Les vampires de Manhattan

by Melissa de la Cruz

  “Well, you’re more than welcome to stay,” she said warmly.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  They watched as Finn floated to the other guests. “You’re a lucky man,” Sam said to Oliver.

  “Don’t I know it.” Oliver sighed.

  “Some of us—Some of us aren’t so lucky.” Sam sighed, and Oliver knew that he was thinking of his life before the War. He clasped his friend’s shoulder and squeezed it in sympathy.

  “We all made sacrifices,” Oliver said.

  “Some of us more than others,” Sam replied. But he gave Oliver a wry smile and left the party without further comment.

  When Oliver walked inside the dining room, Finn was standing at the head of the table. In the candlelight, her beauty glowed, and Oliver felt a surge of pride. Finn made his life possible; she smoothed the relationships and the rough edges created by his position; she urged him to listen to people, to keep his mind and heart open. As for those who resented her high place in the Coven, especially snobs like Chris Jackson, he couldn’t care less. Finn caught his eye before speaking, and he winked at her to let her know she had nothing to worry about. She had this.

  “My dear friends,” Finn began. “Thank you all for coming today to celebrate our upcoming Red Blood exhibit. One of the greatest mandates of the Overland Foundation is to promote the vibrant cultural and intellectual life of the city. All the artists in this collection work with blood in interesting and intriguing ways that allow us to more deeply appreciate our own mortality,” she said with a knowing smile reserved for the vampires in the group. “My father, Stephen Chase, was an artist who used blood in his own paintings to display the fragility of the human condition, and it brings me great honor today to know that his paintings will soon be enjoyed by all.”

  After the applause had died down, Finn introduced each artist at the dinner, who spoke briefly about their work.

  Once everyone had made their remarks, she stood up again. “And lastly, I would like to say a few words about Ivy Druiz, who I am very sorry to say cannot be with us today due to a personal conflict, but her gallery manager, Murray Anthony, is here to answer any questions. Murray assures us Ivy will be with us during the Four Hundred Ball and the opening of the exhibit. I have been drawn to Ivy’s work for years, and I admire her passion for women’s lives and troubles. It’s a real testament of her courage and conviction to create art that gives voice to the voiceless, that finds meaning in our everyday traumas. Thank you for joining us, and here’s to a life-changing Four Hundred Ball! To the artists!”

  Glasses raised, crystal clinked, and the dinner party began in earnest with the delivery of the first course—a blood orange salad in a balsamic vinaigrette. Finn slid into a seat across from Oliver and whispered, “Did I do all right?”

  “Perfectly,” he assured. “Life changing?”

  She laughed. “I really want the ball to be special.”

  “It will be,” he said, nuzzling her cheek. “Wait till you see what I have planned.”

  The rest of the evening went as well as it could, with a few conclave members getting a little tipsy from the blood wine, and everyone staggering out to an uncommonly mild autumn night. Exhausted, but satisfied that the night went as well as it could, Oliver and Finn finally repaired to the limousine waiting for them by the sidewalk.

  When they were alone, he told Finn what Sam had told him about the second fatality, the body the Venators had found in Brooklyn. “Maybe we should cancel,” she said. “Maybe Chris is right. Maybe it’s not time for a party.”

  Oliver sighed. He hadn’t told Finn about the pentagram he’d found in his office or the one he saw tagged on their building the other morning, as he didn’t want to add to her worries.

  “No, the ball is in two days, you’ll look ridiculous,” Finn said, changing her mind when she saw the look on his face. “Chris Jackson is a frightened woman trying to scare you, make you doubt yourself. Show them your strength. Show them they can’t destroy us. We can still have the party while we keep investigating and bring this killer to justice.”

  He loved her passion and ferocity. Finn would make a wonderful vampire, he thought. Except that it’s impossible, and so she will die, and when that happens I will mourn her forever.

