Blessed

by Cynthia Leitich Smith

  The water below us began to churn, and I gripped the rope railing. Then the stranger tore open his dress shirt, used a pointed nail to slash his fair skin, and — cupping the back of my head — pulled my lips to the trickling wound.

  With no thought of refusal, I nursed like Mina had from Dracula’s breast.

  Like a kitten.

  How unfair that I’d been made to settle for filthy pig’s blood when here nectar ran free! Why shouldn’t I seek solace?

  No, more than that. Why shouldn’t I relish what I’d become?

  “Baby, I knew, sooner or later, we’d be together again.”

  Baby? Who called me that? I hated it. Who?

  Damn Bradley’s mind tricks! He’d clouded my ability to recognize him. Had he already beaten Zachary to Harker’s knife?

  Thoughts of the angel released me from Brad’s thrall. I shoved him away, slammed the point of my dress boot into his groin, and spat his blood into his face.

  He grunted, staggered, staring at me — all wounded surprise — and disintegrated into mist a split second before my fist would’ve shattered his face.

  Now I understood. True, the courtyard boasted its share of temptations, but Brad had been mentally stoking my blood lust. God forbid that he fight fair.

  I wiped my wet, sticky mouth. What time was it?

  A barbarian in a smoking jacket slid his hand over my hip. “My turn?”

  I crushed his wrist before throwing him into the glass pyramid. It cracked, changing the light in the courtyard, quieting the revelers, the musicians, shifting all attention to me. Where was Freddy? Zachary? What was I supposed to do now?

  “Mademoiselle Quincie,” came an accented voice from behind. “I am Philippe, Her Majesty’s consort, and I bid you welcome in the name of the Mantle. Please accept my most humble apologies for the indignity that you have suffered as our guest.”

  A few jaws dropped at that as he slipped his scarred hand around mine, like I was a little girl who needed to be led away from a playground skirmish.

  I wasn’t positive, but I thought that by “consort” he meant “boyfriend,” only in a fancier, more grown-up kind of way. The eternal queen’s boyfriend.

  Why was he being so nice to me? I’d crashed this party and made a terrible scene. Still, kudos to Her Majesty. With his silver bat-head cane, long gold braid, and the small medal at his collar, Philippe looked extraordinarily elegant.

  “Mademoiselle,” he began again, “what happened to your hand?”

  “Claws, werewolf,” I blurted out, still shaky, as the other guests turned their attention elsewhere. I figured if he could ask, so could I. “What happened to your hands and face?”

  “Fire, rabbi,” he replied, meeting my eyes as if we were friends now, or at least understood each other’s scars. “Shall we go see the exalted mistress?”

  It was gracious of him to ask. “Sure. Why not?”

  Philippe escorted me into a soaring throne room, flanked on both sides with red velvet curtains — like the ones at Sanguini’s, only much, much longer — and lit by a dozen candelabra. He stepped away as Freddy and Zachary rushed to my side.

  Neither looked injured, thank God. But clearly our plan had been a total failure.

  “Presenting Quincie,” Harrison announced.

  Freddy ignored his twin. “Are you all right, my dear?”

  I was not all right. I’d completely lost it outside — my self-control, my mind, myself. I didn’t know who I’d been for a while there in the courtyard. If that was a preview of soullessness, I’d happily chug down a two-liter jug of holy water the very minute I wasn’t needed anymore. I’d shower in it. I’d dive right in.

  “Did Brad hurt you?” Zachary wanted to know.

  Had they run into him, too? “I can’t talk about it now.”

  Meanwhile, Freddy taunted his twin. “I thought you weren’t playing house servant anymore.”

  “Shut up,” replied Harrison, moving to stand beside a substantial black marble dais at the head of the room.

  “Did he get it?” I asked Zachary. “Brad, I mean.”

  “The knife? Oui,” declared a melodious voice, her accent less pronounced than Philippe’s. “Your conceited, onetime nobody of a rogue, Bradley Sanguini, is in possession of Jonathan Harker’s kukri knife and, soon, all the powers of Dracula Prime. That brash, horrid, American thief stole it from me!”

