Midnight Masquerade

by Nancy Gideon

  "Is Mr. Flynn going to join us as well?"

  At Zanlos's question, Rae's glare cut to Bianca who lounged on the desk like a chanteusse on a baby grand. “Didn't she tell you?"

  "Tell me what?” He glanced at the enigmatic Anna/ Bianca and waited for a response.

  "Mr. Flynn outlived his purpose,” she stated in a bored tone. Rae bit the inside of her cheek to keep her fury and grief under control. Zanlos wasn't as successful. His face flushed a ruddy hue.

  "Without retrieving the information he has? My dear, that was extremely careless of you."

  Bianca's idle pose took on a slight stiffening. “I sent Palmer to fetch it."

  Rae smiled. “Detective Palmer, unfortunately, outlived his purpose as well. The information is on its way to a source that will see your entire organization exposed. You won't be able to get as much as a beignet through customs in New Orleans. And as for the Noir, consider your extortion days at an end."

  "Chienne! Meddler!” Bianca was no longer cool and disdainful. Her features sharpened, becoming more angular and at the same time, less ... human.

  "Then I guess we have no further use for you, do we?” Zanlos drawled. “Time to get rid of the loose ends, right, darling?"

  Bianca swivelled on the desktop, her smile chilling. “That's right, my love."

  And before Zanlos had an inkling of what she meant to do, her hand flashed out to grip the back of his head, yanking him out of his chair and propelling him across the desk.

  So Bianca could sink her teeth into his throat.

  Chapter

  Twenty-two

  Thrashing arms and legs sent papers and objects d'art scattering to the floor as Bianca took Zanlos down to the desktop with her dark kiss. Rae watched in frozen horror as his eyes took on that same film of blankness covering Naomi's once-bright gaze.

  When Bianca sat back, her chin stained crimson and her own gaze equally red and blazing, she used her thumb nail to cut a slit across her own wrist, then fed that gushing fount to her dying partner.

  "There, my love. No more argument about who is in charge. And no more excuses for botching my best laid plans. Now I'll have all your connections and your brilliance without having to listen to your arrogance.” She jerked her wrist from his greedy hold then purred, “Kazmir, my love, follow my voice back to a new life. Open your eyes and see your new master."

  She stood and smoothed her hair and skirt, then took a tissue from her handbag to delicately wipe her mouth. No one would guess at the hideous monster hidden behind those affectations of gentility. As Zanlos slowly sat up and gazed about him as if seeing all for the first time, Bianca turned her attention back to Rae.

  "You have become unforgivably bothersome. Have you any idea what plans you've interrupted?"

  "Tell me."

  "Oh, the set up at the Noir was paying off wonderfully well, but that wasn't the big plan."

  "What were you planning to run through New Orleans that was worth the lives of the Grover family?"

  She made a disparaging sound. “Their sacrifice was trivial."

  "Not to me."

  "Yes. I forget sometimes to take into account you humans’ penchant for sentimental loyalties."

  "Your only flaw, I'm sure."

  The gorgeous facade of Bianca Du Maurier rippled like water when her fury was aroused. “You will regret your insolence."

  "I doubt it. So, you were about to tell me about New Orleans. What difference does it make if you tell me now? Your plan will never know fruition."

  "Perhaps not now, but soon, so why should I spoil everything?"

  "Because you're going to kill me, and you want to boast about how clever and superior you are."

  Bianca sneered at her summation. “You have no concept of my greatness, or the scope of my plan."

  "Tell me. Amaze me. Woman to woman."

  That made her snort. “No man would have the vision for such a coup. Yes, maybe you would appreciate my goal."

  "Domination."

  "Oh yes, but not just of a few puny mortals. Of a country."

  Rae gaped at her. Either the woman was totally mad ... or dangerously sane.

  "You see, Kaz and I have been carefully plotting the overthrow of the government. Oh, not through violence or confrontation, but through a careful, quiet dissemination of our people in key places."

