Crossed (40 page)

“
Verdammt
vampires!” Aarika bellowed as she waited on the elevator. I paid her no mind and neither did my new friend, Jean-Philippe.

As Aarika neared, the air wavered and a shimmer spread out from me and my fellow combatants. She’d opened a Vale of Scrythax. Vales were supposed to show the area as Scrythax remembered it, but thanks to the Eye of Scrythax I had buried in my chest, each Vale I entered got a happy little update. I had a feeling Old Headless could pick and choose, but had decided to be annoying.

“Parlez-vous anglais?”
I asked the Master vamp.

“Non,”
he lied. I punched him in the face, showed him my fangs.

“Sure you do,” I said. I swept his feet out from under him, tagging him again with my right fist on his way down. “I only asked to be polite.”

Having thralls was just chock-full of benefits. If I remember to check (and I rarely do) I could tell where my vampiric offspring were and how they were doing. I could even sense when they got themselves into trouble. It juiced up the old vampire early warning system, too.

Vlads and Master vamps can sense other vampires, whether or not they announce themselves. Before my first thrall, I got faces, names, and relative ages. With practice, I learned to get a whole lot more. During my short time in France, Aarika’d taught me to weed out the bloodsuckers that spoke only French from the ones that just didn’t want to let on that they understood English.

Jean-Philippe was one of the latter. He and his goons sped up. Vampires in France were faster than the ones back home, but they also weren’t as strong. His goon squad tore into me, and my own speed increased. Every other vampire I know can speed up at will; it’s decision based, like diving for home or going from a walk to a run. They’re just always that fast if they want to be.

My powers are a little less fickle than they once were, now that I have a
memento mori.
The closer I am to Fang, the more reliable my powers. QED, the farther I am away from him, the more flaky they are. And since from Paris to Void City is about four thousand five hundred miles . . . I think you get the picture. Total flakesville.

They ripped and tore at me, but despite the pain I wasn’t concerned. It’s hard to kill a Vlad if you don’t know how, and even harder to kill an Emperor like me. I could remember
being staked, beheaded, burned alive, dowsed in holy water, and even blown up by blessed charges of C4 by people and things with a much greater desire to see me dead than these fashion victims. No, I wasn’t worried. I caught two vampires by their throats, one in each hand, and roared as I squeezed, fingers sinking through the flesh to touch the bony spine beneath. A sharp, high-velocity flick of the wrist sent their heads right off onto the metal floor.
See? There’s the speed! It worked for a whole second.
Anger seems to help. So much for
Singin’ in the Rain.

Twin jets of blood splattered the Eiffel Tower’s brown girders. Jean-Philippe went into instant retreat, turned into a bat, and flew. One thing I had learned about French vampires was that they didn’t try to kill each other. It was about skill and who was better, not like in the States. Compared to them we’re animals, unless you count some of the nonfatal punishments they come up with to entertain each other. It wasn’t surprising that Jean-Philippe would run once he realized I was the crazy American vampire that
la Bête du Gévaudan
had given a free pass. It came as a total shock that his five remaining buddies tried to cover his escape.

I locked eyes with one of the Drones and ordered,
“Allez!”
I hadn’t been able to kill a Drone since the werewolves killed . . . I don’t know . . . somebody important. A guy, I think? Name starts with a K? I couldn’t remember his face, yet all of their faces reminded me of his, the dull little gleam to their eyes, the light that had gone out rather than burning brighter . . . I just couldn’t do it. The first Drone ran and the second one went with him before I’d even sent the order. That left me and the last three Soldiers.

They fought well, and they were used to working together. One of them favored some kind of freaky kickboxing. It was cool and deadly. I’ve had very little martial training since Korea. Fortunately for me, turning into the uber vamp is
something of an equalizer, even if it does take a little bit for the old uber vamp juice to get flowing.

My skin went gray, moving steadily toward black, and I grew in size. Fancy-Footwork Boy kicked me off the Eiffel Tower (my fault for letting my mind wander) and the transformation sped up. Purple-eyed and grinning, I flew back toward the three Soldiers. In France they call them
les Chevaliers
. Even with the fuzzy state of my brain, I remembered that it meant “knights.” I also recalled the name of the kickboxing style Soldier Number One had been using on me. It was called
savate
. It’s funny, the things I remember. He kicked me in the head and it crossed my eyes. Not that I haven’t taken an injury like that before.

This time something was different. There was a pop and a hiss, followed by a strong odor, gunpowder and something else and then more pain, hot and burning all through my sinuses, as if someone had lit a pair of bottle rockets and shot them up my nose.
Pop. Hiss. Ow.

I felt another vampire, a Vlad. She was on Aarika in seconds, moving with impressive speed. Aarika armored up, but even as her weapon manifested, the new Vlad was taking it away from her and pinning her to the Eiffel Tower with it. The new Vlad reminded me of “99 Luftballons” by Nena. Then again, that could have been Aarika, because she’s German. Something about the newcomer reminded me of the last episode of
M*A*S*H,
too.

Stars flared in front of my eyes. The Vale of Scrythax was dissolving around us. The Soldier I was fighting tried to use the opening to leave, but the new Vlad broke his neck from behind and pulled his head off. His body rotted so fast, it looked almost as though he’d just turned to dust, a swirl of particles in the night. My face felt hot. Beads of red ran down my forehead and I touched one and the gunpowder smell melded with a sweeter one—cinnamon. I closed my eyes. The fight went
on without me, but the newcomer didn’t need my help. In my head she blew me a kiss. She seemed so familiar.

