Dark Heir

by Faith Hunter

I moved out of the way, nodding to the door, letting my body language tell him he could go. When the door shut behind him, I looked at Leo. He was doing that block-of-gravestone-marble expression vamps did. No breathing, no tightness around the eyes, no tells at all. He could smell my exhaustion and irritation, but he had few clues why I was upset. Eli moved into the room, crossing to my left for a better shooting position, an action that was second nature to my partner. Though Leo didn’t turn his head, his eyes marked the movement and returned to me. Keeping my voice neutral, I said, “Education and training for Grégoire’s new servants is to include . . .”

  Leo leaned back in his desk chair. He was wearing what I had come to identify as probably sleeping clothes, stretchy yoga-type pants and shirt. His feet were encased in soft slippers, a match to the ones that were always in my locker downstairs. “You are aware that I need not provide you with information,” Leo said, his tone equally without inflection, “and that their satiation has no bearing on your current hunt, Jane Yellowrock who is no longer my Enforcer.” I nodded, a slow incline of my head. “They will be tutored in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Computer skills. Daily living skills, such as banking, how to drive an automobile, and how to order food at a restaurant. How to get on with the populace around them. Applications are ongoing for birth certificates and social security cards for those born and raised in slavery. We are searching out relatives for those kidnapped and brought to the Americas, as is the case with the young man who just left. Compassionate therapy and counseling are being provided for those abused. Assistance in finding a new life and a stipend for those who wish to leave our service. Lessons in how to assimilate into a proper Mithran clan are available for those who wish to stay in our service.”

  Leo’s eyes narrowed and his nostrils fluttered as he scented my surprise. “Lest you think I am too lenient, far less compassionate therapy, and a great deal more physical rehabilitation, is being provided for those humans who assisted the Naturaleza of Atlanta in the abuse of their fellow humans. Those involved in the cruelty of the slave pens, and judged irredeemable, will not be allowed to leave our employ, though they will not be harmed. What would you have me do differently, Jane Yellowrock? I would not abandon the victims of my enemy.”

  Dang. Every time I wanted to hate Leo, he did something that made me like him. My exhaustion seemed to compress my chest, robbing me of air, but I wasn’t about to sit on the gold velvet chaise. Reading me, Eli pushed over a low, rolling stool with his boot. I sat, and my hair swished forward, the tips settling on the floor. Leo’s eyes followed its movement, and I knew he wanted to touch my hair. His fingers curled under, a strangely human gesture of resistance to an internal desire.

  I propped an elbow on the desk and my chin on my fist. “I need to update you. And I need to ask some questions that are gonna tick you off. So before I do that, I need your info.”

  Leo smiled, the utterly beautiful, totally human smile that had been his as a human, before he had been turned. “You are going to prick my temper.”

  “Yup,” I said, smiling back.

  “No one else in all my long life has provided me such perpetual and unrelieved entertainment.”

  “I try.”

  Leo laughed, his black eyes sparkling, his black hair moving with the laughter and curling around his chin, down onto his shoulders. He hadn’t trimmed it in a while. I liked the extra length. “Proceed with your update.”

  I told him about the debacle with the witches and the Son of Darkness, leaving out the part about Molly and the blood diamond. I told him about the scene and the altercation between Derek and Juwan and Eli and me at the Mearkanis Clan Home, and about the fight and the human deaths at Rousseau Clan Home. It was clear he had heard it all before, but not from my perspective, with my insights. I told him about Brute, the werewolf, at the pool. And lastly, I told him about the deaths of the city’s homeless. When I mentioned the young teenager, Leo’s face went stone-still. If it was possible for a vamp to grow even more lifeless without being true-dead, Leo did that. Then he took a short breath, just enough to speak. “This . . . is unacceptable. I will contact the mayor and order the leasing of a building for the homeless. They can be rounded up and sent there for the duration of this crisis.”

  Leo punched a button and gave a series of precise orders to Del. They included transportation, food, portable showers and toilets, cots, furniture, and security for as many people as the city could find. It was things like this that made it hard to hate Leo for the evil, blood-drinking bastard he was, and I had to remind myself that he was the root cause of this problem, and the buck did indeed stop with him.

