by Sarah Zettel
All Ilona’s seduction vanished, replaced by a siming frustration. She suddenly looked a lot younger too. “If you must play the fool, Anatole, could you avoid doing so in front of the daybloods?”
Anatole leaned in. “It keeps them off their guard.” It came to me that he was deliberately provoking her and I wondered again about the pair of them. The two of them, I mentally corrected myself.
Wait. What did I care whether they were a pair or not?
The patch of gray light at the corner of my vision turned deep red. Applause broke out again.
Evidently having failed to get the kind of reaction she wanted from Anatole, Ilona turned her attention to the “daybloods.” She glided up to me. Neat maneuver. Must have taken a lot of practice too, as the hem of her backless dress puddled dramatically on the floor and she didn’t once stumble. “You are Charlotte Caine. The vampire chef.”
“That nickname was not my idea.” I held out my hand. “Thank you for agreeing to talk to us.”
“It is Anatole you should thank.” Ilona looked at my hand like she wondered what it was doing there. I shrugged. Okay, now I knew where we were. “Without him, you would not be here.”
“Will I blot out the sun itself with the strength of my hunger?” inquired a new actor with the heaviest Eastern European accent since the master himself. Clearly, it was monologue time in Blood Slaughter.
I found myself with absolutely no desire to prolong this weird little encounter. Time to be direct. “I’m trying to find out why Dylan Maddox’s body was dumped at my restaurant. Your name’s come up a couple times, so I thought you might have some ideas about who or what was behind it.”
Ilona swiveled her head to glare daggers at Anatole.
“I was surprised as anyone, Ilona,” he told her. “You have always been so discreet.” The last word came out heavily laced with grade-A sarcasm. “Is there somewhere else we could have this conversation? Somewhere perhaps you would feel comfortable providing a little illumination for your guests?”
“What do I not dare? I hunger. I thirst! These are mine, and if their bodies shall feed the soil, so their blood, their lives be reborn in the fire of my vein. . . .”
“Is this . . . normal?” I whispered to Brendan.
“I’ve heard worse,” he whispered back.
“You’re kidding.”
I should have kept my mouth shut, because now I got the full brunt of vampire glower. Studying the floor became very interesting just then, and a whole lot safer.
“Come with me.” Ilona’s disgust was plain. Keeping up the smooth, swaying glide that made me wonder if she was on Rollerblades under that dress, she led us deeper into the theater. Anatole followed her and I followed Anatole, with Brendan bringing up the rear and keeping his virtual lighter held high, so he and I could actually see where we were going. As we passed the stage wings, I could just make out the shifting backstage action—actors doing quick changes, stagehands ready with props or wheeling new bits of scenery into place. We passed a heavily pinked-up young vampire in a tight-laced, translucent nightie (white), who adjusted a corkscrew curl. Something nagged at me, and I did a double take, and staggered. Damn stupid heels.
Brendan caught me. I gripped his wrist for a split second, and then hurried ahead on tippytoes, as if that d keep a vampire from hearing me.
Because the pinked-up vamplette in the blond wig was Julie.
“Take me, then!” She announced in high, quavering tones that made her sound like a cross between a valley girl and an anxious hamster. “Reveal to me the awesome purity of your thirst!” Arms held out in front of her, Julie paced onto the stage.
Brendan was still holding on to my arm, helping guide me up the stairs. I bit my lip. I wanted to tell him what I’d seen, but not within vampire earshot. At least, not within Ilona’s earshot.
There were no lights on inside Ilona’s office, but one velvet drape had been pulled back enough to reveal half of an arched window, and enough city light entered to see by. We stepped onto plush carpet, and I could have sworn I heard a door close.
Brendan stowed his phone without looking at it. His eyes swept the room, methodically searching the shadows. Unlike its owner, the room was done up in an ultramodern style. An angular silver and crystal chandelier hung from the vaulted ceiling. The desk, tables, sideboard and chairs were all glass, steel and white velvet. No wood, I noted. Anywhere. Except that other door behind the desk.
“What’s back there?” asked Brendan, nodding toward the second door.
