by Faith Hunter
—
The vampires stood in an arc outside the unpowered outer circle, their faces white, still, pale as marble statues. The mayor was unchained and stood with them, Dacy’s hand on his shoulder. He was holding a Neiman Marcus bag, and tears ran down his face. “Do it,” Dacy said, applying pressure to his shoulder. “Do it or I will.”
The vamp walked to the hedge, where Romona sat, watching them, her eyes vamped out, blood on her face. Beside her, Evelyn lay in a boneless tangle of limbs. She was breathing, fast—far too fast.
Mayhew opened the shopping bag and lifted out a shoe box. The vamp in the circle was suddenly standing, her hands behind her back, leaning forward in that odd birdlike, snakelike motion that just looked so wrong. Her face took on an expression of sharp avarice. “For me, my darling?”
“For you, my love.” He opened the box and pulled out a pair of gorgeous shoes. Cia sucked in a breath of desire. “Those are ruby-toned Giuseppe Zanotti five-inch stilettos, encrusted with Swarovski crystals and beads. They sell for nineteen hundred dollars. Oh. My. God.”
Mayhew went on. “I’ll trade for them.”
Romona tilted her head. “Trade?”
“Shoes for the human.”
Romona glanced at the woman and said, “She’s nearly gone anyway. Yes.” She held out her hands. “Shoes. Mine.” Then she pointed at the black boot on the ground. “Mine too.”
“Yes,” Mayhew said, bloody tears on both cheeks. “Yours too.”
“Acceptable to me.” And Romona smiled, a nearly human expression, full of delight and a winsome mischievousness.
Jane pulled two silver stakes from her hair and nodded at Liz. She and Cia sat on the cold ground just outside the hedge of thorns. They buried their hands in the chilled soil and Cia said, “From blood and death and moon above, release.” Everything happened so fast, like photos that overlaid one another, shuffled in a strong hand. The hedge fell.
Romona leaped. Jane whirled the stakes out in dual backswings. Cia and Liz rolled out of the way. Romona landed on Mayhew, thrusting him back. Jane stepped across the falling bodies, her hands coming together and down, like a scissors closing. The stakes slammed through Romona. A shriek sounded, so piercing it was deafening. A death keening. Cia and Liz covered their ears in shock. Blood fountained up over Jane’s hands.
The keening shut off. Jane pulled the dead vampire away from her husband. He was sobbing, his anguish human and pitiable. Two other vamps reattached his shackles as Jane hefted the dead vampire to her shoulder and carried the body into the dark. Mayhew raised his face to the night sky and screamed his grief. The sound of a blade chopping echoed. Once. Twice.
Dacy knelt over the limp body of Evelyn McMann, a small knife in her hand. With an economical motion and no flinching at all, she sliced her own wrist and placed it at Evelyn’s mouth. The blood trickled in, and Dacy held Evelyn’s jaw until the human woman swallowed. Liz and Cia stood in the cold wind, arms around each other for warmth and comfort, watching the second-most-powerful vampire in Asheville healing their enemy’s mother. Evelyn reached up with two skeletal hands and gripped Dacy’s wrist. The vampire looked at them and said, “She will live. Your word, if you please.”
“We’ll never speak of this to anyone without your permission,” Cia said.
“We’ll never speak of this to anyone unless it means the life of another,” Liz amended.
“Acceptable,” Lincoln Shaddock said. Dacy picked Evelyn up like she was a baby and started for the cars.
Moments later Jane came back, from a different direction. There was blood on her white shirt. “We’re done,” she said. “The policing of Lincoln Shaddock for his clan is acceptable to Leo Pellissier, the Master of the City of New Orleans and most of the Southeast United States, including the Appalachian Mountains where we stand. Pay the Everharts.” She pointed to Cia and Liz.
Lincoln Shaddock removed an envelope from his pocket and extended it. Cia accepted it. The twins gathered up their belongings and raced to their car to find Evelyn asleep in the backseat. They were halfway down the mountain before they caught their breath. “That was wicked weird,” Cia said.
