Make It Snappy
“Make It Snappy” was first published inUrban Enemies, an anthology from Gallery Books (2017), edited by Joseph Nassise. The story is from Leo’s point of view and is set in the modern-day world of Jane Yellowrock, but a few years before Jane and Leo Pellissier meet.
Leo eased the girl’s blond head off his shoulder. She was asleep, dreaming blissfully about their encounter, his mesmerism and the power of his blood ensuring her happiness. He ran a hand over her hip. Her body was rounded and plump, the perfect vision of beauty until modern times. Now when he visited those sworn to his service, he was often offered scrawny, bony creatures with no curves, no soft and pleasing warmth. She murmured in her sleep, pleasure in her voice and on her face.
Many of his kind preferred the scent of fear, the unwilling, the blood-bound. He preferred his meals willing, even if only by bargain. This one came to him at dusk, when he woke, offering herself in return for a simple favor. He tried to remember her name as he dressed. Cynthia? Sharon? Simone? She had been an easy read, offering all of her past but for one small corner of her thoughts that was closed off and darkened, perhaps some trauma, some childhood fear. He’d left it there, in the depths of her mind, silent and untouched.
He strapped a small blade to each wrist, positioning the hilts in their spring-loaded scabbards. Shrugged into his crisp dove-gray shirt and black suit. Tied the contrasting charcoal tie. No denim or T-shirts for him. He had worked too hard for too many centuries to dress down in casual clothing, using comfort as an excuse for a crass lack of style. His uncle had taught him the social advantages of education, intelligence, and elegance, and while he was delighted the old Master of the City was dead, hewouldn’t toss out the lessons learned at the knee of a dominant, successful Mithran, particularly his sire.
He smoothed back his hair as he walked toward the door. The sheets on the bed shifted when he reached the entrance, and he paused to look back. The young woman was sitting up, watching him, a hand at her throat where his fangs had pierced her as he fed. Her face was wan and uncertain. “You won’t forget?”
Forget? His brow quirked up in amusement. The woman was his, with or without his compliance in her little family matter, her useless bargain. Women were such an easy indulgence. But still, he was concerned with her “favor” for business reasons, and it would not take him long to resolve it. “I shall do more than remember. I shall accomplish your request before the sun,ma chérie. Marcoise will no longer have the power to cause pain.” A small smile lifted his lips. “Perhaps we may meet for dinner, just before dawn,d’accord?”
“C’est possible,”she said in a schoolgirl French accent. She ducked her head, her long hair sliding forward to curl around her breast. “You know where to find me.”
“I do.” She had recently come to work in the Royal Mojo Blues Company, a music, dance, and cocktail bar catering to Mithrans, the vampire citizens of New Orleans. As the Master of the City, he had right of first taste of all the new blood. Mixed with wine, he had found hers to be piquant, saucy, with undertones of currants and laughter. When she had begged a favor in return for a night in his arms, he had readily agreed.
Leo tapped down the stairs of the town house she shared with another girl from Royal Mojo Blues and out the door, into the street. His guards gathered close, summoned on the cellular telephone used by George, his primo blood-servant. Security was much easier since the invention of the devices, though at some point his vampire enemies would discover their use, he was certain.
The limousine approached quietly from down the street, riding low, the weight of its armor holding it close to the asphalt. Once inside, Leo said, “One more stop tonight. Back to the club.” The club where Marcoise worked as head bartender. Where his bargain with the girl would be satisfied.
“Why, boss?” George asked, his upper-class London accent deliberately coarsened to fit his new persona, his new identity. Like most blood-servants, George had outlived his natural life, his papers and his past reinvented again and again.
“The sister ofma petite fleurreceived an inappropriate and unwanted advance from Marcoise.”
George’s brows drew down.
“According tola fille, several of the other girls were similarly approached, with the implication that they would lose their employment if they refused his attention, a clear violation of his service to me.”
George shifted his eyes from the street to meet Leo’s. “Inappropriate and unwanted advances? And that becomes problematic to you, my master?”
Leo lifted an eyebrow at what might have been censure in the tone. “They are mine. When would I not protect what belongs to me?”
George bowed his head, the gesture formal, the gaze between them broken. “My apologies, my master. It’s of no matter.”
Leo thought otherwise. George was conflicted and wished to speak but was holding his tongue, his scent burning with an internal struggle. He was known to have a tender heart for females, having seen his sister abused and his mother killed by those who used them. They would speak of this later, after the situation with Marcoise was addressed. “Her sister acquiesced and has not been seen since their date. I shall attend to the issue.”
George scanned the street and the sidewalks to either side as they drove, searching for enemies, problems, threats. Such loyalty as existed between them was rare, but their relationship began in death and violence and had joined them closer than most. Leo knew his primo’s mind and heart; they were bound, blood and soul.
They pulled up in front of the club, the lights bright inside as the cleanup crew attended to postclosing duties. Leo lifted his cuff and checked the time on his Versace Reve Chrono, though he knew, almost to the second, when the sun would rise. His kind always did. “I’ll be only a moment. Security will wait outside.”
George opened his mouth to protest. George was always protesting something. Leo lifted his finger, silencing his primo. “I will speak toMarcoise alone. You may cover the outer exits. You may not enter. The cleaning crew will be working and, as former military, they will be armed. I will calm them. I will not have a bloodbath in my club.”
George hesitated, clearly thinking about the numbers of potential victims and hostages. “Derek Lee’s company is new,” George said. “I’m not certain of the extent of his knowledge, or of his biases.”
He did not need to addMany have refused to work for the vampire Master of the City of New Orleans.
He raked through his hair with his long fingers, worried.
“Alone,” Leo insisted, and tapped on the window. The chauffeur opened his door. “Thank you, Alfonse,” Leo said. He was always polite to the help.
Into the night, he exited with all the grace of his kind, part ballerina, part snake, part spider, all predator. The night smelled of humans and blood. Saliva filled his mouth, hunger riding him. The girl earlier had been a tasty diversion, her body a delight as she used it to seal his promise, but this... this was the hunt. There was nothing like it, and even civilized Mithrans such as himself knew the desire, the overriding craving for shadowing and stalking prey.
Leo leaped to the door, his speed creating a pop of sound as the air around him was displaced. He keyed open the lock and entered. His men, left behind, rushed to guard the entrance and provide the protection his kind seldom needed. He slipped inside, into the shadows. Standing behind a brick pillar, he watched the cleaning crew, scenting them. The men were all dressed alike, in one-piece gray uniforms; they were healthy, their blood touched with alcohol and marijuana. He had known it for centuries as hemp, MJ, ganja, and by a hundred other names and grades and varieties.
He took in a slow breath and parsed the chemicals in their blood. The marijuana smelled... odd. Impure. He watched as a small man, no more than five feet, five inches tall, lifted a bucket and then, oddly, dropped it. The pail landed with a clatter and splash of water on the concrete floor, and the man stood, hunched over, staring at the mess as if mesmerized. Certainly confused.
Leo sniffed again. There was something mixed with the marijuana, some chemical he did not recognize. The small man took a breath, a faint gasp of sound. He fell.