“A closet,” replied Ilona. “Something to drink, Anatole?” She unstoppered a square decanter on the sideboard. I smelled warm blood as she poured a healthy measure of dark liquid into a matching crystal goblet.
“No, thank you.” Anatole, of course, seemed perfectly at home and settled into one of the white plush chairs. “I have imbibed sufficiently this evening.”
“Really?” Ilona eyed me over the rim as she sipped. To be precise, she eyed the neckline of my borrowed dress.
Oh, help.
“Mind if I look in that closet?” Brendan was already halfway across the office.
Ilona shrugged and sipped her blood. Brendan opened the door. It was a closet—complete with black dresses in various styles on padded hangers and lots of stiletto heels arranged in tidy pairs. He closed it, frowning.
A sense of familiarity crept over my skin like a cold draft. At the same time every synapse I owned was telling me I didn’t want to be here a split second longer than necessary.
“Listen, Ms. St. Claire, you were the one who insisted on a face-to-face. I’ve just got a few questions, and then we’ll be more than happy to get out of your way.”
“Will you, indeed?” Ilona said the words in that special musing tone that telegraphs something bad is about to be attempted. I had a split second to drop my gaze before she drifted into my space.
“Look at me, Charlotte Caine,” Ilona whispered. It was a loving, dangerous sound, and as much as I hate to admit it, I almost did what I was told.
“I don’t know you that well.”
“You are afraid?”
“Absolutely.” Few things throw a bully off like honesty.
She snickered and drew back with, I’m pretty sure, a snide sideways glance at Anatole.
“Ilona . . .” He sighed.
She waved him away and knocked back the rest of her blood like a shot of tequila. “My information has a price.”
Color me unsurprised. “What is it?”
“I want a drink from the warlock.”
That unsurprise? I take it back.
Anatole rolled his eyes. “We all want a drink from the warlock, Ilona.” I was about to say I didn’t, but decided to keep my mouth shut. Anatole saw my confusion. “Warlock blood carries a certain amount of power with it. It is highly prized.”
“That is my price.” For a minute, Ilona resembled Taylor Watts, standing there like she owned the world. “Agree, or you can leave.”
Tension thrummed through the room, lifting the hairs on my arms and neck. I rubbed my arms. My skin was trying to tell me someone else was watching me. I tried to tell it to calm down. We had bigger problems. Ilona had agreed to see us only to get Brendan down here. To get Anatole down here. Everything else must have been a setup. I was . . . extraneous at best. I should have told her to go to hell right there.
That I hesitated even a split second is one of my worst moments. But I did, and Brendan saw it. The sensation of being watched deepened, and goose bumps prickled down my arms.
“On the wrist,” Brendan said.
“No!”
Ilona shrugged. “If that is your pleasure.” I didn’t imagine the greedy gleam in her eye, or the little bit of moisture at the corner of her mouth.
“Ilona,” said Anatole sternly. “This is unnecessary.”
“But it is most enjoyable.” She smiled, making sure Brendan and I got a good look at her stained fangs.
Brendan turned to me and took a deep
breath. I grabbed his arm before he could say anything. “No. Don’t do this. You can’t trust her not to mess with you.” Chet, when I get hold of you I’m going to kill you really dead this time for getting me into this.
Tension shifted. My skin crawled. Something was wrong. Really, really wrong.
Brendan smiled and laid his hand over mine. God, did he have to look so much like a hero? It made my heart twist. “I can take care of myself, Charlotte. It’ll be okay.” He squeezed my hand, and my heart constricted in sympathy. “But you’d better wait outside.”
“Oh, no. Sister Chef stays to watch. That also is part of the price.”
“Ilona.” Subsonic warnings filled Anatole’s voice and the rest of my goose bumps came out to get a better listen. “This is not reasonable.”
But Ilona waved words and warnings away. “It is entirely reasonable, Anatole. The little girl needs her eyes opened.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I am talking about this dangerous naïveté that daybloods like you carry about.”
“Like me?” She wanted to bite Brendan because of me? “You got it in for chefs?”
