Fury's Kiss (25 page)

He looked like some kind of medieval warrior, waiting to be knighted. Or maybe a particularly brawny Renaissance angel. His head was bowed, the gleaming auburn hair falling on each side of the strong shoulders, the nape left vulnerable and unprotected. It was the archaic vampire sign of penitence, left over from some time when they’d liked to get dramatic about things. It had never been altered, although it wasn’t seen much
these days. When it was, it was done by a servant to a master, if the master was particularly old or particularly traditional.

Or between equals, when the offense was particularly severe.

It was, in essence, giving the other a distinct advantage if he or she wanted to hurt you, or even kill you. Because the neck was one of the few vulnerable spots that vampires and humans shared. But I didn’t want to hurt him, I thought, even as my eyes fixed on that defenseless flesh. I could practically feel the blood running through it, could all but taste it, warm and fresh and coppery sweet on my—

God!

I stumbled back a step, but Louis-Cesare didn’t move. He stayed in the same position, head down, eyes lowered. “Zheng-zi treated you with more respect tonight than I did,” he said quietly. “And he is supposed to be your enemy. You are right to be angry. It was your blood and I should not have interfered.” He finally looked up, blue eyes dark and somber and completely sincere. “I will not make such an error again.”

And just like that, the world slammed back to normal, so fast it left me gasping.

And I wasn’t the only one.

“What the hell just happened?”
Claire yelled. Right before she fell to the ground, clutching at the soil that swelled up under her fingertips. And then kept on swelling, a boiling mass of dirt and grass and leaves, and one lone plastic cup being fast churned to pieces.

I didn’t understand what was going on until light started shining through the cracks in the earth, bright beams that stabbed the darkness and lit up the overhanging canopy of trees in spots, like tiny strobes. But it wasn’t electric, wasn’t anything I’d ever seen before. Except, I realized, in the ley lines.

It was power, pure magical energy, and since nulls didn’t make any, there was no need to guess whose. Dhampirs don’t make magic, but we
are
magic, as much magical beings as the creatures that spawned us. Only I’d
never have guessed that that much was inside me—or had been, before Claire decided to try to swallow an ocean.

And failed. It was getting bigger, that roiling ball of power, leaking out of her because she couldn’t absorb it all. And I guess she realized that, too, because she suddenly screamed and lost her grip, and something huge boiled away under the ground, like a torpedo through water.

Headed straight for the fey camp.

People screamed, bodies dove or jumped or were snatched out of the way, and the fire pit went up like a bomb, exploding into burning chunks as whatever-it-was raced underneath. It kept on going for another dozen yards, looking for all the world like some kind of huge, radioactive mole. Right up until it slammed into the fence.

I don’t know why it stopped there, why it didn’t just keep on going, doing no telling what kind of damage in the neighborhood. Maybe it was because the fey had enchanted the fence, or at least the vines flowing along it. Or maybe it had just hit exactly right, like lightning to a rod. But whatever the cause, it crashed into the fence like a freight train, in one burst of sound and violent white light.

And then the whole thing exploded.

But not in the normal sense.

Vines swelled like inflating balloons, going from the size of a finger to the size of tree trunks in an instant. The flower bunches dotting them here and there detonated all in a line, like living firecrackers. We were suddenly showered with what looked like confetti, covering half the yard in fluttering, flying petals. The part that wasn’t already covered in smoldering wood or burning tents.

I stared at Claire, who stared back at me, and then we both looked at the visitors, who were standing in a swirling snowstorm, looking around in wonder. And didn’t say anything. It was left to Jacob to sum up the evening.

“Whoa,” he said, eyes wide behind his glasses. “You folks really know how to party.”

Darkness, angry clouds boiling between buildings, and no electric lights that hadn’t been shot out long ago. Not a good part of town. Not a part where people liked light being shed on their activities.

