by Sarah Zettel
“You were going to do it anyway.”
“I was not!”
This declaration was not only less than strictly true; it left me with the feeling that I’d suddenly reverted to being six years old. And, for the record? It was no fun at all being six years old with two vampires looking down at you in amused disbelief.
Chet turned back to Anatole. “Brendan’s going to want in too. She’ll tell him.”
“That had occurred to me.”
I was going to have to get some more girlfriends. I’d had it about up to here with the testosterone squad.
“Do I actually need to be here for this?” I demanded. “Because if you two have important man talk, I’ll just go back to my knitting.”
Anatole looked at his watch. “I believe we are finished. Renault will be contacting me later tonight. I’ll tell him we will meet here tomorrow.”
“Not here,” I said. “I’m not risking Nightlife, or any of my people over this.”
Anatole waved, conceding the point. “Where would you suggest?”
“I’ve got a friend with a little place in Midtown.” I was even fairly sure I could talk Mel into going along with the operation. His sense of drama and gallantry would rise to the occasion, as long as he didn’t have any events planned.
“I will trust you to make the arrangements then,” said Anatole. “Will nine p.m. suit?”
“Would it actually matter if I said no?”
“Of course it would. But I do not anticipate it becoming an issue.”
My answer was cut off by the roof door opening. Zoe leaned out of the stairwell with the air of somebody ready to beat a fast retreat. Smart woman.
“Chef?” she called from her safe distance.
“What’s going on, Zoe?”
“We’re ready to lock up, and Reese says the truck you’re looking for is the Bite Mobile, and it’ll be on the corner of Sixth and Grand for another half hour.”
“Great. Thanks. Tell everybody they can head out.”
Zoe started to pull the door shut but stopped halfway, obviously steeling her nerves. “Is there something I need to know, Chef?” There were claws unsheathing behind those words.
“Not yet, I promise.”
Zoe, however, did not seem to be in a trusting mood. She looked at Anatole, and at Chet, and then back to me. “If the place is burned down tomorrow morning, I’m going to find your ass and hand it to you.”
“You’ll be first on the list,” I promised. Zoe nodded, satisfied, and left us there, closing the door solidly behind her.
“What’re you looking at the Bite Mobile for?” asked Chet, displaying an unprecedented level of tact by changing the subject.
“Jacques Renault’s working there—I think, anyway—and I want to talk to him.”
Anatole’s eyebrows inched up a fraction. “Jacques Renault, who has been making his living robbing rich houses with his blood family for a century or so, is now working a food truck for minimum wage? Do you not think that would be rather a comedown?”
“You were there, Anatole. Jacques’s tired of being a parasite, and he thinks his blood family’s lost their minds and, thanks to the Equal Humanity Acts, he’s got a choice as to how he makes his living.”
Chet shook his head. “Charlotte…”
“This is what I needed your help for, Chet,” I said, cutting him off. “Jacques needs to know it’s possible to get away from his sire. That is, if he still wants to once he’s heard about the love potion.”
A whole set of possible replies came and went behind my brother’s dry eyes. At last, he dropped his gaze to the heavy gold ring on the third finger of his left hand. “Yeah,” he agreed. “It’s possible to get away. But now I’ve got to ask you, why are you doing this?”
I remembered how Jacques looked at me and said the word was my little brother and I were okay. “Because against the odds, I think he might actually be a decent guy. And”—I ground my teeth together—“because it’s his family and he deserves to know what’s really going on and have his chance to do something about it.”
Chet tilted his head as if he needed to look at me from a whole new angle. “This is a change, coming from you.”
“Yeah, I know. Would you help me talk to him? Both of you?”
Anatole smiled, and, to my surprise, bowed out. “As delighted as I am to be included in this party, I’m sure your brother is capable of handling Jacques Renault.”
“I am too,” I said. “But I don’t know who Jacques’s going to have with him.”
Anatole faced Chet. Chet faced Anatole.
“Hungry?” asked Chet, showing his fang.
