by Faith Hunter
Leo completed his circle. “Well done,” he called out, his voice a sharp quick echo on the walls. “And now I call my Enforcer.” I jerked, thinking he meant me, but he went on. “My Onorio, you may join me. We shall see what you are now.” Which sounded like a threat in so many ways.
Bruiser stepped into the front, from where he had been standing behind a small group of people. He was wearing a gi, top and bottom, but he untied the black belt at his waist and dropped it, then shrugged out of his top as he stepped onto the mat. He topped Leo by several inches and maybe thirty pounds, all muscle, his skin darker than I remembered it, tanned. He was fit and brawny next to Leo’s more slender body, but in a master, appearance is always misleading. I willed Bruiser to glance my way, but it would have been stupid to look away from an opponent, and Bruiser was never stupid.
Overhead, recorded music began, a violin playing something low and sweet, with a gypsy feel. The strings curling with emotion and defeat and love lost. Painful music. The two on the mat bowed to each other. And Leo attacked. One heartbeat he was standing. When the heartbeat ended, Bruiser was on the mat, his face bleeding. “Get up,” Leo said, bouncing on his toes.
Eli yanked me back, a hand on my upper arm. “No,” he murmured, his lips at my ear. “I think this is for a purpose. A demonstration.”
“He means to kill him.”
“No. I don’t think so. It isn’t the way warriors think. A reprimand, maybe. Something. Not an excuse to kill. Not in front of witnesses.”
Of course. That all made sense. I took a calming breath and stopped pulling away, but settled my hands onto my knife hilts. Feeling the rigidity of my delts, Eli kept his hand on me, holding me still.
Bruiser rolled to his feet. Before he was fully upright, Leo attacked again, spinning, pulling Bruiser’s arm with him. I heard the shoulder come out of joint with a sliding pop.
Anger boiled up through me. Eli’s fingers dug into the soft tissue of my arm, holding me in place.
Using the out-of-joint arm, Leo forced Bruiser to his knees. Bruiser went, with a grunt of pain. Leo let go the arm and kicked out, catching Bruiser with the ball of his instep, midabdomen, and spinning him. Up. Into the air. Leo’s fist caught Bruiser’s face as he whirled. Blood sprayed high. Splattered over Leo’s chest. Bruiser fell and lay still on the mat. The room filled with the scent of blood, strange blood with a salty, sweet undertang. Bruiser’s Onorio blood. I had smelled blood similar to it on the only two other Onorios I knew of—Grégoire’s primos, both in Atlanta with their master.
“First blood,” Leo said calmly. “Match to me.” He looked around the room. “Someone take care of him.”
Adelaide slipped from the small group of people Bruiser had been standing with and pointed at two others. Together, the three lifted Bruiser and carried him out a door in the rear. Eli’s fingers held me still, but a low growl sounded in my throat.
Leo turned to us and looked us over, taking in the assortment of blades and stakes. A slow smile spread over his face, looking pleased and almost . . . hungry. My insides tightened and my lips parted, breath coming fast. I felt the chilled damp of panic bud along my spine, the icy fear melding with the heat of anger in my blood. The door closed behind Bruiser. My heart skipped a beat and then pounded hard. I clenched my hands on the hilts of two vamp-killers.
“My other Enforcer,” Leo nearly purred, “is here as part of the entertainment tonight.”
He held out a hand to me, almost as if he was asking me to dance, his black eyes focusing on me intently. I wanted to run. I wanted to scream and attack. I wanted to pull a gun and fill him full of silver bullets—which was probably why I’d been forced to leave them at the door.
Instead I dropped my hand and relaxed my palms, walked toward him across the basketball floor, Eli at my side. We stopped at the edge of the mat and I pointed down at my feet.
“You may remove your boots,” Leo said, managing to sound very French, agreeable, and dictatorial all at once. Around the mats the spectators started talking, low whispers filling the space.
I started to toe the Luccheses off, but Eli was suddenly kneeling at my feet, one hand on my ankle. I stopped midmove and Eli flashed that strange smile up at me. I realized it was his battle smile. Eli liked combat. He’d missed fighting, missed pitting himself against an enemy, missed the adrenaline rush. “One of those other things I mentioned? Is this. Come on, Cinderella,” he said, his voice dropping to a register lower. “Off with the glass slippers so you can claw the bastard.”
