Anita Blake 14 - Danse macabre (8 page)

He just stood there, waiting, smiling, pleasant. It was my turn to prove that we weren't country bumpkins. To prove that we did indeed know the niceties. I got myself loose from Micah and Nathaniel. I stood on my own two feet and offered him my hand. "Welcome, Augustine, Master of the City of Chicago." Jean-Claude had described everyone to me, so at least I was pretty sure who I was talking to. That was all I was sure about.

Most master vamps tried to be scary, or mysterious, or sexy. This one smiled wide enough to flash fangs, and said, "Auggie. My friends call me Auggie." His hair was short, blond, but still had lots of small, stylized curls to it. The haircut didn't match the suit and the approach.

He took my offered hand gently in his, as if I were too delicate to touch. Some muscular men do that. Usually it bugged me, but tonight I was okay with it. He turned my hand over and began to raise my wrist to his mouth. I did not raise my own arm. You end up hitting people in the face when you do that. I'd been practicing with Jean-Claude and Asher. My hand had to sit passive in his as he raised my wrist toward his mouth. He was a Master of the City and I was just a human servant. If Jean-Claude had been here, it would have been Auggie offering up his wrist, but I was officially outranked, so I got to offer up.

He bowed over my wrist, and raised his eyes to me at the same time. His eyes were a gray so dark they were almost black. But they were just eyes, and I could meet them. Most masters aren't used to humans doing that. Auggie's eyes widened at it, and I think my smile slipped from welcoming to just a little bit arrogant. That I could meet his eyes with impunity made me feel better, more myself.

His lips curled into a close, secretive smile, not at all the wide grin he'd greeted me with. He laid his lips against my wrist, where the blood runs shallow below the skin. Even then it was just lips on skin, then he kissed my wrist, and a little jolt of power went through my body. It tightened things low and intimate in my body. Tightened them so quick and hard that it caught my breath, and made me stumble.

I felt movement at my back, but I shook my head. My voice was breathy, but I said, "No, I'm all right. It's okay." I felt rather than saw everyone pull back. I had eyes only for the vampire still hovering over my wrist. I didn't pull away from him. I looked into his eyes, until I saw that they were like the sky when it goes black, just before it falls down and destroys everything you own. But I wasn't just a human servant gaining all my power through my ties to Jean-Claude. I'd come to him with partial immunity to vampire gaze, and what I did next was my power, my magic. Necromancy.

I put a little bit of power down my hand, into his skin, like you'd push someone away who'd invaded your space. I told him, metaphysically,
Back off
.

He pulled his hand away, dropped that strange gray gaze. His breath came out in a sharp sound. "I apologize if my little push of power caused you discomfort, but I am trying to behave myself, Ms. Blake. Forcing me to show more of my power might not be wise."

He raised his face as he finished, gave me a glimpse of a face that was no longer boyishly handsome, or cute, in an ordinary sort of way. Now his face was simply beautiful. The bone structure more delicate than it had looked a moment ago. The eyes were rimmed with a lace of dark lashes. If I hadn't spent the last few years staring into Jean-Claude's lashes, I'd have said they were the prettiest eyelashes I'd ever seen on a man. Only the color of his eyes remained unchanged. That extraordinary charcoal gray with its shades of black.

I stepped back enough to look him up and down. His body was the same, and not. He was still short, for a man, but the suit fit him better. I'd gone suit shopping with enough men to know expensive when I saw it. It had been made for his body, and when a short man lifts enough weights to get an upper body that broad, it needs to be made to fit. But the suit looked good now, sleek and stylish, rather than fitting oddly.

He'd been using mind games to appear less beautiful and more ordinary. All I'd meant to do was stop him from doing what amounted to metaphysical foreplay. What I'd done instead was strip him of his camouflage.

I shook my head. "I've seen vamps waste energy to make themselves scarier, but never to appear ordinary."

"Yes," a woman's voice said, "why would you hide so much of yourself, Augustine?" I looked at the woman who went with the voice. She sat on the white love seat, tucked in very close to the only other vamp in the room who made my skin tighten when I met his eyes. The man was dark-haired, dark-eyed, and handsome in an ordinary sort of way. After looking into Augustine's face, it wasn't really fair to compare. But I knew who he had to be.

