by Jim Butcher
“Katie?”
“Healing, my master.”
“The two human girls? Bring them to me. Now.”
“Yes, my master,” the voice replied. “You and you. Go get the girl from the apartment. You and you, bring the one from the office.”
“What’s happening?” someone asked.
“Better you don’t know, dude,” Derek said, moving for the door.
Leo closed his fangs gently, slowly, on a blood-servant’s throat. And drank.
The pain was bearable but the rage was still hot within him. He had drunk from Bethany and from ten humans, taking a little over a pint from each. He had ingested over a gallon of blood, and he could have taken more, but he had an enemy to find before dawn. El Mago. The mage would not be allowed to reside in his city if he had to cut a swath through the populace to find him.
In the private restroom of the office, Leo washed his face and brushed his teeth, his fangs, and the hinge structure that operated them. He combed his black hair and tied it into a queue, then took a moment to inspect his abdomen and torso. They should have displayed dreadful wounds, but they were unmarked. He dressed in the clean clothes that had been brought from his clan home on the west side of the river, but this time he strapped a small weapon to his right leg. The Smith & Wesson .380 semiautomatic pistol was loaded with silver/lead rounds. He belted his dueling swords around his waist and checked himself in the brass-backed mirror. Human customers in the bar hated it, but for Mithrans it was the only way to see a reflection. His flesh picked up the golden tones from the brass, looking far more human than his pale skin in the bright lights. Satisfied, Leo rifled through the zippered bag holding his clothes and pocketed a cell phone. Some wise person had placed a folded sheet of paper between the clamshell halves with instructions on how to use it. Fortified, Leo stepped from the restroom and walked across the room through the lines of his humans to the girls.
The one who had been tied to the chair was stretched out on a chaise, her head in the lap of the other one. The victim was named Audrey Salick, and she looked vaguely Asian. Her sister, the blond temptress who had shared Leo’s bed earlier in the night, was named Margaret Coin. The same mother. Very different fathers.
“Audrey,” Leo said softly, his voice a low purr as he wielded his mesmerism. “You have been healed. The memories of your abuse muted. Are you well?”
Audrey lifted her head off her sister’s thigh and blinked blearily around the room. “I’m fine, I think.” She focused on the Mithran behind Leo who had healed her and pointed a finger. “I know you. You’re Estavan.” Her brows came down in a scowl. “Hey! Did you . . . ? Did we—”
Estavan moved to the back of the couch and took her hand. “All is well, mi hermosa ave.” My beautiful bird. Leo’s lips lifted at the endearment. Estavan loved women and he was already half in love with this new one. “All is well,” Estavan finished. He lifted her hand and bowed over it to kiss her fingers. The woman sighed. “She is well, my sire. And she knew nothing about tonight’s ambush.”
Leo set his eyes on Margaret. “But this one. She knew much,” he said.
Margaret pressed her body into the couch, her blond hair coiling about her. Her blue eyes filled with tears. “He had my sister. I didn’t have a choice.”
“We all have choices, my dear. Estavan, take your new blood-servant.”
“No!” Margaret screamed, even as Estavan leaned across the couch and lifted Audrey into his arms. He whisked her through the door, into the bar. “No,” Margaret sobbed, one arm out as if to drag her sister back. “I was supposed to be saving her.”
“In return for . . . ?” Leo asked.
“A week of . . .” She drew in a sobbing breath and her mouth pulled down in shame. “Servitude.”
“A week in a Mithran’s bed,” Leo clarified. “A vampire who called himself El Mago.”
Margaret nodded, tears reddening her pale skin.
“Then you shall have five weeks in mine, as payment for the trouble you have caused. For now, we will start in small sips. Give me your wrist. And this time you will withhold nothing, not even the trifling dark place in your soul that hid the knowledge of my enemy from me. The trivial dark spot that I should have forced my way into when you were compliant.”
“No. No, no, no, no.”
“She’s wearing an engagement ring, boss.”
