Adam backed up slowly, and Guccio shadowed him, the vampire’s movements lazy. He was confident of his victory. Now that the prey was wounded, there was no hurry. Werewolves kill their prey quickly, but vampires, like cats, enjoy playing with their food.
Adam intended to use Guccio’s confidence and eagerness against him.
He opened the pack bonds. Although the only one of his pack nearby was Honey, she was a deep well of power, and she gave it freely. Her energy trickled into him, cool and refreshing, swallowing pain.
Adam continued backing away, breathing shallowly. He angled along an overturned table until he bumped into one of the larger tables, where someone had been clearing the table and left one of those carts with a black tub on top, a tub filled with dishes.
Bonarata’s people dined off fine porcelain china.
The busboy—busperson?—had kindly stacked the plates for Adam. He picked up several in his left hand and with his right he Frisbeed the top one at the vampire.
Guccio was less than ten feet away.
Some people might think a plate a poor weapon. Some people weren’t werewolves who could launch the things at speeds a major-league pitcher would envy. The first plate hit the arm Guccio lifted to block it and exploded, sending sharp fragments of glazed porcelain flying like shrapnel. The impact also knocked the knife from Guccio’s hand. It flew, hit a table, and fell to the ground a dozen feet away. Not entirely out of play but close enough.
The second plate took Guccio full in the throat, the narrow edge sliced like a knife, parting flesh and opening a second mouth that bled dark, viscous blood.
The third plate struck Guccio in the forehead, shattering on impact and leaving another bleeding cut with large shards embedded in his skull.
Staggered by the rapid impacts, Guccio took another couple of steps back. Blood from his forehead ran into his left eye. He wiped it clear and opened his mouth to say something.
And Adam pulled the H&K from his shoulder holster. The first shot took the vampire just below his left eye. A .40 wasn’t the biggest caliber in the world, but modern ammunition made the most of it. Adam wasn’t carrying target rounds.
A large portion of the vampire’s head blew outward, fragments of bone and tissue flung eight feet or more.
The vampiric magic that bound Guccio to his half life didn’t give up easily. Guccio wasn’t dead; he swayed on his feet with a confused expression on his face. Apparently his high-velocity lobotomy had degraded his thinking skills because he just stood there. The raw tissue writhed and pulsed in the open wound as the vampire’s body struggled to repair the damage.
“A gun?” said Bonarata quietly.
“Why didn’t you shoot him earlier?” asked Marsilia. “You had time to do it after you sent Iacopo to me.”
“Because,” Adam said, “I needed Bonarata to know that I can defend my territory from vampires without any help at all. Guccio is one of your strongest vampires. He attacked me armed with a dagger—and I could have defeated him with a stack of plates.” He put two more rounds into Guccio, this time between his eyes.
Guccio dropped bonelessly to the floor, faceup. There were three neat holes and only a little blood from the gunshots. The real damage was hidden from sight. He had been a pretty man, but his features were only visible for a moment.
Dead vampires as old as Guccio dry up and turn to ash pretty quickly.
“The gun just makes things quicker.” Satisfied Guccio was permanently dead, Adam looked at Marsilia. “But if I’d used the gun right at the beginning, there would have been one less casualty.” He looked at Bonarata. “In my territory, I’d have used the gun.”
“Why was he fighting so hard?” asked Larry. “He acted like he actually had a chance. Once Adam saw to it that the assassination did not take place, Guccio was ended. Even if he had taken Adam out, his element of surprise was gone. You wouldn’t have let him live.”
Bonarata looked around the mostly empty room and sighed. Besides Adam’s people, there were five or six vampires.
“My people,” Bonarata said. “How many of you were obligated to follow Guccio while he was alive?”
All of them raised their hands.
“Raising new children is troublesome,” Bonarata said. “You all understand how it works? You collect sheep and tend them. And in a few years, five or six on average, if you are careful, you will have one prepared who can become your child. For that one, you will have tended a dozen who, for one reason or another, will never live to become vampires. Once you have changed your fledgling, for years afterward, sometimes decades and sometimes centuries, you still have to feed them and make sure that they are not misbehaving. Eventually, you hope, they will go out on their own and be able to produce their own children.”
