Bonarata leaned back in his chair, looking at Marsilia. His face was sad and hungry and lonely. “I believe our business is concluded.” Bonarata looked at Adam for confirmation.
Adam considered the vampire. “Just to have things clear between us,” he said. “You know what we’re doing back home, and it isn’t what you thought. The fae aren’t going to suddenly kill a bunch of humans in a spectacularly messy fashion because it is not in their best interests. There won’t be a second Inquisition begun because of us. You are now okay with this and won’t send another crew out to attack me and mine.” He took a deep breath and had to fight to keep his wolf from snarling. “If you do, I won’t be coming over here on a diplomatic mission a second time. I am not a diplomat. Like you, I am a killer, and anyone who forgets that deserves what they get. That said, I am leaving as soon as I can get my crew packed and ready.”
Bonarata said, very quietly, “Be careful, wolf. Remember what I am.”
“Back. At. You.”
“Adam,” Marsilia. “Jacob. Perhaps we should just agree that matters have been settled.”
Bonarata stood up, giving permission for everyone in the room to do likewise. Adam got to his feet, too, tucking his chair back under the table.
Bonarata rounded the table, his path taking him around Guccio rather than Marsilia. “I won’t say it has been a pleasure,” Bonarata said. “But it has been interesting. I wish you luck on your endeavors.”
He held out a hand, Adam reached out and—finally, finally Guccio made his move.
“Hold him,” Guccio said softly, sending the command up the blood bond he’d initiated when he had fed from Adam in the hall this afternoon.
12
Matt Smith (who is not the Doctor) and Adam
Water is wet and vampires are treacherous.
MATT SMITH HAD BEGUN TO WONDER IF LENKA’S DEATH or something else had interfered with Guccio’s plans. That Bonarata had people waiting to usurp his power wasn’t a surprise to him. Werewolves were a little more honest about it, usually, but when a race was governed by the meanest bastard around, one generally had to prove that one was the meanest bastard over and over again. Until someday one wasn’t, and someone else got to fight all the time.
Matt glanced across the room at Bonarata, who seemed to be giving the “good-bye and good riddance” speech to Adam and Marsilia. Or maybe one finds someone else to take out one’s enemies. Just how likely was it that Guccio had managed all of this without Bonarata’s noticing? Bonarata, the Lord of Night, who had been a prince of the Italian Renaissance, seemed unlikely to be the sort of man who overlooked an attempted coup.
If Guccio and Adam fought, thought Matt, watching Bonarata carefully not look at Guccio, then Bonarata could not lose. If Adam killed Guccio, he was down one rebel. If Guccio killed Adam, he would be considerably weakened.
Matt set his napkin on the table and started to get up at the same time Bonarata and everyone at the head table got up.
—
ADAM DREW IN A BREATH AS THE BOND BETWEEN HIM and Guccio tightened. He wondered, briefly, how long Guccio had been planning this moment. Wondered if he should kill Bonarata or let Guccio do it—and then kill Guccio.
Today wasn’t going to be Guccio’s day if Adam had anything to say about it. Not because he was a fan of Bonarata’s—he wasn’t. But Bonarata was the best path to peace for Adam’s people. If Bonarata died and Adam was involved, even if only as a “blood slave,” the same hell that Larry had promised if Adam killed Bonarata on his own would still rain down upon his family.
Quickly, Adam did as instructed. Maintaining the handshake, Adam leaned forward as if he were going to do one of those European manly hugs that were so popular on the mob movies he’d grown up with. He reached up and put his free hand on Bonarata’s shoulder, feeling the vampire stiffen in surprise and the beginning of a realization that all wasn’t well.
That Guccio hadn’t been talking to some waitstaff or minion when he’d said, “Hold him.” That he’d been commanding Adam.
Guccio also began to move.
Bracing his legs, Adam pulled Bonarata sharply toward him with their clasped hands. At the same time, he used the hand on the vampire’s shoulder to push him into Guccio.
Surprised by the unexpected impact, Guccio hadn’t managed to draw whatever weapon he’d been reaching for, and was trapped momentarily with his hand tangled under his jacket.
