by Faith Hunter
However, the air was redolent with meat and spices. Food! Beast thought. “Later,” I murmured, as if to myself. Bruiser looked my way, but I pretended not to notice. The table was laden with food for humans, and humans were gathered along it, spearing smoked salmon, ribs, something that looked like lollipops but smelled like lamb, kabobs, shrimp, fried seafood in bite-sized pieces, and boudin, a Louisiana favorite, onto plates. There were veggies and a multitude of breads and cheeses too, not that I cared.
To the left was a place set up like a parlor, with couches, chairs, tables, and a fireplace scaled to fit the warehouse, burning huge logs that looked custom cut. Bruiser led me left, to pause partially behind one of the round pillars. The seating area was decorated with French and Spanish antiques, lots of burled wood on cases holding paintings and priceless objets d’art. The upholstered furniture had sweeping lines, tufts, tassels, skirts, and gewgaws—art deco and art nouveau maybe, fancy, like something that might be seen in an old black-and-white movie. Yet everything was dwarfed by the scale of the room.
Midway to the back half of the warehouse was another area, marked off by rugs tossed on the slate floor, and here vamps and humans sat on large pillows, talking and smoking, bohemian-style. The scents were overpowering here too, pepper, parchment, fresh mint and camphor, dried herbs, subtle perfumes, and a hint of mold, though that might have been from the old building. Underlying the vamp smell were traces of fresh blood from recent feedings. Beast didn’t like that stench, and hissed deep in my mind.
There were eight clan blood-families in New Orleans and it was dizzyingly difficult to keep their political and social divisions straight, but it was something I needed to know as rogue-vamp hunter in their territory. Pellissier, Laurent, Bouvier, and St. Martin were in one political alliance, with Mearkanis, Arceneau, Rousseau, and Desmarais in the other. The clan homes of the latter four blood-masters were in the Garden District, and once upon a time, they had all been thick as thieves. But from the social groupings tonight, it was clear that the alliances were changing, the vamps gathering in odd clusters. All was not right in the world of the blood-sucking predators.
I spotted Rafael Torrez, the small, black-eyed scion and master of Clan Mearkanis, and self-proclaimed enemy of Leo, in intense conversation with two unknown vamps—an overdressed guy in a red costume and a vamp with a scarred face, the wound recent and still healing.
I heard the word “Leo” from the little group across the room. And “clan,” and “true-death.” From the way his body tensed, Bruiser heard too. I asked, “What do they get if Leo suddenly dies or is defeated in war?”
“I’m not sure.” His eyes crinkled at the corners as he scanned the room. “If Leo names a new heir and solidifies his political base, then at his true-death his power would move to his successor, who would become master of the city. Of course, the new master would then have to hold it by his own wits and might. But if Leo holds off naming an heir, if something shifts in the political alignment, if we go to war and vampires start dying, it all becomes . . . difficult.”
I had a feeling that “difficult” was an understatement. I tugged him away, to the table with human food, as in food for humans, not a table full of humans to feed vamps. Having vamps around tended to make such distinctions tricky. The sexual tension between Bruiser and me and the atmosphere in the room had left me starved. “I need to eat and then mingle,” I said, “to see if any of them smell like the young-rogue maker—wear that perfume I noticed,” I amended. I’d never been good keeping lies straight.
I handed Bruiser a crystal plate and filled mine with smoked pink salmon. Beast panted within me. Better raw, she said, and sent me a vision of a mountain lion’s claws grabbing a dappled trout from a stream. I hadn’t known Beast fished, but it did seem like something all cats liked, whether a tabby from an aquarium in a New York City apartment or a mountain lion from a cold mountain stream.
Bruiser looked at the heap of salmon on my plate and tilted his head in surprise, amusement, and vague condescension. The expression was uncannily like Leo’s, and I wondered how many decades one had to live with a vamp to pick up his mannerisms. It could be seriously disturbing. “I like fish,” I said, defensive. “And I’m hungry.”
“Of course,” he murmured. He handed me a square of folded linen and two pieces of gold-plated utensils and said, “Fish service.”
