by Michele Hauf
Leo wanted to believe in what everyone else subscribed to: the normal, the surface, the valid. Asking him to believe in vampires was asking much. Yet how difficult could it be to believe when the man sported a bite on his neck?
She would give him time to accept. Though, not much time. He had but days. And she had less.
She had surpassed fragility and haplessness weeks ago. No longer did she cry herself to sleep, cursing herself for the trouble that had found Damian. Now, she was determined to make the world right for Damian. For if all went well, her bait would attract the vampire Anjou.
Eyeing the collection of candles that sat around the ancient grimoire her grandmother had gifted her, Roxane shook her head. Mustn’t risk it. Recall of the white chalk symbol traced on the limestone before Leo’s home sent a shiver through her. She’d avoided the marking easily enough. As well, the chalk marks she’d drawn out on her wall had swiftly been covered to prevent suspicion.
Clasping the vial of blood suspended around her neck, she nodded, decisive. She mustn’t risk revealing any more of her truth than necessary. Some truths could do more harm than good.
FIVE
Roxane alighted from the carriage behind the two men. The moon was growing larger. She had perhaps three or four days to either capture Anjou or watch Leo go insane.
“Roxane?”
Leo stood waiting, his hand extended. Straight shoulders and proud stance. The handsome man pranked out in lace and powder intrigued her more than she thought possible. But she mustn’t subscribe to a rake’s attractions.
Bait. If you consider him anything more you will lose Damian for ever to the madness.
Glancing down, she spied the chalk circle Toussaint had drawn before the door. A portent to keep away witches.
“Mustn’t subscribe to my valet’s superstitions,” Leo offered.
“Still.” Drawing her skirts close to her legs, she stepped around the circle and over the threshold. “I’d hate to smear his artwork.”
“Tired?” He followed her inside and tugged at his jabot to loosen it.
“Completely puggled.”
“I’ll assume that means tired?”
“Yes. I should like to sleep.” And avoid looking into the man’s troubled eyes.
Intuition told her he was in need of comfort, of an understanding soul. How easy it would be to give him what he needed. At the sacrifice of her needs. Because what if? What if he succumbed to madness? Or what if he did not succumb, but instead became a drinker of blood?
A shudder shook her shoulders.
The only other option was that Leo could surface unscathed.
Impossible. She had not witnessed such triumph, nor had she heard of it beyond what had been written in her grandmother’s grimoire, a book of knowledge passed on through the centuries, filled with practicalities, wisdom, and the occasional legend. Roxane’s bible, of a sort. Unfortunately of late, the section on vampires had become worn.
The brush of Leo’s fingers glided along her arm. When she had walked another step and his fingers had almost left her, she turned her wrist to catch his grip. Stopping, she turned to him. They stood palm to palm. No question in his eyes. No challenge in his pose. Defeated?
No. The man was determined. As was she.
Compelled by a part of her heart she wasn’t completely sure of, she touched the dark stubble on his chin. His sharp intake of breath tempted her closer. Here, alone by the man’s side, she felt his presence as a viable heat. One breath closer and she would snap to him, like a piece of metal being drawn to a magnet.
He made not a move to reciprocate her touch. But there, she scented faint cinnamon wafting from the fibers of his clothing—why, from his very being.
Pressing up onto her tiptoes, she leaned in and touched her lips to the mouth of a man she knew she mustn’t think of as anything but bait. He allowed the tender kiss without grasping her. Again, his breath mingled with hers and she closed her eyes as their mouths barely touched.
Snap.
She’d been pulled to the magnet and now could not—did not want to—resist. For here, offering the man her trust with a kiss, Roxane felt the banshee screams of Lutetia subside, and all that remained was the soft pitter-patter of her heart.
“It is not in here!” Henri Anjou thrust aside the flimsy piece of paper that purported itself the literary gem of Paris society. More truths published, it raved. Plenty of gossip, as well. The obituaries listed no less than seventy-two people, none of them the illustrious precieuse Leo.
Following every attack Henri always placed his victim in the obituaries. It reassured him no minions had been created. As it was, there were enough baffle-headed lickspittles under his charge. Really, he could start a tribe, but the notion of organization, and having to look after that organization, bothered him.
The man had to be dead. Yesterday’s pages stated Leo had been absent from Mademoiselle de Vaine’s salon.
Perhaps the fop’s family sought to keep the man’s death quiet?
It was useless to hope. Henri knew without doubt that had he been allowed a few more moments with the man before being whacked across the back with a stick he could have ensured a finished job.
Such sweet elixir the man’s blood had been. He’d hated killing him the moment he’d begun. Of course, he hadn’t succeeded, had he?
“What is the trouble?” Xavier sauntered into the mist-blurred bathing room and kicked off his embroidered Chinese slippers.
Though a hazy cloud of steam, the man’s towel dropped onto the slate floor and he eased his way into the hot water across the sunken bathing pool from Henri.
Henri stretched his arms across the rim of the tub. “He is not dead.”
“Who?”
