“And what do you want, Ryder? Money? For that you would destroy me? Do you know who I am?”
Ryder shook his head, and once again the blades emulated his moves. “Why is it that everyone always wants to preach before they die? You mean nothing to me beyond a paycheck.”
“You won’t collect this one.” Cade mocked his foe, wagging Gravedigger back and forth.
Ryder said nothing, this time letting his daggers speak on their own. Cade stood his ground and caught the blows on his chest, not wanting to lose his forward momentum, and he ignored the beginnings of pain in his arm and brought the Bowie up for a backhand slash against Ryder’s left arm. He felt the blade hit bone, and the dagger fell and plunked against the wet concrete. Cade kicked it toward the edge of the alleyway. One weapon each was better than even odds.
Ryder answered immediately, piercing Cade’s chest, but it was a mistake on Ryder’s part, for with the dagger driven in to the hilt, Ryder’s own body was drawn close to Cade. Before Ryder could draw out the dagger, Cade thrust the Bowie upward, straight at his foe’s heart. Ryder screamed, and Cade knew he’d hit his target.
Cade worked the Bowie back and forth, sawing through muscle and bone. “Tell me who sent you, bitch! Is protecting him worth your life? Because in about ten seconds, your heart is mine.”
Ryder gritted his teeth, trying not to scream, and blood oozed from between his clenched teeth to dribble down his chin.
“Tell me!” He turned the knife and worked the blade again, and Ryder’s cold blood flowed from the wound to cover Cade’s hand.
“Sol.”
Cade didn’t understand. Sol? As in the sun? “What?”
But Ryder only laughed, and more blood frothed from his lips.
Cade knew he’d get no more from this one. His skill had been in his driving and not his weapon handling, but he was hardened and most certainly hired muscle. Cade dragged his foe between two garages and finished it, carving the heart from the body. Blood flowed black in the shadows and mixed with the rainwater that still coated everything to form a sticky varnish on his clothes and skin. He dropped Gravedigger and yanked out the dagger that still pierced his chest. The small wound started healing over immediately, and without a drop of blood shed, but Ryder had bled enough for both of them. Cade would have to call Thor to come and pick up the body.
Fuck me. He’d left his phone with Red. He sat on the wet ground, wedged between the garages, and waited for the pain to diminish. As it did, he started to think. And sweat. Too easy. Too fucking easy. Ryder’d been a tail, nothing more. His job had been to follow . . . and to report. Someone else knew where he was. He picked up both Gravedigger and the dagger, rose to his feet, and tested the wind. It stank.
And part of the stink was the scent of vampire.
Chapter Nineteen
Chicago, Illinois
December, 1893
CADE WAS COURTING a mortal. Every night the absurdity of it made him want to laugh. And every night the wonder of it filled him with an excitement that made him feel young again.
In all his two hundred years it was only the second time he’d courted a woman. The first had been Niano at La Vantum when he’d still been mortal—Niano, who’d abandoned him for a French lover. As one of the undead he’d never had the need nor the desire to woo a female—he’d simply taken. But Charlet Malebisse was different. She was prey worth the hunt.
He’d seen her nearly every evening for two months. They’d strolled the Midway at the exposition, stargazed in Lincoln Park, gone riding, enjoyed the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and plays at the Iroquois Theater. They’d discussed everything from music and architecture to the depression and the thievery of the politicians. He found Charlet to be well-read and opinionated, and they’d had lively arguments on a number of subjects. She’d said little about the late Hugo Malebisse, but even so it didn’t take much reading between the lines to know theirs had been a loveless marriage of convenience.
Cade hadn’t slept with her yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time. Every night he felt her body’s reactions to his intensify. Her heart rate accelerated whenever he neared her, but even if her blood hadn’t given her away, her eyes did. Their blue depths engaged him like no woman’s ever had, and he yearned to answer her need, but he bided his time. And he compelled her no more, for he found her own thoughts and words infinitely more delightful than those pressed into service by the force of his power.
Tonight an early winter storm had left six inches of powdery snow on the streets, and he’d hired a sleigh so that they could enjoy the white wonderland before the next thaw and the traffic churned the beauty to mud. The air was brisk, and their breaths plumed as white as the snow.
They pulled the wool-lined buffalo robe over their laps, but the close proximity of Charlet’s body, even through the layers of constrictive clothing that swathed her like a mummy, warmed him more than the dead animal skin. She gave him a smile far from the little Mona Lisa smile she’d given him the first night they’d met, and that pleased him.
“I was married to Mr. Malebisse for fifteen years, and yet you’ve shown me more in two months than he did in all those years.”
He studied her, enthralled by a single blond spiral, as thin as a tendril on a vine, that escaped from beneath her voluminous hat. If only she knew the things he yet intended to show her. “Moments not spent pleasing you were his loss.”
She visibly shivered and pulled the robe higher as the driver flicked his whip over the horse’s ears and urged the beast to a smart trot. “He wasn’t an evil man, nor a simpleton. But he was single-minded, stubborn and uncreative. He cared only about the success of his business, blathering endlessly about windows of opportunity, and how one mustn’t let them close. I think I was nothing more than drapery, there to make his passage through those windows more pleasant.”