Didn’t matter. Nature thumbed its nose at human preferences, sending the lightning that flashed overhead, strobing the dark street and the small alley that branched off from it with searing white. And causing the graffiti on the walls to practically leap off the old bricks.

The aftereffects lingered, crowding the small space with strange symbols in brilliant neon. They hung in the air for a moment, like bright banners, beautiful, ethereal, almost tangible. And then slowly faded.

I didn’t mind.

I didn’t need them.

The alley wasn’t dark to me. Mold grew over the old bricks, etching them with patches of teal luminescence that were slowly consuming the paint, blurring the letters with a more subtle message. A trail of muddy water ran down the middle, like a ribbon of emerald light. The edges of garbage cans, stacked outside a restaurant, glowed in a rainbow of colors, with layers of decomposing food
stretching back for days. The cat huddled under some steps was a vibrant blob of crimson. The streaks some human in a hurry had dribbled on one wall were a smoking purple, like the rooftops of the buildings on either side, slowly releasing the last heat of the day.

All was visible, all was light.

But nothing was as bright as the small, glowing footsteps, like puddles of gold, that I was following.

They wove across the muddy width of the alley, so clear, I thought I could have reached out and touched one. Could have picked it up out of the muck and held it in my hand. Could have—

A door opened up ahead, sending a bright, artificial beam into the night, a river of smelly ozone that drowned all the other, fainter lights. Like a wash of acid across a floor. It made me want to flinch, to hiss like the cat under some stairs was doing, before it turned its bushy tail and leapt into the night.

But I didn’t. I didn’t move at all. I was hugging a wall, already in shadow, and the light served only to increase it. The wedge of deep blue-gray around me deepened to inky black, the open door providing additional contrast.

Not that it mattered. The human standing silhouetted in the rectangle of light was as night-blind as they all were, and cocky. So much so that a cigarette dangled from his lips, its deep red tip bright even against the electric field behind him. He may as well have had a target on his chest.

But I didn’t take advantage of it
.
He wasn’t the one I wanted. But he smelled like him.

A memory stirred.

A hand gripped my chin, cold, hard, alien. I hissed and tried to bite, and it was snatched away. Someone scowled; I couldn’t see it, but I could hear it in his voice. “What is this? Are you mad?”

“I thought you might find it…exotic.”

“Exotic?” The voice was incredulous now. “What are you trying to pull?”

“Nothing, my lord, nothing. But you always say you want the unusual, to keep an eye out—”

“For fighters, warriors. Someone to tease the crowds away from that damned Geminus. Not children!”

“But I thought—”

“Leave the thinking to me. Sell it to the pimp and be done with it, and show me something I can use!”

The cage door had clanged down, and they had gone.
But the scent had remained. The same scent that was clinging to the guard’s skin now.

Fodder, then. Sent out to make sure the master’s many enemies weren’t lying in wait. Or if they were, to act like one of the canaries the humans used to put down their mine shafts. Nothing more than a walking early-warning signal, someone whose spilt blood would serve as an alarm no vampire could ignore.

Minutes passed. A car pulled up at the end of the alley, headlights off, and glided to a stop. The human raised a hand in greeting and went down the few short steps to the alley floor.

The car door opened; the driver got out and leaned against the side of the vehicle, legs crossed, body relaxed. “Got a spare?”

He was human, too. The voice harsh, discordant. Not the real driver, then. Just someone who brought the car around and was now waiting to hand it over.

“Sure.” The first guard flicked half a pack of cigarettes through the air, the cellophane side flashing for a second in the light from the door.

“Funny man,” the other said. “What am I supposed to light it with? My finger?”

“You don’t come too prepared, do you?” the first guard groused, reaching for something in his pocket.

“Trying to quit.”

And then, for a split second, both men were watching a lighter follow the same arc as the cigarettes. And I moved, in the instant before it was caught, just a blur against the night, unseen, unheard. Through the door behind the human, and into the brightness beyond.

