“Did he come up with the idea?”
Jean-Marie glanced over at her. “Doña Grania asked to meet you.”
If anything, Hélène’s jaw dropped even farther than it had when she’d first heard the invitation.
Don Rafael, the brutal warrior who’d threatened her with death because she’d been forced into knowledge of vampiros—was now willing to let her come close to his most precious treasure, his cónyuge? Incredible!
For him to meet her in a neutral setting would have been declaring his trust in Jean-Marie’s judgment of her as a reasonable being. For him to yield his prerogative and let his patrona choose what risks to take—Doña Grania must indeed be an amazing woman to inspire such confidence.
And his patrona had chosen to exert her influence on Hélène’s behalf. Or more likely, on Jean-Marie’s.
Hélène shivered slightly, her chest very tight.
“I’ll be honored to accept.” She had to clear her throat before she could continue. “I’d like to meet Doña Grania. She’s a veterinarian, isn’t she?”
“A wildlife veterinarian, specializing in owls and other raptors.”
“Like eagles and hawks? If she taught him how to shift into those birds during duels…”
Jean-Marie’s mouth twitched.
“She has?” Hélène sighed enviously. “I wish I knew more shapes. All I can manage is to shift into mist and some birds.”
“The British never gave you anything else, not even a wolf to use during a retreat?” Jean-Marie’s eyes narrowed.
“No, they said it was too dangerous to let me shapeshift, too. It’s too easy to be separated during a retreat.” Instead I held them back and they paid in blood. Dear God, how they paid to keep me safe.
“Fools. Twice-damned fools.” He signaled a waitress far too abruptly.
“But I’m here with you, because of their care.” She turned back to face him, touched by his concern.
“Or despite it,” he growled. “If you ever had to run for your life from a fire…”
Her heart clenched at his understanding of the risks she’d faced. She kissed his cheek, snuggling against him.
“If I meet any of them, I’ll kill him,” he muttered under his breath and wrapped his arms around her.
She pretended not to hear him and slid her hand up his arm. The crowd here looks calm. Can we go home now?
Did you see anybody else in the restroom who was alone? Jean-Marie asked.
No, I was the only single woman. The other women in there were all in pairs, who were clearly watching out for each other.
Same here in the bar. They won’t pick up men unless they can stay together—and Elmer’s bar is one of the biggest pickup joints on this side of town. He surveyed the room, his jaw setting hard. Shit, he hissed.
Even so, it’s still quiet here. She nuzzled him behind his ear encouragingly. And that appalling phone of his hadn’t rung for the past couple of days. We’re only supposed to stay until ten…
When the nightly news comes on, since they may have sources I don’t. He suddenly seemed to have far more lines in his face. I won’t turn my phone off when we leave.
His blue eyes were as unyielding as a glacier.
Of course not. She held up her hand in surrender, agreeing she hadn’t expected him to do that. He’d fulfill his obligations to Don Rafael until he died, no matter what the cost.
He kissed her fingertips, his face softening a bit.
The dancers stomped to a close and spilled off the dance floor. The band gathered up their instruments and quickly disappeared through a hidden door. The TV sets immediately sprang to life above the crowd, racing through ads for any kind of feed, equipment, or clothing a farmer might need.
Ignoring the staccato patter, Hélène slid out of the bar and took Jean-Marie’s hand. They started filing out with the others, squeezing between tables and chairs, starting and stopping when people stood up or said good-bye. Others chattered of the day’s gossip or the night’s plans, or just held on to each other. The stale aromas of sweat and beer filled the air, underlaid with a nameless fear’s sour edge.
Jean-Marie pulled Hélène closer against him, his breath very warm on her neck and his body pressed protectively close.
The TV sets shifted gears, the news broadcast’s opening bells sounding like the warning of a village’s tocsin bell.
