Lucky Break (4 page)

He hadn't yet mentioned the shifters who'd presumably also resided here, but I opted to let him tell the story at his own pace.

“As time passed, we gave shelter to a traveler or two, and word spread. Vampires who, like us, were looking for something different, for a different kind of solidarity, came here. They sought freedom over allegiance,” he said, with a glance at Ethan. A less than subtle dig, I supposed, at Cadogan Novitiates' expected allegiance to the House.

“They joined us, took our name as members of the Marchand Clan. And so we grew.”

“We understand there are no other humans here,” Ethan pointed out. “Or at least other than Sheriff McKenzie. You drank from each other?”

“Until bagged blood became available,” Vincent said. “And then we switched to it. We'd buy bulk stores and keep them for the winter. If the season ran long, we'd supplement with vampire blood.”

“And the shifters?” Ethan asked.

“They were here at the time of our arrival. They lived primitively.” His lip curled in distaste at the term. From his dress, it seemed Vincent preferred a simple kind of life. But I supposed there were limits even for him.

“Primitively?”

“They're mountain lions,” he said with clear disdain. “There were no permanent homesteads, at least of the variety that humans or vampires would recognize. We had no trouble from them at first. We later learned they objected to our settlement and to our growth as a community.”

“How?” Ethan asked.

“They killed livestock. Destroyed fences. Ripped shutters from our homes to let in light while we slept.”

“And that was the origin of the feud?” I asked.

“Love was the origin of the feud,” he said. “Fiona McKenzie and Christophe Marchand, one of my companions. She, a shifter. He, a vampire. They first met in their ‘human forms,' I suppose you could say, in 1891. And against the wishes of their respective family and Clan, they fell in love.”

“You objected?” I asked.

“I was not comfortable with their relationship but did not formally object. Bernard was far more conservative than me. He objected, and vigorously. He told Christophe he'd be cast from the Clan if he proceeded. The Clan is a democracy, and Bernard won the vote.”

That was as easy a justification for prejudice as I'd ever heard.

“And so Christophe was cast out. You may know there are many ‘ghost towns' in this part of the country. Villages were established for mining, for railroads, and abandoned when lodes ran dry or didn't materialize. Many were optimistic in that time. Fiona and Christophe found such a place, not far from Elk Valley. Four buildings, abandoned only a few years before. They called it High Creek and made their home there.”

Vincent's eyes darkened. “They were happy, as far as I was aware, although neither the Clan nor the family relented. Their door was bloodied.”

“Like they did to us,” Nessa said, glancing at Ethan.

He nodded. “And something happened to this couple?”

“One night, Christophe woke and found Fiona gone, along with some of her possessions and a brooch Christophe had brought from across the ocean. Laurel leaves around a dove, all of it rendered in gems. He'd planned to give it to Fiona, but no trace of her was ever found. Some suspected she'd been a plant by the McKenzies the entire time, had only ever wanted the brooch in payment for our use of the valley. Others suggested Christophe had been violent, that she'd sought escape, had taken the brooch to finance her travels.”

“And some believe she never left the valley,” Nessa quietly added, and the air in the room seemed to chill. “That she was killed—by Christophe, by another McKenzie, by another Marchand—and never found.”

“Christophe was mad with grief, insisted he'd never harmed her and that she wouldn't have left willingly.” Vincent swallowed hard. “He searched for her for three weeks straight, had to be dragged inside at dawn on two occasions because he'd thought he'd been close to finding her. He was convinced she was out there, waiting for him. But he never found her. One night, twenty-two days after she left, he walked into the sun.”

He'd killed himself, Vincent meant. Willingly turned himself to ash in mourning for his lover.

“Since then, there have been reprisals?” Ethan asked.

“Over the intervening decades, too many to count. Bernard blamed the McKenzies for Christophe's death. He confronted Fiona's father, and they both died in the ensuing battle. There've been eleven deaths since then. Two dozen attacks, a hundred minor acts.”

Vincent cleared his throat. “Given events, what you've fallen into here, I'm sure you'd like to return to Chicago.”

