"Is Jean-Claude's human servant afraid of me?" She stood there framed against the darkness beyond, smiling. The basement was like a great black pit behind her.
But she couldn't sense vampire marks, or she'd have known I wasn't his servant. She wasn't as hot as she thought she was. I hoped.
I ignored the outstretched hand, but walked down those two steps. My shoulder brushed her bare skin, and it felt like worms were crawling down my arm. I kept walking down the steps into the dark beyond, left hand in a death grip on the railing. I heard her high heels clattering down the steps to catch up with me. I could feel her irritation like heat rising from her skin. I heard the menfolk following us, but didn't look behind to check. We were playing chicken tonight. It was one of my best games.
We went down the steps together like horses pulling a carriage, my left hand on the railing, her hands lifting her dress. I kept up a pace that made gliding effortlessly impossible, unless she could levitate. She couldn't.
She grabbed my right arm and whirled me around to face her. I couldn't go for a gun. Because I was wearing wrist sheaths, I couldn't even go for a knife. I stood there nearly face to face with an angry vampire and couldn't reach a weapon. All that could save me was her not killing me. Trusting my life to Ivy's beneficence seemed like a bad bet.
Her anger spilled along my skin. Heat flowed down her body. I could feel her hand, hot, even through the leather jacket. I didn't try to pull away; things that can bench-press Toyotas don't let go. Her touch didn't burn, because it wasn't that kind of heat, but it was hard to convince my body that it wouldn't hurt eventually. Years of warnings, don't touch, it's hot. Heat flared along my body like I was standing next to a fire. If she hadn't been doing it unintentionally, it would have been impressive. Hell, it was still impressive. Give her a few centuries and she'd be scary as hell, as if she wasn't already.
I could still meet her eyes, drowning deep and glowing with their own light. That was going to do me a hell of a lot of good when she ripped my throat out.
"If you hurt her, Ivy, our truce is over." Jean-Claude glided down the steps to stand just above us. "You do not want the truce to be over, Ivy." He ran his fingertip along the edge of her jaw.
I felt the jolt of power jump from him, to her, to me. I gasped, but she let me go. My arm was numb at my side like it'd gone to sleep. I couldn't have held a gun. I wanted to ask what the hell he'd done, but didn't. As long as I got the use of my arm back, we could argue about it later.
Bruce pushed between us, hovering over Ivy like a worried boyfriend. Watching his face, I realized that was accurate. I was betting she'd brought him over.
Ivy pushed him away so hard that he went tumbling backwards down the stairs, lost in the thicker darkness. Everything seemed to be working on her just fine. I could barely feel my fingertips.
Heat rushed over me like a scalding wind, and swept outward into the dark. Torches flared to life in sconces along the walls with a whoosh and a shower of sparks. A large kerosene lamp suspended from the ceiling filled with fire. Its glass chimney exploded in a shower of glass, its flame burning naked on the wick.
"Serephina will make you clean up your mess," Jean-Claude said. He made it sound like she'd spilled her milk.
Ivy walked down the rest of the steps in a hip-swinging glide. "Serephina will not care. Broken glass and flame have so many uses." I didn't like the way she phrased that.
The basement was black. Black walls, black floors, black ceiling. It was like being in a great dark box. Chains hung from the walls, some with what looked like fur on the cuffs. Straps dangled from the ceiling like obscene decorations. There were... devices placed throughout the room. I recognized some of them. A rack, an iron maiden, but most of it was like looking at bondage paraphernalia. You were pretty sure what the point was, but not how it worked. There were always more holes than I could figure out what to do with, and nothing ever seemed to come with instructions.
There was a drain in the floor, and a thin trickle of water ran down it. But I was betting that the drain wasn't there just for water.
Larry moved down the steps to stand beside me. "Are those what I think they are?"
"Yeah, they're torture devices." I forced my hand to make a fist, and another one. The feeling was coming back.
"I thought they weren't going to harm us," he said.
