by L. A. Banks
"What if you can't?" she said, her voice escalating. "I want a word with you outside. Alone."
He shook his head, no. "I need to stay focused. So do you. Later." He touched her cheek, the voice in his head soft. We'll talk about this later, and please don't kiss me. I'm not going to sleep with them, just play with their heads. Cool?
She covered his hand for a moment and then drew away and nodded, wrapping her arms around her waist.
"All right. We all clear?" Carlos said, restoring order in the room as much as he was restoring it within himself. He wiped away the illusion on the table, needing to draw his energy inward. The multiple kills would send up an inquiry. He'd probably have to go down to Hell for a few hours before being released from council chambers. There'd be much to explain, especially when he didn't have the key or the seal. But the party boat, the feeding frenzy, Damali's armed Guardians, all of that would sound reasonable to some very unreasonable old men—as long as their package wasn't damaged.
Marlene stood slowly, glancing at Father Patrick. "These are pretty old masters, Carlos," she said, her voice calm, but her eyes penetrating. "They've probably seen it all, been everywhere in the world and are jaded. I'd bet good money that plain old human terror at seeing fangs drop doesn't give them a rush anymore. So, before we all walk into certain death, what are you going to do to distract them beyond our girl's enticing performance? No disrespect intended, she's good, so are you, but as an old doll, I like multiple assurances. Call me crazy, but I've got a bad feeling about all of this."
It was a logical question. He had a bad feeling about this, too. Using Damali as a distraction wasn't going to work without some assistance. Carlos nodded and walked over to the coffee table and sat on the couch. He paused, wondering when he'd allowed Damali to extract his brain from his head. This was potentially the stupidest thing he was ever going to do. If council ever found out about this… He blotted out the chairman's possible reaction from his mind.
"Yup, Marlene's right," he said, so casual that it sounded like silk. "I'm going to show you the secret held in blood. The old masters can separate out the scents within it down to a thousand parts per million concentration, like a wine taster would roll a fine cabernet or merlot on their tongue, and can give you the ingredients of its bouquet."
"No shit?" Rider said, glancing at Jose. "You guys have noses that good?" He shook his head and moved in closed, rubbing his jaw, awed.
Carlos glanced up at the fascinated expressions. "It's an art. Our noses are our strong point, which makes it our weak point, same with our sense of touch, and our greatest erogenous zone is our mind." Carlos looked up at Rider. "Once we get an impression, it stays with us forever. A scent," he added, "can linger for hundreds of years." He turned his attention to Big Mike. "The timbre of a voice can take a male master places that—" He glanced at Damali and held her gaze. "Her music will stay in their minds, and her voice is perfect pitch," he said with appreciation, then looked back at the table. "Them seeing her, and what they have seen of her, will lock an image in their skulls. The combination is maddening."
His gaze slid to Shabazz, trying to get them to understand why everything had gone down the way it did between him and Damali, without directly explaining. For some strange reason, that was very important to him now. Father Patrick's anger had hurt, not physically, but his faraway soul. It wasn't about disrespect; it was about something natural to his species that he had about as much control over as breathing, maybe less. There was no way to be with her without biting her.
"A touch is unforgettable." Carlos closed his eyes. Damali's touch, everything about her, was like a drug that left a man disoriented and needing more. "That's why one of the most respected masters in our vampire history—Dracula—woke up after a few hundred years with a woman on his mind, found her reincarnated, and got himself dusted by a young kid and a priest." He waited for Shabazz's nod. "He had smelled her, had tasted her, had touched her, had seen her… and had the sound of her voice driving him nuts in-coffinùhe was strung out by the time he got out, became relentless in his quest, got sloppy." The information was a face-saving apology. "Down in Hell, we don't talk about it; was humiliating to lose a venerated master to that, but trust me, it happens to the best of us."
"Locks in your minds like that?" Big Mike asked. "Damn, you bastards must suffer." He shook his head and stepped back, letting out a long breath of compassion.
"That's why they call it Hell, dude," Rider said, no amusement in his tone.
