Gold Dust Woman
Alicia Sparks
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2005 Alicia Sparks
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ISBN (10) 1-59596-176-3
ISBN (13) 978-1-59596-176-1
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Editor: Katriena Knights
Cover Artist: Sahara Kelly
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Chapter One
When the sun sank down into the western sky and the breeze blew just right across the French Quarter, it made Canon feel more alive than he had in a very long time. Tonight was one of those nights when the moon hung low and the stars twinkled their secrets to anyone who cared to listen. Canon closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of home. He had been gone for too damned long, trying to forget the past, thinking Los Angeles with its allure of fashion and glamour would be a quick fix. How many years had it taken for him to realize he would never be able to forget his past, to forget his father and what he had done, to forget the woman he had loved beyond reason?
But there was no room for love in the Quarter tonight. Sex, now that was another thing entirely. In fact, the one thing on his mind right now was heading into Pirate’s Cove and finding a nice warm body to cuddle up to on the crisp October night. She’d have long legs, small breasts and a tiny waist and would be 100% free of silicone. He’d had enough of that stuff to last him a lifetime. What he needed now was a real woman, a Creole woman, a red bone, free of all those California ideas.
He pulled his collar tightly around his face, shielding himself from the wind more out of habit than need. He hadn’t felt the cold air in so long, yet he still remembered how it had tickled against his skin, sending a chill all through his body as his blood tried to warm him. That had been a long time ago, and now, he almost laughed at the ridiculous notion of his blood doing anything. Helaire blood hadn’t flowed in his veins for a very long time. His nightly infusions did nothing but remind him of that fact.
Vampire blood was cold as ice.
“Where you been lately?” He had barely cleared the door at the Cove before he was greeted by familiar faces and voices. This one belonged to Sidney, one of the mortals who frequented vampire dives like this. Of course, as owner of the town’s vampire tour machine Sidney had a stake in New Orleans vampire lore. He had amassed a small fortune shuttling tourists around town showing them places where mythical vampires hung out. The only problem was the vampires were real, and the tourists fed off the possibility of life eternal while the vampires fed off their blood.
“Hey, Sid. I’ve been out West. Warming my blood.” His lips turned up in the only kind of smile he could muster, one he knew looked exactly like the devil. The smile had been a gift from his father, along with numerous other Helaire curses.
“That’ll take some doing.” Sid raised his glass in a silent toast before touching it to his lips. “I gotta go. Touring starts in thirty. Besides, the natives are restless tonight.” He shot a glance toward Pete, the bartender and Canon’s brother, before sliding out of the booth and heading for the door.
When Pete was restless it usually meant one of two things. Either he was itching to have sex with a human, something Pete was unable to do, or he planned to kill in mass numbers. Either one could be destructive for their kind. So far, the others had managed to subdue Pete’s serial killer instincts. It had been a long time since London. But the tension in the air, which Canon now noticed, was indeed thick enough to slice. His brother was on the edge tonight. Again.
He took slow steps as he approached the bar, wondering if this was the reason the city had called him back. Had he been brought here to subdue his brother before he killed again?
Canon slid onto the bar stool, fully prepared to end whatever diabolical scheme was going on in Pete’s head. “Hey, man, how have you been?”
“Where the hell have you been?” Pete snarled as he wiped down the bar.
“West Coast. You have any burgundy on hand?”
“If you mean blood, no, I’m fresh out.” Pete shot him a nasty grin before turning back to the bar.
“You don’t seem right tonight.”
“You’ve been gone five years. I don’t think you know what the hell right is. Why don’t you go crawl back under your rock, go find you a nice cemetery plot. Leave me the hell alone.” His Irish accent had only increased over the years. A long time ago, he had laughingly said it was the only damned thing his mother had ever given to him.
Pete should never have become an immortal as the change had affected him more negatively than most. His impotence and cold killing streaks were only two of his flaws. Canon had changed Pete for one reason. His brother had been on the verge of death from the yellow fever, which had been so destructive that year. Having already lost Chloe and his own mortality, he was damned if he was going to lose anything else. It had been in a fit of rage and anxiety, fueled by lack of feeding. Before he knew it, his teeth sank into his brother’s neck, feeding off Pete’s illness until his brother’s heart stopped beating. It was then that Pete changed. What had once been a loving heart became a sick, black hole. That was the problem with vampires. Turning them often did more than take their souls. It sometimes stripped them of their decency, creating killing machines.
Pete’s black eyes narrowed, and Canon knew he’d have to keep a close eye on his brother unless he wanted the killing to begin again. Then there would be no stopping Pete, and all of New Orleans was likely to become a feeding pool. Keeping Pete under control would mean looking up whoever had kept him alive for the past few years. He had always taken on one feeder at a time.