Anatole flashed his right back. “I find I am. Shall we?”
Guys. I rolled my eyes and pulled out my cell. Nothing new from Brendan. I shoved my phone back into my pocket but kept my hand curled around it as I led the nightbloods down to the street. I hoped they couldn’t tell I was really doing this to keep busy. If I stood still measuring the amount of time it had been without hearing from Brendan, I was going to get really scared.
Oh, and just so you know? Any night where your best option is to track down a vampire to try to make him talk to you about his illegal activities is automatically a bad night.
26
It shouldn’t surprise anybody that a food truck calling itself the Bite Mobile would be painted a shiny black with scarlet accents and signage. I did (reluctantly) like the retro-Airstream shape, but whoever had the idea to fit it with outsized fins on the back needed to be taken out and lectured, sternly.
To prove we were not entirely slow learners, Anatole, Chet, and I not only worked out ahead of time what we’d do when we found the truck; we split up before we were within the line of site of the take-out window. So, it was only Anatole and I who walked up to the window. And sure enough, there was Jacques, manning a bank of blenders while a shorter nightblood girl was frying onions on the compact flattop.
“Bon soir.” Jacques turned the French on full from his station at the miniature prep counter. “What can I…Shit!”
Having successfully grasped the essentials of the situation, Jacques Renault slid past the grilling nightblood and bolted out the rear door, which was where—per our simple yet elegant plan—Chet had stationed himself. As Jacques tried to dive for the commuter lane, Chet grabbed him around the waist and swung him onto the curb.
Jacques swore in outraged French fit to burn our ears off. The grilling nightblood hissed hard and grabbed a cell phone off the shelf overhead.
“I’m with them.” Chet nodded toward me and Anatole as he knotted his fist into Jacques’s collar to keep him from trying another escape. Jacques responded by balling up a fist and swinging it straight into Chet’s outstretched palm. Chet grunted and held on. Score one for my little brother.
“We need to talk to Jacques,” Anatole informed the grilling nightblood. A stout woman when she was alive, she was now somewhat withered and saggy, with fading tattoos on her arms and two long braids of brown hair hanging down her back.
She squinted over her shoulder at her simmering onions. “This gonna take long?”
“That depends entirely on him. We will attempt to have him back to you shortly.”
“In one piece, ‘kay?”
“That also depends entirely on him.”
She shrugged and waved the spatula, then went back to stirring her onions. Running a nightblood food cart on the mean streets must be a lot more exciting than running a restaurant, because if someone had caused one of my staff to bolt out of my kitchen, I would have at least asked for ID.
However, this was her business, not mine. I nodded in a friendly way, one food pro to another. I admit I did also cast a glance at the chalkboard menu. It was heavy on the organic and locally sourced blood, and it had a whole range of sandwiches for the daybloods that looked as if they’d be really tasty if executed decently. Maybe this truck idea wasn’t as tacky as it seemed.
There was no time for an exchange of views
, though. Anatole and Chet were already walking Jacques around the corner and into the shadows between an alley and a black SUV that I was pretty sure was illegally parked. I hurried to catch up.
“Hi, Jacques,” I said, feeling more than a little as if I should be wearing a trench coat and a fedora. Chet had let him go, but I did notice that my brother had also stationed himself in the mouth of the alley at Jacques’s back, while Anatole was on guard in the front. Jacques would have to be faster than both of them if he wanted to make a break for it, and I didn’t think even he could be. He also didn’t look at all happy. I couldn’t find it in me to blame him for that one.
“Now what?” Jacques was doing his best to project annoyance, but I could feel the fear seeping out under the bluster.
“I wanted to talk to you about Henri and Gabriel,” I said.
“Well, I do not want to talk to you.”
“You do, because you want to know how Deanna Alden got her—what did you call it—‘Maddox hooks’ into Gabriel.”
Jacques started forward, and Chet, who I strongly suspected was enjoying a chance to play the heavy, clamped a warning hand on his shoulder. “What do you know?” demanded Jacques.
