Have Stakes, Will Travel

by Faith Hunter

  “We were not expecting visitors.”

  I didn’t reply to that, letting the silence work for me now.

  “My mistress will not accept you in her sanctuary for long. You have a letter of passage?” the vamp asked. I detected a hint of accent in his tone, maybe Russian or one of the formerly Russian countries.

  “I do. I carry a letter of concern for your mistress.”

  “Our mistress is unwell.”

  “So I hear. Leo sends his regards and his well-wishes to his longtime friend.”

  The night fell silent again for a whole minute, which is a long time in the dark with guns pointed at me, before the vamp spoke again. “Come this way.” The light fell on him when he turned, and I recognized Nicolas Nivikov, a former vamp stray, from his photo; the Russian was Rosanne Romanello’s heir. Ro took in all sorts of strays—vamps with no master and no hunting ground. This one had been a rival until they fell in love, and now he was her protector and her heir.

  The blood-servants fell in behind me as I followed Nicolas up the low steps into the house. I didn’t like that, but there was no way to refuse. The door opened, held by a blood-servant, ugly muscle who looked me over, taking in the weapons. He didn’t like me carrying and wanted me to know it. I nodded once at him, a single downward thrust of chin. Duly noted.

  The interior shutters I’d expected to see were in place, stacked back against the sides of the windows. The décor was done in Italian antiques juxtaposed against modern, southwestern art, with contemporary updates like comfy but traditional Italian leather furniture and soft Hopi-patterned rugs over Italian marble floors. Not that I knew much about Italian stuff, but the dossier on Sedona’s master of the city had been detailed. Very detailed. The place smelled of leather and sage and blood and something vaguely sickly sweet I couldn’t identify.

  I was shown into the library, where the smell of leather was strong, mixed with the scent of old paper, ancient ink, and the mold that likes books. There, I waited for over half an hour as various blood-servants and house-vamps came and went, introducing themselves, offering coffee, tea, wine, a snack, a full-course dinner, and an opportunity to freshen my toilette, which I interpreted as a chance to use the little girls’ room. I turned them all down. No way was I accepting anything to eat or drink in this place or back into a closed space with my britches down. I thought it was odd that Ro’s Enforcer didn’t show up and scope me out, but maybe he was watching on the well-hidden security cameras in the corners of the room. I thought about making faces at them, but controlled myself. I understood why the vamps and servants kept me constant company. The vamps wanted to sniff me, and the servants wanted to get a good look in case they had to kill me tonight.

  At the thought, Beast rolled over deep in my mind, pulling her paws close under. It was a good position if she needed to launch her body—a strike posture, which meant she was paying close attention to everything, in spite of her silence. My growing sense of unease dissipated slightly knowing that she was awake and aware.

  I was perusing the library’s titles when Nikki-Babe appeared in the doorway. “This way, if you please,” he said. I followed him through a receiving parlor into a small office, where a vamp sat in the shadows. The photo I’d seen of her had obviously been taken in this room, but Rosanne’s illness had progressed since. Now she had pustules up her neck and across one cheek. Another was on her lip, as if the disease liked mucous membranous tissue.

  She clutched a handkerchief, and blood dotted it. Her nose was bleeding. I had never seen a vamp bleed except from a wound. Had never seen one sick. Freedom from bodily complaints, illness, or needs—with the exception of blood and sex—was supposed to be a benefit of being a vamp. But no more, it seemed. The sickly sweet smell was Ro—the scent of disease and decaying blood.

  The room was filled with an odd tension, electric and gluey, as if it stuck to me when it brushed past. I had paused too long, let the silence grow too deep. I didn’t want to approach, but I had been schooled by Bruiser in Mithran visitation etiquette. I had to present my letters of introduction. I stepped to the table and laid the envelopes before her. The official one, Ro handed to Nik. She opened the privately addressed one, the one written in Leo’s own hand with lots of old-fashioned flourishes, the words Ro, mi amore on the envelope. They both read, and when Rosanne was done, she folded her letter and placed it in her desk drawer, which she locked with a small key hanging on a chain around her neck.

  “Nikki tells me you were attacked.” Her voice sounded weak and whispery. “They were not mine.”