“Yeah. Let’s get Evelyn back to Layla and start studying up on how to get purified before the blood magics sink too deep.”
“Yeah. Good plan.” Cia tore open Lincoln Shaddock’s envelope and drew in a slow breath.
“How much?”
“A hundred thousand dollars. Combined with Evie’s estate, I think we just made enough money to put a huge down payment on a house, sister mine.” They started to giggle. Neither of them said anything about the hysterical edge to their laughter, or what it hid. Not yet.
—
When the twins left the elegant house in the Montford Historic District, Layla—sans makeup and wearing old jeans—was crying and hugging her mother, having wrapped her in a blanket in the middle of her bed. She was force-feeding her water and Gatorade and cucumber sandwiches.
“Like, who keeps cucumber sandwiches on hand?” Cia said as they walked out of the house.
“People who don’t know the value of leftover homemade soup and yeast bread from Seven Sassy Sisters.”
Cia said, “Oh, yeah. We eat, and then we figure out how to get the blood magics off us.”
“Done.” Liz took a slow breath. Her lungs and ribs didn’t hurt, not at all. She didn’t want to say the words, but couldn’t keep them in. “Jane Yellowrock might have saved our lives. If Romona had gotten free and drawn on the blood magic of the mountain . . .”
“Yeah.” Cia’s tone was grudging. “We’d have been her dinner.”
The silence after her words stretched, as the sisters got in the car and drove away. Cia finally said, “When you had the rock on you, the rock Evangelina threw at you when she was trying to kill us all? I tried to push it off. I couldn’t. It was too heavy. You weren’t breathing. Like, at all. Jane—in her cat form—pushed it off. She saved you. I think she saved Carmen that day, too. And she did what we couldn’t when she . . . ” Cia heaved a breath that seemed to hurt. “When she took care of Evie, too.”
Liz knew that “took care of” meant “killed.”
“Not because we didn’t have the power or the skills to handle Evangelina, but because Jane thinks, instead of being frozen by fear.”
Liz blinked away tears and said, “Why didn’t you tell me? Now we have to forgive her for killing Evangelina.”
“Which is why I didn’t tell you. I’m not . . . I wasn’t ready to forgive.” Cia turned away, looking out into the night. “Maybe I’m ready now.”
“Yeah. Well.” Liz took a deeper breath than any she had been able to manage in months. “The blood magic? I think it healed me.” She took another breath. “No pain.”
“Crap. We used blood magic, just like Evie did.” Cia’s mouth pulled down. “And it felt good.”
“Addictive good,” Liz whispered. “I can feel the pull of the mountain even now. We are in so much trouble.”
“Yeah. But there is a silver lining. The totally cool Christian Louboutins Layla gave me—once I get the blood off them.”
Liz erupted with laughter, which was what her twin intended. “Us. She gave them to us.”
“Fine,” Cia said. “And the cash. Share and share alike.”
“Yeah. Like always. Even a blood curse we don’t know how to get rid of.”
“We’ll figure it out. We always do.”
HIGH STAKES
A Luc and Lindsey Story
BY CHLOE NEILL
It was the curls that killed me. Those dirty-blond, tousled curls. They practically screamed to be run through by manicured fingers.
The manicure wasn’t the problem. Tonight I was sporting a complicated matte black and charcoal pattern that varied from nail to nail. It probably would have been more appropriate on a socialite than on a veteran guard of
a House of vampires, but I’d decided a long time ago not to give up style for fangs. It was part of my credo, my firm belief that immortality should be dressed up and flaunted like a deb at her debut. I’d been a vampire for more than a century, and I was proud of my genetics. And from my blond hair to my favorite stilettos, I tried to show it.
But that was neither here nor there.
The problem was the curls, and the vampire they belonged to. Luc, the Captain of the guards of Cadogan House. I was a guard, which meant he’d been my boss for years. My colleague. My friend.
Now he was my something-more-than-that.
I was still trying to put a name to what “that” was.
