by A. J. Aalto
“Certainly that was no great struggle. Monsieur Nazaire does so like the attentions of beautiful women, much as his maker does. If he heard you were interested in speaking with him, he’d be all a-flutter.” Harry sniffed unhappily. “I do hope you don’t imagine you’ll be attending him alone?”
“You can’t come, Harry,” I pointed out. “He’s older than you, and you’ve not been invited.”
“This is nigh on intolerable,” he said primly, but his protests lacked energy. “He cannot possibly expect me to send my precious DaySitter unarmed and alone into his residence.”
“Will you feel better knowing I’m taking a vampire hunter with me?” I asked, texting Malashock rapidly, reminding her not to tell Nyquist. She replied immediately with: affirm. OMW.
Harry cocked his head. “Could you be referring to Ms. Malashock?”
I swung my feet off the couch. “Much as I hate to admit it, she’s solid.”
“Flames and ether, darling, if you aren’t full of surprises this evening. Yes, I do suppose I couldn’t find fault with that.”
I wondered if Ludovic Nazaire would be able to say the same as I tied my Keds and grabbed my jacket. Ludovic didn’t like surprise werewolves, but then, who did? Would Ludovic be slightly more comfortable with a mundane, mortal vampire hunter? Was stabby better than bitey? Ludovic had sent his DaySitter to approach me, even though Malashock had been lingering nearby. Probably, she didn’t intimidate revenants as much as she intimidated me.
I shuffled through my gloves to find two that matched, failed, and gave up, choosing one green and one blue. “Do you have plans this evening, Harry?”
“Plans?” he asked, all innocence. “Whatever could you mean, love? What plans could a weary old aristocrat like me have on a long, cold October night?”
I made a doubtful noise. “Oh, I dunno. I’ve heard things.”
“Have you indeed.”
“Traipsing about in a graveyard with my mother, now? Going night fishing with my dad at Jordan Harbor? Bringing my grandfather a dozen doughnuts?” I turned my phone to face him and showed him Carrie’s text accusingly.
Harry gave his head a little shake as if to clear it. “Such a fuss you make,” he clucked. “Your mother simply wanted to visit our beloved Vi, and she didn’t want to go alone.”
“She wanted to go with you?” I goggled at him, plunking my phone in my pocket. “You’re joking. She asked you. To go with her. My mother. Mom. Asked you. As if.”
“In fact, she did.”
“Why?”
Harry smoothed his eyebrow with a pinkie finger, his self-soothing habit. Then he straightened, adjusting his collar. “When a lady asks a gentleman to escort her to a cemetery to visit her mother’s grave, a gentleman does not ask why, MJ. He puts on the black and he attends to her needs.”
That didn’t satisfy me at all. “Awfully risky for you to be there at all. A second time.”
He inclined his head once.
“Risky for you. Risky for Vi.”
“I would never risk my DaySitter’s eternal rest, or the contentment of her soul.”
“You’re not worried about Kinship of the Departed?”
Harry’s face was blank and unreadable, but he wasn’t fooling me. The only way that made sense is if… something clicked. “Harry, is Grandma Vi not actually buried there?”
“You attended her funeral,” he said with a catch in his voice. “You saw her urn interred therein, my Own.”
I had. I remembered it in bits and pieces, the edges blurred by grief and the massive life change that came with suddenly being the young caretaker of the immortal I’d inherited. It was clear that Harry had said all he meant to say on the matter, but I was unsatisfied. Would Harry have moved Vi? Would he have switched her urn? Why would he do such a thing? Kinship of the Departed, my brain teased. “And the fishing expedition with my father?”
“Mr. Baranuik needed my excellent night vision to put the worms on the hooks in the dark.”
“Try again,” I said flatly.
“He didn’t feel like being alone?”
I shook my head to show him I wasn’t buying that either.
“He had things to discuss, private matters that I will be keeping that way, if you don’t mind terribly. I am hardly so boorish as to break a confidence, and surely you cannot expect me to do so.”
“Boy, you sure are making the rounds, eh?” I challenged. “And my grandpa?”
