I pictured a fur-clad Victor paddling a canoe down the Red River with an Indian maiden sitting stoically behind him. I laughed. As we got into Pam’s car, she looked at me darkly.
“I don’t understand you,” she said. “I really don’t.” We went out to Hummingbird Road and turned north.
“Why would being a sheriff in Louisiana be a step above being the emissary of Felipe, who has a rich kingdom?” I asked very seriously, to make up my lost ground.
“ ‘Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven,’ ” Pam said. I knew she was quoting someone, but I didn’t have a clue who it was.
“Louisiana is hell? Las Vegas is heaven?” I could almost believe some cosmopolitan vampire would consider Louisiana as less than desirable as a permanent residence, but Las Vegas—divine? I didn’t think so.
“I’m just saying.” Pam shrugged. “It’s time for Victor to get out from under Felipe’s thumb. They’ve been together a long time. Victor is ambitious.”
“That’s true. What do you think Victor’s strategy is? How do you think he plans to dislodge Eric?”
“He’ll try to discredit him,” Pam said, without pausing a beat. She’d really been thinking about this. “If Victor can’t do that, he’ll try to kill Eric—but he won’t do it directly, in combat.”
“He’s scared of fighting Eric?”
“Yes,” Pam said, smiling. “I do believe he is.” We’d reached the interstate and were on our way west to Shreveport. “If he challenged Eric, it would be Eric’s right to send me in first. I would so love to fight Victor.” Her fangs gleamed briefly in the dashboard light.
“Does Victor have a second? Wouldn’t he send that second in?”
Pam cocked her head to one side. She seemed to be thinking about it as she passed a semi. “His second is Bruno Brazell. He was with Victor the night Eric surrendered to Nevada,” she said. “Short beard, an earring? If Eric allowed me to fight for him, Victor might send in Bruno. He’s impressive, I grant you. But I would kill him in five minutes or less. You can put money on that.”
Pam, who had been a Victorian middle-class young lady with a secret wild streak, had been liberated by becoming a vampire. I had never asked Eric why he’d chosen Pam for the change, but I was convinced it was because Eric had detected her inner ferocity.
On an impulse, I said, “Pam? Do you ever wonder what would have happened to you if you hadn’t met up with Eric?”
There was a long silence, or at least it seemed long to me. I wondered if she was angry or sad about her lost chance for a husband and children. I wondered if she was looking back with longing on her sexual relationship with her maker, Eric, which (like most vampire-vampire relationships) hadn’t lasted long, but had surely been very intense.
Finally, just when I was going to apologize for asking, Pam said, “I think I was born for this.” The faint light from the dashboard illuminated her perfectly symmetrical face. “I would have been a dismal wife, a terrible mother. The part of me that has taken to slashing the throats of my enemies would have surfaced if I’d remained human. I wouldn’t have killed anyone, I suppose, because that wasn’t on my list of things I could do, when I was human. But I would have made my family very miserable; you can be sure of that.”
“You’re a great vampire,” I said, since I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
She nodded. “Yes. I am.”
We didn’t speak again until we reached Eric’s house. Oddly enough, he’d bought a place in a gated community with a strict building code. Eric liked the daytime security of the gate and the guard. And he liked the fieldstone house. There weren’t too many basements in Shreveport, because the water level was too high, but Eric’s house was on a slope. Originally, its downstairs was a walk-in from the back patio. Eric had had that door pulled out and the wall made solid, so he had a great place to sleep.
Until we’d become blood bonded, I’d never been to Eric’s house.
Sometimes it was exciting being so closely yoked with Eric, and sometimes it made me feel trapped. Though I could scarcely believe it, the sex was even better now that I’d recovered, at least in large part, from the attack. At this moment, I felt like every molecule in my body was humming because I was near him.
Pam had a garage-door opener, and she pressed it now. The door swung up to reveal Eric’s car. Other than the gleaming Corvette, the garage was spotless: no lawn chairs, no bags of grass seed or half-empty paint cans. No stepladder, or coveralls, or hunting boots. Eric didn’t need any of those accoutrements. The neighborhood had lawns, pretty lawns, with rigidly planted and mulched flower beds—but a lawn-care service trimmed every blade of grass there, pruned every bush, raked every leaf.
