by Amy Lane
Green shivered and looked carefully at Renny. She’d been spitting mad at Cory when she’d called, and he couldn’t blame her. All the effort they’d put into keeping his little sorceress alive, and she’d gone and put herself in this sort of danger. But after he’d called Orson and given him directions and an order to get as many healthy werebeings in the area as he could immediately, he’d had time to think through Cory’s reasons for walking into the trap. He couldn’t fault her logic. And now, standing outside the windowless warehouse that was a literal—as well as a preternatural—dark spot among the other, well-lit buildings, he could admit that Cory could do from inside what none of them could do from the outside. And given that the sun had set just as he caught sight of the place and its grisly marker, he also knew that if she had waited for him, Grace and Bracken would have died. Judging from her quiet, he could guess that Renny had come to the same conclusion.
“If we’re lucky,” he told Renny, keeping his voice light, “Cory’s getting laid.”
“Again?” Renny asked, incredulous. “Didn’t she get enough last night?”
“Renny!” Max said from her side, aghast. He had pulled himself together well, Green thought, for someone who had just lost his lunch at the sight of the dumpster on the east-facing wall. Good—they would need Officer Max to smooth things over with the local police. Or at least to drag them over to where, Goddess hoped, some by-then very active and recently fed vampires might smooth things over for them.
“Well, it’s not as though they were quiet!” Renny argued.
“What can I say,” Green told her mildly, before Max could say something he either didn’t mean or would regret meaning later. “She’s developed quite a taste for elf.”
“Well, you’re very good at what you do,” Renny told him, wrapping her arm around his waist. For the weeks after Mitch had died, when Green hadn’t been with Cory and Adrian, he had been with Renny. It was nice to be remembered.
“Thank you, dearest.” Green smiled at her, kissed the top of her head, and turned toward Orson, who was moving shakily to him. The bodies in that dumpster were his friends, his comrades—his people. “I’m so very sorry, Lord Werewolf,” he said formally, moving away from Renny to bow. “You have whatever help we can offer you.”
Orson was still dressed for work, but the knees of his wool suit were stained from when he’d kneeled on the street in honest mourning. He passed a shaky hand over his mouth and tried to pull himself together.
“They were ripped apart by birds,” he said. “That fucking Goshawk—he ripped my people apart so he could starve the vampires out. And we never would have known it if….” He looked at Green. “We owe you, Lord Green,” he said formally. “You have our loyalty and our aid in this fight, to the last were-creature.” He sat down abruptly and took up Green’s look, staring at the warehouse as though that one declaration had used up everything he had. “What do you suppose is happening in there?” he asked, and even Max laughed.
“We’ve got someone inside…,” Green began, and Renny burst out with more giggles while Max slapped a hand across her mouth. Orson didn’t notice, but Green looked at them both drolly. “I think she has enough power to break through that metaphysical wall,” he finished, shaking his head at his precocious children.
“That would take a hell of a magical charge….” Orson was respectful.
“Fortunately, she’s got a couple of batteries,” Green said dryly. Renny convulsed against Max’s hand.
“Large enough to give her that big of a zap?”
“They’re portable,” Green supplied, wincing as Max, exhausted and stressed, finally broke into giggles of his own. Cat and cop sank to the ground, laughing hysterically and leaning weakly on each other. He smiled with them, but… he felt something…. He knew that storm feeling well… but it wasn’t quite…. He blew out a breath, and Renny looked at him questioningly. He shook his head. “Premature,” he murmured, and that set them off again.
And then they could all feel the buildup, and the pressure grew so great it clogged their lungs and made laughter impossible.
“Holy God,” Orson muttered.
