Tooth and Claw (The Harry Russo Diaries Book 2) (10 page)

“
Bien sûr
! But of
course! What better reward for a fight well won then to have your injuries
healed. All our fighters aspire to be candidates for the kiss.”

That explained a lot. No wonder these men were willing to be
beaten almost to death. The possibility of immortality was too big a lure. I
looked back at the fighter. The vampire had withdrawn her wrist, which was now
healed completely, while he remained kneeling at her feet. His bruises were
fading, his cuts and scrapes healing and his breathing was already improving -
a sign that his internal injuries were also on the mend. The vampire rose to
her feet. She pulled a black leather collar from her bag and snapped it around
the fighter’s thick neck. A delicate chain was attached to a ring on the
collar and served as a leash. The vampire gave the chain a tug.

“Come along, pet,” she said, loud enough for the room to
hear.

The man rose quickly to his feet, but he couldn’t hide the
flush of embarrassment on his cheeks, so maybe he did still have some pride
left.

“So tell me,
petite minette
, is it true what you did
to that
morceau de merde
Thorley?” Marcel’s question pulled my
attention away from the bitch vamp and her pet fighter. “And Sabine?”

“What? Who’s Thorley?” I frowned and shook my head. I had
no clue what he was talking about. “What about Sabine?”

“Thorley, the how do you say?
Pederiste
?”

“The pedophile,” Tomas volunteered.

“Ah,
c’est bon
. The pedophile.”

“That was his name?” I asked. “Thorley?”

“
Oui, oui
, a despicable man,” Marcel replied, making
a face of disgust. “A grown man raping little girls.” He shook his head.
“Did you really cut off his head after you killed him?” He looked at me
skeptically.

“No.” I replied

“
Mais oui,
I thought as much. Rumours, they grow and
grow.” Marcel nodded his head at his own apparent wisdom. He reached for his
champagne.

“He was
alive
when I cut off his head,” I continued.
Marcel’s hand with the champagne froze midway to his mouth.

“With one stroke,” Tomas added with a grin.

Marcel put his glass back down on the table, slopping
champagne over the rim in his haste. “
Merde! C’est impossible
!” He
paused for a minute, shaking his head. “A little thing like you?”

I shrugged. He could believe whatever he wanted. I really
didn’t care.

Tomas stretched an arm across my shoulders pulling me
close. “You would do well not to underestimate this little
puh
-”

The last part came out more like a gasp because I elbowed
him in the stomach and threw him a dark look. I pulled his arm off my
shoulder, depositing it back in his lap.

“Oui, oui,” Marcel nodded his head absently. “And so what
they say about Sabine is true as well?”

“What do they say about Sabine other than she’s a bitch?” I
asked with a scowl. Marcel looked at Tomas nervously. I
frowned and turned to look at Tomas as well. “What happened to Sabine?”

Tomas shrugged as if the news was no big deal. “It seems
Sabine decided to jump off the top of a building, a very tall one.”

“Omigod! Is she, uh…dead? Why would she do
that?” I looked back and forth between Marcel and Tomas. I glanced at Isaac,
who shrugged. It was the first time he was hearing the story as well.

“It seems she thought she could fly,” Tomas answered, his
eyes alight. He looked at me pointedly and then I remembered. Oh. My. God. I
had told her to take a flying leap! I must have given her a little push with
my necromancy without knowing it and so she had thrown herself off a building
because of me.

I tried to keep my expression blank. “What happened to
her?” I asked unable to stop myself from grimacing. It couldn’t have been
pretty.

“She broke just about every bone in her body. They had to
scrape her off the parking lot. She will be many months in painful recovery,
if she ever fully recovers.”

I didn’t know what to think about that. I hadn’t intended
anything so awful to happen to Sabine, but she
had
wanted to kill me. I
grabbed my champagne and tossed back the contents of the glass, holding it out
for more. “That’s terrible,” I said trying my best to look sympathetic. “I
wonder why she would do such a thing?”

Marcel tilted his head and looked at me through narrowed
eyes. “This is a rumour…”

“And we all know how rumours go, do we not?” Isaac
interrupted from his watchful perch behind our seats. “As you have said,
Marcel.”

