Of Blood and Passion (22 page)

“If you want my help, you’re going to have to do it my way, snake,” Tassard said.

But Arturo didn’t budge. “You will not hurt her again.”

“I’m a pain feeder. Of course I’ll hurt her. But I won’t injure her unless she pushes me away. It’s her choice.”

Quinn’s jaw tightened. The last thing she wanted was to let that jerk anywhere near her again. She knew from experience that some, maybe all, pain feeders caused pain with their bite, whether they wanted to or not. But she didn’t see a way out of this one.

She met Tassard’s amused gaze. “Do what you have to, but go slow and warn me before everything you do, or I’ll save Sakamoto the trouble of slaying you.”

His eyes turned hard. “Is that a threat?”

“What do you think?”

For a couple of moments, he just stared at her. She didn’t have to read his mind to know how tempted he was to spite her. Finally, he gave an annoyed sigh, walked over to her. Slowly, he lifted his hand, his palm open as he covered her face, his fingertips pressing against her cheekbones and forehead. As he stared at her, his eyes slowly took on a glassy appearance as if his consciousness had left his body and gone elsewhere. Minutes passed. Finally, he blinked and stepped back, releasing her. Slowly, his gaze focused on her once more, this time with a hint of excitement she wasn’t sure she liked.

“Now for my taste.”

“Wait.” Quinn lifted her hand, prepared to push him back with her magic if he made a sudden move. She glanced at Arturo. “You’d better hold my arms to my sides or I’m going to hurt him.”

Arturo watched her a moment, then nodded and stepped behind her, wrapping his arms tight around her.

Quinn met Tassard’s gaze. “Get it over with.”

“Only a taste,” Arturo warned. “She has already lost much blood.”

The ancient vamp’s gaze flicked to Arturo, but he didn’t respond. Then he reached for her, pushing her hair aside as he dipped his head to her neck, to the spot that had yet to fully heal.

Quinn tensed, determined not to scream this time, but as his fangs slid into her neck like a pair of red-hot pokers, she was helpless to hold onto the yell that came barreling out of her chest and throat. If her hands had been free, she’d have practiced her death touch on him with pleasure, at least enough to steal his energy and drive him to his knees.

Without warning, Arturo shifted, pinning her against him with only one arm. A moment later, Tassard pulled out of her neck and stumbled back, falling to the floor. As Quinn watched, he tried to rise, then sat heavily, as if he were suddenly too weak to stand.

Quinn stared at him, a chill running over her flesh. It was as if her thoughts had become real.

Tassard stared up at Arturo with disbelief. “What the
fuck
did you do to me?”

Arturo shook his head. “Nothing.”

“You touched me.”

“I did nothing,” Arturo insisted.

Tassard tried a second time to rise and this time managed it, though he swayed as if he was the one who’d lost blood, instead of her. The ancient vampire’s gaze swung between her and Arturo a moment more, then he turned and made his way slowly toward Sakamoto. When he reached the vamp master, he paused, as if catching his breath.

“She is indeed the Black Wizard’s heir,” Tassard said. “I can prepare a ritual.”

“What kind of ritual?” Quinn asked warily.

Tassard turned back to her with a shrug. “Fire, magic words…the usual. With the magic that rises, I’ll call the Black Wizard forth for an hour or two.”

Call him forth. “Will I become him…totally? Or will I still know who I am?”

Tassard waved a hand carelessly. “You will retain your own mind. You will look like him, of course, and may acquire some of his knowledge in the process. But it’s unlikely you’ll feel his consciousness as anything more than a whisper in your mind.”

“So how am I going to break the curse?”

“Intent, sorceress,” Dera said from behind Sakamoto. “You must hold the intent fully within your mind, let your will infuse it—the will to dismiss the curse. Then imagine it disintegrating.”

Tassard shrugged. “It might work, it might not. Curses are tricky things. Since you have no way of knowing what was in his mind when he created the curse, breaking it could be difficult.”

