“When do you leave, child?” Grams lowered her teacup with a gentle clink, bringing me back to the conversation.
“The ticket’s for tomorrow night.”
“And you’ll use it?”
Bouchards run, Grams. Mom did. “I’m at Sable’s tonight—I’ll let him know he’s not escorting me to the Midnight Ball tomorrow. He can’t insist if I’m not in town.” I looked at Paul, shrugged apologetically. “Don’t—”
“Don’t tell Emerson ‘til you’re gone.”
“But you’ll return?” She might as well have been politely asking when she’d need to change the sheets, but I realized I’d made that decision already.
“When they get him, Grams. Promise.”
Her mouth tightened, but she accepted it gracefully with only a nod. I repeated the promise to myself. Maybe I’d be able to keep this one.
* * *
To my relief (I really didn’t want to tell him I knew about his ass-dimples), Paul seemed to have decided to drop his questions about what happened at Acacia’s. He’d stood watch while I slept, for which I was even more grateful; it didn’t matter that the contracted professional who’d bled out all over her carpet had managed to slip by Oz and Steve outside, Grams still refused to let strangers invade her home.
Paul drove me to Sable’s like it was a normal night, which meant that I left him a block away and arrived out of mist on Sable’s doorstep. Henry, Sable’s hulking doorman, didn’t blink when I changed to flesh right behind a pair of fang fans. I was back in my high waisted and buttoned down skirt outfit that bordered on Gothic Lolita and there was no way I could carry the Desert Eagle, but my poofed skirts hid the Kel-Tec in its thigh holster quite nicely, an advantage I hadn’t appreciated before. With the stakes in my boots, I felt confident I could handle anyone jumping me here—not that it was likely.
Anyone could attend Sable’s “salons” by RSVP’ing, and he always had at least one or two other vamps in attendance. I had to stay no less than one hour and take at least one “supplicant” before I left—that was our deal. Sable didn’t choose for himself until late in the night, when his current Lucy would inform his choices of their good fortune and his small party would retire to his rooms, ending the evening’s festivities.
Half his choices would be his favorites, but half were always new blood.
Working my way inside, I found the place as stuffy and crowded as ever. There had to be close to thirty wannabes and fang fans in the parlor, more in the hall. They pressed even tighter tonight; Sable had decided to have his portrait done, so he lounged in his gold leafed chair while the portrait artist worked on his profile. The space blocked off for the artist and his easel, guarded by a velvet rope nobody dared touch, left less room for the rest of us.
Evangeline stood on Sable’s right so he’d have someone to talk to, and he held a crystal goblet filled with red wine in his left hand, white flounced sleeves with bloodstone cufflinks and crimson cravat adding color to his black regency outfit. His blond curls were almost as styled as Evangeline’s, who looked a little pale under her makeup.
Even my influence couldn’t buy me much space, but when I squeezed my way to the front Sable smiled to see me—and frowned minutely when I failed to curtsy, never part of our deal. He put down his glass, kissed Evangeline’s hand, and rose to “make a leg” in a showy bow of his own.
“Jacqueline, how good of you to come.” The sly bastard hid a smirk as his play forced a half-hearted curtsy out of me. His extended hand forced me to take it, and he planted a lingering kiss on my wrist. A raised eyebrow was his only observation on the nearly invisible line that showed under the edge of my glove, the fast fading reminder of my donation to Acacia.
Behind him Evangeline smile vacuously, the very picture of an empty-headed Lucy.
He released my hand, straightening. “A pleasure, as always,” he whispered. “Will you join our intimate party tonight, my dear?” He added another smile and a touch of influence to the request. Did he think he was being playful?
I lowered my voice. “Would that I could.” Hell no. “Perhaps another night.” After the sun dies of natural causes. “Sadly, tomorrow night I must take my leave of New Orleans. I will greatly miss the opportunity to attend the Midnight Ball in your delightful company.” Seriously, I’d practiced for Sable’s by forcing myself to read regency romance bodice-rippers.
The frown came back. “Trouble? May I be of assistance?”
