14
The steps leading underground were taller than normal, as if whatever they were originally designed for wasn't quite human. I kicked the door shut, didn't want to touch the blood. The door cut Liv off in mid scream. I could still hear her very faintly, like the high buzzing of an insect, but the door was almost soundproof. Needed something to muffle the screams from below. Of course, tonight there was only silence on the stairs. A silence so deep that it vibrated in my ears.
Jean-Claude moved in a boneless grace, like a big cat, down the awkward steps. I had to wrap the end of the coat over my left arm to keep from tripping over it. Even then, I didn't glide down the stairs. In three-inch heels I sort of limped.
Jean-Claude waited at the bend of the stairs just before the landing. "I could carry you, ma petite."
"No, thanks." If I took the shoes off, the dress would be so long I'd need to hold it up. I needed one hand free for a gun. If my choices were being slow and having a gun drawn, or being fast and having my hands full of dress . . . I'd be slow.
The stairs stretched empty, wide enough to drive a small car down. The door at the base of the stairs was solid oak, iron bound like the door to a dungeon. Tonight, not a bad analogy.
Jean-Claude pulled on the heavy door, and it swung open. It was usually kept locked. He turned to me. "The council can demand that I greet every vampire within these walls, formally."
"You mean like you did with Liv?" I asked.
He gave a very small smile. "If I do not acknowledge their dominance over me, then perhaps."
"What if you do acknowledge them?" I asked.
He shook his head. "If we had gone to the council for aid of some kind, then I would not fight. I would simply acknowledge their superiority and be done with it. I am not strong enough to be council. I know that." He smoothed his hands down the ruffles his shirt, adjusting the cuffs on his jacket so the ruffles at his wrists showed to best advantage. He often fussed with his clothes when he was nervous. Of course, he fussed with his clothes when he wasn't nervous, too.
"I hear a 'but' coming," I said.
He smiled at me. "Oui, ma petite. But they have come to us. They have invaded our lands. Harmed our people. If we acknowledge them as greater than ourselves without a struggle, they may set up a new master in my place. They may take all I have gained."
"I thought the only way to step down as master was to die."
"They would come to that, eventually."
"Then we go in kicking butt."
"But we cannot win by violence, ma petite. What we did with Liv was to be expected. She had to be punished. But in a struggle to kill or be killed, the council will win."
I frowned up at him. "If we can't just say they're bigger and badder than we are, and we can't fight them, what can we do?"
"We play the game, ma petite."
"What game?"
"The game that I mastered at court so long ago. It is a thing of diplomacy, bravado, insults." He raised my left hand to his lips and laid a gentle kiss on it. "You will be very good at part of the game, and very bad at others. Diplomacy is not your strong suit."
"Bravado and insults are two of my best things."
He smiled, still holding my hand. "Indeed, ma petite, indeed. Put the gun away. I am not saying do not use it, but have a care who you shoot. Not everything you will meet tonight can be harmed by silver bullets." He cocked his head to one side as if thinking. "Though come to that, I've never seen anyone try to kill a council member with modern silver ammunition." He smiled. "It might work." He shook his head as if to rid himself of the image. "But if it comes to trying to slay the council by bullets, then all is lost and all that will be left is to take as many of them with us as we can."
"Let's save as many of our people as we can, too," I said.
"You don't understand them, ma petite. If we are dead, there will be no mercy for those who are loyal to us. Any good revolution kills the loyalists first." He touched the back of my right hand lightly, reminding. I still had the gun out. Somehow, I just didn't want to put it away.
But I did. I put the safety on. I didn't want them to know the gun was there, so I couldn't keep holding it. I put the safety on because I didn't want to shoot myself in the leg. It would be embarrassing as well as painful and probably wouldn't impress the council one little bit. I didn't understand "the game," but I'd hung around vampires long enough to know that if you could impress them, sometimes you walked out alive. Of course, sometimes they killed you anyway. Sometimes a show of bravado just earned you a slower death, like it did with some American Indian tribes that only tortured enemies they thought worthy of the honor. An honor I could do without. But sometimes in the midst of being tormented you could get away. If they just tore your throat out, all options were over. We were definitely going for impressive. If we couldn't impress them, we'd kill them. If we couldn't kill them . . . they'd kill us. Liv had just been the beginning of the evening's entertainment.