Quinn had a feeling she knew some of what was going through the Black Wizard’s mind, if the legends of that event were correct. He’d been dying, stabbed by a blade created by his arch nemesis for just such a purpose. He’d have been in pain, furious, and probably scared. Hatred would have been coursing through him, burning him alive.

“How soon can we get started?” Quinn asked.

“A day. Perhaps two,” Tassard said. “It will take time to learn the nuances of your blood and to recreate what I must.”

The house began to shake violently. Outside the room, something crashed to the ground and shattered. Within the room, a crack ran the length of one of the walls.

“Vamp City doesn’t have a day or two,” Quinn said. And even if it did, in all likelihood, Zack did not.

Chapter 24

“T
wo hours, Tassard,” Sakamoto said to the ancient vampire. “No more.”

“These things take time.”

“Two hours!”

Tassard’s expression turned to one of annoyance, but he bowed low then exited the room without a backward glance.

Arturo exchanged a glance with Kassius. Kassius rose as if to follow Tassard, but Sakamoto motioned him back at the same time two of the samurais moved to block the door.

“You will remain here,” their host said. “Tassard will do as promised, you needn’t fear. In the meantime, I shall provide you with both food and entertainment.”

Quinn always hated this part—the entertainment—because that usually meant blood. And sex. In the house of Cristoff, a pain feeder, she’d witnessed an ‘entertainment’ so vicious, she’d have nightmares about it for as long as she lived. In Fabian’s, a pleasure feeder, the vampires had entertained themselves, and their master, with an orgy to top all orgies. What kind of entertainment would a fear feeder offer his guests? Quinn truly didn’t want to know.

She turned to Arturo. “What happened to Tassard back there?”

I did not use the mind blast,
cara
, if that is what you are thinking. I grabbed the top of his head, ready to pull him away from you if I needed to. And the next thing I knew, he was falling.

A rap at the door had them turning. The guards opened the doors and in walked a small parade of Slavas—three males carrying large platters of food and drink, and four very naked females.

“Have a seat, my friends, while I serve you a four-course meal,” Sakamoto said, motioning once more to the cushions in front of his low table. “Sorceress, you will dine with my cats at the far table.”

It was then that Quinn noticed a second low table in the far corner of the room, the table at which the three male Slavas deposited the meals, setting the table with three elaborate place settings and arraying the dishes in the middle. Glasses were set out and filled from a pitcher of what appeared to be water, while two bottles of wine were uncorked and set in the midst of three wine glasses.

“I’m impressed,” Quinn murmured.

Arturo curved his hand around the back of her neck. “Enjoy your meal,
tesoro
. I do not believe you are in danger.”

She hoped to hell he was right. As she watched, a curvy blonde lay on her back in the middle of Sakamoto’s table.

“What’s she, the appetizer?” Quinn asked, not thrilled with the idea of Arturo’s mouth on the woman.

Arturo smiled. “She is, indeed.”

Quinn noticed the fourth woman looked a little intoxicated and was holding what appeared to be a martini. Raising her blood alcohol? “Don’t get drunk on the last one.” Her words were meant to be dry, but came out sounding a little jealous.

Curving his hand around the back of her neck, Arturo leaned in and kissed her thoroughly. When he pulled back, he met her gaze, his eyes alive with tenderness. “You are the only one whose taste I crave,
amore mio
. But I would not feed from you. Not today. Not like that.” He kissed her again, then pulled back with a smile. “Only like this, drinking of your sunshine.”

With a smile, she cupped his cheeks in her hands. “Go eat your dinner.”

Dera and Davu were heading toward the table with the food and Dera motioned her to join them. Quinn took a seat on the cushion on the side opposite the brother and sister and surveyed the offerings—half a dozen platters filled with everything from shrimp tempura to chocolate éclairs.

“Wine?” Davu asked her.

“White, please.”

While Davu poured, Quinn and Dera served themselves from the various platters.