“Are your people ready?” Green asked, and Orson stood up, laboring to breathe against the cloud of static in the air, and began to organize his shape-shifters—about sixty in all—in a group, thirty or so feet from the small door toward the east side of the warehouse; there was more room on that side than on any other, except the side facing the street. For a charged, breathless moment, everyone stood staring at the warehouse, waiting for the storm to break. Suddenly, from the east side of the warehouse, there was a screech so shrill it should have warped the metal siding and shattered the grimy brick. Without warning, a bird so big it almost looked like a vampire in flight arced over the structure and rushed in, screeching and rending the wall with his claws while Green and the were-folk looked on in horror.
“My God, that thing’s huge!” Max burst out, and before Green could tell him that it wasn’t really a condor, it happened.
There was a silent explosion followed by a shattering of brick, wood, and sheet metal that blew out the north end of the east-facing wall. The metal itself peeled away from that part of the building so suddenly that the werecondor was hit by the edge of the sheet, rent in two from wing shoulder to claw, and taken down while the debris obliterated its body. The explosion was followed quickly by a frantic swarm of flying people moving in that eye-blurring fashion that Cory called hyperspeed—terrifyingly quick, coldly purposeful, starving dogs at the hunt. Orson’s people flattened to the ground in fear, first from the explosion, then from the vampires.
Into that moment of stillness, before the wave of vampires could crash against the frightened were-folk, Green called out in powerful words of Old Elvish that pulled at the swarming vampires. The effect was electric. In a heartbeat, the vampires stilled as one, and with a controlled slowness, continued their advance toward the willing blood supply. In a moment, several arms had wrapped with taut urgency around several bodies, and the age-old dance of blood seduction was conducted en masse. But it wasn’t uncontrolled, and it wasn’t frenzied, and as it became apparent that none of the alarmed sacrifices would, indeed, be torn to bits, Green and those waiting with him blew out a general sigh of relief.
“What in the hell did you say?” Max wanted to know.
Green, who was as surprised as everyone else at this urgent self-control, had watched the whole display with raised eyebrows. “Death to those who violate the tender sacrifice,” he translated, baffled. “They’re ritual words, from a vampire’s first feeding. It’s how they learn not to kill unless they want to—that if they kill a willing sacrifice, they owe a debt to the family.” He looked at Max and Renny and shrugged. “It doesn’t usually work so well, which is why we tend to keep new vampires near a prison population or a nasty back alley.” He shook his head again. “I have no idea why they listened to me.”
“They listened to you because you choose your lovers well,” said a voice emerging from the cluster of feeding vampires. Green noticed that the vampires had enough self-control to release one “victim” before moving on to another, and he thought that maybe the owner of that voice had a little more to do with it.
“Maybe they listened because their master is good and wise,” Green replied and stepped forward to shake hands. “Good to see you well, Andres—we were worried.”
“Well, my Lord Green, you should have been worried—if not for your little sorceress, there would have been many dead by morning in one way or another.”
Andres came forward, bowing slightly, and Renny looked at him with surprise. “I thought you said he was freaking scary, Green?” she asked. This slightly built man with the fine nose and sweet eyes appeared cultured and kind.
Green chuckled weakly. “I said I had to negotiate with a freaking scary vampire, dearest,” he answered, bemused. “Andres usually sends someone else to do his business dealings.”
“Yes,” said Andres, a
trifle grimly. “In that way, at least, I’ll miss Robert.”
Green’s smile faded. “I’m sorry, Andres?”
Andres smiled ruefully. “Do not be too sorry, brother—if your little sorceress hadn’t killed him, she would be dead now and so might we all. We wouldn’t have made it through another night without tearing each other’s throats out.”
“Oh… that explains that little burst of…,” Green began, but Renny interrupted him.
“Hey—Green—where are they?”
Andres laughed outright. “Finishing what they started, I would imagine.”
Green winced, trying hard not to show it, but Andres and Adrian had been fledglings in the same kiss. Green had been there for both of them when hungers had run rampant. Andres had been a terrified lover at first, and then a creative one, and finally a friend. Now it was the friend who clapped a hand on Green’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, big brother,” he said gently. “They… came to an understanding, I think, about your place in their lives. It was in your favor, if I read things right.”
