A Venetian Vampire

by Michele Hauf

  “No, I’ll have to retrieve it from a hiding place. Can we meet, say, in a few hours? Perhaps someplace private.”

  “Mmm, I adore privacy.” Bunny leaned forward and licked Dante’s forehead. “The Jardin des Plantes. Midnight.” And she turned and strode off, walking across the street and causing a car to screech to a halt. Bunny flipped off the driver.

  “What the hell?” Kyler stood, wanting to run off, but not wanting to give Dante the advantage of then having the egg all to himself. As long as they stuck together, she still had a say over what happened to it. “I thought we were going to keep the dangerous vampire-killing spell out of the big bad vampire’s hands?”

  “She always called him Charles,” Dante said. “You know, I’ve known Margot’s brother as Charles—never met him, mind you—but have never known him as King. Which means I have met him. This is...mind blowing.”

  “Who cares about a stupid name?” Frustration tightening her fists, Kyler had to shake her hands at her sides to keep from grabbing him. “We are not handing over the egg to Bitch Bunny.”

  “Bunny,” he said in wonder.

  Kyler grabbed him by the shoulders. “Would you quit reminiscing about fucking her? This is serious.”

  “It is.” He pulled her hands from his shoulders and lured her onto his lap. Softly, he kissed her mouth, intruding on her anger with sweetness and warmth. He pressed his forehead to hers. “I apologize. That kiss from Bunny was uncalled for.”

  Thoroughly calmed by his tender kiss, Kyler let her shoulders fall, and she dropped the urge to beat on him. “I’m angry. But more at myself than you. Trust me on that one.”

  “Margot de Valois is an aggressive, domineering, steel-balls bitch of a woman. She is an incredible force. And she was once queen of France.”

  “What?”

  “That woman is Marguerite de Valois.”

  “Really? The Queen Marguerite from like...the sixteenth century? Didn’t Alexandre Dumas write a story about her?”

  He nodded. “And I cannot believe she’d never used her brother’s moniker of King around me before. She has always called him Charles. I knew the brother was vampire. The very vampire who transformed her. But I never knew he was—and is—King. This changes things.”

  “How so?”

  “Kyler, the founder of the Order of the Stake was once king of France.”

  “That’s...weird. And confusing. But I still don’t understand why it’s important.”

  “Everything has changed. Maybe. The Council will want to hear about this. As well, Christian, my tribe leader, will like to be in the know, I’m sure. King was the king? And a vampire who hunts his own. It’s hard to fathom, but I can’t focus on that right now. We need to retrieve the egg.”

  “No. Please, I don’t want to give those two such a dangerous weapon.”

  “The egg itself is not dangerous. It’s the spell contained inside that they want. And I’ve never been worried that would fall into the wrong hands.”

  “Why not? Wait.” She clutched his tie and met his dancing gaze. “Are you serious? Did you—”

  He nodded. A sexy curl teased the corner of his lips.

  “Of course, you would have had no other reason to put it out there for the wolves to scent. And by doing so, you intended to lure them off of our scent. You took the spell out of the egg. When? Before you put it in the safe at your palazzo? After, when we got to Paris?”

  “Does it matter? Kyler, I have the spell, safe and sound. The egg, while a precious object d’art, means nothing to me beyond preserving history. And, as you’ve said, it has served as a red herring of sorts.”

  “So we can hand over the egg—but King will try to open it. He knows the spell is inside. Your subterfuge won’t solve anything because when he sees the spell is missing, he’ll come after us again.”

  “Right. But it will give us time. And right now, we need it. I have no clue where to go with this situation. Do you?”

  “No.” She laid her head on his shoulder. The warmth of him wafted into her being. Placing a hand over his heart, it didn’t take long before their heartbeats synched. “Did you love her?”

  “Margot? I did. As I love all women.”

  That told her a lot. Because when Dante loved a woman, Kyler had come to realize it wasn’t a true and abiding love. It was surface and shallow, just fleeting admiration.