"Welcome, Samuel, Master of the City of Cape Cod. As Jean-Claude's human servant I welcome you and yours to St. Louis."

He stood, and he hadn't had to. He could have made me come to him. His hair was a dark, dark brunette, almost black, but I'd spent too many years staring at my own hair to mistake it for true black. The careless fall of short curls reminded me of Clay's hair. Cut well, but not fussed with. He was taller than Nathaniel, but not by much, maybe five-seven tops. He looked neat and trim, well-built but not obviously muscular in a simple black suit. He wore a nice green T-shirt underneath it. If Jean-Claude had dressed him, it would have been silk, and closer fitting. The T-shirt, like the suit, hinted, but hid more than it showed. A thin gold chain graced the neck of the shirt. On the end of the chain was a very old coin set in more gold. The coin was one of those ancient pieces they find in shipwrecks sometimes. Or maybe the shipwreck imagery came because I knew what his animal to call was: mermaids. No, really, mermaids. Samuel was unique among now-living vamps in his animal to call.

His wife was one. The man and woman standing behind the love seat had to be merpeople, too. I'd never actually met any of the sea people before.

I fought the urge to look away from the vampire in front of me. I mean, I'd seen vamps, but mermaids, that was new. I offered Samuel my hand. He took it more solidly than Auggie had, like he'd shake hands well. Then he raised my wrist to his mouth. Like Auggie, he rolled his eyes up to gaze at me as he did it. Samuel's eyes were hazel, pale brown with an edge of grayish green around the pupil. The green shirt brought out more of the green, so his eyes were almost an olive green, but they were definitely hazel, not true green. But then I had high standards for true-green eyes.

Samuel's eyes were just eyes, and when he laid a chaste kiss across my wrist it was just a kiss, no extras. I rewarded his restraint with a smile.

"Ah, Samuel, always the gentleman," Auggie said.

"Something you could learn from," said the woman in white, who had to be Samuel's wife, Thea.

"Thea," Samuel said, a slight warning in his tone, but it was very slight. Jean-Claude had warned us all that Samuel's only weakness was his wife. She got her way most of the time, so when dealing with the Master of Cape Cod, you had to negotiate with both of them.

"No, she's right," Auggie said, "you were always a better gentleman than I."

"Perhaps," Samuel said, "but one does not have to say such things out loud." There was an edge of heat in his voice, the first stirrings of anger.

She bowed a body that was inches taller than his, bowed and hid her face. I was betting it was because her face just didn't look sorry enough. Her dress was somewhere between cream and white, and it matched her skin and her hair. She was all whites and creams and pearls. At first glance you might think albino, but then she raised her eyes back up to us both. Her eyes were black, so black that her pupils were lost in the color of her irises. Her lashes were golden, her eyebrows gold and white.

Muscles played under her thin arms as she stood and smoothed her long dress around her body. Her coloring was odd, but not outside human norms. Her white-blond hair fell to her waist. Her only jewelry was a circlet of silver set with three pearls, the biggest in the middle and two smaller to either side, surrounded by tiny but brilliant diamonds, so that the light flashed and winked as she moved her head. Her pale neck was smooth and unadorned, with no gill slits. Jean-Claude had told me that when they wished, the maids of the sea—his phrase—could look very human.

"May I present my wife, Leucothea. Thea." He took her by the hand and drew her into a low curtsey.

Did I curtsey back? Did I tell her to get up? What should I do? What Could Meng Die have done that was taking Jean-Claude this long to sort out? She was so on my shit list.

Not knowing what else to do I offered her a hand up. She took my hand, raising a softly startled face to me. Her fingers were cool against my skin.

"Are you helping me rise like a queen taking pity on a commoner, or do you acknowledge that I am your superior?"

I helped her to her feet, though she moved like a dancer and hadn't needed the help. I dropped her hand, and said what I was thinking. When in doubt I usually do. "Okay, truthfully, I'm not sure who outranks who between the two of us. If Jean-Claude had been here then you could offer up to him, but it's me, and I don't mean to be insulting, but I'm just not sure who tops who here."

Thea's pale face looked surprised, but Samuel looked pleased.

