, a crimson fingernail tapping her bedpost.

  "Don Rafael is a very sentimental man," she drawled at last, "with some ridiculous soft spots, like those horses of his. Very well, you may have two more weeks."

  Beau bowed low. "Merci beaucoup, madame."

  "Don't push your luck, golden boy." She turned to her enforcer. "Devol, start recruiting the army we spoke of."

  Army? Beau came on alert. He didn't want any extra complications in his plans to kill Rafael.

  "Oui, madame. The Mexican vampiros have agreed to let other vampiros come through their esfera under escort. Your army should start arriving in Brownsville within a few days."

  "Congratulations, Devol. You've accomplished what no one has managed in two centuries," Beau remarked, swirling his champagne in the delicate glass. He kept his face a mask of angelic agreement. He'd have to slaughter at least some of those newcomers, after he killed Don Rafael, thereby delaying his enjoyment of the Texas esfera. "Don Rafael's alférez mayor is legendary for his ruthless destruction of any bandolerismo who try to enter Texas."

  Devol preened, his wrist now bandaged in cloth napkins. "Give me the chance and I'll show Ethan Templeton who's the better enforcer!"

  "Gentlemen, enough of this backslapping," Madame Celeste broke in impatiently. "Hide the hired guns in San Antonio as soon as possible. They must be able to move on Austin and Dallas the minute that cretin Don Rafael departs this earth."

  Devol bowed. "As you wish, madame."

  "Any questions, gentlemen? Magnifique; you're finally learning to obey." Her voice dripped acid. "Now go and make yourself useful, while I dine."

  She pointed the small black box at the screen and clicked the videoconference off. An instant later, Devol finished his Corona.

  Beau smiled sweetly at his fellow conspirator, considering then discarding ways to kill the brute. He'd need to destroy both Devol and Madame Celeste far sooner than he'd planned. Bandolerismo in Texas would raise a prosaico mob faster than the ones he'd heard howling in Moscow.

  Jean-Marie trailed Hollingsworth's stooped figure through the old house, eyes and nose alert for anything out of the ordinary. He'd met him here after the federal prosecutor had worked late into the night in his usual pattern. No one else knew Jean-Marie was here, his usual approach to handling situations like this.

  The lumber magnate's nineteenth-century mansion had recently been restored to its original glory, replete with period wallpaper and carved wood paneling on every wall and ceiling. Genuine paintings from its birth, including a pair of Sargent portraits worth far more than its owner's annual salary, occupied strategic positions, emphasized by professionally hidden lights. Antique Bokhara and Turkistan rugs covered the floors. The furniture was a mix of comfortable modern reproductions and excellent antiques, all extremely expensive.

  But underneath the scent of ostentatious floral decorations and frequent applications of lemon furniture oil was the faint, distinctive odor of Madame Celeste's perfume, made exclusively for her in Paris.

  Jean-Marie smiled politely again and again, no matter what he saw or smelled. He wore it when he nearly gagged over Madame Celeste's rotten scent. His hands tightened convulsively, causing his knives to shift slightly in their leather sheathes. He forced himself back to a guest's polite appreciation of hospitality.

  Finally Hollingsworth stopped in the library and waved Jean-Marie to a chair. Here, leather-bound books lined the walls from floor to ceiling of the two-story room, hidden from daylight by heavy draperies. A superb Victorian humidor had pride of place on the central table, while the walls and ceilings bore subtle testimony to the ventilation and fire protection needed to permit men to enjoy cigars in an old wooden structure.

  The entire space reeked of Madame Celeste.

  Jean-Marie prowled around its octagonal boundaries, observing everything he could. Chère Hélène had once teased him that, at six feet three, he was far too tall to behave so much like a cat.

  "Cigar?" Hollingsworth asked, his gray eyes wary above his white mustache. He cultivated the image of an old Southern aristocrat, although his father was unknown and his mother had been a Laredo barmaid.

  "Yes, thank you," Jean-Marie agreed. He settled himself into the wing-backed chair offered and stretched his legs out. He'd introduced himself a
s a lawyer from the Santiago Trust, which was true enough. But anyone who tried to swim with big money in Texas knew that very few lawyers openly admitted to being from the Santiago Trust—and the ones who did talk about it weren't the fellows you wanted to meet.

  Thankfully, the rituals of lighting a cigar would speed learning what Ethan wanted.

