Black Arts jy-7 Page 17

  I laughed, the sound deep and cool and . . . ready. I lowered the stakes to him, and he took them with a soft click of metal on metal.

  I felt the padded mat beneath my feet as I walked toward Leo. I matched my body to the beat, measured by the percussionist, famously shaking a plastic bottle partially filled with rocks. The music and the lyrics were primal and intense. And Leo watched me, standing with his shoulders rolled forward, his hands open and empty. Blood dried across his skin. Bruiser’s blood. Dangerous, this being. Deadly.

  Yet as Leo took a breath, the movement of his ribs looked oddly angelic—fallen angel–style. His hair was loose, curling around his face like strands of black silk. His sclera was white, centered with human-black but wide, dilated pupils. But he didn’t exhale.

  There would be no tells with this one. No hitches of breath for a being who didn’t need to breathe. No change in tension for a being who didn’t depend on a heartbeat to move.

  From deep, deep inside, Beast padded. Settling into my blood and flesh and bones. And I realized that she was tugging with the silver leash that tied her to Leo. I felt him shift his weight, only a hair, onto his back foot. Beast was sharing her binding with me.

  Letting me use it.

  And Leo watched me move in sync with the slightly offbeat blues guitar. Again, I started laughing, a purr of delight. Bonamassa was singing the line “lifting me up.” My hips moved in a little figure eight. Enticing.

  Leo struck, kicking vamp-fast.

  But I wasn’t there anymore. I was three feet to the side. And Leo had a claw mark on his chest, centered over the spiderweb of scars. Bright blood welled to the surface, long, thin, deep gores. Beast claw streaks. I clenched my fist and felt her claws press into my palms.

  Crap. My hands had shifted.

  “First blood,” Leo said, “to my Enforcer.”

  I raised my left and made a tiny come hither gesture as Joe sang the words “tearing me down.” I didn’t look at my hand, but I saw the golden pelt that covered my arms halfway to my elbow, and the human-shaped hands with bigger knuckles, longer fingers, and the extruded Beast claws.

  My toes spread and gripped the padded mat, better footing than a human foot. But I didn’t look down. I took a short step to the right and flitted my fingers again. This time it was a come-and-get-it gesture. And I grinned, showing my blunt human teeth.

  Leo took a breath. Time slowed, viscous as Bruiser’s drying blood. The silver chain deep inside quivered in warning. Leo’s muscles rippled, his fists striking, feet shoving, body twisting, torquing power into the move.

  I didn’t block. I shifted back a step, his fists passing so close I felt the air cut my skin at the jaw and brush across my chest. The music ground deep, the offbeat percussion giving my hips a swivel as I stepped into Leo’s move and let his momentum carry him back across my leg, his balance failing. I caught his arm and rolled him over my thigh, swung him around, back to his feet. I danced to the side, landing strikes as I moved, at kidney, spleen, and circling around to his front, pounded the soft tissue between his ribs, and lower down at the soft spot just slightly above the navel. Kill targets had he been human, and had this duel been with blades. The significance of the placement wasn’t lost on Leo, who grunted with surprise, and what might have been delight.

  Instead of dying, Leo laughed and his eyes bled scarlet. But his fangs stayed up, locked away. Vamps can’t laugh and vamp out at the same time. It wasn’t possible. But Leo . . . was doing it.

  We danced around each other, feet out of sync with the music, but somehow in sync with each other, as I led him by the silver chain of the binding. “Come on, Leo,” I murmured. “Dance with me.”

  “Dance of blood and death,” he murmured back. And he kicked, so fast I didn’t see him move. The blow landed, hard, knocking out my breath. I dropped and rolled and sucked in air that ached. As I was coming up, Leo kicked again. I ducked and bent my body inside the kick, against his thigh, shoulder to his groin. And I hit his knee with a well-placed elbow. It snapped. A crippling strike had he been human. He toppled. Over me. I rolled out, landing two more blows on his torso. Found my feet.

  Leo was standing. And he was laughing. “Come, my Enforcer. Is that all le petit chaton avec les griffes has for me today?”

  The next few seconds were fastfastfast. Slashing-punching-stabbing moves. Too close to kick, too fast to grapple. My heart beat hard, the air in my lungs like bellows beneath the music. I tasted blood and knew my lips were split. Saw the blood shoot from Leo’s nose to splatter on the wall fifteen feet away, the blood spurting across my pelt as I backhanded him on the backstroke.