The living room was a bare stone room once again. Jean-Claude's efforts at redecorating lay in piles of black and white cloth and broken wood. The only thing untouched was the portrait above the false fireplace. Jean-Claude, Julianna, and an unscarred Asher gazed down at the ruins. I expected an unpleasant surprise to be waiting for us. There was only Willie McCoy standing in front of the cold fireplace. He had his back to us, hands clasped behind him. His pea-green suit clashed with his slicked-back black hair. One sleeve was torn and bloodstained. He turned towards us. Blood seeped from a gash on his forehead. He dabbed at it with a handkerchief covered in dancing skeletons. It was silk and had been a gift from his girlfriend, a century-old vamp who had recently joined us. Hannah was as tall, leggy, and lovely as Willie was short, badly dressed, and well . . . Willie.
He smiled at us. "So good of you to join us."
"Can the sarcasm," I said. "Where is everybody?" I started walking towards him, but Jean-Claude stopped me with a hand on my arm.
Willie's smile was almost gentle. He stared at Jean-Claude with a look of expectancy. It was an expression I'd never seen on Willie's face.
I glanced at Jean-Claude's perfect mask of a face, closed and careful. No--fearful.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Ma petite, may I introduce the Traveler."
I frowned at him. "What are you talking about?"
Willie laughed, and it was the same irritating bray he'd always had, but it ended in a low, chuckling growl that raised the hairs at the base of my neck. I looked at him and knew the shock showed on my face.
I had to swallow before I could talk, even then I didn't know what to say. "Willie?"
"He can no longer answer your call, ma petite."
Willie stood there staring at me. He had been an awkward person alive. Dead, he hadn't been much better. He hadn't been dead long enough to master that otherworldly movement that the others had. He walked towards us in a wave of his own liquid grace. It wasn't Willie.
"Shit," I said softly. "Is it permanent?"
The stranger in Willie's body laughed again. "I am merely borrowing his body. I borrow a great many bodies, don't I, Jean-Claude?"
I felt Jean-Claude draw me backwards. He didn't want to get closer. I didn't argue. We backed up. It was odd being backed up by Willie. Normally, he was one of the least scary vamps I knew. Now, tension sang down Jean-Claude's hand. I could taste his heart beating in my own head. He was afraid, and that made me afraid.
The Traveler stopped, hands on hips, laughing. "Afraid I will use you as my horse, Jean-Claude? If you are truly strong enough to have slain the Earthmover, then you should be strong enough to withstand me."
"I am cautious by nature, Traveler. Time has not lessened the habit."
"You always did have a smooth tongue in your head and so many other places."
I frowned at the double-entendre, not sure I caught the meaning, not sure I wanted to. "Let Willie go."
"He is not being harmed," the vampire said.
"He is still inside the body," Jean-Claude said. "He still feels, still sees. You have only pushed him aside, Traveler, not replaced him."
I glanced at Jean-Claude. His face showed nothing. "You say that like you know from personal experience."
"Jean-Claude was one of my favorite bodies, once upon a time. Balthasar and I enjoyed him very much."
Balthasar walked out of the far hallway as if he'd been waiting for his cue. Maybe he had. He was smiling, but it was more a baring of teeth than pleasure. He strode into the room looking elegant and roguish in his white suit. He stood behind Willie, hands on the shorter man's thin shoulders. Willie, the Traveler, leaned back against Balthasar's chest. The bigger man wrapped his arms around him. They were a couple.
"Will he know what they're doing with his body?" I asked.
"Yes," Jean-Claude said.
"Willie doesn't like men."
"No," Jean-Claude said.
I swallowed and tried to think reasonably, and just couldn't. Vampires could not take over another vampire's body. It wasn't possible. It just wasn't. But I looked at Willie's familiar face with a stranger's thoughts flowing through his brown eyes and knew it was true.
Those brown eyes smiled into mine. I dropped my gaze. If the Traveler could do me through Liv's eyes when he wasn't inside her, then he'd suck me down now for sure. It had been a long time since I had had to practice the trick of staring at a face without meeting the eyes. It was like tag with the vamp trying to capture my gaze, and me avoiding it. It was irritating, and scary.
