by Cecily White
My knees ground against the hard cobbles as I crawled to the side of the road, fully prepared to kiss the ground. The concrete was still warm from the heat of the day, so I flopped onto my back and gave a long sigh. Through my eyelids, I could see the full moon above.
“Jack, seriously,” I muttered. “No more surprises. No more prophetic caves, or haunted Graymason nests, or body-surfing sewage. If you want to commit suicide, let’s just go hunt some werewolves and be done with it, okay?”
I lay still as a dark silhouette came to hover over me, blocking out the brightness of the moon.
“Well, love, if you’re set on suicide, I daresay there’s something more dangerous than a werewolf.”
Every inch of me tensed. Not only was that not Jack’s voice, I could tell by the flawless musical quality and perfect British accent it wasn’t human, either.
My eyes scanned over him, taking in the cliché. Tall, dark, and psychotically beautiful, with elegant cheekbones and the most arresting violet eyes I’d ever seen on a man. The perfect echo of every romantic hero I’d conjured in my head.
“Oh, hell,” I mumbled. “Who ordered a vampire?”
Chapter Fifteen:
Postcards from Hell
I hate vampires.
I know, I know…civil rights. The value of cultural difference. It’s a disease, not a choice, blah, blah, blah. I’d heard it a million times in Lutz’s diversity seminar. Heck, I’d even defended their bloodsucking butts from demon attacks. Still, if half the stuff in the tabloids was true, then the whole species deserved to be taken out to the park for a sunny Sunday picnic.
Poof! Problem solved.
My fist cracked through the air toward the vamp’s face…just as it disappeared from view. I scrambled to my feet, scanning frantically. By the time I found him, he was standing with his back against a rough stone fence about twenty feet away. Jeez, I’d never seen a vamp move that fast.
“Convergence Peace Tenets forbid unprovoked attacks against Inferni, you know,” he said indignantly. “Have you heard of them?”
“She doesn’t read,” Jack called from the street as he calmly pushed the maintenance hole cover back into place. “Besides, that statute only refers to superhuman force. She knows better than to channel. Right, Amelie?”
I did know that, but did he have to ention-may it to the ampire-vay? I turned back to the wall where the vamp used to be. He was gone.
“You were right, Jackson. She is charming…in a brutish kind of way.”
The British guy’s voice came from directly behind me this time, all smooth and warm like sexy butter. Not that butter’s sexy. Anyway, I remembered reading somewhere that vampire pheromones could act as a natural aphrodisiac on anything they consider prey. Personally, I wasn’t feeling it.
I whipped an elbow over my shoulder, throwing all my weight toward the spot where his voice came from. By the time my elbow got there, of course, he was gone. Again.
“Arrgh! Would you please quit that!” I growled, landing hard on my butt.
The vamp grinned down at me. “Graceful, too. Tell me, love, do you dance?”
“Stand still for a sec. I’ll dance on your face.”
“Hmm,” he frowned, thoughtful. “Not much incentive, is that?”
“Amelie,” Jack interrupted, “I’d like you to meet my cousin, Luc Montaigne. Luc, this is Amelie Bennett, my—” He broke off, uncertain. “Amelie.”
“Your Amelie, eh?” Luc flashed him a mischievous smile. “Something you want to tell me, cousin?”
Jack’s hand found the small of my back as he helped me up. Instinct screamed at me to grab him and run, but I held it in check.
“Relax, he won’t hurt you,” Jack murmured.
“You sure about that?” I asked.
“He’s already eaten tonight. Right, Luc?”
Vamp-Boy shot Jack a smug wink, then said in his polite English clip, “I’ve always got room for dessert.”
Under the sewage, Jack registered annoyance. “Great to see you again, Luc. Remind me why we don’t hang out more often?”
As we trailed the evil undead down Governor Nicholls Street, I registered mild amazement at the range of swearwords Jack managed without unclenching his teeth. He must have realized I could hear, because by the time we crossed onto lower Bourbon the swearing stopped. Thank heavens. I’d gotten used to Jack being the calm one and, at present, I was about four seconds away from diving back into the sewer to escape the psycho vampire. The only thing that kept me grounded was Jack’s hand on mine and the (albeit, tentative) assurance that El Vampo wasn’t planning to chomp me.
