Cajun Gothic (Blood Haven)

by Rawlyns, Nya

  Rinj’s face was flushed, the complexion oddly florid against his coal black hair. If he had any qualms about openly displaying his lust and sexual preferences, he hid it well.

  Damien’s voice settled silky smooth in the musk-filled silence. “You were going to warn… my ward?”

  Her Sire leaned in close, head cocked to the side, listening intently to whatever whispered entreaties, or excuses, the man made. Though older than Damien by a century or more, the two men seemed equally matched in power. Appearances, however, could be deceiving.

  Catrina had been the one to recognize the essence of Rinj’s needs immediately. Almost telepathically. Something Magda knew all too well but she preferred for her offspring to keep the gift to herself, at least until they determined exactly what the Council had in store.

  For all they knew Rinj was playing them, allowing Trina the dominant role while acting submissive. Other than enjoying a certain sexual prowess, not nearly enough was known about the man, the lack of substantiated rumors a gnawing concern. He could have the ability to block Catrina’s gifts, since such misdirection wasn’t unheard of.

  Anything was possible. Even she and Damien had yet to plumb the girl’s abilities to their satisfaction. That left too many questions, though one thing Magda was certain of… Catrina would die to protect her Sire.

  Less certain was which of the two of them would qualify at any given time.

  It made living with Catrina a crap-shoot and a challenge.

  Rinj continued to babble, a mix of Japanese and English in a tone that sounded authoritative, threatening and demanding, all at the same time. Like the client he was.

  Damien nodded acquiescence and backed away, murmuring, “Arigatō,” over and over. When he turned to look at Magda, his face was etched into carefully smoothed lines, giving nothing away.

  So much for Rinj’s apparent submissiveness. Her lord and master had been verbally handed his ass on a platter with Catrina the designated serving wench. Magda was inwardly tickled at his apparent comeuppance. Her Sire’s ego and arrogance would get them into deep shit someday.

  Fortunately for them, this wasn’t going to be that day.

  Damien swept past her, lips set in a grim line. Magda followed him into the hall, then stutter-stepped with surprise when he turned right, away from the adjacent viewing room.

  “Damien?” she whispered, long-forgotten habits too ingrained to cast off. Rinj and Catrina would hear her for as long as they stayed on that level. Picking up the pace, Damien trotted down the hall like the devil himself was on his tail.

  For all she knew, that might be the case. Being around Catrina, or any Romani, had that effect on humans and vamps alike.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, Damien disappeared into the pantry, slamming the door and effectively isolating himself from everything happening below ground level. She was sure he’d regret having missed the screams of pain and howls of ‘oh shit, that’s good’ that followed her up the stairs.

  ****

  Magda spent the rest of the early evening hours assessing what she and Catrina would need to box up and ship to New York City. Damien had left abruptly, taking only Gabriel and a small arsenal. Damien wasn’t looking for protection; she’d be nothing but an interference and a conscience. To feed his hunger for blood he needed a tracker and Gab was the best. The tracker had mutely shrugged when Magda raised a questioning brow before closing the screen door on their retreating forms. She watched them, two hulking giants, mount crotch rockets and careen into the soft, humid night.

  They would paint the darkness in shades of pain and retribution. She hoped Gabriel had enough sense to keep his master away from the Havens and their loyal human and supernatural clientele. There was nothing like a vampire bloodbath to set ambiance back to the dark ages. There were a few for whom that might hold a certain appeal, but, for the rest, she guessed… not so much.

  What was happening in the sub-basement niggled at her consciousness. She was too aware of the fact that a girl of twenty-something should not be so… adept. It pointed to specialized training from an early age and although Trina never spoke of her youth, Magda gleaned sufficient insight from between-the-lines, enigmatic statements and reactions to surmise that she’d been a victim of the flesh trade. And, knowing the Roma, it wouldn’t surprise her that as a child she’d been given over to either the Turks or the Magyars in return for political, and other, favors.