“Oui…oui…” Marcel nodded his head slowly, getting on board
with the idea that the topic was closed.

A roar erupted from the ring below, providing a welcome excuse
to let the conversation drop. I turned to face the spectacle below where it
appeared two men, dressed in leather armour from throat to ankle, were using some
sort of medieval weapon, consisting of a wooden handle ending in a chain
attached to a metal ball covered with spikes, to bludgeon each other. The
leather seemed to be offering little protection from the tearing blows, if the
amount of blood pouring out of various holes in their armour was any
indication.

Despite the appalling scene below, I barely registered what
I was seeing, my mind still reeling with the implications of what I had
unintentionally done to Sabine. If Marcel, a vampire that spent little, if any,
time at Dante’s had heard rumours about me, what did the vamps close to
Salvador’s inner circle know? While we weren’t exactly keeping my necromancer
status a secret – we couldn’t after the whole zombie situation last month – we
hadn’t particularly been advertising the fact that I was able to control more
than zombies. It was one of the reasons we were so circumspect about Isaac’s
and my relationship when we were at Dante’s. If word got out that I had bound
him to me, I would go from just having to watch my back around the few vamps
that didn’t care about staying in Salvador’s good graces or who wanted to
challenge his authority, to being on the shit-list of every undead in the area.
What I did to that slimeball, Thorley, forcing the truth out of him, was one
thing, binding a vampire as powerful as Isaac, was quite another. There was a
reason powerful necromancers were so rare. They usually didn’t survive long
after their powers emerged.

“
Harry, stop blaming yourself
.” Isaac’s voice echoed
in my head, startling me. I had forgotten about that little side benefit from
sharing blood with him. “
You were only protecting yourself
.”

“
But that’s just it
,” I thought back, trying to keep
the frown off my face. “
I had it under control.
If I had just kept
my mouth shut…
”

“
We all know how difficult that can be for you
.” I could
hear the laughter in Isaac’s words.

“
Ha ha. Very funny
.” I crossed my arms over my
chest and leaned back on the sofa.

“
There is no point dwelling on what can’t be undone,
Harry. Instead, we should be trying to hurry this outing along. The sooner we
can get out of here, the better, don’t you think?
”

Before I could reply, Marcel interrupted my thoughts.
“What’s the matter,
petite minette
? Are we boring you?” He threw his
hands wide to encompass the room and the fight below.

Seeing an opportunity to get the ball moving, I shrugged,
letting the corner of my lip curl up. “Honestly, yes. If I wanted to watch
two norms wail on each other, I could turn on pay-per-view.” I turned to Tomas
and gave him a pouty face. “I thought you said this place was special, that I
would see some
real
fighting.”

Tomas’s eyes took on a glint as he caught on to my ruse. “You
can’t get this on pay-per-view
baby
. Although….” He trailed off to
look speculatively at Marcel. “I heard that there is another type of fighting
going down soon, something a little more
primal
?”

Marcel looked around nervously. “I don’t believe I know
what you are talking about,
mon ami
.” He shook his head emphatically,
his lips pressed in a thin line.

I leaned forward, knowing that it would give Marcel a more
than decent view of my cleavage, reaching over to brush my hand across his. I
ran the tip of my tongue slowly across my lips. “That’s too bad. I was hoping
for something a little more…raw.” I sat back in my seat again. Marcel’s eyes
continued to burn into me. I touched a finger to my lips, my tongue darting
out to lick it. I slid my now wet finger down my chin, to my chest, letting it
blaze a wet trail along the skin between my breasts. I dipped my finger into
the vee of my dress giving the stretchy fabric a little tug. “The idea of
seeing something I couldn’t see anywhere else makes me hot.”

Marcel’s eyes were riveted on the expanse of bare skin and
cleavage I was exposing. He swallowed, his eyes narrowing.

“Mmmm baby, you’re always hot,” Tomas said, his hand going
to my bare knees forcing them slightly apart. He slid his hand up along the
inside of my thigh. Marcel licked his lips, his eyes snapping down to follow
the path of Tomas’s hand. From the look on his face, Marcel was hooked. Maybe
a little push would land him.