Leo turned slowly and looked at his primo. His voice took an edge. “So she is. Had she come to me and told her story, I would have saved her sister and set them both free. I have been magnanimous to all human cattle in my city. I have made it clear that they may come to me at any time. She did not. She chose to fear an enemy, to become one herself. You would have me punish her according to a law older than my own?” According to the Vampira Carta, the written laws that all Mithrans adhered to, he could have taken her life for such an infraction.
“No.” George shook his head. “I’m not—”
“This is about your sister and the shame she was dealt. I understand. And for this reason alone, I will not banish you, nor strip you of power. But for now, leave me.” Leo smelled Alfonse in the room. “Alfonse, take my primo home. See that he stays there. The rest of you, wait in the main room. Drink. Enjoy yourselves. I’ll be an hour.”
Leo left the room, licking his new paramour’s blood from his lips and taking with him all she knew. Margaret Coin would make a lovely addition to his collection of blood-servants. She was willing, no matter that her earlier interest was reliant upon fear for her sister. Now she had tasted his blood and she was his. He would recompense her betrothed for the loss of his future wife. George would disapprove, but George often disapproved.
Leo stepped silently into the main room of Royal Mojo and said, “My enemy is at the Hotel Monteleone, in the Ernest Hemingway suite. He has magic, spells of confusion and obfuscation and false health. He has silver and poison. I will compel no one to fight at my side, nor will I condemn any who walk away. But I ask for aid and fighters who might join me.”
Katie made a soft sound with her lips, Pfttt. “I am yours to call. You need no one else.”
“You are my heir. This is not your fight.”
“And if you die true-dead? You would leave me shackled with the city and its restive Mithrans? Dreadful responsibility for one such as I, who has dedicated her life to pleasure. Such boredom, tied to the boardroom of negotiation and mediation.” Katie tilted her head and gave him the same smile she had offered him when he lay on the floor, paralyzed. “It has been long since we fought your old . . . enemy together. Since the day he turned on you, breaking his blood bond to his sire and yours. All recall when he used magic on Amaury Pellissier rather than a blade, the day he broke his word, broke his vows. Proving his blood and birthright was the lesser, tainted by dishonor.” She drew her sword, the sound like a caress as it left the decorative scabbard. “Let us go to the Monteleone and play with your wily nemesis.”
Bethany said, “I carry a trinket that will allow a Mithran to see magic as I do.” From a finger, she removed a wooden ring, carved from a tree from her homeland in Africa. She had worn it as long as Leo had known her, which was many centuries. “Capture the mage who forced you to attack my George. And before he dies, tell him that his death would have been infinitely more painful at my hand. Catch. And go.” She tossed the ring. Leo’s hand swept up and he caught the ring. He slid it onto his finger and instantly saw a purple haze about the priestess, her magics swarming for a moment with darker-purple particles before she inhaled and pulled it all back inside her.
Leo paused outside the elevator, the Hemingway suite at the end of the hallway. It was one of the most elegant in the extravagant hotel, with two bedrooms and a large sitting room for social engagements. He glanced at his cohort and grinned, fangs down, remembering the last time they had entered this suite. It had been a week of revelry at Mardi Gras, a dozen young tourists, far too much alcohol, and ceaseless sexual escapades.
Katie chuckled, a wicked sound
, and ran her fingers up his back. “If we are back in your lair before the sun, my love, we might reenact in great detail. For now, you shall inform me what you see in the seating area and engage our enemy if he is there. If he is not, then we shall clear the parlor, the bedroom on the right, then the room to the left. Oh. And Leo, mon amour, will you please demolish the door? These are new Jimmy Choos.” Katie swept back her split skirt, displaying the stilettos and a great deal of leg.
“Of course, my darling, though what I had in mind is perhaps more anticlimactic than you might wish.” Leo strode to the door, pulling a room card from his pocket. He swiped it and the door clicked open. “I borrowed it from the front desk.”
“I do believe that I adore you.”
“As I do you,” Leo said, easing the door open a crack, clenching his fist around the ring. “No magic.”