  "By making Congressmen into vampires? I don't think the American people would understand why all the House and Senate meetings are suddenly held after sunset. Wouldn't they have a rather limited campaign trail?"

  "Oh, we're not planning to create a new government. We're going to replace the existing one. With exact duplicates."

  "I don't understand."

  "Of course not. Your mind is too narrow, too constrained to accept the possibility of a breed of being capable of becoming the image of another. These replicants have been meticulously schooled to assume every nuance of the men they will replace. For months, they have been psychically tuned to their twin through the initiation of my bite. They've been seeing through their eyes, living in their thoughts. No one will ever suspect a thing. And when a daylight appearance is needed, the human half will be there to perform on cue."

  Brilliant. Horrifying. Rae shuddered at the insidious plot, imagining the unsuspecting politicians being lured into Bianca's embrace and control in the pleasure booths of the Noir. And of the shipments coming into the port of New Orleans—inhuman cargo, familiar of face and ready to be plugged into Bianca's web of internal revolution.

  And who would ever guess it was happening beyond those in this room, who would never carry the information beyond it?

  "Why replace them? Why not just initiate those in power and control them?"

  "Too tiresome. And initiates are slow to act, and unreliable. Like your Miss Bright, for instance. You knew right away that something was wrong with her. With these, no one will suspect, not even their spouses."

  "It'll never work."

  Bianca scoffed at Rae's claim. “Of course it will. Humankind doesn't want to recognize that we exist right beneath their noses. They never see the obvious or suspect the worst. My one goal, my one desire has always been to be the leader of men. And now, I shall be."

  "But you forget, we know your plans."

  Her laugh burned like acid. “Hardly. Do you think there was only one contingency? Oh, you and your lover and this boy here,” she kicked at Gabriel, who, bound as he was, had no way to keep himself from toppling over, “have created an inconvenience, that's all. After you are repaid for that, we will simply move on and set up somewhere else. You cannot stop the tide, Detective Borden."

  "But we can stop you."

  All the arrogant power and confidence drained from Bianca's expression at the sound of the softly accented voice. “You.” Her legs buckled, sending her back against the desk to find support.

  "Buona sera, cara mia. It has been much too long."

  Rae's knees nearly went out from under her as well. Not at the sight of the speaker, who, though darkly handsome, was unknown to her, but because Nick Flynn was with him, alive and whole. Or so she assumed at first. A sudden spear of confusion held her back from running to him. It was Nick ... but then, it was not.

  Nick Flynn and Kaz Zanlos stared at one another across the room, both recognizing what the other had become. And then Rae saw it, too. The icy fire burning behind their dark eyes, the sharper, somehow enhanced strength of their features that made them unnaturally beautiful. They were not the same two men they had been that morning.

  They were both newly made vampires.

  "You wanted revenge upon me,” the elegant vampire with Nick told Bianca. “Here I am. I would have been content to forget our long-standing feud, but you cannot let any slight go, can you? Did you think you could harm my family and I would not act? You should have known better, cara. I am here, and we will end this now."

  "Ever the dramatic, my dearest Gerardo. But you forget who you are dealing with."

  Th
e two guards at the door attacked as one, and the second they were distracted, Bianca was gone. There one instant, then absent. Unarmed and unneeded, Rae backed away from the melee to observe in breathless wonder what Nick had become.

  He moved too fast for the eye to follow, with a lethal grace and purposeful viciousness that was both balletic and animalistic. He intercepted the rush from Zanlos's thug, side stepping it with ease then catching the man by the back of his coat to fling him to the far corner of the room. He closed that distance in a blur of motion to fall upon his crumpled victim ... and to feed. In that act, he was nowhere near as fastidious as his friend Gerardo, who had neatly pinned his attacker to the wall with one hand and proceeded to drain the life from him with a deadly efficiency. Nick's approach was less controlled, more ... bloody. And Rae looked away, her stomach roiling. And she and the still bound and helpless Gabriel were the only ones who saw Zanlos's attempt to flee the room.