Sid would know who Pete kept company with. Canon made a mental note to seek him out at St. Louis No. 1 later tonight. The cemetery was a huge tourist draw, thanks to Marie LaVeau’s grave. People came from all over the world to draw three tiny marks on her tomb in order to have the voodoo priestess grant their wishes. Of course, Marie wasn’t actually buried there, but no one seemed to mind. In these parts, legend held more weight than reality.
Taking one last look at Pete, Canon tried to get inside his head. Once, they had shared a psychic bond that went beyond sharing the same father. Tonight, the bond was broken as Pete shut him out. Shutting Canon out was one more sign that Pete was nearing the edge of sanity.
Knowing Sid would be more than willing to help him, Canon headed back out into the night air. The starry sky winked at him, reminding him of all the changes that had taken place in the past two hundred years. Some nights, he cursed his undead existence and wished he’d have taken the elixir offered to him in Paris so long ago. Then, he had been so young and full of fire, feeding off artists and revolutionaries, more balls than brains.
None of the blood that had flowed into his system had managed to erase the pain in his past, and he had finally given in to the numbness that overtook his body, leaving him unable to feel, unable to want anything except for that which kept him alive. In many ways, he and Pete were alike. The only difference was Canon focused his pain internally while Pete act
ed out.
Canon’s head spun as memories enveloped him, swirling around him until 1800 New Orleans came into perfect view. If he closed his eyes, he could almost smell the New Orleans of 1798. He could almost feel Chloe walking toward him, carrying with her his future. Her yellow eyes laughed against her café au lait skin, the color of Creole coffee.
It had been three days since he’d eaten. That time alone had been enough to dull his senses, make his intuition falter a bit. That combined with worry about Pete made him completely unaware of the woman who was walking toward him.
“Chloe.” Her name almost warmed his lips as he forced himself to shake away the past. She wasn’t Chloe, but she was almost a perfect double. Would her blood be as red? No. He refused to think of Chloe’s blood on his hands, spilling from her body as her life fled. He refused to dwell on the hatred that had driven him to his devilish pact, turning him into a vampire as the moon rose.
Her yellow eyes practically glowed as she looked up at him, her face filled with surprise. A hint of something else flashed there, but he couldn’t read her. Almost the second their eyes met, he collided with her, her small frame pressing for a moment against his large one, sending imagined sensations all through his body, making him wonder how she’d feel naked against him.
The thought hit him hard in the chest as he realized the only thing he wanted was to feel.
“You all right, ma’am?” He steadied her shoulders, noting the way she avoided his eyes. Her long lashes swept against her cheeks. He almost reached out to touch the stray yellow hair that blew wild in the night wind. Instead, he waited, his breath caught in his throat just before her New Orleans accent washed over him.
“Fine. I just spilled my powder.”
“Oh.” He looked down at the fine yellow powder that covered his bare hand. “Sorry about that. I can pay you for it.”
“There’s no need. I’m sure you will pay enough.”
Canon couldn’t move as she danced away from him. Once again, the past blinded him as he fought down the urge to go after her, call her Chloe and take her home. When the vision passed, the woman was gone.
Whatever she meant by her parting words, he had no way of knowing. So many feelings assaulted him at once as he wondered why the hell he had a sudden cold chill snaking up his back, working its way into his system. He shivered for the first time in two hundred years and pulled his cloak tightly around his body. For a second, he wondered if he had managed to cross the line between life and death to see what was on the other side. Then he realized it was nothing more than the hunger playing tricks on him. If he wished to regain his sanity, he would have to feed.
By the time he made it to Mermaid’s Lair, Canon’s sense of reality seemed to be fading away. Being back in the city where his curse had begun must have awakened too many old memories, leaving old wounds open and susceptible to the spell of the night.
“You sure you want it, boy?” The devil had stood in front of him, just behind the handmade cross that marked Chloe’s freshly dug grave.
“Yes.” The word seethed out, filled with hatred, carrying his pain with the enunciation.
“It won’t bring her back.” The warning was lost on him. He was beyond the point of rationalization.
“I don’t care.” The hate he felt for his father was so strong nothing mattered except revenge.
“You will, boy. You will.”
That had been his last day as a mortal. The next night, Canon Helaire Sr. met a gruesome death at the hands of his oldest son. It wouldn’t bring Chloe back, but watching his father’s blood pour from his body helped dull the pain.
One of the mermaids greeted him at the door, completely unaware of his hunger as he stumbled across the threshold. He could lean in, latch onto her neck and drink his fill. Instead, he pushed his way to the back of the bar, to the rooms known for willing participants. All he had to do was drop his name and the doors would open, welcoming him. He was, after all, a co-owner here.
“Canon Helaire,” he announced to the burly man guarding the back passage, his voice barely audible above the music.
“Mr. Helaire.” The man gave a slight bow before pushing the door open.