Adam used that moment to pull Bonarata around and into Marsilia. He trusted Marsilia would hold Bonarata off Adam long enough for it to be clear that Adam wasn’t trying to kill the Lord of Night and wasn’t under Guccio’s control. He also hoped that she’d be able to keep any of Guccio’s confederates from killing Bonarata while Adam was taking care of business.
To help that result along, Adam said, “Protect him, Marsilia.” And also as he faced Guccio, who was rapidly recovering his balance in all senses of the word, Adam said, “Don’t let him kill me, either, please.”
The table erupted in a spray of drinks, crystalware, and dining utensils as Guccio seized the tablecloth (moss green today). The vampire cracked the cloth like a whip, turning the remains of the meal into airborne weapons.
A water glass hit Adam in the chest hard enough to hurt, and the pitcher of ice water shattered at his feet, making the footing treacherous. Adam trusted the soles of his shoes to protect him from the glass, but the water- and ice-covered floor would be slick.
Guccio smiled, showing white fangs. Then, instead of attacking, he began a slow, backward dance designed to keep Adam on the wet floor and allow Guccio to pick his strike.
Adam thought the fangs were intended as some sort of threat display, but, since they were only slightly longer than those of Mercy’s cat Medea, they didn’t do much to intimidate him. Guccio had kept the tablecloth in his left hand, gripped lightly near the fabric’s center. More interesting was the dagger Guccio held in his right hand.
Adam knew weapons. This one was old and well made. The blade bore designs in bright silver, and Adam assumed it was real silver. He was also pretty sure that the designs were probably a sign that the blade was—
“Careful,” Elizaveta called. “There is magic in that dagger. Old and corrupted. I can’t tell what it does.”
Yes. That’s what he’d thought. Probably it wasn’t a problem—ensorcelling blades, no matter what D&D had taught a generation or two of young people, was no easy matter. That’s why smiths like Zee had been so prized and feared.
—
THE FIGHT STARTED BEFORE MATT COULD PUT A WORD in Adam’s ear—and he wasn’t sure what it would have been, anyway. Everyone else got up from their tables, too. The little healer’s people got her out of the room, though she didn’t look too upset by the fight and kept turning around to get a look.
And it was a pretty thing, this fight. Matt thought of himself as a peaceful man. But he couldn’t deny that there was beauty in violence, a battle between two well-trained warriors.
Guccio was typical of noblemen of his era. Flash and pretty words that sought to disguise just how dangerous he was. Becoming a vampire hadn’t slowed him down or given his blows less power. He had been fighting for hundreds of years, and every moment of that showed, both in his movements and in the choreography that he gave this fight.
—
ADAM LET GUCCIO GUIDE THE FIGHT WHILE HE PAID attention to the vampire’s fighting style. The most notable thing about it so far was how much the vampire liked to talk.
“How did you manage to slip my leash?” Guccio asked. He held the dagger low and centered, its tip pointed at Adam’s heart. But he was being careful, choosing his strike, because even though Adam was bare-handed, he was still a werewolf.
Adam didn’t answer, so Guccio found his own answer. “You belong to Marsilia,” he said sagely. And also incorrectly.
Adam, who’d been thinking about endi
ng this quickly, decided that maybe the vampires here needed a demonstration of what a werewolf could do. Bonarata didn’t need to believe that Adam could take on a Gray Lord—but maybe he should know that Adam wasn’t a weakling, either.
“No,” he said softly. “I belong to Mercy.”
Adam knew a little something about fighting with a blade. The Army had begun his education, but he’d had half a century to add to what he knew. The best knife fighter Adam had ever encountered held a knife just like Guccio did. Guccio was the product of an earlier age, with all of those years to practice.
While most of his attention was on his opponent, Adam was aware that the room had burst into motion as soon as the tablecloth had announced the beginning of the battle. Bonarata had taken control and was ushering his people out of the room as quickly as possible.
—
MATT HELPED THE NONCOMBATANTS—HUMAN, VAMPIRE, and other—get out of the room. Interestingly enough, Bonarata was doing the same thing.
