Page 4 of Hungers of the Heart

  “Well, well,” Marie purred as she came closer.

  “Looks like someone’s been able to wheedle her way back into the Seigneur’s bed.”

  Faith couldn’t help taking a step backward, even though she knew retreating tweaked Marie’s preda­tory instincts. In a lightning-fast move, Marie rushed her, grabbing her shoulders and shoving her up against the wall. Faith’s heart was in her throat as Marie leaned into her personal space until they were almost nose to nose.

  “Armand will be angry with you if you hurt me,” she reminded the bitch. Marie snarled, baring her fangs, but aside from the crushing grip on Faith’s shoulders, she offered no other violence.

  Marie had “warned” Faith away from Armand once before, stabbing her three times with a kitchen knife. The wounds would have killed a mortal—they merely hurt like hell for Faith. When Armand found out what Marie had done, he’d locked her in a dun­geon cell for an entire week, taking her out once a night for a public whipping. Faith hated Marie al­most as much as Marie hated her, but she still had nightmares about those agonized screams.

  After the last of the whippings, Armand had taken Marie back into his bed as if nothing had happened. And Marie hadn’t dared mess with Faith since. The look on her face suggested her self-restraint was be­ing sorely tested.

  “You keep your filthy hands off the Seigneur,” Marie hissed. “He’s mine! If I find you in his bed again, I’ll find a way to make you pay, and he’ll never know I had anything to do with it.”

  Faith wanted to scream at the injustice of it. “I’d give anything to keep my ‘filthy hands’ off him, if only he would let me.”

  Marie backhanded her, one swift, almost casual blow that left Faith seeing stars and tasting blood. “You’d better find a way, or I will kill you.”

  Faith bit her tongue to keep from saying anything. If she told Armand that Marie had hit her, Marie would be punished again. But Faith wasn’t sure she could bear to watch what he would do to her for this. A second punishment for the same infraction might not kill her, but Marie might very well wish it would.

  Of course, Marie was destined to die eventually anyway. Armand had a famously short attention span where women were concerned, and Faith imagined Marie would not take it well at all when he became bored with her and put her aside. She wasn’t smart enough to control her rage indefinitely.

  Satisfied that she had made her point. Marie shoved Faith down the hallway toward the elevators. Faith just barely managed to keep her feet. She felt hostile eyes on her until the moment the elevator doors closed behind her.

  ***

  ARMAND PROPPED HIMSELF up on one elbow, lis­tening, sure Marie would not dare to defy him. He winced when he heard what sounded suspiciously like a slap, then slid his legs out of bed. Perhaps bringing both Marie and Faith with him had been a miscalculation. But he’d wanted Marie for his bed, and Faith and Lily were far too weak and vulnerable to be left at home without his protection.

  No, the miscalculation had been taking Faith to his bed as soon as they arrived, flaunting it in Marie’s face. He’d meant to remind the little whore how eas­ily she could be replaced, but he should have known better.

  He pulled on his dressing gown and strode toward the door Marie had restrained herself and allowed Faith to leave, but he’d heard her threat. Apparently, she would need a different sort of lesson, though he would need to be careful how he administered it in this crowded hotel. It wouldn’t do to leave blood­stains in the room, nor could he allow the mortal pa­trons to hear her screams.

  He was almost to the door when his cell phone rang. His shoulders tensed and he stopped in his tracks. He’d been expecting a call, but not so soon. He’d thought La Vieille would at least want to give him time to gather a little information first.

  Cursing under his breath, Armand let Marie go and promised himself he would deal with her later. He picked up the phone on the third ring, bracing himself for a most unpleasant conversation.

  “I see you have made it to America without inci­dent,” La Vieille said without any sort of formal greet­ing. Her voice was eerily similar to her daughter’s, hut whereas Brigitte’s tone was almost always play­ful, no matter what she was saying, La Vieille’s raised the hairs on the back of his neck with its menace. He didn’t think that was a trick of the mind, either. Her power seemed to travel over the phone lines, which was disconcerting to say the least.