I looked at the short, stout fork and the butter knife as I followed him to the back of the warehouse. “Yeah?” I turned the heavy utensils over, mentally comparing them to the pressed metal stuff we had used in the children’s home. I was still looking at them when Bruiser placed a flute of white wine in my hand. I looked up, surprised. The back half of the Old Nunnery warehouse had probably once been offices, large cubicles open to each other at floor and ceiling for airflow. The first cubicle had a bar set up. I took a sip and even I knew this was the good stuff. No wine in a box for the vamps. I tasted the salmon and it melted in my mouth. Well, not really, but I didn’t have to chew much.
As I ate—wolfing down the fish, Bruiser watching me with a slightly superior attitude, and me ignoring him—we moved into a short, wide hallway. A group of vamps in formal wear paused and stepped to the side as if to let us pass. As we drew even, two vamps dressed in almost-but-not-quite matching red silk gowns started toward me; the others followed their actions as if one brain controlled them. In unison, they sniffed the air.
Beyond them, in the shadows, Rafael Torrez stood. He was smiling slightly, but he didn’t come closer. He was watching, his posture expectant. Crap.
My hackles rose and I stopped, turned to face the vamps closest, my back to the brick wall. Their eyes began bleeding black. Fangs snapped down. Beast flared through me and I sniffed back at them, scent-searching. For a single moment we faced each other. Me with a plate half-full of food. Hands full. Adrenaline shot through me as I analyzed my defenses in an instant. The plate was glass, easily shattered, and vamps bled well. Stakes close, in my hair. Wall at my back. I breathed out, muscles going loose and ready.
The female vamps in the scarlet silk sheaths looked me up and down, slowly, as if committing me to memory. I didn’t think they were looking over my dress to gauge the quality and cost. One of the male vamps moved toward us, flowing slowly in that inhuman balletic glide the old ones can do. He looked predatory and graceful and dangerous as hell, despite his green and red plaid cummerbund and little matching pocket hankie, the colors clashing jauntily with his fangs.
I tightened my fingers on the plate, ready to toss it in distraction or shatter it into a quick blade. Ready to reach up and pull the stakes in my hair. My hands itched with the need to do something, now. Bruiser stepped to my side. Placed a proprietary hand on my spine. “The Rogue Hunter,” he said, not the first time it had been phrased like a title. The vamps, six altogether, fanned out, making a semicircle, boxing us in. Everything went cold and sterile. I realized they had been watching for me.
Offense is the best defense, I thought. Beast snarled deep inside me.
With a spinning motion, I slung my dinner plate to the brick floor. It shattered at their feet. Three of them jumped, startled or to miss being splattered with salmon, marking them as untrained and easily ignored. I focused on the remaining vamps. Beast leaped into my eyes and I growled, hands in my hair. Gripping stakes.
“Jane. No,” Bruiser said softly, his voice carefully expressionless.
My hands stopped, nested in my braids. My heart beat like a broken drum.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the shadow move, the shadow that was Rafael Torrez, Blood Master of Mearkanis. Without lifting my gaze away, I took in this new threat. Great. Now what?
Rafe placed a hand on the shoulder of Plaid Guy. “No,” he said.
Plaid Guy paused. His eyes were emerald, his pupils widening to black, snuffing out the green. His mouth opened in a little snarl as the new master of Clan Mearkanis came even with him and looked me over, a small smile on his pretty face. Dark, deli
cate, he walked the way a fencer or dancer might, feet placed with precise balance. “Not now.”
Rafe stepped in front of the small group, hands clasped behind his back, and looked me over as though he might make an offer. “George, your master keeps such intriguing pets.”
My eyebrows reached my hairline. “Pets?” I spat.
Rafael laughed and nodded to Bruiser. “George.”
“Sir,” Bruiser said, tone neutral.
Rafe turned and moved through the six vamps. They swiveled on their heels and followed him. And were gone, leaving Bruiser and me alone in the hallway.
“That was seriously freaky,” I said.