  The Roma belonged nowhere and everywhere. They oozed into the cracks, using fear and mysticism to keep all but the most depraved away. That Catrina had been bartered back indicated that her clan had put a high value on whatever it was she’d either learned… or honed at the feet of masters of the dark, sensual arts.

  It made her valuable enough to trade her soul for the dubious distinction of near immortality. Damien had attempted a feat of legerdemain in forcing her, his offspring, to share responsibility for the girl’s turning, perhaps to offset the hold the clan now had on him.

  What the hell did you do, Damien? What did you promise in return for a gift you had no right to bestow?

  Having Rinj in Damien’s house, his sanctuary, not simply as a guest but also as a consumer of services, was not something members of the Council encouraged. And it made her wonder… if Rinj could be so open about his personal peccadillos and sexual obsessions, what might the man be hiding that would be even more damning and dangerous to her Sire’s interests. And hers.

  For now they all seemed willing to consider Catrina as an asset. But try as hard as she might, there was no way she was going to objectify her emotions in that way.

  There were few things she’d ever cared about. At one time it had been Damien, hands down. But caring, loving, was not the same as submitting, and that was the only thing he seemed to care about.

  Magda still had no idea, at all, what price Catrina would exact… of either of them. All she knew was that if she were asked to choose…

  A light rap on the door interrupted her train of thought.

  “Beb?” His voice was coarse, scratchy and tight.

  “Damien?”

  He whispered, “Come to my room. Just you.” And then he was gone.

  Magda sank onto the bed, an imaginary taste of bile coating her tongue.

  Damn those memories. Being human sucked.

  Being nursemaid to a self-indulgent pervert, even more so.

  Whatever had happened to Damien this foul evening, she would get to pay for it, in spades. Reluctantly she went into the bathroom to find her stash of medical supplies.

  Hollywood sometimes got it wrong, in this case the miracle healing for which her kind was so notorious. Wounds might not fester or go gangrenous but they could take their good old time regenerating, depending on the severity of the injury and the strength of the vampire, and there was no bye for the agony of defeat. With heightened senses came acute, debilitating pain responses. That made torture the weapon of choice when things went beyond minor disagreements.

  It also made those vamps for whom pleasure and pain were mere sides of the same coin a perplexing conundrum. That described Damien to a ‘tee’.

  Her Sire was considered a willful, undisciplined teenager in the eyes of their community, flirting with the ‘too dumb to live’ reprobation the other, older masters inflicted on him when they thought he wasn’t listening. The sole reason he’d attained the standing and position he’d managed in New Orleans was from his unique breeding. And his ability to funnel, control and reimagine all manner of perversions that appealed to the fringes of both the human and supernatural communities.

  Fringes with considerable discretionary funds.

  With a sigh, Magda tucked her box of supplies under one arm and pressed an inconspicuous notch on the paneled wall behind a bookcase. It swung out, revealing a short passage linking hers and Damien’s quarters. Designed at one time as a walk-in closet, she’d decided to convert it into a direct access between their suites. The narrow space also doubled as a weapons horde, hou
sing her collection of swords, katanas and hunting knives.

  Without bothering to knock, Magda keyed in the code and entered into a spacious high-ceiled sitting room. The doors to a balcony stood ajar to her left as she entered, off-white gauze curtains fluttering in a gentle breeze. The double-gallery townhouse had been constructed in the ante-bellum style by a Brit ex-pat who’d aspired to a genteel Southern lifestyle built on a fishing fleet and transportation barges plying the Mississippi. He’d chosen to reside in what later became known as the Garden District, close to the Lafayette Cemetery number one where the then Council members had fashioned a secret meeting chamber in which to conduct business.

  Damien was forever going on about the challenges of construction in an area essentially below water level, to the tune of eight feet or more. Magda allowed the mini-mental-info-dump to run rampant, partly as a distraction and partly out of fear of what she’d face once her Sire decided to make his presence known.

  “I’m out here, Beb.”

  Her head snapped to the left, the breeze finally wafting the scent of blood and gore and fading adrenalin to her nostrils.