  “Her Royal Majesty Sabine,” Harrison announced. “And in a chipper mood.”

  Damn, damn, damn. The newly crowned queen of the undead, and she somehow had learned what the knives could do.

  Strolling around a red-padded, gold-framed throne that was much taller than she was, the regal vampire effortlessly lowered herself to perch with one slim ankle tucked behind the other. An ash blonde, with skin like a china doll and serpentine grace, she could’ve passed for a high-school freshman. Or at least she could’ve if she’d traded in her black A-line satin tulle gown for something a bit less resplendent.

  “Curtsy,” Freddy hissed as he executed a formal bow.

  I’d never curtsied before, but I did my best, if only to lower Freddy’s anxiety level. Zachary, in contrast, angled himself protectively in front of us. He didn’t bow.

  I would’ve felt a lot better if he’d brought along his flaming sword, but recalled what Freddy had said about the castle metal detectors.

  Philippe positioned himself alongside the throne while Sabine regarded my GA, dipping her delicate-looking fingers into a red velvet pouch, drawing out what appeared to be soil, and letting it fall aimlessly onto the platform.

  “Friend Zachary,” she began in a weary tone. “You and these neophyte girls . . . You cannot save them all.”

  “I’m only sorry,” he shot back, “that I never had a chance to save you.”

  Direct hit. Sabine drew her slight form taller in the chair, though her manner still seemed more resigned than imperial. “You have requested this audience. I have guests waiting. Yet I am at your disposal. What is it that you wish from me now?”

  I blinked at her cooperative attitude, her deference. The man at the party had been right. The vampire queen did fear God, and by extension, his messengers.

  “The legend of the knives,” Zachary said. “I’ve heard the story from Freddy. But you’re an Old Blood. What do you know about it?”

  “The details have been lost,” Sabine replied. “Mais oui, it is said that Dracula Prime was survived by his Carpathian powers, split between and contained within Harker’s and Morris’s knives. A bloodletting, perhaps as inconsequential as pricking one’s fingertip, while reciting the appropriate incantation, has been mentioned with regard to accessing those abilities from the respective weapons.”

  Again, she dipped her fingers into the velvet pouch. “A full and permanent transfer of the powers, however, from the knives to an individual eternal would require a more significant spell, a more substantial sacrifice.”

  More falling dirt. “Without that larger ritual, a rival eternal could abscond with the knives, repeat the minor bloodletting, and spirit the Carpathian magic away.”

  “The incantation?” Zachary pressed. “The details of the larger ritual?”

  “Unknown, or even I — no aficionado of the dark arts — might have been tempted to try them, once I’d heard there might be some truth to the story.”

  Philippe tapped his cane once. “You mentioned Texas earlier?”

  At Zachary’s nod, Philippe informed us that over the past two years the U.S. southwest eternal aristocracy had been wiped out in a series of bombing attacks. One in Tucson, one in Dallas, one in Las Vegas, and one in Salt Lake City. He added that Henry Johnson, AKA Bradley Sanguini, had been identified as a “rogue of interest” in those cases. “Harrison?” Philippe prompted.

  “We sent three enforcers after him, but they have not filed reports in some days.”

  So Mullet Man and Mole Woman had been their goons. The guy in the park, too.

  “Meanwhile, I personall
y began tracing the upstart’s writings,” Harrison added. “At the Chicago History Museum, I came across a 1943 article in which he referenced a spell book associated with the knives. It allegedly had been last in the possession of a mobster killed in the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre back in ’29. It was rumored that a member of Al Capone’s gang had stolen the book, but no one knows for certain.”

  From there, Philippe explained, they began to look seriously into whether the story of the knives was fact or fiction and eventually concluded that it was true.

  I probably should’ve taken a hint from Freddy’s subordinate demeanor and continued to let Zachary do all of the talking. I didn’t. Instead, I moved forward on the long, narrow crimson carpet leading to the throne. “We believe Brad is raising an army. An army of soon-to-rise neophytes whose minds he may be able to manipulate, even control, using the power that had been trapped in Morris’s bowie knife.” I paused at the edge of the black marble platform. “So. How. Do. We. Stop. Him?”

