Golden light spilled from doors and windows, their steel shutters left unusually open. A sweeping drive and a huge parking lot showed that the enormous house still offered lavish hospitality, to the right people at least.
It amused Celeste, as it had her predecessors, to maintain Rosemeade as it had been before The War between the States. Back then, Louisiana cotton planters could become millionaires with two excellent crops in a row, and the world had offered its finest goods in homage.
The walls and floors were still the same ancient, highly polished wood, which showcased the great central staircase rising to the cupola. Silk covered the walls and poured from the curtain rods. Ornate wood carvings graced the furniture and accented the high ceilings. Crystal chandeliers and lamps cast dancing reflections across table linens and exotic carpets.
For two centuries, Rosemeade had been the country retreat of the New Orleans patrones, ever increasing its reputation for both decadence and impregnability. Celeste and Georges had worked hard to make it invulnerable, proven when they’d successfully fought off multiple attacks by disloyal subjects.
She’d eventually had to purge her realm with Georges’s help, in order to stop those rebellions. Six vampiros in Memphis, eleven in Miami…Those two foolish, blond vampiras in Atlanta who’d thought their feminine charms could distract Georges from his allegiance! Once he’d made a particularly bloody example of them, she hadn’t encountered any other traitors. They’d had a delicious private party here to celebrate the victory.
But dammit, nothing—nothing at all!—had come together in this war against Don Rafael. He was still strutting like a peacock in Texas, while she was cooped up here in Louisiana, unable to leave her properties to choose a decent meal. This was not the way any of her wars had proceeded before.
She’d given Beau permission, and money, to hunt for a chink in Don Rafael’s armor—find someone whose loss would break him. Had he found anyone? No!
Was she going slowly broke, paying for him, extra guards on all her properties, and lost income from her investments? Yes!
Intolerable!
Celeste pushed herself away from the great column and stomped back inside to her bedroom, ignoring her bodyguards. They might be close at hand, but they’d so far proven too young to be useful for anything more than driving a car and shooting a gun.
Her reliance, as ever, was on Georges. Her darling Georges.
She automatically logged in to the videoconference, her mind elsewhere while she snarled at the impassive menu.
“Cher madame.” Georges’s deep voice broke the silence, lingering over the first single soft syllable until it sounded like shah.
Unlike other Cajun men who casually addressed almost every woman as cher, Georges only gave her that honor, because only she meant sweetness to him. And when he combined two words and called her cher madame, it was the very greatest of honors, since he loathed all respectable women. The titles were unforced gifts, too, offered out of his love for her.
Celeste opened her mouth to remonstrate with him and stopped. He had, as ever, been perfect. Ever since he’d escaped from Death Row at Angola Prison, Louisiana’s supposedly escape-proof penitentiary, he’d been hers and he’d always been—perfect for her needs.
She threw her martini glass against the wall.
“Has something new happened, cher?” Georges’s eyebrows flew up. He had brown hair, brown eyes, average face, average build—all mixed with the intense viciousness of a starving cobra. Except for moments when they were alone and his gaze shifted to an alcoholic’s desperate passion for the only wine cellar in the world.
“Some of my overseas investments have been dropping in value, dammit. I can smell Don Rafael’s filthy hand at work.”
“Salopard!”
She made a very rude gesture of agreement.
“Do you want me to turn my attention to killing the pig, cher?”
“No, let Beau be the one to risk his neck. You’re my best hope.”
Georges nodded reluctant acceptance. Beau’s experience as an assassin would be better for this than Georges’s past as a serial killer.
“What false trail is that blond chasing tonight?”
“It’s the Fourth of July, and Don Rafael has promised to light fireworks at the local celebration.” Georges rolled his eyes. “So the famous Russian assassin is crawling through the hills, hoping for a glimpse of the female Don Rafael is supposedly obsessed with.”
“Impossible! Even Don Rafael isn’t enough of an honorable fool to expose himself and his slut at a public gathering. It would serve Beau right if fire ants devoured his private parts.”
