I wasn’t much of a follower.
“I would offer to teach you true necromancy, not this voodoo dabbling that you’ve been doing.”
Jean-Claude made a soft sound halfway between a laugh and a cough.
I glared at Jean-Claude’s amused face but said, “I’m doing just fine with this voodoo dabbling.”
“I meant no insult, Ms. Blake. You will need a teacher of some sort soon. If not me, then you must find someone else.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Control, Ms. Blake. Raw power, no matter how impressive, is not the same as power used with great care and great control.”
I shook my head. “I’ll help you if I can, Mr. Dumare. I’ll even participate in a spell if I check it out with a local witch I know first.”
“Afraid that I will try and steal your power?”
I smiled. “No, short of killing me, the best you or anyone else can do is borrow.”
“You are wise beyond your years, Ms. Blake.”
“You aren’t that much older than I am,” I said. Something crossed over his face, the faintest flicker, and I knew.
“You’re his human servant, aren’t you?”
Dominic smiled, spreading his hands. “Oui.”
I sighed. “I thought you said you weren’t trying to hide anything from me.”
“A human servant’s job is to be the daytime eyes and ears of his master. I am of no use to my master if vampire hunters can spot me for what I am.”
“I spotted you.”
“But in another situation, without Sabin at my side, would you have?”
I thought about that for a moment. “Maybe.” I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“Thank you for your honesty, Ms. Blake.”
Sabin said, “I am sure our time is up. Jean-Claude said you had a pressing engagement, Ms. Blake. Much more important than my little problem.” There was a little bite to that last.
“Ma petite has a date with her other beau.”
Sabin stared at Jean-Claude. “So you are truly allowing her to date another. I thought that at least must be rumor.”
“Very little of what you hear about ma petite is rumor. Believe all you hear.”
Sabin chuckled, coughing, as if struggling to keep the laughter from spilling out his ruined mouth. “If I believed everything I heard, I would have come with an army.”
“You came with one servant because I allowed you only one servant,” Jean-Claude said.
Sabin smiled. “Too true. Come Dominic, we must not take more of Ms. Blake’s so valuable time.”
Dominic stood obediently, towering over us both. Sabin was around my height. Of course, I wasn’t sure if his legs were still there. He might have been taller once.
“I don’t like you, Sabin, but I would never willingly leave another being in the shape you’re in. My plans tonight are important, but if I thought we could cure you immediately, I’d change them.”
The vampire looked at me. His blue, blue eyes were like staring down into clear ocean water. There was no pull to them. Either he was behaving himself or, like most vampires, he couldn’t roll me with his eyes anymore.
“Thank you, Ms. Blake. I believe you are sincere.” He extended a gloved hand from the voluminous cloak.
I hesitated, then took it. His hand squished ever so slightly, and it took a lot not to jerk back. I forced myself to shake his hand, to smile, to let go, and not to rub my hand on my skirt.
Dominic shook my hand as well. His was cool and dry. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Blake. I will contact you tomorrow and we will discuss things.”
“I’ll be expecting your call, Mr. Dumare.”
“Call me, Dominic, please.”
I nodded. “Dominic. We can discuss it, but I hate to take your money when I’m not sure that I can help you.”
“May I call you Anita?” he asked.
I hesitated and shrugged. “Why not.”
“Don’t worry about money,” Sabin said, “I have plenty of that for all the good it has done me.”
“How is the woman you love taking the change in your appearance?” Jean-Claude asked.
Sabin looked at him. It was not a friendly look. “She finds it repulsive, as do I. She feels immense guilt. She has not left me, nor is she with me.”
“You’d lived for close to seven hundred years,” I said. “Why screw things up for a woman?”
Sabin turned to me, a line of ooze creeping down his face like a black tear. “Are you asking me if it was worth it, Ms. Blake?”
I swallowed and shook my head. “It’s none of my business. I’m sorry I asked.”
He drew the hood over his face. He turned back to me, black, a cup of shadows where his face should have been. “She was going to leave me, Ms. Blake. I thought that I would sacrifice anything to keep her by my side, in my bed. I was wrong.” He turned that blackness to Jean-Claude. “We will see you tomorrow night, Jean-Claude.”
“I look forward to it.”
Neither vampire offered to shake hands. Sabin glided for the door, the robe trailing behind him, empty. I wondered how much of his lower body was left and decided I didn’t want to know.
Dominic shook my hand again. “Thank you, Anita. You have given us hope.” He held my hand and stared into my face as if he could read something there. “And do think about my offer to teach you. There are very few of us who are true necromancers.”
I took back my hand. “I’ll think about it. Now I really do have to go.”
He smiled, held the door for Sabin, and out they went. Jean-Claude and I stood a moment in silence. I broke it first. “Can you trust them?”
Jean-Claude sat on the edge of my desk, smiling. “Of course not.”
“Then why did you agree to let them come?”
“The council has declared that no master vampires in the United States may quarrel until that nasty law that is floating around Washington is dead. One undead war, and the anti-vampire lobby would push through the law and make us illegal again.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think Brewster’s Law has a snowball’s chance. Vampires are legal in the United States. Whether I agree with it or not, I don’t think that’s going to change.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“It’s sort of hard to say a group of beings is alive and has rights, then change your mind and say killing them on sight is okay again. The ACLU would have a field day.”
