There were two men and a woman. The woman was gorgeous, blond hair hanging down to the middle of her back. Her body was soft and curvy like Marilyn Monroe’s. She dressed like one of those old-school movie starlets and she felt old, lots older than me, like she’d seen the passing of centuries, even though we appeared to be physically the same age. She noticed me, and I got the feeling that my presence irked her. I knew why, too. She was less powerful than me. I can’t describe how I knew; I could just feel it in my gut.
As my attention shifted, the woman vanished and the first man came into better focus. He was good-looking, but he was dressed more than a decade out of style. It looked good on him, but still, his friends ought to tell him to update his wardrobe. He was old, vampirically, but not as ancient as the actress. I was more powerful than him, too. He seemed startled by my age and power. I actually caught a glimpse of myself in his mind. He saw me as a cat and he couldn’t quite tell whether I was a boy or a girl. It unnerved him, and he seemed relieved when my attention moved on to the third and final image.
The other man was short, fat, and balding. He felt just as powerful as me. Physically, I guessed he had been in his fifties when he had been turned, but he hadn’t been a vampire very long—maybe thirty years or so. He smiled at me when I sensed him, spread his arms and gave a short bow. “A pleasure,” he whispered in my mind and then vanished from the air as the others had, but before I was done examining him. It was less like I had dismissed him and more like he’d dismissed me.
I blinked rapidly, clearing my head. I was still standing in my cat form in the middle of the street. Looking up, I saw Talbot, arms outstretched, blocking traffic, so I darted up onto the sidewalk. He followed me and the cars moved on, their drivers cursing angrily.
“Next time, I might let you get run over,” Talbot muttered.
“What the hell was that?” I meowed. “Who were those people? What where they doing in my head? What was I doing in their heads?”
I turned human and grabbed Talbot by his jacket. “Talbot, what the hell is going on here?”
“What people in your head?” he asked. “Tell me exactly what happened.” Concern filled his voice, but he looked more amused than worried.
“I saw three people: two men and a woman. They were floating right in front of my face, Talbot, like holograms or something!” I shook him once and then let go of him. “Sorry. I…It’s just…I could feel how old they were and whether they were more or less powerful than me…”
Talbot looked down his nose at me. “Less powerful?”
“Well, yes. Two of them were less powerful and one of them was the same as me.” That stopped him for a second and then he grinned. I liked the way his teeth seemed to shine in the dark. It wasn’t anything supernatural, just the contrast between his oh-so-white teeth and his dark skin.
Both of us were too distracted to notice the approaching guard until he announced himself. I didn’t like him. He was too plain. Even though he was a vampire, he had a semivacant look, like he wasn’t awake.
Talbot turned to respond, but I brushed past him. “What?” I said icily.
He recoiled from my question like it had been a slap. I wondered if he would rub his cheek. He didn’t, but he did take a step back. Outraged. I wasoutraged that he had dared to speak to me. That wasn’t like me. Was it spiked blood again? Or transformation sickness? Was I about to lose it? I didn’t feel like I was losing it….
Talbot started to speak again but I gestured for him to be quiet. “You wanted something,” I said to the guard. “I know you did, because you walked over in the middle of my conversation.” My voice came out louder than I’d meant it to. “So now that you’ve interrupted me, you might as well tell me what you wanted! What is it?”
He bowed. “My deepest apologies, Lady Bathory. Lord Phillip wishes to invite you and your servant to join him for a drink, if it pleases you. If you are not inclined to join him, then I am to tell you that it is his great hope that you will accept his offer at a later date. I am to await a response.” The words were nice enough, but his delivery was off. He might as well have been reading from a cue card.
“Why did he call me Lady Bathory?” I asked Talbot.
“It’s a polite name older vampires use for the female equivalent of a Vlad. Nowadays most vamps use Vlad, regardless of gender, but you might still run into a few vamps who will call you a queen vampire, or Lady Bathory.”
