“I would if it were you. It ought to be you as—”
Carlos hit him, the movement visible only as a black blur. Cam went backward into the wall hard enough to dent it as Sarah tumbled to the floor in the oversweep of Carlos’s strike. Gwen and I both flew to our feet—as did many of the audience—in an instant. Gwen made a slight whimpering noise that echoed in my head as she backed up.
I held my ground, not knowing how this was meant to play out once I’d said my piece but sticking to the short script I had. Cameron’s note had not told me exactly what to expect—there hadn’t been time and, had we done otherwise, the asetem would taste the falseness of our fear and anger. It was all the most desperate kind of improvisation. I hoped. “Carlos, this isn’t necessary. Maintaining peace in this community—” I started.
He whipped his head around to glare at me and his expression was almost a blow. “This is none of your affair, daylighter!” he roared. Even holding fast to the knowledge that it was only an act, I had to clench my jaw and shut my eyes against the buffeting pressure of his voice.
He turned his attention back to Cameron, who’d pushed himself forward off the wall, using his momentum to drive a flat-palmed strike into his mentor’s face. Gleams of gold and silver energy rushed ahead of the movement; Cameron was putting more than his physical strength into hitting Carlos. He’d been only twenty-one when Edward turned him, and his slender frame offered insufficient muscle against the bulkier, older vampire, even with the paranormal advantages of the undead.
Apparently taken by surprise, Carlos was flung backward about two feet and came to a hard stop against another table, knocking it sideways with a crash. “Oh, very nicely done, schoolboy,” he spat, regaining his balance and running his fingers down the crooked length of his broken nose. The cartilage crackled and popped as he moved it back into place.
Cameron’s punk-short hair hadn’t been mussed, but fury disarranged his features into an unrecognizable mask. “No one touches my people,” he hissed back.
“Ah, ‘your people,’ ” Carlos repeated in a sardonic tone. “So it comes out. You are usurping the position of your patron.”
“I wouldn’t have to if you’d do it yourself! You’re the most powerful of us all. You could hold this city in the palm of your hand in your spare time!”
Carlos moved closer, his chin down so his black stare bored out from the shadow beneath his brow. His aura flushed a vibrant red among the death black, and the sound in the grid became a banshee wail. “I am bound to Edward. He commands my fealty so long as he is on this earth.”
“How is it disloyal to preserve what is his until he can reclaim it? How is that against your oath?” Cameron shot back. He made no allusion to the real reason for the uneasy centuries of detente; neither Carlos nor Edward had ever wanted to expose that twisted betrayal.
Carlos raised his head in a rush and looked down his nose at the younger vampire. Cold seemed to roll off him, damping everything in a sudden pall. “The depth of your ignorance astounds me. I wash my hands of you. And I’ll leave you to the mercy of ‘your people.’ ” He turned away.
Cameron was not going to let it go. He reached out and yanked the bigger man back around. “You’re a coward and you call it loyalty. You’ll challenge me and lecture me, but you won’t stop me.” Cameron, less than a full step away, spit in the other vampire’s face.
Rage ignited around Carlos, flushing the Grey a glittering scarlet that chimed and shrieked all the louder. His voice ground out between his teeth, ice-cold and implacable. “I will stop you, treacherous brat. I’ll show you what it is to be obedient, to bow your head and bend your knee while you seethe with hate. Bound by the flesh of your flesh and the blood of your creation, you will know what torment is.” He snatched Sarah to his chest and stepped back in one impossibly quick motion.
Cameron froze. The necromancer held a small, glittering knife to the young woman’s throat, flicking it against the edge of her vein as she trembled, wide-eyed, in his grip.
Gwen cried out as blood flowed from between Carlos’s fingers, “No! Sarah!”
Carlos muttered in quick liquid syllables as the blood hit the floor and rang on the Grey like a giant bronze bell. Sarah rolled up her eyes and went limp as the vibration rippled through the room. I knew she was acting, but even I thought it looked real. Carlos let her fall, his right hand coming away from her neck smeared red. He drew on the air with her blood, whispering quickly and making a hard gesture that flicked the precious fluid toward her brother’s face.