“That fop Leo.”
“The mishap?”
Xavier often used euphemisms. He tiptoed about his own vampirism as if it was a temporary condition and it would yet clear up if only he did not speak of it so loudly.
“I’ll have to send someone out after him,” Henri said, his lips dipping to touch the surface of water. “Can’t risk creating yet another minion.”
The look Xavier speared him with cut delicious runnels through Anjou’s heart.
“My lovely Xavier, you are more than a minion,” he assured.
“I don’t like that word.”
“It is a good word for the lackwits who do my bidding. A word dripping of evil, blood and danger—”
“Enough.” Xavier leaned forward, catching his face in his palms. “Whom do you wish me to send out after the fop?”
“Try Renfeaux. He’s an idiot, but for coin, he smartens up nicely. No more than five livres. The fop can’t be worth any more than that. Leo should be half drained as it is. Should make an easy mark.”
“Do you know where he lives?”
“That is up to Renfeaux to discover. St. Honoré, no doubt. The idle rich all live there. Now come. Let me rub your temples for you, Xavier. It’ll relax you, take your mind off things like—”
“Minions?”
“Indeed.”
SIX
Roxane found breakfast waiting for her in the music room, a massive space, floored in black and white harlequin tiles, and stretched floor to ceiling with heavy, red velvet curtains. Only a sofa and a chair set near a pianoforte furnished the room. Toussaint escorted her in and served pastry and chocolate from a silver platter.
Alone in a rich man’s home, surprisingly she was not uncomfortable. Nor did she fear for things like her virtue and propriety. She did not consider the kiss she had given Gabriel last night seduction. It had been a reaction. In that moment, they had both needed. Besides, a simple country rustic as herself could never attract the eye of a swish.
Just keep to the plan.
“Bait,” she murmured.
“What was that?” Toussaint asked.
“Oh…great. This chocolate is great.”
She liked Toussaint, and his casual regard for his master. Damian had considered
hiring a valet but she had dissuaded him. Too expensive. Damian had only father’s money to support his newly acquired habits. Roxane did not care to be beholden to anyone. Even her father. It was his way of showing emotion, she knew. I love you—can’t you see that in my money?
Not wishing to spoil a perfectly marvelous morning with thoughts of her rogue father, she focused on the glide of spiced chocolate down her throat. Cinnamon flavored the drink. Truly, Leo must put out a fortune for that spice alone.
Toussaint gestured to the silver tray that displayed pastries fresh from a patisserie down the street.
“You will spoil me,” she said. “I am accustomed to country fare. Simple greens and roasted fowl.”
“Then it is a wonder you are not much rounder.” The valet sat and popped a thumb-sized almond tart into his mouth. “Most country women wear their meals on hips and bosom.”
A giggle escaped before she could suppress it. “You’re not like most servants, are you?”
“Too forthright?” He smiled. “Forgive me, mademoiselle. Leo and I do not enjoy the usual servant/master relationship. I should be more respectful of company. But that giggle, it surprised you, yes?”
“What?”
“Just now.” He tipped another tart to her before consuming it in one gulp. “I wager it has been a time since you’ve surrendered to something so easy and light.”
She nodded and allowed the smile to remain. “You are perceptive.”
“I do my best. Do you favor him?”
Like the sun glinting from a shiny copper roof, a lingering kiss stolen amidst a captured rainbow flashed across her thoughts. “You mean Leo?”
“Are there other rakes in this house I am not aware of? Come, you can talk to me, mademoiselle. You are all alone, yes? In need of a confidante. I’ll keep our conversation private from Leo.”
“I don’t worry about that. You’re a good man, Toussaint.” She sipped the sweet chocolate.
He had guessed correctly. She desperately needed a kind ear to spill her woes. “Favor your master? When there is so much not to like about him?”
Toussaint raised a brow.
“Well.” She set the cup on the saucer with a tink. “The man is arrogant.”
“I’ll grant you that.”
“Conceited.”
“To a delicious degree.”
“Vain.”
“Decidedly so.”
“Materialistic.”
Toussaint sighed.
“And worst of all…”
“Yes?”
“He’s so damned…” The word teetered on the tip of her tongue. Toussaint waited eagerly. So be it. “…charming.”
“Ah.” He nabbed a sugar-dusted strawberry with an elegant twist of his wrist. “You’ve just described Leo perfectly. But really, the arrogance, the conceit, the vanity and materialism, it is merely a façade. You haven’t begun to look beneath the surface.”
“When one has to wade through all the lace, powder and frippery? Trust me, that man’s surface is impenetrable!”
The two shared knowing laughter.
Toussaint leaned an elbow on the table. “Do tell me one thing.”
“If I can.”
“I’ve always considered charming to be a favorable trait. Why is it you do not?”
“Well, I…” She felt heat color her neck and sensed the valet had guessed far more of her mind than she wished. How many women had he had this same conversation with, perhaps following a tumble from Leo’s bed? “It is a false charm. The man uses it easily. I don’t believe he has a clue how artificial it is.”