I put my hand in my pocket. Of course I had my spray bottle. I trusted Chet and Anatole to do their best, but you never knew who might be sneaking up behind you or charging you from the front. “I think Adrienne Alden gave Gabriel a love potion.”
Vampires, even Vampires of Color, are already pale, so when one blanches, it’s really impressive. Jacques’s skin went so white, I could see the mottling on his bones. “Not possible.”
“These are the Maddoxes we are speaking of,” Anatole reminded him. “When it comes to working against our kind, they are very good at what they do.”
“But a love potion for a nightblood? It cannot be done. We are not affected by the magics that work on daybloods.”
Anatole shrugged. “I would not put it past them to have done some very careful research down the generations, and possibly some very unpleasant experiments.”
Jacques’s attempt at menace dissolved along with the last of the color in his cheeks. “I knew those bastards had done something,” he muttered. “There was no reason for it. One minute, Gabriel is going on about the plan; the next, he’s telling Henri he’s out of the game…”
“What was the plan?” I asked.
In general, I’m a fan of the direct approach. Unfortunately, this time it just reminded Jacques whom he was talking to. “Why should I tell you anything?”
It was Chet who answered. “Because when this mess is over, you might need somewhere to go, and I can help you, if you show me you’re a straight-up guy.”
Jacques reared back and looked at my brother down that long Gallic nose with an attitude that was almost in Anatole’s class of old-school snobbery. “Why would I need your help, Caine, is it? Chet Caine?”
“Yeah, it is.” Chet remained admirably unimpressed. “You need my help because you don’t know squat about getting along in the open. If you did, you wouldn’t be mixing blood smoothies in some half-assed food truck.”
“It is a free country, and it is my choice.”
“Riiiiight,” sneered Chet. “You mean, it annoys the crap out of your sire, but Gabriel considers it harmless, so he lets you get away with it. This isn’t what you want; you’re just stretching out the chain. The second he snaps his fingers, though, you’ll be back.”
“What do you know about it, little boy?”
My hand tightened around my spray bottle, but Anatole laid his fingertips on my arm, signaling me to keep still.
Chet held up his hand, displaying his ring. “Six years,” he said softly. “That’s what I know. My sire was a girl named Melody. She ran off with one of her other blood children without even saying good-bye to me, and I haven’t heard from her since. Every night I come back up, and I feel how she’s gone. Every night, I want to go after her.”
“But you don’t.” Jacques stared at Chet’s gold ring.
“No, I don’t, and you don’t have to follow your sire either. You can have a separate existence.”
“You’re lying,” Jacques whispered. “It cannot be done. You’re lying to get me to talk to your sister.”
“He is telling the truth,” said Anatole. “I have known him for some time now, and he is entirely separate from his sire.”
I’ve never seen a look like the one that crossed Jacques Renault’s face on a vampire that wasn’t starving. He didn’t dare to believe what Chet was telling him. He couldn’t believe anybody was that strong.
As for me, I was just impressed. I hadn’t seen this side of my brother before. But then, if I was being honest, I hadn’t looked for it. Jacques wasn’t the only one learning something new tonight.
“Come on, Jacques.” Chet didn’t move closer. He didn’t reach out a hand. He just stood there, giving Jacques plenty of room and plenty of time. “Give it up. All you’ve got to do is be straight with us now. Then, I’ll help you. There are others who will too, but you gotta prove you’re ready to live in this world, in this time.”
Jacques was struggling. His mouth and hands twitched as he fought with instinct and anger to stand his ground. “What…” The word dragged itself out slowly between his fangs. “What do you want to know?”
That was my cue. “How come Gabriel had a class ring from NYU?”
“It isn’t his. Henri got it as part of the extortion plan,” Jacques answered. “This whole disaster started as blackmail. It was going to be another one of Henri’s elegant little schemes. We were going to get close to Adrienne Alden and let her know we had information about the exploits of her college days. She would pay to keep it quiet, and we would agree to a reasonable price for our silence. Or at least something Henri considered reasonable.”