“Family. Responsibilities. I am sure you understand.” I channeled Evangeline and batted my eyes, playing to the audience. If I ever told Hope about this, she’d die laughing. Sable accepted it, if only because grilling me on the spot would break our little pantomime, and released my hand with expressions of tragic regret. A regal wave indicated that I was free to snack on his court. Partake was the word he used, like a fancy word changed anything.
The menu was broad as always, from barely legal to mid-thirties, anorexic to abundant, in many shades of goth (mostly Regency to Victorian, but no punk). The low light and the room’s overuse of red made them look washed out, phantoms enlivened by sparks of color off of theater jewelry. Positioning myself behind the portrait artist let me put my back to the room without being obvious. He really was quite good.
At Angels I would have instantly formed a court, but here most everyone knew that I would only pick one of them while Sable might choose five or six later (I assumed he sipped lightly and paced himself). So they hung close, but the room’s center of gravity and the nexus of the crowd’s Brownian motion remained the throne. I had fun bouncing them off of me, like an electron-repelling molecule; they would greet me with Regency Speak and bad accents, and I would compliment their costumes and remark on how beautiful the night was while using influence to give them the unconscious willies.
Eventually I acquired a bubble of space, par for the course at Sable’s, and could relax a bit. Except I didn’t; the entire time I was getting more and more edgy without knowing why. Finally, enough time passed that I could eat and run, and I nearly grabbed the girl standing closest to me—an alternately excited and nervous rockabilly goth with Betty Page hair and clunky shoes who showed more imagination than the rest of them despite her nerves. Taking her hand, I pulled us out of the parlor and down the hall in a rush that left a wake of startled babble behind us.
“I—I’m not sure I want to do this,” were her first words as I closed the study door.
“That’s a shock.” I turned and leaned against it, smiling with fang. “I can make you want to.” I’d been planning on quick, but now I realized I’d picked her for a reason. Her pale skin tone was makeup—she wasn’t a serious light-adverse goth—but in the dim light of the table lamp she got paler.
I pushed away from the door and stalked towards her, eyes on her neck. She backed up until the old roll-top desk stopped her short.
“Have you heard of implied consent?” I asked conversationally, ignoring her rising panic. “With vampires, implied consent means that if someone like you knowingly goes to a gathering where bloodsuckers like me will be picking up donors, they cannot later claim that they were forced unless there are witnesses to their attempted rejection. The place for that was outside this private room.” I ended the lecture inches from her neck. Using my arms to frame her, I trapped her against the edge of the desk. Under the perspiration she smelled like lilies, but I ignored my sudden thirst.
“You can’t—”
“I just finished telling you I can. What do you do when the sun is up?”
“I—I’m a waitress.”
“Read a lot?”
“Yes.” It was practically a squeak. Looking close, I saw the Betty Page hair was a wig. Raising a hand, I twisted a red lock into view. Betty flinched away.
“I can guess what you read. So tonight is your grand adventure? I hope you’re having a good time, because now your only choice is whether you will amusingly resist or relax and… enjoy it.”
I pushed with the last words, an
d her eyes widened as her cheeks flushed. She stopped leaning away, and I waited till there was no light between us before dropping the influence. She gave a strangled gasp and shrank away again, starting to cry.
“But I lie,” I said softly. “You have one more choice. You can choose to remember my kiss, and believe me, there’s nothing else like it. It’s very addictive—you may spend the rest of your life depending on the kindness of strangers like me for a high you won’t get anywhere else… Or I can make you forget. You’ll feel pretty damn good afterwards—like an endorphin high—without knowing why.”
“Please,” she said. “Please, I want to go.” A hopeless declaration more than a plea. I kissed her on the cheek and stepped back.
“Wonderful. Did you drive or take a taxi? Or did you come with friends?”
It turned out she’d changed and walked from the café where she waitressed, so I called Paul and got us out the side door. Paul picked us up and got directions, without commentary on my companion’s tear streaked makeup. I gave a gradually recovering Jenny—she hadn’t chosen a goth name—a list of suggestions as he drove. Dancing. Hang gliding. Extreme sports. Anything that meant reading less vamp-lit and getting out more. When we dropped her off outside her apartment she went quietly.