“I am Bonarata’s child,” said Marsilia. “And I know a few others, but there are only a few of us.” She gave Bonarata a quick, affectionate smile. “He is too lazy to tend children.”
It must have been an old joke because he smiled back. “We vampires are selfish creatures.”
Marsilia completed it by saying, “It is the only reason vampires haven’t taken over the world.”
Bonarata said, “Stefan is the only vampire I know who never was tied to his Master by magic-driven obedience. I myself destroyed my maker when I decided what I wanted to become. I could not afford to have someone who I would have a hard time refusing.”
Wulfe had been Bonarata’s maker.
Marsilia said, “We believe that once a vampire can survive on his own kills rather than needing supplementary feeding from his maker or another Master to maintain their humanity, it is time to release them from obligation. When a child of mine quits feeding from me, the tie of obedience fades, though it doesn’t disappear.”
“Usually. Usually it can be revived,” Bonarata said. He looked at Larry. “Which is the logical path for a vampire like Guccio to follow. He could force obedience not only from his own children, but their children, too. And through them, their children. All he would have to do is feed them from his own vein, and they would be his.” He looked around the room, where people, mostly vampires, were returning now that it was as safe as anyplace vampires laired could be.
While Marsilia and Bonarata had been explaining things to Larry, Stefan had walked briskly into the room. He looked around, and his eyes found Adam’s and ran down his body, taking in the damage. Stefan caught the arm of another vampire and listened to her intently. He turned on his heel and walked back out. Adam figured he’d been sent by Honey, who’d know something had happened but not what.
Smith, who’d appeared with a tablecloth that he’d ripped to pieces, produced a knife from somewhere and started cutting Adam’s suit jacket off him.
Larry said, “So your people here, most of them, had to obey Guccio and not you—and you didn’t think it was a problem until today? If Guccio had won, he would have turned your own people on you.”
Bonarata smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “Oh, I knew it was a problem.”
“And he decided to use Adam to solve it for him,” murmured Matt Smith, sounding as though he might admire that.
Stefan said, “Being lazy. I expect he had contingency plans had Adam failed to eliminate Guccio.”
He’d returned from a different door, and Adam had missed it. He had Bonarata’s healer, Stacia, by one hand. She regarded Adam with big, sad eyes.
“It really was a compliment of sorts, Adam,” Stefan said, his eyes steady on Bonarata’s. “If he’d thought you would lose, he wouldn’t have set you up—because then Guccio would have had nothing left to lose and Iacopo would have had to bestir himself. How did you arrange that Guccio ‘discover’ that gris-gris?”
Bonarata said, “You knew what I was when you brought your friends here. You have no cause to be angry.” But there was a pleased air about the Lord of Night that told Adam he wa
s happy to be discovered. He was proud of the play he’d engineered.
“He played us,” said Adam.
Marsilia shook her head. “My life is so much more peaceful now that I do not live in your world, Jacob.” She looked at Adam. “He arranged it all. Wheels within wheels. What if Guccio had managed to suborn Adam? Did you know, Jacob, that Adam’s mate is peculiarly immune to vampiric powers? That she might pass that on to Adam?”
“No,” said Adam grimly. “He didn’t. Until you just told him. Thank you.” Speech was a little difficult with a collapsed lung, and that wasn’t improving with time as air escaped. He decided that he was okay if everyone in the room, except Matt Smith, thought that Guccio had never had Adam in his thrall. It might keep the next vampire from trying it.
Adam’s jacket was on the glass-covered ground in shreds. Smith unbuckled Adam’s shoulder holster and handed it, without a word, to Harris. He ripped the shirt around the fork but paused when Adam spoke.