"I think it's supposed to scare us."
"It's working," he said.
I didn't like the decor much either, but I could feel my hand. I could have held a gun if I had to.
A door that I hadn't even seen opened to the left. A secret panel. A vampire came through the door. He had to bend nearly double to make it through the door frame. He unfolded, impossibly tall and thin, cadaverous. He had not fed tonight. and was wasting no power on looking pretty. His skin was the color of old parchment and clung to the bones of his face like a thin film barely covering his skull. His eyes were sunken and dull in his head, the dead blue of fish eyes. His sickly hands were long and bony with impossibly long fingers, like white spiders sticking from the sleeves of his black coat.
He stalked into the room with the edges of his black coat sweeping behind him like a cloak. He was dressed entirely in black; only his skin and the short cut white hair on his head betrayed him. As he moved through the black room, it looked like his head and hands were floating on their own.
I shook my head to clear the image. When I looked back, he seemed a touch more normal. "He's using his powers to make himself look frightening," I said.
"Yes, ma petite, he is." There was something in his voice that made me turn and look at him. His face was its usual lovely mask-but in his eyes, for just a second, I saw fear.
"What's going on, Jean-Claude?"
"The rules have not changed. Do not draw a weapon. Do not strike the first blow. They cannot harm us unless we break these rules."
"Why are you suddenly scared?"
'That is not Serephina," he said. His voice was very bland when he said it.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
He threw back his head and laughed. The sound reverberated through the room, echoing and outwardly joyous. But I could taste it on the back of my tongue, and it was bitter. "It means, ma petite, that I am a fool."
25
Jean-Claude's laughter faded away in bits and pieces, like the sound was clinging to the walls. "Where is Serephina?" he asked.
Ivy and Bruce walked out of the room. I didn't know where they were going, but it had to be better than this. How many torture rooms could a house this size have? Don't answer that.
The tall vampire looked at us with his dead-fish eyes. There was no pull, nothing; it was like looking into the eyes of a corpse.
His voice, when it came, was almost shocking. It was rich and deep, resonant, but not with vampiric powers. It was the voice of an actor, or an opera singer. I watched it come out of the thin, lipless mouth and it still looked like a parlor trick, like the mouth should move out of sync with the words, but they didn't.
"You must pass through me before she will see you."
"You surprise me, Janos." Jean-Claude glided down the steps. I guess we were going down. Pity. "You are more powerful than Serephina. How is it you do her bidding?"
"When you have seen her, you will understand. Now come, all of you, join us. The night is young, and I want to see you all naked and bleeding before dawn."
"Who is this guy?" I asked. I could use my hand again; might as well smart off.
Jean-Claude stopped on the last step. Jason moved up, one step behind him. Larry and I stayed a little behind that. I don't think either of us was too eager to go down.
The vampire turned his dead eyes on me. "I am Janos."
"Dandy, but the rules say you can't bleed us, or anything else. Or did I miss something?"
"You miss very little, ma petite," Jean-Claude said.
"You will not be harmed against your will," Janos said. "You must all consent for any harm to befall you."
>
"Then we're safe," I said.
He smiled, the skin of his face stretching like paper. I half-expected bone to break through, but it didn't. The smile was nicely hideous.
"We shall see."
Jean-Claude took that last step, and moved farther into the room. Jason followed, and after a moment's hesitation so did I. Larry followed me like a trooper.
"This room is your idea, Janos," Jean-Claude said.
"I do nothing without my master's consent."
"She cannot be your master, Janos. She is not powerful enough."
"Yet, here I am, Jean-Claude. Here I am."
Jean-Claude walked around the dark wood of the rack, trailing a pale hand over it. "Serephina was never much for torture. She was many things, but not sadistic." Jean-Claude came to stand in front of Janos. "I think you are master here and she is your stalking horse. She is known as master so all the challenges come her way. When she dies, you will find another puppet.
