I spoke directly to them, slightly turning away from their master. “I'm Avna, Avna Soulsmith. It's a pleasure to meet you both.” Next I glanced at Constantine and his two HUMAN bimbos. Not immediately noticing the reddened bite marks on the women's throats was my second big mistake for the evening. The first had been not recognizing Josh as a vampire. They were midnight snacks, rather than a part of Constantine's family. “I guess groupies don't rate introductions."
Constantine shrugged. “With women such as these, I don't need to bother with names. Or coercion. They are more than willing.” He paused for one heartbeat, while his fever bright eyes suddenly dilated, trying to immerse me in the flood of his will.
"May I, also, call you Avna?” A betraying twinge of pain marred his exquisite face when he spoke my given name without permission. Good.
"Sorry, Constantine. To you, I remain Miss Soulsmith.” Besting him, actually denying him, exhilarated me, for he was not your ordinary garden variety vampire, but a progenitor. Unfortunately, I did not have long to gloat.
The confines of the room suddenly compressed even further underneath the weight of his fury. The air, what little there was, became charged like during a thunderstorm, making the hair on my entire body stand straight up. The full force of his shiny light blue eyes sucked at my being, bleeding away all traces of identity, of self, of me. My fingers became so nerveless I dropped my hand bag, not caring about its contents, money, driver's license, car keys.
Constantine, now the center of my universe, imperiously motioned me to him. His golden signet ring flashed, part of the allure, beckoning with promises of power and pleasure. He whispered to me oh-so softly, or, perhaps, he spoke only in my mind. “Come to me.” His irresistible compulsion drew me like a moth to flame, with similar consequences, no doubt. His will inundated mine. I wanted to go to him. Didn't I? I haltingly took one step towards him. Then another.
Chopped liver was most definitely now on the menu.
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Chapter Three
Assassinations and Pulverized Body Parts
I shuffled another two steps. Constantine lounged there smugly. He was the master. I was the thrall. I fought his force. Ineffectually. My unwilling feet and legs were heavy as lead, but I still dragged one foot, then the other forward. With every labored step, I soundlessly cursed him. An angry litany repeated in my head. “You son-of-a-bitch. You son-of-a-bitch.” The closer I came to him, the stronger that internal voice became. As did my anger.
A buzz started in my head. And a sudden black haze clouded my vision. Both a manifestation of my anger. This was a battle of wills which I could ill afford to lose.
But I was already standing in front of him. The son-of-a-bitch.
"Down—on—your—knees.” Constantine was obviously enjoying himself. It showed when he silently laughed, exposing his semi-extended canines, long, gleaming, expectant.
Like a marionette suddenly cut lose of its strings, I gangly went to my knees, barely saving my balance by grabbing the tops of his thighs, assuming ‘the’ position. None could deny what obviously came next. I wanted, to the very bottom of my soul, to dig my nails into him, but if it was not a thought or action dictated by him, there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell. I couldn't even shout at Marc and Max to put their pierced tongues back inside their leering heads. Much as I wanted to, much as I tried to, I could not speak, nor move unless by Constantine's whim.
The only other person in the room who enjoyed my performance even less than myself was the brown headed slut. She kept tugging at Constantine's pant leg. Her barely whispered pleas were nevertheless high pitched, whiny, and annoying. Even to me. Constantine swiveled his head just enough to stare down at her. She shut up.
"Now, Miss Soulsmith, prove how multi-talented a businesswoman you are. Not everyone can infiltrate the Bete Noir Escort Service like a real professional."
The son-of-a-bitch. I had an eye level view of his crotch. Right then and there I decided that if Constantine made me do what I thought he was about to, I'd prove a great deal to him—for instance, that vampires were not the only ones with a nasty propensity to bite. But that was an idle thought. Unless something changed, and changed very quickly, I would not be able to retaliate.
"Down, further, Miss Soulsmith.... “His voice was low and throaty and irresistible.
The son-of-a-bitch! Every muscle in my body clenched.
He frowned ever so slightly. “Do as I command."
No. It was too degrading. To perform such an act because a vampire ordered it? And with an audience, no less. Not my style. No way. Uh-unh. ‘Snot happening.
