Cajun Gothic (Blood Haven) (16 page)

The
Roma belonged nowhere and everywhere. They oozed into the cracks, using fear
and mysticism to keep all but the most depraved away. That Catrina had been
bartered back indicated that her clan had put a high value on whatever it was
she’d either learned… or honed at the feet of masters of the dark, sensual
arts.

It
made her valuable enough to trade her soul for the dubious distinction of near
immortality. Damien had attempted a feat of legerdemain in forcing her, his
offspring, to share responsibility for the girl’s turning, perhaps to offset
the hold the clan now had on him.

What
the hell did you do, Damien? What did you promise in return for a gift you had
no right to bestow?

Having
Rinj in Damien’s house, his sanctuary, not simply as a guest but also as a
consumer of services, was not something members of the Council encouraged. And
it made her wonder… if Rinj could be so open about his personal peccadillos and
sexual obsessions, what might the man be hiding that would be even more damning
and dangerous to her Sire’s interests. And hers.

For
now they all seemed willing to consider Catrina as an asset. But try as hard as
she might, there was no way she was going to objectify her emotions in that
way.

There
were few things she’d ever cared about. At one time it had been Damien, hands
down. But caring, loving, was not the same as submitting, and that was the
only
thing he seemed to care about.

Magda
still had no idea, at all, what price Catrina would exact… of either of them.
All she knew was that if she were asked to choose…

A
light rap on the door interrupted her train of thought.

“Beb?”
His voice was coarse, scratchy and tight.

“Damien?”

He
whispered, “Come to my room. Just you.” And then he was gone.

Magda
sank onto the bed, an imaginary taste of bile coating her tongue.

Damn
those memories. Being human sucked.

Being
nursemaid to a self-indulgent pervert, even more so.

Whatever
had happened to Damien this foul evening, she would get to pay for it, in
spades. Reluctantly she went into the bathroom to find her stash of medical
supplies.

Hollywood
sometimes got it wrong, in this case the miracle healing for which her kind was
so notorious. Wounds might not fester or go gangrenous but they could take
their good old time regenerating, depending on the severity of the injury and
the strength of the vampire, and there was no bye for the agony of defeat. With
heightened senses came acute, debilitating pain responses. That made torture
the weapon of choice when things went beyond minor disagreements.

It
also made those vamps for whom pleasure and pain were mere sides of the same
coin a perplexing conundrum. That described Damien to a ‘tee’.

Her
Sire was considered a willful, undisciplined teenager in the eyes of their
community, flirting with the ‘too dumb to live’ reprobation the other, older
masters inflicted on him when they thought he wasn’t listening. The sole reason
he’d attained the standing and position he’d managed in New Orleans was from
his unique breeding. And his ability to funnel, control and reimagine all
manner of perversions that appealed to the fringes of both the human and
supernatural communities.

Fringes
with considerable discretionary funds.

With
a sigh, Magda tucked her box of supplies under one arm and pressed an
inconspicuous notch on the paneled wall behind a bookcase. It swung out,
revealing a short passage linking hers and Damien’s quarters. Designed at one
time as a walk-in closet, she’d decided to convert it into a direct access
between their suites. The narrow space also doubled as a weapons horde, housing
her collection of swords, katanas and hunting knives.

Without
bothering to knock, Magda keyed in the code and entered into a spacious
high-ceiled sitting room. The doors to a balcony stood ajar to her left as she
entered, off-white gauze curtains fluttering in a gentle breeze. The
double-gallery townhouse had been constructed in the ante-bellum style by a
Brit ex-pat who’d aspired to a genteel Southern lifestyle built on a fishing
fleet and transportation barges plying the Mississippi. He’d chosen to reside
in what later became known as the Garden District, close to the Lafayette
Cemetery number one where the then Council members had fashioned a secret
meeting chamber in which to conduct business.

Damien
was forever going on about the challenges of construction in an area
essentially below water level, to the tune of eight feet or more. Magda allowed
the mini-mental-info-dump to run rampant, partly as a distraction and partly
out of fear of what she’d face once her Sire decided to make his presence
known.

“I’m
out here, Beb.”

Her
head snapped to the left, the breeze finally wafting the scent of blood and
gore and fading adrenalin to her nostrils.

I
should have scented him the minute I entered his room. What the hell—

She
found him on the balcony, collapsed against the wooden siding, one hand
gripping the wrought iron railing, the other pressed hard against his belly. It
was clear but moonless, the overhang from the roof casting the balcony in deep
shadow. She didn’t need x-ray vision to see the blood. The smell was enough to
knock her over… and kick her hunger into overdrive.

Oh
sweet mother of…

“It’s
alright, Cher. We dun pick da wrong
Fais Do Do in de
Vieux Carre…” Bloody spittle oozed from the corner of a split lip.

“Right, you and Gab. Wrong place. Wrong time.” Magda peeled his
left hand away from his gut. “Jesus.” The wound was deep but narrow. “See what
happens when you ignore our training sessions?”

He grinned, a lopsided effort. “S’okay, Beb.”

“Yeah, yeah. Listen, I need you to help me. I want to get you to
the shower. It’s the only way I can clean this mess enough to evaluate what’s
going on.”

She bent over and gripped him under the arms. He groaned but
pushed with his legs, allowing her to leverage him against the siding and
holding him in place until she could figure out a way to maneuver him through
the sitting room without inflicting more damage.

“Uh, listen, Damien…”

“Do it, sweetheart. We’re running out of time. Sun’s up soon and
you won’t be able to help me then.”

“Shit. Alright. This is gonna hurt but I’ll do it fast.” With that
she heaved him over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry and raced to the
bathroom. The stall door to the shower was ajar so she kicked it open and eased
the man onto the tile floor, positioning his head to the side so she could turn
the water on full force without having him swallow any of it.