Cameron snatched the blood from the air between them and leapt forward, pressing his bloody hand over Carlos’s face and taking up the weird language of the false spell in a rapid shout. The last word dulled the sound in the room as if someone had closed a sealed door and sucked out the air. It was impressive, even though the weight of it in the Grey was next to nothing. Only the breathless, sinking feeling was real: The rest was magical sham and fireworks, and I was one of only three people in the room who could tell the difference. Even the asetem would only feel the ripple. Carlos flinched as if Cameron had struck him much harder but kept to his feet.
Gwen scrambled over the table to scoop Sarah off the floor as Cameron knelt down beside her. He stroked his bloody hand over the dripping wound on her neck. Then he turned his head away. “Gwen, you do it. I—I can’t. She’s my sister.”
Gwen seemed to coil around her, hiding what she did as she bent her head down over the young woman’s neck.
The Grey sounded hollow, waiting, whining like a clockwork thing wound too tight.
Carlos had not moved except to close his eyes. The fallen set of his shoulders and the darkness around him looked like despair. The bloody handprint on his face faded as if his skin drank it in.
Cameron stood up and looked at him, his face full of pity and sorrow more than anger. “Did you think I didn’t learn anything from you? You taught me that blood binding. You taught me how to break it and how to avoid it as well. Now you’re bound to me, by your own words. And by that blood I was born with. And since she’s not dead, you’re also bound to Sarah. I know you know all this, but I’m saying it so all of our kind here know it, too. You’re mine.” Actually, most vampires wouldn’t know a binding until it bit them. But the show wasn’t for them: It was for the Pharaohn’s spies. Cam glanced side to side as if a little nervous about what he was doing. “I think it might be wise for you to kneel.”
Carlos opened his eyes, his face devoid of expression. He spoke without emotion or force, in the same sort of floating emptiness I had experienced the night before. “I will not.”
The strange golden sparks welled again in the palms of Cameron’s hands as he brought them up, open, to chest height. “Don’t make me force you, sensei.”
It was a strange word to choose, freighted with respect and tradition, and it reminded me that Cameron had been studying Japanese when he was still an ordinary college student. An age of knowledge had passed since then, and though he didn’t look much different, here was ample evidence that everything had changed. He leaned closer, resting his clean hand on Carlos’s shoulder, and whispered something into the bigger man’s ear. Then he took a step back.
He didn’t quite let his hands relax, keeping them poised just a bit in front of his body, but he didn’t do anything. He just waited, his brow shadowed with anxiety.
Nothing stirred. A roomful of creatures who don’t breathe make an unsettling silence.
Sarah let out a quiet little moan. The sound seemed to break Carlos, and he sank onto his knees, letting his head fall forward. He shuddered as he settled all the way to the floor, putting out his open hands, palm up, on his thighs. The bloodstained penknife clattered onto the marble tiles, spinning a scarlet smear. “I submit.”
The high-tension whine of the grid wound down, and the harsh carmine of the Grey drained back to a few splashes of uncomfortably bright color in the glaring silver mist of the world. Cameron relaxed and an ordinary shuffling and rustl
ing of impatient bodies warmed the silence.
“Will you support me and defend me, aid me and advise me, with your best will?” Cameron asked. It had the feeling of something formal and old that had been translated poorly.
Carlos raised his head, looking at Cameron a little sideways with a sarcastic expression. “Yes, damn it all. Can we get this over with? I am your man, your sworn supporter, by blood bound. Is that good enough?”
Cameron blinked. “Um . . . yeah. I guess that’ll do.”
“May I stand up, now . . . my lord?” The snark was thick enough to gag on. “And if you tell me to ‘rise,’ ” he added in an undertone, “I may have to ‘advise’ you to do otherwise in future.”
Cameron rolled his eyes. “Oh, jeez, just get up.”