  “Do you love me?”

  He tilted her chin up to face him and studied her gaze. “I’m damned if I do with that question.”

  “I don’t need an answer.” She did, but she wouldn’t be needy. Not when there were much more important issues literally at stake. “It was silly to ask. I just—”

  He kissed her. Deeply. Abidingly. And with a commanding control that told her this kiss he wanted, and it wasn’t something he thought he needed to do simply to please a woman. Dante’s kiss took hold of her apprehensions and wrung them smooth, softening and caressing. The kiss entreated her to understand. To move along with him, because right now that was what worked for him.

  When she pulled away he pressed his forehead to hers and kissed the tip of her nose. “I like you, Kyler.”

  Her heartbeat speeded up at that simple statement. That meant more than a well-practiced “I love you.” It meant that the man’s veneer was cracking and that she might have crept inside of him.

  “I like you, too. A lot.”

  “Let’s get the egg from the locker,” he said. “We’ll hand it over to Bunny, then leave for Venice where we can avoid detection, at least for a while. It’ll give us a head start.”

  “Sounds like a poor plan, but I don’t have anything better to suggest. We’ll do it your way. Do you have the spell on you right now?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I’d like to see it. Just, you know, I want to take a look at what I risked my life to steal.”

  “It’s written in Latin. It wouldn’t mean anything to you.”

  “So you’re not going to share with your kitten?” She pulled on a pouty face for effect.

  With a surrendering shake of his head, and an ill-concealed smile, he reached inside his suit coat and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Just like that. Carrying it around on him as if it were a grocery list or some other insignificant writing. Kyler sat up on his lap, turning to settle against his chest, and he handed her the paper.

  “It’s very old, so be careful. It was torn from the bottom of a page in The Vampire Codex, though I’m not sure what that greater page was. More spells?”

  “This little piece of paper will kill thousands?” Kyler carefully unfolded it and studied the words, but he was right—the Latin looked like scribbles to her. A runic language, for all she knew. The Vampire Codex sounded mysterious yet intriguing. This paranormal realm of which she’d only recently become a member would ever fascinate—yet also frighten. “What’s this drawing here?”

  “I’ve never been sure.”

  She traced what looked like the bottom half of a circle, drawn with fading red ink. It was a spotted tube of sorts and on the right side, where the paper was frayed from the tear, the narrow tube expanded in a sort of head shape.

  “An ouroboros,” she said in an excited whisper.

  “What?”

  “It looks like the bottom half of an ouroboros. You know, the symbol of a snake swallowing its own tail.”

  “He who eats his own tail,” Dante recited. “Yes, a symbol of eternity. What could that mean? King is killing his own kind for...”

  “He really does want eternity,” Kyler guessed. “And maybe this spell is part of a larger eternity spell. It makes sense. Why else would such a symbol be on this paper?”

  “That’s assuming your guess about the symbol is correct. Though it does make a weird sense. So he really is after eternity
? Perhaps the page from The Vampire Codex that he holds is the actual eternity spell, and this is merely an ingredient to it.”

  “Killing thousands of vampires an ingredient? That makes me sick. And what’s The Vampire Codex?”

  “It’s book of spells, history and foretellings for the vampire nation. A valuable and singular item that is under some kind of magical protection. It’s similar to the witches’ Book of All Spells. Like the master bible of the species. Something like that. I’ve never seen it. But I am aware King owns a page from it, because my creator, Zara, told me. I hadn’t thought to put the two together—the Codex page and this spell—until right now.”

  He hugged her against him, and she tucked the spell back in his pocket. “Can’t we destroy that paper so no one will ever have such power?”

  “We could.” He kissed the crown of his head. “But then we’d have nothing with which to bargain. And I sense we’re going to need such a chip sooner rather than later. Come along with me, Kitten. Let’s head back to the train station.”