“I need something more,” I replied in a breathy voice. I
let my legs part open a little more as Tomas’s hand slid further up my leg.
“Something that will make me hot and…bothered.”

Marcel, his eyes never leaving Tomas’s hand as it approached
the junction of my thighs, cleared his throat. “There is something.” He
licked his lips.

“Tell me,” I said, putting a wisp of power behind my words.

“An upcoming event. Very private. Very exclusive.”
Marcel’s voice became almost monotone as he watched Tomas pet my thigh. “One-of-a-kind
action.” He shook his head as if to clear it and then frowned.

“Where? When?” I placed a hand on Tomas’s halting its
progress. “Tell me everything you know,” I said to Marcel, giving him another
little nudge.

“I don’t know where. I don’t know when.
Je suis désolé
.”
He held up his hands as if begging for forgiveness.

“Tell me what you do know then.” I glanced down and
realized I was still gripping Tomas’s hand. I scowled at him, pushing it back onto
his own lap. Tomas smirked and gave a little shrug.

“
Oui, oui.
I only have a contact number. You call
it and they give you instructions.”

“What sort of instructions?” Tomas leaned forward in
interest.

“This fight, it is very expensive. You must first prove you
are able to afford the price of admission. They will tell you an address. You
go and leave an envelope with one thousand dollars and your name and contact
information. On the day of the event you will get a call. It is a pickup
location. You go, along with ten times your contact fee, and they will
transport you and your guest to the location of the fight.”

“Ten thousand dollars?” I couldn’t hide my shock. “People
pay ten thousand dollars to see a fight?”

“Mais oui.” Marcel shrugged as if it wasn’t that big a
deal. “It is very exclusive, for the connoisseur. Ten thousand is nothing for
the type of people they cater to.”

I sat back, shaking my head, wondering how many rich sickos
there were in Riverton that got off on watching people forced to kill each
other. Obviously enough to make this scheme worth it. But was it just for
the money? Was this whole thing just a way to get rich or was there another
motive? What about Douglas Bellemare and the Society of Montferrat? Were they
really involved? What we needed were more answers. What we needed was ten
thousand dollars.

“We need the contact number,” I said to Marcel. He frowned
and looked at Tomas as if seeking confirmation. “You will tell me everything
you know about this fight and its organizers, including the contact number. When
I say our conversation is over, you will forget that it ever happened. Tomas,
Isaac and I were never here. Do you understand?” I gave him a bigger nudge,
feeling the connection I had established to him strengthen.

“
Oui, oui
.” Marcel began to nod vigorously. “Of
course, I understand.”

“Good,” I relaxed back in my seat. “Now tell us what you
know.”

It turns out Marcel didn’t know much more than what he had
already told us. He did have one troubling detail to share however. Although
he didn’t know the names of any of the organizers of the event, he had heard
rumours that a man named Elian Navarre was involved. I had no clue who he was
talking about, but judging from both Isaac’s and Tomas’s reactions to the name,
it was an important piece of the puzzle.

With nothing else to keep us there, now that we knew how to
make contact with the group involved in the underground fight club, we didn’t
linger. Marcel escorted us back down to the club’s entrance.

“Tomas,
mon ami
, you must come again soon. I need a
chance to take some of
your
money.” Marcel laughed and clapped Tomas on
the shoulder.

Tomas gave him a wry smile. “You can try, my friend. Next
time.”

Marcel turned to me and gave a little bow. “
Enchanté
mademoiselle
. It was a pleasure. When you tire of this boy,” he gestured
at Tomas with a grin, “come back and visit me and wear that sexy little dress
again. I will show you why they say we French are the best lovers.”

“Not going to happen,” I said with a laugh. “This
conversation is over.” Like magic, and I guess technically it was, Marcel’s
face went blank. He turned away from us and began to walk back into the club
as if we were no longer standing there.

“Well, that went better than I thought,” Tomas said with a
shrug. He put an arm across my shoulders pulling me in close. “You know you
do look pretty hot in that dress and I can assure you, I’m not a boy.”