I laughed. It was totally inappropriate, but I laughed. The people in the stands stopped talking, all at once. I could tell that they turned to us, as one, but I kept my gaze down, at Eli.
The boots and the socks came off together, hooked in his thumbs. From the boot sheaths, Eli removed the knives, one at a time, holding them so the light glinted off the silver plating and steel edges before setting them on the floor. Silver was for one purpose only. To kill vamps. He was making sure the people watching knew who I was and what I did. Pressure built in the room, hot and prickly as barbed wire left in a desert sun. Eli spun on one knee and spoke to Leo. “Weapons?” he demanded.
Leo studied us thoughtfully, me standing, Eli at my feet. Leo’s theatrical smile drifted away, leaving him looking curious and . . . interested. “Are you acting as Jane’s second?”
“Does she need one?”
Second? Oh, crap. A second was what one had in a duel. A pal to make sure the rules were followed and to take the injured fighter home to die if necessary.
“Perhaps,” Leo said. “Bare hands.” Around us, the room went more silent, the final sounds of voices dying away, the small breaths and shuffles and cloth-on-flesh of movement ending.
“Rules?” Eli asked, his voice ringing in the silent room.
“No one dies . . . again.” Polite laughter sounded from the stands, but hushed, as if they weren’t quite certain why they laughed. I breathed deep, smelling vamp and human and fresh blood, my heartbeat speeding, but steady now. Deep inside, Beast prowled, back and forth, as if caged and waiting. Everyone knew that Leo intended to do to me what he’d done to Bruiser. This was a demonstration of power and control. And of who was in charge. He didn’t want to kill me, but he did want to hurt me. I could turn and walk away. Or I could do what I wanted to.
From behind us, others entered the room and walked along the walls to the stands. As they moved, I reached down and unstrapped my thigh sheath. Handed the vamp-killer to Eli. He didn’t draw the weapon, but he made sure everyone could see the length of the blade before he put it beside the others on the floor.
Eli extended his knee. It looked like an offering. Confused, I took in his face and he glanced to his knee, lifted his eyebrows. He looked urgent. Only a beat too late, I placed my right bare foot on his thigh and he rolled up my jeans leg, moving slowly, exposing my golden Cherokee skin. He unstrapped the sheath there.
Moving as if he did this every day, Eli rolled down my jeans and indicated my other foot with the barest of gestures. I placed my foot on the floor and lifted the other. Eli rolled up the left jeans leg, uncovering the weapon hidden there. Another knife. He unstrapped it as well and placed it beside the others.
“Wrists,” Eli requested.
I held out my hands, palms up, and Eli rolled up my sleeves, removing the blade sheaths. These were small knives, throwing knives, well balanced. He pulled one, the silver plating only on the center of the flat blade, the steel edge so sharp it would draw blood before one could see it touch the skin. He leaned out and placed the knives to the side.
“Stakes,” he requested, his hand extended. I lifted my arms and pulled the first two out of my hair. These were the new ones, custom-made of ash wood, fourteen inches long, wicked sharp on one end, rounded and buttonlike on the other, a shape that fit snugly into the palm of my hand. He took them and I lifted my arms again.
Overhead, I heard a faint click and the first strains of guitar music floated into the room. I
hadn’t noticed when the gypsy violin stopped. A moment later I identified the new music. Joe Bonamassa, playing “Living in a Dust Bowl,” a live version, all hot electric guitar, blues, and sex. I drew up the last of my weapons, the sterling silver stakes with steel tips, holding them high for just a moment, letting them catch the light.
And I smiled. Beast padded closer, pawpawpaw.
Eli looked up from my feet and murmured, “Let it out. Let it go. Don’t think, just move.”
I laughed, the sound deep and cool and . . . ready. I lowered the stakes to him, and he took them with a soft click of metal on metal.
I felt the padded mat beneath my feet as I walked toward Leo. I matched my body to the beat, measured by the percussionist, famously shaking a plastic bottle partially filled with rocks. The music and the lyrics were primal and intense. And Leo watched me, standing with his shoulders rolled forward, his hands open and empty. Blood dried across his skin. Bruiser’s blood. Dangerous, this being. Deadly.