  “Yes, Your Excellency,” he murmured, fighting the reflex to drop to one knee and lower his head. It was a courtesy she demanded when he spoke to her avatar in person, but surely even she couldn’t see him from across the ocean.

  “And have you arranged a meeting with the so-called Master?”

  Armand faltered, then cursed himself for a fool. “Not yet, Your Excellency. We’ve only just arrived.” He closed his eyes, knowing full well what was coming.

  “Your plane touched down exactly two hours and twenty-five minutes ago. That, my dear Seigneur is not my definition of ‘just arrived.’”

  Of course the pilot of their private jet would have reported their arrival immediately, and of course La Vieille would have expected him to begin the search for her daughter the moment he set foot on American soil. She was not known for her patience, and she al­ready held him in high disfavor. After all, Brigitte had fled the country on his watch. The fact that it was the Maître de Paris who had allowed her to leave rather than himself did not in any way mitigate his guilt in her eyes.

  “I beg your pardon,” he responded, hoping his voice betrayed no fear. “I will make contact as soon as we hang up.”

  “Hmm.” It was at best a noncommittal sound, and she did not dismiss him, so Armand stayed on the line. “You do understand what’s at stake, do you not, Seigneur?”

  His fist clenched around the phone. She rarely lowered herself to making direct threats. But then, lie didn’t need to. “Yes, Your Excellency,” he said, (ad this time he knew his fear shone through. If he tailed, every punishment he’d ever inflicted on his own people would pale in comparison to what La Vieille would do to him.

  Armand knew that some of his people, mostly those underlings who had tasted his displeasure, con­sidered him evil. But having not met La Vieille du Nord, they couldn’t possibly comprehend what the lace of true evil looked like. In his youth, he’d been a good Christian, and he’d pictured the devil as a twisted, hideous creature with a horned head and cloven hooves. Now he knew better. The devil pos­sessed a sweetly smiling face with hair the palest of blond and cheeks perpetually rosy from a fresh kill. And the ancient dungeons that lay hidden in the depths below her castle in Lille were Hell itself.

  “No, Armand,” La Vieille purred. “I don’t think you do. I’m sure you understand what your fate would be, but I don’t think you realize the.. . magni­tude of my displeasure.”

  But he’d known what to expect from her from the moment he ascended to the rank of Seigneur and she’d given him a tour of those dreaded dungeons. It wasn’t just his life that was at stake. It was the lives of every one of his fledglings, and of every one of the lesser vampires and mortals who served him. That knowledge had guided his choice of traveling com­panions. He couldn’t protect all his people, but if he failed, he hoped his personal favorites would be able to disappear into the wilds of America and escape La Vieille’s wrath.

  “Do you think you’re being clever, Seigneur?” La Vieille asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Do you think I don’t know which of your people are your favorites?”

  Armand’s heart clutched in sudden panic. It had never occurred to him that La Vieille would antici­pate his strategy.

  “You fought side by side with Charles during the battle of Agincourt,” La Vieille continued. “When years later you found him dying on yet another bat­tlefield, you turned him to save his life. And though he is almost as powerful as you, he has remained by your side for all these years, never striving to become a Seigneui or even a Maître. A more dedicated and
loyal friend there never was. Of course, if you hadn’t hoped to protect him, you’d have left him at home to rule in your stead while you were gone.

  “And why on earth would you bring a girl like Faith, who I know has not graced your bed for many months now? She is a weakling—hardly an asset to your mission. Unless she means something to you personally, that is.”

  La Vieille was indeed the devil incarnate.

  “Perhaps I should thank you,” the devil continued, “for making it so easy for me to know how to hurt you. Not only will I make you watch as those you care about receive a preview of what you will suffer, I’ll make you do it to them yourself. And don’t for a moment believe they can escape my wrath through distance. I have made arrangements to make sure all it you return to me in the event of your failure.”