Carlos wasn't offended. What Rider has said was the truth. "The greatest strength is the greatest weakness—just like ego. Anything can be flipped to turn the tables. Normally, we use it, and are in control," Carlos said, trying to salvage his dignity. "But once in a blue moon," he said, his gaze sliding to Damali against his will, "a male will get an impression imprinted on his senses that will literally fuse with his DNA, and he can't shake it, has no control over it, and it will blow him away." He wanted them to hear that, to truly know he wasn't playing with their girl, especially when they found out later that things were much deeper then they'd imagined. Yeah, she was definitely like a drug… something in his bloodstream.
He jerked his gaze away from Damali; he had to. But the thoughts beginning to ignite within him came together like a quiet nightfall. The room had gone still, the group was looking at him too hard, and he had said too much. "That's why I'm about to create something called 'Oblivion.' It's something that will blow their minds. The negative aspects of my old life are coming in handy, might be useful for something good—damn my territory was bittersweet."
Was… past tense, she was his territory. Sweetness like he couldn't describe. He had to let it go. Bitter reality to the bone. He sat for a moment concentrating, just staring at the table. Now because of a variable, he had to make this stuff in front of her team that he wasn't going to tell her about; they had to know how volatile a substance it was, how it made his kind really react, especially once he found out she was pregnant. The masters and their wives would smell the baby in Damali as soon as she hit the VIP box, unless they had something else stronger in their noses. Last night, that wasn't something they had to deal with. This is what he hated about this whole plan; too many variables.
Damali came near him, squatted by his side, and glanced up.
"You don't have to do what I think you're going to do," she murmured. "We can go in without pure Neteru."
He shook his head. "Marlene is right. I don't want to risk you, not at this point."
"If you make this in here, are you gonna be all right, is the question." She looked at him hard, and shot a nervous glance around the room.
"I'll be cool," Carlos said, rolling his shoulders. "Just back up off me, aw'ight? Won't be able to handle the fumes from the contact and the touch, understand?"
She nodded and went to the far side of the room, all eyes on her, then on Carlos. "Watch the man and learn some deep science about vampires," she said, trying not to sound shaken. "This info is beyond valuable, and could save your life."
"Thanks, baby," Carlos murmured, and then glanced at Marlene to clear his mind. "Mar, you're right. They've seen it all, but they've never seen this." He opened his palm as the group gathered around him tighter, and slit it with his nail.
Dark ruby blood bubbled up in the center of it, and he made a fist and dripped a slowly spreading circle of it on the table. "Watch what the atmosphere does to it," he said, standing and walking away from the table. "You put holy water, hallowed earth, or silver to the black side, and it will torch. A little bit of sacred substance ignites at the source of impact and then rockets through our systems like touching a match to an internal gasoline line, our veins—that's why the Isis, or a silver-tipped arrow dipped in holy water, whatever, explodes vampires from the inside out." He looked up for a moment. "We can't take a nick, either, from some stuff."
The group kept their gaze fixed to the blood as it beaded up and separated into two smaller circles—one blot, black; on
e blot a deep crimson with an iridescent shimmer to it. Carlos covered his nose and mouth with his hand as his eyes began to water. He was grateful that Damali had the presence of mind not to go to him or even lacerate with her lovely voice.
"You all right, man?" Big Mike asked, making the group stare at Carlos.
Carlos shook his head. "No," he said on a heavy exhale. "Throw me your dagger, Damali, and somebody go get me a wet towel so I can breathe long enough to cut this product."
He coughed and walked toward the terrace, opened the doors, and bent over the rail. There wasn't enough fresh air on the planet to get the scent of ripening Neteru, saturated with adrenaline, out of his system. Her essence after a demon blood hunt with a double-plunge siphon kick—hurling toward the vanishing pointùthere was no substance close to it. This was from a bite before she'd conceived, he hadn't bitten her after that—had to find the safe house and had burned his fuel out by then. Bittersweet irony; a variable on their side for once. But what was filling the air was making his eyes cross.