Yet as Leo took a breath, the movement of his ribs looked oddly angelic—fallen angel–style. His hair was loose, curling around his face like strands of black silk. His sclera was white, centered with human-black but wide, dilated pupils. But he didn’t exhale.
There would be no tells with this one. No hitches of breath for a being who didn’t need to breathe. No change in tension for a being who didn’t depend on a heartbeat to move.
From deep, deep inside, Beast padded. Settling into my blood and flesh and bones. And I realized that she was tugging with the silver leash that tied her to Leo. I felt him shift his weight, only a hair, onto his back foot. Beast was sharing her binding with me.
Letting me use it.
And Leo watched me move in sync with the slightly offbeat blues guitar. Again, I started laughing, a purr of delight. Bonamassa was singing the line “lifting me up.” My hips moved in a little figure eight. Enticing.
Leo struck, kicking vamp-fast.
But I wasn’t there anymore. I was three feet to the side. And Leo had a claw mark on his chest, centered over the spiderweb of scars. Bright blood welled to the surface, long, thin, deep gores. Beast claw streaks. I clenched my fist and felt her claws press into my palms.
Crap. My hands had shifted.
“First blood,” Leo said, “to my Enforcer.”
I raised my left and made a tiny come hither gesture as Joe sang the words “tearing me down.” I didn’t look at my hand, but I saw the golden pelt that covered my arms halfway to my elbow, and the human-shaped hands with bigger knuckles, longer fingers, and the extruded Beast claws.
My toes spread and gripped the padded mat, better footing than a human foot. But I didn’t look down. I took a short step to the right and flitted my fingers again. This time it was a come-and-get-it gesture. And I grinned, showing my blunt human teeth.
Leo took a breath. Time slowed, viscous as Bruiser’s drying blood. The silver chain deep inside quivered in warning. Leo’s muscles rippled, his fists striking, feet shoving, body twisting, torquing power into the move.
I didn’t block. I shifted back a step, his fists passing so close I felt the air cut my skin at the jaw and brush across my chest. The music ground deep, the offbeat percussion giving my hips a swivel as I stepped into Leo’s move and let his momentum carry him back across my leg, his balance failing. I caught his arm and rolled him over my thigh, swung him around, back to his feet. I danced to the side, landing strikes as I moved, at kidney, spleen, and circling around to his front, pounded the soft tissue between his ribs, and lower down at the soft spot just slightly above the navel. Kill targets had he been human, and had this duel been with blades. The significance of the placement wasn’t lost on Leo, who grunted with surprise, and what might have been delight.
Instead of dying, Leo laughed and his eyes bled scarlet. But his fangs stayed up, locked away. Vamps can’t laugh and vamp out at the same time. It wasn’t possible. But Leo . . . was doing it.
We danced around each other, feet out of sync with the music, but somehow in sync with each other, as I led him by the silver chain of the binding. “Come on, Leo,” I murmured. “Dance with me.”
“Dance of blood and death,” he murmured back. And he kicked, so fast I didn’t see him move. The blow landed, hard, knocking out my breath. I dropped and rolled and sucked in air that ached. As I was coming up, Leo kicked again. I ducked and bent my body inside the kick, against his thigh, shoulder to his groin. And I hit his knee with a well-placed elbow. It snapped. A crippling strike had he been human. He toppled. Over me. I rolled out, landing two more blows on his torso. Found my feet.
Leo was standing. And he was laughing. “Come, my Enforcer. Is that all le petit chaton avec les griffes has for me today?”
The next few seconds were fastfastfast. Slashing-punching-stabbing moves. Too close to kick, too fast to grapple. My heart beat hard, the air in my lungs like bellows beneath the music. I tasted blood and knew my lips were split. Saw the blood shoot from Leo’s nose to splatter on the wall fifteen feet away, the blood spurting across my pelt as I backhanded him on the backstroke.
I heard a bone in his hand break as he misjudged and caught my shoulder instead of soft tissue. Distantly, I felt the punch that nearly dislocated my jaw and spun me away from him. With one hand, I worked my jaw, spitting the blood to the side. He was a vamp. He watched my blood fly. And I struck. The move was all Beast, torquing and lifting, kicking and hitting. The impacts lifted Leo off his feet. He landed off the mat. Flat. And lay there.