  “You dare to address me in such a tone?” Sabine countered. “It is I who rule the Mantle of Dracul.”

  Clearly, her accommodating attitude toward Zachary didn’t extend to me.

  “Beware, little neophyte, I am not only an Old Blood but the current Dracula as well. I rule the underworld. I maintain order. I represent our interests in dealing with the lesser beings — domestic and international, natural and supernatural.”

  Apparently, the vampire royalty had puffed itself up by adopting “Dracula” as a title. “But, even as an Old Blood, even as queen,” I argued, “you’re not as strong as the count. As any Carpathian. When it comes to paranormal firepower, no eternal like us could hope to match one of them.”

  “Friend Zachary, I liked your last girl much better!” Sabine flung aside her bag of dirt and glanced up at Philippe. “What is this one’s name again?”

  “Quincie,” he replied.

  “Pray tell, Quincie, what do you, with your precious baby teeth, think you can do against the many awe-inspiring powers of Dracula Prime?”

  Good question. I’d sort of hoped that Zachary would deal with the big-picture stuff, and I’d just help out as needed. But Sabine was still looking at me.

  Then Freddy spoke up. Standing with his hands clasped behind his back, he said, “Forgive me for speaking out of turn, Your Majesty, but my brother — in light of his recent promotion — is already rusty when it comes to proper introductions.

  “This young woman of the gentry is not just ‘Quincie.’ Her full name is Quincie P. Morris, and it comes to her by blood.”

  “Non?” Sabine steepled her fingers and stared at me as if I’d suddenly become fascinating. “Gentry, you say. You are a young woman of property?”

  “Um, yes.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What?”

  Okay. “An Italian restaurant in Austin, Texas. I have a house, too.”

  “Acreage?”

  “Just a regular yard for the house and a parking lot for the restaurant.”

  The queen tilted her head. “About this restaurant. It’s in your name alone?”

  “Yeah, I inherited it from my parents. They’re dead.”

  “You killed them?” she asked with too much enthusiasm.

  “No,” I said. “Car accident.”

  “Still,” she replied. “Good for you.”

  “Sabine,” Zachary said from directly behind me. “About the knives?”

  She laughed, kicking her tiny feet and clapping her dirty hands. “Quincie P. Morris is a girl! And here in my very own castle. Très bon! This presumptuous beast Bradley, he must be stopped. Friend Zachary, I am on your side once again.”

  “You might ask the Wolves,” Philippe said. “They maintain the resources to decipher the ancient magic, though after a long-ago series of mishaps, most of their scholars in that area confine themselves to the healing arts.”

  Like Miz Morales. “Because it was Wolves who created vam — eternals, right?”

  “Such blasphemy!” Sabine sprang to her feet. “Mon ami, make her stop!”

  “You want to talk to me about blasphemy?” Zachary replied. “Sabine, I thought we had an understanding —”

  “Tonight’s prey, they came freely! They did not want to live on.”

  “It’s worse,” Zachary argued, throwing up his hands.

  “Non,” she insisted, stamping her small foot. “It is not! They are past the age of consent. We did all that you asked. The executive administrative staff cremated the mounted shifter heads, the shifter-skin rugs and furniture. The dungeon will reopen soon as a full-service night spa. The prey . . . What do we call them now?”

  “Free-range bleeding stock,” Harrison replied in a bored voice. “We’d considered going organic, however —”

  “Stop!” I yelled. “We don’t have time for this! Brad’s not stupid. If we know that the Wolves might be able to stop him, then he probably knows it, too.”

  “If only you could contact the international training pack,” Philippe said. “The elder Wolves — the one or two with enough expertise in the historical supernatural to perhaps counter Bradley, they would most likely be teachers there.”

  Shaking her head, Sabine returned to her throne. “If all that you say is true, this Bradley will find and kill the Wolves — the old scholars, the young. He will kill them all.”

  Kieren.

  “Wait!” Harrison had chased after us through the parking lot to the SUV.

  Zachary paused in front of his already open driver’s door. “What do you want?”

