If he had been able to draw breath, Leo might have laughed, knowing that Katie meant both her threat and what she displayed. Had he been able to move at all, he would have run a questing hand up her leg. His heir ran a bordello in the French Quarter, and half the state's elected and law enforcement officials had visited her at one time or another. Her peep show was a reminder of her strengths--human friends in high places and a sexual libido and prowess unmatched in his centuries of experience.
She drifted from view, her grace and balance impeccable in her five-inch stilettos. Katie had been a small woman in human life, and, after so many centuries, with each generation of humans growing taller than the last, she was apt to be taken as defenseless and vulnerable. But his lover and heir was never that. He was truly in her debt. After this night, he would be in the debt of many.
His blood ceased to flow. His hunger was growing prodigious. His eyes were drying out--perhaps the most uncomfortable of his small miseries. The cleanup was well under way, his people moving around him, working silently. No one had attempted to remove the stake embedded in his belly, not with Katherine wearing her duel sang bastard-sword. It had been forty-two years since Katherine Fonteneau had dueled for position in his clan, but no one who had seen it would ever doubt her wicked expertise with the blade nor her cunning strategy.
Leo Pellissier, Master of the City, owed his heir much this night. Though he would make her pay for the paralysis, humiliation, and discomfiture. It was the kind of punishment that would take place in his bed.
One good thing came of the enforced immobility: the time to remember, to reflect. El Mago had been on the far side of the room when he entered. There had been a sword in each hand. The sorcerer had been wearing long sleeves that hid his arms, likely places to conceal weapons, such as the short blades he had used. Hidden blades were Leo's own strategy. Clearly El Mago remembered from the last time the tactic had been used against him, when Leo had killed him. Almost killed him.
Leo had been predictable. The mage had expected him to step inside his reach. He had dropped the swords, incapacitating him with the blades in his own sleeves. He had carved his way deeply into Leo's entrails.
It was time to rethink his dueling methods. But . . .
Silver should have rendered him incapable of healing without massive amounts of blood. Yet when he awoke, his belly was uninjured. There had been a scent like silver and marzipan. The scent of bitter almonds. Cyanide was not lethal to Mithrans, but when coating a silvered blade, unable to purge from his body after entry, and allowed to fester with an unknown spell that both healed and fettered him . . . Leo did not know what effect that might have. His ancient enemy had intended to disable him, not kill him. Or, at least, not right away.
It was clever: the bag of white powder upended over him had healed his flesh over the wounds, so that he and others might not know what had happened. Buried within his body was poison, silver, and a spell--the spell that was perhaps the reason he had attacked his primo. Either one he might have defeated, but all together were deadly, had he not been stopped with a stake to the same damaged area.
The bag El Mago had emptied on him seemed to contain a white powder--crystalline flakes like salt. It had made a quiet shushing as it left the cloth sack and fell upon him. When Leo stood after he awoke, nothing had fallen from his clothing or his person. He remembered the sound of Katie's shoes on the floor as she walked through the room. There had been nothing between her soles and the concrete, no grinding or crushing or near soundless compression of some softer material.
He was poisoned. Likely dying. What seemed a minor inconvenience only moments past loomed large. If his heir didn't remove the stake, and soon, so that he might ask for aid, it might be too late.
Another hour passed. Pain had begun to grow in his belly, cold and harsh and remorseless, spreading through his empty veins and arteries. By the time Katie meandered back, he knew with certainty that he was dying.
She knelt beside him, aligning their faces. Her eyes, hazel gray, met his. She had applied fresh scarlet lipstick, and when she smiled it was the smile of a court courtesan, practiced and perfect and only slightly sadistic. "My master, you look miserable," she said. "But perhaps it will cheer your un-beating heart to know that our George is once again fully alive and will neither perish nor be forced to take our curse. No? No comment?" She shook her head, making a small tsking sound.
Katie bent and kissed him, her lips as cold as his own. She held the kiss before pulling away, and as she did, she took a breath, then froze. Her remarkable eyes widened. "Bitter almonds."