“Well, you certainly won’t hear Matts complaining about a few doughnuts,” Harry said on an astonished laugh.
“He’s diabetic,” I said. “He shouldn’t be eating doughnuts.”
Harry fluttered his lashes and dropped eye contact. “I understand your concern.”
He left the but unspoken but I picked up on it. “Harry? What did you do?”
“Do?” he repeated, still avoiding my eyes.
“Harry.”
“I’m just cementing the bonds of family between us,” he said defensively.
I skimmed all my scientific knowledge of revenants, chemistry, medicine, and any specifics for diabetes and found nothing. “Did you somehow let my grandfather eat a dozen doughnuts without suffering a blood sugar spike?”
“Could I do that?” he said innocuously, keeping his tone light. “Goodness, that would be fun for him, wouldn’t it? A nice treat for the old chap. A party in his mouth, he might say.”
I felt my eyes narrow. “You did. You figured out a way to — ” The implications sank home. “You’re still buying Baranuik loyalty with fat, sugar, and carbohydrates.”
Harry’s little caught-out grin was so brief that I almost missed it, but his habit of hiding it behind his fingertips gave him away. “It was a small thing.”
“How did you do it?”
“He bottled his blood,” Wesley growled behind us, and I turned to see him in the doorway leading to the hall. He did not look amused. “Harry has been feeding our family his blood.” He cut his unnerving wilted-violet gaze accusingly at Harry. “Rowena told me. It was her idea. After all. Because of course she would.”
For a minute, my mind refused to process this information. Nope, not gonna entertain that for a second — except that Wesley wasn't lying. I could tell he wasn’t lying; I could hear the disappointment in his voice.
Harry drew himself up to full height. “Being here, being near your kin, has reminded me that I have stolen something from you. It is something I wish to return, if I'm able. Is that so wrong? Are you so determined to expect the worst of me, my pet?” When I didn’t know what to say, he continued. “They asked me to. Your darling sisters, who until this week did so enjoy disapproving of me and my entire kind. And your father and grandfather. Your mother, of course, remains unconvinced and has abstained.”
“Let me get this straight,” I held up my gloved hands in a whoa gesture, trying to process. “My sisters got together and asked you to put the nectar of your veins in bottles?”
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you or Carrie. They asked me for my blood first,” Wes admitted. “Rowena said they’d forgive everything if I gave them my blood. I told them to fuck off.”
I was furious on his behalf. “Why would they do this? There are risks involved in consuming revenant nectar, don’t they know that?”
“They knew,” Wes said. “I made sure they knew. It wasn’t news to them. Apparently, rumors of the practice have been whispered in the area for years.”
“I expect Baranuiks to be shifty, I don’t expect them to be downright shitty.” But maybe that was my mistake. I was always surprised when they disappointed me, but they continued to do so. “What the hell could they hope to accomplish? Why would they even think of this?”
“Good heavens, but you are pitching a fit. It was a small thing, ducky, and not unheard of,” Harry said, trying to soothe me.
“It’s unforgivable for them to ask it of you. After treating you like a goddamn monster all these years, they’re going to ask you to open a fucking vein
?”
“I had debts to pay, and fences to mend,” Harry said, taking my gloved hands into his own. “Surely, you must see why. My love, I lured your grandmother away from her husband, and then away from her child. Decades later, I would lure your mother’s eldest child from her, and throw your father into an uncertain future, a deep disappointment he would drink to escape. By my nature, I have trespassed against the Baranuik clan, and for that, I am deeply sorry. At last, I see the error of my ways. It was your sister Rena’s unrelenting prickliness atop your grandfather's hurt and fury that made me step back and examine my behavior more objectively. And I have come to the same conclusion that they had: I have behaved as a parasite. I have caused illness and damage. If I can in some way mitigate that damage, then it is my duty to do so.”
I didn’t know what to say. I swallowed dryly, hearing my throat click. “Wes?”
My brother’s insight was simply, “He’s not bullshitting. He does believe that.”
“Did you think I would lie about such things, my pipistrelle?” His brow furrowed slightly.
“Carrie called you a leech.”
Harry inclined his head once. “She did.”
