The Killing Dance (Vampire Hunter 6)

He had me there.

Jason motioned me through the door with a low flourish that had imitation Jean-Claude written all over it. Jean-Claude made it seem courtly and real. Jason meant it for a joke.

The door led into Jean-Claude's living room. The ceiling stretched up into darkness, but silken drapes hung in black and white folds that formed cloth walls on three sides. The fourth side was bare stone, painted white. A white stone fireplace looked original, which I knew it wasn't. The mantlepiece was black-veined white marble. A silver fireplace screen hid the hearth. There were four chairs in black and silver grouped around a wood and glass coffee table. A black vase sat on the table filled with white tulips. My high heels sank into the thick, black carpet.

There was one other addition to the room that stopped me in my tracks. A painting hung above the fireplace. Three people dressed in the style of the 1600s. The woman wore white and silver with a square bodice showing quite a bit of decolletage, her brown hair styled in careful ringlets. She held a red rose loosely in one hand. A man stood behind her, tall and slender, with dark gold hair in ringlets over his shoulders. He had a mustache and a Vandyke beard, so dark gold they were almost brown. He wore one of those floppy hats with feathers and was dressed in white and gold. But it was the other man who made me walk towards the painting.

He was seated just behind the woman. He was dressed in black with silver embroidery and a wide lace collar and lace cuffs. He held a floppy black hat with a single white feather and a silver buckle across his lap. Black hair fell in ringlets over his shoulders. He was clean shaven, and the artist had managed to capture the sinking blue of his eyes. I stared at Jean-Claude's face painted hundreds of years before I was born. The other two were smiling. Only he was solemn and perfect, dark to their lightness. He was like the shadow of death come to the ball.

I knew Jean-Claude was centuries old, but I'd never had such obvious proof, never had it shoved in my face. The portrait bothered me for another reason. It made me wonder if Jean-Claude had lied about his age.

A sound made me turn. Jason had slumped into one of the chairs. Jean-Claude stood behind me. He'd taken off his jacket and his curling black hair spilled across the shoulders of his crimson shirt. The shirt cuffs were long and tight at the wrist, held by three antique jet beads just like the high neck of the shirt. Without the jacket to distract the eye, the pale oval of skin framed by the red cloth gleamed. The cloth covered his ni**les but left his belly button bare and drew the eye to the top of his black pants. Or maybe it just drew me. It was a bad idea to be here. He was just as dangerous as the assassin, maybe more. Dangerous in ways I had no words for.

He glided towards me in his black boots. I watched him walk closer like a deer caught in headlights. I expected him to flirt or ask how I liked the painting. Instead, he said, "Tell me of Robert. The police said he was dead, but they know nothing. You have seen the body. Is he truly dead?"

His voice was thick with concern, worry. It caught me completely off guard. "They took his heart."

"If it is only a stake through the heart, he might survive if it was removed."

I shook my head. "The heart was taken out completely. We couldn't find it in the house or the yard."

Jean-Claude stopped. He slumped suddenly into one of the chairs, staring at nothing, or nothing I could see. "Then he is truly gone." His voice held sorrow the way it sometimes held laughter, so that I felt his words like a cold, grey rain.

"You treated Robert like dirt. Why all this weeping and wailing?"

He looked at me. "I am not weeping."

"But you treated him badly."

"I was his master. If I had treated him kindly, he would have seen it as a sign of weakness. He would have challenged me and I would have killed him. Do not criticize things that you do not understand." There was anger in that last sentence, enough to brush heat along my skin.

Normally, it would have pissed me off, but tonight... "I apologize. You're right. I don't understand. I didn't think you gave a damn about Robert unless he could further your power."

"Then you do not understand me at all, ma petite. He was my companion for over a century. After a century, I would mourn even an enemy's passing. Robert was not my friend, but he was mine. Mine to punish, mine to reward, mine to protect. I have failed him."

He stared up at me, eyes gone blue and alien. "I am grateful to you for seeing to Monica. The last thing I can do for Robert is to tend his wife and child. They will want for nothing."

He stood suddenly in one smooth motion. "Come, ma petite. I will show you to our room." I didn't like the our, but I didn't argue. This new, improved, emotional Jean-Claude had me confused.

"Who are the other two in the painting?"

He glanced at it. "Julianna and Asher. She was his human servant. The three of us traveled together for nearly twenty years."

Good. He couldn't give me some bullshit about the clothing being costumes now. "You're too young to have been a Musketeer."

He stared at me, face carefully blank, giving nothing away. "Whatever do you mean, ma petite?"

"Don't even try. The clothing is from the 1600s, around the time of Dumas's The Three Musketeers. When we first met, you told me you were two hundred and ten. Eventually, I figured out you were lying, that you were closer to three hundred."

"If Nikolaos had known my true age, she might have killed me, ma petite."

"Yeah, the old Master of the City was a real bitch. But she's dead. Why still lie?"

"You mean why am I lying to you?" he said.

I nodded. "Yeah, that's what I mean."

He smiled. "You are a necromancer, ma petite. I would have thought you could judge my age without my help."

I tried to read his face and couldn't. "You've always been hard to read; you know that."

"So glad I can be a challenge in some area."

I let that go. He knew exactly how much of a challenge he was, but for the first time in a long time, I was bothered. Telling a vamp's age was one of my talents, not an exact science to be sure, but one I was good at. I'd never been off by this much. "A century older, my, my."

"Are you so sure that it is only a century?"

I stared at him. I let his power beat across my skin, rolled the feel of it around in my head. "Pretty sure."

He smiled. "Do not frown so, ma petite. Being able to hide my age is one of my talents. I pretended to be a hundred years older when Asher was my companion. It allowed us freedom to wander through the lands of other masters."

"What made you stop trying to pass for older?"

"Asher needed help, and I was not master enough to help him." He looked up at the portrait. "I... humbled myself to gain him aid."

"Why?"

"The Church had a theory that vampires could be cured by holy items. They bound Asher with holy items and silver chains. They used holy water on him, drop by drop, trying to save his soul."

I stared up at that handsome, smiling face. I'd been bitten by a master vampire once upon a time and had the wound cleansed with holy water. It had felt like a red-hot brand was being shoved into my skin, like all the blood in my body had turned to boiling oil. I had vomited and screamed and thought myself very brave for not passing out altogether. That had been one bite mark, one day. Having what amounted to acid dripped on you until you died was in the top five ways not to go out.

"What happened to the girl, Julianna?"

"She was burned as a witch."

"Where were you?"

"I had taken a ship to see my mother. She was dying. I was on my way back when I heard Asher's call. I could not get there in time. I swear by all that is holy or unholy that I tried. I rescued Asher, but he never forgave me."

"He's not dead?" I asked.

"No."

"How hurt was he?"

"Until I met Sabin I thought Asher's scars the worst injury I'd ever known a vampire to survive."

"Why did you hang the painting if it bothers you this much?"

He sighed and looked at me. "Asher sent it as a present, to congratulate me for becoming Master of the City. The three of us were companions, almost family. Asher and I were true friends, both masters, both of near equal power, both in love with Julianna. She was devoted to him, but I had her favor as well."

"You mean a menage a trois?"