Hugo Malebisse had been a fool, and he told her so.
She was silent for a moment, and he wondered if the ill talk of the respected dead had offended her, but then she turned to him, her cheeks burnished by the cold air to a rosy glow. “You’re a businessman. If you were a married man, would you be so different?”
She seemed to take particular pleasure in challenging him, and he took just as much in answering her. This time he needed a moment, for he’d never contemplated marriage nor wondered what it would be like. She obviously considered his silence to be a victory on her part, for she tilted her head back, all the better that he could see her smile. “What’s the matter, Mr. Kincade? Have you never imagined what it would be like to have a wife?”
No. But he wondered if his cold flesh could stimulate her blood the way the biting wind did. “No,” he admitted softly.
Her smile lost a little of its buoyancy. “Why not?”
Because it wasn’t the way of the undead. But he had a ready answer for mortal ears. “You’ve known me long enough to know some of my eccentricities.” How many husbands didn’t eat, drank only blood, and walked about only during hours of darkness?
She dipped her head, and the hat shielded her features, making it impossible for him to see the acknowledgement of his words in her face. But she soon raised her head and surprised him. “Such things are unimportant. Imagine, just once, that you found someone who accepted you, warts and all.” She looked him in the eye. “Answer the question. Would you really be so different from Mr. Malebisse?”
He wondered if such a thing could ever be possible—that a mortal could know him for what he truly was and not run screaming into the night. “Business is business and must be attended to, naturally. But our pleasure is what nourishes us. It cannot be ignored.” He held the bold gaze she offered, and when he was done speaking, she, too, was speechless. The small victory was his.
But it was brief, for a moment later she found her tongue and challenged him again. “But do you speak of domestic bliss or
pleasure sought elsewhere? You of all people know how many men look for pleasure in the clubs.”
It was a topic not discussed in polite company, but no such constraints bound him, and Charlet’s only concession to propriety was to whisper so that the driver could not hear their conversation over the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves. She was leading him again into lands that were, for him, new territory. Fidelity? The concept was a virgin to be explored with delight.
“I do know how many. And I know many are married. It’s an addictive habit.”
“But you, Mr. Kincade,” she pressed, “What would you choose?”
Could he feel about a mortal the way he felt about his land? How he’d once felt about his people? Was such a feeling even possible for a predatory creature like himself? He wasn’t sure, but he knew the answer she wanted, and he gave it to her. “When one is bound, one should respect that union above all else.”
No feminine smile of triumph flashed this time. Instead, she stared at him as though she were examining each of his words for truth, and behind the frosty plumes of expelled breath, her eyes glittered brightly. Perhaps it was the cold that stung her eyes to tears, or perhaps it was some conflict waged within her, for he sensed both fear and desire. He wondered if she was afraid he was lying, or if she feared the truth. “Don’t you believe me?” he whispered.
She lowered her eyes. “I don’t know.”
They were both quiet for a while, and he listened to the steady beats of both the horse’s hooves and Charlet’s heart. Was a true liaison with her possible? Would she allow it? He knew she wanted him, but her mind still had barriers to overcome. She shivered, and he instructed the driver to stop near a street vendor who was selling roasted chestnuts. He stepped down, purchased a bag, and handed it to Charlet.
“Thank you. Aren’t you having any?”
“You know I don’t eat in public.”
“Public? It’s just you and me and the horse and driver.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. This is public. The satisfaction of one’s appetite should be a private affair.”
She looked at him, and there was as much heat in her gaze as the bag she held. “Lord, Mr. Kincade, it’s chestnuts, not . . .”
“ . . . sex?” he finished. He knew he’d have her this night.
A beggar in a ratty sack suit and misshapen derby toddled up to the sleigh, slipping in the runner tracks. Ice crystals clung to his straggly mustache, and even in the weak light of the street lamps Cade could see that the man’s eyes were bloodshot and rheumy.
“Can you spare a dime, mister?”
Cade had little patience with useless mortals who had neither the strength nor will to survive on their own, especially when they smelled as bad as this one did. “Go sleep in city hall with the rest of the homeless.”
Charlet turned to him, and the disproval in her eyes chastised him like a whip. He’d forgotten what she would think of his lack of pity. He flipped a half dollar at the beggar. “Be gone.”
The man tugged on the bent brim of his hat and scuffled off.
“Mr. Kincade, shame on you for being so uncharitable. It’s been an unusually frigid December. I’ve heard people are actually freezing to death.”
“He’ll spend it on drink, not a dime hotel.”
“And that’s wrong? But spending that same fifty cents in one of your clubs would be all well and good, wouldn’t it?”
He wanted to smile. The cold did nothing to slow either Charlet’s mind or her mouth. “I didn’t say it was wrong.” But he didn’t smile, for his words to the beggar had been the wrong thing to say in front of someone he wanted naked and willing in his bed. “I was merely pointing out that charity wouldn’t help his plight. Driver, carry on.”
