Green Flame Assassin (Demon Lord series, book 2) (17 page)

“Joshua Kent, the were-liger.”

She lifted an eyebrow.  “Well, you’re big enough.”

“That’s what they tell me.”  He smiled at her, a flash of white.  His eyes glinted gold.  The sun streaked his blond mane, edging it in more gold.

I saw tension melt from Vivian as her eyes betrayed female interest.  She smiled back self-consciously.

I said, “Okay, if we’re all done jerking each other off, let’s get moving.”

Vivian flushed, glared daggers at me, and turned, leading us in.  I let Josh go second.  I could feel the dhampyr magic meshing, charging the air.  I suppressed my shield, turning it off to announce myself to those gathered inside.  Tendrils feathered my skin, and ahead, I sensed a veil of magic making a hidden pocket where someone or something was being guarded.

Interesting.

Vivian pushed open the door she’d come out of.  A man stood just inside.  He wore a dark brown suit.  A blood smell hit me like a gun butt to the face.  It wasn’t just the dhampyr, but most of the people in the house.  They’d all fed very recently, boosting their strength.  They hadn’t wanted to meet me unprepared.  This suggested that I intimidated them. 

That made me happy.

The man at the door led us past an oversized living room full of milling dhampyrs, a few of them beautiful woman in gowns of crimson, sapphire, and emerald.  The women seemed determined to make up for the drabness of the males, most of whom wore dark brown as well.  It made sense; when blood dries it turns that color.  However, that color only looks good when it is dried blood.  As a fashion statement, what they had on looked like something a street person ought to be buried in, dead or alive.

The décor of the house was overly modern, defying the building’s old world architecture.   Paintings that would fit well on a museum wall hung everywhere.  Couches still had plastic on the bottom edges.  Carpets had a fresh-from-the-factory smell.  I doubted anyone lived here full time
. 
The place was a decoy, a convenient target dangled for anyone trying to get to the dhampyr leadership.

Moving on, I saw through an archway to the dining room where an open cooler was filled with ice and bags of blood in assorted flavors.  A dhampyr was there, passing up other types in favor of the O-neg.  He stabbed the bag with a pointy straw, drinking from it like a juice box, glowering at us as we headed up a wide staircase.  From the upper landing, we entered a side wing of the house.  I could hear murmuring voices behind some of the doors.  Between the doors, there were European coat-of-arms on the wall with swords crossing the artwork on the shields.

Dhampyrs aren’t that different from vamps.  Both are pretentious.

I looked out a side stretch of windows facing the front lawn. 
A butterfly fluttered past the glass, stalling out a moment as though time had stopped.  Across the street, a lone woman stood, long black hair forming raven wings behind her.  Her black dress was sheer and lacy.  She was watching the building. 

No.  She was watching me.  The force of killing intent was a sword annihilating the distance between us.

I recognized her.  This was the woman from Gray’s vision, the mysterious assassin I was supposed to be careful of.  She’d been sent to finish the job bungled at the last red moon. 

The
Dragon Eyes
tattoo on my back awakened, bathing me in acid, sending my senses into overdrive.  The image of the woman sprang toward me as if I were sighting her through a sniper scope.  Her hazel eyes were pitiless. 

A secret door cracked open
deep in the core of my spirit.  A shimmer of raw power ghosted over me, dull red curls of flame streaked with gold.  I felt the dhampyr magic in the house evaporating like morning mist in the rising sun. Some part of
me
felt like it was doing the same, making room for something else.

And in a nearby
room, a pre-existing barrier thickened, twisting space with a slippery kind of power I didn’t recognize, trying not to draw my attention.

The endless moment shattered as someone put a hand on my right shoulder, through the flames that wreathed me.  The unnatural fire sank into my flesh, and the secret door in my spirit slammed shut.  I, too, was hiding secrets—from myself.  Across the street, the woman was again a distant figure. 

A green flame surged up around her and she was gone. 

The assassin from Gray’s vision…

The hand dropped from my shoulder.

I turned to find Vivian, her watercolor-red eyes wide, her mouth partly open, lips trembling.  Her whole body lightly trembled.  Her voice emerged low and husky, “Caine...”