  While he was talking, a servant entered and brought in a tea tray, with a porcelain pot and tea cozy, and three cups. Eli made a minuscule face but accepted a cup, no sugar, no cream. Leo’s preference was likewise. I added extra sugar and double cream and drained my first cup before the servant finished serving us, and started on my second.

  When he was finished with his orders, Leo lifted his cup to me in a gesture that said I should continue. I said, “I have reason to believe that Dominique is working with the Son of Darkness.”

  Leo’s eyes bored into mine, his pupils widening, the sclera going slowly scarlet. “This is not possible.”

  I felt more than saw Eli put down his cup and place both hands on vamp-killers at his thighs. I said, “Dominique hasn’t been at Arceneau Clan Home since this started. I caught her scent at the old Mearkanis Clan Home, in the same bed as Adrianna. And in the old Rousseau Clan Home. In the same room as Santana.”

  Leo put down his cup. The china tink of cup to plate was sharp and loud in the suddenly tense room. “This is . . . Grégoire will . . . Il sera dévasté.”

  I caught the devastated part.

  “But . . . this explains much that happened the morning the Son of Darkness escaped,” Leo said, staring at his hands curled around the cup. “At the request of your young business partner, Derek has been watching all of the security footage. Dominique was here, on premises, and we have not been able to discover a reason for her presence.”

  My mouth started to form words and then stopped. I didn’t know what to say.

  “One of my men found a cloak in the ballroom. It was spattered with the blood of the Son of Darkness and of humans. It smelled of Dominique. I had feared she had been taken prisoner, but”—his mouth pulled down, forming harsh lines from his nose to his chin, making him look far older than he usually did, and far more human—“but with your information, it seems not. I shall inform Grégoire that his heir is excommunicated. Expelled from clan and blood. She will be killed on sight as traitor to us.” He looked up from his hands, his eyes bleak. “I will place a bounty upon the heir of Grégoire’s clan.”

  “I’m . . . sorry. I really am.”

  At my words, Leo blinked and his vamped-out eyes returned to human. “Thank you,” he said, solemnly. “I have news as well.” Watching my face with care, Leo said, “The European vampires have cut off negotiations for their visit.” I couldn’t help my quick intake of breath, and Leo gave me one of his kingly nods. “I fear that Shimon Bar-Judas, the other Son of Darkness, is likely to come to help his brother, now that Joses—Joseph Santana—is free.”

  “Without ongoing negotiations,” I said, “there’s no warning when they might arrive.”

  “Correct.”

  “Unless your mole is still active?” Leo had a spy in Europe, a high-placed one, who sent him information as often as possible. As often as was safe.

  “I have received no word. I may assume a variety of things about the silence: our association is at an end because of Santana; my associate is unable to get word due to heightened security; my associate has been caught and is now dead. I have heard from other sources that several of my friends from centuries ago are prisoned or deceased, simply due to an ancient acquaintance; in one case it was a relationship that ended long ago, in enmity. I am operating in a vacuum. We need Santana caught and shackled quickly.
No games, Jane. He cannot be killed. I need him alive as a bargaining chip.”

  I glanced at Eli, my reaction evident in my expression. “Politics. They always suck,” my partner said.

  It wasn’t what I wanted, and I figured this could be the nail in the coffin of my desire to behead the Son of Darkness. But I was still taking his heart. “Fine. But I can’t defeat Santana without help.” Before Leo could reply I asked, “What have you learned about Santana while searching HQ? The Council Chambers,” I amended.

  “There are records and a small objet de magie in a safe, though where the safe was placed after the fire that destroyed my home is not yet known. There are sub-basements here and storage units off premises. I have people looking. You will be contacted when it is discovered. It was my uncle’s private safe and its contents might prove helpful in your search. Meanwhile, another safe of similar design, purchased at the same time, has been located on sub-four. It contains deeds that might assist you in searching for sleeping lairs.” Leo opened a desk drawer and handed me a ring of keys and a scrap of paper with numbers on it. “This will open the safe.”

  “We’ll head there now.” I started to stand and Leo lifted a hand.

  “Jane.” I stopped. “The Son of Darkness is strong. Far stronger than any Mithran or Naturaleza you have yet encountered. I offer you my blood to give you and your second strength and faster healing.” He extended his left hand, the wrist exposed.