Jean-Claude had said that violence wouldn't save us tonight. He wasn't kidding. If a vamp had been holding Willie against his will, forcing him sexually, I'd have shot him. But it was Willie's body, and he'd get it back. Shooting it full of holes was a bad idea. What I needed was a good idea.
"Does the Traveler like women?" I asked.
"Are you offering yourself in his place?" the vampire asked.
"No, just wondering how you'd like it if the tables were turned."
"No one else has my ability to share a body," the Traveler said.
"Would you like it if someone forced you to have sex with a woman?"
Willie's face cocked to one side, and the expression was alien to him. The sense of otherness was strong enough to make my skin crawl. "I have never felt the draw of a woman's body."
"You'd find it distasteful," I said.
Willie, the Traveler, nodded. "Yes."
"Then let Willie go. Pick someone who wouldn't mind so much."
The Traveler snuggled into Balthasar's arms and laughed at me. "Are you appealing to my sense of mercy?"
I shrugged. "I can't shoot you. You're council. I was hoping that would mean you had more rules than the rest of them. Guess I was wrong."
He looked at Jean-Claude. "Does your human servant do all your talking now?"
"She does well enough," Jean-Claude said.
"If she seeks to appeal to my sense of fair play, then you have told her nothing about your time with us at court."
Jean-Claude kept my left hand clasped loosely in his, but he stepped away from me. I felt him draw himself straighter as if he'd been hunched just a little, huddled around his panic. I knew he was still afraid, but he had rallied. Brave Jean-Claude. I wasn't that afraid yet. But then, I didn't know any better.
"I do not dwell upon the past," Jean-Claude said.
"He is ashamed of us," Balthasar said, rubbing his face against Willie's. He planted a soft kiss against Willie's temple.
"No," the Traveler said. "He fears us."
"What do you want of me, Traveler? Why has the council invaded my lands and taken my people hostage?"
Willie's body pushed away from Balthasar to stand just in front of the taller man. Willie normally looked smaller than he was, sort of hunched and rabbity, but now he looked slim and certain of himself. The Traveler had given Willie the grace and assurance he never had on his own.
"You slew the Earthmover but did not come to take his council seat. There is no other way to rise to the council except through the death of another. We have a vacancy that only you can fill, Jean-Claude."
"I do not want it, nor am I powerful enough to keep it."
"If not powerful enough, then how did you slay Oliver? He was a frightening force of nature." The Traveler walked towards us with Balthasar in his wake. "How did you slay him?"
Jean-Claude didn't back up this time. His hand tightened on mine, but he stood his ground. "He agreed not to call the earth against me."
The vampire and his servant circled us like sharks. One circling left, the other right, so it was hard to keep an eye on both of them.
"Why would he limit his powers?"
"He had gone rogue, Traveler. Oliver wished to bring back the days when vampires were illegal. An earthquake might have destroyed the city, but it would not have been blamed on a vampire. He wanted to possess my vampires and cause a blood bath that would bring us back to being hunted. Oliver feared we would destroy all the humans eventually, and thus ourselves. He thought we were too dangerous to be allowed legal rights and freedom."
"We received your report," the Traveler said. He stopped by me. Balthasar stopped on the other side, closest to Jean-Claude. They were mirroring each other. I wasn't sure if it was the vampire controlling his servant or just centuries of practice. "I knew Oliver's ideas."
I drew back against Jean-Claude. "Is it just vamps or can he take over humans, too?"
"You are safe from his intrusion, ma petite."
"Great," I said.
I stared at the Traveler, and it was frightening how easily I was beginning to think of this body as the Traveler and not Willie. "Why didn't you stop Oliver, then?" I asked.
The Traveler sidled closer and closer until only the barest inch kept us from touching. "He was council. Council cannot fight to the death among ourselves. And nothing short of true death would have stopped him."
"You let him come here, knowing what he planned to do," I said.
"We knew he had left the country but not where he fled to or what his plans were." The Traveler raised a hand towards my face. Balthasar did the same on his side for Jean-Claude. Willie's small hand hovered near my face.