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later they rounded a corner and headed toward the Gare de Nord. Dante still couldn’t get Kyler’s question out of his brain, and his lacking answer. Do you love me? His usual response was to answer with a few kisses and say, “Of course I love you, darling. I adore you.” Kiss, kiss. Fuck, fuck. Goodbye. It’s how his love life was structured.

  Love was his veneer, his armor. A false kind of emotion he used as a shield to placate and appease.

  So why hadn’t he reeled off the usual reply to Kyler?

  She was different. She didn’t deserve the indifferent dismissal. She deserved—well, he knew what she deserved but also knew he wasn’t the man to give it to her. Real love. Trust. Honor. All that admirable stuff. It wasn’t in his nature. Hell, he’d been raised in a brothel. An understanding of love and monogamy did not run in his veins. He was unchangeable.

  Though something inside him was beginning to shift. To soften, perhaps? It confused him. He wanted to shove it away, yet at the same time he simply wanted to surrender and say, “Have at me!”

  But in the absence of any solid assertions of his current emotional state, he could offer few comforting words.

  “You’re quiet,” he said as they walked by touristy storefronts that were closing for the evening. “You have every right to be angry over the scene at the café.”

  “I can’t remain mad over some chick kissing you. I know she was doing it to get a rise out of me. Besides, you’re not mine and I’m not yours. You can kiss whomever you like.”

  “Is that so? But I thought you liked me?”

  This woman was so maddening in her ever-shifting alliances to his heart!

  “I do. But that doesn’t give me any sort of ownership over your heart. You, Casanova, are a free man.” She strode ahead of him.

  Dante’s heart did something strange. It stopped for a moment or two. And in those moments he felt the empty ache for something more. He wanted her to care. He wanted...to be hers.

  She glanced over her shoulder. “You coming?”

  And because he would follow her everywhere, he said, “Yes.”

  Once inside the Gare du Nord, they both came to an abrupt stop before the shocking appearance of the rental locker. Dante tilted his head and closed his eyes, opening his senses to the cluttered surroundings. Scent of dog lingered in the air. They’d just missed the culprits.

  “Now what?” Kyler asked, a touch of franticness in her tone.

  He ran a fingertip along the metal locker door that had been sheared open to look like a curling rooster tail by what could have only been a werewolf claw. He noticed a traveler standing not twenty feet away, staring at them, and shrugged as if to say, “Guess I’ll never get this one locked again.” Inside the locker sat a manila envelope that contained some legal documents related to his estate. He’d placed it in there years earlier. The envelope hadn’t been touched.

  The egg was not inside.

  He’d thought to get here before the wolves had tracked it down.

  “The wolves don’t know how to open the egg,” Kyler said. “Not that it matters with the spell in your pocket. But now there’s King and the Bunny bitch. What do we do about them?”

  Dante’s jaw pulsed. He turned and marched toward the exit doors.

  Time for plan B. And they hadn’t even had a decent plan A.

  Chapter 16

  They walked across the Pont de Sully to the Left Bank, Kyler trailing behind Dante at times because his pace was relentless. At other times, she picked up her pace and paralleled him, as she did now. He hadn’t spoken much since they’d left the train station, and the walk had been long. He was fuming, and yet she couldn’t understand why. If he already had the spell, then who cared about the egg beyond the fact it was valuable? Dante wasn’t a man who cared about material things. Other than a bespoke suit.

  “We don’t have to meet her now,” Kyler offered, swinging her arms to keep up the pace. “Bunny.”

  His pace slowed a little. “Yes, we still have to see Bunny. Bunny! That name is ridiculous.”

  It was. “Does the name bother you because it’s childish and immature or because you actually slept with a woman who calls herself Bunny?”

  He cast her a glance, and it wasn’t so heavy with anger any more. Good. She didn’t like serious Dante. She preferred him suave and amiable.

  “You have me there,” he replied. “But trust me—I’ve slept with some oddly named women over the decades.”