He smiled. “Perhaps. Regardless, the council has forced a truce on all of us until the law is decided one way or another.”
“So you can let Sabin in your territory, because if he misbehaves, the council will hunt him down and kill him.”
Jean-Claude nodded.
“But you’d still be dead,” I said.
He spread his hands, graceful, empty. “Nothing’s perfect.”
I laughed. “I guess not.”
“Now, aren’t you going to be late for your date with Monsieur Zeeman?”
“You’re being awfully civilized about this,” I said.
“Tomorrow night you will be with me, ma petite. I would be a poor . . . sport to begrudge Richard his night.”
“You’re usually a poor sport.”
“Now, ma petite, that is hardly fair. Richard is not dead, is he?”
“Only because you know that if you kill him, I’ll kill you.” I held a hand up before he could say it. “I’d try to kill you, and you’d try to kill me, etc.” This was an old argument.
“So, Richard lives, you date us both, and I am being patient. More patient than I have ever been with anyone.”
I studied his face. He was one of those men who was beautiful rather than handsome, but the face was masculine; you wouldn’t mistake him for female, even with the long hair. In fact, there was something terribly masculine about Jean-Claude, no matter how much lace he wore.
He could be mine: lock, stock, and fangs. I just wasn’t sure I wanted him. “I’ve got to go,”
I said.
He pushed away from my desk. He was suddenly standing close enough to touch. “Then go, ma petite.”
I could feel his body inches from mine like a shimmering energy. I had to swallow before I could speak. “It’s my office. You have to leave.”
He touched my arms lightly, a brush of fingertips. “Enjoy your evening, ma petite.” His fingers wrapped around my arms, just below the shoulders. He didn’t lean over me or draw me that last inch closer. He simply held my arms, and stared down at me.
I met his dark, dark blue eyes. There had been a time not so long ago that I couldn’t have met his gaze without falling into it and being lost. Now I could meet his eyes, but in some ways, I was just as lost. I raised up on tiptoe, putting my face close to his.
“I should have killed you a long time ago.”
“You have had your chances, ma petite. You keep saving me.”
“My mistake,” I said.
He laughed, and the sound slid down my body like fur against naked skin. I shuddered in his arms.
“Stop that,” I said.
He kissed me lightly, a brush of lips, so I couldn’t feel the fangs. “You would miss me if I were gone, ma petite. Admit it.”
I drew away from him. His hands slid down my arms, over my hands, until I drew my fingertips across his hands. “I’ve got to go.”
“So you said.”
“Just get out, Jean-Claude, no more games.”
His face sobered instantly as if a hand had wiped it clean. “No more games, ma petite. Go to your other lover.” It was his turn to raise a hand and say, “I know you are not truly lovers. I know you are resisting both of us. Brave, ma petite.” A flash of something, maybe anger, crossed his face and was gone like a ripple lost in dark water.
“Tomorrow night you will be with me and it will be Richard’s turn to sit at home and wonder.” He shook his head. “Even for you I would not have done what Sabin has done. Even for your love, there are things I would not do.” He stared at me suddenly fierce, anger flaring through his eyes, his face. “But what I do is enough.”
“Don’t go all self-righteous on me,” I said. “If you hadn’t interfered, Richard and I would be engaged, maybe more, by now.”
“And what? You would be living behind a white picket fence with two point whatever children. I think you lie to yourself more than to me, Anita.”
It was always a bad sign when he used my real name. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, ma petite, that you are as likely to thrive in domestic bliss as I am.” With that, he glided to the door and left. He closed the door quietly but firmly behind him.
Domestic bliss? Who me? My life was a cross between a preternatural soap opera and an action adventure movie. Sort of As the Casket Turns meets Rambo. White picket fences didn’t fit. Jean-Claude was right about that.
I had the entire weekend off. It was the first time in months. I’d been looking forward to this evening all week. But truthfully, it wasn’t Jean-Claude’s nearly perfect face that was haunting me. I kept flashing on Sabin’s face. Eternal life, eternal pain, eternal ugliness. Nice afterlife.
2
* * *
THERE were three kinds of people at Catherine’s dinner party: the living, the dead, and the occasionally furry. Out of the eight of us, six were human, and I wasn’t sure about two of those, myself included.
I wore black pants, a black velvet jacket with white satin lapels, and an oversized white vest that doubled for a shirt. The Browning 9mm actually matched the outfit, but I kept it hidden. This was the first party Catherine had thrown since her wedding. Flashing a gun might put a damper on things.
I’d had to take off the silver cross that I always wore and put it in my pocket because there was a vampire standing in front of me and the cross had started glowing when he entered the room. If I’d known there were going to be vamps at the party, I’d have worn a collar high enough to hide the cross. They only glow when they’re out in the open, generally speaking.
Robert, the vampire in question, was tall, muscular, and handsome in a model-perfect sort of way. He had been a stripper at Guilty Pleasures. Now he managed the club. From worker to management: the American dream. His hair was blond, curly, and cut quite short. He was wearing a brown silk shirt that fit him perfectly and matched the dress that his date was wearing.
