Blood Feud

  He was yelling passionately aboutFraterniteandLiberteand state education for children. Isabeau didn’t pay much attention to what he was saying. She wasn’t here to join the cause, or even to fight against it. She was here solely for the coin she could lift from unattended pockets. She had a small stash tucked under the roof shingle of a ribbon shop that saw few customers these days. Soon, if the summer was kind to her, she would have enough to buy passage on a ship to England. If she went before winter, she could walk from the shore to London, to find her uncle’s house. She was trying to convince Cerise to go with her but the other woman absolutely refused to leave France, and spat at the mention of England.

  Isabeau used her high vantage point to scope out the movement of the crowd, where it clogged together and where it thinned out. Once she’d marked her best point of entry, she leaped down into an alley, scaring a cat and neatly avoiding a puddle of unidentified liquid. She strolled casually toward the main part of the square, looking for all the world as if she were paying close attention to the speeches. Someone handed her a flyer.

  She let herself be jostled, stepped on a foot and apologized profusely. The man shrugged her off, checking his pockets. They were gratifyingly full and he forgot her instantly. The man next to him didn’t think to check and she hid a smile, dropping the silver coin she’d filched from his coat. She’d hung her coat on a chimney and practiced for days until she could pick her own pockets without even disturbing the pigeons nesting above it. She was proud of herself, as proud as she’d been the day she’d played her first song at the piano without a single pause or mistake. Prouder even then when she’d earned the praises of her dancing master.

  Anyone could learn to dance.

  Picking pockets was a harder skill to learn and eminently more useful.

  By the end of the square she’d amassed another silver coin, a copper chain with a broken clasp, a bag of walnuts, and a feather from a woman’s bonnet. She’d have to find a red ribbon later. If she stayed any longer she increased the chances of being discovered. Greed would get her killed.

  She spotted Marc leaning against a pillar, his dirty face half-hidden under a cap. He winked at her as she passed but otherwise made no sign that he knew her. She slipped him the copper chain as a thank-you, nicked a clump of radishes from a basket, and vanished onto the maze of shingles and broken chimneys above the city.

  Chapter 17

  Logan

  “What the hell was that?” I choked as we were tossed back into the clearing. We weren’t in 1793 Paris anymore, but we weren’t in our bodies yet either. We shimmered like ghosts over the grass, our bodies slumped several feet away. I couldn’t get the image of Isabeau, abandoned and orphaned, clinging to rooftops.

  “That’s never happened before,” Isabeau murmured, startled and embarrassed.

  “You know, you keep saying that.”

  She swallowed, turning away slightly as if she was embarrassed to look at me. That was definitely new. “So now you know what I was.”

  I blinked. “Resourceful, clever, self-sufficient. Same as now.”

  She blinked back. “Logan, weren’t you paying attention? I robbed corpses and picked pockets.”

  “You survived.” There wasn’t an ounce of censure in my voice, except maybe at the suggestion that I would think less of her.

  “I was no better than Madame Tussaud,” she said, disgusted.

  “What does this have to do with wax museums?”

  “I’m talking about Madame Tussaud, who made death masks. I read that she dug through the corpses of the guillotine victims to find decapitated heads for her masks. What are you talking about?”

  “A tourist attraction. They make wax replicas of famous people. I guess it was named after your Madame Tussaud.”

  “This century is just odd,” she muttered.

  “This from a girl who survived the French Revolution.”

  “We’re blue already,” she murmured. That’s when I noticed the glow we were emanating was brighter, slightly blue around the hazy edges. “We don’t have much time left, we’ll need to get back into our bodies before our spirits forget the way.”

  “I do feel kind of odd.” Like the pull of my body was warring with the pull to just float away.

  “Are you all right? I still need to get a connection to Montmartre.” She kneeled and wiped her hands in the silver blood. “Which I can do, with this.” Her palms were smeared with thick silver, like oil paint. Her teeth were clenched tight together as she dabbed the metallic blood on her forehead, between her eyebrows. She wavered, as if I were looking at her through heat lightning. She was going to vanish again and I wasn’t touching her this time. Hell if I was going to stay behind and float. I grabbed her hand, the blood cool on my skin.