Canon stepped inside and was immediately assaulted by the harsh throb of strobe lights and the wail of gothic music in the background. Littered around the dance floor were vampires and humans in various embraces, some sexual, others strictly culinary. All were oblivious to him as he made his way through the thick fog and ambled toward the back bar.
“I need blood,” he managed as the bartender turned her luscious neck toward him. She was one of his kind.
“Nice to see you again, Canon.” Wendy pressed her breasts against the bar, leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “What kind do you want?”
“Creole.” He barely choked the word out, the intensity of his hunger growing in his belly.
“I think I have just the thing for you. Come.” She waved him back behind the bar. “Back here.”
“Why are you taking me back here?”
“There’s a special one. Wondered if you would be here tonight. I had a feeling you might. Sid saw you out at Pete’s.”
“Where’s Sid?”
“Touring. He’ll be back around one.”
“I need to see him.”
“Why?”
“No reason.”
“In here.” Wendy pushed the door open.
He entered the room, trying to focus on the figure inside. The lights were dim, and she had her back to him. The cloak that hung off her shoulders sparked a flash of memory, but the hunger was too intense for him to focus. He needed to feed.
“Canon Helaire?” an old-fashioned Creole accent greeted him. Yes, this was exactly what he needed.
“Who wants to know?”
“Who I am is of no importance. What is important is my blood. Do you wish to have it?” She turned, baring her neck to him. He didn’t even look up as his teeth made contact with her soft flesh.
Her warmth opened up to him, provided a cushion for his fangs as they sank into her. Any second now, her blood would fill his mouth, flow into his system and drive away this blinding need. Any second now. Any second…
He couldn’t feed. Sybil’s lips turned up in a satisfied grin as she pushed him to the side and watched his big body collapse against the leather sofa. The powder had worked, just as the old books said it would. And now, the man whose memory was burned into her brain, whose touch she couldn’t get out of her head, was weak with his own sin.
“Take that, you bastard,” she flung behind her as she left the office. She dabbed a bit of dove’s blood from the vial in her pocket onto her neck before walking back out into the main bar area, hoping no one would be suspicious.
She had been conscious of her past with Canon for a long time. It may have been more than two hundred years since she had last lived, but the betrayal that led to her death was as real to her as yesterday. The old folks used to say that what happens in one lifetime will affect another. In her case, they were right.
The loss of her child in the past caused her to be sterile today, and for that, she couldn’t forgive him. He might not have caused her death directly, but he hadn’t lifted a hand to stop it. And now, Canon Helaire would not infect anyone else with his poison, and would not kill another innocent with his evil. He was no longer a vampire. The gods be praised!
The moon must have aligned correctly. The buzz around the Lair had been that the prodigal son would return. His half brother was falling off his rocker again, and Canon always returned when Pete needed him. She had spent the past two weeks scoping out the Lair. When he walked in tonight, every hair on the back of her neck had stood at attention. The need for retribution took over. In a past life, she had loved him, but now all she wanted was revenge.
Taking Canon’s powers was the first step toward this end. Honestly, it was the only step she could take in good faith. She wasn’t a killer, but she could castrate a vampire by taking away h
is ability to feed. By morning, Canon Helaire would be mortal once more, and every vampire he had created would lose strength, and all his victims would pass into heaven.
There had been a second tonight, just before his lips touched her neck, when she wondered if revenge enacted two hundred years after the fact held the same sweet taste. Even worse, Canon had no idea what had happened to him or why.
Catching up with the tour group making its way to St. Louis No. 1, she threw off her cloak. As they reached the cemetery gates, she turned right to a place just outside the holy ground. This was where Chloe had been buried so long ago. This was where her body had once lain beneath the dirt until the gods had seen fit to reincarnate her.
“It is done,” she whispered as she kneeled down before the unmarked grave. As she spoke the words of victory, a bitter taste entered her mouth. So much for sweet revenge.
Nothing had been sweet about her desire to rid the world of Canon Helaire. It didn’t matter how he haunted her dreams, how he made her want to cross over to the hell he created nightly. It didn’t matter how she longed for his touch even when he was as far away as California.
He was in her system, and she would deal with that. She would manage to keep her desires under wraps for the good of New Orleans. It was necessary that she destroy the head vampire’s powers in order to destroy the powers of those he had created, including his brother in both flesh and blood, Pete.
Everyone knew Pete’s killing sprees were growing worse. Now that Canon was back, it only made sense that Pete would once again assert his independence from his brother by killing more innocents. Of course, that was not the only reason Sybil longed to destroy Canon. It was their past, the foggy past she had recalled over the past ten years. It was a past her modern incarnation should not remember. But there was something about New Orleans that forced past lives to coexist with present ones. There was something magical about New Orleans that was potentially good, but the vampires had destroyed much of that. Now, they must be stopped.
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