I walked over and looked down at him. Not close enough for him to grab an ankle, but close enough that I could see his purely human eyes and the pain in his face. My breath and the raw voice of Bonamassa were the only sounds in the room. I jutted my chin at his busted nose. “That’s for Bruiser’s beating. The rest of it was for my forced feeding, you bastard. Your apology be damned.”
Overhead, Bonamassa sang, “living in a dust bowl,” and the guitar wailed its plaintive notes. I walked away. A new Bonamassa started to play. It was “One of These Days,” a slower-paced song, but grinding and hot. All I needed was to be wearing a red dress to make it all perfect. I laughed softly, the sound hidden beneath the guitar licks. Over my shoulder I said, “Meet you in your office, Leo. We need to chat.”
CHAPTER 11
Decide. Now.
I walked out the door, into the hallway, Eli on my heels. The door shut behind us as Bonamassa sang the line “I’ll be coming home.” My second stayed silent until we reached the women’s locker room. He pushed open the door and followed me inside. The room was long and narrow, with lockers down both walls and plain wood benches down the middle. Showers and toilets were on the far end. The music played here too, sultry and painful, but soft enough that we could talk. When the door shut I asked, “You think you should be in here?”
“I don’t give a rat’s aaa . . . ear for what the sign on the door says. Sit.” He pointed. I sat. Eli laid out all my weapons on the bench beside me and checked out the room. I checked out my hands and feet. Human again. Mine. Satisfied with our privacy, Eli brought bath cloths and towels from a set of metal shelves in the back, one of which he wet in the sink and wrung out. “We’re alone. Lemme see.”
He pressed gently on my ribs, which hurt, but nothing was broken. He raised my arms, one by one, inspecting shoulders, elbows, wrists, hands. “Face,” he said. I lifted my head. With the damp cloth, he wiped up the worst of the blood and tossed the cloth aside. He pressed a clean, dry one gently against my lips, blotting the blood on the outside and giving the still-flowing blood a place to clot. The pressure increased, and he placed a palm on the back of my head to give my neck a rest. I huffed out a breath and leaned into him, letting him hold my weight.
“Leo can heal this,” he said. “I’ll get him if you want.”
“I’d rather die,” I mumbled against the cloth. Eli chuckled, the sound sympathetic. The blood throbbed in my mouth. I was feeling that same throb of misery work through my whole bo
dy as the adrenaline stopped pumping and the fight-or-flight chemicals began to break down, making me nauseated. The door opened. I nearly fell as Eli moved. He was holding a weapon in each hand, both mine, grabbed up from the bench.
Edmund entered. He stood to the side of the door, his hands clasped before him as the door closed, his posture one of submission. “My master suggested that your wounds might need attention. I am to offer myself.”
I caught the cloth as it fell away from my lips. “Tell me, Ed. Would you offer yourself if Leo hadn’t sent you?”
The former blood-master smiled, the movement of his lips slow and measured. “Oh yes. As just reward for that.” He cocked his head toward the sparring room. “It was a thing of beauty to behold.”
“Especially the part where she beat the shit outta Leo?” Eli challenged.
“Especially that,” Ed said, “though not quite so crudely phrased.”
I laughed but stopped as the movement of my lips shocked me with pain. Fresh blood welled and fell down my chin. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks,” I said.
Edmund sat beside me, one finger pressing one of Eli’s naked blades away, and deliberately nicking his finger on the tip. Blood brimmed on the fingertip, and Ed touched it to my lips. The pain was instantly gone and I shivered with relief. He moved the finger across my lips, gently, rubbing slowly. Vamp blood merged with mine, and the healing moved lower down, warming me, making me want, as vamp blood always did. I opened my eyes and stared into Edmund’s. He was watching me intently, his pupils wide, his own lips parted as his finger traced my lips. The vamp wasn’t inhumanly beautiful. He had been an average-looking Joe in his human life, his best feature his hair, which he had worn pulled back in a tail the first time I saw him. Now it fell around his face and shoulders, an ash brown so fine it looked luminous.
Overhead the music changed to “Sloe Gin,” the guitar grinding sad, the kind of drunk-in-a-hotel-with-a-bottle-of-whisky-and-a-gun sad. Someone liked Bonamassa.