Pam got a kick out of closing the garage door once we were inside. The kitchen door was locked, and she used a key so we could pass from the garage into the kitchen. A kitchen is largely useless to a vampire, though a little refrigerator is necessary for the synthetic blood, and a microwave is handy to heat it to room temperature. Eric had bought a coffeemaker for me, and he kept some food in the freezer for whatever human was in the house. Lately, that human had been me.
“Eric!” I called, when we came through the door. Pam and I took off our shoes, which was one of Eric’s house rules.
“Oh, go get your greeting over with!” Pam said, when I looked at her. “I’ve got some TrueBlood and some Life Support to put away.”
I passed from the sterile kitchen into the living room. The kitchen colors were bland, but the living room echoed Eric’s personality. Though it wasn’t often reflected in his clothing, Eric harbored a love of deep colors. The first time I’d been to his house, the living room had surprised the hell out of me. The walls were a sapphire blue, the crown molding and baseboards a pure, gleaming white. The furniture was an eclectic collection of pieces that had appealed to him, all upholstered in jewel tones, some intricately patterned—deep red, blue, the yellow of citrine, the greens of jade and emerald, the gold of topaz. Since Eric is a big man, all the pieces were big: heavy, sturdy, and strewn with pillows.
Eric came out of the doorway to his home office. When I saw him, every hormone I had stood to attention. He’s very tall, his hair is long and golden, and his eyes are so blue the color practically pops out of the whiteness of his face, a face that is bold and masculine. There’s nothing epicene about Eric. He wears jeans and T-shirts, mostly, but I’ve seen him in a suit. GQ missed a good thing when Eric decided his talents lay in building a business empire rather than modeling. Tonight he was shirtless, sparse dark gold hair trailing down to the waist of his jeans and gleaming against his pallor.
“Jump,” Eric said, holding out his hands and smiling. I laughed. I took a running start, and leaped. Eric caught me, his hands clamped around my waist. He lifted me up until my head touched the ceiling. Then he lowered me for a kiss. I wrapped my legs around his torso, my arms around his neck. We were lost in each other for a long moment.
Pam said, “Back to earth, monkey girl. Time is passing.”
I noted that she was blaming me and not Eric. I pulled away and gave him a special smile.
“Come, sit, and tell me what’s wrong,” he said. “Do you want Pam to know, too?”
“Yes,” I said. I figured he’d tell her anyway.
The two vampires sat at opposite ends of the dark red couch, and I sat across from them on the gold and red love seat. In front of the couch was a very large square coffee table with inlaid woodwork on the top and elaborately carved legs. The table was scattered with things Eric had been enjoying recently: the manuscript of a book about the Vikings that he’d been asked to endorse, a heavy jade cigarette lighter (though he didn’t smoke), and a beautiful silver bowl with a deep blue enamel interior. I always found his selections interesting. My own house was kind of. cumulative. In fact, I hadn’t picked out anything in it but the kitchen cabinets and appliances—but my house was the history of my family. Eric’s house was the history of Eric.
I brushed a f
inger across the inlaid wood. “Day before yesterday,” I began, “I got a call from Alcide Herveaux.”
I wasn’t imagining that the two vampires had a reaction to my news. It was minute (most vampires aren’t given to extravagant expressions), but it was definitely there. Eric leaned forward, inviting me to continue my account. I did, telling them that I’d also met some of the new additions to the Long Tooth pack, including Basim and Annabelle.
“I’ve seen this Basim,” Pam said. I looked at her with some surprise. “He came to Fangtasia one night with another Were, another new one. that Annabelle, the brown-haired woman. She’s Alcide’s new. squeeze.”
Though I’d suspected as much, it was still a little astonishing to me. “She must have hidden assets,” I said, before I thought.
Eric raised an eyebrow. “Not what you thought Alcide would pick, my lover?”
“I liked Maria-Star,” I said. Like so many other people I’d met in the past two years, Alcide’s previous girlfriend had met an awful end. I’d grieved for her.