“It might be the only way to finally discover a chink in Don Rafael’s armor.”
“The woman—and destroy her? True, very true.” Celeste cheered up, nibbling on a long fingernail. Oh, the delicious ways to have that slut beg for her life while Don Rafael watched!
She beamed at her faithful enforcer, never seeing Raoul’s watchful presence in the great pier glass mirror behind her.
“Have you been feeding well, down there in the wilds?”
“Ah, cher madame!” An enormous grin split his face. “The fat Texas cows have been pampered for so long, they fire up immediately when I introduce them to terror. Their blood is the finest I have ever tasted.”
“Excellent! The unexplained deaths—and suicides?” Georges nodded, his smirk deepening. “Must be driving Don Rafael insane. How are your bandolerismo coming, those untamed vampiros who will infect Texas and destroy it from the inside like maggots?”
Good, old-fashioned bandits, the bane of every law-abiding patrón like Don Rafael. Of course, she’d thrown them out of her esfera, too. But they did have their uses at times, like now.
“They’re not hard to find, especially since that young Mexican patrón started helping us. The difficulty’s been getting them into Texas, and I’ve finished doing that.” He straightened up even more until he was standing at attention.
“You’ve gotten them into Texas?” She stared, her jaw falling open, before glorious possibilities began to suggest themselves. “Magnifique, Georges! If I was there with you, cher, we’d celebrate for the rest of the night.”
She blew a kiss at him, blood humming through her veins. Oh my, the problems she could cause for the sanctimonious Don Rafael now…
But first things, first.
“Cher, your bandolerismo need to investigate Don Rafael’s commanderies, those hidey holes for his men and armaments. Since they’re obviously good at sneaking around, your devils should be able to find out—”
“Weak points, watch patterns, garrison size, and so on? Of course, I’ve already ordered them to hunt those out.” Georges eyes shone with excitement.
“Send me the list of vampiros and their whereabouts; I may be able to think of other places for them to investigate.”
“Are you sure that’s safe, cher?”
“I’m well able to scent—and punish”—she smiled reminiscently—“anyone who’d dare look at private files on my computer. Nobody’d dare risk their life by sneaking around in my rooms.”
“You’ll have it immediately, cher. Are we finally going to attack the Texans?”
She nodded, her fangs hinting at the traditional preliminary to a vampiro duel. She wasn’t a shapeshifter, of course; that was for duelists, something she’d never needed to become. She’d always done far, far better by selecting a man with the appropriate skills—such as dueling, or shapeshifting—and controlling him with sexual hunger. “Ah, oui, it’s time to start some real trouble, mon cher.”
They smiled at each other, in perfect accord, despite the miles between them.
THREE WEEKS LATER
Jean-Marie surfaced a mile downstream from Rosemeade, beside Lars. Thankfully, he hadn’t encountered another one of the alligators who’d taken a chunk out of his leg the last time he’d visited that hellhole, just before Don Rafael’s duel. That wound had left him with a limp he’d had a damn hard ti
me explaining to his creador.
The two swimmers hoisted themselves into their waiting boat, indistinguishable from hundreds of other shabby weekend cruisers used for drinking beer, bragging about fish, and occasionally getting laid. Neither of them said a word until they’d put another five miles between them and any possible pursuit.
The engine purred, the craft’s sole sign of wealth. Water rubbed against the hull, a more solid form of the humidity which tried to catch a man’s breath. Moss-shrouded trees, and strange calls faded into darkness.
Jean-Marie automatically adjusted his course, following a route he’d known for decades. He’d first marked it during the Texas Revolution to smuggle gold into Texas. It had come in handy during the Civil War for avoiding “Spoons” Butler’s occupation of New Orleans. Private negotiations with the New Orleans’ patrones before Prohibition had strengthened his knowledge of it. He’d hidden his memories after Madame Celeste came to power, of course. She’d heard of smugglers’ and trappers’ paths through the bayous, but she didn’t know where they were. She focused on urban roads, not muddy, mosquito-ridden waters—and, thankfully, kept Georges so busy he didn’t have time to hunt down every possible route.