  She and Gabriel exchanged a brief speaking glance. Zanlos couldn't be allowed to escape. He had too much to atone for.

  Without considering what she was grabbing onto, Rae launched herself at Zanlos, hooking him about the neck with the intention of bulldogging him to the floor. That was her intention. And she would have been successful had he still been the man he was that morning. But Zanlos was no longer a man who could be taken down and out of the equation like a common criminal. Her assault was as effective as it would have been against one of the monuments that propagated the city. He never so much as flinched, nor did he slow down his race for the door. He grabbed her by the back of the shirt and flicked her off like a bothersome flea. She hit the floor in a roll, bumping her brow on one of the uncomfortably formal chairs he favored. She swayed back up to hands and knees, meaning to give it another go when Naomi Bright stepped in and changed everything.

  Zanlos encircled her throat with one hand, his other arm going about her middle to jerk her body in front of him as a shield. His hideously exposed fangs were inches from the artery in her neck.

  "No!"

  The cry came from Gabriel, who with one Herculean feat, ripped free of his shackles to become a dangerous force.

  "Come near me and I snap her pretty neck."

  Zanlos's coldly delivered threat stopped Gabriel like a ten-pound sledge between the eyes. He stood motionless yet aquiver with the pulse of his fury.

  "Ms. Bright and I are leaving now. I wouldn't suggest that you think to follow immediately. But I will be disappointed if we don't meet again."

  "Yes, we will.” Gabriel's words hissed with all the poisonous promise of an adder hooded and ready to strike. “And when we do, I will kill you for putting your hands on her."

  "You can try, boy. You can try."

  And with his docile hostage, Zanlos backed from the room, slamming the door to cover his departure.

  Gabriel was instantly in motion. Rae had little more luck in slowing his advance until she stopped him with her words.

  "Gabriel, it will be dawn soon. There's nothing you can do tonight except get yourself killed. Then what good will you be to her?"

  Eyes wild with grief and rage, he drew upon her calming logic until it quieted the fever of his emotions to a dull pain. “She slipped out of Marchand's house before dawn. She left a note for me saying it was too dangerous for her to remain ... too dangerous for me if the darkness inside her followed her to our door. She was worried about me, about me.” His tone softened with the wonder of it. “I followed as soon as I could and rushed right into their trap"

  "You should have called me.” But someone had. Someone had called to Nick.

  "I know, but I wasn't thinking with my head. I can't lose her again, Rae.” His voice broke. “Not after searching for centuries."

  She enfolded him easily, hugging him to her shoulder where he trembled with the violence of his forced inactivity. In that moment, she saw only a man tortured by love, nothing more. Not a preternatural being, not some alien creature to be feared and loathed. Just Gabriel McGraw, her partner. But those tender feelings took a labored twist when she glanced over his shoulder to see Nick straighten from his first kill. And her love for him tangled up in a confusion of other sentiments too complex to sort through.

  But there was one emotion he saw clearly when their gazes met and held for the first time.

  Fear.

  * * * *

  They rode through the last moments of night in Gabriel's big Mercury. Rae was in front next to her partner leaving the back seat for Nick and his newfound relative ... for his newfound heritage.

  She was afraid of him.

  He couldn't blame her. He was afraid of himself and what he'd become.

  All his strength had returned since Gerard brought him back from the brink of death. At the time, he hadn't known exactly what becoming a vampire might mean. When he'd opened his eyes, he'd discovered a world where his every sense had intensified but none of what he felt inside seemed to have altered. He was still desperately afraid for Rae. He was still driven by the same wants, the same needs, the same desires. Only they were ... stronger. More compelling, harder to contain within the realm of self-discipline. He hadn't known just how hard until he'd been confronted by danger in Zanlos's office. An awesome fury and razor-edged hunger had taken hold of him, and that, combined with his newfound power, created a violent euphoria that was unstoppable. He hadn't realized what he was doing until he'd risen from the man's body to see the horror in Rae's eyes. He was that horror, bathed in blood and drunk on his own newly realized abilities.