  I had no idea what to say. No way was I drinking Leo’s blood unless I was dying and couldn’t shift. My eyes went to Eli, who said, “We decline for the moment. But if we are in danger or injured, we will remember the generosity offered by the Master of the City of New Orleans.”

  I nearly fell off the low stool in shock at Eli’s words. Diplomatic. My “shoot first and figure out who was guilty second” partner had just been diplomatic. Leo took it as his due. “You may proceed with your search,” Leo said, with that gracious tone that the old royals used. “You are dismissed.”

  Eli smiled, a genuine smile, the kind he reserves for his honeybunch. “Thanks, boss,” he said. I stood and we left the room.

  “Boss?” I asked as we moved through vamp central.

  “Yeah. Why not?” Eli said. “You get away with unruly behavior all the time. This is his battle. I’m just the hired hand. And my master will never come out of my mouth.”

  As we entered the elevator, Eli asked, “Where are we going?”

  “Right now for coffee. Then to sub-four to check the safe Leo mentioned. Also, since this conspiracy to free Santana keeps widening, I want to take a look again at Adrianna’s room here, and again at her room at Mearkanis Clan Home. Maybe we missed something.”

  “You’re going to drink coffee?”

  “Odd how you picked that out of the really good stuff that I just said.”

  “I heard it all. The only weird part was you drinking coffee.”

  “Yeah, well, my bones are tired.” I stretched, feeling the stiffness of muscles and joints. My spine popped when I twisted, and I blew out a deep breath, exhaling some of the tension that had accumulated in my flesh. “My skin is tired. Even my hair is tired.” I dropped my arms. “I need to mainline caffeine if I’m going to make another couple hours. Coffee is faster than tea. Espresso is faster than regular coffee, and I got the chef to set up a Keurig for the green room. But sometime soon, we both need some sleep.”

  “Copy that.”

  We stopped off in the green room just off the main entry in vamp HQ. After the last time I crashed in there, I had updated the room. It now had a Keurig with a full selection of everything caffeinated, a full-sized refrigerator kept stocked with fresh food in see-through plastic containers, colas, water, and various bottled green teas. There was a large microwave, and cabinets filled with canned and dried foodstuffs. The room also had a nice table and chairs and comfy, upholstered furniture. And a three-paneled screen in front of the wall that showed a sealed-over entry to the no-longer-secret elevator close to Leo’s office. I might need it someday and I didn’t want it to be easily identifiable.

  I made a cup of espresso, passed it to Eli, and made another for myself. As I worked I said, “Did you ever get photos of sub-four?”

  “I got part of it. Alex has the pics.”

  “And did you find the safe Leo mentioned? Is it already open?”

  Eli’s lips twitched. “Yes. And not yet. I thought about blowing it up, but it might make a mess of the room.”

  I chuckled and felt odd as the laughter moved through my body, as if I should be grieving or furious instead, and the laughter was a betrayal of the dead and dying in that city. Nodding, I took my own cup, setting the Keurig to start a third cup, this one of chai. I opened the freezer and dropped three ice cubes into the espresso, swirled the ice in the cup and tossed it back. The whole cup of espresso hit my stomach like I’d swallowed a bowling ball. I struggled to not throw it back up. “Holy crap,” I managed. “How do you drink this swill?”

  “Slowly. Sipping it. Like a gentleman.”

  I rubbed my stomach while adding cream and sugar to the chai. “That sounds yuckers.”

  Eli chuckled. “Sipping espresso or being a gentleman?”

  “Sylvia has ruined you,” I griped, referring to his girlfriend.

  “I’ll be sure to tell her so,” he said mildly.

  The coffee’s caffeine hit my nervous system and I took a deep breath. “Holy cow. That feels better.”

  “For now,” Eli agreed, while at the same time disagreeing.

  I frowned at him, took my tea, and led the way back to the elevator. I was getting tired of Eli following, protecting, and taking care of me. I wanted to do something to shake things up, shake him up. Okay, I was grouchy. Maybe it was the caffeine or the lack of sleep, but whatever. I sipped the tea, trying to remember why I was grouchy. I really did need sleep.