  Hollingsworth's eyes flickered at Jean-Marie's fast agreement but he quickly recovered. He unlocked the humidor, using a key on his watch chain, and extracted a tray of cigars. He offered it ceremoniously to Jean-Marie, who coolly considered the various cigars for the expected factors—oiliness, firmness, texture, consistency of wrapper color—while expecting them all to be fully satisfactory. Then he selected the one he'd wanted all along and waited for his host.

  The gray-haired lawyer chose one, returned the tray to its source, and sat down opposite his guest. Fingers steady but pulse just a little too fast, he unwrapped his cigar, never once looking at his guest. Still moving in the fixed pattern of the habitual smoker, he reached for the table drawer.

  "What do you use to cut your cigar?" Jean-Marie asked conversationally, balancing one of his knives on his finger. Emilio had given him one of the deadly, black SEAL knives, so superbly effective and frightening.

  Hollingsworth's head came up—and he froze. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down in his throat.

  "Personally, I prefer a fine knife," Jean-Marie continued, keeping the weapon rock steady. "What do you think?"

  The other's throat worked but no sound came out.

  "Knives do have the advantage of being useful for other purposes, such as eating. Or persuading traitors to talk."

  Hollingsworth's eyes grew bigger. He clutched his cigar as if it could protect him. "You must be speaking of someone else," he began, his heartbeat skyrocketing, according to Jean-Marie's excellent vampiro hearing.

  "Or killing, especially men who consort with enemy patrones from other esferas." Jean-Marie's hand twitched—and the knife thudded into the chair beside Hollingsworth's head.

  The man gasped and dropped his cigar. A foul odor uniquely prosaico, that of empty bowels, poured into the room.

  Another SEAL knife appeared in Jean-Marie's hand, this one held unabashedly ready for immediate use. "You have seen the mesnaderos work on others and believed you were immune, because they swore they'd never touch you. I swore no such oath and can do whatever I please."

  Hollingsworth fought to recover himself. "I have nothing to confess," he declared, head held high as if he stood on a courthouse's steps.

  Jean-Marie tsked. "Try teaching your grandmother to suck eggs, fool. Any vampiro could tell you this house reeks of Madame Celeste. For consorting with her without our permission, you know you deserve death."

  The man flinched, mouth drawing tight, acknowledgment in his faded eyes. Jean-Marie tested the blade's edge on his thumb, watching the other hunt for an escape. His voice was deadly soft when he spoke again.

  "Which category do you want to fall into, m'sieu? Someone who lived to speak—or the dead? It makes no difference to me which you choose. You have one minute to decide."

  The old lawyer drew in on himself, eyes darting around the room. Jean-Marie waited patiently, knife at the ready.

  Fifty seconds later, Hollingsworth began to talk.

  Rafael turned the doorknob and stepped into the bungalow's small living room. A message left on his answering machine was not the same as speaking to his frustrating new amante. He heard Emilio and his bodyguards take up position outside, confident after a week of this unusual relationship that no one else could readily observe his arrival here.

  "Grania?" •

  "I'm in the bathroom. You can come on back; I'm dressed," she called, her voice slightly muffled. "Just braiding my hair."

  Rafael stepped into the tiny bedroom, shaking his head. One touch of a cónyuge bond but little hint of anything since, even though he'd spent every night in her bed. Surely he'd dreamed that moment. And yet—could he afford to deny his esfera the chance of such a weapon, even if she was a prosaica and would die in a few decades? No.

  It was the only reason for being here—that, and the ever-astounding twists and turns of her mind, and the pleasures of her superb body, and…

  "Sorry I'm running late." She smiled at him in the bathroom mirror.

  "De nada, querida. One of the joys of dating a doctora is waiting for her." He smiled at her as charmingly as he could, eyeing how her hands rapidly tamed her heavy mass of hair, as he leaned against the bathroom door. One day, Dios mediante, she would make a display of her fiery hair for him.

  She blushed scarlet. Her hands fumbled and stopped, forgetting the braid's pattern. Ay de mi, Grania truly had so little idea of how magnificently sensual she was.

  "Uh, ah, why don't you wait for me in the bedroom?" she suggested. "There's not really enough space in the bathroom for both of us."

  Rafael considered the bathroom's potential for lovemaking, as compared to his Mercedes, his helicopter, or his penthouse.

  Grania followed his eyes and flushed again.

