Crossed (26 page)

Talbot grunted in pain and then, descending, I saw them. Smoke curled up from the remains of Talbot’s motorcycle and a fat French lady who could only be Grandma stood in the middle of the street with one hand on his throat and the other down his trousers.
Grandma’s a perv!

Her hair was done up all fancy with ringlets and everything, and she wore this super cool renaissance-inspired dress with a corset. I didn’t know how she’d crammed herself into the thing, but she reminded me of those hippos in tutus from
Fantasia.
A big gold necklace hung around her neck—eight strands of thick metal linked to a massive emerald that lay nestled between her breasts. It could have been pretty, but I couldn’t help but think of an octopus when I saw it.

“That’s a creepy necklace, Grandma.” I landed barefoot on the asphalt. The overwarm air of the sultry evening clung to my skin and I wished I could do the whole bring-my-clothes-with-me thing that Dad and New Mom can do.

“You’re naked,” Grandma said, her lip caught partway between a smile and a sneer.

“Thank God you aren’t.” I stuck my tongue out. “I mean come on. Ew!”

“What did you say?”

“I said put the kitty down, Orca!”

“
Je ne comprends pas
Orca.” Grandma cast Talbot aside with a hiss and he hit the side of a street lamp with his head so hard that it really did go
bong
like in the cartoons. “But I expect it is impolite.”

“Yeah.” I popped my claws. “Try these: Whale. Blubber butt. Fat ass. You look like an elephant in a tube top.”

Grandma bared her fangs at me somewhere around “fat ass” and by the time I said “top” she was in motion. I backpedaled clear of her initial swipe. Her tiny curved talons failed to catch any skin, but my returning swipe scored a hit. A rent opened in her cheek where I’d clawed her; black ooze seeped out of the
wound, its scent a mixture of rotted meat and spoiled herbs. Zombie blood?

“I can’t eat zombie blood. Not even Talbot can stomach zombie blood. Ick!” My eyes flashed red, casting her face in crimson. “That’s not fair!”

“Nor is life.”

I heard the gargoyles before I saw them. Their wings cut the air with the heavy slap of sailcloth snapping in the wind. Grandma fell back into a stance of some kind, one leg leading the other, before going at me with a volley of kicks, alternating high then low in a hooking motion as if she wanted to trip me, but I was faster than her. I met the second high kick with a two-handed rake of my claws. She howled, but it sounded more like anger at her rent hosiery than pain. More black blood escaped her flesh, wrinkling my nose.

“I bet I can’t eat you guys either.” I pointed at the gargoyles, keeping my eyes on Grandma. “I hate fights where I can’t eat the loser.”

“You are always welcome to surrender.” The speaker was a goat-headed gargoyle with a bowler hat and a dapper gray suit. On the ground, they looked smaller. Grandma’s hand whipped by me, an open slap, easily avoided.

“Surrender?” I stayed on the defensive, getting a feel for Grandma and keeping an eye on the newcomers. It’s hard to fight carefully, but I had to. Dad wasn’t here to bail me out. Then again, he wasn’t here to make me hold back either. “But there are only six of you guys, plus Grandma. You’re toast.”

“Silly child.” Lisette grew, all of her clothes vanishing except for her necklace. Gray-black washed across her skin, her lips turning black and chalky as if powdered with coal dust. Her pupils faded to white, becoming dull and glassy like a zombie’s. She licked her lips, leaving a trail of red blood in her tongue’s wake. “I am an Empress.”

“You also appear to be edible, after all.” I gathered a smear
of blood from her lips with a claw and licked it. It had the same heady tang that Dad’s does—a distinct flavor. “Just hard to eat.” I beamed. “Gourmet. Grandma, you’re gourmet!”

Wings spread out behind her, drawing a chuckle from me. Wings are such a bad idea. Unless you’re flying to or away from something, wings just get in the way. Grandma did neither, just stood in the street almost as naked as me. Her necklace matched the Empress form. Its gold chains had lengthened subtly. Transformed, there was a dim glow to the emerald on her necklace, the gentle green playing across her massive gray boobs. It stayed with her in both forms when her clothes didn’t. That meant magic. But did that mean
memento mori
?

Only one way to find out: get it away from her and destroy it . . . melt it down or something.

“You like my necklace?”

“Huh?”

“Even in my Empress form, it captures your attention.” Lisette reached back, unsnapping it with her claw-tipped fingers. “Try it on.”

“Excuse me?”

“You keep calling me Grandma.” As the emerald pulled away from her chest, the color swirled as if the gem were hollow. Then a dark crimson filled the space, changing the light from brilliant green to ruby red. “More properly
grand-mère.
You are my child’s offspring,
oui
?”

“I’m adopted.” Which answered the question, but didn’t answer the question. Let her think I was a Soldier, just a really fast one. As I’ve said before, underestimation is a powerful tool. Just look at how people underestimate New Mom.

“I’d wondered. Imperial vampires create either Kings or Pawns. But—”

“But I’m not a Pawn.”
Pawn . . . Pawn. What would she call Soldiers? Knights?
“And if I were higher than a Knight, you’d have
sensed me and I’d have sensed you.”
And I did sense you, too,
I crowed inside,
and tomorrow night I’ll know how to destroy you. It’ll be fun—a real moment of grandmother/granddaughter bonding.

“You’re very quick for a
Chevalier,
my dear . . . ah?”

“Greta,” I supplied the name for her, watching as she shrank back down to human size. Her clothes came back with her, warm and fresh-smelling, making me concentrate to avoid leaning toward their heat.

“I fight fast.” I smiled. “But I can’t do lots of animals or anything, and my clothes don’t transform when I do.”

“I’d noticed.”