“But before that, he had long associated with Debbie Pelt,” Eric said, and I had to struggle to control my face. “You can see that Alcide’s catholic in his pleasures,” Eric continued. “He carried the torch for you, didn’t he?” Eric’s slight accent made the outmoded phrase sound exotic. “From a true bitch, to a startling talent, to a sweet photographer, to a tough girl who doesn’t mind visiting a vampire bar. Alcide has very variable taste in women.”
That was true. I’d never put it together before.
“He sent Annabelle and Basim to the club for a purpose. Have you been reading the newspapers lately?” Pam asked.
“No,” I said. “I’ve been enjoying not reading the papers.”
“Congress is thinking of passing a bill requiring all the werewolves and shifters to register. Legislation and issues regarding them would then fall under the Bureau of Vampire Affairs, as laws and lawsuits pertaining to us, the undead, do now.” Pam was looking very grim.
I almost said, “But that’s not right!” Then I understood how that would sound—as if I thought it was okay to require the vampires to register, but Weres and shifters shouldn’t have to. Thank God I didn’t open my mouth.
“Not too surprisingly, the Weres are furious about this. In fact, Alcide has told me himself that he thinks the government has sent people to spy on his pack, the idea being that they would then give some kind of secret report to the people in Congress who are considering this bill. He doesn’t believe it’s only his pack that’s being singled out. Alcide has good sense.” Eric sounded approving. “But he believes he’s being watched.”
Now I understood why Alcide had been so concerned about the people camping on his land. He’d suspected they weren’t what they appeared to be.
“It would be awful to think your own government was spying on you,” I said. “Especially after you’d been thinking of yourself as a regular citizen your entire life.” The enormity of the impact of this piece of legislation was still sinking in. Instead of being a respected and wealthy citizen in Shreveport, Alcide (and the other members of his pack) would become like. illegal aliens. “Where would they have to register? Could the kids still go to school with all the other children? What about the men and women at Barksdale Air Force Base? After all these years! Do you think the bill really has a chance of passing?”
Pam said, “The Weres believe it does. Maybe it’s paranoia. Maybe they’ve heard something through the members of Congress who are two-natured. Maybe they know something we don’t know. Alcide sent this Annabelle and Basim al Saud to tell me they might be in the same boat with us soon. They wanted to know about the area representative for the BVA, what kind of woman she is, how they could deal with her.”
“Who is the rep?” I asked. I felt ignorant and ill-informed. Obviously I should have known this, since I was intimately involved with a vampire.
“Katherine Boudreaux,” Pam said. “She likes women somewhat more than men, like I do.” Pam grinned a toothy grin. “She also loves dogs. She has a steady lover, Sallie, who shares her house. Katherine is not interested in having a side affair, and she is unbribable.”
“You’ve tried, I take it.”
“I tried to interest her sexually. Bobby Burnham tried the bribe.” Bobby was Eric’s daytime man. We disliked each other intensely.
I took a deep breath. “Well, I’m real glad to know all this, but my real problem came after the Weres used my land.”
Eric and Pam were looking at me sharply and with great attention, all of a sudden. “You let the Weres use your property for their monthly run?”
“Well, yeah. Hamilton Bond said there were people camping out on the Herveaux land, and now that I’ve heard what Alcide’s told you—and I’m wondering why he didn’t tell me all this—I can see why he didn’t want to have a run on his own land. I guess he thought the campers were government agents. What would the new agency be called?” I asked. It wouldn’t be BVA, would it? If the BVA was still only “representing” vampires.
Pam shrugged. “The legislation going through Congress proposes it be called the Bureau of Vampire and Supernatural Affairs.”
“Get back to your issues, my lover,” Eric said.
“Okeydokey. Well, when they were leaving, Basim came to the front door and told me he’d smelled at least one fairy and some other vampire traveling through my land. And my cousin Claude says he wasn’t the fairy.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Interesting,” Eric said.
“Very odd,” Pam said.