Luc wasn’t having the same trouble, which was why he stood in front of me in my smallish dorm room in Cadogan House holding a glossy black shoe box and a pair of the sexiest boots I’d ever seen. Buttery black leather, nearly knee-high, with pointy toes and stiletto heels long and thin enough to be weapons on their own.
I stared down at them with obvious lust, but kept my arms crossed and my fingers away from leather I knew would be as smooth as silk. “You bought me boots,” I said for the fourth time.
“If the shoe fits . . . ,” Luc said with a crooked grin, which was just as effective as the curls.
“I don’t need boots.”
He gave me a flat look. “Since when did that stop you from buying anything? You have five pairs of black heels.”
“And I’ve explained this a hundred times.” I counted them off on my fingers. “Stilettos, kitten heels, patent, round toe, open toe. A girl needs options.”
“The point is,” he said, “I don’t care if you need the boots. I just want to see you in them. And clothes are completely optional.”
“But you didn’t need to buy me anything.”
“It’s not about need,” he said. “It’s about want. I wanted to buy them for you, so I bought them for you. There’s no expectation, Linds.”
I knew he was telling the truth. It was clear in his expression, in his magic, in the way he looked at me.
I was gifted—or cursed, depending on your perspective—with empathy. It was a rare gift for a vampire, and not always a welcome one. Every bad mood in the House leaked into my subconscious, and I’d had to learn to filter out others’ emotions or risk their overwhelming me.
So, yeah, Luc was being honest, and I could tell.
But it wasn’t that simple.
“Luc—,” I said, but he shook his head.
“I don’t want to talk about it again. I don’t want to talk about moving too fast or not fast enough.” He put the lid on the box, and the box on the bed, only a couple of steps away. And then he pulled his best cowboy move, putting a hand around my waist and whipping me against him.
He smiled cockily down at me. “I’m not afraid of your issues, Linds.”
“I don’t have issues,” I said. “And we need to get downstairs. Maybe we should talk about this later.”
“You’re a walking issue,” Luc said, nipping at my earlobe before releasing me. “Fortunately, you’re also a hottie and a very good guard.”
“I’m the best guard you’ve got.”
He shrugged carelessly, obviously trying to rile me up. “You’re all right.” He walked to the door, opened it, and gestured into the hallway. “Let’s go.”
—
Cadogan House was several stories of European opulence and vampire drama. Situated in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, it was home to nearly ninety vampires. Or, more accurately, ninety vampires and the psychic stew they cooked up on a nightly basis. Their happiness, their sadness. Their angst. Their fear. I lived in a cauldron of vampire emotions, in a neighborhood of human emotion, in the third-largest city in the country.
Collectively, there were a lot of emotions out there.
I’d been a vampire long enough that I’d learned to turn down the volume, but each person’s mood still bobbed like a buoy in my brain. Little tricks kept me sane. For lack of a better word, “stuff” helped filter out the extra noise. That’s why my room looked like I’d been hoarding souvenirs from my hundred and fifteen years as a vampire. The knickknacks, pillows, posters, and other odds and ends worked like insulation, which was also the reason I spent so much time in the House basement.
Granted, I worked down there, too, but that was mostly a coincidence.
The first floor of the House held the offices and public rooms, and the second and third floors were primarily dorms. But the basement was where the magic happened. Luc’s Operations Room was there, as were the old-fashioned, wood-paneled training room and, my personal favorite, the House arsenal. Weapons galore . . . and even more insulation.
Luc and I headed into the training room. The other official guards, Kelley and Juliet, were already there and stretching for a workout, with Merit, the House Sentinel. She wasn’t a guard per se, but the job was close enough that she trained with the rest of us. Merit was a relative newbie to the world of vampires—only ten months out. She was finding her place as Sentinel—and as the Master, Ethan Sullivan’s, girlfriend—but she was still learning the moves. She’d picked up the moves of vampire sword fighting remarkably quickly, probably the perfect mix of Ethan’s vamp-genetics—transmitted when he changed her from human to vampire—and her dance training.
