Blood Canticle (The Vampire Chronicles 10)

The dazed bodyguard staggered. An underling caught his arm, scheming and proud to have him at a disadvantage. The pimp was dead. Oops. Such a brilliant career slumped over the fence. Mona's eyes were electric. Drugs in the blood.

"Get the host a chair," I said to the first waiter I could snare. "I think he's overdosed and he's holding. "

"Oh Ma God!" Half the drinks on his tray crashed into the other half. Customers turning, murmuring. After all, the host had slipped down to the tile floor. Not so good for the slave trade.

Out of there.

Luscious gloom of hotel mezzanine floor, marble and golden lights, mirrored elevator, swoosh of doors, glowing fields of carpet, gift shop full of pink stuffed monsters, heavy glass, outside pavements, filth, shrieks of tourist laughter, innocent and deodorized half-naked people of all ages in wrinkle-free scraps of brightly dyed clothing, paper trash in the gutters, glorious heat, screeching roar of the crowded St. Charles Street car rounding the bend onto Canal.

So many . . . many good people . . . so very happy.

Chapter 20

20

WE WERE BACK at the flat. Rear parlor. My darlings on the couch. The drugs in their blood had played out on the walk back. Me at the desk but facing them.

I told her to change clothes. That short sequined dress was just too damned distracting. And we had some heavy matters to address immediately.

"Are you serious!" she demanded. "You're not honestly telling me what I can and cannot wear, you don't for one minute think I'm going to listen to this, this is not the eighteenth century, baby. I don't know what castle you grew up in, but I assure you I don't change my mode of dress for feudal lords, no matter-. "

"Beloved Boss, could you not simply ask Mona to change her dress instead of telling her!" said Quinn with restrained exasperation.

"Yeah, what about that!" she said, leaning forward, accentuating her cleavage swelling under the sequined band across her breasts.

"Mona, my darling," I said with perfect candor, "ma ch¨¦rie, my beauty, please change into something less fetching. I find it hard to think, for you are so lovely in that dress. Forgive me. I lay my shameful omnisensual impulses at your feet. A tribute. I, having spent two centuries in the Blood, should possess a wisdom and restraint that makes such a request unnecessary, but alas, within my heart I feed a human flame that it may never completely go out, and it is the heat of this flame which distracts me now and renders me so powerless in your presence. "

She narrowed her eyes and puckered her brows. Exploring me as best she could for mockery. Finding none. Then her lower lip began to tremble.

"Can you really help me find Morrigan?" she asked.

"I don't talk till you change the dress," I replied.

"You're a bully and a tyrant!" she said. "You treat me like a child or a slut. I won't change it. Will you help me find Morrigan or not? Now make up your mind. "

"You're the one who has to make up her mind. You act like a child and a slut. You have no dignity, no gravitas! No mercy! We have things to discuss before we get to the finding of Morrigan. You didn't behave very well last night. Now change your clothes, before I change them for you. "

"You dare touch me!" she said. "You liked it well enough when every human being at that party turned to look at me. What don't you like about this dress now?"

"Take it off!" I said. "It's needlessly distracting. "

"And if you think you're going to preach to me about the way I behaved with my family. . . . "

"That's just it, they're not simply your family now. There's infinitely more to it, and you know it. You're forfeiting your intelligence for cheap emotional outbursts. You abused your powers last night, your singular advantages. Now change that dress. "

"And what are you going to do if I don't change it!"

Her eyes were blazing.

I was flabbergasted.

"Have you forgotten that this is my flat?" I said. "That I am the one who has made you welcome here! That you exist because of me!"

"Go on, throw me out!" she declared. Her whole face went red. She shot to her feet and leaned over me, her eyes on fire.

"You know what I did last night after you left us and went away just because you were oh, so in love with Rowan! Oh, so very in love with La Doctor Dolorosa. Well, guess what! I read your books, your maudlin mawkish melancholy Vampire Chronicles, and I can see why your fledglings despise you! You treated Claudia like a doll just 'cause she had the body of a child! And what was that all about, making a child a vampire in the first place?-"

"Stop it, how dare you!"