“So, you were saying?”
Troy stared at me, and wiped beaded sweat from his forehead. “Christ, Zephyr. Giudo found me when we were about to leave, and said to follow you. He said you knew the Turn Boys, and could get them off guard.”
“Giudo” knew that about me? This was getting a little frightening. “Is he with you?”
Troy shook his head. “He came as far as the tunnel, but someone he knew was there. You were getting away, so I didn’t ask.”
I cursed and tossed the vampire on the ground at his feet. “Carry on.”
Troy smiled suddenly and saluted me. So he was stuffy and pompous and utterly backward and generally impossible to take in large doses. But sometimes I still sort of liked him. Someone hit me hard in the back between my shoulder blades. I coughed and spun around, holding my scabbard before me like a shield. It was another of the Turn Boys, teeth bared and snarling. He was one of the biggest of the group—nearly an inch taller than me, and strong. He hit me again and I slashed at his arm.
“Hey, I’m not a Defender!” I shouted, even while I realized how this must look. “Nicholas, call him off!”
But when I glanced at Nicholas, I could see that he wasn’t in much of a position to do so. Daddy had, predictably, gone for the biggest kill, and Nicholas looked like he was barely able to dodge the twin force of Daddy’s long swords.
“How’d they find us, then?” the Turn Boy yelled, swiping my legs out from under me.
I controlled the fall. “I didn’t know they were following!”
Obviously, logic wasn’t going to get through to him. He lunged for my neck. I didn’t stop him, just scooted a crucial few inches to the right, so he face-planted into the cold rock. I scrambled up and tossed myself on top of his back—no time now for anything fancy. He grunted. I placed the heel of my impractical boots on his neck and raised my sword. I didn’t want to pop him, but he needed to be incapacitated. I settled on nicking his jugular with the blade. The blood that spilled wouldn’t kill him, but he wouldn’t be able to do more than crawl for days. As he gurgled, I clambered off and looked again for Nicholas. Troy’s stupid plan meant an even greater delay getting to Aileen. I had to grab Nicholas and go. Daddy hadn’t killed him yet, thankfully. But while Daddy’s eyes were filled with the demented energy that had made him the most famous demon hunter in Montana, Nicholas seemed like he was flagging. The Faust, I realized. It slowed his reflexes and sapped his energy, even with his recent infusion of fresh blood.
Time to save the big boss vampire from my daddy.
I sprinted through the milling, bloody fight, nearly tripping over some sucker’s popped skin. Please don’t let that be Charlie. But I didn’t have time to look. Nicholas had fallen down, his back propped against the tunnel wall. Daddy raised his blades high above his head. I was just in time. I dove beneath Daddy and raised my own blade to block his. The force of his blows smashed me against Nicholas and the stone. I barely felt it.
“What the devil?” Daddy looked as though he could barely restrain himself from hitting me, but I didn’t feel any danger.
“I’ve got to borrow him for a moment, Daddy,” I said, “since your clever Defender stunt is about to kill my best friend. Find us after you’ve worked your way through these guys.”
To his credit, Daddy shrugged his shoulders and turned back to the fight at hand. I pushed Nicholas forward. “We have to get to Rinaldo now,” I hissed.
He looked back at his gang, and for a moment I thought he would refuse to abandon them. But then he nodded and started jogging down the tunnel.
The sounds of battle faded behind us to distorted grunts and clashes. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that Nicholas had been possessed. Something in the way he so determinedly marched toward a place he obviously did not want to go was eerie.
When we turned a corner the shift from tunnel to house could not have been more obvious. The floor was inlaid with mosaic marble, and the walls were wood with a dark veneer. We clicked along the entranceway until it opened into a foyer. Several other tunnels and doors branched out like spokes from a wheel. Nicholas didn’t hesitate. He turned to a large oak door on the right and turned the handle. Locked.
“Stand back.” His voice was quiet. I scrambled away like he’d shouted. With no further warning he launched himself at the door. The force of the blow echoed like an earthquake over the marble, but the wood was only dented. He launched himself again. Handle smashed, the door glided open gently on its hinges. I unsheathed my sword, took out the useless pistol, and followed Nicholas inside.