  I should have scented him the minute I entered his room. What the hell—

  She found him on the balcony, collapsed against the wooden siding, one hand gripping the wrought iron railing, the other pressed hard against his belly. It was clear but moonless, the overhang from the roof casting the balcony in deep shadow. She didn’t need x-ray vision to see the blood. The smell was enough to knock her over… and kick her hunger into overdrive.

  Oh sweet mother of…

  “It’s alright, Cher. We dun pick da wrong Fais Do Do in de Vieux Carre…” Bloody spittle oozed from the corner of a split lip.

  “Right, you and Gab. Wrong place. Wrong time.” Magda peeled his left hand away from his gut. “Jesus.” The wound was deep but narrow. “See what happens when you ignore our training sessions?”

  He grinned, a lopsided effort. “S’okay, Beb.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Listen, I need you to help me. I want to get you to the shower. It’s the only way I can clean this mess enough to evaluate what’s going on.”

  She bent over and gripped him under the arms. He groaned but pushed with his legs, allowing her to leverage him against the siding and holding him in place until she could figure out a way to maneuver him through the sitting room without inflicting more damage.

  “Uh, listen, Damien…”

  “Do it, sweetheart. We’re running out of time. Sun’s up soon and you won’t be able to help me then.”

  “Shit. Alright. This is gonna hurt but I’ll do it fast.” With that she heaved him over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry and raced to the bathroom. The stall door to the shower was ajar so she kicked it open and eased the man onto the tile floor, positioning his head to the side so she could turn the water on full force without having him swallow any of it.

  “Don’t drown. I’ll be right back. Left my medical bag on the balcony.”

  When she returned the gush of tepid water had already rinsed away the worst of the blood. She carefully cut away his shirt and examined the wound.

  “A sword. You let some asshole run you through,” she paused and bit her lip, appalled at the amount of damage, “and you let them give it a few twists and turns?”

  Damien hissed, “Impaled was more like it.” He held up both palms, each of them with similar narrow, wicked slices. “God damn it hurts.”

  “Thought you liked pain.” She was angry he’d gotten himself ambushed, angrier still that she hadn’t been along to defend her liege.

  He groaned, “I do, but only if it comes with a blow job.”

  Magda grunted, trying not to laugh. As she pulled on nitrile gloves, she explained what needed to be done. “I’m going to feel around, make sure your intestines are still in one piece. Assess any other internal damage.”

  He grimaced. “And what am I doing during this little procedure of yours?”

  “Thinking about that blow job.”

  She reached up and turned the water off, then eased Damien flat on the floor as best she could.

  After that she shut her emotions down and let her fingers do the walking.

  ****

  “Issh good shtuff…”

  “Uh-huh. Lay still, Damien. Just a couple more stitches.”

  She wasn’t sure she really needed to sew him up but the act of piercing his flesh in tiny rhythmic punches was oddly soothing. Especially after he shared that Gabriel was being held captive, awaiting Damien’s delivery of a message of good will and friendly tidings to the Council.

  “Shamuels?”

  “On his way. Rinj is out in the hall wearing a path in the pine boards.” She didn’t bother to mention exactly how unhappy their client was in having his ‘procedure’ interrupted.

  “Time…?”

  “Half hour, maybe less. Everything’s shuttered. I’ve called in the donors. We’ll do what we can in the time available.”

  The good part in this cluster fuck was that the bold-as-brass opposition cell needed to go beddy-bye as well. There’d be no extraneous mischief and pow-wowing until evening.

  Rinj stuck his head in the door. “What the hell did you give him?”

  “Morphine.” And a boatload of it to keep him from throwing himself off the balcony. Her lord and master hadn’t taken kindly to her less than expert trespass through his vital organs.

  Catrina sidled past Rinj and said, “I’ll wait downstairs and bring Mr. Samuels up when he arrives.”