“Rescuing them physically, now?” Paul asked once she’d disappeared inside.
I sighed. “Practicing catch-and-release.” I wasn’t ready to tell him what I’d decided. No more fang fans, no more courts, just old fashioned felony assault. Paul might have seriously mixed feelings on the issue, but my meals weren’t going to come back for seconds anymore. “I’m pretty sure I just burned my bridges with Sable, anyway.”
I had no idea how right I was.
Chapter Twenty Three
"All was dark and silent, the black shadows thrown by the moonlight seeming full of a silent mystery of their own. Not a thing seemed to be stirring, but all to be grim and fixed as death or fate, so that a thin streak of white mist, that crept with almost imperceptible slowness across the grass towards the house, seemed to have a sentience and a vitality of its own."
Bram Stoker, Dracula.
“Okay, that may have been me.”
Jacky Bouchard, The Artemis Files.
* * *
Once you’re thirsty you’re thirsty. Paul let me off on Chartres and I found a lonely drug dealer who tasted like he sampled his product. I justified it on the grounds that tomorrow night I’d be on an airplane and I wouldn’t want to hunt my first night back in Chicago. Checking the guy’s wallet, I stole his fitness club card and made a mental note to let Emerson pass his name to vice.
The small hours of the night were my favorite time, when even the most determined partiers and human predators had mostly gone to bed. The sliver of moon rode low in the sky as I walked the quarter, and I could smell the Mississippi in the wind.
It didn’t smell like Lake Michigan.
Really, I walked to prove I could. No other vamps rode the wind, no tails skulked after me. Whatever nastiness Acacia’s sire had planned, it wasn’t happening tonight and now that the DSA was on the job he couldn’t have that many nights left. I hoped. If I was Catholic like Hope, I’d light a thousand candles and pray that the monster wouldn’t let them take him “alive”. Saints probably didn’t answer prayers like that. Or listen to vampires.
I walked up Esplanade as the predawn light washed out the stars. Letting myself in, I passed Legba (Grams let him out to wander the house at night, putting him away when he came back to his room for breakfast). He flicked his tongue at me before gliding away. Grams wouldn’t be up until later; working the “night shift” like she did, she’d open her eyes around noon and be ready to see me off when I rose tonight.
In my room I changed into my black nightgown and tied up my hair, debated calling Hope to let her know I was coming, and decided against it. Opening the wall to my crypt, I engaged its security and climbed into my coffin, sealing out the world for another day.
* * *
The ear-stabbing wail of the security alarm from hell shattered my breathless sleep, and I smashed my head and knees convulsively trying to sit up. Then my world tipped as somebody pushed my coffin off its stand. What? Thoughts slow, I tried to wake up under the weight of the sun, to untangle my dead arms. My coffin rang like a gong, bounced. I laughed, snarled. Someone had tried to blow it open.
Which meant they’d penetrated my safe room crypt. Which meant they’d gotten past Paul’s security and Grams.
I finally found the nightlight, switched it on and realized the side of my coffin had become the floor. I ran my fingers along the edge of the lid. The seal was good, the bank safe quality armor held. A second explosion, distant this time. The coffin tipped again, flipping me on top of the closed lid and raining bits of pressed dirt down on me, then slid to stop hard—against a wall?
My phone had slid somewhere unfindable, I didn’t know what was going on, and I realized the weakness of my coffin’s design: no vents. It was airtight and I was trapped, even assuming my crypt wasn’t open to sunlight now—which might have been the second explosion.
Then my feet started to warm and I realized vents might not be a problem. They were burning their way in.
At my feet? Why? I ground my teeth, trying to think around the sick screaming rage that filled my head. Grams could be dead. If they cut a hole for me I’d take a chance on the sunlight—I could at least pull somebody’s spine out while I lit up like a tiki torch.
