“There’s no fun in killing unless you make it hurt first. The rat won’t die tonight.”
The doorman, realizing their intent, took a step forward. “This is a private club—”
Einar had him pinned against the door before Jono finished blinking, the vampire easily holding the man off the ground by his neck.
“Open the door,” Einar growled.
The doorman didn’t answer, too busy trying to breathe around Einar’s strong fingers. The frantic kicks the vampire received didn’t seem to bother him.
“No murder where people can see,” Patrick snapped.
Lucien didn’t seem to care about bloodshed, but Jono was all for a bit of finesse if it got them inside without anyone ringing the police.
“Is the door warded?” Jono asked as he headed for it.
Patrick’s eyes cut his way before focusing on the entrance, gaze going distant as he looked for something only he could see. “Yes. Check the guy’s pocket for a key. Undoing the wards will take more time than we have available.”
Einar had choked the poor bloke into near unconsciousness in less than a minute, so it was easy to pat him down and find the key. Einar tossed it to Jono, the key larger than modern ones, heavy with the weight of iron. It seemed normal enough until he slid it into the lock. The ward flared up over the key itself, magic spreading into the lock and door handle. The tumblers clicked loudly in Jono’s ears as the door unlocked.
Einar dropped the doorman to the ground as Jono pushed open the door. Jono took off his sunglasses and hooked them over the collar of his button-down. Sound popped back into his ears as he crossed the threshold with Patrick on his heels.
The reception area floor was made of black and gold marble, with a small mahogany hostess stand perched in front of a floor-to-ceiling backdrop wall made out of fresh flowers charmed to always bloom. In the center of the flowers, above the hostesses’ heads, was a red neon sign: No Holy Items.
Patrick snorted. “Very hipster.”
The sweet floral scent wasn’t enough to overpower the underlying smell of blood and chemicals. Jono’s nose twitched as he and Patrick moved to the side, ignoring the hostesses who didn’t seem pleased by their arrival.
He couldn’t really ignore the two male vampires standing guard on either side of the door they’d just stepped through.
“This is a private club,” the blonde hostess said. “You need to leave.”
Jono put himself between Patrick and the vampire guard who moved to touch what he really shouldn’t. He slammed one hand against the vampire’s chest and shoved, putting all his strength behind the hit. Bone crunched beneath his hand as the vampire was thrown backward into the far wall. He hit with enough force to dent it before sliding down to the floor.
The vampire didn’t get up. Since his heart didn’t beat, Jono couldn’t tell if he was unconscious or truly dead.
“You know I could’ve stopped him, right?” Patrick said, raising a hand and wiggling his fingers. Pale blue sparks danced around his fingertips as a pointed reminder of his magic.
Jono shrugged. “Best be quicker next time. Point goes to me.”
Patrick arched an eyebrow. “So we’re keeping score now? Are we rating by bodily harm or murder?”
Jono had killed his fair share of vampires back in London during territory fights but hadn’t crossed a single line here in the States. He had a feeling tonight was about to change that.
“The rat has poor taste,” Carmen said with a sniff. “Inferior children and terrible decorating ideas.”
“He never did learn,” Lucien replied.
Jono glanced over his shoulder and watched as Carmen turned her head away from the vampire Einar had taken care of with brutal efficiency. The vampire was missing the front of its throat, and Einar’s left hand was bloody, with bits of flesh sticking to his fingers that he casually shook off.
“Guess we’re going by murder,” Patrick muttered, a small mageglobe now nestled in the palm of his left hand.
Jono watched as Carmen’s glamour sloughed off like water, her true form slipping into reality. The twisted horns of her kind spiraled away from her forehead and curved back over her skull. Brown eyes with the dark red pupils that marked her as a succubus took in the club. Desire rolled off her in waves that Jono could smell, but which didn’t have any effect on him. He’d never quite figured out if it was his strain of the werevirus or his patron that enabled him to withstand manipulation like this.