“So…your cousin, huh?” I asked, once we’d settled into a modest, six-bedroom townhouse away from the bustle of the Quarter.
“Unfortunately.” Jack shrugged. “Don’t be too intimidated. He’s never killed anything bigger than a badger and never in the house. Blood stains the upholstery.”
“Well, sure. There’s that.”
As soon as we’d entered the apartment, Luc had shuffled Jack and me into the laundry room to change—something about not tracking sewage on his Persian rugs. I couldn’t really blame him, but still…strutting around in front of those two in a bathrobe? So awkward.
Admittedly, the vampire’s lair was pretty swanky. Far more posh than I would expect of a secret bloodletting hideout. No manacles. No severed limbs. A little disillusioning, actually. The place was a mélange of cream-colored decorative molding, Edwardian tapestries, textured silk wallpaper, and what appeared to be a series of original Renoirs lining the hall. I couldn’t help thinking how crazy my mom would have gone over the pair of antique elephant chairs in the parlor. What self-respecting male vampire collects elephant chairs, anyway?
“Sorry about this.” Jack fingered the downy fluff of my bathrobe. “Luc doesn’t have relationships, so he gets a little anal-retentive about his stuff.”
“Yeah, he’s a peach,” I agreed. “Tell me again how you’re related?”
“Technically, we’re not. His grandfather is the sovereign ruler of the Immortal community, so he and my gramps got to be friends during the founding of Paranormal Convergence. Then, after Gramps died, Luc’s great-grandfather took his widow as the first angelblood vampire familiar.”
“Wow, that’s…” Hmm, what was the word I wanted? “Nauseating.”
“It was the seventies.”
“Uh-huh.” I cleared my throat, trying to push the image out of my head. “So, you’re related by rumor and bloodlust?”
“Pretty much. Since we all signed the Peace Tenets, Luc’s been like family. Not always in a good way, but at least he shows up for holidays and birthday parties,” Jack said, then added, “whether I invite him or not.”
Oddly enough, I could see that. As soon as we’d stepped into the apartment, Luc started bustling around like a concerned mother hen—fetching towels, drawing the curtains. By the time Jack and I emerged from the laundry room, he had copies of the files I’d seen at school spread across a worktable and a pot of coffee brewing in the kitchen for us. Say what you like about vampires—this one didn’t lack attention to detail.
Jack and I took turns showering. After twenty minutes of scrubbing, I still didn’t feel precisely clean, but at least my hair didn’t smell like rotten Chinese food anymore. None of Luc’s normal clothes fit me, so I ended up in a pair of black silk Armani pajamas with a drawstring waist. It could have been worse. They could have been poly-blend.
Luc looked up when I entered the parlor still toweling off my hair. “Black suits you,” he commented.
“Don’t get any ideas, Romeo.”
His frown curled into a slow grin, at once mocking and devastatingly handsome. “Ah, Shakespeare. ‘How silver sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night, like softest music to attending ears.’” He laughed. “Saw the movie, did you?”
“I also saw Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” I said. “Guess which one I liked better.”
Luc gestured to the kitchen. “Have a cof
fee. I need to show you something.”
I gave the dark Columbian brew a careful sniff before fixing myself a café au lait. It looked okay, but with the quasi-evil undead you never know. “If this is rufied, I’ll flush your eyeballs with holy water.”
“I look forward to it. Please, sit.”
Still with the insouciant grin, Luc directed me toward the worktable he’d set up. Although I’d seen the case files we had at school, the pictures Luc spread out were completely unfamiliar. There were dozens of people I didn’t recognize—old and young, women and men. About half looked like Graymason deaths, with the pale eyes and vacant, calm expression I’d seen on Lutz. The other half were brutal. Bloody.
“They were all Gabrielites?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not all. Some were their bondmates, some innocent bystanders. Do any of them look familiar?”