“She didn’t mean it like that,” I said, not entirely sure of that at all.
“She did, my love, and I am not pleased to say it, but she was right to point it out.”
I had a troubling flashback to Rotten Roy calling Zorovar’s nectar splashed on the walls “a waste” and struggled to comprehend how this fit in to the bigger picture, if it did at all.
“But, Harry — ” The look on Wesley’s face stopped me. “Hey, Dude Witch, did you just swallow a fly? What’s up?”
“Does Liv Malashock know what you’re getting her into tonight?” Wes asked, staring directly at my forehead, reading the answer in my brain. “Is that fair, to take her in without telling her what’s going to happen?”
“Fair, shmair,” I said. “All’s fair in love and war, and this is war. Besides, why are you defending a vampire hunter? She’d stake you without blinking, just for being a revenant.”
“You’re right,” Wes said. “She would. But do two wrongs make a capital-R Right, Marnie-Jean?”
Harry cleared his voice. “I believe my DaySitter has everything under control, lad. Stand aside and let her do her job.”
“Wow, is that what support feels like?” I half-smiled. “It’s so nice and snuggly! Don’t think for a minute this gets you off the hook for the nectar crap. We’re going to talk about this when I get home, you best believe it.”
Harry turned and leveled his gaze at me. Like Wesley’s eerie immortal stare, Harry’s had also been imbued with infernal influence — the soft grey of his irises shone like high polished chrome. He lifted one corner of his upper lip off a canine, flashing fully extended fang, putting effort into showing me how serious he was.
“Go. Give no quarter, my advocate. Show respect but no fear. You are My Own, and you carry with you wherever you go the combined might of House Dreppenstedt. We are the ruling house on the UnHallowed Throne. The Queen has you under her watch. You are marked by the Overlord Himself.” One pale finger hooked into my scarf and whisked it off. “Tonight, it is a mark you wear with pride. Let them see you for what you are.”
“They will have heard who I am by now, Harry,” I drawled. “They won’t be expecting much.”
“Then you will correct their faulty opinion,” he said firmly. “Get the confirmation you require, then return home to me, my beloved. If I haven’t heard from you by midnight, we will come for you in force.”
“We? Who’s we?” I eyeballed my baby brother. “You and Dude Witch, here? Ghaz and Zorovar have Strickland’s neck in a vice.” And this is the Soul Caller’s territory. My heart iced over with dismay as a puzzle piece suddenly slipped in place. That’s what had been bothering me about the cemetery. Could Aston Sarokhanian, or whoever the real power was, call souls with Kinship of the Departed? Could he call Grandma Vi if he wanted to punish us, or what if he whisked her soul away years ago to keep Harry in line? Had Harry anticipated this and secretly buried her elsewhere?
“I have many other contacts in the region. I should not like to call upon their favors, but if necessary, I shall,” Harry said, and while his voice was light, the comment itself left an ominous overtone hovering in the hall. He was monitoring the dismay sluicing through my heart, his lips pursed against the secrets he wanted to spill. Harry had things he wished he could tell me, and like all dead men, he would keep those secrets.
I sighed and went to the door, swiping the house keys off the hall table. When I cranked open the front door, Malashock was already there.
I blinked in surprise. She hadn’t knocked. Had she been listening to our raised voices? She stood defiantly on the front step with her hands in her pockets. There was a big silver cross hanging boldly from her neck, for all the good it would do her.
Harry appeared at my shoulder, eager to set his eyes on the vampire hunter I’d called She-Batten. His mood shifted abruptly with something akin to relief — his hunger broke like an avalanche through my veins, and he did nothing to curb its frigid advance. Arousal made his mouth water, and I felt the cold wash of his hunger and anticipation through the Bond. His amusement with what he saw was just as obvious. Liv’s balls-out bravery had set Harry off, and he was seeing nothing but green lights to his mischief.
“A hearty good evening to you, Ms. Malashock!” he said enthusiastically, flashing full fang. “Care to come in for refreshments?”
“Down, boy,” I muttered, putting one staying hand on his forearm. “Don’t make me put you down.”