  “I know,” I said gently.

  “He also prepared me for your scent, but I find it not entirely unpleasant. You smell of predator and aggression, but also of contact with my Leonardo. He is well? I had heard . . .” She stopped to breathe, little desperate gasps, which nearly made my eyes bug out. Master vamps did not need to breathe except to talk and to fight, and this one had to stop and reoxygenate. Not good. “I had heard he had not recovered from the death of his son. I liked Immanuel immensely.”

  “He recovered,” I said shortly. Leo’s state of mind and the death of his supposed son wasn’t a subject I wanted to talk about, since I had killed the creature masquerading as Immanuel. “He’s now concerned about you.”

  Rosanne made a very Italian gesture, a slow throwing of her fingers, as if the subject was unimportant. “I was offered a Blood Challenge. I did not contest it. I have a master now.” She shook her head, and with the movements, her sick scent floated into the room. “It has been long since I was . . . mastered. It was difficult at first. But he has left me in control of my own hunting grounds. He has made me his heir of this land.”

  This part was the tricky part. To mention her diseased state might be considered insulting. I’d been warned that if I was attacked after entering and being welcomed, it would be when I brought up the obvious. But she had mentioned Leo’s illness, so maybe I had some leeway there too. “Leo is concerned that his old friend is not recovering as quickly as she should.”

  The tendrils of tension wrapped around me like the prickly webs of a spider, close and sticking. “I have been sent a treatment by my new master. However, there is only one, and I may not drink as often as I need.”

  I thought about that for a moment until I found the translation. The new master had sent her blood-servant or -slave who had the “treatment” in his blood, but if she drank too much he’d die. She had a human drug, a human antibiotic factory to feed on. She was getting enough to keep her alive, but not enough to heal totally. Talk about a way to control your subordinates. Her new master had probably been the one to make her sick and now only he had the power to heal, or at least to keep her alive. No way was she going to thwart him. “And his name?” I asked. When Rosanne didn’t respond, I clarified, “The name of your new master?”

  “I may not answer.”

  Without turning my head, I glanced at Nikki. His face was closed, as unyielding as a marble statue. No answer there either. Well, crap. “May I ask another question about your master, without giving offense?” What I’d like to do is beat it out of you, but I have my orders.

  Ro chuckled, almost as if she had heard my thoughts. Vamps are as adept as any predator at reading body language and interpreting vocal tones as cues, so maybe in a way she had. “Do you know how you were infected?” I asked. “Is the disease associated with your new boss?”

  Ro said nothing, but Nikki laughed, and the tone was not happy. “This illness is a scourge upon all of us.”

  Which I took as a yes, but that didn’t really help me much. From my memory, I pulled up the formal words for my next request—which was the primary reason for my visit, and the biggest reason I might not walk out of here under my own power. “The Master of the City of New Orleans,” which was Leo’s less formal title, “has dependable and confidential physicians in his employ who might assist with finding a cure. He requests . . .” I took a steadying breath. This was the most dangerous part.” . . . that
you allow me to draw a sample of your blood for testing.”

  Nikki stepped toward me, vamp fast. I stepped back, toward the door. Beast does not run from predators. The voice in my head reminded me that running from vamps activated the chase instinct. Not that it mattered. The opening was suddenly filled with a blood-servant—the big bad ugly guy who had held the door, all brawn and speed and no brains. The tension in the room shot up like a wildfire hitting a stand of dry pine.

  On reflex, I ducked right, backed into the corner of the room, pulled the nine-mil and a vamp-killer, the one I’d killed the blood-slave with. I knew the vamps would smell the fresh blood, even after the thorough cleaning I’d given the blade in the ladies’ room.

  Nikki-Babe followed so fast I didn’t see him move. He was so close I could smell who he’d had for dinner. I heard the distinctive click of fangs snicking down on the little hinged mechanism in the roof of his mouth. In a single heartbeat, his eyes vamped out. “Pellissier must still be caught in the dolore of grief to ask such a thing,” he said, black pupils the size of quarters spreading into bloodred sclera. “He is insane still, from the loss of his son.” No trace of white or iris remained in Nikki’s eyes, and no trace of humanity. This was going to hell in a handbasket fast.