“The families.” Ilona spat the words. “The ‘loved ones’ who can’t let go when the transition is complete. You want so much to believe your brother has not changed, that he is still the living high school boy he used to be.”
Wait. What? How is this suddenly about Chet? “I accept what my brother is.”
That was atical error. I knew it as soon as I saw Ilona’s big, fangy smile. “If you truly accept our kind, then you will not mind seeing this. You are, as you remind me, a chef. Why would you be bothered by the sight of someone enjoying a meal?”
“I won’t do it with Charlotte in the room,” said Brendan flatly.
“Then we have nothing more to discuss.” Ilona draped herself gracefully over the nearest chaise longue, revealing a pair of black stiletto shoes on her feet. How many decades of practice do you need before you can glide in stilettos?
“Ilona, you are being ridiculous.” I had thought Anatole would be angry, but he just sounded tired. The kind of tired your father turned on when you were six years old and it was nine o’clock and you still wouldn’t get undressed for bed.
Father? I looked at Anatole. I looked at Ilona. Father?
“I’m being ridiculous?” Ilona rounded on him. “You’re tailing around after a Maddox, playing boy detective, and I’m the one being ridiculous?” Rage poured off her in waves. I wanted to run. I needed to run. There was the door. Time to go.
Except that would mean leaving Brendan alone with two vampires. That this was enough to make me hold my ground made me feel slightly better about myself.
Not that Ilona was paying any attention to Brendan or me. “You could be magnificent, Anatole. A leader, a king among our kind!” She spread her arms wide. “But what do you choose to do with yourself? You consort with a creature who would not hesitate to kill you. You write trivia in a squalid little paper for fools who like to call themselves UV-challenged, and you say I’m being ridiculous!”
“Excuse me.” Brendan cut in. “It’s my blood you want, and I’m not objecting. But,” he added, “because it is my blood, you answer all my questions as well as Charlotte’s.”
Ilona’s eyes narrowed. “You do not set the conditions here, warlock.”
Brendan did not look away. He undid the cuff of his button-down shirt and rolled it back, just enough to expose his forearm with its strong tracery of veins. A thin, straight scar ran from his wrist up his forearm and disappeared under his sleeve.
He held his arm out.
Anatole smiled, and I got the feeling he was impressed. “Your move, Ilona.”
I thought she’d refuse. I hoped she’d refuse. Whatever Brendan was playing at, this game was not safe. I didn’t care what magics he could pull out or how he thought he could shield himself. This wasn’t like giving to the Red Cross. This was the Feeding and it was different.
Ilona stared at Brendan’s wrist and licked her lips. I started forward, but Anatole gripped my shoulder, holding me back as effectively as if I’d been leashed to an iron post. Brendan went down on one knee in front of Ilona. She took his arm in her graceful, dead-white hands, running her fingers over his veins.
“No.” I struggled, and Anatole’s fingers dug in hard. “It’s not worth it!”
No one was listening to me. Brendan’s attention was all on Ilona. Ilona opened her mouth, fangs glittering in the streetlight.
But before she could get any further, the shadows shifted. Glass shattered and a silver missile shot between us and thudded on the carpet. I had just enough time to see an letered canister roll to a stop.
Pop!
Yellow-white gas boiled into the air, carrying with it the unmistakable scent of garlic. Anatole stumbled toward the window, hand clamped over his mouth. More glass shattered and the light was gone. Two dark figures swung in through the window.
They had stakes, and crosses.
18
“Die, vampire!”
Anatole threw himself backward. The two ninja-style silhouettes hurtled past and landed in the center of the carpet, stakes and crosses held high. Ilona snarled. Ninja Silhouette One charged her, but Anatole snaked his long arms around its waist and flung it aside. The Ninja Silhouette howled in outrage and slammed against the wall hard enough to shake the chandelier. The vampires’ contagious fear and anger swirled through the air like the garlic smoke, so my throat burned as much from the need to scream as from the rank gas.
Brendan roared something and tackled NS2. The garlic grenade popped again and another wave of gas filled the room. Anatole hit his knees, hands pressed tight against his eyes.
