by J. F. Lewis
Pixie-cut hair of candy apple red with lighter streaks of cotton candy pink hung down in a ragged edge over her left eye, barely obscuring eyes the autumn gold of a maple leaf. Needlelike fangs peeked out from behind lips painted dark blue and twitched into a confident smirk. A white shirt with overlarge armholes swung wide as she fought, revealing flashes of her small breasts, nipples erect from the thrill of combat. She laughed as she fought, her speed so great that she seemed to pop from place to place, appearing as a sequence of still poses, like photo frames.
Irene?
Two more puffs of rapidly dusted vamp, one after another, and the two remaining Soldiers were ended. Gone forever.
The cinnamon scent grew stronger, overwhelming me, and I tried to form a command. “Rachel, sto—” I hit the ground, nose smashing into concrete, my fangs cutting my mouth. And it was all gone. How I’d gotten there, where there was, who I was fighting and why . . . Gone.
However long I lay there, when I came to, I leapt to my feet, claws out. I sensed something near me: the other vampire. I spun toward her, when I felt another flash of pain, this one full and throbbing in the back of my skull; my vision went to shades of emerald. The taste of wintergreen filled my mouth.
“I would’ve preferred mint,” I mumbled. And then it was worse; like someone put my memory in a blender and hit puree. My eyes closed for what felt like a few seconds. When they opened again, my vision was back to normal, but the last thing I remembered was Roger saying that we needed to go to El Segundo. What the hell was I doing in Paris? That’s where I had to be, right? Where else do they have a life-size Eiffel Tower? How the hell had I let Irene talk me into this?
Irene helped me up, concern clearly showing in those washed-out brown-turning-to-gold-colored eyes. They’d once been a rich chocolate, but time had changed Irene. “Are you okay, babe?” she asked me.
“I think so.” I ran my tongue around the inside of my mouth. Had I tasted something for a second there? “What happened?”
“I think that vampire kicked you a little too hard in the head,” she teased. When had Irene dyed her hair red? She wore a white silk blouse with no bra to cover her pert little breasts. Another woman’s scent wafted up from her groin. Some living girls spray perfume in their underwear drawer to cover up the odor that Irene was cultivating, but vampires can be . . . different. Irene would usually make one of the girls at the Demon Heart wear her underwear for a few hours before she put it on to make herself smell alive. I didn’t recognize the woman’s scent, which meant she’d likely been Irene’s dinner.
The idea appealed to me for an entirely different set of reasons, but I didn’t think it would be wise to enumerate them for her. Instead I slid my hand up her thigh beneath the matching white skirt. She was still warm from feeding or a kill.
“When did we get to Paris?” I asked.
She kissed me hard, letting her bangs rest on my face. Irene had a few inches on me in height even without the four-inch spike heels she was wearing. My hand slid farther up her leg, brushing the space between.
“We can do that in the limo,” she whispered in that husky voice she has, nipping playfully at my neck. I’d had a no biting rule with all my other girlfriends, but Irene was always an exception. “The sun is coming up soon. Can’t you hear Chanticleer heralding his arrival?”
She knew I didn’t. I never notice the sun has come up until it’s too late. We kissed again as she led me to a waiting limo. “You gave me quite a chase,” she told me. “Talbot should keep a better eye on you.”
“Who’s Talbot?”
“I meant Rachel,” she said hurriedly. “I don’t know why I said that.”
“Okay.” We climbed into the limo, and I caught the smell of the woman whose scent matched Irene’s panties from the front of the car beyond the black partition. Irene kissed me again, and I started unbuttoning her blouse. “Then who’s Rachel?”
“The limo driver, darling,” she said. Irene kept talking when I finished opening her blouse, reclining against the seat while arching her back, thrusting her firm supple breasts outward. “You just don’t have a head for names, do you?”
I didn’t answer, but Irene kept whispering sweet nasties in my ear. I felt like I hadn’t seen her in forever. “I’ve never done it in a limo or in Paris . . .” I paused, hovering over her left breast. “I don’t think I have anyway, not since I was alive. What’s the occasion?”