“Holy shit!” I looked at the security goober. He was waiting patiently, eyes looking at the sidewalk. “Holy shit.” Leaning in closer to Talbot, I whispered, “But I thought you said I was a Soldier or at best a Master.”
“I thought you were,” he answered softly. “It’s not an exact science.”
“How does this guy know when you didn’t?”
“I’m not a vampire.” Talbot touched my arm and the contact surprised me, my skin oversensitive to his. “Phillip is a very influential Vlad.”
“How influential is very?”
“This is his city.”
“So, with a capital ‘V’ then.”
“All caps,” Talbot confirmed.
“Right.” The guard was still waiting patiently, gaze politely averted. “Which one is Lord Phillip?” I asked the guard.
“I’m sorry, Mistress, but I don’t know how to answer that.”
I sighed. “Is he the tall good-looking one or the little balding fat one?”
That time I got an incredulous look from the guard, but he covered it up quickly. “What Lord Phillip lacks in height, he makes up for in stature. He is—”
Talbot took two steps backward.
“Impressed that you made the effort, Hollister, but it isn’t strictly necessary.” The light tenor voice seemed to come from all directions at once. Mist flowed through the security gate and the little man who had bowed to me in my mind coalesced before us. “I am indeed the little balding fat one.”
“I amso sorry about that,” I told him.
“Think nothing of it, Lady—?”
“Tabitha,” I answered. He took my hand and brought it to his lips.
“A beautiful name; it has its roots in Hebrew, meaning gazelle. How appropriate.” He released my hand and offered me his arm. I placed my hand on the crook of his elbow so that I wouldn’t have to stoop. Hollister opened the gates for us as Phillip led me toward the building.
“My name is actually Phillipus,” he continued. “It means friend of horses, though I’ve never much liked them. In recent days, it has behooved me to accept the name Phillip, which both shortens my name and also strengthens, by meaning, my relationship with horses…from friend to lover.”
“I guess it had to happen eventually,” I offered, not quite knowing what to say.
Phillip looked at me questioningly. “Well, you know,” I continued, “sometimes when you’ve been friends with someone for a long time, it’s only natural for the relationship to blossom…”
“Yes, exactly,” my host said with a chuckle, “exactly so.”
Two glass doors slid open before us. A tingle spread across my skin as I crossed the threshold. Turning my head, I watched Talbot step through the field without incident. “Pay no attention to that annoying ward,” Phillip explained with mild embarrassment. “The less supernaturally adept tenants insist on it for protection. It’s paranoia, if you ask me, but then again, most are not as capable of defending themselves as we are. Are they, my dear?”
I said something that I hoped didn’t sound impolite, but it was hard to concentrate on what Phillip was saying. I didn’t have the words to describe what I was seeing. The building was beautiful, all stone, marble, wood, and stained glass. I can’t tell Frank Lloyd Wright from Andrew Lloyd Webber, but this place was perfect. Paintings hung on the walls in just the right light, while sculptures graced the alcoves and hallways.
The elevator was manned by a human attendant, who smiled and spoke to us as if we were royalty. He knew Phillip on sight and pressed an elevator button marked w
ith a strange symbol. “Don’t forget that sunrise will be at six eighteen, Lord Phillip,” the young man said cheerfully.
“Thank you, Dennis,” Phillip answered. “This charming young woman is Lady Tabitha. I’d like you to treat her and her escort as my guests.” His lip curled briefly as he saidescort ; he’d come close to being less polite. As he continued, I wondered what he’d almost said. “They are welcome without chaperone in the common areas, the lounge, the elevator, on the roof, and of course, in the waiting area outside my own quarters. See to it and let me know immediately upon completion.”
“Of course, sir.” Dennis smiled at Talbot and me. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady Tabitha. Could I trouble you for a drop of blood?”
“It’s for the security system only, I assure you,” Phillip explained. I held out my finger and Dennis produced a tiny golden needle with a small crystal on one end. He pricked my finger and the crystal turned red. It flashed once then faded to white again. Dennis repeated the procedure for Talbot. As the crystal turned white for the second time, the doors opened and Dennis ushered us politely out of the elevator.