"You had declared him rogue," Jean-Claude said. "Any vampire that found him could slay him without violating our laws. That is what rogue means."
The Traveler traced the barest of touches down my face. A trembling, tentative touch. "So you thought we would not come to your door because you had saved us the trouble of hunting him down ourselves."
"Oui."
Balthasar had stopped caressing Jean-Claude's face. He came to stand by his master. He watched the smaller man slide his hand along my face. Balthasar seemed puzzled, surprised. Something was happening, and I didn't know what it was.
The Traveler cupped my chin in his hand. He turned my face to him. He slid his hand over my jaw, behind my neck, to run fingers in my hair.
I pulled away from him. "I thought you didn't like girls."
"I don't." He stood there, staring at me. "Your power is amazing." His hand lashed out too quick to see, too quick to react. He had a handful of my hair, and his eyes, Willie's eyes, met mine. I was shielding myself this time, prepared, but my heart still fell to my feet. I waited for that cold blackness to pull me under. Nothing happened. We stood there, inches apart, and they were just eyes. I could feel his power beating down his arm like a march of icy fingers, but it wasn't enough.
He laid his hands on either side of my face almost as if he were going to kiss me. Our faces were so close that his next words seemed intimate, even though they weren't. "I could force my gaze upon you, Anita, but it would be an expenditure of power that I might regret before dawn. You have injured Liv twice this night. I am healing her, but that too takes power."
He stepped back from me, hugging himself as if he'd gotten more from touching me than just the feel of skin. He took three gliding steps to put himself face to face with Jean-Claude. "Her power is a heady thing. Something to wrap around your cold skin and warm your heart for all eternity."
Jean-Claude let out a slow breath. "She is my human servant."
"Indeed," said the Traveler. "A hundred years ago I could invade you without touching your fair skin. Now I cannot. Has she given you this power?" He reached towards Jean-Claude's face as he had mine.
I pulled Jean-Claude back, out of reach, and stepped between them. "He's mine, no sharing."
Jean-Claude slid his arm around me, holding me loosely at his side. "If you would leave us in peace, I would let Balthasar and any person you chose use me, but I will not willingly be your horse ever again, Traveler."
Willie's brown eyes stared up at Jean-Claude. There was a shrewdness, a frightening intensity, in those familiar eyes. "I am council. You are not. You will have no choice in the matter."
"Are you saying that if he took the council seat, then you couldn't hurt him?" I asked.
"If he is powerful enough to hold a council seat, then I should not be able to invade his lovely body, even were my lips pressed to him."
"Let me test my understanding here. If he takes the council seat, you'll still try and force yourself on him, because if you can force him, then he's not powerful enough to be council? But if he doesn't take the seat, you'll do it anyway."
The Traveler smiled beautifully at me, delight shining from his eyes, Willie's eyes. "Quite true."
"Why is everything with you people a freaking Catch-22? You don't do business. You just do torture," I said.
"Are you judging us?" he asked. His voice was suddenly lower and deeper than Willie's throat should have been able to hold. He took that last step forward, and I was suddenly touching them both. Their power flared over me; it was like being in the middle of two different fires, but it didn't burn. The Traveler's power was like Jean-Claude's, cool and swimming, a breath of mortality, the touch of the grave.
The power pulled a gasp from my throat and raised every hair on my body. "Back off!" I tried to shove him away from us, but he grabbed my wrist too quick to stop, almost too quick to see. The feel of his bare skin on mine sent a wave of numbing cold through my body, like a spear of ice. He jerked me away from Jean-Claude.
Jean-Claude caught my other wrist. The moment his hand touched my skin, the cold faded. His power swept through me like a flood of warm water, and it wasn't his power. I knew the taste of this warmth. It was Richard. Jean-Claude was drawing on Richard's power as I'd done earlier.
He chased the Traveler's power out of me like summer heat on ice. It was the Traveler who released me. He stepped back rubbing his hand on his coat, as if it hurt. "Jean-Claude, you have been a very naughty boy."
Jean-Claude drew me against him, one hand resting against my neck so that his fingers touched my skin. That electric warmth was still there playing over his skin and mine, and I knew in that moment that Richard had felt our urgency, our need.