  “Dangerous,” she croaked, fading.

  “Shut up,” I croaked back, suddenly feeling a wicked jolt of vertigo. This wasn’t like watching a memory out of her head, this was being pulled into a different place and not knowing where that place was. Everything was a bleary smear of colors, then black, then a painful thump on the head.

  “Ouch, damn it.”

  We were in real time, pressed against the ceiling of a house, as if gravity had reversed itself. For all I knew, it had. She was practically vibrating with rage. I was trying not to throw up. Could disembodied spirits throw up? Best not to think about it.

  “Look,” she said, her voice nearly hollow with pain.

  Below us was a lavish living room with a bar with a green marble countertop and bottles of blood lined up like vintage wines. A human woman wept in the corner, curled into a ball, blood staining her wrists and the inside crease of her elbows. Two guards were stationed at the main doorway in the Hosts’ customary brown leather, and another two at the back door, which led out to a flagstone patio. In the center of the room, Montmartre reclined in a leather chair, looking like a dark prince out of some movie. His black hair was tied back, his eyes unnaturally pale. The last time I’d seen him he’d been trying to abduct my unconscious baby sister.

  I cast Isabeau a sidelong glance, tried to keep my tone light. “If you keep grinding your teeth like that your fangs will break right off.”

  She wasn’t smiling but at least she didn’t look like someone was driving nails through her skull anymore.

  “Can they hear us?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Only a witch or a shamanka could hear us now and they have neither down there.”

  “Finally, a bit of luck. Rat bastard,” I hissed down at Montmartre. “Mangy dog of a scurvy goat.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense,” Isabeau murmured.

  “Feels good though. Try it.”

  She narrowed her eyes at the top of Montmartre’s perfectly groomed hair. “Balding donkey’s ass. “

  “Nice.”

  “Sniveling flea-bitten rabid monkey droppings.”

  “Clearly, you’re a natural.” I frowned. “Why is he glowing red?”

  “You’re seeing his aura,” Isabeau explained. “It’s easier to see when you’re in this state. And that particular shade of red is unique to him. Do you see the guards there? Their auras are unique as well, but there’s a tinge of red, on the outside.” She was right. They looked like hazy jawbreaker candy, all layers of color. “It marks them as Montmartre’s tribes.”

  “Wait, so we all have that?” I couldn’t help but notice that Isabeau’s aura and mine were the same shifting glimmer of blue-opal, all along the side of our bodies that were nearly touching.

  “Yes.”

  “What color are the Drakes’?”

  “Blue-gray, like the surface of a lake when a storm’s coming. Lucy’s is very, very pink, like cotton candy. TheHel-Blarhave an absence of color, which makes my head hurt.”

  “This really doesn’t get less weird, does it?”

  The guards saluted and moved aside before she could reply. Another man strode into the room, dressed in a ridiculously expensive designer suit. His hair was dark
brown and artlessly styled, the kind of careless style you have to work really hard at. He wasn’t very tall, too soft and aristocratic to look threatening, if it weren’t for the sinister power that all but leaked out of his pores. I drifted closer to Isabeau. I felt the sudden need to protect her, floating delicately above two predators who’d already tried to kill her more than once. I didn’t recognize the new vampire, but my mother hadn’t raised an idiot.

  “Greyhaven?” I whispered.

  She nodded once, brokenly, like a doll with a wooden neck. I wanted to hold her even more than I wanted to get back into my body. Neither was an immediate option.

  Greyhaven mixed blood and brandy into a glass and threw the contents back before speaking.

  “TheHel-Blarare causing a nice distraction,” he said. The sound of his voice had Isabeau jerking back as if he’d tried to stake her.

  Montmartre didn’t look particularly impressed. He looked exhausted actually, nearly gray with fatigue. Good.

  “We got the package in through sheer luck,” he said. “We don’t have the time or the men to launch an attack on the Drake farm. We’d need the element of surprise and we can’t get it, not now. And they won’t let the blasted girl out.”