No one said a word as Carlos caught the towel Dan tossed him, and he covered his face, then just his mouth and nose with it. Damali didn't throw him the dagger, but instead gave it to Big Mike, who placed it on the coffee table and backed up for Carlos.
On shaky legs Carlos came back into the room, shut the doors behind him to keep the prayer barrier seal in place, sat down fast, and removed the towel, blowing out a slow stream of air to freeze and crystallize the two drying blood puddles. In twenty-four hours, this rare hemoglobin extract would be gone from his system, and hers would never produce it again… not that strong, not that pure—he knew it as he stared at the frozen ovals of life. She wouldn't allow another vampire to come near her like this, and no human male could take her system there to radiate it with endorphin rush the way he had. Maybe it was the drug talking, but a part of him was becoming depressed as he thought of how precious what had been spilled on the table was… and so like them, frozen. In stasis. Unable to come together, because it was unnatural.
"You all right, man?" Rider's voice was like a call across an ocean.
"Yeah," Carlos murmured, and began working with shaky hands. "Being a councilman has its added powers," he said, trying to joke away his pain. He tried not to think of anything but the task before him, tried not to let the product rule him as he used Damali's dagger to crush the red crystals into a fine powder. He almost licked the blade, but nipped the dagger to use the clean sideùthen remembered. If he touched the black blood with it, he'd start a fire in the room. Yeah, he was fucked up just from the contact. Having to keep the doors to the terrace shut was messing him up.
"Get me something to cut with—just make sure it doesn't have silver in it. I have to hurry up and cut the other side without blowing up the room."
Relief wafted through him as Rider tossed him his bowie knife. He could transcend this shit. He was a councilman. Sweat broke out on his brow.
Quickly, he performed the same procedure on his black blood, put the towel up to his face for a moment, and materialized empty gelatin capsules, drew the contents into them to seal off the airborne fragrance, then quickly stood and walked toward the terrace.
Sweat poured down his temples, wet his back, and made his nose run. His incisors had lowered, and for a few seconds, he could only see red. "Somebody go wash that Isis blade off," he ordered, unable to even look at it when Big Mike took it off the table. "Rider, you, too… the black blood is like acid on human skin, will fuck you up bad if you touch it."
Carlos pulled in several breaths of cool night air, thankful that council-level status gave him a little more resistance and willpower, albeit not much. He shut his eyes when the train of Damali's dress came into his peripheral vision. "Tell her to walk across the room and fucking stay there!"
He heard her swift footsteps, the swish of her dress like a hard rake down his back, could feel her pulse across the room—could smell her. He shut his eyes tight. Not here, and not in her condition.
"Aw'ight," he said, once Damali was out of arm's reach, and then came back into the room, shutting the doors again to keep the privacy prayer barriers intact. "Like she once said, whatever you died knowing how to do alive, you take with you when dead, so listen up." He nodded toward the table, but had to talk away from it, pointing behind him. "That right there, is the equivalent of master vampire kryptonite." He shuddered and started pacing, trying of get it out of his system. "It cannot be found anywhere on the planet. No one else but Damali can manufacture it, and only under certain conditions… I just happened to have it in my system from the last twenty-four hours—do not ask."
"Damn, man, it fucks y'all up like that?" Shabazz stooped down and looked at the red capsules. "What's in the black ones?"
"That's my blood. Hers is red with an iridescence that burns your insides like quicksilver, then cools it to a shiver. The shit is near-lethal, man. Will make you burst blood vessels in your brain and black out if you take in too much too fast."
"Her blood can turn those SOBs on so much they could have a pleasure stroke?" Rider was incredulous.
"Normal human blood drenched with adrenaline has a kick, but not like this stuff," Carlos said through labored breaths. "My blood is for the wives we have to deal with. It'll make them come to me instead of their masters." Carlos let out a slow breath. "With the charge that's running through that, you guys can stake the masters right in front of their wives, and the females won't care. Trust me. The black pill is vampire Ecstasy."