When they both helped a young woman to her feet, Bonarata tried to catch his eye—Matt supposed he couldn’t help himself. There was always a lot of debate about what advantages the vampires might have over werewolves. Matt had always felt that it was the need most wolves had to establish dominance by meeting eyes. It was handy with other wolves, quite often preventing bloodshed or misunderstandings. But doing it with a vampire was a mistake.
Matt’s beast was cannier than that. Matt said something to the sobbing woman and handed her over to another woman—and the two hurried out of the dining hall.
A vampire who’d been pulling a table out of harm’s way bumped into Bonarata—and the Lord of Night grabbed the other vampire and broke his neck. Reaching out with a casual hand, Bonarata broke off a chair leg—there was getting to be a lot of broken furniture around—and stabbed the helpless vampire through the heart.
A second assassin launched himself from the top of a nearby table. But before he got close to his target, Larry the goblin, in a very ungoblin-like public display of why one should never underestimate goblins, leaped on top of the diving vampire and beheaded him with a garrote. The body, both parts, dropped to the floor just behind Bonarata, with Larry crouched on top of the biggest part.
Bonarata spun, already poised to kill whoever was behind him. Seeing the tableau there, the canny old vampire came to the right conclusion and stopped his attack before Harris had to give up his life by being stuck through with a chair leg that would otherwise have impaled Larry. Bonarata gave both goblins a shallow bow of thanks and turned his attention back to clearing the room of nonessential personnel.
—
ADAM’S ATTENTION WAS ON HIS OPPONENT, BUT HE was aware when some sort of scuffle around Larry erupted in blood, but Larry was still on his feet at the end of it. Adam had to trust he could take care of himself.
One of the diners, a human, passed by Guccio too closely. He casually backhanded her with his left hand. She collapsed to the floor in a broken heap. Dead, Adam judged grimly, before she hit the floor.
But he had no time to mourn for a nameless stranger. Guccio whirled the tablecloth quickly overhead and cast its spreading folds at Adam, then he rushed in right behind it.
It was a classic two-pronged attack: dealing with either threat left one vulnerable to the other, and if Adam tried to move fast enough to counter both, he risked losing his footing. Rather than trust the treacherous floor, then, Adam jumped backward, onto the table he’d so recently been eating at. He landed near the back edge of the table.
He leaned a little and added a little extra thrust with his legs, which pulled the table over with him on top. He grabbed Guccio’s tablecloth and rode the table to the ground, putting the upended piece of furniture between him and Guccio.
The vampire leaped into the air like a demented ballet dancer, soaring neatly over the table. He aimed a kick at Adam’s leg as he brought the dagger down in a sweeping slash at Adam’s neck with inhuman speed.
Adam was happy he wasn’t human, either. He twisted his hips and pivoted to avoid the kick and snapped the tablecloth at Guccio’s blade. The kick missed completely, and the tablecloth fouled the dagger strike, so it missed its target and only sliced a burning line across Adam’s shoulder.
Guccio’s momentum carried him past Adam and he stopped a few feet away, raising the wetted dagger to his forehead in a mocking salute that claimed first blood. As he stepped back from the salute, he stumbled on an overturned chair and was momentarily distracted.
Adam moved in with a strong front kick, but the wolf, catching some motion that seemed wrong, warned him. Adam aborted just in time to avoid being hamstrung when the vampire brought the dagger up between them. The stumble had been a feint, and it had nearly worked.
Adam pulled the kick but had to struggle to control his forward momentum. Guccio took advantage of Adam’s lost balance and used the pommel of the dagger to strike at Adam’s head. Adam blocked the dagger, but not the knee that drove into his stomach.
It hurt, with a dull pain that built to a crescendo, darkening his vision in waves that ebbed and flowed. Vampires were almost as fun to fight as werewolves.
—
WITH THE ROOM MOSTLY EMPTY, MATT GAVE HIMSELF over to the spectator sport in the center of the cleared floor.
Guccio was an excellent fighter; there was no doubt of that. But once in a while there comes a fighter, human or other, so beautiful to watch that he turns the fight into great art, something that Matt felt a privilege and honor to watch. Sugar Ray Robinson had been such a fighter, both graceful and powerful. Matt had seen Robinson fight many times, as often as Matt could manage.
Adam Hauptman was another of Robinson’s ilk.