Harry let out a soft laugh. “Do try not to be absurd, my pet. Why, I’m only being an attentive host.” His lie ended in a soft purr.
Malashock took him in with a bland sort of interest, not showing the results of her assessment. She had a killer cop face, revealing nothing. But I noticed the quickened breath, the hard forearms that told me she was holding two rowan wood stakes in her pockets, and clutching them hard.
Her hammering heart made Wesley’s breath shaky with the helpless desire to pounce on her from behind me, so he stalked away, removing himself from the temptation, and fled to the relative security of the kitchen. Harry, on the other hand, drank it in, showered in temptation and desire, savoring it while Malashock stared him down. Her pulse was plainly visible in her throat now, fluttering like it could escape her. Even I could see it. Harry was transfixed.
They sized each other up, and Malashock’s tightness ratcheted up while Harry’s amusement blossomed further — it was clear to both of them that if he wanted to, Harry could dominate her effortlessly. That knowledge usually relaxed Harry to the point of boredom after a moment or so, but tonight, he was using his arousal as a diversion.
“We’re going to be late,” I chided, backing Malashock off the porch with my approach. “Good night, Harry. Stay out of trouble.”
He sputtered, “But, ducky — ” and I slammed the door in his face.
“Shall we?” I suggested to Malashock. She blinked rapidly, but nodded. “Did you let Schenk know where you’re going on your way over?”
Malashock clicked the car alarm to unlock the doors, then glared at me as if I’d insulted her. “This is my case.”
“Okay,” I said lightly, backing down, sliding into the passenger side. I wasn't used to keeping secrets from cops, and it felt hinky and unnatural. Schenk’s cheese smuggling case had been dealt with.
There was one cop who did need to know, however. I texted Batten’s burner phone with the quickest update I could manage: D got me in with N. Possible intel. W/ hunter. All good. Then I wondered, for the first time, what Batten had observed at the casino, and when he’d left, and if he’d followed anyone home. Did he have enough time to follow Danni or Dane from the casino to wherever they went, and still wind up at Kimberley’s before me? Maybe Danni, after our shared plate of French fries, but probably not Dane. Just in case Batten knew where the Queenston
Heights house was, I texted the warning, Don’t even think about it. We’ve got this.
Malashock turned onto the Niagara Parkway. Fifteen minutes later, we slowed to start squinting at difficult-to-spot driveways between tall, dark cedars.
Batten did not text back.
The house was a lot like Malas Nazaire’s grand mansion in Colorado: an old-money slap in the face surrounded by trees and high end classic cars. My envious eyes were drawn to a 1956 Buick Roadmaster convertible in understated Colonial Blue. Harry would let me have this Buick. My fussy Cold Company couldn’t possibly turn his nose up at a sweet ride like that.
Malashock and I left the relative security of her vehicle and voluntarily made ourselves vulnerable on the front porch, announcing our presence with the grand brass knocker as if the immortals making the void in the house didn’t already smell our blood.
Dane the DaySitter opened the door, eyed us both, and nodded. Tonight, he wore dark jeans and a Muppets t-shirt with Animal on the front, which I coveted.
“Happy to see me again?” I asked while he frisked us for weapons. Mostly for stakes, although he did ask Malashock to turn out her pockets, after which he confiscated her switchblade.
She shot me a look, and I shook my head to warn her away from causing conflict.
Dane double-checked my pockets. “My master is pleased to have your company,” he told me, “and quite glad you didn’t bring — ”
“The geologist!” I shouted over him, worried he was going to say werewolf. “I know, right? Nobody likes a stoned stone-jockey. Dull. Boring. Smelly. Look, we don’t wanna mess with your flow, here. We just need to see Ludovic and then skedaddle.”
Malashock wasn’t thrilled about leaving all her weapons behind, but rolled with it. If we approached Ludovic with openness, honesty, and a deferential nature, we might come away with exactly what we needed, safely. Decades of negotiating with the undead, rather than hunting and staking them, had taught me that it was possible. You just had to swallow your pride, accept some territorial nonsense, and decipher old-timey gibberish. It helped if you could gin up some awe. Old revenants loved inspiring awe.