  Magda tied off and dabbed the thin line with antiseptic. “This is going to scar, Damien. They dumped salt in it and even though I flushed it good… well, it’s not going to heal up all pretty.”

  Rinj came over to look at her handiwork, nodding with approval.

  “How’d you learn to do that, girl?”

  She just shrugged. There was no point in going into her history and all the time spent with the field surgeon at what was later dubbed the Battle of New Orleans.

  “Is he going to be awake enough…?”

  Catrina knocked politely and ushered Samuels into the room. Someone must have apprised him of the situation because he sat on the edge of the bed and growled, “You fucked up royally, boy. Exactly how do you plan to make this right?”

  Magda positioned herself at the head of the bed, close enough to touch knees with Samuels. Catrina paced to the other side, her body rigid. They had no idea yet of her fighting skills but there was no doubt that she’d bring some powerful Roma juju to the table as the need arose.

  With Samuels’ body posture signaling serious displeasure, Magda prepared herself for some major pain.

  Damien interrupted with a muttered, “Tell him…”

  Magda stared into Samuels’ gold-tinted brown eyes and relayed what little her Sire had been able to tell her in between screams of agony. “He and Gabriel, he’s Damien’s tracker, went out to hunt.” She neglected to tell the man what they were hunting. Let him fill in the blanks. “They stumbled into a Fais Do Do…”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Um, it’s like a rave. You know… an impromptu dance party. Usually it’s a bunch of teens smoking weed, doing ex, that kind of thing.”

  “And…”

  “Well, it turned out to be a celebration of some sort for one of the Trinity cells.” Samuels looked at Rinj and snarled under his breath, but she ignored them and continued. “Gab and him…” she glared down her nose at Damien, “…decided to be good citizens and break it up. Without backup,” she added, just to make a point.

  “Tell me the bottom line, then I want to feed and crash.”

  Magda drew in a breath and exhaled, the meaningless gesture a holding pattern while she gathered her thoughts. Finally she said, “They’ll hold Gab until tomorrow midnight. We bring you to some location that’ll be phoned in at dusk, they hand Gab over, you listen to a list of demands. That’s about the gist of it.”

  “And how many pieces do you think your
man will be in?”

  “Enough I’ll need an extra-large trash bag.” Magda was under no illusions as to the fate of their tracker. Whatever the outcome he was collateral damage.

  Catrina asked, “Do you have anything of Gab’s I can have?”

  The group turned to Catrina with interest. Magda said, “Yeah, I can find something. Why?”

  “Well, I might be able to run a trace on him.” She grimaced and muttered, “If he’s still alive.”

  Rinj barely kept the eagerness out of his voice. “Do you mean a psychic link?”

  Shrugging, Catrina answered, “Sort of. It’s not always accurate and he’ll have to be fairly close. But it’s worth a try, don’t you think?”

  Samuels rubbed his face, his eyes at half-mast. “It’s after sunset, I’m hungry and I need some rest. Where’s dinner?”

  “Catrina will take you to the donors. We have spare rooms at the end of the hall. Make yourselves comfortable.”

  “I’ll wake you all. Six, seven hours, no more. We need to plan our next steps and call in re-enforcements.” He looked over at Damien who was already in deep sleep and shook his head. “Is he going to be any use to us tomorrow?”

  “I wouldn’t count on it, sir.” Magda bit her tongue but Samuels looked pleased and gave a nod of approval.

  “That’s fine. Just see to your little friend. If she can get us a location…”

  Rinj chuckled and motioned Catrina to lead him to their evening snack. Samuels followed, but more slowly, something clearly on his mind.

  Before exiting the bedroom he turned and smiled, sending a chill down Magda’s spine. “Dress nicely for me, pet, I do love the way you… accessorize.”

  “Sir.”

  Fuck you, sir.

  A rich baritone voice echoed down the hall, “I heard that…”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Trinity

  Catrina towered over Rinj, yet the man dominated their space in ways that defied reason. Even Samuels acknowledged an unspoken personal space limit, according his oriental cohort an unusual degree of respect.