"I promise you, Jean-Claude, she is my master. Think of this room as my reward for being a faithful servant." He looked around the room with a proprietary smile, like a storekeeper admiring well-stocked shelves.
"What do you plan for us in this room of yours?"
"But wait a few moments, my impatient boy, and all will be revealed."
It was odd to have someone call Jean-Claude "boy," as if he were a much younger cousin that Janos had watched grow up. Had Janos known him when he was a little vampire? Freshly dead?
A woman's voice: "Where are you taking me? You're hurting me." Ivy and Bruce dragged a young woman through the side door. Literally dragged her. She had let her legs collapse, trying to use them like a dog does when you try to take it to the vet. But she only had two legs and a vampire on each arm. She wasn't having much luck slowing them down.
She had straight blonde hair that barely touched the tops of her shoulders. Her eyes were large and blue, and the makeup she'd started the night with was smeared from crying.
Ivy seemed to be having a good time. Bruce had very wide eyes. He was afraid of Janos. Hard not to be, I guess.
The girl stared wordlessly at Janos for a second, then screamed. Ivy cuffed her absently like you'd swat a barking dog. The girl whimpered and fell silent, staring at the floor, fresh tears trailing down her cheeks.
There was only Janos and the two youngsters in the room with us. I was betting we could take them. Two more vampires came in, but they didn't drag in the next girl. She walked in, eyes glittering with anger, back very straight, hands in fists at her sides. She was short, a little heavy, but not quite fat, as if a good burst of growth would take care of the weight. Her hair was a nondescript brown, glasses framed small brown eyes, freckles dusted her face. The personality that radiated from that face was not nondescript. I liked her instantly.
"Oh, Lisa," she said, "get up." She sounded embarrassed as well as angry. The blonde girl, Lisa, just cried harder.
The two vamps that were guarding the second girl were not young. They were both tall, around six feet, dressed in black leather, one with her long yellow hair in a braid down her back, the other with black hair falling free around her face. Their bare arms were muscled and firm. They looked like female bodyguards from some bad spy movie.
The power that radiated from the two of them was not a B movie effect. It crept through the room like a current of water, thick and cool. When the line of power poured over my body it took my breath away. The power crawled into my bones and made them ache. Larry gasped behind me.
I glanced at him just to make sure he was gasping for the same reason I was. No new monsters behind us, just the power of the two new vamps.
"What are you guys doing, running a halfway house for all vampires over five hundred years?" I asked.
Everyone turned towards me. The two female vamps smiled, most unpleasantly. They looked at me like I was a piece of candy and they wondered what sort of center I had. Soft and gooey, or hard with a nut in the middle? I'd had men undress me with their eyes, but I'd never had anything trying to picture what I'd look like with my skin off. Yikes.
"Do you have something to add?" Janos asked.
"You can't just drag a couple of underage girls in here and expect us to do nothing."
"On the contrary, Anita, we expect you to do many things."
I didn't like the phrasing of that. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"First, the young women aren't underage, are you, girls?"
The second girl just glared at him. Lisa shook her head, still staring at the floor.
"Tell her your ages," Janos said.
Neither of them answered. Ivy yanked hard enough to make the blonde girl cry out.
"Eighteen. I'm eighteen." She collapsed on the floor in a sobbing heap, and the vampires let go of her so she could do it.
One of the female vamps said, "Your age, now." Her voice was like quiet thunder, a warning of the coming storm.
The second girl's eyes widened behind her glasses. "I'm nineteen." There was fear now peeking out from behind her anger.
"Fine; they're over eighteen, but an unwilling human is still an unwilling human, regardless of age," I said.
"Would you play policeman here, Anita?" Janos asked. He sounded amused.
"I won't just stand here and watch you hurt them."
"You have a high opinion of yourself, Anita. Confident. I like that. Always so much more entertaining to break someone strong. The weaklings fold and cry and snivel, but the brave ones, they almost demand that you hurt them." He stalked towards me, reaching out one white spider-hand. "Do you want me to hurt you?"