She ripped his shirt open, revealing his abdomen and torso. "Mon dieu." Katie yanked the wood from his belly and ripped the flesh of her left fingers with her fangs, her healing blood spurting. She dug her fingers into his flesh, inserting her blood at the point of the original damage. She ripped her right wrist and placed it at his mouth. "Drink, sire. Drink!" When he did not swallow, Katie shouted, "Get the priestess!" Then, to herself, "Oh, no."
Astonishment flashing across her face, Katie staggered back and fell to the floor beside him. She held up her left hand. The fingers she'd tried to heal him with were blackened and smoking. "Poison. I am poisoned. How is this possi--" She swooned.
Leo's body was lifted and carried to the front of the club. He was placed on the bar, where he could see only the bottles and the brass-backed mirrored wall behind them. Not a silver-backed mirror, but one in which his kind might be seen as more than a blur. Katie's body was placed on two tables shoved together.
The outclan priestess, Bethany, floated into the room and stood over him, her dark skin catching the lights, her skirts swirling in brilliant shades of blue. She sniffed his small wound, then Katie's hand, which appeared in the mirror as blackened and smoking. Bethany pointed at three humans and said, "Feed her copious amounts of blood. Bring in more servants. Tonight Katherine is a Naturaleza." Which meant she would drink humans down if they were not careful. Returning to the bar, she tore her own throat and climbed over Leo, her limbs moving like a praying mantis on the hunt, elbows and hips high. She placed her ripped flesh at his mouth and began to chant softly in her native tongue.
Magic swirled over him like a dense fog from the Mississippi River, a coiling mist of light, whirling and twisting, enveloping him. Sliding down his throat. Convulsively, he swallowed. Again. And again. Magic and blood twined and flowed down his throat. Magic pressed into his abdominal wound and snaked through him and curled tight with the blood of the priestess.
The magic of the assault spell that had woven itself into him parted before the onslaught of the priestess's own power. He felt strands of El Mago's spell snap. Agony speared through him. He gasped. Lifted one hand and gripped Bethany close, drank, sucking down her healing blood. He lost track of time before she peeled herself away and another took her place. And then another. Trying to heal the damage of the poison, the silver, and the magic with blood.
After the third human was wrenched away, he gasped out to the nearest blood-servant: "George?"
"He is well, my master."
"Katie?"
"Healing, my master."
"The two human girls? Bring them to me. Now."
"Yes, my master," the voice replied. "You and you. Go get the girl from the apartment. You and you, bring the one from the office."
"What's happening?" someone asked.
"Better you don't know, dude," Derek said, moving for the door.
Leo closed his fangs gently, slowly, on a blood-servant's throat. And drank.
The pain was bearable but the rage was still hot within him. He had drunk from Bethany and from ten humans, taking a little over a pint from each. He had ingested over a gallon of blood, and he could have taken more, but he had an enemy to find before dawn. El Mago. The mage would not be allowed to reside in his city if he had to cut a swath through the populace to find him.
In the private restroom of the office, Leo washed his face and brushed his teeth, his fangs, and
the hinge structure that operated them. He combed his black hair and tied it into a queue, then took a moment to inspect his abdomen and torso. They should have displayed dreadful wounds, but they were unmarked. He dressed in the clean clothes that had been brought from his clan home on the west side of the river, but this time he strapped a small weapon to his right leg. The Smith & Wesson .380 semiautomatic pistol was loaded with silver/lead rounds. He belted his dueling swords around his waist and checked himself in the brass-backed mirror. Human customers in the bar hated it, but for Mithrans it was the only way to see a reflection. His flesh picked up the golden tones from the brass, looking far more human than his pale skin in the bright lights. Satisfied, Leo rifled through the zippered bag holding his clothes and pocketed a cell phone. Some wise person had placed a folded sheet of paper between the clamshell halves with instructions on how to use it. Fortified, Leo stepped from the restroom and walked across the room through the lines of his humans to the girls.
The one who had been tied to the chair was stretched out on a chaise, her head in the lap of the other one. The victim was named Audrey Salick, and she looked vaguely Asian. Her sister, the blond temptress who had shared Leo's bed earlier in the night, was named Margaret Coin. The same mother. Very different fathers.
