The Vampire Narcise

long in the tooth for him.

Because he needed to be so ingrained in his employer’s world of the Dracule, he’d visited her establishment on more than one occasion. But the most recent incident had been when he was too far into his cups and he ended up in one of the bedchambers with a female vampir make. That night of heat and pain and passion had been his first—and last—intimacy with a vampir, and one he did not intend to repeat…despite the fact that the very memory haunted him.

He tried to feel only revulsion for the night of debauchery, but even two weeks later, the marks from bites he’d begged for in the blur of drunkenness and lust hadn’t quite healed. And remnants of the night’s pleasures still weaved within his dreams.

As he picked up his drink, Woodmore noticed a little spider making its way along the edge of the table between him and Cale. He lifted his hand to smash it, but the other man raised his palm and said, “Allow me.” And as he watched, Cale scooped the spider onto one of the playing cards and dropped the creature in a corner, where, presumably, it scuttled away to safety.

Woodmore couldn’t help but eye the man curiously—a Dracule, sparing the life of a spider? Perhaps he felt some sort of bloodsucking kinship with the critter—and noticed that Corvindale had been watching as well with a bemused look on his face.

The earl looked as if he were about to comment, but he was interrupted by Brickbank.

“Woodmore, heard you tried to hang Cale on a stake, few weeks back,” said the man, peering into his glass as if hoping it would change to something French. “Something about smoke explosives?”

“It would have been unfortunate if Woodmore succeeded,” Corvindale said dryly. “For Cale still owes me for the last shipment.”

“But since the casks are nearly empty, that would have been to my benefit,” Cale retorted, giving rise to another round of laughter.

“It wasn’t my best effort, that attempt,” Woodmore admitted ruefully, thinking about how the little packets had fizzled and not puffed into a thick cloud of smoke when he’d thrown them into the fireplace. That had made it difficult for him to distract his victim. He looked at Cale, acknowledging at least privately that the man could easily have killed him that night. But for some reason, like the spider, Woodmore had been spared. “But as it turns out, it was for the best. Corvindale tells me you’re intimately familiar with Cezar Moldavi and his place in Paris.”

The last vestiges of levity drained from Cale’s face. Corvindale said something sharp under his breath and Wood-more glanced at him, but the earl was watching as his friend raised a glass to sip.

“Dimitri is correct,” replied Cale, his eyes iced-over brownish gray.

Unclear as to what had provoked such a turbulent response, Woodmore nevertheless continued. “He’s the sort of bastard that deserves a little less efficient way to die than a simple stake to the heart, the damned child- bleeder.”

“On that, at least, we are all in complete agreement,” said the earl.

Indeed, the stories Woodmore had heard about Moldavi were enough to make his blood run cold. He found it disturbing enough that these immortal men, beholden to the Devil, needed to drink blood to live, but to take from children…and to leave them to die… It was tales like these that only confirmed for him that his dangerous mission was the right thing to do.

And the only reason he hadn’t attempted the assassination of the beast so far was that he knew he needed a perfect plan in order to outsmart Moldavi.

He looked at Cale. “I need to find a way to get in to his hidey-hole so I can kill him. Corvindale is financing the effort, and he’ll get me across the Channel.”

One of the reasons Woodmore was such an effective vampir hunter was his ability to sense the presence of a Dracule, and thus identify them easily. Even members of the Draculia couldn’t identify each other merely by sight, or smell, but even as he sat here in the midst of them, Woodmore’s belly was filled with the familiar sort of gnawing-itching sensation that indicated the presence of a vampir. He became used to it after a while, as one did with a smell or aroma, but it was always present. Another advantage was Woodmore’s ability to move about in daylight, and his innate fighting ability and speed. And then there was his lack of an Asthenia.

Of course, being mortal, he had any number of things that could slow, weaken or even kill him.

Cale gave a brief nod. “I’m willing to assist in any way. I am more than passing familiar with the place.” He drank again, draining his glass, and set it deliberately at the edge of the table nearest the footman, who responded immediately to refill it.

“There’s a sister,” mused Brickbank. “Dashed beautiful, according to Voss. Can’t remember her name.”

“Narcise,” said Cale quietly, curling his fingers around the refilled glass. “I believe her name is Narcise.”

“Yes. She’ll be included in my plans as well,” Woodmore said. He knew from experience that some of the most vicious and bloodthirsty vampirs were the female ones. “Two for the price of one, Corvindale. She’s rather accomplished with the épée, I hear.”

“The saber, if I recall correctly. And rather than be your target,” Cale said, setting down an empty glass again, “you’d be better off utilizing her as an accomplice. There is no love lost between her and her brother and she’d like nothing better than to see him skewered on a stake.” His mouth twitched in a humorless smile as he added, “Unless things have changed in the last decade.”

“I can’t imagine they have,” Corvindale replied flatly, confirming for Woodmore that he was definitely missing some underlayer of conversation. He would get the story from Corvindale later. “He is the worst sort of dog.”

“What of the Astheniae? Do you know what theirs are?” he said, looking at Cale.

“But of course, no, or I would have employed it myself. No one knows Moldavi’s weakness. But because he keeps himself so cloistered, the assumption is that it’s something very common.”

“And the sister? Narcise? Do you know her Asthenia?”

“I do not.”

“Poor bastard Sabbanti died fifteen years ago,” Brickbank commented. “His was pine needles. Didn’t last more than five years before he got staked.”

Woodmore glanced at him with a wry smile. “He was one of my first slayings, in fact. I was sixteen.”

“Thought it was an unfortunate accident,” Brickbank replied, clearly stunned. “By Luce’s bollocks!”

“That’s how I make most of them look. I don’t need the damned Bow Street Runners sniffing around, complicating things. They get in my way often enough as it is.”

“It wasn’t long after that when you attempted to stake me,” Corvindale said. “Naturally you didn’t have a chance at succeeding.”

Eddersley, whose eyelids were always half-closed, suddenly looked interested. “You tried to slay Corvindale? And you’re still alive?”

Woodmore nodded. “He took the opportunity to educate me on the precise angle with which to employ my stake— I was slightly off, and therefore not nearly as accurate as I am now. And then the lesson deteriorated into a philosophical conversation about how, just as with mortals, there are good vampirs and evil ones, and then on to covenants with the Devil and how to break them when they are, indeed, unbreakable.”

“I merely convinced Chas that he should exploit his quite exemplary skills toward ridding the earth of those Dracule who have a different perspective of how to live as immortals, among mortals, than we do. Rather than hunting us.”

“You mean, those who choose not to do business with you, Dimitri, or who otherwise compete with you,” Cale said. “You’re a ruthless bastard in your own way.” His glass had been filled and then emptied a third time, and the congeniality that was normally in his expression had completely disappeared.

“Aren’t we all?” Corvindale replied evenly, but, yet, there was no dangerous glow in his eyes. Instead his gaze was somber. “And isn’t that precisely why we’re sitting here— Woodmore excepted, of course? Because we’re all ruthless bastards, selfish and violent and lustful? That’s why Lucifer came to us with the offer in the first place. And not a one of us has changed since then.”

“Change?” Brickbank echoed, sloshing his drink. “Why the bloody Fates would we change? Live forever. Women—or men,” he added, glancing at Eddersley, who didn’t look particularly sleepy at that moment. “All we want. Power. Money. All of it. No one can touch us.” His eyes gleamed with pleasure.

“But therein lies the flaw,” Corvindale said, crooking a finger to have his own glass refilled. “We do not live