The Vampire Narcise

but something worse.

The poor fool was no match for Narcise, who’d been taught in swordplay and other acrobatic fighting skills by the best trainers Cezar could find. He wasn’t about to have his favorite amusement killed by an overzealous suitor or an angry enemy.

Tonight, her opponent was a “made” vampir, one who’d been turned Dracule by another vampir instead of being invited into the Draculia by Lucifer himself. Narcise wasn’t aware of what he’d done to insult her brother, for, in truth, Cezar could interpret the twitch of an eyelid or a simple cough as an insult. She didn’t particularly care.

Nor did she spare much pity for the man. She couldn’t afford to if she wanted to remain unscathed.

But as she whirled around to face her adversary, readying the saber for its cleaving blow, she glanced over and happened to catch the eye of her brother’s companion. He was watching her intently, and she had the brief impression of a tanned wrist and hand settled with its index finger thoughtfully against his mouth.

She also noticed, in that blink of an eye, that, rather than focusing on her, Cezar sat back in his seat, covertly studying his companion. Without pause, Narcise finished her flowing movement, slicing the head from her opponent with a clean stroke.

Ending with her back toward the dais, and her audience, Narcise remained thus as she wiped her blade with a pristine white tablecloth. Then, with no acknowledgment to her audience, nor to the dead vampir whose damaged soul was filtering permanently down to hell, she stood, waiting for the door to be opened and her guards to appear. Grateful that tonight’s competition had been relatively easy, she slipped the clean saber into its sheath.

She could hear the murmurs from behind her, the slightly sibilant hiss of her brother’s voice, and the answering rumble of his companion, neither of which induced her to acknowledge them. Any intimate of her brother’s was automatically an enemy of hers.

It wasn’t until weeks later that she even learned his name.

Giordan Cale was all about money.

His ability to earn it, find it, inherit it, save it—and then, to multiply it several times over—was what got him into the predicament he was in: an immortal lifetime in which to spend more money than Croesus ever dreamed of. In fact, it seemed that Giordan couldn’t lose money if he tossed buckets of it into the Seine, or had the servants burn it in his fireplace, for the funds simply reappeared in some other form—of a long-shot investment coming due, or even an inexplicable inheritance.

And it was precisely his flair with funds that drew him to the attention of Cezar Moldavi.

But of course Giordan had heard of the man…and his sister…even before Moldavi arrived in Paris, for the world of the Dracule was exceedingly small and tightly interwoven. Despite the vast geography of the earth, the members of Lucifer’s secret society traveled and resided in only the largest, most cosmopolitan of cities: London, Vienna, Prague, Rome, Morocco and of course, Giordan’s beloved Paris. And they tended to congregate at the same private clubs, interacting in the same high levels of society, a happenstance which Giordan used to his financial benefit. He was the owner or a majority shareholder in the most luxurious and private of these havens in every major city except London. And, he determined, it was only a matter of time until he was established there as well.

He had an eternity to make it happen, no?

Cezar Moldavi had come to the City of Light after spending several decades in Vienna, where, apparently, there had been an unfortunate incident with another of the Dracule—along with some increasing, unpleasant attention being given to Moldavi’s propensity for bleeding children. There were those who risked their lives in order to hunt those of the Draculean world, sometimes even successfully. Giordan understood that Moldavi had decided it was best to evacuate from Vienna before one of those so-called vampire hunters was lucky enough to stake him to death.

Aside of that, one couldn’t stay in one place for more than two or three decades without one’s non-aging appearance being remarked upon, which required these powerful men to uproot and move their households every few decades or so. And now, after living in Vienna, Prague and even Amsterdam, Moldavi seemed intent on not only making his home in France, but also establishing himself as the leader of the Draculean underground therein.

Paris herself had changed during the last five years, during which Giordan had been in Morocco. Now, his City of Light roiled with tension and fear. Nerves crackled on the very rues, unease simmered in the Seine—for The Terror lived and seeped into every corner of the city. It had begun with the execution of the king by guillotine—and then shortly after, his wife Marie Antoinette, sniffing vials of her personal perfume tucked inside her bodice, met the same fate. And now every day, as Robespierre and his cronies struggled to maintain the burgeoning revolution, more and more people were dragged under the shining silver blade and relieved of their heads.

One who was required to live on the lifeblood of man—or whatever other living being one chose—might find it convenient that the mortals in Paris were being slaughtered in great numbers (for it wasn’t only the Widow—the guillotine—that caused their demise; there were shootings and beatings and other random murders fueled by desperation and suspicion), for it certainly provided a vast opportunity for sustenance. But while Giordan Cale had no qualms about killing in general, he found such rampant, widespread actions distasteful and unnecessarily violent.

This was, apparently, only one of the many ways in which he and Cezar Moldavi differed.

In fact, there were painfully few ways in which he and Cezar Moldavi were in agreement. After spending only a brief time with a bottle of excellent wine (which Giordan had sent over) and discussing a possible investment with Moldavi, Giordan came to the conclusion that his friend Dimitri, known as the Earl of Corvindale across the Channel in England, was being kind when he described Moldavi as being the lowest form of a bollocks-licking, bitch-in-heat, Lucifer’s-cock-biting bastard.

Giordan had just decided that, since he had no interest in continuing any form of discussion with Cezar Moldavi, he was going to excuse himself with great expedience and decline to watch the swordplay entertainment he’d been promised. But before he opened his mouth to do so, the man’s sister entered the opposite part of the chamber, below the dais.

Everything in his mind whirred into silence and he found that his body, too, had stilled.

She was carrying a long, sheathed sword, with a slightly curved blade. A saber, then: a type of single-edged weapon just coming into fashion. In fencing, one most often used a straight, slender blade such as an épée, or even a blunted foil. The lethality of this blade was Giordan’s first indication that the woman wasn’t merely engaging in sport.

“My sister, Narcise,” Moldavi murmured. He gestured to their empty cups on the table, and his steward moved quickly to fill them.

Giordan realized his breathing had ground to a halt and he reminded himself that, even though a vampire couldn’t die from suffocation, one did have to breathe or become weakened.

She was lovely. Incredibly lovely.

He’d heard about her, of course. Who hadn’t? Rumor had it that Cezar Moldavi’s sister was bait, a tool, and even a bargaining chip for her brother. But Giordan, who’d met—and had—many lovely and exotic women during his travels hadn’t expected to be so thoroughly entranced, and from a distance.

From his seat on the dais, Giordan studied her, attempting to be objective. And yet, one could be objective and still describe her as the most beautiful woman one had ever seen.

She was tall for a woman, and her rich, black hair was pulled into a large, tight knot at her nape. Her skin glowed like a pearl; it was fair and yet rosy luminous. He caught a brief glimpse of startling blue eyes that tended toward the violet end of the spectrum. They were outlined by dark lashes that made it appear as if she wore liner, as the Egyptians had to emphasize their eyes. But for her, it was a natural occurrence, and such artifice would be unnecessary.

And her face… Her features were incredibly perfect, magnificent really, with a lush, dark pink mouth and a straight, delicately formed nose.

If her face was exquisite, one could hardly expect that her figure would match it with such perfection…but it did. And the clothing she wore, unusual garb that clung to every curve, including her bound breasts, displayed the fact that Narcise Moldavi was this millennia’s Helen of Troy: the face and figure that could launch a thousand