A ripple of amusement spread through the room and gave cover to my relieved sigh. I’d had no idea if this sketchy plan would work, but even if they didn’t buy it completely, none of the vampires could argue that Carlos hadn’t sworn to support Cameron. That alone would give anyone other than the Pharaohn pause, and Cameron’s loyalty and reasonable treatment of his teacher would give them hope for the same themselves. Benevolent dictators are much harder to depose.
I remembered the rest of the evening’s responsibilities and hoped Carlos and I would be able to leave soon. I needed to talk to him before anyone else made any moves and let him know we were far from done tonight. And I hoped that away from the bloody rage of vampires, I might be able to think without so much noise in my head for just a few minutes.
Once Carlos was back on his feet, the patrons of the After Dark seemed to know the show was over and drifted back to their tables and conversations, speculating, no doubt, on what Cameron would do first as Prince of the City. Only the asetem acted disinterested. Gwen and Sarah had retired back to one end of the table, bent toward each other like parentheses. I frowned as I glanced at Cameron, but he was busy with a sudden press of admirers and sycophants.
I looked for Carlos—no one would think it odd that I did, since I was there as a neutral party and I could talk to whomever I pleased—and spotted him near the door. Just one more scene to play. . . . I twisted my way through the moving kaleidoscope of bright colors and cold bodies to catch up to him before he went outside. Once out of the club, there was nothing to stop the asetem from closing in.
I met him at the entrance. He gave me a chilly glance with one lifted eyebrow. We hadn’t discussed this bit of business, but he was even more the experienced performer than I was and I was sure he’d pick up my cue and play along. I made only a small twitch of my head toward the door before I spoke, but I knew he caught it.
“I wouldn’t have expected that of you,” I said, not modulating my voice down. I wanted to be heard, after all.
“Obeisance?”
“Betrayal.”
He narrowed his eyes but made no other reply.
“Everyone knows you hate Edward and you took Cameron only because you couldn’t refuse—”
“A situation you engineered.”
“For Cameron’s sake. Not Edward’s. But he’s been a loyal student. He’s been your friend—if that’s possible. And you were going to kill his sister and bind him to you so you could . . . what, watch him twist in the wind while you abandoned him? That’s not any better than what Edward—”
He clamped his hand onto my bicep and jerked me close. “Enough, Greywalker!”
“No,” I protested, “it’s not enough.”
He growled and pulled me into the cold of the foyer, letting the black doors slam shut behind us. Sounds came down from the street in ice-blue trickles and leaked thinly from under the door like water. The area was built like a well, all white marble with a curving, iron-railed staircase going up the circular shaft to a gate on the street. It wasn’t an ideal place to talk, but it would do for a moment.
Carlos let go of me at once and kept his voice low. “An unpleasant evening’s work.”
“Yes, but now the little kingdom is secure and you’re Cameron’s sworn right-hand man.”
“So much mumbo jumbo. None of those would know the difference. There is no binding. Only my word.”
“Which is as good as, I recall.”
“Yes.”
“You won’t betray him, not after what Edward did to you.”
He nodded, his mouth pulling down in distaste.
“What about the magic? What about Sarah?”
“Special effects.” He spread his fingers and I could see white cuts and lines in his flesh between the index and middle fingers of his right hand, knitting up as I watched. “One learns a lot of tricks in such a long lifetime. She’s in no danger. I took care to feed well on waking.”
“I hope it’ll last: We’re not done.”
The interrogative eyebrow rose again.
“The labyrinth portals expire tonight and after that, there’s no back door.”
“We don’t need it. Only the right knife and you. The Lâmina I have with me. And you . . .” He peered at me in the darkness that was bright as Broadway to me. He pulled his head back and frowned. “Already?”
“If I were any more in touch with the grid, I’d disappear into it.”
“Exactly.”
“Do you think he knows?”
Carlos snorted. “No doubt he’s known for hours. We shall have to let them take us.”
I disliked the sound of that, but it was the same conclusion I’d come to myself since I didn’t know where Wygan would do his dirty work.
“Are you ready?”