Constantine reached out to place a hand to the back of my head. Even through the thickness of my hair, I could feel pressure from his gold signet ring, warmth on the back of my skull. He began to push me downwards and I resisted, now only seeing black before me eyes and hearing a buzz of anger within my ears. The signet ring pulsed against my scalp, as if it were aiding him.
Still I did not budge.
"You—will,” he spoke with clipped precision, while still trying to guide my head down “lick—my...."
That ugly word, lick, triggered the black buzzing anger to explode. The explosion freed me.
"—shoes.” Constantine had released me, physically and psychically, at the exact same instant that I regained my own will ... or so I persuaded myself. Marc and Max howled, practically rolling on the floor. It was hard to ignore their laughter. But I did, trying to understand this test of Constantine's. Had I won or lost? I stared directly, defiantly into his icy blue eyes, wondering whether I had really freed myself. Was I still susceptible to his control? I hoped I never had to find out. Then, for one breathless moment, something shown in his eyes, a strange hard-to-fathom mixture, amusement, respect, disdain, and hunger. I blinked, once, and all those emotions vanished behind pale blue irises.
Using his iron muscled thighs to propel myself upright, I only had one thing to say to him. “And you can kiss my...."
"Avna!"
I whirled toward that familiar voice. It was Ginny, pretty, petite, and deceptively helpless-looking, entering through the beaded curtain with Gerard Lamphere, Constantine's legal representative, and the man who had hand delivered the Bete Noir business card. The same card, and its offered commission, which I had ignored for two weeks. The same card that Ginny had repeatedly insisted that I reply to. Here she stood, shoulder-to-shoulder, with the enemy, an attractive upscale enemy, dressed in casual but expensive tan khakis and green polo shirt.
"What are you doing here?” More than a hint of accusation, of suspicion, tinged my voice.
"Gerard told me you were expected,” Ginny calmly explained. Her bland answer helped check her own temper, not easy given that she was copper haired, of Irish ancestry, and never prone to taking any guff. I, on the other hand, couldn't let well enough alone.
"Since when did you start cozying up to the ex-D.A. Wonderboy?” And why, I experienced a pang of injured loyalty, was I the last to know? I disliked how much a couple the pair seemed. It reminded me of that old adage of ‘two's company and three's a crowd'. I scowled at Ginny's, how-should-I-categorize-him, escort, date, boyfriend? And I worried if he would take away my best friend in the whole wide world.
Gerard Lamphere had given up on a promising, highly-visible law career four years ago, when, upon the completion of the Constantinople, Constantine had come to the capital city to establish a permanent residence. Just exactly where he had arrived from was the big secret. There had always been a ‘family’ presence in West Virginia, folklore put it at hundreds of years, well before the Civil War when a small, rebellious, distinctly panhandled portion of Virginia broke away to gain statehood. Regardless of when its presence was established, more than enough of a power base existed for Constantine to comfortably and safely reside here. Gerard Lamphere had sacrificed a lot to join Constantine. His status, wealth, political career. Oh, and, of course, his humanity.
"He cam
e to us for help.” Ginny's green eyes flashed. “What was I supposed to do, ignore him, like you did?"
"Yeah."
But Ginny turned the tables on me real quick. “Just why are you here? Dressed like that? And what's with the take-me-home-and-fuck-me pumps?” Naturally, she, herself, was dressed in a conservatively cut, but snug, black pant suit. She looked amazing, sexy without showing any skin. Not even a hint of throat behind her high collar.
At her words, my entire body blushed. Every pair of eyes stared at me, setting my skin on fire with embarrassment. The twins, in sync as ever, were mentally disrobing me. Worse yet, I could swear Constantine's hot gaze blazed from my shoulders down to my rear, as if he had actually trailed a hand down my body. I wanted to swat him, but there was nothing real to hit.
He answered before I could. “Miss Soulsmith had good reason to compromise her values and come to this place of decadence. Detective Traeger asked for her assistance in the investigation of the woman discovered in the river. She came appropriately dressed for the job at hand.” Like his reclined pose, Constantine's voice remained lazy, but he found sufficient energy to give me another appreciative, lustful once over from beneath his seductively hooded eyes.