“Oh, he does. The veneer serves a purpose, that is all.” Toussaint collected the silver tray and the cooling chocolate pot. “Promise me you’ll take a look beneath the surface? There is a genuine man beneath all that frippery.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Gabriel peered up through the oculus. One could never see out at night for the glare of the lantern. But that was the purpose, wasn’t it? The shower of color offered sanctity, not the darkness that lurked beyond the iron lamp reflectors.
Toussaint entered, linens in arm. “Would you like me to prepare your bath, Renan?”
“I’m going out, tonight, Toussaint. Let the vampire come to me.”
“Ah yes, the laced fop trips into the night to face danger, wielding a walking stick and a smart patch on his brow.”
Gabriel waggled his brow. “And a jaunty stake.” He pulled out the stake he’d tucked in his waistband.
“When did you—?”
“Carved it myself in the stables this afternoon. You think it will serve?” He mimed a stabbing motion.
Speechless, Toussaint swallowed.
Gabriel strode to the armoire and tapped the smooth white wig sporting three sausage rolls above each ear. “This one.”
“It is dangerous!”
“Come, Toussaint, if you are concerned my guardian angel will admonish me, she’ll not say a thing, because I won’t tell her.”
“This has nothing to do with Mademoiselle Desrues.”
“You don’t think I can protect myself?” He spun the stake expertly.
“You are quite skilled—it is just…you’ve no training for this sort of opposition. I—I can’t allow it.”
“You forget your place, Toussaint.” Gabriel tossed the valet the wig. “Quickly. The night is young. If I’m to go vampire hunting I want to meet him at his weakest.”
“Don’t say things like that. Besides, how can you know when the beast is at his weakest?”
A spectacular crash brought both to alert. Pulse beats pounding in his ears, Gabriel watched as a shower of glass shattered across the Aubusson rug before the window. In the wake of the deadly shower something crept through his window.
The servant clutched Gabriel’s shoulder. “What is that?”
Toussaint’s yelp did not dissuade him from gripping the stake and approaching the man who crouched on the floor like a predator. When the intruder turned and sprang, Gabriel dashed the air with the stake in warning.
Tattered fabric covered the man’s bent body; he looked to have jumped from the rag-seller’s bin. But to have jumped up two stories? Dirty black hair tangled before his eyes, but did not conceal a mouthful of yellowed teeth. Two teeth in particular were long and sharp.
“A minion!” Toussaint shouted. “We must run. Roxane!”
Irritated that his valet should run screaming for the aid of a woman, Gabriel straightened and slapped the stake in his palm. This swish was not going to cringe from any beast. Even if the thing did stink of the unholy.
Charging the intruder, he rammed his head into the stranger’s gut. They crashed against the wall and landed on the litter of glass shards.
“Who sent you?” He rolled to kick, but the intruder bared his fangs and lunged for his neck. Hot spittle dripped over his chin. Fangs flashed. Gabriel succeeded in delivering a kick to the vampire’s gut, sending him flying to land in a heap against the wall.
With the beast momentarily dissuaded, he raised the stake over his head.
“Stay there!” Roxane’s voice.
What? He had the situation under control!
“Don’t get too close,” he shouted. “He is a vampire.”
Roxane tramped across the broken glass toward the staggering vampire. He saw the red vial she ripped from the chain about her neck. As the vampire charged her, she uncorked the vial and with a flick of her wrist doused the bastard with a spray of red droplets.
Agony filled the room with screams to wake the dead. Clawing at his face, the minion fought against the unstoppable. His flesh literally sizzled. What had once been a solid, flesh and blood man, liquefied and dispersed into glittering droplets of scarlet.
SEVEN
Havoc scattered about the room with glass shards and a bloody mass upon the floor—a mass of blood that had once been a man. Vampire.
“That really is blood in your vial?”
Roxane n
odded.
“Witches and vampires…” Gabriel gestured futilely with a hand.
“Enemies,” she finished. “Vampires cannot tolerate witch’s blood, as you have seen.”
“Tolerate?” He tilted his head, trying to grasp that statement, but sight of the mayhem on the floor utterly horrified him. Remembering the stake, he slid it under a pillow, hoping Roxane hadn’t seen the weapon he should have used before she had entered the room.
Toussaint carefully approached the bloodstain. “That’s going to leave a mark.”
A mark? Instinctively Gabriel clasped a hand over the scabbed wounds on his neck. He stared at the blood, seeping quickly into the thick Aubusson rug. Reality had crashed through his bedroom window. And he’d stood up to it, but not fast enough to claim the hero’s role.
“It appears you are indeed the vampire slayer, mademoiselle. What poison resides in that blood?”
“None. Just the two don’t mix.”
“So it seems. Toussaint, fetch a bucket to clean this up. Don’t alert the servants; we needn’t invite unnecessary questions.”
After the valet left, Gabriel ran his hands over his face and scalp. The beast had come through his second floor window. Had he leapt? “Can vampires fly?”