  They were talking about Solange. There was a weird growling sound I didn’t realized was coming from my own throat until I nearly choked on it.

  “She’ll be at the coronation,” Greyhaven assured him smoothly. “You can grab her then. And the crown.”

  “Yes, because that worked so well for me the last time,” he said dryly.

  “You worry too much.”

  “They’ll be expecting us at the coronation,” Montmartre said, rising to his feet. “We’ll have to act faster than that. I can get the girl once I have the crown.” He smiled and it sent a chill through me. “Get your men ready. We’ll send in the human guards before sunset tomorrow and follow them.”

  “But . . .” Montmartre didn’t see the odd look on Greyhaven’s face, but I could see it clearly enough. And I had no idea how to interpret it; it was tense, hopeful, sad, angry, jealous, adoring. Too much, too fast for one expression. And it was washed over with a thin veneer of panic. Clearly Greyhaven wasn’t the spontaneous sort. He didn’t like having the plans changed.

  Since those plans involved killing my family and marrying my little sister against her will, he could bite me.

  “We have to warn them,” I said to Isabeau. Suddenly, hovering like a waft of mist was extremely annoying. I was too angry and tense and worried to float; I wanted to feel the ground under my boots as I thundered through the woods to the royal caves. I wanted the hilt of a good sword in my hand, the smooth deadly grip of a stake. Now.

  Greyhaven frowned lightly and peered suspiciously into the dark corners of the room.

  “Merde.” Isabeau reached for me before I could reach for her. Her fingers dug into my arm. “Think of your body,” she whispered, her mouth so close to my ear it tickled the lobe. Greyhaven’s head jerked up and then we were shimmering through another bout of vertigo. I had no idea if he’d seen us. I had no idea which way was up and which was down. I hurtled through the air for what felt like years and then landed in a lump right beside my body. I looked decidedly more peaceful than I felt.

  Isabeau looked utterly shell-shocked, as if her astral limbs were heavy as stones. Her aura flickered, like a lightbulb about to burn out.

  “Hey,” I said gently, pushing to my feet. “Isabeau.” She didn’t blink, didn’t look at me, didn’t respond to her name. “Isabeau.” She’d told me to say it three times to pull her back into her body. I didn’t know if it worked when I wasn’t exactly in my body either. “Isabeau.”

  Nope. Didn’t work.

  She stayed ethereal and still, like she’d swallowed the moon. I felt tired and disoriented.

  “Isabeau, damn it.”

  She turned her face slowly toward me. “Logan.”

  “Shit. You scared me,” I grumbled, feeling drunk. My aura looked wrong, faded.

  “You should get back into your body,” she said urgently. “Right now.”

  “Good idea.” I smiled sluggishly. “Isabeau?”

  “Oui?”

  “How exactly do I do that,ma belle?” French classes had been a good idea after all, and not just because Madame Veronique demanded a rudimentary understanding. I could charm Isabeau in her native tongue. She smiled at me. I was sure I hadn’t imagined it. Well, pretty sure.

  “Just sit back into it, as if you were sitting in a chair.”

  “Okay.” I touched her cheek, or tried to. Our auras touched, sparked. “You don’t smile enough.”

  “Flirt with me later, Logan.” She shoved me and I tumbled, falling backward and landing in my body. My arms and legs twitched, as if electricity coursed through me. I felt heavy and weird and tingled all over. Charlemagne nosed me roughly, leaving a wet cold smear on my neck. I sat up, grimacing. “Not the kiss I was hoping for, dog,” I told him. He nudged me again and I froze. I’d heard it too that time. Footsteps, bodies moving with vampire speed between the trees.

  Toward us.

  Isabeau was lying too still, she wasn’t back in her body yet.

  Before they could spill into the clearing, I leaped into the air and landed in a crouch at her feet, stake in my hand. Charlemagne stood by her head.

  He relaxed when the Hound warriors surrounded us.

  I didn’t.