  He brought her hand to his lips, planting a line of soft kisses, slowly from her wrist, up to her elbow, and past, until he reached her neck. She sighed and reached for him as well, bringing him closer to her so that she was almost on his lap. She turned to him with a sly smile, and Oliver raised the partition that separated them from the driver. Unbuckling his seat belt and hers, he laid her lengthwise on the seat of the car and slipped the straps of her dress off her shoulders.

  “Darling, do you ever regret it?” he asked as he carefully undressed her. He unhooked her bra with one hand and took a moment to congratulate himself on that.

  “What?” she breathed as their lips met, and she pulled his shirt out of his pants and began to unzip.

  “All this… me,” he whispered as he moved on top of her.

  “Regret you?” she asked, just as he thrust his body into hers, and she shivered, drawing her knees around his waist.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice tight, as he rocked against her.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “If you had never met me, you wouldn’t be part of the Coven, privy to its dark secrets.” You wouldn’t be in danger from our enemies, he thought, but couldn’t admit it out loud, not yet. They would hurt you to get to me. The mortal body count was climbing. Instead he told her, “You would be safe. You would be—”

  “—lost without you.” Finn looked deep into his eyes and placed both her hands on his cheeks. “You are my life.”

  I have made it so, Oliver thought. You don’t have a choice anymore. And with that thought, he sank his fangs deep into her skin, and soon they were both shuddering in ecstasy.

  15 SYMPHONY FOR THE DEVIL

  MUSIC WAS ANOTHER THING SHE’D MISSED, living in the underworld. Mimi had never been much of a fan when she’d lived on this side of the Gates of Hell, but after ten years underground, where cacophony ruled and dissonance was the only sound she could pick up on her radio, it was a relief and a pleasure to listen to music again. She had made a habit of visiting Lincoln Center to catch the New York Philharmonic, and the night after Kingsley had bid her good-bye, she was seated in her family’s old box in the theater. Murray left the patrons’ dinner early to join her, and they shared glasses of champagne in the lobby, admiring the newly renovated plaza (even though it was years old now, it was still “new” to Mimi) before heading inside for the performance.

  “How was the party?” she asked, when he arrived.

  “You know what they say, the rich are bloodsuckers,” Murray joked.

  Mimi laughed as they made their way to their seats, thinking, If he only knew.

  Settled in the plush velvet chairs, Mimi felt the anticipatory rush of the crowd moments before the show began. She wasn’t a music snob; she was not one to prefer the obscure or the rare. For instance she had once fallen asleep to Parsifal, one of the more difficult-to-appreciate Wagner operas. She much preferred the Ring cycle or something even more pleasurable—The Barber of Seville, The Magic Flute, La Bohème. Her taste for classical music was the same as her preference for the well-known operas. She enjoyed Beethoven and Tchaikovsky and had once swooned to a particularly lovely performance of Ravel’s Bolero that had made a memorable impression upon her soul. Tonight the orchestra was performing her favorite, Mozart’s Requiem.

  She let the music carry her away from her troubles, her worries about her absent husband, and whatever was happening with the Coven and Lucifer’s worm. She had to admit, she was pulled into it, even if she had resisted at first. She thought she had no more desire to save the world, and yet there it was.

  The conductor was waving his baton, and she followed the graceful flow of the music, the audience as attentive as she had remembered it. As a child her
father had admonished her for being unable to sit still. During the coughing break, when the audience took the opportunity to clear their throats and unwrap their mints, the crinkle, crinkle of the foil was as effective as Proust’s madeleine cookie as a gateway to her childhood. It was all there.

  At intermission, she and Murray repaired to the mezzanine for more drinks. It was a practice she’d learned from her parents, who took her to the opera, the symphony, and the theater and took a glass of champagne before, during, and after the performance. When she was younger, she had looked forward to being old enough for the drinks. Now that she was older, she found she enjoyed the music more, but she continued the practice because it reminded her of being young and of her parents, who were gone now. They took their champagne flutes nearer the windows to watch the fountains dance on the plaza.

  “Why, if it isn’t Mimi Force,” a cold voice said right behind her.

  Mimi turned to see a slim, dark-haired woman in an impossibly chic cocktail dress appraising her with a cool gaze.