“Don’t drown. I’ll be right back. Left my medical bag on the
balcony.”

When she returned the gush of tepid water had already rinsed away
the worst of the blood. She carefully cut away his shirt and examined the
wound.

“A sword. You let some asshole run you through,” she paused and
bit her lip, appalled at the amount of damage, “
and
you let them give it
a few twists and turns?”

Damien hissed, “Impaled was more like it.” He held up both palms,
each of them with similar narrow, wicked slices. “God damn it hurts.”

“Thought you liked pain.” She was angry he’d gotten himself
ambushed, angrier still that she hadn’t been along to defend her liege.

He groaned, “I do, but only if it comes with a blow job.”

Magda grunted, trying not to laugh. As she pulled on nitrile gloves,
she explained what needed to be done. “I’m going to feel around, make sure your
intestines are still in one piece. Assess any other internal damage.”

He grimaced. “And what am I doing during this little procedure of
yours?”

“Thinking about that blow job.”

She reached up and turned the water off, then eased Damien flat on
the floor as best she could.

After that she shut her emotions down and let her fingers do the
walking.

****

“Issh good shtuff…”

“Uh-huh. Lay still, Damien. Just a couple more stitches.”

She wasn’t sure she really needed to sew him up but the act of
piercing his flesh in tiny rhythmic punches was oddly soothing. Especially
after he shared that Gabriel was being held captive, awaiting Damien’s delivery
of a message of good will and friendly tidings to the Council.

“Shamuels?”

“On his way. Rinj is out in the hall wearing a path in the pine
boards.” She didn’t bother to mention exactly how unhappy their client was in
having his ‘procedure’ interrupted.

“Time…?”

“Half hour, maybe less. Everything’s shuttered. I’ve called in the
donors. We’ll do what we can in the time available.”

The good part in this cluster fuck was that the bold-as-brass
opposition cell needed to go beddy-bye as well. There’d be no extraneous
mischief and pow-wowing until evening.

Rinj stuck his head in the door. “What the hell did you give him?”

“Morphine.” And a boatload of it to keep him from throwing himself
off the balcony. Her lord and master hadn’t taken kindly to her less than
expert trespass through his vital organs.

Catrina sidled past Rinj and said, “I’ll wait downstairs and bring
Mr. Samuels up when he arrives.”

Magda tied off and dabbed the thin line with antiseptic. “This is
going to scar, Damien. They dumped salt in it and even though I flushed it good…
well, it’s not going to heal up all pretty.”

Rinj came over to look at her handiwork, nodding with approval.

“How’d you learn to do that, girl?”

She just shrugged. There was no point in going into her history
and all the time spent with the field surgeon at what was later dubbed the
Battle of New Orleans.

“Is he going to be awake enough…?”

Catrina knocked politely and ushered Samuels into the room.
Someone must have apprised him of the situation because he sat on the edge of
the bed and growled, “You fucked up royally, boy. Exactly how do you plan to
make this right?”

Magda positioned herself at the head of the bed, close enough to
touch knees with Samuels. Catrina paced to the other side, her body rigid. They
had no idea yet of her fighting skills but there was no doubt that she’d bring
some powerful Roma juju to the table as the need arose.

With Samuels’ body posture signaling serious displeasure, Magda
prepared herself for some major pain.

Damien interrupted with a muttered, “Tell him…”

Magda stared into Samuels’ gold-tinted brown eyes and relayed what
little her Sire had been able to tell her in between screams of agony. “He and
Gabriel, he’s Damien’s tracker, went out to hunt.” She neglected to tell the
man what they were hunting. Let him fill in the blanks. “They stumbled into a
Fais Do Do…”

“What the hell is that?”

“Um, it’s like a rave. You know… an impromptu dance party. Usually
it’s a bunch of teens smoking weed, doing ex, that kind of thing.”

“And…”

“Well, it turned out to be a celebration of some sort for one of
the Trinity cells.” Samuels looked at Rinj and snarled under his breath, but
she ignored them and continued. “Gab and him…” she glared down her nose at
Damien, “…decided to be good citizens and break it up. Without backup,” she
added, just to make a point.

“Tell me the bottom line, then I want to feed and crash.”

Magda drew in a breath and exhaled, the meaningless gesture a
holding pattern while she gathered her thoughts. Finally she said, “They’ll
hold Gab until tomorrow midnight. We bring you to some location that’ll be
phoned in at dusk, they hand Gab over, you listen to a list of demands. That’s
about the gist of it.”

“And how many pieces do you think your man will be in?”

“Enough I’ll need an extra-large trash bag.” Magda was under no illusions
as to the fate of their tracker. Whatever the outcome he was collateral damage.

Catrina asked, “Do you have anything of Gab’s I can have?”

The group turned to Catrina with interest. Magda said, “Yeah, I
can find something. Why?”

“Well, I might be able to run a trace on him.” She grimaced and
muttered, “If he’s still alive.”

Rinj barely kept the eagerness out of his voice. “Do you mean a
psychic link?”

Shrugging, Catrina answered, “Sort of. It’s not always accurate
and he’ll have to be fairly close. But it’s worth a try, don’t you think?”

Samuels rubbed his face, his eyes at half-mast. “It’s after
sunset, I’m hungry and I need some rest. Where’s dinner?”

“Catrina will take you to the donors. We have spare rooms at the
end of the hall. Make yourselves comfortable.”

“I’ll wake you all. Six, seven hours, no more. We need to plan our
next steps and call in re-enforcements.” He looked over at Damien who was
already in deep sleep and shook his head. “Is he going to be any use to us
tomorrow?”