“Is she?” Bonarata said, arrested. “She turned into a small dog, Lenka told me. A wild dog. Was it a coyote? Is your wife a walker, Adam? A descendant of Coyote? Fascinating. So Wulfe wasn’t lying as wildly as I thought he was. If I had known, I would have kept her longer.”
Adam raised an eyebrow. “Not likely,” he said—and coughed, which really sucked. He didn’t want to collapse in front of the present company, so he concentrated on breathing for a bit.
“Mercy is slippery,” Marsilia said. “If you had kept her, you’d have regretted it. I’m sorry, Adam. Even if he didn’t know, he’d have figured it out pretty soon. She did something as interesting as escaping his clutches. He would make a point of finding out about her—and what she is is no longer as secret as she kept herself before she joined your pack.”
Bonarata smiled.
“What he knew,” said Stefan grimly, “because he had opportunity to experiment on Lenka and her mate, was that a single feeding without consent would never be enough to hold an Alpha werewolf. I expect that he took great pains to make Guccio think that werewolves, for a vampire of his power, would be easy prey, without mentioning the little quirk that makes Alpha werewolves much trickier.”
Unless they are traveling without their packs, thought Adam. He figured he’d keep that one to himself.
“So this was a setup,” Smith said, returning to his self-appointed job of stripping Adam’s shirt. He didn’t bother with a knife. The silk was strong, but the stitches gave way to werewolf strength without trouble. “You kidnapped Adam’s mate to take care of your little issue with your subordinate?”
“No,” said Marsilia before Bonarata could say anything. “He’s quite able to run twenty plans at the same time without a sweat. He was honestly concerned that our situation in the Tri-Cities might cause trouble for him. But once we were here, he decided to use one problem to eliminate the other. If he had changed his mind about what we are accomplishing, he’d simply have killed Adam after Adam killed Guccio for him. If Adam had really been caught up in Guccio’s play, he’d have killed them both.” She looked at Adam. “He is lazy—but that doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous. Guccio was allowed to forget that. You should not be like Guccio.”
She looked at Bonarata. “You are getting bored, Jacob.” Interestingly, Adam thought, Bonarata was starting to wince every time she called him Jacob—even though he himself had insisted upon it. “Time was when such a one as Guccio would have been taken care of long before it got this far. You enjoyed playing with him, and that is dangerous. Not just for you—you can take care of yourself—but for those who depend upon you.”
Bonarata looked at her. “Stay, my beautiful, deadly flower, my Bright Blade. Stay with me, please? I need you. You see what I am become without you?”
Marsilia shook her head, and said, not ungently, “Not for all the gold in the ocean or gems in the sea would I stay with thee more.”
“This is going to be unpleasant,” said Smith to Adam, reaching for the fork.
“Wait,” said Stefan.
“Wait,” said Adam. “Guccio wasn’t coming for me. I found him heading for Harris and Smith. Smith should have given Guccio what he wanted, a wolf under his control.”
“Guccio just needed a werewolf,” said Marsilia. “Any would do. Then he could cause a war in which the werewolves were the cause of Bonarata’s death. If it became known that Guccio killed him . . . you wouldn’t know it, but Bonarata has friends, many nearly as dangerous as himself. If Guccio and a werewolf tried to kill Bonarata? Then Bonarata could retaliate by moving into the Marrok’s territory. Smith isn’t one of your wolves, Adam, but he is one of the Marrok’s.”
“Would you have avenged me?” Bonarata asked Marsilia softly.
“I might have helped Guccio kill you,” she said. “We’ll never know now.”
Bonarata laughed.
“His plans are like hydras,” Stefan said. “With many tentacles woven together. He doesn’t care which path is taken as long as all possible outcomes leave him on top.” He turned to the fae healer, who had been swinging his hand in hers and looking at a broken table as if it were a Picasso. “Iacopo owes this wolf a big favor,” he told her. “Would you heal my friend?”
“She doesn’t have much power left,” Bonarata said, though he didn’t really protest. “She used a lot for Adam’s mate, our little coyote.”