It was a study of some kind, with a bare wooden floor and instruments and books lining the walls. I saw Aileen first, blessedly alive. She was trussed up and seated on the floor in the middle of a circle drawn with chalk. The sides of her neck were bloody, and I realized after a moment that Rinaldo must have ripped the cuff links from her ears. She leaned forward when she saw me and shouted against her gag. I gave her a smile I hoped was reassuring and scuffed the chalk with my shoe. Slowly, I turned my gaze to the other person in the room. He was standing in front of a larger, but empty, chalk circle, reading from what looked like a grimoire. Something about him seemed familiar to me, but I couldn’t place where I’d seen him before. He finished what ever he was reading and laid a sprig of an herb in the circle.
“There,” he said, turning to us. “He should be here any moment now.” He smiled, and suddenly I realized where I’d seen him before. He was a taller, paler, slightly doughier version of the white piano player at Horace’s and that party I’d gone to with Lily. Modern music, Amir had told me. And poor Nicholas with his beautiful arrested voice. Rinaldo’s accent now was faintly Italian, but he’d be able to mask it easily enough.
“Nice to see you again,” I said, with affected casualness. “You look different.”
He shrugged. “Just a little ability I have. I see you’ve found my son.”
“That’s funny. Which one?”
That surprised him. “I only see Nicholas,” he said carefully.
“And only I know where the other one is. If you want him back, I suggest you give me my friend.”
“You have little Giudo?” he asked. I winced. If I was going to have to kill this sucker, I wished he didn’t have to sound so much like a distraught father. But I nodded.
“And you want this girl for him? But she murdered my good friend, Miss Hollis.”
I suspected that now was not the time to tell him who had actually done the foul deed, so I just shrugged. “What’s worth more? Your son, or revenge?”
The air in the empty circle began to shimmer. Some of the instruments rattled on their shelves. “I’m afraid the choice isn’t quite so simple,” he said.
What was happening? I turned to Nicholas, but he was still as a statue. His eyes flicked around the room, but so quickly I suspected he was deep in the throes of a flashback. Anything I did to pull him out would only put me in danger.
The room stopped trembling. Inside the circle, the shimmering gradually resolved itself into a figure.
It was one of the Djinni, but not quite so dark or billowy as Kardal. He was very tall—almost eight feet—and the deep smoke swirling around his body and flashing eyes seemed to glow with an internal flame. I’d never seen this djinn before, and yet something about the obvious theatrics smacked of a certain sense of the absurd I almost recognized . . .
“O fiery one,” Rinaldo said, “I offer you a sacrifice of a virgin pure, so your strength can grow and in turn feed mine.”
“Good lord,” said the great djinn. He shook his head, and the swirling smoke blew away while the figure inside shrank to a more familiar size. I blinked. I hadn’t known he could do that.
Amir was dressed in knickers and a cashmere sweater, and so sick that despite even this effort he looked as though he needed to lie down. I cursed myself for caring. He could damn well take care of himself this time. I washed my hands of him, the Faust-selling lout. Rinaldo seemed surprised at what his
summoning had wrought, though he’d done this at least once before.
Amir looked disdainfully at Rinaldo and then at Aileen. “You again?” he said to her. “Well, this hasn’t exactly been the best week for either of us, has it?”
Rinaldo seemed confused. “Ah, you are Amir, the great and youngest djinn of Shadukiam—”
“Sorry to disappoint. I just don’t have the energy right now to look large and billowing.”
Amir had noticed me, of course, but apart from a split-second surprised glance, he kept his attention trained on Rinaldo. I edged forward. I thought about attacking Rinaldo, but Aileen was closer and I wanted to make sure she was safe. Hopefully Daddy and Troy and the other Defenders would be along soon. I knelt to slice through the tight knots binding her ankles and wrists.
“And I hope you’ve realized by now my blood can’t do a thing to change you. That sahir curse was of the permanent variety.” Amir was rambling, but deliberately saying things to provoke Rinaldo.
“I felt its power,” Rinaldo said.
“You would. It doesn’t mean it can change you.”
