Speaking wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind…
Benjamin shook his head. No. He wouldn’t encourage this. He couldn’t afford to, as his earlier interlude with Tzadkiel had shown. There was too much animosity between them to allow passion of any kind free rein.
Benjamin gripped the banister more firmly and descended the stairs. “I thought you’d left.”
Tzadkiel lifted his head as Benjamin entered the library. Benjamin swore he could feel the heat of the vampire’s regard.
“You seem to have trouble with the concept, so I will remind you,” Tzadkiel said, tone indulgent. “I am not leaving you until this is finished.”
Finished, as in one or both of them was dead.
“Don’t you need to leave to eat or something?”
Benjamin felt, more than saw, the vampire’s brow arch in the aura’s jagged flicker. Was eating a personal subject for the creatures?
“I gain physical sustenance from food,” Tzadkiel said. “Just as you do.”
“Yeah. So you said.”
Benjamin crossed the library to the whiskey decanter. He lifted the crystal stopper, watching in fascination as the light played over and through the faceted glass. Texture melded with sight, the sharp edges of the cut surface lending support to visual perception. He placed the stopper down, and poured Scotch into a glass. The liquid burbled, its sound confirming what he now knew by sight. His glass was full.
“But what about the other stuff? Your magic depends on blood, right? Ritual sacrifice?”
The paper rattled. “It’s hardly sacrifice. No one dies.”
“No one dies?” He faced the vampire, expression arch. “Ever?”
“I’ve been known to make exceptions…” Tzadkiel eventually answered.
Benjamin raised his glass, saluting the vampire. “Here’s to your exceptions. May they plague you in the afterlife.”
He downed the liquid in three large gulps and wiped his face with the back of his hand.
“Did you come downstairs to drown your fears?” The vampire nodded toward Benjamin’s now empty glass.
Benjamin’s answering grin was snide. “Just washing your taste out of my mouth.”
The paper came up between them once more, and Benjamin poured himself another drink and took a sip. The burn awakened his courage, if not his sense of self-preservation. A log in the fire popped.
“What are you reading?”
“The newspaper.” The vampire’s reply was wooden.
“Obviously,” Benjamin muttered, fortifying himself with a healthy sip.
Warm spice rolled over his tongue, bringing with it the slow burn that heralded relaxation. Pages of the Globe lay discarded over the library reading chair. Benjamin yanked up a section and glanced at the newsprint. It had been so long since he’d read anything but braille that it took him longer than it should have to sound out a section in an article Tzadkiel had circled in red. Apparently the Museum of Fine Arts was hosting a holiday ball on Thursday, and Boston’s political and social elite would be in attendance.
“You’re going to a party?” Benjamin guessed.
“So it would seem.”
Tzadkiel stood, discarding his section of the paper on the library table. Benjamin followed him with his hunter’s gaze. The alcohol had set up a nice glow in his middle now, numbing him to the dangerous undercurrents that rippled below the surface of the vampire’s composure.
Head tilted toward the sideboard, Tzadkiel asked, “May I?”
Benjamin lifted one shoulder, but kept his attention on the vampire, not for a moment truly letting down his guard. “Suit yourself.”
Crystal clinked, and the stopper rolled against the silver tray. Liquid splashed, a singsong note that calmed Benjamin’s nerves by association.
“I need to meet with the mayor. He’ll be at the MFA gala,” Tzadkiel said.
Benjamin held out his glass to Tzadkiel, who topped it off. “The mayor? Why?”
Boston’s mayor had been in office for close to twenty-five years. Elected by a landslide every time, the man had taken office barely out of college and remained there ever since. The camera loved him, and people did too.
“He used to be an ally.” Tzadkiel set down the decanter. “He might be able to bring pressure to bear on the coven to return what is mine.”
If the vampires had allies, then it was news to Benjamin. He’d always assumed the creatures were unknown to anyone outside of the hunters and the supernatural community. He rolled a sip of Scotch around on his tongue to capture the subtle flavors as he connected the dots. “Would talking with the mayor help you find the kylix?”
Fabric rustled with Tzadkiel’s shrug. “Possibly. I also think he might be able to tell me if someone betrayed me to your parents.”