Monica Vespucci’s health club tan had faded around the edges, but her makeup was still perfect, her short auburn hair styled into place. She was pregnant enough for me to have noticed and happy enough about it to be irritating.
She smiled brilliantly at me. “Anita, it has been too long.”
What I wanted to say was, “Not long enough.” The last time I’d seen her, she had betrayed me to the local master vampire. But Catherine thought she was her friend, and it was hard to disillusion her without telling the whole story. The whole story included some unsanctioned killing, some of it done by me. Catherine’s a lawyer and a stickler for law and order. I didn’t want to put her in a position where she had to compromise her morals to save my ass. So Monica was her friend, which meant I had been polite all through dinner, from appetizer all the way to dessert. I’d been polite mainly because Monica had been at the other end of the table. Now, unfortunately, we were mingling in the living room and I couldn’t seem to shake her.
“It doesn’t seem that long,” I said.
“It’s been almost a year.” She smiled up at Robert. They were holding hands. “We got married.” She touched her glass to the top of her belly. “We got knocked up.” She giggled.
I stared at them both. “You can’t get knocked up by a hundred-year-old corpse.” Okay, I’d been polite long enough.
Monica grinned at me. “You can if the body temperature is raised for long enough and you have sex often enough. My obstetrician thinks the hot tub did us in.”
This was more than I wanted to know. “Have you had the amnio yet?”
The smile faded from her face, leaving her eyes haunted. I was sorry I’d asked. “We’ve got another week to wait.”
“I’m sorry, Monica, Robert. I hope the test comes back clean.” I did not mention Vlad syndrome, but the words hung on the air. It was rare but not as rare as it used to be. Three years of legalized vampirism and Vlad syndrome was the highest rising birth defect in the country. It could result in some really horrible disabilities, not to mention death for the baby. With that much at stake, you’d think people would be more cautious.
Robert cradled her against him, and all the light had faded from her face. She looked pale. I felt like a heel.
“The latest news was that a vampire over a hundred was sterile,” I said. “They should update their information, I guess.” I meant for it to be comforting, like they hadn’t been careless.
Monica looked at me, and there was no gentleness in her eyes when she said, “Worried?”
I stared at her all pale and pregnant and wanted to slap her anyway. I was not sleeping with Jean-Claude. But I was not going to stand there and justify myself to Monica Vespucci—or anyone else, for that matter.
Richard Zeeman entered the room. I didn’t actually see him enter. I felt it. I turned and watched him walk towards us. He was six foot one, nearly a foot taller than me. Another inch and we couldn’t have kissed without a chair. But it would have been worth the effort. He wove between the other guests, saying a word here and there. His smile flashed white and perfect in his permanently tanned skin as he talked to these new friends that he’d managed to charm at dinner. Not with sex appeal or power but with sheer good will. He was the world’s biggest boy scout, the original hail fellow, well met. He liked people and was a wonderful listener, two qualities that are highly underrated.
His suit was dark brown, his shirt a deep orangey gold. The tie was a brighter orange with a line of small figures down the middle of it. You had to be standing right next to him to realize the figures were Warner Brothers cartoons.
He’d tied his sh
oulder-length hair back from his face in a version of a french braid, so the illusion was that his brown hair was very short. It left his face clean and very visible. His cheekbones were perfect, sculpted high and graceful. His face was masculine, handsome, with a dimple to soften it. It was the kind of face that would have made me shy in high school.
He noticed me watching him and smiled. His brown eyes sparkled with the smile, filling with heat that had nothing to do with room temperature. I watched him walk the last few feet, and felt heat rise up my neck into my face. I wanted to undress him, to touch his bare skin, to see what was under that suit. I wanted that very badly. I wouldn’t, because I wasn’t sleeping with Richard, either. I wasn’t sleeping with the vampire or the werewolf. Richard was the werewolf. It was his only fault. Okay, maybe one other: he’d never killed anybody. That last fault might get him killed someday.
I slid my left arm around his waist, under the unbuttoned jacket. The solid warmth of him beat like a pulse against my body. If we didn’t have sex soon, I was simply going to explode. What price morals?
Monica stared at me very steadily, studying my face. “That’s a lovely necklace. Who got it for you?”
I smiled and shook my head. I was wearing a black velvet choker with a cameo, edged by silver filigree. Hey, it matched the outfit. Monica was pretty sure Richard hadn’t given it to me, which meant, to Monica, that Jean-Claude had. Good old Monica. She never changed.
“I bought it to match the outfit,” I said.
She widened her eyes in surprise. “Oh, really?” like she didn’t believe me.
“Really. I’m not much into gifts, especially jewelry.”
Richard hugged me. “That’s the truth. She’s a very hard woman to spoil.”
Catherine joined us. Her copper-colored hair flowed around her face in a wavy mass. She was the only one I knew with curlier hair than mine, but its color was more spectacular. If asked, most people described her from the hair outward. Delicate makeup hid the freckles and drew attention to her pale, grey green eyes. Her dress was the color of new leaves. I’d never seen her look better.
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