Pixie-cut hair of candy apple red with lighter streaks of cotton candy pink hung down in a ragged edge over her left eye, barely obscuring eyes the autumn gold of a maple leaf. Needlelike fangs peeked out from behind lips painted dark blue and twitched into a confident smirk. A white shirt with overlarge armholes swung wide as she fought, revealing flashes of her small breasts, nipples erect from the thrill of combat. She laughed as she fought, her speed so great that she seemed to pop from place to place, appearing as a sequence of still poses, like photo frames.

Irene?

Two more puffs of rapidly dusted vamp, one after another, and the two remaining Soldiers were ended. Gone forever.

The cinnamon scent grew stronger, overwhelming me, and I tried to form a command. “Rachel, sto—” I hit the ground, nose smashing into concrete, my fangs cutting my mouth. And it was all gone. How I’d gotten there, where there was, who I was fighting and why . . . Gone.

However long I lay there, when I came to, I leapt to my feet, claws out. I sensed something near me: the other vampire. I spun toward her, when I felt another flash of pain, this one full and throbbing in the back of my skull; my vision went to shades of emerald. The taste of wintergreen filled my mouth.

“I would’ve preferred mint,” I mumbled. And then it was worse; like someone put my memory in a blender and hit puree. My eyes closed for what felt like a few seconds. When they opened again, my vision was back to normal, but the last thing I remembered was Roger saying that we needed to go to El Segundo. What the hell was I doing in Paris? That’s where I had to be, right? Where else do they have a life-size Eiffel Tower? How the hell had I let Irene talk me into this?

Irene helped me up, concern clearly showing in those
washed-out brown-turning-to-gold-colored eyes. They’d once been a rich chocolate, but time had changed Irene. “Are you okay, babe?” she asked me.

“I think so.” I ran my tongue around the inside of my mouth.
Had I tasted something for a second there?
“What happened?”

“I think that vampire kicked you a little too hard in the head,” she teased. When had Irene dyed her hair red? She wore a white silk blouse with no bra to cover her pert little breasts. Another woman’s scent wafted up from her groin. Some living girls spray perfume in their underwear drawer to cover up the odor that Irene was cultivating, but vampires can be . . . different. Irene would usually make one of the girls at the Demon Heart wear her underwear for a few hours before she put it on to make herself smell alive. I didn’t recognize the woman’s scent, which meant she’d likely been Irene’s dinner.

The idea appealed to me for an entirely different set of reasons, but I didn’t think it would be wise to enumerate them for her. Instead I slid my hand up her thigh beneath the matching white skirt. She was still warm from feeding or a kill.

“When did we get to Paris?” I asked.

She kissed me hard, letting her bangs rest on my face. Irene had a few inches on me in height even without the four-inch spike heels she was wearing. My hand slid farther up her leg, brushing the space between.

“We can do that in the limo,” she whispered in that husky voice she has, nipping playfully at my neck. I’d had a no biting rule with all my other girlfriends, but Irene was always an exception. “The sun is coming up soon. Can’t you hear Chanticleer heralding his arrival?”

She knew I didn’t. I never notice the sun has come up until it’s too late. We kissed again as she led me to a waiting limo. “You gave me quite a chase,” she told me. “Talbot should keep a better eye on you.”

“Who’s Talbot?”

“I meant Rachel,” she said hurriedly. “I don’t know why I said that.”

“Okay.” We climbed into the limo, and I caught the smell of the woman whose scent matched Irene’s panties from the front of the car beyond the black partition. Irene kissed me again, and I started unbuttoning her blouse. “Then who’s Rachel?”

“The limo driver, darling,” she said. Irene kept talking when I finished opening her blouse, reclining against the seat while arching her back, thrusting her firm supple breasts outward. “You just don’t have a head for names, do you?”

I didn’t answer, but Irene kept whispering sweet nasties in my ear. I felt like I hadn’t seen her in forever. “I’ve never done it in a limo or in Paris . . .” I paused, hovering over her left breast. “I don’t think I have anyway, not since I was alive. What’s the occasion?”

“Eric!” She ran her hand along my chin. “You naughty boy, how can you forget you’re on your honeymoon?” She showed me her ring and I checked my hand. I had one too.

“Son of a bitch,” I breathed. “How’d you talk me into that?”

“I’ll show you”—she winked—”but it will have to wait until we get back to the hotel.”

“Why?”

She kissed me again, fiercely, nicking my tongue with her fangs. “Because Rachel’s a little busy driving right now, darling, and we’ll need her undivided attention.”
Yep,
I thought to myself,
that would do it.

    40    

TABITHA:

I’M NOT BARBIE

I’m hungry.” I sniffed the air. Blood scent blocked out all other odors. If Beatrice was anywhere nearby, I couldn’t smell her. “I passed your stupid tests.” I paced the unfamiliar room, still in my nightgown. It was lacy and pink and I’d hoped Eric would be able to see it, but apparently that only happened after one final night of testing. “I watched your stupid videos.” My feet slapped the cold floor of the room I’d woken up in. “I even wrote an essay and played two hundred billion questions with your version of a psychotherapist.”

An antique four-poster bed with decorative fittings lay behind me, comforter askew from where I’d rolled out of it. A French gown covered in a floral pattern with an elaborate green brocade covering the front skirt, bodice, and sleeves had been laid out for me, all Marie Antoinette or Madame de Pompadour, but it wasn’t mine and I’d refused to put it on.