Patrick grimaced, and between one breath and the next, Jono lost his scent as he tightened down his personal shields. Jono looked worriedly at him, and Patrick shrugged.
“I don’t want to fight with a hard-on,” he muttered.
Jono snorted. “Would rather we weren’t here fighting at all.”
Lucien slung his arm over Carmen’s shoulders and veered to the left, the hostesses no longer interested in keeping them out. Arousal thickened the air around them, focus turned toward carnal wants rather than what their employer dictated they do. Succubi were distracting that way.
On either side of the floral wall, the marble floor turned into several steps that met dark red, wall-to-wall carpeting on the main floor. Lucien and Carmen led the way, with Einar prowling behind them. Jono and Patrick took up the rear, and he let his eyes wander over the crowd in the club.
The building had been hollowed out for at least three floors, with a short mezzanine one might find in a theater jutting out from the rear of the building. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, but Jono easily picked out more modern light fixtures tucked away in hidden recesses. The walls were made of wood panels interspersed with iron molding instead of wood, the better to anchor wards and spells with. Jono tracked the iron over every wall, noting how it all disappeared into the next floor when it didn’t twist over the ceiling edges.
As cages went, the Crimson Diamond was a good one.
Men and women dressed in expensive suits and dresses mingled in small groups around tall glass bar tables or lounged on chaises. Not everyone was human, but those that were either worked at the club as human servants in the literal sense, or were there as showpieces. The showpieces, as far as Jono could tell, were food, and high out of their minds on shine.
When they weren’t sprawled across the laps of the wealthy or cradled in their arms, shine-addicted humans undulated seductively through the crowd. They begged for relief from the brightness of the souls they could temporarily see in the only way they’d get with their chosen drug—through sex and darkness.
Couples or groups drifted in and out of a pair of elevators that most likely led up to the higher floors in the building. Jono didn’t need to think very hard on what they’d find up there because the vampires enjoying their spoils on the main floor weren’t shy about the way they fed on the addicts.
Lighting was low-lit, giving the club an intimate feel, and the music was more background noise than anything else. The dance floor the gathering areas encircled and which the mezzanine overlooked was surprisingly empty. Past it, along the far wall that didn’t lead to the loo, were two sets of double doors guarded by more vampires, the employees-only signs discreetly labeled.
Jono swallowed against the scent of everything around him, the chemical aftertaste needing something stronger than saliva to wash away. He wondered at how no one seemed to notice them as their small group walked on by, until he remembered the mageglobe in Patrick’s hand.
Magic wasn’t making them invisible, just unnoticeable. People looked right through their group as they made their way to the grand staircase that led up to the mezzanine against the side wall. The staircase was blocked by multiple vampires who didn’t seem quite keen on being in such close proximity with each other. Considering the meeting they were about to interrupt, it stood to reason these vampires belonged to different Night Courts.
Jono saw Patrick clench his fist, snuffing out the mageglobe, and with it, his magic. The vampires in front of them became immediately aware of their pr
esence, heads snapping around to stare at them in shock.
Lucien let go of Carmen and strode forward with all the swagger of an apex predator.
“Move, or I will kill you,” Lucien ordered.
Jono saw the hesitation in one or two of the vampires, the older ones who maybe knew who Lucien was. The younger, brasher vampires bared their fangs in a challenge they were destined to lose.
Jono had heard stories of Lucien through the years, hushed rumors of the mad vampire who held no treaties with any human, who claimed no territory in any country. Yet he had evaded any and all law enforcement with ease to build a criminal empire the envy of anyone who lived on the wrong side of the law. A vampire whose Night Court was smaller than all others in the world today, but whose reputation was enough to make any master vampire think twice about moving against him.
Lucien proved why in mere seconds.
With a speed even Jono was hard-pressed to track, Lucien tore into the vampires blocking his way with hands and teeth. The brutal fight was a blur of torn limbs and dark blood, with Lucien a whirlwind at the center no one could stop. The handful of vampires who hadn’t dared step up to the fight weren’t spared either, and the last one to try to flee ended up with Lucien’s hand buried in his chest.