At the mention of his parents, Benjamin lowered his glass with an angry jerk. “Revenge isn’t a theme for you at all, is it?”
A particularly hard gust of wind rattled the windowpanes, and guttered the fire’s flames. Embers flared and wood popped. The house, and even the weather, seemed to take part in his renewed confrontation with the vampire.
“I was ambushed by your parents, tortured by your uncle, my family killed, and my home taken.” Tzadkiel lifted his palm, the gesture sarcastically brusque. “I think this entitles me to a little revenge, don’t you?”
Visions of Tzadkiel’s ruined face, skin and bone exposed through ragged cuts that healed slowly due to the injections of acid and iron, surfaced, and an answering shudder walked down Benjamin’s spine. The over-the-top reminiscence, so gory and replete with the vampire’s pain, forced him to sit.
“Whatever,” Benjamin managed. “I never thought animals needed an excuse to play with their kills.”
When no reply came from Tzadkiel, Benjamin lifted his head. The vampire still appeared to regard him from his position against the sideboard. His relaxed stance, deceptive as that of as a coiled snake lounging in a pool of sunshine, said there was nothing the world could throw at him that he couldn’t take on. Must be nice to be king.
“Why did you let me live?” The question, likely encouraged by alcohol and exhaustion, expelled from Benjamin in a breathy rush. It had haunted him all these years. “And don’t say it was because I gave you a glass of water.”
Tzadkiel turned away. Abrupt. And Benjamin had the satisfaction of finally seeing the vampire rattled by something. Though the crystal stopper stuttered back and forth, wobbling across the silver tray, no sound of liquid followed. Shoulders hunched, head lowered, Tzadkiel clutched the sideboard’s edge.
“I have no interest in a walk down memory lane with you, hunter,” Tzadkiel said after a while.
Benjamin’s stomach bottomed out, his trip to his emotional basement both sharp and quick. “All right then. Fuck you too.”
With jerky motions, Tzadkiel straightened and finished freshening his drink. Crystal rang as he dropped the stopper into the decanter’s mouth and turned, purple light playing through the sloshing liquid in his glass.
“You want the truth?” Tzadkiel leaned with too-casual care against the sideboard.
Benjamin’s world narrowed to a slice that contained only Tzadkiel. “No, lie to me. I find it a turn-on.”
“It’s simple, really.” Tzadkiel took a careful sip of his drink, his motions once again infinitely controlled. “I do not shed the blood of innocents.”
The phrasing brought to mind the vampire on the Common Benjamin, Nix, and Akito had fought only last night. It had said it had just drained a child—and that the blood of innocents contained strong magic. If that were the case, then Tzadkiel should have killed Benjamin that day if only to survive, and yet he hadn’t. The thought made Benjamin distinctly uncomfortable. It didn’t fit with what he knew of the monsters and left him even more confused than when he’d started.
“Right. And I’m from Kansas, and this is my dog, Toto,” Benjamin grumbled, vaguely indicating a space on the floor.
“It does not concern me what y
ou believe, hunter. Your blood will ultimately serve its purpose.” Tzadkiel lifted his glass in mock salute. “I always did enjoy a matured vintage.”
“I was supposed to kill you, you know. That day.” Galled, Benjamin looked for his own dagger to throw. “I wish I had.”
Tzadkiel didn’t move for a long moment. When he did, he almost seemed to reanimate with a snap.
“Then it seems, hunter,” he said with deliberate care, “we each have our regrets.”
Chapter 16
Strains of a string quartet swirled through the air. The Museum of Fine Arts’ coved classical ceilings captured the sound, cupped it lovingly, and returned it like a gentle kiss onto the mingling guests below. Tzadkiel paused on the edge of the crowd, Benjamin by his side. Dressed nattily in his tux, cane gripped lightly in his curled fingers, Benjamin looked oddly as if he belonged with the men and women of Boston’s elite. Unless one noticed the FUCK MERCY sentiment inked on his knuckles.