"Audrey," Leo said softly, his voice a low purr as he wielded his mesmerism. "You have been healed. The memories of your abuse muted. Are you well?"
Audrey lifted her head off her sister's thigh and blinked blearily around the room. "I'm fine, I think." She focused on the Mithran behind Leo who had healed her and pointed a finger. "I know you. You're Estavan." Her brows came down in a scowl. "Hey! Did you . . . ? Did we--"
Estavan moved to the back of the couch and took her hand. "All is well, mi hermosa ave." My beautiful bird. Leo's lips lifted at the endearment. Estavan loved women and he was already half in love with this new one. "All is well," Estavan finished. He lifted her hand and bowed over it to kiss her fingers. The woman sighed. "She is well, my sire. And she knew nothing about tonight's ambush."
Leo set his eyes on Margaret. "But this one. She knew much," he said.
Margaret pressed her body into the couch, her blond hair coiling about her. Her blue eyes filled with tears. "He had my sister. I didn't have a choice."
"We all have choices, my dear. Estavan, take your new blood-servant."
"No!" Margaret screamed, even as Estavan leaned across the couch and lifted Audrey into his arms. He whisked her through the door, into the bar. "No," Margaret sobbed, one arm out as if to drag her sister back. "I was supposed to be saving her."
"In return for . . . ?" Leo asked.
"A week of . . ." She drew in a sobbing breath and her mouth pulled down in shame. "Servitude."
"A week in a Mithran's bed," Leo clarified. "A vampire who called himself El Mago."
Margaret nodded, tears reddening her pale skin.
"Then you shall have five weeks in mine, as payment for the trouble you have caused. For now, we will start in small sips. Give me your wrist. And this time you will withhold nothing, not even the trifling dark place in your soul that hid the knowledge of my enemy from me. The trivial dark spot that I should have forced my way into when you were compliant."
"No. No, no, no, no."
"She's wearing an engagement ring, boss."
Leo turned slowly and looked at his primo. His voice took an edge. "So she is. Had she come to me and told her story, I would have saved her sister and set them both free. I have been magnanimous to all human cattle in my city. I have made it clear that they may come to me at any time. She did not. She chose to fear an enemy, to become one herself. You would have me punish her according to a law older than my own?" According to the Vampira Carta, the written laws that all Mithrans adhered to, he could have taken her life for such an infraction.
"No." George shook his head. "I'm not--"
"This is about your sister and the shame she was dealt. I understand. And for this reason alone, I will not banish you, nor strip you of power. But for now, leave me." Leo smelled Alfonse in the room. "Alfonse, take my primo home. See that he stays there. The rest of you, wait in the main room. Drink. Enjoy yourselves. I'll be an hour."
Leo left the room, licking his new paramour's blood from his lips and taking with him all she knew. Margaret Coin would make a lovely addition to his collection of blood-servants. She was willing, no matter that her earlier interest was reliant upon fear for her sister. Now she had tasted his blood and she was his. He would recompense her betrothed for the loss of his future wife. George would disapprove, but George often disapproved.
Leo stepped silently into the main room of Royal Mojo and said, "My enemy is at the Hotel Monteleone, in the Ernest Hemingway suite. He has magic, spells of confusion and obfuscation and false health. He has silver and poison. I will compel no one to fight at my side, nor will I condemn any who walk away. But I ask for aid and fighters who might join me."
Katie made a soft sound with her lips, Pfttt. "I am yours to call. You need no one else."
"You are my heir. This is not your fight."
"And if you die true-dead? You would leave me shackled with the city and its restive Mithrans? Dreadful responsibility for one such as I, who has dedicated her life to pleasure. Such boredom, tied to the boardroom of negotiation and mediation." Katie tilted her head and gave him the same smile she had offered him when he lay on the floor, paralyzed. "It has been long since we fought your old . . . enemy together. Since the day he turned on you, breaking his blood bond to his sire and yours. All recall when he used magic on Amaury Pellissier rather than a blade, the day he broke his word, broke his vows. Proving his blood and birthright was the lesser, tainted by dishonor." She drew her sword, the sound like a caress as it left the decorative scabbard. "Let us go to the Monteleone and play with your wily nemesis."