Green flashed a grin. “I have a feeling you’re understating things a bit.”
Andres joined him. “You would be right.” And then he stepped back and bowed. “And now, if you would forgive me, your sorceress and your redcap gave us an appetizer before she freed us, but I really must dine if I am to hold on to my manners.”
Green blinked, put the facts together, and said, “She really is brilliant, isn’t she?” But before Andres could answer, Renny stepped forward.
“Lord Vampire,” she said formally, a slight girl with bare feet and a T-shirt that reached below her knees and apparently not much else on beneath it. “It would be my pleasure.” She raised her chin, exposing her neck for his pleasure.
Andres smiled and bowed again. “The pleasure is all mine,” he conceded, stepping forward, while Green put a restraining hand on Max’s arm. It was a generous—and politic—gift from Renny, and Green wouldn’t interfere with it for the entire world.
Andres’s fangs grew and his jaws lengthened, but the rest of his face retained its quiet control, up until he was close enough to smell the warmth of Renny’s skin.
“Ah, Goddess,” he said, looking at Green with heartbroken eyes. “It’s bad enough that all your people smell like you, Lord Elf, but it breaks my heart to be near so many who still carry Adrian on their skin.” His lips twisted bitterly over his retracted teeth, and he changed to kiss Renny on the forehead. “Thanks, my dear,” he said, “but I can remember him from your sorceress and redcap, who practically filled that warehouse with his ghost. His smell on you just hurts too much. I will dine somewhere else tonight.” And with that he turned and faded into the night, where weakened were-folk and sated vampires had sunk to the ground in what could only be defined as a food coma.
Green would have followed him, to embrace, to commiserate—even to make love, for old times’ sake, since he would be alone this night—but at that moment, several things happened consecutively.
The first was that another bird veered out of the night sky—this one much smaller than the dead condor whose body lay unlamented in building debris. In an explosion of feathers and sobs, the little hawk landed at Green’s feet and became a distraught Nicky, bent practically double and crying, “Goddess, make it stop….”
Green stepped forward to gather the boy in, and as Nicky pressed up against him, Green could feel the boy’s arousal through his jeans and cursed himself. Of course she would have needed Nicky’s contact. She couldn’t have made that hole in the magic wall on fury alone—not in her condition.
“Shh…,” Green whispered. “She let you free like this so you could forget her….”
“How can I forget her?” Nicky wept brokenly. “She was wonderful… and he touched her and it was…. Goddess… and she’s… she’s….”
And then Green felt the second thing. Everybody felt it. The vampires and were-folk rose from their somnolence, looking in surprise at the warehouse. The police, alerted to strange activity, were now pulling up in a fury of sirens and lights, emerging from their cars and looking at the broken warehouse in suspense as though wondering what the next explosion would be like. And Green felt the agony of an explosion unwholesomely suspended, waiting… waiting for… waiting for him.
He had Nicky against him, which was too bad, because neither of them would have planned on what happened next, but he drew on Nicky, drew on Renny who came up and put her hand on his back, even drew on Max, who had touched Cory in the past and now clenched Renny’s hand—and using this strength, he threw up a barrier, a bowl of his power, felt her touch it, felt her love him, felt her come. In a heartbeat, there was a brilliant wash of silent light against his shield. Nicky, feeling Cory in that wash, convulsed against Green in orgasm, coming, mourning, sobbing at his lost innocence and freedom.
The light subsided, and Green picked Nicky up and cradled the young man against him like a child, and looked in awe at what had once been the warehouse. What stood in its place was still glowing with magic, and breathtaking in its beauty. It was also starkly, woefully, shockingly out of place in the middle of the warehouse district.
“Well—it’s a prettier building…,” Renny said, flummoxed.
“It is that, lovey,” Green said, bemused and stunned.