A desire to see that cool façade crumble—to add some wrinkles and creases to the silk cravat around the hunter’s neck—tightened Tzadkiel’s jaw. Arousal caught him by surprise, its swift unpacking a punch to his midsection that forced him to put out a steadying hand to the banister. He shook his head, dispelling the image and the distraction. Whatever was behind the magnetic attraction, it would be madness to indulge tonight.
“Do not get in the way tonight, hunter,” Tzadkiel warned, though Benjamin hadn’t actually done a thing wrong. Yet.
Benjamin notched his chin. “Or what? You’ll bite?”
Tzadkiel imagined shoving Benjamin into one of the MFA’s darkened anterooms, taking him in his hand, and creating a mess of them both. He made an exasperated sound at the back of his throat.
“Stop.” Tzadkiel directed the admonishment at himself.
“Me?” Benjamin frowned, and Tzadkiel caught his own harried expression in the man’s sunglasses. “What did I do?”
Unable—indeed, unwilling—to explain the mad tangle of his mind’s wanderings, Tzadkiel escaped down the wide staircase, leaving Benjamin behind. He turned in time to watch the hunter, holding his cane, give all the appearance of a blind man innocently following.
They reached an alcove and sat. The music paused, then flowed into the next piece. Guests whirled on and off a dance floor. Some laughed gaily over champagne flutes, and others came and went from the refreshment room. Tzadkiel cast the hunter a covert glance. The man rested his hands on the silver dragon’s head at the top of his cane and ostensibly scanned the crowd, unaware he was being observed. It was a rare, unguarded moment.
Usually a good judge of character, Tzadkiel found Benjamin puzzled him. The hunter’s regard for his friends’ safety and welfare, to the point of self-sacrifice, spoke highly of him. By the same token, his vicious murdering of Tzadkiel’s people spoke of a blackness of soul that only the truly damned possessed.
“How old were you when your family began to train you?” Tzadkiel wondered aloud.
Blond curls brushed against fine, dark wool as Benjamin turned his head. “To kill vampires?”
Tzadkiel nodded. “Yes.”
Music and the murmur of conversation shielded their exchange. At the very least, their quiet interaction kept up the appearance of two friends engaging in social niceties. It would have seemed strange had he and the hunter coldly sniped at each other all evening.
“I don’t know.” Benjamin’s forehead crinkled. “I have a memory from kindergarten, telling my teacher that my parents weren’t going to be able to make it to parents’ day because they’d been out late hunting vampires.”
The answer would have been comical, if Tzadkiel’d had any doubt it was the truth. “What did they tell you to convince you we were monsters?”
“Outside of the blood-drinking thing, I don’t think they had to tell me much.” Lips thinning, the hunter returned his attention to the event. “You did a pretty good job of convincing me of that all on your own when you murdered my family.”
Tzadkiel focused on the velvet-curtained entry at the opposite side of the room, deciding cold silence would bring less attention than arguing. It was a half hour before either of them spoke again.
“Over there.” Benjamin stood, nodding subtly toward the ballroom’s far side.
Tzadkiel followed his direction. Nearly a head taller than the surrounding dancers, the mayor waltzed with a lovely woman who nonetheless appeared twice his age—his wife, Cynthiana. If Tzadkiel hadn’t known better, he would have said the man was the woman’s son.
Benjamin tugged on Tzadkiel’s arm, with a “Let’s do this. I want to go home before two.”
Before Tzadkiel registered what was happening, he and the hunter were among the dancers, in each other’s arms. The fluid motion of the waltz, the scent of the hunter’s too-close skin were enough to make Tzadkiel momentarily forget his purpose.
Benjamin’s muscles rippled, pressure from his hand and thigh maneuvering Tzadkiel backward through the crowd. No one appeared to notice or care that two men waltzed in each other’s arms. Indeed, things had changed considerably while he’d been absent.
Tzadkiel relaxed into the dance, automatically taking on the anticipatory motions required of the lead. Benjamin fought him, and Tzadkiel, sighing, relented. It would do no good to fight him only to trip over each other’s feet.
They’d traveled across the room and now danced near an arched opening, curtained in velvet much like the alcove from which they’d emerged. Benjamin spun and separated from Tzadkiel.