I soooo TOTALLY ignored him, except for a tiny, traitorous shiver.” Traeger wanted corroboration about a turf war. If something is going on, the Interspecies Task Force needs to know about it to protect the public. That's where I came in, being on the vampire-human crime watch.” I threw an accusing look at Constantine, as if he were personally responsible for the necessity of such an organization. Then I took a cheap shot.” As for the getup, I thought I'd be less conspicuous this way. The Bete Noir is such a classy place."
"You disapprove.” Constantine's beautiful lips had curled just at the tips, a not-quite-smile. “Humankind likes its depravities, my dear Miss Soulsmith. I did not create them. But they are, as you can see, extremely lucrative."
"So, you can justify pandering, prostitution, gambling, and other sorts of vice,” I swept a contemptuous glance over the two women seated at his feet like slaves out of a harem, existing solely for his pleasure, and concluded my castigation, “because it's profitable. And you have no problem using your own kind to do it."
Max jumped to his feet. All his earlier juvenile humor had left him. His boyishness had transformed into rage. “Like you care about us. Vampyraphobe.” He hurled that word at me like a hammer. My first inclination was to deny it. It was an ugly word. But it fit me. And hearing it directed at me shamed me. “We don't need her, Constantine. She is weak. She is human. She is merely mortal, Soulsmith or not!"
My body clenched. From his hate, from his repudiation, from his strange words. What did my being a Soulsmith—in fact, the last living family member of that name—have to do with anything? I was bereft of all kith or kin. Should I have any questions, none now had any answers. Except, of course, if I should belatedly accept the several repeated solicitations begun around my twenty-first birthday from a genealogy association, The Royal-Blue Bloodlines Society, that offered to trace my family lineage ... for an unspecified cost.
Forget that route. My family tree was dead, denuded, a lightening-struck shell on the brink of toppling to the ground. Never mind that I had once heard that names oftentimes had their origins in a family's occupation, such as Miller, or Farmer, or Baker, Tanner, Weaver, and so-on and so-forth. I always, including this instance, stopped that line of thinking before I had to ask. If that held true, what the hell was a Soulsmith? Obviously, some names didn't convey anything, weren't descriptive of an occupation, skill, or trade. Some were nonsensical. As was mine. It meant nothing. End of story.
So I allowed Max's strange pronouncement to go unchallenged, mostly because apprehension constricted my throat.
Marc tried to calm his brother. “Sit back down, Maxamillian."
"No.” Max stalked about the confined space, his hands fisting, flexing, working in anger until that emotion again erupted from him. “I want to find Rasputin and tear his heart out!” The entire room seemed to freeze at his raw shout of anger, at the speaking aloud of that particular name.
I glanced around at the occupants of the blue room, at each deeply shadowed grim face. Even Ginny, a recent peripheral part of this clan, seemed affected. She clung that much closer to Gerard Lamphere, who wrapped a supportive, comforting arm about her waist.
"So,” I drawled, reading a lot into the reaction to that name, “this Rasputin wants Constantine's territory?"
"Rasputin wants only bloodshed and pain.” Constantine's luminous blue eyes closed to slits, but I still felt their keen regard, measuring me against the horror he was revealing. “He is vile and cruel and must be stopped. Or there will be many more bodies in the river. More friends, more kin, more clan will surely suffer."
"It sounds like you know the victim?"
Constantine very tellingly looked to Max, who had taken to pacing. However, his master's gaze subdued his agitation.
Max faltered. “I ... I think.... “Some deep emotion choked off his words.
Marc, his face mirroring his twin's distress, answered for Max. “Tanya, my brother's first fledgling, has been missing for two weeks. She was last seen in the Bete Noir business office. She fits the description of the woman recovered from the river."
"Traeger said it was a vampire kill with multiple bite wounds?” I voiced my confusion. “Besides, if Tanya was just recently turned, she wouldn't be termed a Jane Doe. She would be in the FBIC's registry...?” My words slowed, then trailed off. Max's unapologetic expression spoke volumes. Tanya had been made illegally, without the mandated court appeal to change status from living to undead, or, failing that, a euphemistic ‘mixed marriage'.