“We open with this tragic story from Uriah, a few miles outside of Dallas, where tonight one child and two adults were killed at the famous Uriah Pro Rodeo, when bulls stampeded into the stands,” the announcer’s rich voice cut in, sounding surprisingly unsteady. An instant later, women and children’s tinned screams filled the hall, mixed with men’s shouts and animals’ bellows.
The entire crowd stopped in their tracks and stared at the horrific scene being reenacted.
An enormous bull had leapt into the stands and was storming along the aisles, trampling or tossing aside any panicked spectators who couldn’t escape him. Casually dressed people in Western wear were running before him, leaping over seats, or standing in place—but always screaming. And far, far too many of them were children, battered, bloody, and small.
Hélène’s head didn’t seem to be connected very well to her body. Jean-Marie’s arm was an iron bar around her waist, the only thing holding her up.
“Oh my God,” a woman whispered in Elmer’s bar. “I grew up going to the Uriah Rodeo.” Her voice broke, and she bolted for the restroom. A woman whimpered, while a man began to curse without being reproved.
Bulls raced around the Uriah Rodeo’s ring, doing their best to attack the cowboys and men chasing them. “At least twenty people are in critical care at local hospitals,” the announcer continued, before his voice was drowned out by sobs and comments on the carnage.
Jean-Marie started shoving their way through the crowd, making a bare pretense of politeness.
Why? Who could have started it? Hélène whispered. Bulls, especially so many, don’t get out of their pens on their own. They must have had help. She suspected she’d relive in her nightmares the bull charging up the central aisle toward the little boy.
He gave her a quick look of mingled sorrow and frustration. Who do you think?
No… She slowed, dragging her feet.
See the cowboy over by the bull pen? That’s Devol, Madame Celeste’s alferez mayor—the most soulless enforcer in North America.
You’re seeing phantoms, just because you’re in a war with her, Helene retorted instinctively.
Behind her, a woman pointed a finger at the monitor. “See him, Madge? That’s the guy I told you about—the fellow we saw yanking the girl out of the New Orleans casino, the brute who the police wouldn’t even question. What’s he doing in the ring at a Texas rodeo?”
Oh no…
Only Madame Celeste would deliberately stampede bulls at a rodeo, Jean-Marie said viciously and slammed into the door, breaking them free into the Texas night.
“That’s nonsense!” Hélène spun to face him beside his motorcycle, parked at the edge of the parking lot near the hillside’s oak trees. It was an excellent spot for a quiet rendezvous between vampiros, should Don Rafael need to send him a message.
He began to yank their helmets out of the saddlebags.
A chill ran down her spine.
“My sister is not a callous murderer!” Not her, never la petite.
“She is fighting a war with us. Does anyone else have equally good motivation?”
Hélène stopped, unable to counter his reasoning. “That’s ridiculous,” she said automatically, her fingers fumbling on her helmet’s chin strap.
“And the New Orleans pit boss? You must know Madame Celeste runs the largest, shadiest casino in New Orleans.” Jean-Marie tossed her a helmet.
“Who cares if one of her employees gets nasty on his weekend off?” She kept her chin up, refusing to back down.
“Hélène!” He glared at her and yanked off his helmet an instant after he’d fastened it. T
he conyugal bond, which had always hummed with warmth even when they weren’t talking, began to turn chilly. “Do you honestly believe a patrona’s enforcer would dare to cause this much trouble without permission?”
She stiffened, the icy logic ringing all too true.
“This makes her an accomplice in the murder of one child and two adults, plus who knows how many more will die. Do you believe she’s completely innocent?”
Hélène closed her eyes for a moment, thinking back to all she’d heard in London of the war between Texas and New Orleans. Remembering all she’d known, while growing up, of her little sister’s sheer determination to obtain what she wanted. And yet…
And yet there was also baby Celeste, the infant who’d come after her parents had buried so many other little ones. The adorable child with great dark eyes who’d made slaves of everyone who saw her, who’d cooed and gurgled so sweetly. The laughing playmate and companion who could bargain for an hour to obtain the best silk for her new party dress.