“It shouldn’t be longer than ten minutes, Lord Phillip,” Dennis called after us.
When the elevator closed, Phillip led us toward a large wooden door. The wood looked like it had been stained purple. Outside the door was a large sitting area that I mistook for a library at first. To one side of the elevator stood a midsize wine rack filled with bottles labeled with dates, ethnicities, and blood types. Phillip must have noticed my interest.
“Oh, this is my waiting area. I’m an erratic sleeper, so one can never be sure if I’ll be receiving guests or snoring the morning, evening, or afternoon away. This is just my little way of apologizing to guests for the inconvenience. Of course, Dennis can arrange for food to be brought up to the more broad-dieted, the humans, werewolves, and what-not”—he glanced at Talbot as he said the last—“but since I understand firsthand how quickly the thirst can come upon our kind, I like to keep a wide selection of appropriate vintages at hand.”
The grand door opened as we approached it and Phillip welcomed us inside. “Enter of your own free will.”
“Isn’t that what Dracula says?” I asked, pausing in the doorway.
“My apologies,” he said, shaking his head. “I thought I was being clever. Please, do come in. I promise my intentions are not malevolent.”
“It’s okay,” Talbot said softly.
I went in. There were even more books inside than in the waiting area. Lovely oak bookshelves lined the walls and wrapped around the oddly shaped room. The interior of Phillip’s apartment was humongous; he seemed to have the floor to himself. Glass cases contained displays that ranged from a suit of samurai armor to an actual vampire with a wooden stake through his heart. Startled, I backed away from the glass case and bumped into Talbot.
“Talbot, that’s—”
“You mustn’t mind Percy.” Phillip ran his hand along the glass as he passed, without ever actually touching it. “He’s being punished.”
For what?I thought. Percy was supported by a metal stand extending up from the bottom of the case and passing concealed under the rear of his jacket. He wore a tweed suit, gold-rimmed spectacles with round lenses, and a thin little mustache. The expression on his face reminded me of the Mona Lisa, a smirk perhaps, or bemused disapproval.
Age hadn’t worn away his good looks; in fact, vampirism had frozen him at the magic moment before men stop looking distinguished and become simply old. He was the first vampire I’d seen with eyes so thoroughly faded, the irises gone from whatever color they had once been to the slightly gray off-white of recycled paper. He was trapped in there, frozen by the stake that had entered at an angle, piercing his tie neatly through the middle several inches above a diamond tie tack. I gave myself a quick mental biology lesson—the stake had pierced Percy’s heart.
The plaque at his feet read “My dear Percy, who serves as a remembrance to all that I do not bluff, I do not make empty threats, and there are indeed worse fates than death.”
“He was such a naughty vampire.” Phillip chuckled.
“He’s dead, then? Or he’s a Soldier or whatever?” I couldn’t imagine him being anything less than a Vlad or a Master, but I hadn’t sensed him. “I thought a stake would dust a Soldier.”
“Oh, no, my dear,” Phillip answered merrily. “Percy’s no mere Knight. The stake masks his presence. He can see everything, hear, feel, smell, but he cannot move. He cannot reach beyond his body, even if you stare him in the eye.”
I shuddered. Phillip raised a finger in a just-a-moment gesture and vanished around a corner of the room. I wandered about, admiring his collection of miniature antique statues, vases, and expensive knickknacks until he returned with two glasses and a bottle of what looked like wine.
“Care to join me?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered, smiling.
18
TABITHA:
AN AUDIENCE WITH INFAMY
It kind of bothered me that Phillip hadn’t offered Talbot anything, but once I tasted the “wine” I knew why. It wasn’t exactly wine. The texture, taste, and smell of it were like wine, but my body knew that it was blood. Surely if Eric knew about this, he would have had some at the club; especially with all the bitching he did about not being able to taste anything.
“This is nice,” I told Phillip. “Is it a family secret? Because I’ve never heard of it before.”