“It can. And if it doesn’t, I’ll still be the most powerful vampire in the world, with your blood.”
I untied Aileen’s gag. She took a deep breath, but thankfully Rinaldo didn’t notice.
“Get up very carefully,” I whispered. “Run through that door. Hide in a corner and don’t come out until you hear me, Troy or Daddy tell you it’s okay.”
Aileen looked at me. “Be careful,” she whispered. “I’m getting this feeling . . .”
I nodded. She shook out her wrists, stood up and sprinted for the door. As expected, Rinaldo could hardly fail to notice his bait running away, but by that time I was already sprinting at him with my sword raised in one hand and the pistol in the other. He knocked the pistol to the floor, but disregarded the sword. I swung it hard, and felt it bite into his rib cage. He grunted when I yanked it out, but there was none of the characteristic sizzle of a silver blessed blade hitting vampire skin. Another spell? He pulled a long sword from one of the shelves and unsheathed it. I swallowed. Blessings didn’t matter one way or another to me, but sharp steel certainly did.
“Well,” he said, “one virgin is as good as another.”
“Why do vampires insist on thinking that everyone behaves like them?” Amir said from the prison of his chalk circle. “I don’t get power from the blood of virgins, you fool. And as you can see, at the present moment I’m not likely to give you much power anyway. So why don’t you just let us all go home?”
“And if you want to see your son again,” I said, ducking under his blade and nicking his thigh with a quick thrust, “I suggest you don’t kill me.”
He paused, our blades inches from each other. “Why should I believe you? I thought Giuseppe stole him. And Katerina thought it was my boy Nicholas. I didn’t even know who you were a week ago.”
Giuseppe? He had something to do with this? My head hurt. “I found him on the street. Someone had turned him. But he reminded me of my brother . . . so I took him home.”
Rinaldo seemed incredulous. “You took him home? Do you live in a fortress? Don’t you know how long it takes to acclimatize—”
I shook my head. “I’m learning. But I guess you’re the expert. Turning your own son at thirteen and all.”
Rinaldo looked between me and Nicholas, who was twitchy, but apparently more aware of his surroundings. “Is this your doing, Nicholas? Was Katerina right all this time? Did you turn your own brother?”
“The bastardo wasn’t my brother, Papa. He was your whore’s son, and you gave him everything. You think I wouldn’t hear how you changed your will? I’m learning how to read. I read about how little you care about me. Besides, I just did to him what you did to me.”
Rinaldo let his sword arm fall. Then, with as much sudden fury as a beserker pi lot, he hurtled toward Nicholas, ejecting a stream of Italian expletives. Nicholas struggled beneath the onslaught. I looked back at Amir. He had sunk to the ground, but he smiled at me. I crawled over. “It’s a little terrifying to watch you work,” he whispered.
“Lucky that you have nothing to do with it,” I said, with such obvious fury that for a moment he seemed afraid. “I should let you rot.”
“You should?”
“A business transaction?” My tone could have withered grapes on a vine. How sick was he? How much time did he have left? I hated that I still cared.
Amir looked as though I’d hit him. “Oh, habibti,” he whispered. “You didn’t . . . I thought Kardal told you.”
So that’s why he’d been so surprised when I was still willing to help him. “Not enough,” I said. I closed my eyes.
Something heavy as a boulder smashed into me, knocking me flat against the ground. It hurt. I thought I might have heard a rib crack. Amir shouted my name. The thing rolled off of me. Oh, not a thing—Rinaldo had tossed Nicholas across the room to stop me from breaking Amir’s circle.
I stood up with a wince. Put the pain away, deal with it later. I’d been good at that in the old days. “If you hurt Amir,” I heard myself saying, “you’ll never see your son again.”
He laughed. “That’s just the thing, bella. If I hurt Amir, I’ll be strong enough to force you to tell me.”
The fight between Nicholas and Rinaldo had masked the sounds of the approaching Defenders, but when they finally burst through the door I could have mistaken them for descending angels. Daddy and Troy led the pack, but in the crowd that tumbled in behind them I counted eight men. Four vampires and four Defenders. It looked like the battle back in the tunnels had turned deadly. Rinaldo tightened his grip on his sword and backed very close to Amir’s circle.
