If she killed him now, his death would haunt her.
If she did not kill him, his life would haunt her.
“I know what you are,” Kieran said when she dropped a chair in front of him and sat down. “I know more than you think I do.”
What you are. Not who. “Whatever you think you know is irrelevant,” she said.
“Vampire.” He practically hissed the word. “I saw how you drank her blood. Like my brother Dillon going hard on a crawfish boil.”
The accusation startled her. Not that he’d come upon the truth so easily, but how he had no struggle in the belief. He was afraid of her, but he was not afraid of what he knew, only what she would do as a result of this knowledge.
“My brothers and I… we studied people like you. Creatures like you, I mean.”
Elisabeth said nothing.
“We believed in you. Then we grew up, and, I don’t know, I guess now I’m kicking myself for it. Kelley, he kept believing. He denied it, but I know he did. He even went to Seattle to try and find one of you. He doesn’t think the rest of us know this, but we’re Sullivans, it’s our business to know everything. Some of us are Deschanels, too, so, you know, the magic is really strong. Not me. I’m just a Sullivan and a Landry, but I have cousins who are both.”
He was rambling. She let him do it. She wanted to know what he knew, or thought he knew.
But she recognized these names. Sullivan. Deschanel. The Deschanels were the great family of witches of New Orleans, living and existing within high society as if they were any other blueblood of the Garden District. Doctors, politicians, lawyers, they were behind every power structure in Orleans Parish, and beyond. They were distant relatives of the de Blancheforts, both families carrying within their blood strange gifts of magic. Every Deschanel she’d ever encountered over the years had terrified her, for she knew, if they studied her closely enough, they’d learn her secret. A secret that could bring down her entire clan, as though they shared blood, they did not share this. No Deschanel had ever taken the gift of immortality.
The Sullivans had a different reputation. Lawyers, nearly all of them, as if the disposition for law was genetic. But they, too, descended from Deschanels, and so shared in their magic. That made him her kin as well.
Elisabeth had, sitting before her, an actual witch.
A witch whose family would know how to find him.
A witch who would be greatly missed if not soon returned.
Oh, you do know how to pick them. What a fine mess.
Kieran was still talking.
“Dhampir,” she said, regretting the word even as she was saying it. But whether she killed him or not, she felt drawn to make the confession. She’d never said it to anyone beyond their family before. Not once. Not ever.
“Slavic vampires,” Kieran whispered, eyes wide in wonder. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”
“We’re French,” Elisabeth said shortly.
“You are, but not your origin. Your, uh… what do they call him? Master? Though, yeah, I guess some of you came through the Carolingians, or was it the Merovingians?”
“Same line.”
“Right. Right, they are, aren’t they? Wow. I just… wow. You know, it’s been a lot of years, and my knowledge is rusty, but aren’t there only a certain number of you? Like it’s capped or something?”
“That’s all I’m going to tell you.”
“Why did you tell me anything? Why confess what you are?”
Elisabeth stood again. “Because everyone deserves truth in death.”
7
Kelley
Kelley Landry’s life had not remotely been the same since his run-in with Vincenc the vampire.
When Queen Edith came to him with the proposition that they go after this so-called blood drinker, he’d had his vampire hunting days in his rearview for years.
Kieran and Dillon stopped believing long before he did. Secretly, he’d still retreated to the small, dim closet in Aunt Mary’s pub from time to time, and by then he’d also discovered communities on the internet, where he could continue his curiosities anonymously. Or so he thought. Queen Edith had sure found him with no problem.
But not his brothers. Dillon’s excitement shifted to his football scholarship to LSU, and Kieran had a fine life in law ahead of him, like the rest of their mother’s family. Kelley had watched them both with pride, but also a creeping anxiousness, for nothing had ever been that clear to him. He didn’t know who he was. What he wanted. Where he should go.
And then he’d met Vincenc.
All three brothers, along with Queen Edith, had gone to Seattle to see him play with his band, World Tree Burning. But only Kelley and Queen Edith knew what he was. Only Kelley ended the night with meeting the creature.
Vincenc was both a wonder and a disappointment. No sharp blood-drawing teeth, or telltale deathly pale skin. He used a small sharp instrument to take Kelley’s blood, which he did drink, with permission.
My offer is thus: I will change you, Kelley Landry. I will make you my successor. Take you to the Master's Tree and trade my eternal life for yours, folding you into the dhampir brethren. But, I will not do it today. I will take your blood on this day, which will allow me to track you. And I shall observe your behaviors in this decade carefully.
Observe for what?
I will not give you this gift until you have truly lived. I command you to go back to your life and pursue the things that call most potently to your heart. I also command you to learn about who you are. I do not mean to wax poetic on this, Kelley, I mean this in a quite literal sense. You are a very powerful young being from a powerful family, and your ignorance on this subject is criminal. You must discern the extent of your abilities before I will consider fulfilling my end of this bargain.
And if I