“Eric!” She ran her hand along my chin. “You naughty boy, how can you forget you’re on your honeymoon?” She showed me her ring and I checked my hand. I had one too.
“Son of a bitch,” I breathed. “How’d you talk me into that?”
“I’ll show you”—she winked—”but it will have to wait until we get back to the hotel.”
“Why?”
She kissed me again, fiercely, nicking my tongue with her fangs. “Because Rachel’s a little busy driving right now, darling, and we’ll need her undivided attention.” Yep, I thought to myself, that would do it.
40
TABITHA:
I’M NOT BARBIE
I’m hungry.” I sniffed the air. Blood scent blocked out all other odors. If Beatrice was anywhere nearby, I couldn’t smell her. “I passed your stupid tests.” I paced the unfamiliar room, still in my nightgown. It was lacy and pink and I’d hoped Eric would be able to see it, but apparently that only happened after one final night of testing. “I watched your stupid videos.” My feet slapped the cold floor of the room I’d woken up in. “I even wrote an essay and played two hundred billion questions with your version of a psychotherapist.”
An antique four-poster bed with decorative fittings lay behind me, comforter askew from where I’d rolled out of it. A French gown covered in a floral pattern with an elaborate green brocade covering the front skirt, bodice, and sleeves had been laid out for me, all Marie Antoinette or Madame de Pompadour, but it wasn’t mine and I’d refused to put it on.
“So what is this test about, my willingness to get naked in a strange room and put on uncomfortable clothing? I was a stripper for a year and a half. I think that should get me a free pass.”
I jerked on the wooden door, but it was still locked. Could I break it open with my vampire strength? Sure. But did that mean I’d fail their test? Probably.
“Just put on the dress.” It was Luc’s voice.
“Why?” I slapped the door. “What I wear has nothing to do with my ability to control myself.”
“It shows your willingness to change with the times.”
“No.” I pressed against the door, and his heartbeat came through loud and clear, his warmth like a concealed blaze. “It shows my willingness to play dress-up.”
“Why is this so hard, Tabitha?” Luc stepped away from the door. “As you said, you took the tests. You put up with all of that.”
“You stole from me.”
“Excuse me?”
“You did.” I hadn’t thought the accusation through before I made it, but I decided to stick to my guns. “How is theft resolved among you guys?”
“We didn’t steal from you.”
In my head, I could “see” him through the door, a mass of veins with blood inside, a sack of food. That’s what this was really about, then, seeing if I could go without blood and keep my cool. “You won’t let me have my clothes. They were with me when I went to bed and now they aren’t here and you won’t let me have them back. By definition, you stole them.”
“No.” Master Ji spoke, and hearing his voice made me jump. I couldn’t hear his heartbeat. I concentrated. No, there it was, muffled and slow, but there. “Your clothes are still in your room. We moved you, not the clothes.”
“Kidnapping, then. How do you resolve that?”
“You aren’t bound by our Treaty of Secrets yet, Tabitha.”
“True, Ji, and I never will be. Not exactly. La Bête said we couldn’t fully join.” I clenched my fists to keep myself from batting down the door. “And he also told you to grant m
e every courtesy. I’m guessing this test is really about me keeping under control while I’m hungry. I can do that, so let’s just keep this test to its basics.”
“Fine.”
Luc opened the door. “You can’t eat until midnight. You can wear whatever you want.” He was dressed in court clothes that perfectly matched the green brocade dress.
Ji wore dress silks. “But you have to have one of us nearby at all times so we can be sure you don’t cheat.”
“That means no biting yourself either, Tabitha,” Luc added. “Some vampires do that, hoping it will help the hunger pangs.”
“Fine.” I walked out the door and successfully managed not to bite either of them. We were in the “hunting lodge,” by which I mean “expansive mansion estate,” which stood in the northwest corner of the grounds. “Who’s going with me to get my clothes?”