Determined? Yes. Completely evil? No!
“I believe my sister could authorize such an attack as a stratagem of war. I cannot believe she’d deliberately have children killed.”
“Hélène!” Anguish and frustration raged through Jean-Marie’s voice.
“At least let me talk to her first.” She flinched, his pain cutting her to the bone—but she would not, could not, back down.
“No, Hélène, no.” He grasped her by the shoulders, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “Can’t you see? She’s a coldhearted bitch who can’t be allowed to live.”
“Allowed to live?” Hélène violently shook herself away from him. A spasm of grief twisted his features before his hands dropped away. “I don’t believe she’s worthy of death. Certainly not on your word alone.”
“Wasn’t that video enough?” He shoved his hand through his hair.
“Never.” She flung out her hands. “I’d have to hear it from her mouth first.”
“I can’t wait that long.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Not when children are dying.”
Her stomach suddenly started to somersault like a dying satellite. “What do you mean?”
“Her death is the only way to end this war.”
“You wouldn’t do that, would you?”
She read the answer in his somber face before he spoke. “Yes, I would, especially because I’m probably the only one who can get close enough to her. I’m Don Rafael’s eldest hijo, which makes me the strongest. Devol will watch Ethan very closely because they’re both enforcers. He won’t expect me to move against her since I’m younger than she is. I’m just a heraldo so I’m the freest to act, since I’m not supposed to be a threat.”
Chills were running up and down her spine, making her teeth chatter on a very hot and humid night.
“If you kill my sister, we will have no future!”
“If she kills my family, how can I live with myself?” he countered, a pulse ticking in his jaw.
“Then we are not cónyuges.” She threw the helmet at him and turned away, half-blinded by tears. What good was falling in love when your beloved destroyed everything you treasured?
“Where are you going, Hélène?” His beautiful voice was ravaged by far too much control.
“To New Orleans and my sister’s house.” With luck, her presence would keep Jean-Marie from destroying Celeste. Maybe.
SEVENTEEN
For a Sunday night in a popular travel destination, New Orleans didn’t have many tourists. And Hélène’s heart still lacked the warm reassurance of her cónyuge’s presence, just as it had ever since she’d left him in Texas.
Her throat tightened.
She reminded herself she was viewing the Crescent City’s beauties undisturbed: the patient mules of the French quarter and their jaunty straw hats; the cathedral’s silvery-blue bulk like an invitation to enter another world; the innumerable flourishes of wrought-iron, as if a city playing dice with a swamp needed to somehow remind itself of solidity, however unique; the broad white smiles of its residents, of every creed and race…
But there should have been more smiles, just as there should have been more tourists to distribute largesse and evoke those happy beams. But there wasn’t, at least not from where she stood outside a deserted coffeehouse.
Instead there were half-empty boulevards and echoing alleys, where sheets of newsprint whispered about dead women and police task forces. Pairs of policemen, in a variety of uniforms, were never far from sight on the main streets, in between the scents of fried oysters, cheap rum, and stale river water. The few people who strode the sidewalks did so briefly and with purpose. But the cars and taxis were very, very busy, flitting from building to building, ignoring streetlights, and dodging near disaster sometimes by less than an inch.
A steady stream of them disgorged their gaudily dressed passengers at Bacchus’s Temple, the largest casino in New Orleans. It was located on the edge of the Warehouse District, halfway between a burst of rigid modern high-rises and the French Quarter’s ancient cobblestones. Gaudy in its purple and gold, the four-story building was a lavish recreation of an ancient Roman temple, complete down to a great, semicircular portico with columns that covered the entire front. It was designed to attract both attention and awe, while inviting onlookers to enter.
And all Hélène wanted to do was run back to Jean-Marie’s garden and hurl herself into his arms. The man she loved. The man who planned to kill her sister.
Not walk into there and face a woman she hadn’t seen for centuries, no matter what name they shared. A patrona who was whispered about even in Europe, and not kindly.