“It’s not a big wound,” Stefan answered. “It’s just in an awkward place.”
He brought the healer to Adam and released her, murmuring something in Italian. She nodded, using those awkwardly big movements Adam had seen before.
Smith had backed up. Stefan put his hand on the fork. “Brace yourself, wolf,” he said.
Adam nodded, and Stefan pulled the silver out of the wound. Almost immediately the little healer put her hands on Adam’s side, and warmth replaced the burning of the silver. A moment or two, and he could breathe again. She staggered a little as she removed her hands. Her skin was paler than it had been a moment before, and he was pretty sure she was thinner, too. She reached up toward his burning shoulder, but he caught her hands before she could touch that one. There had been magic in the dagger, but his wolf assured him that it had only caused the wound to be slow to heal; there was no corruption in it.
“Enough, little sister,” he told her. “That one won’t trouble me much. You fixed the bad one. Thank you.” He kissed her hand again because it had seemed to please her so much the first time. Then he leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Be well,” he told her.
“Niki,” called Bonarata. And when a roundish human woman came over to his call, he handed the healer into her care. “Take her to her room,” he said. “But stop in the kitchen and see if Cook has some food for her.”
People were moving about the room now, righting tables, cleaning up the glass—and the dead. Bonarata saw Adam look at Guccio’s ashes, and said, in a pained voice, “Those plates were two-hundred-year-old Limoges. It will be very expensive to find replacements.”
Adam would have said something scathing, but the woman who had led them to their table this morning stopped in front of Bonarata and dropped to her knees, spilling the tablecloths she was carrying as she did so.
“He wouldn’t let us tell,” she said in a whisper. “I tried, I tried to break his hold, Master.”
“Annabelle,” Bonarata said gently. “I know.”
She sobbed, shuddering. “You are most gracious.”
“No,” Bonarata said, his voice still soft. “You misunderstand me, child. I know.”
She froze. Bonarata sank the dagger that Guccio had been fighting with through her back and into her heart. She fell, hitting the floor as ashes rather than a body. Apparently the dagger was rather more deadly to vampires than it was to werewolves.
“Pity,” Bonarata said. “She was useful.” He looked around at his vampires, who were suddenly all actively engaged in whate
ver work they could find. “I trust that she will be the last I have to put down over this.”
“Did you see him pick up that dagger?” asked Smith very quietly.
Adam shook his head, but Larry, who was too far away to hear something that quiet, caught Smith’s eye and wandered over.
When he stood nearby, he said, “Elizaveta called it to her—and then gave it to Bonarata.”
“Mmm,” said Smith.
Adam looked at Elizaveta, who was seated at a table drinking a cup of tea. She met his eyes, smiled, and sipped her tea.
—
BONARATA INSISTED ON TRAVELING WITH THEM TO Prague. He had still not heard from his man there. Since they were headed that way, it would be only courtesy to allow him to travel with them.
Bonarata spent the whole time they traveled in conversation with Marsilia and Stefan. Mostly Marsilia—and it didn’t sound like business. The bits and pieces Adam overheard were more like old friends catching up.
Adam made sure that the Lord of Night stayed away from Honey. Upon being alerted that Bonarata was coming, she had dressed in jeans with an oversized baggy shirt that smelled like Smith’s. She’d scrubbed her face of makeup.
When he’d first seen her new guise, Adam said, “You could wear a bikini, and I would not let him touch you.”
She’d smiled grimly. “I’d kill the old bastard first. And we still need him alive. So I’ll keep out of sight as much as I can.”
“And if you kill him, I’ll help you bury the ashes, and we can blame Guccio,” Adam said.
Honey grinned at him and held up a fist, which he bumped with his own. But when she made explosive noises and let her fist open and drift down to her side, he just watched.
—
THEY LANDED AT THE FIELD DAVID CHRISTIANSEN HAD arranged for them. No questions were asked except those pertaining to the care and refueling of the plane. David’s contact even provided them with two vans.