  I shoved the gun up under Nikki’s chin. “Silver shot,” I warned, on a whisper. He stilled, his eyes twisting back to Rosanne. “Look, lady,” I said to her, “I don’t want trouble. Leo just wants to help. Girrard DiMercy is back with him, and Leo is sane again.”

  Ro lifted a hand. The pressure in the room died. “Girrard has returned to him?”

  “Yes, and Leo thinks his private lab can find a cure to the sickness.”

  She thought about that for a moment. “You know how to do this taking of blood?” I nodded. “You may.” Nikki-Babe started in with a barrage of oddly accented Italian, clearly disagreeing with her decision, but I ignored him. According to the Vampira Carta, she was in charge. I slid away from Nik, keeping him in my side vision, and stepped to the desk. Ro rolled up her sleeve. Oh, goody. I wasn’t gonna get sucked to death.

  I holstered the weapons and opened the small tote, taking out the blood drawing kit. I wasn’t skilled at taking blood, but I knew how to do it. I pulled on gloves and tied the tourniquet around Rosanne’s arm. The pustules were here as well, and the smell of the sickness was gag-inducingly strong this close to her. There was a vein right in the middle of her arm, slightly plumped by the tourniquet. I cleaned the bottles and tubes, each with different-colored tops and containing different anticoagulants, with alcohol, and then the sticking site with foamy brown soap and Betadine. I pulled the cap from the needle and stuck the sharp needle under her skin. She didn’t flinch, though I wasn’t experienced with the procedure. If it had been a stake, maybe then . . .

  I stifled the thought and pushed the first bottle on, then the next, then four more tubes in succession. When I was done, I popped the tourniquet. Put a square of gauze above the insertion site and removed the needle. Flipped the safety cap closed.

  I met Ro’s calm eyes, and she smiled slowly, tilting her head the barest fraction. The expression on her face suggested that she had accomplished a goal, and I was reminded of the photo that arrived at Leo’s from an anonymous source. Yeah. Ro had sent the photo and had known that Leo would send help. She might have preferred an armed rescue, but she trusted Leo or she wouldn’t have allowed me to draw the blood. Vamps were sneaky. I liked that about them. I nodded back slightly to show I understood.

  I held the site while I dropped the torn packages, the bottles, and tubes into a zip-lock baggie and sealed it up. I was supposed to label the tubes with name, date, and time, but that could wait. I was ready to get out of here and so was Beast. I could feel her unease padding through my mind like a lion in a cage, back and forth, back and forth.

  Chilled moisture soaked my thumb and I glanced at the puncture site to see blood oozing up from beneath my grip. I grabbed more gauze, applied it, and held harder, but the blood welled faster. Vamps don’t bleed. Not like this. “Crap,” I whispered.

  Nik pushed me aside and took Rosanne’s arm. And he did something I’d never seen a vamp do before. Instead of licking it clean, he wiped the puncture site, tossing the bloody gauze into the garbage. A vamp ignored blood. Didn’t lick it. And then he spat onto the wound. I almost said eeeewwww but caught myself in time. I realized he was worried she was contagious.

  Vampire saliva closes wounds, causing the veins and skin to contract and constrict. It’s usually applied with a tongue laving. This was weird. Okay. This gig was making me rethink everything I thought I knew about vamps, and I had been on a steep learning curve ever since I hit New Orleans.

  The tiny wound stopped bleeding. Nikki-Babe looked at me and I nodded my thanks. “I’ll be going now,” I said.

  “I don’t think so,” a voice said behind me. I turned and saw a man, human—or as human as the fangheads’ dinners ever are. I knew this guy wasn’t one of Ro’s usual blood-servants; even if I hadn’t been able to smell the new master on him, he wasn’t in the dossier. He was maybe seventy years old, looked twenty-five, and was powerful—meaning that he had fed on the blood of a master for a very long time. Bald, six feet and a smidge, blue eyes, reddish beard needing a trim, casual clothes, shirt half-tucked, as if he’d dressed and gotten here in a hurry. He was a righty.

  And he had a gun pointed at my chest.