"And if you die true-dead? You would leave me shackled with the city and its restive Mithrans? Dreadful responsibility for one such as I, who has dedicated her life to pleasure. Such boredom, tied to the boardroom of negotiation and mediation." Katie tilted her head and gave him the same smile she had offered him when he lay on the floor, paralyzed. "It has been long since we fought your old . . . enemy together. Since the day he turned on you, breaking his blood bond to his sire and yours. All recall when he used magic on Amaury Pellissier rather than a blade, the day he broke his word, broke his vows. Proving his blood and birthright was the lesser, tainted by dishonor." She drew her sword, the sound like a caress as it left the decorative scabbard. "Let us go to the Monteleone and play with your wily nemesis."
Bethany said, "I carry a trinket that will allow a Mithran to see magic as I do." From a finger, she removed a wooden ring, carved from a tree from her homeland in Africa. She had worn it as long as Leo had known her, which was many centuries. "Capture the mage who forced you to attack my George. And before he dies, tell him that his death would have been infinitely more painful at my hand. Catch. And go." She tossed the ring. Leo's hand swept up and he caught the ring. He slid it onto his finger and instantly saw a purple haze about the priestess, her magics swarming for a moment with darker-purple particles before she inhaled and pulled it all back inside her.
Leo paused outside the elevator, the Hemingway suite at the end of the hallway. It was one of the most elegant in the extravagant hotel, with two bedrooms and a large sitting room for social engagements. He glanced at his cohort and grinned, fangs down, remembering the last time they had entered this suite. It had been a week of revelry at Mardi Gras, a dozen young tourists, far too much alcohol, and ceaseless sexual escapades.
Katie chuckled, a wicked sound, and ran her fingers up his back. "If we are back in your lair before the sun, my love, we might reenact in great detail. For now, you shall inform me what you see in the seating area and engage our enemy if he is there. If he is not, then we shall clear the parlor, the bedroom on the right, then the room to the left. Oh. And Leo, mon amour, will you please demolish the door? These are new Jimmy Choos." Katie swept back her split skirt, displaying the stilettos and a great deal of leg.
"Of course, my darling, though what I had in mind is perhaps more anticlimactic than you might wish." Leo strode to the door, pulling a room card from his pocket. He swiped it and the door clicked open. "I borrowed it from the front desk."
"I do believe that I adore you."
"As I do you," Leo said, easing the door open a crack, clenching his fist around the ring. "No magic."
The door opened silently to reveal the large parlor, the pale green of its walls, long upholstered couch, and heavy draperies producing a sense of serenity. The antiques, tall ceiling, crystal chandelier, and heavy moldings established elegance. The merrily burning fire generated a comfor
table ambience for the three humans standing before it on the room-sized Persian rug. They were well-armed toughs, incompatible with the luxury, far more suited to a barroom or pool-hall brawl. They were not expecting Katherine Fonteneau.
His heir blew past him at speed, and in three perfect cuts, slashed the throats of all three. Before he was dispatched, the last one shouted, giving away their attack, though Leo had never supposed they might enter without such a warning.
"You could have left one for me," Leo said.
"I have never been called generous except in the bedroom."
"True, my love. But in bed you are Hathor, Aphrodite, and Venus all together."
"I am," she agreed.
They raced into the bedroom on the right. It was empty, though it smelled of sex and fear and the bedcovers were rumpled and smeared with blood.
The marble bathroom was empty. Leo followed Katie to the bedroom on the left. At the doorway, he placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her. Into her ear, he whispered, "Magic."
"Where?" she mouthed.
Leo pointed into the corner behind the door. There was room for only one of them. The other would have to clear the room and provide protection from rear assault. Katie pouted, her lips pursing around her canines. "Poo," she said. She inserted her sword in its scabbard, out of the way, and slammed back the door. She tucked, dropped, and rolled past it, into the room.
Leo followed her through and then kicked the door closed behind them, revealing the space behind the door. Empty. Except for a haze of reddish magics with particles of black swarming through it. And the faintest haze of a Mithran hidden within. With a single thrust, Leo speared through El Mago's heart, whipped his flat-blade left and right. With a single backhand cut, he slashed his old adversary's throat. The fog of magics dissipated, revealing El Mago, falling to his knees, blood spouting from his throat. His black eyes flashing in shock, his long black hair up in a fighting queue.
Leo dropped his swords and grabbed up his ancient rival. Covered the torn throat with his own mouth, and began to drink. He slid his mind into the mind of El Mago, following the pathways of their earlier years, before their conflicts. He drank down the old jealousy, the hatred, and the betrayal they had given birth to. He absorbed the plans and the hopes and the future as El Mago wished it to be. He understood.
The European Mithrans were coming for the Americans, as soon as fifty years. They wanted his land, his Mithrans, his cattle. They wanted to rule the world; what better place to do so than from the United States of America? His land.
He would not give it up.
Leo dropped El Mago and, with an economical swipe of the sword, removed his head.
Katie bent down, inspecting the body. "You killed him before we left for the Americas. Only someone powerful might have healed him from the mortal wound you administered." She tilted her head to Leo. "You have enemies. Will you grieve again, for his death?"
"I will not." Leo pulled out the cellular phone and followed the instructions. "Pellissier Clan Home," a woman answered.
"This is Leo. Send a cleanup crew to the Hemingway suite of the Hotel Monteleone."
"Leo. The Master of the City?"
"Of course. Who else would make such a call? And send a car to collect the heir and me. We shall be walking down Royal toward St. Louis Street. We require a male blood-servant and the human Margaret Coin, champagne, and privacy in the limo. And . . ." He considered the odd phrase he had heard his people use, "make it snappy."
Leo Pellissier, Master of the City of New Orleans, dropped the cellular phone and held out his arm to his beloved. "Come. Let us take in the city before the sun rises."
Together they left the Hemingway suite and the body on the floor of the bedroom. Perhaps this time El Mago--Miguel Pellissier--would stay down.