Ji held up a hand. “I’ll go, but we have to hurry or we’ll miss dinner.”
“Dinner?”
“Yes,” he answered as we walked across the grounds toward the donjon proper. “We’re having steak tartare.”
I must have whimpered at the thought of being near all that bloody beef without being allowed to lick the bowl, because Ji patted my hand. The contact ignited my loins and my fangs rent my gums. I jerked my hand away, my skin so hot in comparison to the rest of me, it burned.
“You don’t get to touch me unless I get to bite you.”
“Eric didn’t make a rule like that for him and Aarika,” Luc countered.
“Don’t lie to me.” My claws came out, but I didn’t cut him. Instead, I hoisted Luc up by his fancy cravat. “The only way Eric would screw that Nazi bimbo is if she came on to him while he was feeding. And even then he might not do her.”
James, Eric’s buddy from World War II, came running out of the donjon. He was wearing a black T-shirt with a 1-Up Mushroom from Mario Bros. on the front and a pair of out-of-style stonewashed jeans with combat boots and a long coat. “Ji, declare her graduated.”
“At midnight.”
“No,” he argued. “Now.”
Panic. I smelled panic from James. Panicked immortals are not a good sign. Had the big furry decided they’d crossed a line?
“Why would I do that?”
“Because Aarika’s back and Eric isn’t with her.”
Luc hurtled through the air. I saw him fly through the air before I realized I’d thrown him. “I’m going.”
“In that?” Ji pointed at my nightie. I transformed into a cat, concentrating on leaving my clothes behind. Once in feline form, I crawled out of the lingerie and resumed my humanoid form. When Eric does it, he gets to keep his clothes, but when I do it, I revert to a single outfit, destroying the old one if I’m not careful.
At first, I’d been stuck with the clothes I’d originally been wearing when I transformed, but with practice, I’d been able to change the outfit, to create a default. I’m still stuck with just the one outfit, but at least it isn’t stripper gear . . . or not the same stripper gear anyway.
When I became humanoid again, I wore a pair of Valentino jeans, a black leather corset, matching lace-up boots, and a full-length black duster. A studded leather belt, choker, and silver bracelets completed the ensemble nicely even if the heat from their creation burned my skin. I wrapped myself in the jacket for two seconds, wallowing in the warmth and fighting my hunger.
Creating clothes takes even more of a toll than transforming, and I’d already been famished.
“You can’t leave.”
I snarled, fangs bared, claws out, eyes ablaze. “But if I don’t feed . . . ?”
“You’ll never pull it off,” Ji said. “Not around all those humans.”
I forced the fangs and claws back in, willed the eye glow to fade. “I’m going to look for my husband. My husband you were supposed to be looking after.” Luc picked himself up off the ground and dusted off his clothes. “I just want to know if I can do so without having wasted the last two days.”
“That’s fair, Ji,” James insisted. “More than fair.”
“You can go.” Ji chewed the inside of his cheek. “But his thrall will need to stay here.”
“How is she supposed to find him without his thrall?” James rounded on Ji. “We screwed the pooch on this one, Ji.”
“You don’t know that,” Ji said firmly. “There shouldn’t have been any vampires out there who could pose a threat to him.”
“Not even Lisette?” I stepped between them. “She’s an Emperor too.”
James looked away, and so did Ji.
“Lisette isn’t in Europe,” Luc said. “She left for Void City by ship over a week ago.”
“Why the hell didn’t you say something before now?” I stalked toward Luc, and the other two immortals armored up, but he raised his hands to halt them.
“Because we didn’t want her to return to our territory,” Luc answered. “Most of the older Emperors have their little areas and they stick to them, but Lisette moved around, tried to keep active in society. Now that she has set foot in the Americas, she’ll have to formally petition the Council for reentry into Europe. We plan to deny her. You heard la Bête the other night. He doesn’t want her here. Neither do we. It simply wasn’t worth the effort to force her out.”
“This is why Eric hates supernatural politics.” The eye glow was back and I didn’t fight it. “Could one of the other Emperors—?”