  “So good to see you. It’s Mimi Martin now,” Mimi said automatically as she tried to recall the woman’s name. She let the woman kiss her on both cheeks as she searched her memory.

  “This is Murray Anthony,” Mimi said, introducing her friend to the stranger, using an age-old party trick to cover up her ignorance.

  “Christina Jackson,” the woman said, offering her hand. “Didn’t I just see you at the dinner at the Modern?”

  “Yes, I represent one of the artists,” Murray said, happy to have been recognized.

  For her part, Mimi remembered her as well. Chris had been one of the women who ran the Committee with Priscilla DuPont back in the day. In fact, she looked like she hadn’t aged since, and Mimi chalked up her inability to place her as just part of living alone with Kingsley in the underworld for a decade.

  “Pleasure,” Murray said. He downed his glass in one shot. “I’ll grab us another,” he told Mimi, exiting stage right.

  “When did you get back to the city?” Chris asked.

  “This summer,” she said.

  “You haven’t registered with the Coven.”

  “My bad.” Mimi shrugged.

  Chris tapped her finger to her cheek. “I’m surprised the Venators haven’t taken you in for questioning. They’re very serious about rounding up renegades.”

  “Right.” Mimi laughed weakly.

  “I suppose you’re here for the Four Hundred Ball.”

  “I wasn’t aware I was invited,” Mimi said.

  “Now don’t be silly. It’s going to be quite a party.”

  Mimi craned her neck over her shoulder, pointedly giving Chris the signal that she was bored with this conversation. “How is everything with the Coven?”

  “You know, everything changes and nothing changes,” Chris said. “Wasn’t the last Four Hundred Ball your coming-out?”

  “I think so, I’m not sure,” Mimi said, although she remembered her dress well. “How is the new crop of debutantes and their dates?”

  Chris smiled thinly. “Rambunctious, as usual.”

  “And Oliver? How is the Coven faring under his leadership?” Mimi asked, because she had a feeling Chris wanted her to.

  “He should take better care. Did you hear about the girl they found in the sewers?”

  “Mortal, was it?” Mimi asked, pretending she didn’t know very much.

  “Yes. I told the Regent that it might be a good idea not to have a Four Hundred Ball at this time.”

  “And what did Oliver say?”

  “He said it wasn’t a time to show weakness.”

  “Understandable.”

  “The Regent is putting the Coven at risk,” Chris said, fingering the necklace around her throat and looking at Mimi meaningfully. “He’s forgotten what it was like to be mortal. Perhaps someone should remind him that not even vampires are indestructible.”

  It was then that Mimi noticed that the charm hanging from Chris’s link necklace was that of a serpent. A white gold serpent, with emerald chips for eyes, the color of Lucifer’s Bane, the stone that was lost during the War. She knew the stone well, as she had once worn it herself, and only Kingsley had been able to destroy it and set her free. But it looked like someone had picked up the pieces, and she felt a shock to see it again so soon after the War. It was as if Lucifer were mocking her.

  Chris squeezed her arm to bid her good-bye and disappeared into the crowd.

  “Who was that?” Murray asked, returning with the drinks at last, just as the bells pinged to warn the audience to return to their seats. “She gave me the shivers. When I shook her hand, it felt like a shadow walked over my grave.”

  No, Mimi thought, not like a shadow, more like a snake, a worm. A viper with a warning on her tongue. The Regent is putting the Coven at risk. He’s forgotten what it was like to be mortal. Perhaps someone should remind him that not even vampires are indestructible.

  Murray wasn’t the only one with shivers, as Mimi recalled a certain fact. Christina Carter Jackson was Forsyth Llewellyn’s sister.

  Forsyth, the traitor to the Coven; the one who had almost brought it to ruin; Forsyth, who was Lucifer’s most trusted lieutenant.

  16 SAFE HOUSE

  THEY SHOULD BE TOLD that their daughter is dead,” Ara said, as she waited for Edon to pay for his coffee late on Thursday evening. “It’s not fair to them, not knowing. Not knowing is worse than knowing.”