Strange but true; those creatures that most liked the night, that preferred to shroud their deeds in secret, wanted brilliant light around them. Even those whose eyes didn’t need it. Maybe they didn’t trust their partners, and wanted to see every hand’s turn. Or perhaps it went deeper. An instinctive knowledge that they weren’t the only things that hide in shadow.

Like the one I melted into as a tall figure came down the stairs.

He was human-slow, with a heavy tread: another guard. He sent a disinterested glance around the room, checking everything, seeing nothing. “Clear,” he said, and I mouthed it with him.

Old trick, my heartbeat synced with his, our breathing in time, the same slow, steady aspiration. A clock ticked on a wall, heavy, loud. Outside, the smoking human finished his cigarette and crushed it underfoot, scattering a stale chemical scent on the breeze.

Then there were more footsteps on the stairs, quiet this time, light. Almost silent. Three, the two in front young, bright, warm. The one in back old, dark, like a pool of deep, cold water.

And strangely hesitant, as if he knew something was wrong.

They didn’t get that old by being stupid.

The two vampire guards stopped abruptly, halfway between one step and the next. But nobody spoke, nobody moved. It was as if time itself stood still.

One second, two.

“Master?” the human said, confused.

The master didn’t answer.

I had done nothing wrong, made no mistakes. But sometimes it didn’t matter. The clock ticked.

Outside, the clouds cracked open and rain began to fall. Light at first, and then heavier, pattering against the roof, plinking off the metal trash cans, causing one of the waiting humans to curse. Inside, the master spoke.

“Danil.”

The human guard looked up. “Master?”

“Leave us.”

The man’s confusion increased. “But, master, the car—”

“Now.”

Danil left.

The two vampire guards leapt over the stairs and, a second later, hit the floor. One still wearing a snarl; the other with a strangely blank expression. Surprised.

Like the master when he spoke again. “Someone paid well. Tell me who it was, and I will make this—”

He cut off as my hand found his throat. From his expression, he hadn’t seen me move. I gripped his flesh, my nails breaking the skin. Thick blood, so red it was almost black, oozed down his neck in rivulets, over my fingers. Didn’t matter.

There was no one left to scent it.

“Painless?” I breathed, and he blanched. His fear flooded my nostrils as he recognized me—not who I was but what. I smiled. I liked that. Wanted more, wanted to close my hand, to jerk back, to tear out his throat in the same moment that I stabbed UP—

But not yet.

“I will make you the same offer,” I hissed, jerking him close. “Name him, and this will be quick.”

“Name? Name who? I don’t—”

I put it into his mind, the whole scene. His face as the cage door slammed shut, and the face of the one making the offer. The one I needed.

“But, that’s all?” He looked incredulous. “That’s why you’re—”

The nails sank in more, up to the first knuckle. I was enjoying this. He saw.

He saw and it broke him.

“I don’t know! I never had a name. They don’t—”

“A location, then.”

“A warehouse, in Jersey. I can give you the address, but it won’t help. We only meet there a few times a year, to bid on the more unusual lots, and only when we receive a call—”

I stripped the location from his mind. An old place, abandoned, overgrown. Useless. I growled.

“Please! I don’t know any more—”

“That is…unfortunate.”

“
—
but I can give you whatever you want!”

“No,” I said, looking into the shadows. Where something gold glimmered against the dark. “You can’t.”

I came to, thrashing around, caught in a trap that threatened to smother me. And halfway through a scream. I cut it off abruptly, but it echoed in my ears, like the pulse
in my throat as I fought to free myself from the clutches of—

My overstuffed comforter?

The old squashy thing hit the floor like a body, and I sat up, breathing hard.

My eyes darted around, trying to find the source of the threat, only there wasn’t one. Just my bedroom, the pile of bras still on the dresser, along with a gun belt and more of Ymsi’s wilting flowers. All lit by dust-filled beams of sunlight.