I remembered Jean-Claude's warning not to use weapons, but fuck it, I was going for the Browning.
Jean-Claude was just suddenly there, holding Janos's wrist. Janos seemed impressed. Truthfully, so was I. I hadn't seen him move, and apparently neither had Janos. A nifty trick, that.
I let my hand relax away from the gun, though I was pretty sure that drawing it would make me feel better. But the purpose of tonight's exercise was not to make me feel better, it was to stay alive.
"No harm to any of us; that was the promise," Jean-Claude said.
Janos drew his wrist from Jean-Claude's grasp slowly, almost lingeringly, as if he enjoyed it. "Once Serephina's promise is given, she keeps it."
"Then why are the young women here?"
"Those two"—he motioned to Larry and me—"would truly not stand by and watch harm come to strangers?" He sounded surprised, but not unhappy about it.
"Sadly, yes," Jean-Claude said.
"And if they join the fray, you will come in to protect her?" Janos asked.
"If I must."
Janos smiled, and I could hear his skin creak with the strain of holding in his bones. "Splendid."
I saw a tremor run through Jean-Claude's back, as if he had been caught off guard. I was just plain confused.
"The two young women came willingly into our house. They knew what we were, and agreed to help us entertain guests."
I glanced at the second girl. "Is that true?"
One of her vampire guards touched her shoulder, lightly, but it was enough. "We came willingly, but we didn't know..." The vampire's hand squeezed. The girl's face crumbled in pain but she made no sound.
"They came of their own free will, and they are of the age of consent," Janos said.
"So what happens now?" I asked.
"Ivy, chain that one over there." He pointed as he said it to some fur-lined manacles to the left of the door. Ivy and Bruce picked up the girl, pulled her to her feet, and led her stumbling to the wall.
"Her back facing the room, please."
I stepped next to Jean-Claude and whispered, though I knew within reason they'd hear, "I don't like this."
"Nor I, ma petite."
"Can we stop it without breaking the truce?"
"Not unless they offer harm to us directly, no."
"What happens if I break the truce?"
"They will try to kill
us, most likely."
There were five vampires in the room, three of them older than Jean-Claude. We would die. Dammit.
The blonde girl sobbed and struggled, pulling at her arms as the vampires chained her to the wall. She screamed and pulled so violently that without the fur lining she'd have bloodied her wrists.
A woman stepped into the room from the side door. She was tall, taller than Jean-Claude. Her skin was the color of coffee with two creams. Her dark hair fell in long cornrows to her waist. She was dressed in a black, patent leather body suit. It left very little to the imagination. She strode hard on her heels, a very human walk. But she wasn't human.
"Kissa," Jean-Claude said. "You are still with Serephina." He sounded surprised.
"Not all of us have your luck." Her voice was thick like honey. There was a smell like spices in the air, and I wasn't sure if it was her perfume or illusion.
Her high-boned face was empty of makeup and still she was beautiful—though I wondered what she'd look like if she weren't clouding my mind. Because surely no human could have radiated the raw sexuality that clung to Kissa like a touchable cloud.
"I am sorry you are here, Kissa."
She smiled. "Don't pity me, Jean-Claude. Serephina has promised you to me, before Janos breaks that beautiful body of yours."
Six vampires, four of them older than Jean-Claude. The odds were not going in our favor.
"Chain the other girl there." Janos motioned to a matching set of manacles to the right of the door.
The girl shook her head. "No way." She just refused to go, and she struggled better than the blonde. She threw her body on the ground and used every inch of it, not to fight, just not to go.
Two vampires several centuries old, powerful enough to make my teeth hurt, and they had to pick her up from both ends and carry her to the wall. She'd finally started to scream, one loud, ragged, rage-filled sound after another. The dark-haired vamp pinned her to the wall, and the other one chained her.
"I can't just watch this," Larry said. He was standing very close to me; maybe he didn't know the vampires would hear his whispers.
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