  I heard a bone in his hand break as he misjudged and caught my shoulder instead of soft tissue. Distantly, I felt the punch that nearly dislocated my jaw and spun me away from him. With one hand, I worked my jaw, spitting the blood to the side. He was a vamp. He watched my blood fly. And I struck. The move was all Beast, torquing and lifting, kicking and hitting. The impacts lifted Leo off his feet. He landed off the mat. Flat. And lay there.

  I walked over and looked down at him. Not close enough for him to grab an ankle, but close enough that I could see his purely human eyes and the pain in his face. My breath and the raw voice of Bonamassa were the only sounds in the room. I jutted my chin at his busted nose. “That’s for Bruiser’s beating. The rest of it was for my forced feeding, you bastard. Your apology be damned.”

  Overhead, Bonamassa sang, “living in a dust bowl,” and the guitar wailed its plaintive notes. I walked away. A new Bonamassa started to play. It was “One of These Days,” a slower-paced song, but grinding and hot. All I needed was to be wearing a red dress to make it all perfect. I laughed softly, the sound hidden beneath the guitar licks. Over my shoulder I said, “Meet you in your office, Leo. We need to chat.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Decide. Now.

  I walked out the door, into the hallway, Eli on my heels. The door shut behind us as Bonamassa sang the line “I’ll be coming home.” My second stayed silent until we reached the women’s locker room. He pushed open the door and followed me inside. The room was long and narrow, with lockers down both walls and plain wood benches down the middle. Showers and toilets were on the far end. The music played here too, sultry and painful, but soft enough that we could talk. When the door shut I asked, “You think you should be in here?”

  “I don’t give a rat’s aaa . . . ear for what the sign on the door says. Sit.” He pointed. I sat. Eli laid out all my weapons on the bench beside me and checked out the room. I checked out my hands and feet. Human again. Mine. Satisfied with our privacy, Eli brought bath cloths and towels from a set of metal shelves in the back, one of which he wet in the sink and wrung out. “We’re alone. Lemme see.”

  He pressed gently on my ribs, which hurt, but nothing was broken. He raised my arms, one by one, inspecting shoulders, elbows, wrists, hands. “Face,” he said. I lifted my head. With the damp cloth, he wiped up the worst of the blood and tossed the cloth aside. He pressed a clean, dry one gently against my lips, blotting the blood on the outside and giving the still-flowing blood a place to clot. The pressure increased, and he placed a palm on the back of my head to give my neck a rest. I huffed out a breath and leaned into him, letting him hold my weight.

  “Leo can heal this,” he said. “I’ll get him if you want.”

  “I’d rather die,” I mumbled against the cloth. Eli chuckled, the sound sympathetic. The blood throbbed in my mouth. I was feeling that same throb of misery work through my whole body as the adrenaline stopped pumping and the fight-or-flight chemicals began to break down, making me nauseated. The door opened. I nearly fell as Eli moved. He was holding a weapon in each hand, both mine, grabbed up from the bench.

  Edmund entered. He stood to the side of the door, his hands clasped before him as the door closed, his posture one of submission. “My master suggested that your wounds might need attention. I am to offer myself.”

  I caught the cloth as it fell away f
rom my lips. “Tell me, Ed. Would you offer yourself if Leo hadn’t sent you?”

  The former blood-master smiled, the movement of his lips slow and measured. “Oh yes. As just reward for that.” He cocked his head toward the sparring room. “It was a thing of beauty to behold.”

  “Especially the part where she beat the shit outta Leo?” Eli challenged.

  “Especially that,” Ed said, “though not quite so crudely phrased.”

  I laughed but stopped as the movement of my lips shocked me with pain. Fresh blood welled and fell down my chin. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks,” I said.

  Edmund sat beside me, one finger pressing one of Eli’s naked blades away, and deliberately nicking his finger on the tip. Blood brimmed on the fingertip, and Ed touched it to my lips. The pain was instantly gone and I shivered with relief. He moved the finger across my lips, gently, rubbing slowly. Vamp blood merged with mine, and the healing moved lower down, warming me, making me want, as vamp blood always did. I opened my eyes and stared into Edmund’s. He was watching me intently, his pupils wide, his own lips parted as his finger traced my lips. The vamp wasn’t inhumanly beautiful. He had been an average-looking Joe in his human life, his best feature his hair, which he had worn pulled back in a tail the first time I saw him. Now it fell around his face and shoulders, an ash brown so fine it looked luminous.

