“No. No, no, no, no.”
“She’s wearing an engagement ring, boss.”
Leo turned slowly and looked at his primo. His voice took an edge. “So she is. Had she come to me and told her story, I would have saved her sister and set them both free. I have been magnanimous to all human cattle in my city. I have made it clear that they may come to me at any time. She did not. She chose to fear an enemy, to become one herself. You would have me punish her according to a law older than my own?” According to the Vampira Carta, the written laws that all Mithrans adhered to, he could have taken her life for such an infraction.
“No.” George shook his head. “I’m not—”
“This is about your sister and the shame she was dealt. I understand. And for this reason alone, I will not banish you, nor strip you of power. But for now, leave me.” Leo smelled Alfonse in the room. “Alfonse, take my primo home. See that he stays there. The rest of you, wait in the main room. Drink. Enjoy yourselves. I’ll be an hour.”
—
Leo left the room, licking his new paramour’s blood from his lips and taking with him all she knew. Margaret Coin would make a lovely addition to his collection of blood-servants. She was willing, no matter that her earlier interest was reliant upon fear for her sister. Now she had tasted his blood and she was his. He would recompense her betrothed for the loss of his future wife. George would disapprove, but George often disapproved.
Leo stepped silently into the main room of Royal Mojo and said, “My enemy is at the Hotel Monteleone, in the Ernest Hemingway suite. He has magic, spells of confusion and obfuscation and false health. He has silver and poison. I will compel no one to fight at my side, nor will I condemn any who walk away. But I ask for aid and fighters who might join me.”
Katie made a soft sound with her lips:Pfttt.“I am yours to call. You need no one else.”
“You are my love, not my warrior, nor my security team. This is not your fight.”
“And if you die true dead? You have chosen no official heir, yet all will turn to me. You know this. You have planned it. You would leave me shackled with the city and its restive Mithrans? Dreadful responsibility for one such as I, who has dedicated her life to pleasure. Such boredom, tied to the boardroom of negotiation and mediation.” Katie tilted her head and gave him the same smile she had offered him when he lay on the floor, paralyzed. “It has been long since we fought your old...enemytogether. Since the day he turned on you, breaking his blood bond to his sire and yours. All recall when he used magic on Amaury Pellissier rather than a blade, the day he broke his word, broke his vows. Proving his blood and birthright were the lesser, tainted by dishonor.” She drew her sword, the sound like a caress as it left the decorative scabbard. “Let us go to the Monteleone and play with your wily nemesis.”
Bethany said, “I carry a trinket that will allow a Mithran to see magic as I do.” From a finger, she removed a wooden ring, carved from a tree from her homeland in Africa. She had worn it as long as Leo had known her, which was many centuries. “Capture the mage who forced you to attack my George. And before he dies, tell him that his death would have been infinitely more painful at my hand. Catch. And go.” She tossed the ring. Leo’s hand swept up and he caught the ring. He slid it onto his finger and instantly he saw a purple haze about the priestess, her magics swarming for a moment with darker purple particles before she inhaled and pulled it all back inside her.
—
Leo paused outside the elevator, the Hemingway suite at the end of the hallway. It was one of the most elegant in the extravagant hotel, with two bedrooms and a large sitting room for social engagements. He glanced at his cohort and grinned, fangs down, remembering the last time they had entered this suite. It had been a week of revelry at Mardi Gras, a dozen young tourists, far too much alcohol, and ceaseless sexual escapades.
Katie chuckled, a wicked sound, and ran her fingers up his back. “If we are back in your lair before the sun, my love, we might reenact in greatdetail. For now, you shall inform me what you see in the seating area and engage our enemy if he is there. If he is not, then we shall clear the parlor, the bedroom on the right, then the room to the left. Oh. And Leo,mon amour, will you please demolish the door? These are new Jimmy Choos.” Katie swept back her split skirt, again displaying the stilettos and a great deal of leg.
“Of course, my darling, though what I had in mind is perhaps more anticlimactic than you might wish.” Leo strode to the door, pulling a room card from his pocket. He swiped it and the door clicked open. “I borrowed it from the front desk.”
“I do believe that I adore you.”
“As I do you,” Leo said, easing the door open a crack, clenching his fist around the ring. “No magic.”
The door opened silently to reveal the large parlor—the pale green of its walls, long upholstered couch, and heavy draperies producing a sense of serenity. The antiques, tall ceiling, crystal chandelier, and heavy moldings established elegance. The merrily burning fire generated a comfortable ambience for the three humans standing before it on the room-sized Persian rug. They were well-armed toughs, incompatible with the luxury, far more suited to a barroom or pool-hall brawl. They were not expecting Katherine Fonteneau.
His love blew past him at speed, and in three perfect cuts slashed the throats of all three. Before he was dispatched, the last one shouted, giving away their attack, though Leo had never supposed they might enter without such a warning.
“You could have left one for me,” Leo said.
“I have never been called generous except in the bedroom.”
“True, my love. But in bed you are Hathor, Aphrodite, and Venus all together.”
“I am,” she agreed.
They raced into the bedroom on the right. It was empty, though it smelled of sex and fear and the bedcovers were rumpled and smeared with blood.
The marble bathroom was empty. Leo followed Katie to the bedroom on the left. At the doorway, he placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her. Into her ear, he whispered, “Magic.”
Where?she mouthed.
Leo pointed into the corner behind the door. There was room for only one of them. The other would have to clear the room and provide protection from rear assault. Katie pouted, her lips pursing around her canines. “Poo,” she said. She inserted her sword in its scabbard, out of the way, and slammed back the door. She tucked, dropped, and rolled past it, into the room.
Leo followed her through. Kicked the door closed behind them. Revealing the space behind the door. Empty. Except for a haze of reddish magics with particles of black swarming through it. And the faintest haze of a Mithran hidden within.
With a single thrust, Leo speared through El Mago’s heart, whipped his flat-blade left and right. With a backhand cut, he slashed his old adversary’s throat. The fog of magics dissipated, revealing El Mago, falling to his knees, his long black hair up in a fighting queue. Blood spouted from his throat. His black eyes flashed in shock.