  * * *

  The main elevator opened on the huge storage room, which took up most of sub-four’s floor space. Eli and I stepped off and the elevator doors closed, the cage going back up.

  The room was dry, thanks to the witch spells that kept groundwater from seeping in, and was well lit, well ventilated, and packed full of vamp stuff. There were paintings stacked in front of paintings, in every corner and along the bookcases, which themselves were filled with thousands of books and manuscripts, trunks, wooden boxes, heavy cardboard boxes, hat boxes, wig boxes, and various stuff collected by the vamps who had come through HQ for centuries. There were steamer trunks on the floor, lamps, birdcages, jewel boxes, suitcases, and photograph albums. It was disorganized enough to look like a bad episode of Hoarders, and took up most of the subbasement. There were tons of . . . junk. And history. And . . . stuff.

  I wandered to the right, sipping, through trails between piles of very expensive and valuable junk, now following Eli toward the paintings that were stacked in front of the safe. “So did you ever figure out if there’s a system to the junk stored here? Maybe a caretaker?” I asked.

  “Bethany,” Eli said, humor in his tone.

  “Bethany. Crazy-as-a-bedbug Bethany. Bethany, who was somehow involved with the Son of Darkness before, during, or after he was injured? That Bethany?”

  “One and the same. Seems that once upon a time, she was sane. Ish.”

  I sighed, stopped in front of the paintings, and stared at them, stretching my shoulders. I drained the teacup and set it on top of a flat-topped trunk, immediately forgetting it. The lack of sleep had caught up with me. My brain had shut down. But the paintings drew me.

  I knew a lot of people in them. Satan’s Three, dressed in the height of fashion back in the days of poufy drawers and tights, now dead. The Three and their maker, Le Bâtard, a vamp I hoped to kill someday. And Adrianna, now gibbering on the floor of Leo’s special scion room. Her I’d killed more than once, yet she just kept coming back, over and over again. Next time I’d take her head before Leo could stop me. The promise was growing old.

  Eli began
moving paintings. I stood and watched as paintings of Leo and Katie emerged. In one, they were wearing what might have been the height of style for the late seventeen hundreds, the couple shown standing on a steamboat, black smoke belching into the night sky. Leo was looking at Katie with lust in his eyes. Katie was laughing. She had been in love with Leo for a long time. I wondered if he really understood that.

  There was a painting from the last century, of Grégoire and Dominique. The two blonds stood in front of scarlet draperies, Dominique in risqué stockings and garter belt, corset, and little else, Grégoire wearing a black tuxedo and big fluffy tie. Cravat. Whatever. And a top hat. His arm was around Dominique and she was bent back, chest outthrust, one knee raised to curl around his legs, staring at him, in love with him, just as Katie was in love with Leo. Leo and Grégoire had no idea. Men . . .

  Eli slid the painting across the floor, exposing the safe. “It’s a Victor Safe and Lock, the company out of Cincinnati, Ohio. This one was patented in 1904, which we knew. The two front doors are composed of layers of steel, six inches thick, sealed with a combination lock. Inside, if it’s built according to the usual style, it has five inner doors of drawers, two on top, three smaller ones on bottom, each with its own combination lock and its own combination.” He held out a hand and I placed the keys and numbers in his palm. Eli went to work.

  “I need more caffeine,” I said, toneless and wan, as Eli managed to get the outer doors open to reveal the inner doors and drawers. My fingertips were tingling from exhaustion.

  “This will wake you up. Remember that necklace on Brute?” Eli asked.

  I slid my eyes from the dark metal of the safe to Eli. “I’m sleepy, not brain-dead.”

  Eli grinned, looking as fresh as a daisy. Dang him. “The data on the jump drives was mostly recoverable. Alex started cleaning them up and did a cursory search of a couple of them.”

  That woke me up. “And?”

  “They were Reach’s data files. Or some of them at least. Best idea on how the Son of Darkness got them is that he took them off one of his rescuers. No idea how they got them. Alex is downloading, collating, and upgrading our information system. Soon we’ll have at least some of Reach’s information at his fingertips. Then it’s just a matter of reading everything so we know what we have. Which will take time, but it has Alex’s total attention.”