Standing balanced, body poised for combat as though every survival instinct had been tripped, Josh stared at me with bright yellow eyes, the liger in him barely submerged. 

Behind him, a door had opened into the hallway.  Several dhampyr guards had emerged, swords in hand, their faces pale as ice, eyes desperate, afraid. 

I felt like going “
Boo
!”

“Ca…Caine...” Vivian said.

“Yes, little rabbit?”

“What the hell…?”

“Is there some problem here?”  I didn’t want to answer questions.  It might come out that I had
no idea
of what I’d just done, or how.

Her eyes narrowed, flashing with annoyance.  “Don’t play innocent; you know you’re not.  What did you do?”

I smiled.  “Shall we keep going?”  The cloaked power I’d sensed among the dhampyr was in the room where the guards had come from.  I really wanted to know what was in there.

Vivian’s face became a hard mask as she buried her emotions.  She turned and led Josh and me past the guards, into a drawing room with a long mahogany table.  Candelabra were lit, dominating a white linen tablecloth.  No places were set.  No refreshments were in sight.  Five dhampyr leaders remained seated in high-backed chairs that could pass as thrones in a pinch.

Pretentious bastards … and bitch.

The dhampyr seated at the head of the table, facing us, was a woman.

“Hello, I’m Brielle.  You have the audience you craved.  Why have you come among us, Red Moon Demon?”

“Not going to offer me a seat?”

She shrugged.  “We seem to be out of chairs.”

That wasn’t it. They were testing me.  Dhampyr have a feudal society that only respects strength.  I knew that if they thought they could push me into a subservient role, I’d gain no respect, and my job would a hundred times harder. 

I smiled.  “If I kill all of you, the ones that take your place might have more manners.”

The guards behind stepped closer.  Without looking, I knew they’d be raising their swords to strike.  Brielle lifted a hand, stopping them from getting themselves killed.

Arching an eyebrow, I put surprise in my voice, “Oh, did I say that out loud?”

I walked to the end of the table opposite Brielle.  No one sat there, so it was a simple matter to spring flatfooted from steel gray carpet to table top.  From my new position, I stared down at the dhampyr, my hands resting casually in my coat pockets.  The angle reminded me of the other boardroom meeting in Gray’s vision, except none of these dhampyr had dressed in robes with cowls shadowing their faces.

Sitting to Brielle’s right—a favorite’s position—a dhampyr in a charcoal suit with dove gray pin stripes stood, shoving back his chair.  He did this slowly, almost ponderously.  A big man, his expensive tailoring couldn’t conceal the fact that he was built like a tank.

Brielle quirked an eyebrow at him.  “Mason...?”

He said, “Caine, take my chair if you need one so badly.”

I waved him back down.  “This is fine.”  It gave me a good perspective on the room.  I surveyed everything in sight, looking for the source of power I’d earlier sensed.  Something unseen was here, or someone, but all I could feel was the protective barrier that hid it.  That barrier was twisting my perceptions, bending them all around the room so my focus was scattered, unable to rest.

I decided to get on with business.  “I come to represent the major Courts in L.A.  We have concerns over the situation here in Sacramento.  First, we can’t have the fey, wolves, and dhampyrs fighting in the open.  If you will please stand down, I’ll make sure the other factions behave as well.  I will also host a gathering where all parties concerned can thrash out an agreement on how to live together peacefully.”

Brielle stood and walked around the massive table, stopping behind me so I had to turn.  She didn’t seem to care that my people were at her back.  I applauded her nerve, and her tight, navy suit which taunted me with hints of an amazing body.  She wore auburn hair in a bun, held in place with jeweled pins.  Her blue eyes washed out, but warmed, becoming a pale red.  This made her alabaster skin look even more tasty.  I suspected she’d be a real freak in bed.  I hoped for a chance to confirm my theory.

“The city is ours,” she hissed.  “We spilled blood for it.  We drove out the vampires.  The wolves and fey were oppressed.  We freed them.  They need to be grateful and bend their knees to us.  It is only right.”