Midnight's Daughter

“Do let him catch his breath, Jonathan.”

“As you wish, my lord.”

My eyes took in a succession of quick images: Radu being held off to the side by two vamps, the power signature around them unmistakably that of masters; no sign of Claire; a puddle of blood big enough to have drained a human in the center of the floor; and above it, hanging from the balcony railing, a nude, frighteningly pale body. I felt a chill so sudden and so cold that it rivaled anything the Fey had managed to summon. And I realized why the blood had smelled so familiar.

“The amount of blood he is losing will not do,” Drac was saying. “We wouldn’t want him to expire before our guests arrive.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that. I had him for almost a month once.” The oily voice belonged to the blond-haired, gray-eyed human with a poker in his hand. Jonathan. He stroked a hand down Louis-Cesare’s bloody torso, and there was something sickeningly intimate about the gesture. “He’ll survive—for a while.”

I couldn’t understand it—why was Louis-Cesare just hanging there? He had no weapon, but a master vamp is a weapon—a formidable one. And the restraints holding his arms to the balcony were merely rope—I could see where his weight had caused them to sink into the flesh of his arms. He’d been lashed to the ironwork balcony so that his body dangled downward, almost in a cruciform position, his toes not able to touch the floor tiles. He might not be able to get any leverage using his feet, but he could snap the ropes in an instant, as easily as a human might break a thread. So what was going on?

There were half a dozen mages standing around, several of whom I remembered from the Bellagio, and five vamps. But even outnumbered, Louis-Cesare should have been putting up some kind of resistance. I sure as hell would have been.

Jonathan was standing close enough that Louis-Cesare’s unbound legs could have swung up, locked around his throat and snapped his neck, probably in the time it took to blink. Yet they didn’t. Even when Jonathan worked the poker into Louis-Cesare’s already mutilated chest, he did not so much as grunt.

My heart lurched sickeningly, caught between fear and outright panic. Was he already dead? Had one of the shafts sticking out of his chest pierced his heart? It was possible—he looked like some parody of Saint Sebastian, red wounds like gaping mouths over all that pale flesh. But no, he was still bleeding. I saw a light trickle seep out around the poker. And dead bodies don’t bleed.

Jonathan traced the outline of the wounds he’d inflicted on his captive’s chest and belly, his touch an obscene mixture of delicacy and brutality. The new flow of blood seemed to dissipate into mist at his touch, a tiny wisp floating from Louis-Cesare’s tortured form to wrap itself around the mage’s hand. “Ah. It begins,” he murmured, as my heart kicked hard against my chest, sick realization curling in my stomach. He was bleeding him of power, of life, little by little. Yet Louis-Cesare did nothing.

The only reason I could think of for the suicidal passivity was Radu’s imprisonment. Maybe they had threatened him if Louis-Cesare fought back? It didn’t make a lot of sense, as he knew perfectly well what Drac had pla

There was blood under the mage’s fingernails as he caressed his prize, toying with the purple bruises and crusty blood around the older wounds. It slicked his hand and stuck his fingers together, thicker than honey as it dried. The urge to snap the thin man’s neck made my fingers twitch sharply as he leaned in, staring at Louis-Cesare with a hungry look. “Do you remember how inventive I could be?”

I ignored the dull beat of anger throbbing behind my eyes and stowed the mage behind the sofa. I slipped into the entryway, careful to keep close to the wall. It was dark in the shadows, away from the chandelier’s light, and my coating of black mud was good camouflage—for both sight and scent. Another mage was a few feet in front of me, watching the show.

In a sudden, savage motion, Jonathan pulled out the poker and was rewarded with a barely audible gasp, just a brief inhalation that was soft even to my ears. But the mage heard.

He smiled at Louis-Cesare tenderly, approvingly, his hands stroking down the long torso, smearing the spattered blood that stained his skin. “He died every day, and was reborn every night,” he crooned, his voice a sing-song, “like an ancient god, like Mithras himself.” Without warning, he slid his finger into the gap left by the poker; I could see it moving under the flesh of Louis-Cesare’s side. “I never killed him twice in the same way.”

“You never killed him at all,” Dracula said testily. Apparently I wasn’t the only one to see the madness in those gray eyes.

Jonathan didn’t seem to hear. “He died so beautifully, every time. Mostly in silence, but occasionally I would bring him to screams of agony, to passionate death throes.” His free hand caressed Louis-Cesare’s bare flank while his finger sank farther into its sheath of skin, to the base of his knuckles. “Will you scream for me one last time?”

Louis-Cesare shivered in revulsion, but he lifted his head to stare at him, haughty, defiant. I thought that’s how the French aristocrats must have looked, going to the guillotine on the order of a middle-class bureaucrat, the blood of Charles Martel flowing in their veins. Then, over Jonathan’s shoulder, he saw me.

He gave a sudden jerk and his eyes widened. The mage in front of me must have seen, because he stiffened and started to turn. I strangled him with his own scarf before he could sound an alarm. Only, if Louis-Cesare continued to look like that, no other warning would be needed.

Fortunately, Drac had never been known for patience. He knocked Jonathan out of the way, grabbed a poker sticking out of Louis-Cesare’s thigh and twisted it cruelly. “Enough of this! Tell me where Mircea is, or I will let this creature do his worst!”

Louis-Cesare said nothing, but he turned his face away from me as Radu’s outraged tones echoed across the room. “I told you already—he isn’t here! Let him go, Vlad. Your quarrel is with me!”

Vlad whipped his head around, almost as if he had forgotten Radu was there. But before he could answer, the front door opened, flooding sunlight over the bloody tiles. “Nonsense, Radu.” At the rich, familiar tones, I stiffened. My head turned, very slowly. “As you know quite well, Vlad’s quarrel has always been with me.”

Mircea stood there, rapier in hand, smiling an antique smile. Like a glint of sunlight on an edge of broken glass, it was unmistakably a duelist’s expression, with no hint of warmth. “Ahh.” Vlad’s hands dropped away from Louis-Cesare as if he had suddenly disappeared, which for him, I suppose, he had.

I had to give it to Caedmon—he was good. With all the blood and the carcasses of several of Radu’s half-breeds scattered around, I couldn’t tell if he’d gotten the scent right, but everything else was perfect. He might have fooled even me. My opinion of Fey glamourie shot up exponentially.

The vamp nearest me turned to say something to the now dead mage, and saw me. He wasn’t a master, but the ragged-edged cry that tore from his throat before my makeshift stake cleaved his heart was enough to draw every eye in the place. Every one except Drac’s. “Kill her,” he ordered, his eyes never leaving Mircea.

I leapt for the chandelier to escape a barrage of spells and more mundane attacks. I wasn’t sure I would make it. Caedmon had undone the worst of the Fey’s attack, but my strength was still at a low ebb and I ached everywhere. But crystals chimed under my hands as I grabbed hold, just as an explosion hit the wall where I’d been standing, blowing out a chunk of plaster and brick.