  "Of course, querida. Anticipation"—he caressed her with his eyes—"will make the heart beat faster."

  She choked.

  Well-pleased with her response to his flirtation, he stepped back. A narrow bed, small as a monk's cot, sliced diagonally across the room.

  A large, green armoire and matching bookcase covered the only sizable wall. Rafael edged carefully around the bed, automatically crossing himself before the crucifix at its head, and headed for the books.

  The ones in the living room were scientific tomes, school textbooks, and great works of literature. But these well-thumbed, frequently ragged volumes held entirely different subject matter. A few were adventure novels, while some were romances. But much of it composed one of the best small libraries of sexuality he'd ever seen. Nonfiction and fiction jostled each other for space. Guide to Getting It On! sat cozily with the superb books from Good Vibrations and a huge array of scientific tomes, self-help guides, and highly specialized small references. Classics like Sappho and Catullus, great BDSM literature such as Venus in Furs and the Beauty trilogy, were wedged next to still more novels. She had a particularly large number of art books—but perhaps that wasn't surprising, considering how much she'd enjoyed watching him pleasure Brynda.

  Rafael lifted an eyebrow as he considered the wide range of subjects represented, as well as Grania's evident appetite for carnal education. Even if obtaining a conyugal bond with her proved impossible, he would greatly enjoy introducing her to a wider range of sensual activities.

  This did mean a great deal of involvement with her, which could endanger her. If his enemies decided to take her hostage… His blood boiled.

  ¡Nunca!

  He'd order Ethan to protect her very carefully. Whether she was his cónyuge or not, she was his amante and he would look after her.

  "Train coming through," reported Emilio.

  Ethan affirmed his understanding and shifted slightly, careful to keep the refrigerated warehouse in sight from behind the big truck. As soon as the late-afternoon train was past with the last possible witnesses, they'd go in.

  He glanced sideways at Don Rafael, who stood at the narrow road's edge with his visor open, testing the air for their quarry. He twitched, silently longing to shove his creador into a truck and send him back to Compostela and safety. Even if he could pull that off—hah!—only a vampiro mayor could track another vampiro mayor, because only a vampiro mayor's senses were sharp enough to catch the few faint whiffs of scent emitted by another. So, like it or not, Don Rafael was a member of this raid.

  The two of them, plus their fellow vampiros, were sheathed in black body armor from head to foot, complete with black shields, batons, helmets, and tinted visors. Its layers of Kevlar were sufficient to keep the deadly sunlight from their skin, thus protecting their lives. Faceless and deadly, they had the look of medieval knights rather than twenty-first-century men, except for their shotg
uns and revolvers. Even the small grove of oak trees and green grass where they waited, once a corporate park, seemed more attuned to centuries past than modern days.

  "La Compañía Wolf ready," Gray Wolf reported. He and Jean-Marie led the two other vampiros compañías, also waiting downwind of the warehouse. Caleb would be the only non-vampiro inside, guarding Gray Wolf's back through the adamantine conyugal bond, as Gray Wolf guarded his.

  The ground trembled underfoot as the big freight train began to roar through, flooding the air with the heavy, rich aroma of cattle.

  Even so, they took no chances that their prey might be spooked by a stray whiff of other vampiros. Their armor's scent was a disguise—pure prosaico. Every item on their bodies had last been worn by a prosaico policeman who'd gladly traded it for a new, top-of-the-line outfit. Don Rafael's prosaicos had carefully handled the armor every step of the way since then, including fastening every buckle and strap today.

  Compañero snipers guarded the rooftops, too high for the enemy vampiros to smell. Trusted prosaicos drove the big police trucks. Helicopters circled at a distance suitable for traffic helicopters, and would rapidly move closer as soon as the compañías entered. Thankfully, the warehouse was slated for remodeling and therefore empty. The local police had been told this was a movie company shoot, involving live fire.

  The other vampiros on his compañía were lounging around, most watching Don Rafael. His best men, they'd all been on raids with the Old Man at least once before. They'd form a lethal buzz saw behind him on this one, should it come to violence.

  Don Rafael's head came up, his eyes narrowing. The men stiffened and Ethan's hand automatically dropped to his Ruger. Good revolver, deadly accurate, perfect for the one-shot stop necessary in vampiro duels.

  "Your report was correct," Don Rafael remarked slowly.

  "Two vampiros inside?" Ethan asked. "Each fifty years old?"