Eric ran his fingers over the manuscript on the coffee table as if it could tell him who’d been traipsing around my property. “I don’t know the credentials of this Basim, except that he was thrown out of the pack in Houston and Alcide took him in. I don’t know why he was expelled. I expect it was for some disruption. We’ll check on what Basim told you.” He turned to Pam. “That new girl, Heidi, says she’s a tracker.”
“You got a new vamp?” I asked.
“This is one sent us by Victor.” Eric’s mouth was set in a grim line. “Even from New Orleans, supposedly, Victor is running the state with a tight hand. He sent Sandy, who was supposed to be the liaison, back to Nevada. I suspect Victor thought he didn’t have enough control over her.”
“How can he get New Orleans up and running if he travels around the state as much as Sandy did?”
“I’m assuming he’s leaving Bruno Brazell in charge,” Pam said. “I think Bruno pretends Victor is in New Orleans, even when Victor isn’t. The rest of Victor’s people don’t know where he is half the time. Since he killed off all the New Orleans vampires he could find, we’ve had to rely on the information of our one spy who survived the massacre.”
Of course I wanted to veer off and discuss the spy—who would be that brave and reckless, to spy for Eric in the bailiwick of his enemy? But I had to stick to the main subject, which was the sneakiness of Louisiana’s new regent head honcho. “So Victor likes to be in the trenches,” I said, and Eric and Pam looked at me blankly. Older vampires don’t always have a complete grasp of the vernacular. “He likes to see for himself and do for himself, rather than rely on the chain of command,” I explained.
“Yes,” Pam said. “And the chain of command can be quite heavy and literal, under Victor.”
“Pam and I were talking about Victor on the drive over here. I wonder why Felipe de Castro chose Victor to be his representative in Louisiana?” Victor had actually seemed okay the two times I’d met him face-to-face, which only went to show that you can’t judge a vampire by his good manners and his smile.
“There are two schools of thought about that,” Eric said, stretching his long legs out in front of him. I had a flash of how those long legs looked spread wide on crumpled sheets, and I forced my mind back to the current subject of discussion.
Eric gave me a fangy smile (he knew what I was feeling) before he continued. “One is that Felipe wants Victor as far away as
he can get him. I believe that Felipe feels that if he gives Victor a big chunk of red meat, he won’t be tempted to try to snatch the whole steak.”
“While others of us,” Pam said, “think that Felipe simply appointed Victor because Victor is very efficient. That Victor’s devotion to Felipe is possibly sincere.”
“If the first theory is correct,” Eric said, “there isn’t perfect trust between Felipe and Victor.”
“If the second theory is correct,” Pam said, “and we act against Victor, Felipe will kill us all.”
“I’m getting your drift,” I said, looking from First Theory (shirtless with blue jeans) to Second Theory (cute vintage suit). “I hate to sound really selfish, but the first thought that popped into my mind is this. Since Victor wouldn’t let you come to help me when I needed you—and incidentally I know that I owe you big-time, Pam—that means Victor’s not honoring the promise, huh? Felipe promised me that he would extend his protection to me, which he ought to have, because I saved his life, right?”
There was a significant pause while Eric and Pam considered my question.
“I think Victor will do his best not to openly cause you harm, until and if he decides to try to become king in his own right,” Pam said. “If Victor decides to make a grab for the kingship, all promises made by Felipe are so many words without meaning.” Eric nodded in agreement.
“That’s just great.” I probably sounded petulant and selfish, because that was the way I felt.
“This is all assuming we don’t find a way to kill him first,” Pam said quietly. And we were all silent for a long moment. There was something that creeped me out, no matter how much I agreed that Victor should die, about the three of us talking about murdering him.
“And you think this Heidi, who’s supposed to be such a great tracker, is here in Shreveport to be Victor’s eyes and ears?” I said briskly, trying to throw off the chill that had fallen on me.
“Yes,” said Pam. “Unless she’s here to be Felipe’s eyes and ears, so Felipe can keep track of what Victor is doing in Louisiana.” She had that ominous look on her face, the one that said she was going to get her vampire game on. You did not want Pam to look that way when your name entered the conversation. If I were Heidi, I would take care to keep my nose clean.
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