He tossed a can of cheap brew to his now-clean companion. “Think we can get anyone inside the house?”
“If we had a year to spare.” Lars settled onto a bench, his eyes sweeping the surrounding bayou with the same unemotional thoroughness as the nearby alligator. “Rice fields are wide open, though.”
Apparently satisfied at the lack of immediate danger, he tilted his head back for a quick taste of the ice-cold beer.
Jean-Marie grunted, wishing he could swill the appalling pap as readily. “Guess we’ll have another look at it, after we take out Madame Celeste’s next transfer point for drugs.”
He was careful, as always, not to give Lars a direct order. Only Rafael did that; nobody else dared to, lest they trigger a flashback to some impenetrable hell. It was far better to give him room to maneuver.
“Tomorrow night we’ll bust that place.” Despite his apparent calm, vicious anticipation glinted briefly in his eyes. After almost eighty years, Jean-Marie still hadn’t found anything Lars couldn’t do for Rafael. Or wouldn’t.
“And we’ll call the Feds…” Jean-Marie mused, rubbing his finger over the boat’s steering wheel.
“After the bad guys are disposed of.” The faintest possible emphasis went on the first word, in the equivalent of any other man’s shout.
“Of course.”
They shared a smile. An unspoken understanding of those details was one of the reasons they were able to work together. It wasn’t the same type of teamwork he’d shared so many years ago with his beloved Hélène, and God knows he never quite dared to turn his back on Lars, but it was still satisfying to work with a master craftsman.
Water danced away from the boat under its few running lights, like ripples in time. An echoing frisson danced through his skin.
Lights rippled over his smart phone, and he frowned. Texas, of course, but why? He snapped it open. “Yes?”
“I need my heraldo back in Texas immediately,” Rafael announced without preamble. “A private plane has left for Dallas, carrying a vampira.”
“Certainly, sir,” Jean-Marie answered, quickly considering ways and means for leaving New Orleans. “Who is she?”
Rafael was silent.
What the hell? Who is she?
Lars was watching him, eyes narrowed.
“Hélène d’Agelet, mi hijo,” his creador said at last.
Jean-Marie stiffened, a wild roaring in his ears like a thousand cascades pouring out rainbows. Alive, alive, alive… Dared he believe after all these centuries of loneliness?
“She has been alive all these years, but the British Secret Service kept her existence a secret, as their greatest weapon.”
He grunted an acknowledgment, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. He’d always avoided England on his travels as much as possible, so it was possible she could have escaped his notice.
Hélène, alive. His love, his only love, coming here…
It had been two centuries, so she should be free of her contract with the British. They could build a life together in Texas. Together, forever with his family.
Texas. Rafael’s esfera.
Molten pain smashed into Jean-Marie’s gut and ripped through his lungs and windpipe until he could barely breathe.
How could he have been such a fool as to have forgotten Rafael’s rules, and their bitter corollary?
Every vampiro Rafael had created in Texas was sworn to obey the laws of Texas, on pain of death. Rafael had always killed any hijo who’d dared to turn his lover into a vampiro, considering such behavior a threat to his—and Texas’s—security. Jean-Marie had always thought him right to do so, since those men’s taste in lovers was dubious at best.
He personally followed Rafael out of love, not because he was sworn to Texas. But he knew damn well that if he married someone who wasn’t Rafael’s hijo—or hija, impossibility though that was—his only choices were her or exile from Texas and his family.
Merde.
Hélène contemplated the bottle of amber, fizzing Corona Gold beer, crowned by a sliver of brilliant green. Spotlights glowed like lost spaceships in the condensation dripping slowly down its sides. Given the mid-July heat in Texas, even at midnight, ice-cold beer made perfect sense, and she’d always enjoyed a good lager. But a lime wedge? Why would anyone want one of those in their beer? On the other hand, this nightclub felt like a foreign place, so why shouldn’t they serve strange drinks?