"Oh.” I made the blunt sound to indicate my understanding of the situation.
Constantine gave a humorless smile, nothing inordinately toothy, just a mirthless grin. “Consider the condition of a vampire, any of the Nocturnal Kindred, and not simply one newly made, as Tanya, slowly drained of all blood. Such would not kill but merely render one of our kind helpless, near-to-death but not, conscious, incapacitated, and locked in a state similar to rigor mortis, so long as the head and heart remain intact. Why would the police then not believe the body to be a human victim? Without any cause, a DNA sampling would not likely be done to prove otherwise. The authorities are trying to identify a human, who is really a vampire."
"Damnation.” I breathed out shallowly. No wonder Max was so close to berserk. One of his own making had been done the ultimate torture. “And this Rasputin is responsible?"
"Yes.” Constantine's face went rigid. “Rasputin is a blight from my past.” The ancient vampire's eyes shifted from me almost as if to focus upon long gone memories. “He is an enemy that I had believed to be still interred in the deepest catacombs underneath Paris. Unfortunately, as I much more quickly escaped that fate, so, too, seemingly has he ... only to follow me here."
Constantine returned his full gaze to me. “He left his first calling card on my doorstep weeks ago when he captured and carved up two of mine. They bore his initials scored into their flesh.” Constantine seemed to will me to accept this assertion, capturing me within the bright glow of his hypnotic, ice-blue gaze. He did not need to exert himself. I believed him. Mostly.
"He won't be easy to stop, will he?"
"No. He, too, is a progenitor."
"Just what I wanted to hear.” I nodded toward Gerard Lamphere, the legal expert in the room. “Make arrangements to identify Tanya and collect her from the morgue, PDQ.” Then I once more turned back to Constantine and posed a ghoulish rhetorical question. “She can be re-animated, can't she?” I did not even want to ask how much blood would be required, or where the donor would come from. Constantine, surely, could manage a substantial blood bank withdrawal. No live, warm bodies need apply. At least, they had better not need to!
"Only if she does not stay suspended in-between for too long. Otherwise, she will go mad.” He paused, judging h
is words carefully. “Perhaps too much time has already elapsed. She is barely made, inexperienced, powerless. This will traumatize her."
"Unlike you?” My bitter sarcasm dripped everywhere. “Having every drop of blood drained from your body wouldn't phase Constantine, The Great, the slightest bit. No matter how long you remained dead-but-not."
Max clenched his fists. “Insolent human,” he said through gritted fangs. He took a threatening step towards me, but Constantine made a quick gesture, accentuated by the flash of his gold signet ring, which stopped the other vampire in his tracks.
"Very little can harm one such as I.” Constantine's words, his smug superiority, proved himself as much a macho jerk as any living, breathing male. His attitude really rankled me. I was pissed.
"Not even silver? Or sunlight? A stake? Holy water?” I belligerently cocked one hip and ticked off all things anathema to the undead, and enjoyed doing it, too. All-the-while, anger radiated off of Constantine like waves of heat from pavement, which, naturally, reminded me of another weapon of choice. “How about fire?” All the so-called experts from the Von Heslings’ on down claimed that fire was fatal to a vampire. It was purifying and deadly.
Constantine's full lips minutely compressed. His eyes infinitesimally narrowed, yet he didn't fidget or squirm in his comfy padded scoop-of-a chair. “A progenitor has amazing regenerative powers. Each of us has strengths peculiar to himself. Unlike most of my brethren, I am nigh invulnerable to fire."
But, to me, listening, measuring, gauging, his assertion rang hollow. It rang false. Oh, deceitful creature! I unsuccessfully smothered a grin. He was as susceptible to the flames as any of his kind. I allowed my smile to widen and filed away this bit of useful knowledge, even while I refused to let the subject drop.
"Anyone got a match?” I hopefully scanned the others within the Blue Room. “We can check out just how flame retardant Constantine is? Or ... isn't."
The object of my ultra-black, derisive humor slouched more comfortably in his cushioned papasan, resting his elbows on the scoop-chair's curved frame, contemplatively steepling his fingers before his face, staring at me over their tips with an intensity that was two parts attraction, one part consternation, and a smidgen of repulsion.
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