Ethan was also already in the room, shirt off and wearing the same martial arts–style black pants that Luc favored. While Merit, Juliet, and Kelley sat on the edge of the woven tatami mats that covered the floor, Ethan stood in the middle, stretching his arms over his head, flat stomach and abs tensing as he moved.
I couldn’t fault Merit for her taste in men. Ethan was tall, blond, gorgeous, and imperious as fuck. I appreciated the first three, but preferred a little less control freak in my relationships.
Luc slapped me on the ass and stepped onto the mats. “Eyes on the prize, sunshine.”
I rolled my eyes and took a seat beside Merit. With long dark hair and a fringe of bangs across her forehead, she was pretty in an almost old-fashioned way. Regally so, like a princess from a different time. It was probably appropriate she’d been studying medieval literature before Ethan made her a vampire.
“You did good, you know,” I said, gesturing toward Ethan.
“Oh, I know,” she said. “He reminds me at every opportunity. And with much detail.”
Apparently not to be outdone by Ethan, Luc unbelted his martial arts–style jacket and dropped it to the floor, revealing that perfect fuzzy chest, the very bitable nipples, and the lines of muscle at the base of his hips that ached for roaming fingertips.
I gave him a hard time. I knew it. We’d been friends for a very long time, and I didn’t want to lose that connection. In my experience, romance came and went. Attraction came and went. Yes, we spent a lot of time together. And technically, we were exclusive. But I didn’t want to put a label on it, something that would create expectations and lead us to hate each other when we couldn’t live up to them.
I was smarter than that; I wouldn’t let us fall into that trap.
Luc chose that moment to catch my eye and wink, which thrilled me—and made me feel guilty at the same time.
He looked over the small group and clapped his hands to get our attention. Not that that was necessary. His audience consisted of women clearly intrigued by the two bare-chested athletes standing before us, barefoot and ready to rumble. Who wouldn’t pay attention to that?
“Good evening, my minions,” he said, looking us over. “Tonight we’re going to talk evasive maneuvers. Escaping from enemies in hand-to-hand combat, as opposed to trying to get out of House patrol duty on the basis of ‘fang ache.’” He actually used air quotes. He also looked directly at me, because I’d been the one who’d tried the excuse.
Vampires had quick healing abilities, which explained why I’d been freezing my petite ass off
on patrol a few minutes after the attempt.
“Now, it’s crucial to remember that evasive maneuvers—getting out of a grapple, breaking a hold—are all about physics. Using your opponent’s body weight and weak spots to your advantage.”
“And if that fails, just knee him in the grapes,” Kelley muttered. I bit back a chortle, but not very well. Ethan didn’t seem to mind.
“A time-tested strategy,” Luc said. “And if an enemy’s attacked you, he’s given up any complaint about the sanctity of his grapes.”
“Grape sanctity,” Merit whispered. “Sounds like the name of the world’s worst sacramental wine.”
“The human body has various and sundry pressure points,” Luc said, raising his hand to gesture, but pausing in midmotion, his eyes on the door.
We all glanced back and saw a girl in the doorway.
She wore jeans, a Loyola sweatshirt, and had a dark gray messenger bag slung diagonally across her body. She was tall and sturdily built, with long blond hair, pale coloring, no makeup—and absolutely no need for it.
I was so surprised to see a human in the doorway that it took a moment to peg her as family.
Human family.
“Ray?” I stood up and jogged to the door, my mind reeling.
Ray hugged me fiercely, enough to make me worry about whatever brought her here. “Aunt Lindsey. Thank God.”
I wasn’t actually her aunt; I’d been a vampire much too long for that. She was my great-great-niece—my sister’s great-granddaughter. I’d kept an eye on my sister’s family as they’d spilled across the country from our hometown in Iowa, including Ray, who was now a student at Loyola, on the north side of Chicago.
I pulled back just enough to get a glimpse of her face. Even if I hadn’t been empathic, it wasn’t difficult to catch the concern there. “What’s wrong?”