“Yes. More than you know,” Bruiser said, musing. “The Mithrans facing you were from two different alliances. I think this was . . . indicative. Those two in the red dresses—Lanah and Hope—belong to Adrianna of St. Martin, who is allied with Leo. Nasty pieces of work, they are, but with the scent-marking, they should have protected you. A game is being played here, but I don’t know what it is.” He glanced at me, that small smile hovering on his lips. “You do create interesting situations, Jane Yellowrock. How many stakes do you have in your hair?”
“Not one,” I said, lying and telling the truth all at once. I had more than one, so “not one” was the truth. Sorta. I was going to have to get down on my knees and confess a whole lotta half sins, nearly sins, and wanted-to sins. Guilt wriggled under my skin.
“And crosses?” he asked dryly.
Not willing to lie outright, I said, “One tiny one you nearly dislodged in the limo.”
Bruiser glanced at the plunging neckline of my new dress and his mouth did that little twitch of a quirk. “It’s well secured, then. Keep it that way.”
I looked at the shattered plate and salmon at our feet. “Sorry about that.”
“It let us see who flinched.”
I grinned. “It did, didn’t it?”
CHAPTER 9
Fast cars and money lead back to dames
“George Dumas, first blood-servant to Pellissier.” The soft words floated from down the hallway, bouncing off the old brick, a female vamped-out voice, the inflection asking Bruiser to join her. I glanced at him and without a word we swiveled, our bodies moving as if we had trained together for years.
A little vamp stood just inside an open cubicle with a door, the space lit with bright electric lights. She beckoned; we moved toward her. The room behind her was a big pantry, three shelf-lined walls organized with cans and boxes, with household appliances on a side wall, including a washer and dryer. We were at the back of the warehouse; I could smell the Mississippi River strong on the air. I hesitated in the dim hallway, scent-searching on a quick breath, taking her in.
She was short, model-slender, with streaked blond hair and the bluest eyes I’d seen on anyone, human or not. A diamond necklace big enough to qualify as a collar circled her neck, and diamond and blue topaz drops the size of walnuts dangled from her ears. “In here,” she whispered. I didn’t know her and wasn’t inclined to follow. Bruiser, however, stepped closer, which brought us even. Vamp-fast, she snatched my right arm and Bruiser’s left, her tiny hand like a steel cuff, cold and cutting. And strong.
Faster than thought, I reached for a stake. She yanked. Hurled me off my feet. Tossed me inside. I hit the back shelves. Stake in hand, I pushed off. Looked back. Without effort, she threw Bruiser at me. With him in midair, the pantry door slammed. I got a quick look at it—three inches of hardwood reinforced with iron straps. A trap.
I caught Bruiser one handed. We impacted with pained grunts, the shelves ramming into my unprotected back. The lock clicked home. Using his own momentum, I shoved Bruiser aside. He hit the floor in a controlled roll on hands and knees, and got up to his feet at nearly vamp speed.
A stake in each hand, I rushed her. She was fast. The vamp caught me again and whirled me into a corner in a dance-step-smooth martial art move. She scuttled away from us. Her back against the door, hands out, placating. “I’m not here to hurt you,” she said as I found my footing.
Not caring what she claimed, I pulled my tiny blade and reversed it in my grip, street fighting position. Beast hissed but stayed down, watching, her claws in my mind like steel points, her energy pouring into me. My breath was hard and swift and I flashed the blade in the too-bright lights so she would see it was silver-plated—poisonous to her kind if I cut her. I wished the blade was bigger but I felt better with weapons drawn.
Bruiser was on his feet, his hands out in a mimic of vamp grace as we evaluated the female vamp. She didn’t look at the blade, but watched us, eyes darting back and forth, her feet balanced and her body posture claiming she was familiar with fighting and willing to demonstrate. And she was blocking the door.
She was also hungry, her skin pallid, but her eyes weren’t vamp-black and bloody; instead, they were controlled and collected. From the remembered strength of her grip, she was an old one, powerful, and despite her small frame, I might have a hard time beating her with just the two weapons and no protective gear.