  “I’ve had a few strange names in my bed, as well.” She wasn’t about to let him have this one. And she felt the need to bring the tension down to a more manageable level.

  “Name one,” he asked.

  “How about...Crawford?”

  “Doesn’t sound so terrible.”

  “It is when every time he leans in to kiss you all you can think about is crawfish.”

  Dante laughed and clasped her hand. They slowed to wait for a few cars before crossing the Rue Cuvier and heading down a tree-lined sidewalk.

  “Well, I have slept with a Gladys,” he stated.

  Kyler chuckled. “I suppose all the Gladyses of the world were once young at some point, eh?”

  “She was lovely, as I recall. And the name, at the time, was equally as lovely. Your turn.”

  “Okay, how about Ruby?”

  “A man?”

  “Yep. Kind of weird, right? He had red hair, too. I don’t even want to go there. That may have been my first, and only, walk of shame. Messy hair and heels hooked on my fingers. Oh yeah!”

  “Ruby. Ha! Let’s see...how about Anastasia?”

  “That’s a pretty name.”

  “Yes, but it must be said with an uppity, nasal intonation and an inflated sense of entitlement.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you that one. But I’ve got one more.”

  “Fine, but I don’t think you’ll top mine.”

  They paused at the entrance to the Jardin des Plantes and Kyler said, “King.”

  Dante nodded in acknowledgment of defeat. “You win.”

  * * *

  Dante and Kyler strolled down the moonlight-sprinkled allées in the Jardin des Plantes. Rose scent mingled with jasmine and pine. Fruiting citrus trees promised tangy bursts of summer. And everywhere the greenery blossomed with abundant life.

  No tourists this late, though he almost wished there were. He was uptight and pissed at how everything had gone down lately. He needed a good long draft of blood. And he wanted nothing more than to take Kyler in his arms, strip off her clothes and make love to her while he fed on her blood.

  He shook off the thought and put Bunny in his brain. Bunny. Talk about the past springing up to haunt a man. Not that he’d ever cared for the woman. Theirs had been
a brief encounter, a week or more, perhaps. All sex. No blood, despite her pouting insistence on the exchange. She had exhausted him. He’d come away with an appreciation for a strong woman, as well as a dislike for a demanding woman. And he knew Bunny was wicked and would do whatever necessary to get what she wanted.

  “You and Bunny,” Kyler said. “Tell me about that.”

  Should he answer it truthfully or embellish their history? Kyler deserved only the truth.

  “We had a fling,” he responded to her avid curiosity. “Toward the end of the nineteenth century, if I recall my dates correctly. It was during the World’s Fair Expo when the Eiffel Tower had been newly erected. We climbed to the top one night and fucked up there.”

  “Wow. I have no words. That’s got to take some daring, if not careful, acrobatics.”

  He laughed at her easy acceptance of that stark truth. “Margot—er, Bunny has always been aggressive. She tells you what she wants. You can either comply or walk away.”

  “I imagine not too many men walk away from all that.”

  Dante chuckled again. “She is a sex bomb, for sure. But she’s dangerous. I’m not so stupid as to be attracted to the wickedness beneath the outer flash and glamour.”

  “What about mice?”

  “Mice?” Ah. “Seriously, Kyler? You are not a mouse. Don’t let that bitch get into your head.” He clasped her hand to reassure her. From the pulse beats at her wrists, he’d noticed their heartbeats synched much faster now. That was cool. Must be a result of their sharing blood. “You have nothing to fear regarding my ever again hooking up with that woman.”

  “Then why are we here? The egg is gone. You have the spell in a safe place. Well—not so safe, but at least you know where it is.” She patted his chest right over the pocket where he’d tucked the spell. “Why come here to tell her that? Let her and her lying brother stumble about looking for it on their own.”

  “If we didn’t show, they’d know something was up. By meeting tonight we’re showing the Valois siblings that we were duped, too. Now it’s in their hands to go after the wolves and leave us alone. Yes?”