Surely Jean-Marie had to be wrong, just a little. Just enough for there to be something of la petite left inside la patrona, someone she could appeal to, negotiate with, stop the war.
After all, the same blood flowed in both their veins. They were Sainte-Pazannes, of the oldest nobility in France and they didn’t know how to lose.
She drew herself up proudly and shook her hair out. A streetlamp flashed on it and reflected off a window, catching her eye. Its reflection’s golden sliver slid off peeling black letters into the gloom and disappeared into an alley, startling a cat. The feline hissed a warning and leapt away.
Hélène shivered involuntarily before telling herself not to be a fool. If she’d turned back before every mission when she’d been nervous, she’d never have been a spy. She shook herself firmly and set out across the street, her very simple, black silk Vera Wang dress floating behind her.
One day, she would hold hands again with Jean-Marie, her cónyuge, her heart. She had to—or life would not be worth living.
The so-called security guards at the door were vampiros, making her raise an eyebrow at that bit of blatant caution. For an inner sanctum, yes—but on a public street? Did Celeste honestly believe prosaicos would never learn there were vampiros?
She tut-tutted privately but didn’t overtly acknowledge them. Let Celeste or her minions make the first move. The fact they didn’t made the hair prickle on the back of her neck.
Hélène had to admit her familiarity with casinos was limited to a few in Europe and those in the movies. Even so, Bacchus’s Temple seemed extremely ornate and loud. Purple and green were emblazoned across every surface, while every edge and curve seemed to be gilded. Lights streamed across the ceiling in myriad patterns, while crystal chandeliers competed over which could be the most blindingly tawdry. Closely packed banks of narrow machines flashed, beeped, and screamed, according to their mood, while people stared deep into their bowels. Wary, half-naked women moved among them with small trays of drinks. Burly men and even more dangerous women strode brusquely along the carpeted aisles, their badly tailored suits failing to hide electronic leashes.
A plump man with a golden crown beamed from the walls and the ceiling, encouraging everyone to gamble. Judging by the few visitors here, he was as unsuccessful as any other barker in the Big Easy. Less than a quarter of the slot machines were occupi
ed, and there were players at only a few of the blackjack, roulette, and craps tables.
Two dealers were spinning a roulette wheel invitingly at an empty table, its rattle echoing through the half-deserted, high-ceilinged section.
Given the lack of gamblers, Hélène could catch the casino’s true scents more easily, without the sharp tang of prosaico fear and excitement. She found a private spot by an empty video poker game and sniffed, testing for signs of vampiros.
There were a great many young vampiros here—not completely surprising, since Celeste had only fully mastered her esfera recently. However, she’d taken over New Orleans almost seventy years ago. Ordinarily, a sizable proportion should have been that age. But almost all of them were no more than thirty years old, with most being ten to twenty years. They’d be little more than puppies—high energy, easy to manipulate, but little stamina in a fight. They’d make good troops for conquest but not for a siege.
Hélène had heard rumors New Orleans’ vampiros were unusually young, but she’d paid little attention, considering it too outré to be worthy of consideration. Why had Celeste kept them this way?
She sniffed again, more deeply, straining for signs of the prosaicos.
Alcohol—and drugs, illegal drugs. If Celeste was allowing her vampiros to mingle with prosaicos who imbibed of such potions, then she permitted her vampiros to feed upon prosaicos whose emotions came from those false wells. Not the clean, bright taste of passion whose wellspring was the heart, but the sluggish, chemical-born stuff. The old maxim, “you are what you eat,” was truer more for vampiros than for anyone else—and vampiros died fast and young if they fed on drunks, however easy that prey might be.
And such prosaicos could die easily while the vampiro was feeding because they didn’t know if it was a true fantasy or a drug-induced dream.
Shit. Hélène shuddered, her gorge rising fast and hard into her throat. She forced it back, her fingernails digging into her palms. She was on a mission—and peace was worth anything, anything at all, even consorting with the likes of these.
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