  “Haven’t you heard that ignorance is bliss?” Edon asked, handing her his cappuccino so that he could take off his jacket given the unseasonably warm night. Vampires were real, but climate change was a myth. It was fascinating what the mortals believed. Everyone knew the weather changed on the whim of the Almighty or the random weather warden or two in the Coven.

  “Not when it comes to missing children,” she argued. “I would rather know. Not knowing is the killer.”

  “We can’t let them know she’s dead until we’ve discovered the killer. As soon as they know she’s dead, they’ll want her body for a funeral. But we need it for evidence, to match up the killer’s blood bond when we find him,” he said patiently. “Standard Coven procedure, you know that. I’m not a vampire, but I get it.”

  “Well, I don’t like it.”

  “Neither do I, but I don’t like a lot of things, and I never thought we had a choice on what we liked or not.”

  “True that,” Ara said, realizing his lingo was rubbing off on her. “Did you hear about the other body?”

  Edon nodded. It was found in an abandoned warehouse in the far reaches of Brooklyn, not far from the torched Nephilim hive. The girl had suffered the same treatment—the left hand hacked off and a bloody pentagram painted on the wall above her. Deming and Acker were the leads on that one, and they were still trying to figure out who she was. “Two in one week can’t be good,” he said.

  The Currys lived in a small apartment in a high-rise in Midtown. It was past midnight, but they could only meet then after the restaurant closed. They looked weary and anxious. There were dark circles under Frank Curry’s eyes, and Madeline Curry looked pale and worn.

  Frank was a short but powerfully built man, with the burned fingers and forest of intertwining tattoos on his forearms of a chef who had put in his hours, had paid his dues. “Have you eaten?” he asked, when they were seated at the family’s small dining table. “I can make you something. Spaghetti?”

  “No, thank you,” Ara said, even as Edon was about to say otherwise. She couldn’t bear to think of taking advantage of their kindness.

  “Georgie is a good girl,” Madeline said. “We are very close. She would never just run away. Your colleagues asked if there was any reason why she would want to leave, but there isn’t. She had a test on Monday. She was studying for it. She loves the city. Where else would she go?”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Edon said. “But we do have to cover all the bases. She’s sixteen, and sometimes teenagers do run away.”

  “Not my Geo
rgina. Like I said, she would never run away,” Madeline said. “Never.”

  Ara scribbled notes in her book, trying to keep her face calm, trying not to give away what they knew. “We’ve spoken to her friends at school.”

  “You talked to Darcy?” Madeline asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Wild Darcy.” Madeline sighed. “Georgie’s evil twin. We’ve been trying to separate them since kindergarten. She’s a bad influence.”

  “Darcy said that Georgina had a boy she was close to,” Edon said.

  “Damien.” Madeline nodded.

  Ara was impressed. Not many mothers knew what was going on with their teenage daughters, but Madeline Curry seemed to be on the ball.

  “Yes. What was her relationship with him? Was he her boyfriend?” asked Ara.

  “The kids—they don’t call it that anymore. Did you notice? They’re sort of… unlabeled. I wish I could tell you, but mothers are always the last to know. Why? Do you think he has something to do with this?” she asked worriedly.

  Ara didn’t comment. “Do you know where we can find him?”

  “The other detectives already asked about him, but I don’t have a number for him, I’m sorry. Like I told the officers, all I have is just an address. Georgie asked me to pick her up at his house once. Hold on.” She got up from the table and rummaged in the kitchen drawers. “Here’s that Post-it.”

  Ara took it and felt her heart stop when she read the address. She showed it to Edon, who let out a long, surprised whistle.

  The two Venators stared at the building where Georgina’s mother had sent them. They were standing at the corner of 101st Street and Riverside Drive, staring at the old Van Alen mansion, where Schuyler Van Alen had once lived with her grandfather.

  “Who lives here these days?” Ara asked. “After they all left?”

  “Dunno, I think the Coven owns it now.”