I shook my head. “I . . . need to make a phone call first.”
He laughed at that, but he let me walk a few feet away and do it. I noticed the earlier missed call was from the phone in Edward’s bunker. It must have been Quinton and that pleased me at the same time it made me sad. I’d only have time to tell him the bare bones of the situation before I’d have to go, and my chances of coming back weren’t good. I called anyway.
Quinton answered at once. “Harper?”
“Yeah.”
I could hear his sigh through the phone, and it slid over me, soft and warm. “I was with the police and the FBI all day—”
A finger of concern touched me. “The feds didn’t suss you—?” I started.
“No, no,” he reassured me. “But things didn’t move as fast as we’d hoped. I was worried. . . .”
“It’s almost over. We’ve settled some things and now . . . it’s just up to the bad guy to come get us.”
The door opened from the club and the two asetem stepped out. They stared at us with baleful, glowing eyes.
“Ah, the escort is here,” I said.
“Is it Goodall?”
“No,” I answered. “Why?”
The asetem were walking toward us, trying to herd us up the stairs without actually touching us and causing a scene. Carlos glowered at them but let himself be moved, though he kept them away from me so I could finish my phone call. It was what we wanted after all, but we couldn’t make it look too easy.
“Goodall is bad news. Ex-military, ex–black ops. The Feds wouldn’t even say which group, but they got quiet and worried when we showed them the recording.”
“But we knew he was that sort of trouble. He won’t hurt us. He’s on Wygan’s leash.”
The asetem hissed at me, and one of them darted in my direction, forcing me toward the stairs a few steps. I could see the shape of someone at the top. . . .
“Stay away from Goodall! He doesn’t want to capture you; he wants to kill you! And I mean in a not-getting-back-up-this-time way. The bullet hole in the Danzigers’ doorway was at head height. Head height, do you understand? He had all the time in the world to take the shot; it’s not a mistake. If he’d just wanted to knock you down and drag you to Wygan, he’d have chosen to shoot you anywhere else, but he was aiming to blow your head off. That’s what took out your father. That would kill you, too. He is not playing by Wygan’s rules: He means to take you out permanently!”
<
br /> The light was odd, but it illuminated the waiting figure better as we rounded the first few steps.
“Ah,” I said and closed the phone, slipping it back into my pocket.
That was Goodall at the top of the stairs.
THIRTY-ONE
Run like hell. That’s what my brain said. Even in the strange, broken light through the gate with the glare of the Grey welling up, I could see the dark, squared-off shape of a pistol in Goodall’s hand. Parkerized black. He had no reason to harm Carlos—and a gun certainly wouldn’t do it—so that was for me.
One of the asetem grew impatient and pushed on my shoulders, urging me up. I let the motion take me forward at the waist and kicked back hard with one foot. Even as strong and fast as the asetem were, a boot to the chest will knock almost anyone down those slippery marble stairs.
Goodall cursed as I grabbed on and swung over the stair rail, rolling and dropping to the floor. The impact jarred through my body and I heard the crack of a shot. I ducked and ran back under the staircase, cutting for the door into the club. There was a scrambling and banging on the stairs behind me but I didn’t turn around to see what it was. The stair and its shaftlike opening blocked a good shot at me as I bolted, but that didn’t stop Goodall from taking some. Shards of marble ricocheted around the dark space as I plunged through the door.
The host usually stopped everyone, but he stood aside this time and pointed. “Door at the back.”
I ran through the main room at my best late-for-rehearsal speed, dodging bodies and jumping tables. It wasn’t graceful and I had to shove a few vampires and their friends aside. None of them moved to stop me, which was amazing. Vampires aren’t slow or weak, and just two or three could have caught me easily. I heard Cameron shout for someone to “stop those two!” which explained a lot. I spotted the discreet white door to the back room and pushed through it.
Vampire kitchens are not a sight for health inspectors. It’s not that they aren’t clean but that they aren’t really kitchens that’s disturbing. I dodged a lot of things that could have been prep tables but looked more like cots as I went through.
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