I looked to the night-dark windows to see Derek, the compact, muscular, black man standing to the side in his charcoal suit. He nodded once to me before returning to his study of the lobby. The nod meant that no one stood out as a possible troublemaker, terrorist, or vamp-hater. I nodded back, knowing he’d see even though he wasn’t looking at me. He tapped his mike and said over the general channel, “Clear?”

“Clear,” another voice said. That would be Wrassler, already positioned in the Noir Wine Room, making sure no one was there but the appropriate staff and sanctioned menu—meaning the humans who would provide sustenance during the negotiations. Which set my teeth on edge, but since no one was there against his or her will, I wasn’t making a fuss.

CHAPTER FIVE

Two Cups and You’re Done

They started again with the intros, which were each shorter by about half now that the two vamps had met a few times, but there was still a lot of chatter about Leo. The bloodsucker I worked for was arguably the second most powerful vamp in the U.S. I insulted him on a regular basis, which made me really stupid, or really lucky, or proved that I had something Leo wanted, a hypothesis that scared me silly when I let myself think about it.

Intros done, the men in parley were ready to toast their clans and lineage—the vamp version of a wine tasting. Two blood-servants stepped up beside the vamps, a gorgeous Asian woman named Anling, which meant Placid Jade in Mandarin, and an equally beautiful Korean man named Chin Ho, which meant Precious and Goodness. Each blood-master introduced his servant to the other; then Grégoire took Chin Ho’s hand, turned it palm up, and sniffed Shaddock’s blood-servant’s wrist. He dropped his fangs forward with a little snick of sound and bit in. As soon as he was latched on, Shaddock bit into Anling, Grégoire’s blood-servant. This part of the negotiations had been established early on, as the Carta left the location of the sampling up to the vamps in parley. Carotid, brachial, and femoral (ick), had been ruled out, as had sex with the servants while tasting. Vamps were pretty blasé about intercourse, and sex and dinner were often one and the same thing. Not something I wanted to be in the same room with. Double ick.

After a suitable amount of time—or maybe it was a volume thing, like two cups and you’re done. What did I know?—the men broke off, eased their fangs from their drinks, and started talking about the vintages.

“Anling tastes like moonlight and jasmine,” Shaddock said. Which sounded all kinds of funny with his country boy/mountain man accent. “Well aged and mellow as a good bourbon.”

“Your Chin Ho is reminiscent of hazelnut and fine wine,” Grégoire said. “A delightful offering. And young?”

“Only fifty years, but he’s agin’ well, or so I’m told.”

“Lovely boy,” the French vamp said. And he placed a kiss on the blood-servant’s wrist. The Korean vintage blushed and lowered his eyes.

It was way too much like foreplay for me, and I held in a grimace. Listening to it all made me wonder why no blood-meal ever tasted like bacon or shrimp or a really good beer. I managed not to laugh, which would have brought a fast response from Grégoire. Likely a painful one. To the vamps this stuff was deadly important. For me, it was comic relief, even though I’d made a study of the relevant parts of the Vampira Carta and its codicils for this job, and understood the penalties for vamp-misbehavior, which were not comic at all.

Since nothing important was on the docket until after dinner, I let my mind wander back over the kiss and conversation with Rick, careful not to react to the memory in any way. I wasn’t interested in becoming part of the tasting ceremony, and a physical response in any of the observers would have reached the noses of the vamps instantly in such close quarters. Noir Wine Room held space for only twenty or so, and the intimate accommodations meant we shared each other’s scent reactions.

Rick’s last words, before he disappeared, silent as a stalking cat into the long shadows haunted me. “But I’ll still want you, Jane.” He had meant it, totally and completely. But we both knew that we didn’t always get what we wanted in life.

Good mate, Beast thought sleepily at me. Big-cat. Big claws. Good killing teeth. She rolled over, her claws scraping across my mind. We could be black leopard, mate to Ricky Bo.

That statement pulled me out of my own thoughts and back to the enervating, mind-numbing boredom of the parley. The vamps were discussing the length of time Shaddock’s scions were chained while they cured, which was my smoked-meat term for the time it took newly turned vamps, who always rose insane, to remember their own minds. It took only five years for most of Shaddock’s scions to go through the curing process, a speed that had been well documented for sixty years. Most vamps, when bitten, spend ten years nutso—lost in what they call the devoveo, the insanity that comes to all freshly risen vamps—chained in their maker’s basement, before they recall who they had been and develop bloodlust control, allowing them into human society. Or into the feeding pool, as Grégoire phrased it. The speed with which Shaddock’s scions recovered had made him a master vamp at a young age. And now there was the two-year-wonder, the vamp who cured in two years. A record.