“Take what you want while you have the chance, Quinn,” Dera warned. “Davu will inhale everything else.”

Her brother threw her a look of mock disgust. “Says the one who can eat me under that table.”

Dera gasped and laughed. “Only the chocolate. You win at everything else.”

Quinn smiled at the sibling banter and the last of her tension drained away. She felt unaccountably at ease now that Tassard had left. “My brother’s the same. We lived together for a few years and at least half of my paycheck went to feeding him.”

Dera nodded sagely. “I couldn’t wait until Davu outgrew that phase, but we turned immortal in the midst of it and he never did.”

“Turned immortal? So you weren’t originally?”

“No.” Davu stabbed a large piece of shrimp with his fork. “All weres are mortal, just like humans. Only in Vamp City do we turn immortal.” He frowned. “We had no idea that was going to happen, or that we’d become stuck here for life.” He shoved the shrimp into his mouth and Dera took over the story.

“Most in our pride are seers, though twins are almost always twice as powerful, and Davu and I were that. We were sold by our pride master to a powerful vampire when we were but children.”

“Not Sakamoto?”

“No. Another. When we were nineteen, our master’s kovena attacked Sakamoto’s. Our master was killed and we became a prize of war and passed into Sakamoto’s hands, thankfully. He has, for the most part, been a fair and good master.”

“So you must have moved to Vamp City soon after that war. How long ago was that?”

Dera shrugged. “The early 1870’s. Just a year later, Sakamoto bought a section of Vamp City and moved a contingent here. We were brought along, of course. Two years later, we turned immortal and now can never leave.”

“It’s one of the reasons Sakamoto stayed,” Davu told her. “All the Slavas he brought with him became trapped by the magic, too. He chose not to abandon us to the mercy of another vampire master and declared he would remain in Vamp City until the last of us died. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that could take a very long time.”

Dera’s eyebrows rose. “Or a very short one now, if the magic fails.”

Quinn frowned. “If you’re such powerful seers, why didn’t you foresee this, the magic failing?”

Dera made a face. “I wish it worked that way.”

“We see what we see,” Davu explained. “We don’t control it. And what we see is almost always out of context. It either doesn’t make any sense or it appears useless.”

“We never saw the danger,” Dera said. “Not the first time Phineas Blackstone sprung the trap back in 1877, nor this time. We were as surprised as everyone else.”

Davu scraped the remaining shrimp onto his plate. “I think it has something to do with the nature of Blackstone’s magic. There’s a darkness around it that our gift doesn’t penetrate.”

“What about mine?” Quinn asked. “Do you have any idea if I’ll succeed?”

As one, brother and sister shook their heads. “Since the magic began to fail, we’ve been unable to see anything more than a day or two into the future,” Davu said. “Lately, we barely see an hour into the future, if we see anything at all. The dying magic has all but shut down our abilities.”

The three of them fell into silence as Quinn turned her attention to the delicious meal. As many complaints as she has had about Vamp City, the food has never been one of them. There was a lot to be said for having decades, sometimes centuries, to perfect a recipe. And the immortals within V.C. had done just that, raising cooking to an art form.

A glance at the other table told her that her companions were enjoying their meal every bit as much as she was hers. All had taken a limb and were now drinking from wrists or thighs, or the back of a knee. Sakamoto had his fangs buried in the woman’s breast.

Arturo met her gaze over the wrist he held to his mouth.

I sense no threat,
tesoro
. Be calm and eat. You will need your strength for what is to come.

She couldn’t deny that. But his words had raised an interesting question. She looked at her table companions. “You don’t appear to be afraid.”

Davu raised an eyebrow. “Should we be?”

“Not from me.” Quinn smiled. “I haven’t heard a single scream since I entered this castle. Yet your master has a reputation for being one of the most dangerous vampires in Vamp City.”

Dera smiled. “Most dangerous, yes. If you cross him, you’ll understand. But he’s not cruel.” Her eyes contracted briefly. “Not anymore.”