  Overhead the music changed to “Sloe Gin,” the guitar grinding sad, the kind of drunk-in-a-hotel-with-a-bottle-of-whisky-and-a-gun sad. Someone liked Bonamassa.

  Edmund slid his hand up my arms to my cradle my face. He bit his lip and said, “I can heal the bruising. If you’ll let me.”

  I knew he meant kiss me, mixing his blood deeper with mine, sharing breath. I hesitated, and Ed shook his head, amused. “I am under orders not to attempt to bind you or seduce you.”

  “Yeah, that’d be smart. Three’s a crowd,” Eli said, “and I got these. Two big silver ones.”

  If I hadn’t been hurting, I’d have groaned at the double entendre. Instead I lifted my hand in acquiescence and Edmund bent his head, easing my face to the side and letting his chilly lips meet mine. Despite his promise, the heat of seduction was part of vampire blood sharing. His heat swirled into me, rushing from his cool mouth through my lips, down to my bruised hands and sore wrists, circling my ribs and tightening my breasts. Pooling in my middle. Moving down my body. Pain vanished where the heat reached. I sighed into his mouth and he took my life force into his lungs, our breath mixing, becoming one thing, one breath, one life—as much as undead can share life. When I breathed in, our commingled breath fed me. And suddenly the pain was gone. Just gone. And there was only the warmth of his lips, flesh to flesh. Nothing of passion or need. Just healing.

  Edmund eased back. My lids lifted and I opened my eyes, as I whispered, “Thank you.”

  “No.” His eyes, fully human, and a light, hickory-nut brown, held mine. “My thanks to you. I have never tasted blood such as yours.”

  The sound track had moved to “Black Night,” the guitar licks complex and amazing. Edmund stood and stared down at me. “My master suggested you might enjoy a shower before joining him in his study. A maid will bring you a change of clothes and clean out a locker here for you, to use at any time you might wish.”

  “A shower might be smart,” I said. “Walking around a vamp house smelling of blood and fighting sounds pretty stupid.” I stood, feeling stronger, though I knew I’d be stiff in the morning. Even my skinwalker metabolism wasn’t proof against a vamp beating.

  “How’s Bruiser?” I asked, and then clarified, “George Dumas.”

  “He is well. The priestess saw to his shoulder joint. His Onorio blood will do the rest.” Edmund’s mouth turned down and he looked grim. “Things are changing in New Orleans.” With that bland, vague warning, Edmund Hartley left the locker room.

  • • •

  While Eli stood guard outside the door, I showered, using guest-sized samples of soap. Afterward, I slathered some lime-scented cream on my wet skin and dried off on the towels Eli had found. By the time I was done, the maid had delivered a change of clothes and taken my sweaty, bloody ones off to be laundered. I pulled on the undies, finding it mildly unnerving that Leo had my sizes on hand. It made sense, however. He paid for my formal wear, the fancy duds created by a wizened virago of a blood-servant who terrified me, but who made me look good in clothes that were made for soldiers—people who wear and carry weapons. So he might keep stuff here for nights like tonight. Or he might be having nefarious thoughts. I was betting on nefarious.

  Beside the undies was a stack of black clothing—slim pants and a body-hugging, black silk, knit sweater. The sweater had a long turtleneck, which I didn’t usually care for, but the neck on this one was wide and rolling and fell around my collarbones. The pants were just plain stupid. Who needed a zipper on the side? It was hard to get zipped and made me twist like a pretzel before I got the zipper up and the tiny inside buttons done. But when I looked in the mirror, I could see how long, lean, and dangerous the slacks made me look, and the turtleneck did things for my boobs that were surprising. Yeah. I was still going with nefarious.