“Attempted blackmail against a Maddox?” This merited a double-eyebrow lift from Anatole. “That takes…What’s the word I’m looking for…?”
“Chutzpah?” I suggested.
“That will do, yes.”
“Henri said the time was right,” Jacques said softly. “They’re more exposed than they used to be. Lloyd Maddox is losing influence. The grandson needs to keep his reputation intact if he’s to keep his city contract. Plus, Linus O’Grady has shown himself perfectly willing to pursue convictions at all levels, something that has already made certain highly placed paranormals with long pasts very uncomfortable.”
I pictured Linus sitting across from me with his well-thumbed notebook and his heavy, scarred hands. He might even smile at this description of his reputation.
“Besides,” Jacques went on, looking at the alley over Chet’s shoulder with something like longing, “if it didn’t work, we could just disappear again.”
“What changed?” I asked.
Outrage and confusion slammed out of Jacques into me. I would have reeled back a step if Anatole hadn’t put a steadying hand on my back. “They won’t tell me! All I know is Henri comes back one morning close to sunrise and says the plan has changed. He says Gabriel is setting up the Alden daughters, and if all goes well, we’re moving into the house. ‘Just like the good old days,’ he says. Moving in with the Maddoxes! Just like the good old days! I tried to tell them both it was suicide, but do they listen to me?”
“I gather they do not,” replied Anatole blandly. “Why did you go with them?”
“Gabriel is my sire! He dragged me out of the mud at the Somme, and he gave me his blood when I would have died!” Jacques twisted his hands together as if he wanted to tear apart the air between them. Desperation, memory, fear and hope all knotted together in that air. I retreated. Believe me, you would have too. But while my erratic survival instincts were kicking in, my thoughts were sticking on something Jacques said.
Henri said they were setting up the Alden daughters? Daughters, plural?
“Yes, yes,” said Anatole impatiently. “Which came first, the change in Henri’s plan or the change in Gabriel’s attitude
?”
“But what about Oscar?” said Chet. “He’s dead, and O’Grady’s giving the Aldens the eyeball. Why take the risk of murdering him?”
“It’s starting to look like Oscar found out something he wasn’t supposed to,” I said. “Given all the plans flying around, that might not have been too hard either.”
“And that fake ICE raid?” Chet added unhelpfully. “How’s that work into it?”
“They’re going to get us all killed!” snapped Jacques, whose own set of priorities did not include the death of random chefs. “Maddox won’t let me go when he’s killed Henri and Gabriel. They’ll call me back. They will. I’ll have to go, and I’ll die right beside them.”
“Except you don’t have to go back,” said Chet. “You can come with me. I’ve got a guest room you can use for the day. Then, tomorrow night you’re going to meet some friends of mine. We’ll help, I promise.”
Jacques gaped at him. He was shaking. I haven’t felt sorry for a whole lot of nightbloods before, but I felt sorry for Jacques right then. I was pretty sure he had told us what he knew of the truth, and I was pretty sure none of this was his idea.
“I’m on shift…,” he said, which only made me feel better about him.
“You just quit.” Chet shot me a quelling glance, and this once I decided to let myself be quelled. “It’s a new night. Come on.” My brother put his arm around Jacques’s slumped shoulders and started leading him away.
“Chet?” I said to his back, and he grinned over his shoulder at me.
“U-hwos meetings,” he said.
“You-whos…Huh?”
“UHWOS. Undead Healthy Without Sires. It’s a support group for vamps who have lost their sires or are trying to leave dysfunctional blood-family situations. We meet every Tuesday. Jacques’s going to need a sponsor.” He tipped me a salute and walked Jacques up the street.
Anatole, on the other hand, laughed, long, loud, and hard. He spun away from me and spread his arms wide. “I love you!” he cried to the city at large. “Do you hear, New York? I love you!”