Formerly a warehouse, the Capital Rose was now the most popular club in Austin for the college-age crowd interested in country, blues, and whatever else hit the marquee. On the inside, vibrant posters covered uneven limestone blocks, while iron beams crisscrossed underneath the tin ceiling. Willie Nelson smiled at Norah Jones from their posters, and Asleep at the Wheel partnered Los Lonely Boys near the bar. Old 97’s and Brave Combo prowled above the pool table. Spoon and Steve Earle, Lisa Loeb and Sara Hickman marched up the walls by the upholstered seats. Billiard balls’ irregular clack told of pool tables in a back room.
A tall man who would have looked more at home in a pro wrestling arena had been singing a mix of classic Mississippi Delta blues ballads and up-tempo Western Swing dance anthems. Now his deep baritone voice was making love to the Righteous Brothers’ hit, “Unchained Melody,” helped by the trumpeter from his band’s intriguingly Latino brass section. An enthusiastic crowd occupied both the theater-style seats near the stage and the long bar farther away, but only a few of them had trickled into the balcony near her.
After more than an hour here, she still hadn’t connected with anyone. Of course, she’d never been good at picking up strangers. She’d rather start with interesting conversation—something intellectual and complicated, like poetry or quantum physics. Her best meals back home in Oxford had always started in her library.
Oddly, she was the only woman here alone. There weren’t even any single women at the bar trying to pick up men.
There were certainly enough prime male specimens available—like the blond eyeing her from the bar, or the burly guy at the foot of the stairs. All she had to do was smile at one of them or go down and say hello to someone else. She wouldn’t even need to add a little vampiro charm.
But here, so close to where Jean-Marie must live? He of the blue eyes, crooked smile, and the wickedly skillful hands whose touch could melt a woman’s resolve? Who could think about anyone other than him? Not her, even though she intellectually knew she needed to keep her strength up in order to find him.
Austin was a foreign town and the Santiago Trust kept its secrets very well indeed. She’d learned in London where Compostela Ranch was but that didn’t mean its residents would tell her Jean-Marie’s location. She’d seen Don Rafael’s vampiros in Dallas when her private plane had landed from London. They hadn’t callenged her, although she was s
ure she was being followed. It was only a matter of time until they’d accost her and demand her reasons for coming, the usual procedure when crossing an esfera’s frontier.
She sighed and reconsidered her drink. At least she was glad to trigger its chemical reactions. She pushed the lime wedge into the bottle with one finger and studied the beer foaming up around it. With a fatalistic shrug, she closed her eyes and took a deep swig of the resulting mixture.
Not bad. In fact, it was probably smoother than the original brew would have been.
She opened her eyes, licked her lips, and started to lift her beer again. But no lights glowed around the bottle’s edge, only a single black blob in the center.
She lowered it, frowning. What the hell had changed?
A man was leaning back against the rail beside her, wearing a black leather jacket, black T-shirt, and crisply pressed jeans. His jaw was shadowed by a day’s growth of beard, providing a wonderful hint of wickedness. Vivid health shone from his crooked smile and dancing blue eyes.
“Hello, darling,” drawled Jean-Marie.
He was here?
Her heart stopped beating to be replaced by a million delighted butterflies rollicking throughout her veins. Her drink slipped out of her nerveless fingers and somehow landed upright on the floor.
“Mon coeur,” she breathed and caught his face in her hands. Good God, he looked exactly like the young warrior she’d met at Versailles, not the cynical, world-weary veteran she’d fought beside in the Peninsula. She’d heard vampiros could revert to a different image of themselves after El Abrazo, if they were comfortable enough with it.
“Are you free from the British?” He yanked her against him, pulling her cruelly—wonderfully—close.
“Hell, yes.” Although it had taken her longer than she would have liked to get to Texas. She’d needed to make sure all of her team would thrive with a new vampiro after her departure.
“Mademoiselle Perez?” she whispered, trying to observe the formalities while she melted into his grasp, absorbing every beat of his heart through her skin and into her veins.
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