“It’s a good thing I never got in her pants,” Max said, almost to himself. He looked at the others defensively when they opened their mouths in astonishment and reproach. “I’d be dead!” he said, still looking bemusedly at what Cory and Bracken had wrought. “Hell—I probably wouldn’t have survived our first kiss.”
Nicky turned his head for a moment, took in the new edifice in place of the old one, and laughed through his sobs. “It was pretty nasty in there, for a wedding night,” he said, his voice muffled and congested. He leaned his head against Green’s chest, resigned and comforted, and Green nuzzled the top of his newborn’s head. Poor Nicky, he thought, aching for him. Cory had saved his life only to enslave him, although that had never been her intention. He looked in front of him, shaking his head. He doubted this had been her intention either.
Andres came back then, wiping a trickle of blood off his mouth with his thumb and licking it for the last drop. “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” he asked, incredulous, gesturing at the gleaming structure of wood, marble, brass, steel, and glass.
“You own this property?” Green asked, and as Andres nodded, he added, “I’ll buy it from you.”
“You have it as my gift, big brother,” Andres told him, “but what you’re going to do with a smallish Ritz-Carlton hotel in the middle of this district I haven’t a fucking clue.”
It was the same shape as the original warehouse, a plain square—and although taller, it was still only fifteen stories high, too small to need lights—with a carport and a red-carpeted entrance. The sides were gleaming tan marble, and there were green banners strewn from the squared top. It wasn’t a real Ritz-Carlton, but it looked like one of the finer hotels of San Francisco as Cory might have seen one when she and Renny had knocked about the city. It even had the insignia, Ritz-Carlton, emblazoned on the entrance. A honeymoon suite indeed, Green thought, his mouth turning up at the ends in spite of himself.
“Andres,” he said thoughtfully, “I think your people need to escort the police into that nice hotel… and have them wake up back at their original beats, do you think?”
“I’ll help with that,” Max said, regaining some of his own composure and fishing his neglected badge out of his back pocket. “I’ll take them inside. You meet us there, Lord Andres… uhm, Green….” He turned toward Green, not sure how he wanted to say this, because it would be painful for both of them. “You don’t think we can… that they’re… out in the open, do you?”
“Don’t worry, Max,” Green said gently. “I’m sure they’ve got their own room.”
Max relaxed and shook himself a little, like a man letting go of a long-held dream he hadn’t known he’d had.
“Me, Nicky….” He looked at the building again, looked back. “We are so out of our league.” And then, as weary as he was—as they all were—he gave an awkward, mortal, military bow, and Green decided then and there that the man could eat at his table anytime. Max turned and hadn’t gotten more than a few paces when Renny gave Green’s waist a squeeze and ran to catch up with him, taking Max’s hand in her own as she caught up and bringing it to her lips. She ignored his startled look, and together they walked to the gathered group of puzzled policeman standing with their backs to the Bay Bridge to stare in astonishment at the newborn hotel that had sprung out of the pavement like a pretty mushroom.
It was after midnight when Green, Nicky, Grace, Renny, and Max huddled in the back of the town car that Andres had so thoughtfully called for them. Nicky had been inconsolable for most of the night, caught in the agony of being mated both to a woman who was so obviously in love with someone else and to Green himself. Even Green could feel the dual connection, and although he knew that there was probably something profound in the idea that he and Cory had acquired another lover, he was just too damn weary to decide what it could be. Green finally had to roll Nicky’s mind and wish him to sleep, and his heart ached again for the ravages of the boy’s lost innocence. Goshawk would have so, so much to answer for in the matter of Nicky Kestrel, he decided grimly.
Max had done his job well when he convinced the other officers to come inside the hotel. With Renny at his side, he pleasantly introduced them to the now calm, powerful vampires who had, as a kiss, rolled their minds smoothly and then made certain that both cops and cop cars were placed strategically around the city. Being familiar with call signs and assignment sheets, Max was invaluable in that area as well; Green was particularly impressed with the way the young officer hadn’t even flinched when some of his compatriots ended up half a pint low with a sore spot on their necks.