Lisette glanced at the limo and the driver stepped out, wordlessly stripping down to his Speedo and cap. He was about my height and trim, so the fit wouldn’t be too far off. He offered me the clothes.

I slipped the pants on first, gouging an extra hole in the belt with the claw of my little finger. On the dress shirt, I buttoned only the bottom button, tucking it in so that it pulled tight against my breasts. Over that, I wore the jacket, using the bold crimson tie to replace the kerchief in the breast pocket. I was glad I’d had my toenails done, though, because though the ensemble worked surprisingly well, hardly anyone ever has shoes my size (I take a wide in a half-size).

As I dressed, several folks who’d been watching us and seeing whatever the Veil of Scrythax allowed, booed me (I guess it was because I’d put some clothes on), but Lisette silenced them with a twirl of her
memento mori.
It flashed blue and the whole crowd went slack-jawed for a few seconds, then went about their business. Interestingly enough, I felt the magic try to touch my mind too, and slide off.

I’m a little hard to control mentally. Dad says it’s because most people don’t know how to handle my mental landscape, which is odd, because I thought it had something to do with
me being a little bit certifiable by human standards. Lots of vampires still have relatively human thoughts and feelings, but not me.

“Much better,” Lisette approved.

“Even with the John McClane–inspired footwear.”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure who that is, but it helps that you have attractive feet and know the meaning of the word pedicure.”

“Cool.”

“I feel we have had a misunderstanding, Greta,
ma chérie
.” She held the necklace out to me, gripping the chains in a bunch as if she were holding a squid (or something else with tentacles). It was still overlarge and I realized it hadn’t shrunk when she had. I didn’t want that necklace to touch me. If Fang could strip a body down to the bones in seconds, who knew what Squidly was capable of. “I’m looking for my son. I have questions about how he came to be. I don’t want to harm him.”

I gave her the Spock eyebrow. “Really?”

“
Mais bien sûr
. . . but of course.”

“Then why did you attack Talbot?”

“Le chat noir?”
Grandma eyed Talbot’s unconscious form. “How do you say in English? The Mousing?”

“Mouser,” I corrected.

“I knew that he worked for Eric, but I knew not that he was more than a pet. How could I?”

“Well, it’s just that Dad left me in charge of all his stuff while he’s away and I think that includes employees and thralls . . .”

“Away?”

“Yes.”

“Do you mind if I ask—?” She moved toward me, necklace extended.

W.W.D.D.—What Would Daddy Do?

I thought of so many ways to try and get more information
out of her, to hide the idea that I know about
memento mori
and guessed that the necklace is hers. But Daddy wouldn’t do that. He plays some things close to the vest, but not something like this. In UNO, he plays the special cards as soon as he gets them, throws them down with glee. So I do, too.

“Do you mind if
I
ask what your
memento mori
would do to me if I put it on?” I heard an intake of breath from Talbot at my comment and wondered how long he’d been playing possum. “Or do you think I’m a”—what curse word would Dad use—”motherfucking moron?”

My smile drew wide across my face as Lisette began to transform into her Empress form, throwing the necklace right at my head. Yeah. I thought that’d piss her off.

    26    

TALBOT:

CRUNCH. SLURP.

It’s possible to see the
akasha
with your eyes closed, but it takes practice and things don’t look the same. You catch it raw and uncut. Lisette’s necklace, for example, active and in the presence of its Empress, snapped at the air with a sharp curving beak attached directly to the base of a massive gemlike eye. Lisette held it by eight of its golden tendrils, while two tentacles, more spirit than matter, wrapped around its creator’s wrist.

More of a squid than an octopus.

I was still collecting my wits when Greta mouthed off to Lisette and the Empress threw the
memento mori.
Greta lurched to the right, dashing in at an arc to claw at Lisette’s side, but Greta couldn’t see the entire creature, only the material components, and one of the two spirit tentacles snagged her wrist. Similar things had happened with Eric in El Segundo. Vampires can’t properly fight what they can’t touch.

To be honest, though, I’d rather Greta died—much simpler that way—and at the hands of someone Eric was going to kill anyway.

“Ow,” Greta said as the thing reeled itself in along the
unseen spirit tentacles, and let the visible golden tendrils, which normally passed for necklace chains, take hold of her arm. “Get off, Squidly!”

I’d rather Greta died, but Eric loves her and he’d never forgive me if I let that happen, if I didn’t pull out all the stops to save his little girl. . . .

I won’t give you the whole spirit versus mundane versus magic speech, but suffice it to say that there aren’t too many creatures that can exist in two worlds and touch both at the same time. I’m one of them (and to be exceedingly honest, I touch more than two). That Lisette’s
memento mori
—Squidly, Greta had called it—could bridge the spirit and the physical worlds as well did nothing for my confidence level.

“Now you will have your answer,” Lisette roared. “Let it touch you—”

“Damn.” I don’t curse a lot. Around Eric, there’s no need. If something vulgar needs to be said, he’ll say it, but every once in a while, I let one slip. Seems like that happens right before I get myself exiled or extend the exile under which I already find myself. “I am way too attached to that man.”

I ignored Lisette. She and Greta could sort things out with the
memento mori,
but the gargoyles had to go. Two of them moved for Greta, and I shifted a portion of my spirit self through into the real world without thinking about it. When a vampire changes shape, there is no conservation of mass: it’s pure physics-defying magic, but what I do is different. If I become a normal-sized cat, I shed the extra mass by moving it to the part of me that exists in either the dreamworld or the
akasha
—the spirit world. If I go into full-out combat mode, I do it by pulling the bulk of myself into the physical world and leaving only a token presence behind, becoming something akin to a normal-sized cat there instead. If you’re not used to being three places at once, it can get a little confusing.