The vampire’s mouth worked soundlessly, his hands coming up to clutch at his chest. Lucien put a foot against the vampire’s legs and shoved him forward, the motion wrenching his own hand free. He came away with a black heart that didn’t beat clutched tight in bloody fingers.
The commotion hadn’t gone unnoticed. Casual conversation had stopped, the music almost too loud in Jono’s ears. Lucien stepped over the bodies and headed up the stairs, biting into the heart as he went, all eyes in the room on him.
“Is this the way you greet your master, Tremaine?” Lucien said, not bothering to raise his voice. Everyone with enhanced hearing and who was paying attention would hear him.
Jono was acutely aware of the silence that followed Lucien’s question.
Einar extended his arm to Carmen and guided her through the mess of bodies on the floor. If the vampires’ Night Courts claimed them, got them somewhere safe, then some of the undead might be salvageable after a day’s sleep and enough blood from willing human servants.
Jono doubted the one whose heart Lucien was eating was ever coming back.
He caught Patrick’s eye and tipped his head at the stairs. “We going up?”
“Yeah,” Patrick replied.
Jono’s boots squelched in the blood saturating the red carpet as he stepped over the bodies. It didn’t escape his notice that Patrick kept his hat pulled down low, face averted from the curious eyes of the club guests who’d been offered unexpected entertainment for the night. It probably wouldn’t bode well for people to recognize him here. The SOA didn’t really need the headlines that would generate, not after what happened during summer solstice.
The pair of them climbed the opera theater-like stairs to the mezzanine. When they reached the top, Jono realized immediately they had a problem aside from the gathering of master vampires. Perched in a seat between the ranks of vampire guards affiliated with the Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island Night Courts who shifted around their masters was Sage.
“Bloody hell,” Jono muttered under his breath.
Sage kept her eyes locked with his from where she sat but said nothing, refusing to acknowledge them. Patrick’s face was devoid of all emotion, the blank mask of a special agent in the midst of a job. He said nothing, keeping quiet in a way Jono didn’t really like. Jono wondered if Patrick holding back in the face of Lucien’s reign of terror was how their promise was going to set the tone for the evening.
Fuck that.
Jono clenched his hands into fists as Carmen let go of Einar and sauntered forward, hips swaying with every step she took. Between one breath and the next, Jono could smell when her power hit, the sexual desire a wave that brought more than one vampire to their knees from want. Incubi and succubi fed off sex, and they weren’t particular about how they got it. Human, vampire, werecreature, demons—if it was dead or alive, they would fuck it to feed.
Making anyone want them was a potent power that had hobbled more than one army over the centuries.
Carmen carved a path through the vampire guards, pulling orgasms out of many of them in the span of seconds. They went down, and the rest who tried to fight off Carmen’s sexual power by fighting her were stopped by Lucien’s vicious smile and the threat he gave voice to.
“Touch her, and I will raze your Night Courts to the ground,” Lucien promised.
Jono was grudgingly impressed at the way Lucien could command a room. Every single vampire made the decision to survive instead of die a second, more permanent death. They let Carmen pass without protest, the ranks shifting into huddled groups that coalesced around five of the seven chairs that formed a circle in the center of the mezzanine. Seated in those five chairs were the master vampires of New York City.
Maria, of the Bronx Night Court, had ruled her territory for over a century, and was the youngest of the five at somewhere around three hundred years of age. She’d died old for her time but looked in her late thirties now, with brown skin faded to a paler tan and black hair styled in a pixie cut. The amount of gold jewelry she wore wouldn’t have looked out of place in a music video. The tiara she wore, made from the fangs of those who tried to take her throne and failed, certainly would.