  Armand’s knees weakened and he hastily sat. He’d never been squeamish about inflicting pain on his subjects when they deserved it. But he made quite certain that they knew what was expected of them and what the price for disobedience would be. Even while punishing someone he felt some affection for, he remained free of guilt because they had been warned and therefore deserved it. La Vieille didn’t care who deserved what.

  “Now I think you understand what’s at stake,” she fished in triumph. “Bring my daughter to me. Alive. And bring me the head of this so-called Master of Baltimore.”

  The phone clicked and went dead. Armand snapped his Phone shut, then lowered his head into his hands. He would succeed. He had to succeed. The alternative Was unimaginable.

  There came a tentative knock on the door from the adjoining room.

  “Uncle Armand?” Lily asked. “May I come in?”

  Armand raised his head from his hands. He could not deal with a fragile mortal child right now. His nerves were too raw. He’d never let her see those sides of him that might.. . disturb her. No doubt Faith had told her dreadful stories, but Lily young and impressionable enough to doubt her sister’s word.

  “Uncle Armand?” Lily asked, more demandingly.

  “Not now!” he snapped, then winced at his tone of voice. Yes, it was definitely best to keep the girl away just now.

  He felt her hover by the door, no doubt distressed and hurt by his brusqueness. His temper simme­r his fangs descending against his will. If she disobeyed him, she was apt to learn that not all of Faith’s stories were fabrications.

  Luckily for everyone, she was a relatively obedient child for a modern teenager and wisely left alone.

  3

  DRAK HAD DEBATED whether to summon Eric and Harry, the other two members of the Baltimore Guardians, to the house for the meeting with the delegation. On the one hand, he preferred to have the delegation outnumbered. On the other hand, Eric and Harry were so young and untried that they were barely stronger than mortals.

  Gabriel and Jez had found Eric’s maker squatting in Baltimore when they had returned from Gabriel’s aborted revenge quest in Philadelphia. Gabriel had made quick work of the Killer, but had discovered Eric locked up in a basement, just coming around from having been turned. When it became clear that Eric was an unwilling fledgling who had not yet killed—and had no desire to kill—Gabriel and Jez had taken him on as the first member of their Guardians.

  Harry was a different, more difficult story. He’d been a friend of Jez’s during her mortal life, when both of them had suffered from HIV and then AIDS. When she returned to Baltimore and found her old friend was finally succumbing to the disease, she known the only way to save his life was to transform him. Because Gabriel and Jez couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t create the same intimate bond they shared with one another if they transformed Harry, they nominated Eric for the task.

  It hadn’t proved as happy a compromise as they expected. Vampires as a general rule were solitary predators and tended to grate on each others’ nerves. Usually, only a master and his or her fledglings managed to get along without killing one another. Trying to get two masters to work together effectively was daunting task, and though Eric knew he’d never coome out on top in a fight with Gabriel, he always seem to be in danger of exploding.

  They were hardly an impressive entourage, but they were all Drake had.

  So it was that all four of Gabriel’s Guardians were gathered in the receiving room at 12:15 when the doorbell rang. Drake had expected the delegation to arrive late. He’d even expected them to ignore his re­quest that only two members show up. What he hadn’t expected was to do a psychic scan and dis­cover six vampires and five mortals on his doorstep.

  “Damn,” he muttered. He’d never thought he’d ac­tually miss Gabriel. But he felt like an imposter, sit­ting in Gabriel’s chair, pretending to be the Master of Baltimore in the face of such overwhelming odds.

  The bell rang a second time, and Harry cleared his oat. “Should I let them in?”

  Drake sighed—silently, he hoped—and nodded. “I suppose you should.”

  ‘Jesus!” Eric exclaimed, suddenly leaping to his feet. “There are eleven people out there.”

  Jez gasped, and Harry hesitated, looking at Drake with wide eyes.

  Drake sat up a little straighter in his chair and tried to dispel any hint of uncertainty from his body lan­guage. “I know how many of them there are,” he said. “Let them in?’

  Harry looked dubious, but headed for the front door anyway.

  “Sit down, Eric,” Drake said, and Eric, too, obeyed.