“They aren’t active,” Luc interrupted. “They are still. Calm. Sated.”
Another figure came walking across the bridge. It was Aarika. I moved toward her at top speed, all but teleporting to her side. “What happened?”
“A female Vlad,” Aarika began. “We’d finished scouting places he thought you might like to see . . .”
He was scouting for places I might want to see? How sweet!
“. . . several other vampires showed up to fight him. It had happened two or three times a night, so I vasn’t vorried, but then the other Vlad arrived and he seemed to know her. Eric began acting strangely. Strangely for him, I mean. Drugged or enspelled perhaps. I sensed a thrall and then there was a large amount of energy pouring along the link between Eric, the other Vlad, and the thrall. The magic was overpowering. It even had an odor.”
“What kind of odor?” Please don’t let it be . . .
“Cinnamon. Eric collapsed and when he got back up, he climbed into a limo with the female Vlad and they drove away. I could not give chase; I was . . . injured. When I recovered they had gone, so I returned here.”
“I need my cell phone and I need to be somewhere it will work.” I rocketed through the complex, tore my cell phone out of my purse, and came back at top speed. “Well?”
Aarika blinked and then two of us stood in the middle of a tourist attraction version of the castle I’d just been in.
“Try it now.”
I dialed Eric first, unsurprised when it went straight to voice mail. Then I tried Talbot.
“Talbot, is that you? Damn phone. Hello?”
“Who is this?” His voice was tired, and hearing it gave me a warm tingle I wouldn’t have had if I’d been well-fed.
“Talbot! It’s me, Tabitha.”
“What are you doing up?” he answered, sounding surprised. “It’s what, five-thirty over there?”
“Would you shut the hell up and listen to me!” I shouted. “My cell is broken and it keeps hanging up. Is Rachel there?”
“I haven’t seen her since you guys left for Paris. Is Eric there? I need—”
“I don’t give a fuck what you need, Talbot. Shut up and listen to me. Lisette is headed for you guys. She may already be there.”
“Where’s Eric?”
“The fucking immortals lost him. And they made me do a lousy three-day initiation.”
“Immortals?” He paused. “Oh. I forgot about that. They don’t police Mousers, so—”
“Eric was kidnapped by someone with cinnamon-scented magic and a female Vlad.”
; “Damn. So you think Rachel—”
“Well, don’t you think Rachel?”
“Probably. And Eric would want me to stay here and help Greta with Lisette. Fuck!” I don’t think I’d ever heard Talbot say “fuck” before.
“Do you know what the Vlad looked like?”
I handed Aarika the phone. “Describe the other Vlad.”
“She was petite. Attractive. She’d been turned in her early twenties. The way she moved was distinct, as if she had trouble moving slower than her maximum vampiric rate. Eric seemed to recognize her.”
“Put Tabitha back on,” Talbot said, as if I couldn’t hear him quite well even when Aarika held the phone to her ear.
“You know who it is?”
“It could be Irene,” Talbot said. “She’s one of Eric’s children. He tried to kill her after El Segundo. She was involved with the demons there. To her it was a game.”
“What was? El Segundo?”
“No.” Talbot’s tone sent a chill down my spine. “The end of the world.”
“You can’t let him be around her, Tabitha,” Talbot continued. “He’s different around Irene. He’ll kill for the fun of it, just because it turns her on.”
“He’d do that for me.”
“He lets her bite him.”
“That bitch!” Plastic shattered near my ear, splinters gashing through my palm and my fingers. “Ow . . . what the hell?”
I stared at my hand without comprehension during the long seconds it took for me to realize I’d crushed the phone. Plastic hit the ground, and I was moving. “I need to get back to the plane or— Damn it! Where did Eric leave El Alma Perdida?”
“El Alma Perdida?” Aarika asked.
“His magic gun!” I snarled in her face.
“How will a gun help?”
“Ah. Shit. Never mind. It won’t unless he has part of it with him and I have part of it with me.”