He moved no more than he had to in order to avoid an attack, a half inch here, a quarter there. He stayed mostly on the defensive, letting the vampire give away his secrets. Neither Adam’s face nor his body gave anything away, and he appeared relaxed and in control—not a usual sight for a werewolf in a fight against an opponent as good as Guccio de’ Medici, who was from a cadet branch of that very famous family, Matt was given to understand. Harris had been a wealth of information about Bonarata’s people.
“Hauptman can fight,” said Bonarata quietly. For a moment, Matt thought he was being addressed.
“Yes,” agreed Marsilia. “He is accounted fourth among all the werewolves in the New World. He is young for such a rank—but this is why it is his.”
—
ADAM NOTED THAT THE ROOM HAD EMPTIED WITH surprising speed, keeping collateral damage to a minimum. A handful of observers—among them Bonarata—spread around the room, careful to avoid the combat zone. He trusted they were all people who could defend themselves. One dead innocent in this mess was enough.
He and Guccio circled the room, hopping over fallen chairs and discarded tableware. Twice more, they exchanged blows, with neither taking any serious damage. Adam needed to end this decisively, but the vampire’s dagger meant that he held that advantage in reach.
They circled for a few more seconds, then Guccio slid smoothly into a long, gliding lunge. Fast as a striking snake, the dagger flicked toward Adam’s stomach. Only a shift in weight had signaled the move, but Adam leaped back a pace, forcing the vampire to either fall short or commit to an awkward running attack. Guccio, proving he was no novice, aborted the lunge before closing enough to allow Adam to engage.
Guccio sneered. “I see you have some training,” he said. “Your teacher was inferior. Your footwork is wooden—”
Me and Muhammad Ali, thought Adam, though he didn’t respond aloud. We float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. No one was perfect—and fighting was always one big compromise. But his footwork was fine.
Guccio was still speaking, trying to distract Adam with words. “You are too concerned with defense to mount a proper offense. I had expected more from you—the great Adam Hauptman. Allo
w me to educate you.”
Guccio snatched another tablecloth and dropped it over his left arm. It hung at knee level.
“This is the cloak,” he said. “Its use is to confuse and conceal.” He gave the dagger a quick flourish, moving his dagger hand beneath the cloth. “The dagger hides behind the cloak,” he said. “And now begins the game. Where is the dagger, and where will it strike?”
As Guccio moved, he made the cloth dance in a way designed to lead Adam into making assumptions about his movement and the dagger position. Twice Adam was sure he saw the beginning of an attack, but the wolf disagreed, reading the vampire’s intention differently. Adam listened to the wolf.
Guccio moved the cloth in a fluttering swoop, while the dagger appeared in a reverse grip, slashing at Adam’s throat. The blade lay backward along Guccio’s arm. Most blocks or grabs would result in serious damage to Adam’s hands. As it blurred across Adam’s throat, the vampire bent his wrist back, allowing the blade to snap forward and take a wider path. Guccio’s body was close behind it, sliding in an arc past Adam.
Adam jerked his head back. The blade sang as it passed by, slicing open nothing but air. Adam threw a hard jab. He hit, but the fluttering cloth had made him misjudge, and it was just a glancing blow, barely hard enough to make Guccio throw in a short step to regain his balance. The vampire whirled past Adam, discarding the tablecloth. The green woven linen fluttered to the ground to land across the dead woman’s feet.
As Adam pivoted to face the vampire again, a sharp pain drew his attention to the fork sticking out just under his ribs on the left side. Guccio must have grabbed the fork with the tablecloth and used the cloth to conceal it.
Silverware, real silverware was sterling silver, 90 percent silver. Everything except the knife. Had Guccio stuck him with a table knife, Adam could have pulled it out and expected his body to heal in a reasonably rapid fashion.
The fork burned.
Guccio grinned at him, then tilted his head, listening. Adam heard it, too. The fork had penetrated Adam’s diaphragm, allowing air to seep into his chest cavity. His left lung was slowly collapsing, and pulling the fork out would only serve to accelerate the process. Wounds made with silver had to be healed just like humans heal. This small wound changed everything, and they both knew it.
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