Yet she’d said she wouldn’t hurt us. And she wasn’t dressed for wet work. Her dress had the dragon-lady-seamstress’s signature lines, looking long, lean, and elegant, even on her tiny form, midnight blue shot with silver thread, which had to be a vamp joke. And she wore spike heels in blue-black ostrich leather, little feathers on the buckles. She looked totally out of place standing in the pantry. “I won’t hurt you. At least not right now. Truce.”
I lowered my hands a fraction to show I’d listen. Bruiser dropped his and said, “Innara of Clan Bouvier. How may I serve you?”
“I have a message from my master.”
Bruiser blinked. With that careful blandness I was coming to appreciate, he said, “You could have called.” I laughed through my nose.
“I could not. My master has determined that many of the Mithrans’ cellular communications are being monitored.” Innara’s tiny hands opened in the universal gesture of peace, fingers splayed. “Servant of the Blood Master of New Orleans and the one they call the Rogue Hunter, hear me.”
I could tell I was added on only because I happened to be near, but what the heck, I’d stay to listen. Especially as a thick door stood between me and freedom.
Her voice took on a cant that said she was repeating a memorized statement. “The alliance of Mithrans is in grave danger, as is the safety of this city. Mearkanis and Rousseau have formed a new coalition, leaving the weaker clans Arceneau and Desmarais unprotected. They have allied with St. Martin, who has broken faith with Pellissier.”
Bruiser cursed and went pale. I tried to figure out what it all meant. And then Innara told me. “There are now three leagues of Mithrans rather than the former two, and the new association leaves Pellissier’s alliance with Bouvier and Laurent no longer in a position of strength. Pellissier’s enemies plot war. Rafael has come clandestinely to Clan Bouvier to propose we join him in revolt against Pellissier. My master has agreed to formal talks, to consider this, as a ruse to gain his trust. It is said that Rafael has contacted one of the Sons of Darkness for his blessing, though this is only rumor.”
Bruiser went nearly vamp-still in shock. I wondered what the sons were and why they made the blood slowly drain from his face. The Sons of Darkness . . . They had been part of something I had read recently.
Innara stepped close and took Bruiser’s hands in hers. “The new union believes in the old ways. The Naturaleza has been reintroduced to the newly fledged and many yearn for a way of life the old ones among us have renounced. Rafael of Mearkanis feeds this desire with fiery rhetoric and hopes the change in balance of power will allow him to challenge for master of the city. Be assured. To protect against the new alliance, my master will again blood-oath Clan Bouvier to Leo.”
I felt Bruiser’s relief like a blow to my side. He’d been braced for something else. “Pellissier is honored.”
“Naturaleza?” I asked, picking out that nugget for clarification.
/> Bruiser ignored my question. “There have been indications that Rafael was seeking power.”
“Traditionally,” Innara said to me, “the strength of Pellissier held us in balance and allowed us to blend harmoniously with humans. Now that is changing.” She pressed Bruiser’s hands. “Leo must act.”
Leo was whacked-out with grief and might not be able to act. But I didn’t say it.
Bruiser said, “The recent alignment between Pellissier and Arceneau is advantageous to restoring that peace.”
“Arceneau has sworn itself to Leo?” Innara asked, her face taking on a fierce joy.
Bruiser nodded. It was news to me. I asked them, “Will Arceneau give Leo enough power to defeat the new coalition?”
“No,” Innara said, “but if Desmarais swears to Leo, and if Leo acts quickly, then we have a chance.”
I redrew the balance of power in my mind, the new alliance of vamp clans. On the one hand was Rafael of Mearkanis, with Rousseau and St. Martin pledged to him. And maybe these sons, whatever they were. Then there was Leo of Pellissier, with Laurent, Bouvier, and now Arceneau. Desmarais lingered by its lonesome. So if a new vamp war started, it would be a battle between Rafael and Leo. I didn’t know enough about clan strengths to know if it would be a fair match.
Satisfied that the Bouvier vamp didn’t mean us harm, I lowered my weapons. Tension I hadn’t noted in her slight frame relaxed. Instantly, she looked like a child playing dress-up in her mommy’s clothes and jewels, innocent and sweet and fully human, not like the killer she was. I hated how they could do that. “Leo must put aside the Dolore and take up the reins of his power,” she said.