I dove for the spitting canister, wobbling badly on my stupid borrowed heels, and scooped it up. Pain bit hard through both palms.
“Hot!” I dodged Brendan, who was sprawled full length on the floor, grappling with NS2. “Hot coming through!” I hurled the garlic grenade out the shattered window.
“What the hell!” came the New York echo.
“Sorry!” I swung back around toward the fight.
Ninja Silhouette One towered over Anatole, who was now on hands and knees. Ilona screamed in Russian.
“Light!” Brendan struggled to hang on to NS2’s ankle while he waved his smartphone in the air. NS2 kicked free of Brendan and grabbed Ilona by the knees, toppling her. Above us the chandelier shuddered, clinked and flared to life. I and the vampires all yelled as the sudden light hit our eyes.
Now I could see faces. Margot—Ninja Silhouette One—held Ilona down with one hand and wielded an industrialsized silver crucifix with the other. Ian—NS2—had the stake.
Chet stood by the curtains, crouched and ready to spring.
Chet stood by the curtains.
Chet.
Brendan stared wildly at his cat-suited relatives and gave what I can only assume was the traditional Maddox family greeting.
“You morons!”
Chet straightened up and avoided my pedestrian-in-the-headlights stare.
Anatole didn’t waste time on salutations. He snagged the neck of Ian’s unitard, dragging him away from Ilona.
“What do you think you’re doing?” demanded Brendan.
“Rescuing you, you idiot!” Ian clamped onto Anatole’s wrist and threw himself sideways so they both rolled across the floor in a mass of flailing limbs and multilingual curses.
I still couldn’t move.
“Rescuing!” shouted Brendan.
Vamp and vamp hunter banged against the metal desk legs and came to a halt with Ian very much on top. He brandished his stake and grinned like a teenager about to get laid. Ilona scrambled to reach under her desk. I jerked back into motion and jumped to stop her, but I collided with Chet hard enough to bounce, and lost my balance on those stupid, stupid heels. My brother caught me by the shoulders before I could fall and grimaced apologetically.
“You were getting bitten, Brend
an!” Margot dove toward Ian and Anatole.
“You followed me?” Brendan grabbed Margot and hauled her away from that tomcat fight.
In a split second Anatole rolled Ian under again. He came up kneeling on Ian’s chest and holding the stake under the warlock’s tufted chin. I gotta say, Ian now looked considerably less enthusiastic about being on the floor.
“You were having us followed!” Margot tried to yank her arm out of her brother’s grip.
“Brendan! He’ll kill me!” squeaked Ian.
“No, he won’t. Unlike you two, Sevarin’s not a moron.”
“Thank you for the compliment.” The words would have sounded much smoother if Anatole hadn’t bared his fangs at Ian right then. “But I do feel grievous bodily harm is a viable option at this time.”
The door flew open. A pair of male vamps in black turtlenecks and slacks charged in. Now I knew why Ilona had gone for her desk. Whoever thought of a vampire office with a panic button?
“Kill them!” Ilona drew herself up straight. “They laid hands on me!”
Chet shoved me behind him, but he didn’t need to bother because Anatole turned his head to look at Ilona. May I never see such a look leveled at me. It froze the two new vamps right in their tracks, and even Ilona seemed to shrivel.
Slowly, Anatole stood up and backed away so Ian could scramble to his feet. Even from where I stood peeking behind my brother’s back, I could see the balding warlock tremble.
“Yours, I believe.” Anatole held out the stake to Ian.
“Anatole . . .” began Ilona. You could have heard the threat in Hoboken.
“No.” Anatole brushed his suit coat down. “Despite appearances, Ilona, you are not a moron either. If three dead Maddoxes are found in your theater, you will start a war.”
Vampires do not stare daggers at each other. They stare AK-47 full automatics and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
“Ilona, I have reached my limit,” said Anatole. “If you do not care for your personal safety, you might at least remember how many of your secrets I hold, and that I have access to more kinds of media than you ever knew existed. The Paranormal Squad would be very intrigued by your latest moneymaking scheme, and your separatist movement friends would be most interested, I’m sure, to know about your current lover.” He looked right at Chet.