“No. Why would they?”
Luc’s gaze flickered to me, his forehead creased with suspicion and something I couldn’t quite identify. He thinks you killed them, genius, my ever-present, annoyingly accurate inner voice informed me. How nice, right? The bloodsucker thought I was a monster.
“If you’re fishing around to see if I’m the murderer, you can stop,” I said. “I’m not.”
“Your blood begs to differ, love.”
The look I shot him was pure poison. “Look, Vlad, maybe I am Lucifer’s bloodline, although I don’t completely buy that either. But the prophecy said I would kill Jack in vengeance. I barely know the guy. What could I possibly have to avenge on him?”
Luc sighed, his arms laced across his chest in a kind of philosophical arrogance. “’Tis a better thing to rage against truth than go gently into falsehood.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, love, that your lips twitch when you lie.” He dropped a sugar cube into his cocktail glass. “You’ve no idea if you’re innocent in this, have you? It’s entirely possible your memory has been altered. There’s no denying your people are capable of it. Think,” he urged. “These deaths have been happening for nearly half a decade. In the past five years, has there ever been a time when you couldn’t remember where you’d gone, what you’d done? Anything unusual?”
I closed my eyes, raking my mind over lost memories, the missing chunks of time I always associated with Mom. Had anything like that happened in recent years? Luc was right that the Elders wiped human memories all the time. They had to, to protect us. I’d just never thought of them using that skill on Guardians.
“You’re bent. I wouldn’t kill anyone,” I said. “No way.”
But my gaze drifted back to the photos, searching each victim’s face. Not that I wanted them to ring any bells but if they had, at least it would offer an explanation. The more I learned about all this, the more I wondered about my role in it. Had the Elders known something, seen something at the trial? Were they right to convict me?
My vision blurred as I continued to stare at the files. Between the brutality I saw there and the heady scent of Luc’s aftershave, a headache took hold. Honestly, it was difficult being so close to him—to any bloodsucker, I guess. My survival instincts screamed in revolt, though my conscience urged me not to condemn him before I knew he’d done something condemnable.
I lifted the heels of my hands to my eyes. The day could not end soon enough.
“It’s all right,” Luc said with a pitying sigh. “It is a lot to manage for a female. You’ve had a rough night.”
“Try a rough decade,” I muttered, ignoring the misogyny. “At least things can’t get worse, right?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
Luc shifted in the chair beside me, his slender fingers gathering the photos. This close, his eyes seemed to hold a glow of their own, like the flickering torch lights we’d passed along the street. “D’you want to talk about it?”
“With you? No, thanks.”
“You sure? Immortality breeds good listeners and great lovers. We’re very patient,” he explained.
I fought back the gag reflex.
With deft movements, he finished collecting the file and put it away. I heard him walk into the kitchen, then the trickle of him refilling my coffee cup and pouring himself another drink.
“So,” Luc said, as he took his seat again, “does he know?”
“Does who know what?”
“Jackson. Does he know you’re in love with him?”
I choked on my coffee.
In love? Was I in love with him? More importantly, was it that obvious? I opened my mouth to argue, then shut it. What was the point? If a socially stunted bloodsucker could spot my affection, then did I really need to bother with denial?
“No,” I sighed. “Maybe. He’s impossible to read. One second he hates me, then the next he kisses me like I’m the last sip of water in the Sahara. I asked him if he’d consider bonding but—”
“Did you?” Luc cupped a hand around his jaw, entirely too amused. “And what did he say?”
“He said he can’t bond because he’s supposed to die. Then he threw me down a sewer.”
The sound of the vampire laughing was almost enough to make me smile. I watched while he took another sip of his gloppy red cocktail and sank onto a chair beside me.
“Well, love, I can’t help you with the sewer, but to be fair, he is going to die. So are you, for that matter.”
“It’s not the same.”
“No? You think because you love him, he should be allowed to live?” He absently straightened my bathrobe collar, as if he wasn’t even aware of doing it. “Silly girl, think of all the Inferni, all the Guardians dying at the hands of demonkind—children losing their parents, husbands losing their wives. Your people believe this prophecy—Jack’s death—will end the war. Would you truly sacrifice that chance for your own selfish desires?”