  Magda stepped forward, her face unreadable.

  “Logan Drake, come with us.”

  “Like hell.”

  Isabeau still wasn’t moving and I had to warn my parents, had to make sure Solange was safe.

  “This is not a request.” There were dogs at her feet, ears pricked, teeth bared.

  I snarled. “Look, you’re at the bottom of my list of priorities right now, Magda. Take a freaking number.”

  “You have been summoned by Kala.”

  “She can wait too.”

  Isabeau jerked once and then sat up abruptly. She blinked dazedly.

  “Magda? What’s going on?”

  Magda tossed her long curls back over her shoulder. “He’s been summoned for the rites.”

  “What?” Isabeau leaped to her feet, nearly knocking me onto my face. “No!”

  I rose slowly. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s not like that,” Isabeau said pleadingly at the warriors.

  “Kala read the bones again,” one of them said. “He has to prove himself worthy of you, of the Hounds. He has to be strong enough to be one of us.”

  “You never told me,” Magda added, sounding hurt.

  Isabeau winced. “I know. But it doesn’t mean he’s the one. And anyway, we don’t have time for this.”

  “You can’t be handfasted without the rites,” another warrior insisted. “He has to be initiated if he’d going to be your consort.”

  “Consort?” I echoed. I stared at her. “Consort? Seriously? That’s what they meant?”

  She blushed lightly. “One of our traditions,” she said softly. She weaved on her feet, fatigue making dark bruises under her green eyes. “Kala predicted that I would promise myself to a vampire of the royal courts. To a Drake.”

  “And here I thought you didn’t like me.”

  “It’s not like that.” She pushed her hair out of her face. “We have to warn the others,” she said. “Kala’s orders.”

  My fangs were out, my fists clenched. “Let me at least call my parents to warn them.”

  Isabeau looked crestfallen. “Phones won’t work here, not after all the magic that’s been done. It’s why phones don’t work in the caves either.”

  “Then send someone to somewhere where they do work,” I ground out. I reached for her hands, remembered the thin girl stealing coins and eating stale crusts of bread, the woman I’d kissed just this morning as the sun rose like a candle set too close to lace curtains. “If I do this,” I asked huskily, “I’m proving myself to you?”

  She
nodded almost shyly. “Yes, but—”

  I cut her off, turning to the band of armed warriors.

  “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 18

  Logan

  The march back to the caves was formal and irritating. At least Magda wasn’t smirking at me anymore. Isabeau was bewildered and embarrassed. I probably should have been more concerned about my own welfare, but I was kind of glad to have a chance to prove myself to her. Even if it was the worst possible timing. And I’d been tested before, by Madame Veronique, who might prefer embroidery to warfare but was still remarkably intimidating.

  Possibly I was underestimating this test.

  Most of the torches had been doused inside the caverns; only a few candles were left burning along the edge of the milky lake. Kala already looked better, sitting on a worn stone, her amulets and bone beads clacking together when she shifted. Warriors lined the walls with their dogs. I could only see the glint of their eyes. The ground was swept clean of pebbles and broken chunks of stalactites but sprinkled with what looked like salt and dried herbs.

  “Logan Drake, do you come to the rites willingly?” Kala asked me, her voice echoing in a way that wasn’t entirely a result of the caves.

  I stripped off my jacket and my shirt. “These things aren’t cheap,” I muttered, folding them on a ledge. Someone sneered. I could just imagine what they must think of me in my pirate-style frock coat and steel-toe boots. It was easy to assume a guy who was comfortable wearing lace cuffs might not know a sword from a toothpick. I was used to it. And I knew how to use it to my advantage.

  Isabeau swallowed, sent me a look I couldn’t quite decipher. She opened her mouth with a warning but the man next to her clapped his hand over her mouth. I scowled.

  “You know the rules,” Kala told her sharply. “The bones and the dreams are not to be ignored.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I assured her. I raised an eyebrow at the Hounds still muscling her into silence. “Get off her.” I couldn’t believe she was allowing it. These traditions must run deeper than I’d thought. “Now.”