Vincent's tone was casual, but there was heat behind the words. Because he wanted Nessa to himself, or because he didn't want us poking around into the manner of her husband's death? Either way, Ethan wasn't having it.

“Nessa has requested we help her,” Ethan said evenly. “As we are friends, we've agreed to do so.”

Vincent didn't answer, at least not aloud, but shifted his gaze to Nessa, who nodded.

“I'd value his help, his perspective. Maybe he can help bring this ugly chapter to a close.”

“It is not up to the Marchands to bring peace,” Vincent said, a frisson of temper coloring his cheeks. “We didn't begin the fighting.”

Ethan crossed one leg over the other, the move apparently casual, but signaling his frustration, the rise in his own temper. “You started the Clan with three—you, Christophe, Bernard. You maintain the first insult was shifter against vampire. That means you, or your people, struck back. Now you are the only founder left alive, and yet the feud has continued.”

“Christophe and Bernard were casualties in a war. I do not fight the battles, but nor can I control those who do. We are a democracy,” he said, using the word like a shield for his own inaction.

“And every democracy has its saviors and demagogues.”

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“It is your Clan,” Ethan said. “I suspect it's in your power to stop this war, to wage peace instead. Have you discouraged the hostilities? The retaliations?”

“Ethan,” Nessa sharply said, reprobation in her voice. But that didn't seem to affect Ethan. And it didn't soothe Vincent.

“I don't care for your insinuations,” he said, rising suddenly, irritated magic filling the room. “Dawn is coming, and we will take our leave.”

“Vincent,” Nessa said, but he shook his head.

“I do not believe he is needed. But if you're committed to his staying, we will send human comrades to see you safe during the day.”

Ethan's brows lifted. “We are committed and appreciate the offer. But, as we noted, we thought Sheriff McKenzie was the only human in the valley.”

“There are humans in other towns who seek membership in the Clan,” Vincent said. “Those who wish to join us must show their dedication through a period of service. Including guard duty.”

“I see,” Ethan flatly said. He didn't voice his concerns psychically or otherwise, but they weren't hard to guess: Here, in a valley in Colorado, was a man building his own kingdom.

Vincent held out a hand to Nessa, who slipped her fingers into his.

“Thank you,” she said to Ethan, holding out her other hand to him, and linking them together, through her, for a moment. “We'll be in touch at dusk.”

Ethan nodded. “Tom wanted you to look through the house, see if anything was missing. We can go with you.”

Nessa nodded, and the entourage moved to the door, Vincent and Nessa in front, Astrid and Cyril, who'd spoken not a single word, behind them.

When they reached the door, Vincent glanced back. “Do be careful here. There are many who are not what they seem.”

With that final thought, Vincent Marchand and the rest of his crew disappeared into darkness.

***

“Thoughts, Sentinel?” Ethan asked, when the door was closed and locked and the Clan was on the other side of it.

“He's guarded, manipulative. Played the sycophant when he thought that would work, then switched tactics to aggressive. But he overplays both. He's either very concerned for the welfare of his vampires or excellent at faking it.”

Ethan arched an eyebrow. “Your analytical abilities are becoming almost disturbingly acute.”

“Sentinel hears all, sees all. And right now, I see and hear a strong whiff of cult.”

Ethan nodded. “A cult leader, if he's dangerous. A guru, perhaps, if he is not. A strong personality, with equally strong opinions, to whom, in this case, vampires gravitate. Nessa, at least during the time I knew her best, was searching for something more. She enjoyed travel, people, experiencing new things. But she seemed, at heart, discontented. I suppose her search brought her here.”

“And to Vincent.”

He nodded. “And, against Vincent's wishes, to Taran.”

“Do you think he could have done this? Killed Taran in order to free her, to win her back?”

“I don't know. I've known many like him in my lifetime—those who use their charisma to enthrall others, and those who believe they have a right to whomever they wish.”