I didn’t know how to answer. Yes, was what I wanted to say, but that sounded so infantile and self-centered. Especially when he phrased it like that.
Luc shook his head. “If being loved could keep someone alive, your people would be immortal. And if a lack of love were the thing that killed us, my species would be extinct. Sometimes, I think the best we can do is to find that one thing we cannot live without and cling to it for as long as we can. If your ‘one thing’ happens to be my cousin, then more’s the pity for you.”
I slumped back against the rails of Luc’s breakfast room chair, mentally and physically wrought. Much as I hated to admit it, the vampire had a point. If Jack was meant to die, there wasn’t much I could do about it. Maybe everybody thought I was some all-powerful Graymason, but I knew the truth. I couldn’t even defeat my Wards teacher. How was I supposed to save Jack?
I decided to make myself scarce in the kitchen while the boys finished up their business. Luc had put together a satchel of documents for both of us: IDs, passports, Cayman Island and Swiss bank accounts. He’d also gotten a bunch of disposable phones, though none of them were as cute as the one Lisa picked out. When we finally made it down to the garage (in our own freshly laundered clothes, thank God), I couldn’t help pausing at the door to Luc’s car…Luc’s sleek, black, European vampmobile.
“Nice wheels,” I commented. “Stalk the suburbs much?”
“Talk to your boyfriend.” Luc popped open the door and ushered me into the practically nonexistent backseat.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Jack apologized. “I wasn’t one hundred percent sure you weren’t slaughtering the innocent, so I figured someone should watch you. Couldn’t very well do it myself.”
“And the werewolf?”
“Werewolf?” Jack threw an inquisitive look at Luc.
“I had things to do.” Luc shrugged. “Dane said he’d take over for a few hours. No blood, no foul, right?”
Jack gave him a disapproving look, but said nothing.
As we pulled out of Luc’s parking garage, I settled into the leather, flooded by a mixture of relief and disappointment. Much as hanging with
the bloodsucker upset my survival instinct, it had been nice to feel safe. Odd how the ability to drink coffee in peace can define your sense of humanity.
“Cozy?” Luc called into the backseat.
“Perfect,” I grumbled. Whoever invented foreign sports cars must’ve had small friends.
“You two are welcome to stay at the flat. It’s not much, I know, but Arianna and her boyfriends won’t be in town until Saturday morning for the Peace Tenets induction. Until then, it’s yours.”
“Arianna?”
“His mom. Don’t ask,” Jack muttered and turned to Luc. “I appreciate the offer, but sooner or later the Elders are going to figure out someone’s helping us. Your name is bound to come up. And if Aunt Arianna finds out you’ve ditched your bodyguard detail again—”
“Loathsome creatures.” Luc pulled to a stop a few blocks from our boarding house and shut off the engine. “Just remember, by week’s end the city will be flooded with Immortals and were-beasts for the Induction. If you’re still in town, we could use you at the signing.”
Jack half-grinned. “If I’m still alive, you mean?”
Luc didn’t return the smile. I had to respect him for that.
“Oh, relax, cousin.” Jack slapped him on the shoulder. “There are dozens to sign for the Tenets. You won’t need me. Just don’t forget what you promised, okay?”
It might have been my imagination, but I swear Luc flicked a glance my way.
Before I could give it much thought, Jack hefted Luc’s satchel over his shoulder and pulled me out of the car. Weird how that tiny bag represented my whole future. I’d overheard enough of their conversation to realize that as soon as this was over, I’d have to run. If Jack lived through it, he would come with me. If not…Well, I couldn’t think about that.
With a few words of farewell, Jack clasped Luc’s hand and pulled the vamp to him for a hug. I think Luc managed to eke out a little pat on Jack’s back.
“All right, enough theatrics.” Luc disentangled himself. “I’m not convinced you won’t be at the signing, so let’s save our goodbyes, shall we?”
Jack smiled. “I love you, man.”