"Deep." Shabazz picked up the red pill and held it up to the light, squinting at it with one eye closed. "This don't seem to amp them down, though, brother." He looked at Carlos "If anything, it makes them strong as shit."
"Let the air around that shit settle, 'Bazz. Give me a minute." Carlos bent over and tried to take in slow breaths, but failed. "Oh, damn."
"I think this is way too dangerous a substance to be carrying into a vamp fest," Marlene warned.
"That's why Jose is gonna have to be my mule. I can't carry it, and he's the only one with enough diluted tracer to pass as a lower-level lieutenant. This shit makes 'em distracted," Carlos said, breathing hard. "Focused on one thing. They get sloppy. Senses concentrated on a single objective." He walked out to the terrace again as the team just stared at his back. He blotted his brow with the back of his forearm, and after a moment came back in. But he kept to the perimeter of the room, and refused to look at Damali.
"Here's the deal," he said, finally able to get himself together enough to speak. "The female vamps are programmed to defend their master if he's about to get smoked. The black pill will make them so buzzed, they'll laugh when he calls. They'll be too high to care what else is going on. The red pill will make the masters wide open to Damali's suggestions—and very unlikely to work as a unit to try to smoke me. Just don't mix up the pills when you mule a delivery for me, Jose. The reverse will be problematic. And don't touch the black ones; scrape them off the table into a plastic bag, or something; might be powder on the outside of the caps. Wipe that table down, good, too, so the maid doesn't lose a finger."
"What the hell is in this stuff, man?" Rider stood up and raked his fingers through his hair. "You don't have this in circulation in LA, do you?"
Damali gave Carlos a sly glance and looked at the floor. That slight action drew his focus to her, but he pulled his gaze away. He couldn't even look at her. His hands were trembling.
"No. It ain't nowhere else, man. This is the only batch. She knows about our kind from close study and from going undercover," Carlos murmured. "Ask her, but don't ask me what's in it. All I'ma say is, I hope in this little home demonstration that Marlene's valid, but unnecessary, concern about how to break their focus has been answered." He looked at Damali hard, unable to do anything else. "That's the only reason I did this—put myself through this bullshit, is so you all could see what you're dealing with when you guard a Neteru."
"Information is power," Damali said quietly, stepping back when C
arlos winced from the sound of her voice. "Sorry…"
"Yup," Marlene said, staring at Damali carefully. "They can't even get this with the rare occurrence of a Neteru on earth if they bit her now," she said, her voice wise, as she went to Carlos with caution. She placed her hand on his shoulder, sensing, healing, stabilizing him. "This isn't just about a ripening, her normal blood, is it?"
"No, ma'am."
Marlene patted his thickened shoulder and stared up at him. "I didn't think it was." She touched his face. "So, we'll use this wisely, will protect the package, and make sure we don't raise Hell. Need you around, brother… and I know it was hard to slit a vein and give that to us."
All he could do was nod and look away from Marlene. "Thanks, Mar. This is between A and B, right?"
"Absolutely. You're on our side."
"Cool. Thanks."
"Jose, man. Can I have a word? Mano y mano." Carlos nodded toward the door, and wasn't offended when the young Guardian hesitated and the others got tense. "It's peace. But if you're gonna mule for me, and be first body next to my woman—you have got to get schooled on some serious protocol… and I have got to get out of this room."
* * *
Chapter Twenty-One
The walk down the hallway seemed unending. The farther away from Damali he got, the deeper the ache. It was impossible to stop glancing over his shoulder, past Jose's terrified eyes, to where she was. This wasn't just his woman any longer; this was the mother of his child. As it would have been in life, so it ironically wound up being in death, his primary male objective at DNA-base-level-imprint was to protect the line going forward.
A new river of sweat was running down the center of his back. He wiped his face with both hands, breathing into them, the smell of her blood still on them in the cut that was slow to seal. "Oh, shit, man, you have no idea," Carlos said on a hard exhale, and put his hands behind his back, walking away from Jose.