  “This sucks,” Jez muttered, and Drake couldn’t help agreeing.

  Moments later, Harry returned, leading the Euro­pean horde. He quicky distanced himself from them and took a seat beside Eric. Drake had arranged the chairs so that his Guardians could sit close by him at the head of the room, with the delegation sitting an appreciable distance away. Of course, he hadn’t been expecting eleven people, so there weren’t enough seats for everyone.

  It became apparent which of those people was the Seigneur the moment he walked into the room. Drake wasn’t old enough to read auras and gauge the age of other vampires, but he didn’t need to. The Seigneur carried himself like a leader, confidence and strength oozing from his every pore. If his bearing hadn’t been enough to identify him, the way the others acted around him would have given him away. They walked in a loose ring around him, like bodyguards protecting a VIP, and they watched him constantly for cues. It was a kind of deference-inspired by fear as much as by respect-that Drake recognized all too well.

  The note that Brigitte had delivered, and that was still crumpled in his pocket, reminded him once again of his youth and of his first years as a vampire. Even back then, he’d never aspired to be a leader, but he’d had plenty of experience with the concept of ruling by intimidation. Enough to recognize it when he saw it.

  The Seigneur must have given some sort of cue. but Drake didn’t see it. His entourage parted to let him step to the fore, then fanned out in a semicircle behind him like a herd of trained circus horses.

  Drake couldn’t compete in power, or in numbers. All he had was attitude, and he knew better than to act intimidated.

  He looked everyone over slowly, identifying which were vampires and which were mortal. He started when he realized the teenage girl who stood near the back was a mortal. She was a pretty brunette, with wide dark eyes and questionable taste in clothing. She was the only one in the party who didn’t look like she’d just come from a fashion shoot. She also couldn’t be more than fifteen or sixteen years old, and Drake couldn’t for the life of him figure out what she was doing in the entourage of a Killer.

  The Seigneur was sizing up Drake and the Guardians, too, so silence reigned for perhaps two minutes. It was the Seigneur who finally broke that silence.

  ‘In my country,” he said, his accent far less pronounced than that of his lieutenant, “it is customary for the host to stand when greeting his guests.”

  Drake remained seated. “In my country, it is customary to arrive with only those people who have been invited. I believe I invited you and one other. I co
unt considerably more in your party.”

  Some members of the entourage grumbled at that, sill the Seigneur shot a look over his shoulder and they fell silent. He strode forward a few more steps, his entourage hanging back. Drake leaned back in his chair as if perfectly at ease. He even met the Seigneur’s eyes, though he was sure the Killer was more than old enough to overcome him with glamour.

  “It is my understanding,” the Seigneur said, “that in America people are more blunt than I am accus­tomed to in my own land. So I will be blunt. You are outmatched. You would be outmatched even if there were only two of us.” He spared a glance for Eric, Harry, and Jez, and his lips curled into a condescending smile. “Even the weakest of my vampires could defeat these fledglings, and most of them are power­ful enough to defeat you, too.”

  He had no idea how old any of these vampires were, but he knew enough to realize that a man didn’t rise to become Seigneur until he was much older than Drake. “I’m aware of that. But I figure if wholesale slaughter were your plan, you wouldn’t have both­ered with the charade of a meeting. I presume you want something from me?”

  The Seigneur’s expression did not change, but a chair suddenly slid from its place across the room to rest behind him, and he sat down. It was a demon­stration of power that would have been more impres­sive if Drake hadn’t seen Gabriel and Eli in action. The entourage drifted a little closer, and the Seigneur crossed his legs and steepled his fingers.

  “I do not wish to be rude,” the Seigneur said, “but my business is with the Master of Baltimore, not with his second-in-command”

  And yet, he’d just pulled up a chair to talk. “Ac­cording to Brigitte, your business with him involves killing him. You can’t be terribly surprised not to find him waiting for you.”

  The Seigneur made a dismissive hand gesture. “Not a word that comes from her mouth can be trusted. One might suspect she is attempting to en­sure we do not form an alliance against her.”