My phone rang by my head and I scrambled for it, pulled it free of the matting it had snagged in.
“Jacky?” Paul’s voice, high, intense.
“Yes!”
“Are you safe?”
“They’re burning through my coffin! What is wrong with you?”
“We’re coming! Don’t come out!” He disconnected and I screamed at the air. With a skittering pop and a splatter of burning steel, they breached. I dropped the phone and flailed my bare feet, hissing as spatter burned into my flesh.
I’d rip their arms off, let them see the error of their ways while they bled out. I’d never considered it before, but get a grip and brace a foot against someone’s rib cage… A metal pipe poked in by my feet and icy water roared in under high pressure. Water? Were they trying to drown me?
I kicked at the pipe out of reflex, but it had a hooked cap that kept me from pushing it out and high-pressure water sprayed over my nightgown-tangled legs. Water? I started laughing hysterically. The nightlight shorted out, and when the flow cut off I lay in the dark in maybe three inches of water, screaming and swearing and giggling.
It was easy to lose track of time when I didn’t even have a heartbeat to count, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes before someone flipped my coffin back over, starting me swearing again. I was so kicking somebody’s ass.
The same someone whacked the lid with what sounded like a crowbar, rhythmically and repeatedly. Paul? He certainly couldn’t call—the phone was underwater. If it wasn’t Paul I’d get to kill somebody, so, win-win: I threw the bolts, pushed, squinted at the light. Not direct sunlight. Paul reached down and grabbed my hand.
“So this is what you look like in the morning?”
* * *
Grams wrapped my feet, which was totally unnecessary; the deep pits from the spattered steel were already closing and I certainly didn’t feel them. I think it made her feel better.
The hunters had attacked after Grams had gone out with Legba to do a ritual cleansing for a client, and they’d taken down Oz and Steve, non-lethally but with all the silent efficiency of an elite paramilitary team. Killing a vampire was one thing—even in the Big Easy a lot of people thought the only good vamp was a dead one—but killing two cops, even off-duty cops, would have brought hell down on them.
Paul had been out meeting Dupree. He’d called him last night without my knowing and Dupree had come back to town, so they’d been just a few blocks away when the security firm monitoring my crypt alarms repor
ted the breach.
Paul acted casual about it, but to me it looked like the two of them had gone crazy trying to reach me. They’d tried to shoot their way in but had been kept away from the crypt until the masked hunters blew a hole in the outside wall to let in the sun. Then they’d broken into the house next door—nobody home, Thank you, God—and laid fire into the crypt from the second story windows. At that point the hunters had probably thought I was dead (I wasn’t sure a holy water bath would kill a normal vamp, but it had obviously been their backup plan when they couldn’t crack my coffin). They’d bailed out the back and escaped—leaving my heroes to pull me out of my banged-up box, madder than hell, burned, soaked, and covered in garden dirt.
“I don’t understand,” Dupree said again, watching Grams work. Oz and Steve had been replaced by a new security team, for all the good they were doing, and the rest of us sat in the kitchen. A fire truck and two police cars were parked outside, but no fires had spread and Paul had control of the “crime scene” for now.
“Jacqueline is special,” Grams said simply.
“Grams…” I forced the burning anger down, but didn’t let go of it—if I did I’d have to deal with the fear that would stop my breath if I had any. I turned to Dupree. “They filled my coffin with holy water. At least I’m pretty sure they didn’t do all that just to give me a bath. It should have been an acid bath to me, but like Grams says, I’m special. Holy things don’t bother me—please don’t spread it around.”
Paul ran fingers through his hair. “This is nuts.”
“No, really? It’s all kinds of insane. Why?”
“Be sensible, child. You have enemies.” Grams lowered my foot and I tucked it under my robe.
“No Grams, I meant why like this? If Acacia’s sire still wanted me, all he’d have had to do was wait for tonight when every vamp in town will be at the Midnight Ball—it’s not like he knows I’m leaving town.” No, he had come after me in my home, where people I loved…
Bite Me: Big Easy Nights Page 15