  Drinking down that man's life held all the irresistible appeal that he'd once found in a bottle. He'd lost his struggle against that need on more than one occasion, so how was he going to stay strong in his denial of this tenfold temptation? How easy to see how darkness might rule a man's desires when he had in his grasp such ungovernable power. He'd been accused of being a good man, though he didn't know how true that was. Even his father had feared he would succumb to the lure of unchecked greed-for success, for money, and now, for blood. Zanlos had seen him for what he was. How was he going to shore up that weakness to Zanlos ... and himself wrong?

  How was he going to be the kind of man deserving of Rae Borden's love and respect?

  And therein he found his answer.

  For her.

  For her, he'd crossed the boundaries of life itself. She was the constant to keep him on the right course. Her love would keep his direction true and his motives pure. With her love as the compass, he would find his way through the treacherous waters ahead. He could not become in his need for blood the same thing her father had evolved into because of his dependence on alcohol. He would lose her if he did. She wouldn't go through that same hell again, so he had to prove to her that he would rise above it. The Nick Flynn who never thought beyond his next self-indulgence and outside the boundaries of his own goal was no more. Just as Nick Flynn the man was no more.

  Then, he saw again the revulsion in her eyes. What if she could not love what he had become?

  Nick closed his eyes and lifted his face to the wind, hoping the intensity of that experience would strip his melancholy away. The evening was alive with sensations, each vivid to the point of overwhelming, sharp to the brink of painful. The moment he'd been reborn to this altered state, he was swamped by sensory overload. Sights, keen and clear and too bright. Sounds, huge, echoing, cluttered. Scents, coming in a heavy bouquet to make his head spin. Flowers along the roadside. Rain soaking into greedy soil. Refuse too long unemptied. Rae's perfume, the shampoo in her hair as the breeze tore through it. The pungent aroma of excitement, fear and exertion upon her skin. The deep, erotic fragrance of the woman he had stirred to passion. And something new, something frightening.

  The smell of blood.

  Even from the back seat, he was attuned to the only human amongst them. He could scent her, could hear her pulse beats, could almost taste the salt on the curve of her throat and imagine the hot spurt of life flowing into him as he bit...

&nb
sp; Nick sucked a startled breath, scattering the fantasy. A strange aching prompted him to put a hand to his mouth where he could feel the boldly aggressive shape of his feeding teeth.

  Gerard touched his shoulder lightly, calling Nick's attention to his wry, knowing smile.

  "You'll learn to control it."

  "How?” His voice was low, rough with dark desires. Could he learn to curb the fierce urge to feed before he harmed the woman he loved? As much as he craved closeness with her, he would have to stay away, to keep her at a distance, until he was certain that primal appetite wouldn't get the better of his intentions. At the moment, his new basic nature ruled his thoughts, his impulses, tantalizing with the memory of the incredible burst of gratification and bliss he'd experienced at his victim's throat. How was he going to contain that driving instinct that even now clenched in his belly and growled for relief?

  "It's like delaying self-gratification,” Gerard offered by way of wisdom. “Think of something else."

  "What? Baseball?"

  Gerard didn't respond to the rather biting humor. Instead, his features grew angular and taut as his focus shifted. “Think about her."

  Bianca.

  "We need to know where she is, Nicholas."

  "How should I know?'

  "But you do know. Part of you will always know, just as part of me will always know. My link is ages old and weak from lack of use. Yours is fresh and strong."

  The notion horrified him. “I thought you said she'd have no control over me."

  "She won't. She does not. But the link is there. Just as the link between myself and your great great grandmother, Laure, my bride has passed through your generations, faint, unskilled, untried but always there."

  "That's why my father was always so afraid."

  "Yes. He was afraid you would be curious enough to seek us out and that the lure of darkness would be too much for you to resist."

  "He wasn't wrong, was he?"

  Gerard reacted to his bitterness with an empathetic smile. “But you, young friend, didn't seek it. It sought you, and therein lies the difference."