“Charity, watch out!” Nicholas called. I turned just in time to see some kind of stringed instrument flying at my head. I ducked. The Turn Boys were getting creative with their weapons, and I didn’t have any time to hash this out with Amir. The thought of what he had done made me physically ill, but no matter how despicable his actions, stopping Rinaldo from controlling his power had to be my first priority. Daddy found me and hauled me upright. His shirt was soaked with sweat, but he still looked as though he could happily fight for another hour.
“Zeph, hey,” he gasped, “try and be a little more careful! Your mama’ll kill me if anything happens to you.”
I nodded, but then we were both distracted by another commotion by the door.
“Stop, please stop!” Kathryn was yelling, tugging on the long dark sleeves of someone in a cowl. I immediately recognized him as the same man who’d threatened me the other night in Little Italy. He shook her off, and in the pro cess his hood fell back.
“Giudo?” Troy said.
But no, it was Giuseppe. He didn’t even glance at Troy—his stare was riveted on Nicholas, who glared back. The hatred between them spoke volumes; a fraught past I hadn’t even been aware existed.
“You killed my son,” Giuseppe said, inexplicably.
Nicholas laughed, high-pitched and giddy. “Hear that, Papa? The bastardo isn’t even your own son! Did you forget that?”
Of course, how could a child as young as Judah be the son of Rinaldo, who’d been turned long before Judah was born? Vampires were sterile. I stared at Giuseppe. His son. He’d borrowed all that money for a reason, but not any of the ones he’d given me. The three of them—Giuseppe, Rinaldo and Nicholas—came at each other at the same time; the dull smack of bodies colliding at inhuman speed echoed throughout the room.
“Giuseppe!” Kathryn shrieked from the doorway. “Rinaldo, let him be!”
Rinaldo’s puttana, but she was something else entirely to Giuseppe. The mother of his children. His lost wife.
With Rinaldo otherwise engaged, I had a chance to free Amir. Maybe I should have left him to rot, but I couldn’t. Later, I would sort it all out. I just needed to make it to “later” alive. I tried to wipe the chalk away with my boot, but the second I touched the edge of the circle, a force like an elect
rical current roared up my body and I collapsed onto the floor, twitching and gasping. What the hell was that?
“Zephyr! Are you okay?” Amir was kneeling as close to me as he could. I struggled up on one shaky elbow. Rinaldo had noticed my interference. With a roar, he tore himself away from Nicholas and Giuseppe and sprinted toward me, sword raised.
“Enough!” he said. “You’re too much trouble.”
I tried to roll out of his way, but the effects of the circle’s protective force had made me as uncoordinated as a baby. I reached for my short sword; he stepped on my hand. Something snapped. I screamed. But at least the pain seemed to have galvanized the rest of me. I wrenched my throbbing hand out from under him and rolled over. His sword bit deep into the wood.
“Get your filthy sucker hands off my little girl!”
Daddy probably shouldn’t have announced his presence, since the blade that would have otherwise gone straight through Rinaldo’s back and into his sternum was deflected into a less harmful blow to his right arm.
I grit my teeth and forced myself to my knees. At least Rinaldo had stepped on my left hand. I could still fight. But I needed the blade. I saw it, an inch away from Amir’s circle. His eyes locked with mine when I knelt to get it. He looked how I felt: stricken, in pain, longing.
“Get away,” he whispered. “Please. Just get away.”
I grabbed the knife and stood. My head spun, but I steadied myself with fury. “Shut up, Amir.”
Focus. Find Rinaldo. Force him to release Amir. I didn’t know how I’d manage that, but I knew I would. Or die trying. But Rinaldo had his hands full; Daddy was laughing like a madman, using his double blades to badger his target into submission. Blood was dripping down Daddy’s temple and something had sliced his chest, but I don’t think he even noticed he was hurt. The other Defenders were still occupied with the Turn Boys. If I could sneak up behind him, Rinaldo wouldn’t have a chance. I stumbled forward, willing the weakness from my muscles.
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