Devon, of the Staten Island Night Court, reminded Jono of every posh Wall Street wanker who thought they were better than everyone else. Power suit and Rolex couldn’t take away from the death cast to the master vampire’s face. Sharp featured, with slicked-back gray hair and brown eyes, he was five hundred years old and had called New York City home for two centuries
Rajesh, of the Queens Night Court, still wore the dastaar of the Sikh religion he’d followed when he was alive six hundred years ago. Considering the master vampire’s reputation for viciousness, and the body parts that always got strewn in the streets when a territory fight happened, it was doubtful he followed those teachings any longer. His brown eyes remained locked on Lucien even as one of his vampires, a tiny blonde thing, leaned close to whisper in his ear.
Jamere, of the Brooklyn Night Court, wouldn’t have been out of place at a local high school or university in the jeans, T-shirt, and heavy gold jewelry he wore. He’d died before he was twenty some four hundred years or so ago. No one was too sure which Caribbean island he once called home, but he eventually carved out territory in New York City in the mid-1800s after the Civil War ended. He guarded his borders zealously to this day.
Then there was Tremaine, of the Manhattan Night Court, the entire reason they were here. Tall, broad-shouldered, with white-blond hair and icy blue eyes, Jono had never crossed paths with the master vampire before, though he knew Estelle and Youssef had. Tremaine’s gaze was riveted by Lucien’s arrival, pale face stripped of emotion. Jono couldn’t get a read on the master vampire who held more clout than the others, and he didn’t like that.
“This is not your territory,” Tremaine finally said, rising to his feet in a fluid motion, that force of presence all master vampires had filling the mezzanine.
“My Anahuac Cartel says otherwise,” Lucien replied as he came to stand by Carmen, not bothering to respond to that show of power.
“You are not invited.”
The statement was an order, a command to the threshold wrapped around the club. Public domains were near impossible for thresholds to thrive in, but Jono supposed an exclusive club could count as a home if one was desperate enough. Tremaine’s words rang through the air, louder than the music pouring through speakers—but they did nothing.
Jono was reminded of how Patrick had broken the sacrificial circle he’d been tied to in June. Blood always slipped through magic in the most inconvenient of ways.
Lucien smiled, black eyes like holes in his head. “You were made by me. Your bought magic kno
ws that.”
Tremaine’s lips peeled away from his jagged fangs in a snarl, but he made no move against Lucien. No one spoke until the fae lawyer seated by Sage stood to address the crowd.
The Seelie fae was beautiful, in a way that caught everyone’s attention. Silver hair that fell to his shoulders parted around delicately pointed ears, and unearthly violet eyes gazed at the fractious crowd without fear. Impeccably attired in a tailored dove gray three-piece suit with a silver and black striped tie, the fae lawyer wore a crown of hawthorn flowers on his head and carried a sleek, gold-tipped wooden cane.
“May I remind you of the oaths you took to do no harm to each other during this mediation?” the fae said, his voice light in tone, though firm, with a thread of power running through his words that made Jono want to flinch.
Fae and their words were always such dangerous weapons.
“Tremaine’s sire gave no such oath,” Maria said pointedly, not looking at Lucien as she spoke.
“I give oaths to no one,” Lucien bit out. “I take.”
Tremaine stepped forward, braver than his brethren, or just utterly thick. Jono couldn’t quite tell. “You come into my territory—”
“Your territory?” Carmen drawled derisively, cutting him off.
“Manhattan is mine.” Tremaine’s gaze cut their way, and Jono found himself on the receiving end of a murderous glare. “Nothing you do, no one you bring with you, will change that.”
“Is that right?” Patrick asked, his right hand resting close to the dagger strapped to his thigh. “Because I’m pretty fucking sure my agency can put a dent into the shit you’re selling on the street.”
Tremaine dismissed Patrick’s words with a mocking wave of his hand. “You have no warrant. If you did, you would have presented it before entering. Whatever you might see here, whatever you think you’ll find? None of it will be admissible to the courts.”
“It’s funny how you still believe a piece of paper gives you all these rights,” Lucien said as he sidestepped Tremaine to walk a circle around the low table all the chairs sat in front of. No one moved to stop him. “I gave you your second life, Tremaine. I can take it away just as easily.”
All Souls Near & Nigh (Soulbound Book 2) Page 9