Tapping Cynthiana’s shoulder, the hunter asked, “May I have the pleasure?”
The column of a cool Grecian neck turned. Surprise lit the woman’s lightly lined face, but she nodded and stepped back from the mayor. “Of course.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to lead,” Benjamin said, whirling her away, and Tzadkiel found himself without a partner.
Equally flummoxed, the mayor faced him. An inch or two shorter, the man was nevertheless Tzadkiel’s physical equal in all other respects including breadth of shoulder and width of arm. His features too were touched with the same paleness, and eyes of a deep blue similar to Tzadkiel’s own. At one time it had been a joke between them, and Tzadkiel had called him brother.
“Mayor Galloway.” Tzadkiel nodded. “This is an unexpected pleasure.”
“D-Dragoumanos?” By the time Tzadkiel straightened, the Honorable John Galloway, mayor of Boston, had composed his expression to one of mere politic surprise, minus the horror. “I—I thought you were dead.”
Tzadkiel’s smile was indulgent. “I am very much alive. As you can see.”
Blast Benjamin for thrusting him into this moment without warning. He plucked a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and the mayor followed suit. Tzadkiel drank deeply as his gaze scanned the room. He found the hunter chatting amicably on the opposite side with the mayor’s wife. A smile lit Benjamin’s face with a radiance that dumped Tzadkiel’s thoughts from his head, leaving only nonsense behind.
Tzadkiel forced his attention back to the mayor. The man’s face, flushed and wrinkle-free, held a hint of otherworldly acumen. Dark hair lay in distinguished curls that fell rakishly across an intelligent forehead.
Tzadkiel gestured vaguely with his glass. “You are well.”
Gaze darting, Galloway sipped from his champagne. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Before Tzadkiel could formulate his answer, a man in a suit, not of the party, approached, and the mayor tilted his head to take in murmured information from an aide. Tzadkiel sipped at his own flute, studying Benjamin’s discourse with Cynthiana. The hunter leaned casually against a wall, head tipped back with all the feigned languor of a jungle cat.
Benjamin’s stance shifted almost imperceptibly, and Tzadkiel felt the calculated weight of his regard.
Galloway turned back, clearly about to make his excuses, but Tzadkiel leaned in much as the aide had done, cutting him off. “I have alarming news. You will want to hear it.�
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The mayor’s eyes snapped to Tzadkiel’s face, taking his measure.
Tzadkiel tilted his head to a gallery anteroom in invitation.
A crisp nod accompanied a sweep of hand in the direction of the room. “There’s always time for old friends.”
Tzadkiel led the way to the alcove around which red drapes fell in graceful cascades reminiscent of an antebellum ball gown. His position facing the window allowed him to see if anyone came up behind them, while the mayor looked out over the smallish room with an air of thinly veiled fear. Music from the ballroom echoed with hollow dissonance.
Galloway lifted his eyes briefly, and then let his attention drift to some distant point. “You missed our meeting.”
Dark memories tightened Tzadkiel’s fingers into fists. “I was betrayed. But that is not the subject I am here to discuss.”
The mayor’s gaze snapped back to Tzadkiel’s face. He made a continue motion that flashed one starched cuff. Agelessly handsome, the mayor stared back from thickly lashed blue eyes that held no hint of a crease. Déjà vu catapulted Tzadkiel over memory’s fortress, and he abruptly saw that which he’d not understood until now.
“Twenty years ago,” Tzadkiel said, choosing his words with care, “you came to me asking to become one of my mora—an immortal Son of Pollux. I would not grant that request, for reasons you well know.”
Having a famous member of his clan would have undermined Tzadkiel’s own power with his people, and also made it infinitely more difficult for them to remain under the proverbial radar when the man never aged—never disappeared from the public eye. No matter the man’s power and family connections, nor the resulting benefits to Tzadkiel and his people, he would have been remiss to acquiesce to the man’s request.
Galloway nervously tapped his fingers against his mouth. “And so? My life went on, as you can see.”
Understanding dawned. Tzadkiel found himself amending his thoughts on his ability to read a man’s character. The mayor was no ally, and perhaps had never been. Tzadkiel’s palm itched for his sword.
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