Auggie laughed an abrupt, very human-sounding laugh, turning me to look at him. "Jean-Claude said you were a breath of fresh air, Anita, but such an honest breeze, I'm not sure we're up to it."

"I like it," Samuel said.

"Only because you are hopeless at deceit," Auggie said.

Samuel gave him a look. "None of us who have risen to Master of the City is without deceit, old friend."

The humor in Auggie's face softened, and faded. I realized that of almost all the other master vamps I'd ever seen, his face was the most mobile, the most expressive. Now it went suddenly blank the way all the old ones could do. "Fair enough, old friend, but you do prefer honesty."

Samuel nodded. "Aye, that I do."

"You like honesty?" I said. "Then you are going to love me."

There were abrupt laughs from at least two different corners of the room. In one of the corners was Fredo, slumping artfully, his black T-shirt a little bulky in places from all the knives he hid on his body. There were other knives out in plain sight, two huge ones on either hip like an old-time gunslinger. His dark face was set in laughing lines, his black eyes glittering out from the fall of his dark hair.

The other laugh had come from almost the opposite corner. Claudia was nearly six foot six, the tallest woman I'd ever met, and a serious weight lifter. She made the too-thin Fredo look frail. Her black hair was tied back in its usual tight ponytail. She wore no makeup, and her face was still startling in its beauty. Claudia cared less about looking like a girl than I did. But even with the weight lifting, her body was all woman. Without the extreme height and the muscles, she would have been one of those women who couldn't go anywhere without getting hit on, or at least leered at. She still got the leers, but most men were afraid of her, and they should have been. She would probably be the only other woman carrying a gun tonight. At the moment her face was soft with the laughter that was still bubbling in her throat. She had a nice laugh, deep and throaty. I wasn't sure I'd ever heard her laugh before.

"What's so funny?" I asked them both.

"Sorry, Anita," she said, voice still full of laughter.

Fredo nodded. "Yeah, sorry, but you, 'honest'? Jesus, 'honest' doesn't cover it."

Micah had to clear his throat sharply, and even Nathaniel's face was sort of glowing with the effort not to smile at me.

I fought not to get angry, and finally managed it. Bully for me. "I can lie if I have to." And even to me it sounded pouty.

"But it's not your nature," Fredo said, which was a little too perceptive for someone who was supposed to be just muscle.

"He's right," Claudia said, and she'd finally managed to control her laughter. "I apologize for the outburst."

"She is like you, Samuel," Thea said, "an honest heart."

"That would be a good thing," he said. And the way he said it made me finally look at some of the other people in his party.
My
thought about inlaws was a little too accurate with Samuel and Thea: they were offering up their three sons as possible
pommes de sang
for me. Which I found a little creepy, but all the vamps had patiently explained to me that most of the really old vamps come from a time when arranged marriages between powers was the norm, not the exception.

The twins were easy to spot, because they were identical. I knew their names: Thomas and Cristos. They had their mother's white-blond color, but the short careless curls of their father. They were both taller than their father, somewhere around five-ten like Mom. But their bodies were slender, not enough muscle development. I searched their curious faces and found them young. Very young. They had to be legal, or Jean-Claude wouldn't have agreed, but they didn't look legal. Maybe merpeople aged slower than humans.

The other son I wasn't certain of, because there were two dark-haired men standing behind the love seat. One of them met my eyes bold as brass. The other man wouldn't meet my gaze; he actually blushed, embarrassed. I was betting that was the son. Maybe he thought it was all as weird as I did.

"They are lovely, my sons, are they not?" Thea asked, and that brought my attention back to her.

I wasn't sure what to say to that, but finally said, "Well, yeah, I guess, I mean, I wasn't looking at them for that." I felt the blush crawl up my face and cursed myself for it.

She smiled. "Let us decide which of us is of higher rank, so I may introduce you to them formally."

I thought about it, looked at Micah and Nathaniel. They both shook their heads; they didn't know either.

"I have a thought," Thea said, and the tone in her voice made it clear mat she wasn't sure I'd like it. Her voice was melodious, almost like singing.

"I'm willing to hear it," I said.

"We are animal to call and human servant, but I am married to a Master of the City, and you are not. Would that be a way to decide who is higher tank?"