They turned south on Michigan Avenue in silence, and this time Charlet turned away from him. She made a show of watching the passing carriages and pedestrians, the silk top hats and the brown derbys, the kid gloves and the bare hands—a strange winter stew of wealth and poverty, culture and boorishness, as evidenced by nothing more than one’s accessories, or lack thereof. But while her gaze was on others, he felt her thoughts on him. As surely as the biting night air touched him, so did her warm energy. It clawed at his mind, ever curious, ever wanting.
He leaned toward her, unable to be patient. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
She turned to him and shivered. “I’m wondering what horrible things have happened to you in your life to make you so cold.”
He leaned back. “Things that are not for feminine ears.”
“I’m not squeamish.”
“Then come home with me. I’ll reveal all to you.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
She didn’t drop her jaw, but her lips parted, and her breath plumed white before it was sucked into the night air. She perhaps meant the incredulity to make him feel dim-witted, but the movement was so sensuous as to make him painfully hard under the buffalo robe. “And at what moment did you start caring what other people think?” he countered. “Is that your only objection? Propriety?”
She twisted away from him as much as her layers of clothing would allow, but said nothing. With someone as vocal as Charlet, he took silence as surrender.
“Driver, Prairie Avenue.”
An hour later they were at his mansion on what was called the Avenue of the Sifted Few. Normally he shared his house with a few favored masters like Boston Ackerman or Wulf Duvall, but over a month ago he’d sent them all packing. All that remained were a couple of sucklings who slept in a room over the carriage house—a groom and a street runner to deliver messages.
Inside the house, Charlet seemed neither impressed nor distracted by the paintings, statuary, and fine furnishings, for she kept her gaze solely on his. He removed his cape and top hat, and she her bonnet. Her hair was in a topknot flanked by silver combs. When he pulled out the combs and loosened her hair, he was rewarded with flaxen waves that unfurled like a golden flag down her back. He yanked off his gloves and touched her face for the first time. Her skin was wonderfully tingly, all hot and cold at the same time, and when he pulled her head to his for a kiss, he felt like he was being born to immortality all over again, so fresh and unique and wondrous was the sensation of her mouth on his. It was an intimacy not paid for nor taken by deception or force, but freely given, and when she allowed him to undress her, he felt time alter. No longer did he have all the time in the world, but this moment only, and he yearned for it to last forever.
He found the hidden hooks and eyes of her bodice, and beneath that, a buttoned camisole over a corset with laces and a garter belt holding up silk stockings. Underneath it all was a chemise, a loose, low-necked garment adorned with embroidery and lace. She trembled a little, and below her curly bangs her eyes pleaded with his, as though she knew utterly that she no longer had control over her passions.
“Don’t worry, Charlet. I won’t hurt you.”
She was pink and pale and perfect, and when he slipped the chemise up and over her head, he forgot about the problems in Hell’s Half Acre, The Bad Lands, and Bed Bug Row. When he lay atop her and felt her body warm the length of his, he forgot that his name had just been put on the latest Black List of owners of “property used for immoral purposes.” And when he drove into her and felt her muscles contract around him, he forgot about Otto Hammer and all the rest who would destroy him.
Chapter Twenty
CADE STEPPED FROM between the garages and was speared to the ground. He looked down at his own body as if he were a spectator viewing Che Kincade from the grandstands of some arena. He saw his body pierced by a long halberd like some appetizer on the end of a cocktail fork. Again, there was no pain, not yet, just shock at the surprise of the attack. His gaze shifted, and the vampire holding the halberd came into focus. It was l
ike looking in the mirror . . . almost. The vamp had long straight hair, almost as black as Cade’s own, and coppery skin, but his eyes were light, hazel or green. Also unlike Cade’s, they had a slight slant. Asian? A half-breed? Like me? Perhaps, but Cade felt no kinship with this monster. This was the assassin, the true assassin, one of those damned Asians with an unpronounceable name that sounded like a cat hacking up a hairball.
Cade scuttled backwards, trying to disengage himself from the bladed tip of the halberd, but Hairball moved with him, keeping pressure on the weapon.
“The great Che Kincade, run through like meat on a spit. I’m disappointed. I thought you’d be more of a challenge.” The voice was smooth, unlike the stereotypical Asian who never failed to murder the English tongue.
Cade said nothing, still trying to see everything there was to see, like that spectator in the stands. Stupidly he realized what had happened. The weakness and disorientation could only mean one thing. His heart had been pierced.
He watched as Hairball flicked his gaze to the body between the garages. “You didn’t think he was me, did you?” The pale eyes stared at Cade again. “Ah. You did. His job was merely to locate you. He did his job. Now I do mine.”
Cade looked at the shaft of the halberd protruding from his chest. There wasn’t much blood, for the weapon still plugged the wound, but loss of blood wasn’t the problem. It was how to extricate himself from the weapon. He ran his gaze up the shaft to the black gloved hand holding it.
“You think this is all you have to worry about? No.” With his other hand Hairball brought forth a sword from the folds of his full-length coat. It was the most impressive weapon Cade had ever seen.
“From those pig stickers in your hands, I can see you don’t know weapons. Allow me to educate you.”
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