The door opened silently to reveal the large parlor, the pale green of its walls, long upholstered couch, and heavy draperies producing a sense of serenity. The antiques, tall ceiling, crystal chandelier, and heavy moldings established elegance. The merrily burning fire generated a comfortable ambience for the three humans standing before it on the room-sized Persian rug. They were well-armed toughs, incompatible with the luxury, far more suited to a barroom or pool-hall brawl. They were not expecting Katherine Fonteneau.
His heir blew past him at speed, and in three perfect cuts, slashed the throats of all three. Before he was dispatched, the last one shouted, giving away their attack, though Leo had never supposed they might enter without such a warning.
“You could have left one for me,” Leo said.
“I have never been called generous except in the bedroom.”
“True, my love. But in bed you are Hathor, Aphrodite, and Venus all together.”
“I am,” she agreed.
They raced into the bedroom on the right. It was empty, though it smelled of sex and fear and the bedcovers were rumpled and smeared with blood.
The marble bathroom was empty. Leo followed Katie to the bedroom on the left. At the doorway, he placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her. Into her ear, he whispered, “Magic.”
“Where?” she mouthed.
Leo pointed into the corner behind the door. There was room for only one of them. The other would have to clear the room and provide protection from rear assault. Katie pouted, her lips pursing around her canines. “Poo,” she said. She inserted her sword in its scabbard, out of the way, and slammed back the door. She tucked, dropped, and rolled past it, into the room.
Leo followed her through and then kicked the door closed behind them, revealing the space behind the door. Empty. Except for a haze of reddish magics with particles of black swarming through it. And the faintest haze of a Mithran hidden within. With a single thrust, Leo speared through El Mago’s heart, whipped his flat-blade left and right. With a single backhand cut, he slashed his old adversary’s throat. The fog of magics dissipated, revealing El Mago, falling to his knees, blood spouting from his throat. His black eyes flashing in shock, his long black hair up in a fighting queue.
Leo dropped his swords and grabbed up his ancient rival. Covered the torn throat with his own mouth, and began to drink. He slid his mind into the mind of El Mago, following the pathways of their earlier years, before their conflicts. He drank down the old jealousy, the hatred, and the betrayal they had given birth to. He absorbed the plans and the hopes and the future as El Mago wished it to be. He understood.
The European Mithrans were coming for the Americans, as soon as fifty years. They wanted his land, his Mithrans, his cattle. They wanted to rule the world; what better place to do so than from the United States of America? His land.
He would not give it up.
Leo dropped El Mago and, with an economical swipe of the sword, removed his head.
Katie bent down, inspecting the body. “You killed him before we left for the Americas. Only someone powerful might have healed him from the mortal wound you administered.” She tilted her head to Leo. “You have enemies. Will you grieve again, for his death?”
“I will not.” Leo pulled out the cellular phone and followed the instructions. “Pellissier Clan Home,” a woman answered.
“This is Leo. Send a cleanup crew to the Hemingway suite of the Hotel Monteleone.”
“Leo. The Master of the City?”
“Of course. Who else would make such a call? And send a car to collect the heir and me. We shall be walking down Royal toward St. Louis Street. We require a male blood-servant and the human Margaret Coin, champagne, and privacy in the limo. And . . .” He considered the odd phrase he had heard his people use, “make it snappy.”
Leo Pellissier, Master of the City of New Orleans, dropped the cellular phone and held out his arm to his beloved. “Come. Let us take in the city before the sun rises.”
Together they left the Hemingway suite and the body on the floor of the bedroom. Perhaps this time El Mago—Miguel Pellissier—would stay down.
Re-killing his brother was tiring.
CHASE THE FIRE
JON F. MERZ
What if vampires weren’t undead, but had evolved in secret alongside humanity, protected by an elite cadre known as Fixers? In the Lawson Vampire series, Lawson is one of the elite, constantly battling rogue vampires, terrorists, spies, and more. “Chase the Fire” is a glimpse at an insidious plot brewing from within the vampire governing body, one which Lawson will soon have to deal with.
Amsterdam, Netherlands
We found him in one of the brothels on De Wallen.”
