“And maybe he can get a handle on this new female master he mentioned,” Eli said. “Could there be a new, secondary master of the city here? Maybe two different masters claiming one city? Hieronymus and de Allyon’s heir?” I shrugged, and Eli finished with, “I’ll get Alex to start a search on her too. We need a name.”
“Good. While he’s at it, get him to see if there’s any record about what happened here in Natchez while de Allyon was in charge. That info would go a long way toward helping us see what’s happening now. And see if he’s turned up anything on why these vamps are moving like insects. It creeps me out.”
“Just makes it easier to stomp ’em to death,” Eli said, “emotionally, and morally.”
He had a point.
We left the property, hearing only the soft purr of Eli’s SUV, and arrived at the Clan home of the Natchez MOC a little after five a.m. The house was an amazing structure, three stories of brick and sandstone. The windows were full of light that spilled out into the night, windows even in the roof, showing that under the eaves was more living space. Rounded towers were on either side at the front, topped by peaked roofs like parapets with flags flying from them. The house was surrounded by live oak trees with sinuous twisting limbs so heavy that they had lowered toward the ground and now seemed to dance across the grass like massive, frozen snakes. Moss hanging from the higher limbs moved in the night breeze. Cars were everywhere, parked on the grass and along the drive, a few vehicles I recognized from the first meeting in the converted warehouse.
Pulling on Beast’s night vision, I spotted humans in the dark, keeping watch, noting that security was better there than in town. Or perhaps the fact that Eli and I had taken the humans down so quickly had warped up the human servants’ awareness.
Eli pulled directly to the front door and stopped, the tires grinding on the white shells. Not asphalt made with white shells, which was common in the South, but loose white shells used like gravel. When we got out and walked to the front steps, the sound of the shells beneath my boots was like the sound of crunching brittle bones. We walked up the seven steps and stopped in front of the door. To the three well-armed humans standing there, I said in my best vampire fancy talk, “Jane Yellowrock and company, here to provide surcease from illness and pain for the Master of the City of Natchez and his scions.” Which I thought sounded spiffy.
One of the humans opened the door and two stepped aside. I walked in, knowing that Eli had come through the doorway on my heels, moving fast, and faced back at the opening until the door closed softly. Then he moved out to my left into the formal foyer, checking it out while I stood in the center of the magnificent circular space and took it all in. The scents hit me first: vamps, candle wax, smoke, leather, roses, and the faint smell of human blood that pervades every vamp dwelling.
I had been in Leo’s Clan home, and Gregoire’s, and Rosanne’s in Sedona, and others’, and they were all like something out of a magazine titled
There was gold-veined white marble everywhere, on floors, pillars, walls, and statues, gilt work on the ceiling moldings and floorboards, and gold candles burning in white and gold candle holders, the flames flickering. On the ground floor, there was a large round table to my right—white, of course—centered with a scarlet vase three feet tall and filled with white, gold, and scarlet roses. A sitting area was across from it, the furniture upholstered in white leather and tone-on-tone cloth, set with scarlet pillows and resting on a scarlet rug. White silk draperies cascaded along the windows, tied back with scarlet tassels. A scarlet and gold family crest—a lion and something geometric—on white silk took up one wall.
There were arched openings in the marble walls, and through one was a dining room with an ebony table and chairs that could easily seat forty. The table was covered with a white linen cloth and set with white-and-gold place settings. Through another was a traditional living room, all the furniture upholstered in white leather. Another room sported a full-sized white concert grand piano. Through a fourth opening came the aroma of old books, and I wondered if they had all been re-covered in white bindings or wrapped in white paper, and a small smile lifted my lips. It was overdone and tasteless, and the blood-splattered-on-drained-flesh image of the color scheme could not have been by accident.
“You like my home?”
I lifted my head, saw Big H standing one floor above me, and said, “It’s awesome.” But my mind was thinking,
“You brought the antidote to the
My mind stalled out and then I put it together. “The cure for the vamp plague. Yes.” I patted my go-bag. “All I need are the vamp . . . ires.” I added the second syllable as an afterthought, out of politeness. I mean, I was in his home. No need to be insulting without cause. “And a table and chair.”
From the doorways on the second level, vamps poured out and down the stairs, gathering behind H, all looking eager and smelling sickly, all dressed in casual evening wear and not jammies, thank goodness. Big H walked down the stairs, leading the way into the dining room, and I counted twenty-two vamps. Their sickly sweet stench overpowered the scent of roses and leather. I glanced at Eli, but he was otherwise engaged, keeping an eye on everything else. It was good to know my back was covered.
I entered the dining room and saw that every vamp was sitting at the table, with H at the far end. The chair there was shaped like his peacock chair at the warehouse, but made of black wood, probably something that was now extinct, and he had one elbow on the chair arm and the other on the table top, his sleeve rolled up.
None of the others was sitting in that position, so I strode down the table to him and set my medical kit on the surface. When I opened it, I could feel most of the vamps straining to see, so I laid everything out on the pristine white tablecloth. “I have sterile needles and syringes, several bottles of the antibodies, gauze pads, and alcohol pads.” When the kit was empty I placed the container on the floor and said, “This is really easy. I just roll up your sleeve, draw up the antibody fluid in the syringe, and give you a shot into your arm muscle. Because your hearts beat so seldom and your blood flows so slowly, it will take a day or two to totally flow through your tissues. But because you don’t have human kidneys and digestive functions and processes, you need only one dose. Your bodies don’t filter out the drug, so it stays at a high concentration for long enough to kill the disease. The only side effect is a total lack of energy, requiring most vampires to stay in their lairs for a while with their blood-servants, where they feel safe. Oh. And everyone complained of a bitter taste in their mouths.”
“All who feel the need to rest may do so,” H said, making it a proclamation to his people. “We will not convene here again until all are well.” The vamps all nodded once, as if taking an order. “How long for this bitter taste?” Big H asked me. “It has been many years since I tasted bitter.”
“According to Leo’s people, the shortest time for the energy loss and taste was four days, for the young ones. The longest time for the oldest-lived was sixteen days.”
“Proceed,” Big H said.
I cleaned the bottle top, opened and inserted a sterile needle, drew up one dose of the drug into a three- millimeter syringe, and changed needles, leaving one needle in the bottle and putting a fresh one on the syringe. I hoped I was doing this right. I’d seen it done in my emergency medical class, but I’d never actually given a shot. To refresh my memory, I’d watched a video online to get the basics down, but I had no idea if the videographer knew what she was doing. I cleaned Big H’s upper arm and popped the needle into the muscle. Carefully, I pressed the plunger down and let the clear liquid enter Big H’s arm. Then I pressed a piece of gauze on it and said, “If it doesn’t stop bleeding, have a healthy vampire scion spit on it to close it.”
Big H’s brow crinkled in surprise, and his eyebrows would have risen had he possessed any.
“Yeah. I know. Gross, right?” I said. Then I smiled brightly down the table. “Next?”
• • •
By five fifty a.m., the vamps were all dosed up and had departed or headed to the MOC’s guest sleeping quarters, leaving me with Eli and Big H. The MOC still occupied the flared-out chair and lounged back in it, one foot up on his chair seat, one elbow resting on his knee, and a glass of red wine before him, which he turned around and around on the linen cloth. His other hand swung the ugly necklace in the air, mesmerizing as a hypnotist. He hadn’t moved from that position since I started dosing his scions. Something about his posture reminded me of a young Hugh Hefner. It had to be the silk jammies and the decor.