I suspected he was thinking of Balthasar, his maker, but didn't want him to dwell on that. “I'm guessing our other likely candidates are Rowan and Nessa. Rowan for revenge, Nessa for—well, who knows—but it sounds like she was the last person to see him alive. And riddle me this, Sullivan.” I gestured to the room. “If Taran studied history, taught night classes, where the hell did they get all this money? What does she do?”

“Her human family, I understand, had some wealth many, many years ago. She left them as a vampire but still inherited after they died.”

“And the rest is the miracle of compound interest.” I sighed, glanced at him. “So what do we do now?”

He smiled. “We call our friends and make our inquiries.”

That, I could do. “You take Gabriel. I'm going to call the Librarian.”

Ethan's brows lifted. “Oh?”

“The feud,” I said. “It sounds like both sides have been keeping score for a very long time. I'd like to know, before Taran McKenzie, who was ahead.”

Ethan's smile was grand, quick, and very pleased. “That's my girl. Go find your facts, Sentinel. I'll find us a shifter. And preferably an ally.”

***

The bedroom, like the rest of the house, was decorated with an eye toward nature. There was a rock-covered fireplace at one end of the room, a large bed across from it with a brass-legged bench at the end. A chandelier of twined antlers hung from the vaulted ceiling, and a bank of windows provided a view of the valley beyond. I regretted I wouldn't be spending leisurely evenings enjoying it.

A landscape, an oil painting crackled with age, hung in a gilded gold frame on the wall across from the door. The greens and blues of sky and valley were lit by shafts of sunlight that seemed to glow from the canvas. So much beauty, apparently wasted on families who lusted instead for revenge.

When I'd showered in the attached bathroom—also enormous, and dominated by wood and granite—and changed into pajamas, I sat cross-legged on the bed and called up the Librarian.

I'd been a graduate student in English literature before becoming a vampire, and I'd rued, for a long time, that Ethan had named me Sentinel instead of the head of the House's two-story and incredibly sexy library. But I'd turned out to be a pretty good Sentinel, and the library already had a very competent commander, if a grouchy one.

“Marchand and McKenzie?” he asked, confirming as the rustling of turning pages echoed in the background.

“That's them. Vampires and shifters, respectively. Elk Valley, Colorado.”

“I'm scanning the index.”

“Of what? The
Big Book of Inter-Sup Feuds
?”

“No. We don't have that one. The update subscription's too expensive. We do carry the
Directory of Notable North American Feuds
.”

As he sounded utterly serious—and rarely was anything otherwise—I kept the follow-up question to myself. Namely: How was there a cottage industry in supernatural feud directories?

“All right, I've got it. Fiona McKenzie and Christophe Marchand. She disappeared, and he . . . Oh. Damn,” he said, probably reading about Christophe's rather depressing end.

“Yeah,” I said. “Bernard Marchand, we think, was the next one killed. He was one of the Clan's founders.”

“Correct. And there were others. Many others. Some arrests, some disappearances, some thefts.”

I thought about the missing object Vincent had mentioned. “Does it mention the brooch?”

A pause, then, “Only that the vampires believed Fiona took it. But no sign of it, or her, was ever found.”

“So where the hell had they gone?” I wondered aloud. Had someone killed her and stolen it? Or had Fiona simply taken the brooch and started over somewhere else?

“I don't have the foggiest. But we're an hour ahead of you, and dawn is on its way. You want me to send you the rest of the file?”

“Yeah, that'd be great.” Opting to be proactive, I added, “And if you've got some kind of general report on the Marchand Clan, could you send that along, too? Ethan's curious.”

“Easily done,” he said.

Thank goodness something was.

***

While I waited for Ethan to return, I carefully cleaned my katana blade with oil and rice paper, just as I'd been taught. I'd just resheathed it when Ethan walked into the bedroom. He closed the bedroom door behind him, locked it. Just in case.

“Gabriel?” I asked.

“On his way,” he said, kicking off his shoes and pulling his shirt over his head.

“What did he have to say?”

“Mostly grunting.” Ethan unbuttoned his trousers and placed them across the bench at the end of the bed. “He was unhappy with the interruption, less so the reason for it. They should be here by dusk tomorrow. And in the meantime, our temporary human guard is outside.”