Death's Rival

“Yeah. Both.”

Rick lifted a hand and stroked my jaw. I closed my eyes and leaned into his caress. “Are you going with us to City Park?” I asked.

“I’ll be there. We’ll follow in our vehicle. Don’t get yourself killed, Jane.”

“I’ll do my best.” I opened my eyes and met his. “I may have to break some rules.”

“Like I said. My kinda girl. Just don’t kill any humans and eat their livers, not even with fava beans and a good Chianti.”

“Not planning on either.”

Moments later, we were on the way.

* * *

I was silent on the drive, looking away from the others in the limo, staring into the night. The new moon was in two days’ time, and the final challenge between the masters, de Allyon and Leo, would take place then, assuming I died tonight or failed in some other way.

I had planned as well as I could for this fight, but I had planned to fight a human, not a vamp with three-inch fangs. I needed something to create an edge for myself so I could survive the night. I needed something deadly. Some game-changer. Something to defeat a vamp warrior. But my mind was blank.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Beast Saw Gorilla on TV

The Peristyle was a fancy neoclassical arena—not a building exactly, because it had no walls, only a roof with large Greek-style columns. One of City Park’s oldest structures, it was built in 1907 as a dancing pavilion, and I had seen the place from a distance when roaming as Beast, but I had never been inside it.

Now, as the limo pulled up, the four concrete lions that guarded the open-air structure felt like an omen—that I might survive this coming bout—even if they were African lions and not Puma concolor. Real ducks, geese, and swans were nesting on the banks, sleeping, most with heads under their wings, and as the vamps and I emerged from our vehicles, some of the water birds stirred, wings shifted uneasily. Wind rustled the leaves overhead. A security guard bent to the limo’s window and verified who we were before scampering away into safety. Not that there was any safety here tonight. The Naturaleza were here and they’d guzzle down the plump guard like a cheap beer if they wanted to.

I wandered to the edge of the bayou and looked out over the water. Beast saw an alligator resting near shore, nostrils the only part of it that was above the surface. Small gator. Big birds. Good hunting.

Big Vamp Guy is your prey tonight, I thought at her.

I will be hungry after shift. I will eat big vampire?

No. But you can have all the Canada geese you can catch.

Beast hacked with delight. Good hunt. Hunt and kill Big Prey. Eat flying birds.

Sabina called out, “Gather.” An icy wind came out of nowhere and blasted through my clothes to chill my skin. Leaves swirled down in a dense cloud, sounding like the uneasy souls of the recently dead. The call to gather was as old as the Mithrans themselves, and among the most powerful of their obligations and rituals, and everyone knew that ritual was almost as powerful as magic itself. At that, a thought occurred to me, and I smiled. Yes. I had found my edge—if I could call it that. Edges were for pain and cutting, edges were blades for battle. What I was planning was more like sleight of hand—the art of the stage. If I could pull it off.

The vampire priestess’ magic was cold, like the grave, heavy and cloying. It smelled of old, spoiled blood and despair and ancient pain. I’d felt it before and the weight of it made de Allyon’s power feel minor, like the sting of static electricity when measured against being struck by a lightning bolt. Nothing by comparison. I rubbed my upper arms. I walked from the bayou bank to the covered area, seeing Bruiser and Rick standing close together talking. Seeing the drivers, all human, standing at the cars and trucks. The Tequila Boys, looking vigilant.

I found Wrassler’s eyes on me and I lifted a hand, palm up, questioning. He shook his head. Nothing yet. Katie was still a prisoner; Alex and the Vodka Boys were still searching. He tossed me my go-bag from the car, and I caught it one handed.

“The contestants will remove their weapons,” Sabina said. It was a command, and I felt the urge, the need, to comply. I’d gone to a lot of trouble to look like this; it was a shame to ruin it. But I stepped to a table at the far side of the pavilion and unstrapped the harness for the M4, laying it on the surface. Started to pull guns, ejecting the magazines and the rounds in the chambers, and laying them beside the shotgun. The long knives followed, while I thought about the gun in my hair. I could get it out, but I’d rather no one know it was ever there, so timing was important. When Jude pulled out a knife with a jewel-encrusted handle, attracting the attention of the vamps, I lifted the braid and eased the tiny gun out, setting it with the .38 from my boot. The short-bladed throwing knives followed, then the stakes. My protective collars. My crosses in the tiny lead-lined pouch that was sewn into my pants. Rather than causing an incident, I ripped the pouch out. Leo’s designer would be livid, and if I survived, I’d suffer for this one.

Across the way, the Big Guy was now weaponless—except for the muscles, teeth, talons, and his skills, which I expected were enough all on their own—and was wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt, boots, and a happy, fanged grin. I had the feeling that if he caught me first, he was going to play with me for a while before killing me. And that play wouldn’t involve kiddie games and coloring books.

I unbuttoned the tight vest, placed it by the guns, and pulled the tee over my head, the boots off my feet. My skin pebbled in the icy air. I slid a pair of flip-flops onto my feet, leaving the go-bag on the table. When I was done, I was wearing only pants, undies, jogging bra, flip-flops, my necklace, and the contact lenses. The vamps were all looking at me now, taking in the bare skin, my coppery coloring bleached out by the night and the park lights, my scent whipped away by the wind. My edge, I thought. Time to see if I can do this.

I reached up and started to unbraid my hair, moving slowly, letting them look. I took measured steps, circling the Peristyle with slow precision. When I reached a stone lion, I let my hands flow across the mane, the stone cool and rough on my fingers. I bent my body across the lion and scraped with my gold nugget so I could find my way back to this spot, even if I lost myself in Beast.

I lifted my hands back to my hair, and it danced in the breeze like Medusa’s snakes as I unbraided it, whirling and whipping in the wind. My black eyes stared the vamps down, calm and dispassionate. My half-bound hair whipped across the lion, and I could feel the power of the vamps’ combined gazes, watching me. I had no magic of my own except to shift form, but if I survived, I wanted these vamps to remember me, maybe with something like fear. That was a magic all its own.

Sabina said, “Time?”

De Allyon’s heir said, “Ten twenty-five.”

Sabina looked back and forth between the contestants as I worked on my hair and watched the Big Guy Vamp I was going to have to kill. I didn’t want to. I really had no desire to kill him. But I would have no choice. Literally, it was him or me. My hair whipped in the rising breeze, flowing like black snakes in a slow current. Big Guy was watching me, staring at the hair-handle I was providing him, confident to the point of stupidity, which I wanted to encourage. I grinned at him and shook out my hair, timing it perfectly. “Catch me, catch me, if you can,” I sang out, “you big, bumbling buffoon.”

“Begin,” Sabina said.

Before the word was half-formed, Beast slammed her speed into me and I took off, racing like the anxious wind, into the night. Beast’s sight took over, turning the world bright and silvery. I was into the shadows before anyone saw me move. I ripped off the bra, the pants and panties, running between trees, the concrete path bruising my soles through the flip-flops.

I couldn’t hear the Big Guy behind me. Vamps are silent predators, even at full speed. I was betting everything on him wanting to play cat and mouse with me, hunt me slowly, thinking to wear me out physically and