  The black socks and slippers were so comfortable I might never want to take them off, but they’d be impossible to fight in. Back in the center area of the locker room, I dried and rebraided my hair, twisted it up into a bun, and stuck my stakes in to hold it in place. I also strapped on my shin sheaths and wrist sheaths. The blade that went on my thigh looked good strapped a bit higher than I usually wore it. I checked myself again and wished for lipstick. I looked stark and pale in all the black. I pulled my gold nugget necklace to the front and nestled it, and the mountain lion tooth I’d wired to it, into the folds. The glint of gold added a hint of color and brought out the amber of my eyes.

  Beast wasn’t staring through my eyes now. No golden glow. She had hidden away since the fight. But she and I were gonna have a little talk later about how I was able to make use of Leo’s binding on her. Something was hinky here.

  I composed my face and pushed out into the hallway. Eli was no longer alone. Wrassler stood with him, face expressionless, leaning against the wall; both guys seeming relaxed. “Are you here to throw me out or take me to Leo?” I asked. “Because I need to chat with the chief fanghead.”

  “Yeah. He’s all excited about that,” Wrassler said, deadpan, pointing, indicating we should go to the elevator.

  “Should I be worried?” I asked as we moved down the hallway.

  Wrassler’s forehead lifted up into little rolls. “About what? You just wiped the floor with the second or third best fighter the Mithrans in the Americas have.”

  “Who’s better?” Eli asked.

  “Grégoire for sure. Maybe a couple others could beat Leo in a purely physical fight. But not if he drew on the power of the clans. Then only Grégoire would win. Maybe.”

  I had felt Leo draw on the power of the clans before, the night Adrianna attacked me in the bathroom at a vamp party. It had been terrifying. Leo hadn’t done that tonight, so yeah, I had beat him, but really, if he’d used all his metaphysical weapons or his weapons of war, like if he had challenged me to a duel with swords or flintlock pistols, I probably wouldn’t have. Of course, if I’d brought my silver blades, and maybe a rocket launcher, Leo would have lost no matter what psycho mystical crap he might have pulled. It was all a matter of spin and possibilities and stuff that hadn’t happened. But physically? Hand to hand? I’d beat the MOC to the ground. Oh yeah. Satisfaction flitted through me mixed with delight. I wondered if Leo had been surprised about ending up on the floor, and looked forward to finding out.

  The elevator closed on us. “How’s Bruiser?” I asked, wanting to confirm Edmund’s information.

  “Healing,” Wrassler said shortly. His tone told me that he didn’t want to talk about it, but from the stiffness of his shoulders, I knew he wasn’t happy about something. “How often does Leo put on a show and beat up his people?” I asked.

 
Wrassler’s mouth thinned. “I’ve been here for years. Never saw or heard of it till tonight.”

  “I see.” But I didn’t. Not really. Unless the show hadn’t been intended for me. Unless it was for someone else. Not Bruiser. He could have beaten up Bruiser anytime. So . . . someone else. Someone in the stands. Watching. And since he hadn’t drawn on the massed clan power, he had wanted that special someone to see his primo get beaten and then see him fight a skinwalker, win or lose. Even if he lost, it could work to his benefit. All without drawing on the power of the clans. He wanted someone to think he was a weaker master than he was. Maybe he also wanted that someone to think that Bruiser was out of favor. So he beat up his primo as part of some kind of vamp game? Interesting. Sick, but interesting.

  Vamps had layers of plans piled up like sheets of snow and ice, some in the works for centuries. So maybe I was seeing one or two layers in the fight tonight. I just didn’t know the context. Or why. Or who. Or what was to come next.

  Eli and I entered Leo’s office, walking through the wide entrance, Eli taking in everything. His shoulders tightened ever so slightly and I knew he wanted to look behind the tapestries on the walls, to make sure no one was hiding there. But even he seemed to know that might be kinda rude, because he forced his shoulders back down.

  Looking awfully good for a guy who had just been beaten to a pulp, Leo was studying a printout while another page clattered in a printer in the open armoire. The rest of the armoire was filled with files, papers, and sheaves, and it smelled of parchment and ink, a lot like Leo himself. Inside me, Beast yawned and stretched, watching Leo through my eyes, like a well-fed and satisfied cat, lazy and taking no action. Moving slowly, Leo pulled the printed page, added it to the ones in his stack, and turned them facedown. He shut the armoire door and spun his modern chair to face us. “Sit, please,” he said. We sat in two of the three chairs in front of the desk, and he said, “Report.”