  “In light of the threat, Her Royal Majesty offers use of her personal jet.”

  “Pass,” Freddy said with a wave of his hand from the other side of the car.

  “It occurs to me, brother,” Harrison replied, “that you underestimate —”

  “The queen has enforcers, right?” I asked. Already buckled in, I’d lowered a window. “Worst-case scenario, wouldn’t she send them to fight Brad’s army?”

  “Of course not,” Harrison replied. “The enforcers would go where the power is.”

  “The weak always do,” Freddy shot back at his twin.

  “You mean they would switch sides?” I asked. “Abandon Sabine for Brad?”

  Harrison’s lips tightened. “We speak of powers that have become legendary, even among creatures of legend. Yes, of course we would only be delivering the queen’s forces to join his. But Her Majesty cannot stand idle with so much at stake.”

  After a weighty silence, he declared, “All right. If you won’t accept the jet, from here on, I’ll be joining you as her representative.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” Freddy exclaimed.

  Apparently uncomfortable with my sitting next to Harrison, Zachary had asked me to ride beside him up front. On the drive south, the twins bickered in back while the angel behind the wheel seethed.

  Had it been my fault he was caught and brought to Sabine? Probably. I’d never so much as exchanged a word with the security guard, let alone pitched the ruse concocted to distract him from the cameras.

  As we passed Navy Pier, I remembered that Vaggio was originally from Chicago. That he was buried here. By failing to stop his killer tonight, I’d let him down, too.

  Then Zachary surprised me by saying, “I was proud of you. The way you held your own against Sabine.”

  I stared past him at the traffic and the black abyss that was Lake Michigan. “You wouldn’t have been, if you’d seen me earlier in the courtyard.”

  When his jaw tightened to the point that I thought he might crush his teeth, I realized that Zachary had misunderstood. “I didn’t hurt anyone. I didn’t partake . . .” An old-fashioned word, but it seemed to fit. “Of the suicidal. But I was tempted. Brad spun my brain, and I made a total fool out of —”

  “I was proud of you,” Zachary said again.

  After a hot shower back at the Edison Hotel, I’d slipped on the thick white complimentary robe and curled up in a plush chair, gripping my
vial of holy water.

  Tonight had been a disaster. The smell of blood had saturated the air, and Bradley had managed to reach beyond mental manipulations to take over my waking behavior. Even worse, Brad now had possession of both enchanted knives and, therefore, the full range of Dracula Prime’s powers at his disposal.

  Once the infected rose undead, they would all be slaves to his whim.

  In fact, if Lucy’s sleepwalking and Mina’s blood-drinking had happened as Stoker had reported, Brad might already be able to control the baby-squirrel eaters and anyone else he’d cursed, even though they were, at least for now, still human.

  Poor Aimee. It was amazing how well she was holding up.

  I turned the vial in my hands. Sabine and Philippe had said the training pack — Kieren’s pack? — might be able to help us and might be targeted by Brad for that very reason. But none of us knew how to contact the Wolves.

  Our only potential source was Miz Morales. I seriously doubted she’d tell me, though, even if I mentioned the risk to Kieren specifically. But if I called, she’d definitely order me back to Austin. Zachary, being my GA, would have to return, too, and then where would that leave us?

  I fell asleep in the chair, trying to figure it all out.

  The human servant from the castle, the needy, flirtatious girl with gold ribbons in her dark hair. The toga dress had been ripped open, her spine broken, her too-pale body arranged on a circle of red satin along the lakefront.

  Earth, air, fire, water. I was seeing through Bradley’s eyes.

  Even after brushing her off, it would’ve been nothing for Brad to seduce the girl into leaving with him. His long fingers swirled in her raw throat, and he began painting a lizard . . . bird . . . a dragon on the skin over her heart. A target.

  Her mouth opened, closed. She’d lost the ability to speak, but — God help her — she still understood what was happening.

  “Don’t,” I whispered, but Brad wasn’t paying attention.

  Instead, he grabbed the bowie knife in his right hand, the kukri knife in his left, and raised them both above the symbol he’d painted on his sacrifice.