Beast flicked an ear tab, returning my attention to a subject she thought more important than the parley. We could go back to hot, flat, wet place, she thought, talking about New Orleans, and take Bruiser as mate. Slyly she added, And Leo. She sent a mental picture of the three of us in a big bed, the sheets ripped, slashed, and bloody. Beast’s idea of a good time. I exhaled—not quite a sigh. Beast was less interested in a long-term relationship than I was, and far more interested in taking the biggest predators as mates. Big-cats do not mate for life, she thought at me.

Yeah. So you told me. Humans do. Sometimes.

I/we are not human, she thought disdainfully.

She had me there. We weren’t human. And then I realized I had missed something. Maybe something vital. The vamps were gathering up their blood-servants and belongings as if to leave. My heart shuddered and Grégoire looked up fast. He had heard my heart-thump of anxiety. Crap! What did I miss? As Leo’s head of security it was my job to pay attention, not woolgather.

Was not chasing sheep, Beast thought, humor in her words. She sniffed and added, Vampire, who smells of man-spices and cooked meat, has asked pale vampire, who smells of flowers and fresh streams, to see the den where he keeps his chained scions.

Relief washed through me. Scion Lair. Got it. And, Crap! The field trips were planned for next week. Grégoire had been invited to pay a surprise visit to a location I had never been given the address or GPS coordinates for, and had not reconnoitered. Though Shaddock had been agreeable about a lot of info, he’d been reticent about sharing the coordinates of his Clan Home and scion lair until the night before the visit, which would have meant Monday night. I wasn’t happy at allowing the vamps to go to someplace I hadn’t scouted and set up a perimeter. Not that I had a choice.

Chen, Shaddock’s security chief, gave me a flat stare, showing me how ticked off he was. I narrowed my eyes at him and gave my head a tiny jerk, telling him I hadn’t known. Chen looked at his boss, puzzled, but this was Lincoln Shaddock’s idea, not Grégoire’s.

Shaddock bowed slightly from the waist, a curious gesture, vaguely antique military, and said, “My Mithrans are honored that you accept our invitation to visit our chained scions.”

I tapped my mike for the command channel that went directly to Derek. This was for his ears only. “Exit strategy alpha four,” I said, choosing one of several prearranged and practiced exit strategies. It was all probably overkill, but I was staking (pun intended) my reputation on this gig, and leaving nothing to chance. “Bring the cars around front. Increase personnel on the street and the drive.”

“Destination?” Derek asked.

“Unknown,” I said, moving to the door. I cracked it and looked out, seeing Derek motion his guys into position at the entrance. “Tuesday has come early,” which told Derek why I didn’t know where we were going. From a safety measures standpoint this unexpected trip was a huge problem. “I want both vamps in one car with the blood-servants, just as planned for Tuesday.”

Two other limos would leave at the same time heading in different directions to confuse any observers. Two SUVs would ride shotgun with each limo, one in front, one in back, and rendezvous with us once they shook any tail. Security 101. It was standard because it worked.

I was riding shotgun in the last car, staring out the back window, trying to discern any pattern that might indicate we were being followed, and got the directions, address, and GPS coordinates when the drivers did. It came up on my digital video screen the moment they plugged it into the system, and instantly flashed onto a county map. The location of Shaddock’s chained scions was halfway up a mountain at the end of a nothing road. Literally nothing. The coordinates identified no access roads for miles, which meant it was both easier and harder to defend. Oh goody. It was also Shaddock’s Clan Home, which was weird, as most vamps kept their uncured (as in cold meat) children in a separate location.

The security evaluation of the clan home was scheduled for later too, making this a twofer. Tension crawled up my shoulders on little spider feet. This was a dangerous proposition. The worst case scenario for protection detail was the unexpected.

The city fell away as we headed north on I-26 past the Pisgah National Forest and took 70 toward Hot Springs. The blackness of mountains rose up before us, secondary roads off to either side, careening up and down steep terrain. Mansion homesites and subdivisions dotted distant hillsides with security lights, bright in the dark. Mobile home and RV parks, barns, sheds, and abandoned houses replaced suburban life with rural as we traveled. No one followed us.

My directional sense said we were getting close when we slowed, and turned onto an unlit gravel road. A quarter mile in, trees had closed in on both sides and the shadows were dense. Even with my better-than-human night vision, one of the gifts of my Beast, I couldn’t see much out the tinted windows, not enough to pierce the darkness under the trees. We stopped, and I craned for a view. “Status?”