“Begging your pardon, Lady Tabitha, but youwere born yesterday.”
I must have blushed because he almost dropped his wineglass and I felt a familiar warmth in my checks.
“Extraordinary! A blush response. You have no idea what a priceless jewel you are.”
My cheeks grew warmer and I looked away. Part of it was real and the other part was a test. I wanted to know how he would react. He touched my cheek briefly and then withdrew his hand.
“To answer your question, it is not a family secret, at least, not my family. Most of my stock is made up of gifts from other creatures, tokens of respect or appreciation…an occasional peace offering. What we’re drinking, for example, was made from the blood of Carmella Goshaunt’s late lover, Emil. She interfered with my most recent attempt at ascension. The poor dear failed, obviously, but her machinations did prove a distinct inconvenience….”
“Ascension?” I asked, taking another sip of the blood wine.
“Of course, my dear…from Master to King, or Vlad, if you prefer.”
Talbot pretended not to react, but I could see him stiffen.
“I didn’t know that you could do that.”
“One can do many things with the correct ingredients. Why, I was commenting on a similar subject some months ago to a young Master vampire who has rather amusing ideas regarding werewolf souls. I think perhaps you may know him.” Phillip smiled a genteel smile and put the cork back in the bottle. He hurried off again and Talbot and I shared a look.
“Roger?” I mouthed.
Talbot nodded, but before he could say anything Phillip returned with a small black container roughly the size and shape of a cigar box, made of some kind of stone. “Volcanic glass,” he informed me. “Percy made it for me when we were…on better terms.”
He offered me the box and I handed my wineglass to Talbot. The box itself felt warm to the touch, but it wasn’t real heat. It felt more like what I imagined magic might feel like. Inside the box, six items were carefully arranged on black velvet: a thumbnail-size red crystal, possibly a ruby, with a crack in it; a silver ring molded in the shape of a snake; a golden amulet; a pair of yellowish dice; and a small black stone.
“Each of these items was a part of a ritual or ceremony that allowed me to become a vampire or to grow in power.”
“Become a vampire? Didn’t you have a sire?”
“Not everyone travels an identical path to immortality,” Phillip explained. “Vampires have always been reluctant to embrace wizards. As I cou
ld locate none to aid me willingly, I was forced to improvise.” Trapped by a memory or an old thought, he looked off into space, sighing wistfully before his attention returned to the box.
“The Stone of Aeternum is the only one I haven’t used, but it requires a vampire so rare that even ahelluo librorum , a bookworm, such as myself has read of only a few. It’s not as if one meets such a creature every day.”
He held his hand out for the box and I handed it back to him. He looked fondly at its contents and then shut the lid. “It’s of no true consequence, however; I must wait at least another seventy years before I can attempt an additional ascension. And I’d have to contact the right demons….”
He walked off around the corner of his room again and called back over his shoulder. “That is a lesson worth remembering, my dear. Never try to ascend more than once a century or you may undo the work you’ve done. None of those soul-thirsty power brokers will tell you that either, so take my word for it.”
He returned quickly, his glass in one hand and a necklace case in the other. “Now, this,” he said with a smile, “you will appreciate.”
He handed the case to me and took a sip of his wine. “Open it,” he said eagerly. “It won’t bite.”
I did as he requested. Inside was a diamond necklace. I could tell it was real just by the way it sparkled in the light. A double ring of round-cut diamonds set in platinum formed the base of the necklace and alternating strands of one or two smaller pear-cut diamonds dangled like priceless tear-drops at regular intervals. Queen Elizabeth might have worn such a necklace, or maybe the real Lady Bathory, but I had never seen anything like it, not up close.
“Try it on,” he said. Suddenly self-conscious, I looked down at my clothes. I’d changed into a sequined black tank top, a pair of black knit leggings, and running shoes after Eric had unstaked me back at the club. I’d worn it to be comfortable, but it didn’t go with a necklace like this. This necklace deserved to be worn with a gown.
Urban Fantasy Collection - Vampires Page 51