Bethany said, "I carry a trinket that will allow a Mithran to see magic as I do." From a finger, she removed a wooden ring, carved from a tree from her homeland in Africa. She had worn it as long as Leo had known her, which was many centuries. "Capture the mage who forced you to attack my George. And before he dies, tell him that his death would have been infinitely more painful at my hand. Catch. And go." She tossed the ring. Leo's hand swept up and he caught the ring. He slid it onto his finger and instantly saw a purple haze about the priestess, her magics swarming for a moment with darker-purple particles before she inhaled and pulled it all back inside her.
Leo paused outside the elevator, the Hemingway suite at the end of the hallway. It was one of the most elegant in the extravagant hotel, with two bedrooms and a large sitting room for social engagements. He glanced at his cohort and grinned, fangs down, remembering the last time they had entered this suite. It had been a week of revelry at Mardi Gras, a dozen young tourists, far too much alcohol, and ceaseless sexual escapades.
Katie chuckled, a wicked sound, and ran her fingers up his back. "If we are back in your lair before the sun, my love, we might reenact in great detail. For now, you shall inform me what you see in the seating area and engage our enemy if he is there. If he is not, then we shall clear the parlor, the bedroom on the right, then the room to the left. Oh. And Leo, mon amour, will you please demolish the door? These are new Jimmy Choos." Katie swept back her split skirt, displaying the stilettos and a great deal of leg.
"Of course, my darling, though what I had in mind is perhaps more anticlimactic than you might wish." Leo strode to the door, pulling a room card from his pocket. He swiped it and the door clicked open. "I borrowed it from the front desk."
"I do believe that I adore you."
"As I do you," Leo said, easing the door open a crack, clenching his fist around the ring. "No magic."
The door opened silently to reveal the large parlor, the pale green of its walls, long upholstered couch, and heavy draperies producing a sense of serenity. The antiques, tall ceiling, crystal chandelier, and heavy moldings established elegance. The merrily burning fire generated a comfor
table ambience for the three humans standing before it on the room-sized Persian rug. They were well-armed toughs, incompatible with the luxury, far more suited to a barroom or pool-hall brawl. They were not expecting Katherine Fonteneau.
His heir blew past him at speed, and in three perfect cuts, slashed the throats of all three. Before he was dispatched, the last one shouted, giving away their attack, though Leo had never supposed they might enter without such a warning.
"You could have left one for me," Leo said.
"I have never been called generous except in the bedroom."
"True, my love. But in bed you are Hathor, Aphrodite, and Venus all together."
"I am," she agreed.
They raced into the bedroom on the right. It was empty, though it smelled of sex and fear and the bedcovers were rumpled and smeared with blood.
The marble bathroom was empty. Leo followed Katie to the bedroom on the left. At the doorway, he placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her. Into her ear, he whispered, "Magic."
"Where?" she mouthed.
Leo pointed into the corner behind the door. There was room for only one of them. The other would have to clear the room and provide protection from rear assault. Katie pouted, her lips pursing around her canines. "Poo," she said. She inserted her sword in its scabbard, out of the way, and slammed back the door. She tucked, dropped, and rolled past it, into the room.
Leo followed her through and then kicked the door closed behind them, revealing the space behind the door. Empty. Except for a haze of reddish magics with particles of black swarming through it. And the faintest haze of a Mithran hidden within. With a single thrust, Leo speared through El Mago's heart, whipped his flat-blade left and right. With a single backhand cut, he slashed his old adversary's throat. The fog of magics dissipated, revealing El Mago, falling to his knees, blood spouting from his throat. His black eyes flashing in shock, his long black hair up in a fighting queue.
Leo dropped his swords and grabbed up his ancient rival. Covered the torn throat with his own mouth, and began to drink. He slid his mind into the mind of El Mago, following the pathways of their earlier years, before their conflicts. He drank down the old jealousy, the hatred, and the betrayal they had given birth to. He absorbed the plans and the hopes and the future as El Mago wished it to be. He understood.