Shiraz Aziz eyed the tiny man before him and smiled. As always, the temptations of vice worked for those who knew how to use them to their advantage. He scratched at his bristling beard, which he’d started growing to help conceal his identity. At day eleven, it was almost relentlessly itchy.
But that would pass soon enough.
The tiny man shivered in the cool night air, clad only in a flannel shirt and jeans, teeth chattering as he kept glancing around. Shiraz’s men eyed him like he was already dead. But Shiraz gave him a warm smile.
“And how are you tonight, my new friend?”
The man looked up at him. “Do I know you?”
“No,” said Shiraz. “You do not. But I know you, and that is far more important. In fact, you might say that it’s perhaps the most important thing of all.” He smiled some more and then leaned forward to the man crouched on the floor. “I’m going to ask you some questions now. Be a good lad and answer them.”
The man said nothing, just continued to look up at Shiraz.
“You are what is known as a Ferret. Is this true?”
The man shook his head and stuttered a quick denial. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Shiraz allowed his smile to fade for dramatic effect and then looked at his men. “Perhaps we have the wrong man here? Maybe you got confused when I asked you to bring him to me? Maybe it is not really who I was looking for after all? Hmmm?”
Hassan, his right-hand man, frowned. “It is possible, I suppose. There was a great deal of confusion when we arrived there. Clothes strewn about everywhere. Perhaps we were mistaken.” He nodded toward the man. “But if he is not the one we want, then what should we do with him?”
Shiraz waved his hand. “I don’t care. Kill him, so no one tracks his location back to us.” He stood to leave and almost immediately, the tiny man reacted as Shiraz knew he would.
“No, don’t kill me!” He grabbed at Shiraz’s leg. “I’m the Ferret. It’s true. Don’t kill me. It’s really me.”
Shiraz eyed him with mock suspicion. “And how do I know you’re telling me the truth? You could just be saying that to save your own skin.”
The tiny man gulped and then looked back up at Shiraz. For a moment, he said nothing. And then the words tumbled from his lips. Guttural. A mongrel amalgamation of hundreds of forgotten languages. “Haz letand min shako.”
Taluk. The ancient tongue of the vampire race. And th
e Ferret had apparently given a recognition code that only another Ferret would know the answer phrase to. Shiraz did not know what the correct response was, but it didn’t matter. The Ferret had admitted he was indeed one of the intelligence specialists assigned to work for the Council, and that was enough for Shiraz to ply him with questions.
But he still made the small man wait another two minutes before resuming his seat. “Your name?”
“Wilkins. Roger Wilkins.”
Shiraz looked him over. Unlike the Fixers—the elite spy commandos dedicated to preserving the secret existence of the vampire race—Ferrets were decidedly unremarkable. Wilkins looked like a rail-thin college professor with squinty eyes buried beneath thick glasses and a pimple-ridden face that defied his age. Tufts of hair sprouted at weird places on his scalp, but he was clearly going bald. As far as vampires went, Wilkins was about as un-bloodsucker-looking as you could possibly get. No doubt he never hunted, but just subsisted on the shipments from the Council for his daily allotment.
“Very well, then. As I said, I am going to ask you some questions,” said Shiraz finally. “Some of them I already know the answers to. Some of them I do not. You will not know which is which. Do you understand what this means?”
Wilkins blinked. “You’ll know if I’m lying.”
Shiraz smiled. “Very good, my friend. Very good.” He clapped his hands together. The interior of the warehouse was cold, deliberately so. The more uncomfortable the environment, the easier it was to get someone to talk.
“Where is the Fixer known as Lawson?”
Wilkins didn’t hesitate. “Boston.”
“He has several homes. Do you know which one of them he is staying in?”
Wilkins shook his head. “No. I only know the locations of two of them.”
“And what happened when he returned from Syria? How did the Council receive his after-action briefing?”
“From what I heard,” said Wilkins, “he is not liked by the majority of the Council. But he is tolerated because of the results he gets. Ava, one of the leaders of the Council, despises him.”