slowly, hovering near mine. I could smell his breath, which carried coffee and something sweet, like pastry. He held my eyes, a question in his, as if asking permission. When my hands tightened on his shirt, he pulled me closer. To the edge of the table, my legs beside his. Eyes on mine, he drew a fraction nearer. I raised my face, just slightly. A delicate, slow dance of approach, warming. And he touched my lips with his.
It was a gentle brush, a delicate sweep of his lips over mine. And then a hover, questing, his mouth barely touching. Lips parted slightly. Fractionally. I sighed. Closed my eyes.
And the worry and fear and tension seeped away. I let his arms hold me.
Instead of deepening the kiss, which I expected, he brushed my lips with his slowly back and forth. Murmuring, "It's okay, Janie. It's really okay." His arms firmed. Lips hardened on mine. He pulled me closer. Finally I slid my arms around his shoulders and held on, feeling Beast purr steadily in my mind. His tongue touched mine and my sigh became a thrumming hum of sound. One hand cupped my head, cradling me, his thumb on my cheek. One hand stroked slowly down my hair and back.
Long moments later, I smiled against his mouth and felt his smile follow, breaking the intensity. I eased back and met his gaze, which was warm and focused on me with tight concentration. "Thanks," I said, my voice rough.
He grinned and broke away, steadying me as I found my balance. "I've been wanting to do that for a while now. But" - he eased back and looked at his watch - "let's talk."
We did. I filled him in on everything that had happened, everything I had learned, from my impromptu history lesson, to all my guesses. I put it all together for myself and for Rick, from the smell on Bettina's hands at the vamp party, to the rising of a gangbanger tattooed with crosses. "I think the Damours - Renee, Tristan, and maybe their brother -
were all witches, were all the long-chained, and all woke up. I think they might have perfected a spell to make progeny who don't ever go insane, and don't react to crosses. I think they're working on a spell to bring sanity to any rogue." I studied Rick. "If they succeed, there'll be no stopping the vamps. No way at all."
Rick was quiet, his face in cop mode - a hard, unfeeling mask. After a long moment he said, "I've heard of Renee Damours. Word is, she made a play for the master of the Rousseau Clan about thirty years ago and lost to Bettina before she disappeared into the city's underbelly. But all we got is rumor and gossip. We don't reallyknow anything."
He turned to the vamp file cabinet and opened the second drawer, withdrawing two files. I hadn't gotten to this batch in my study. One thin file was a history of the purge.
A thicker one was a history of the Rousseau Clan, which I took, and, at his instruction, thumbed to a section on the Damours, all five of them. I flipped to a page detailing Renee's history, to discover that most of the info was speculation and rumor gleaned from unnamed sources; it was only marginally better than nothing. According to the file, Renee Damours didn't attend parties, didn't attend gatherings - the command performances of the entire vamp assembly to deal with matters of the vampire state or the health of its members - no matter who demanded them. She didn't travel, and didn't troll for fresh meat. "She's a stay-at-home kinda gal," I said, "for decades. She's got to have cabin fever."
Rick hummed a note of amused agreement.
She seldom left her lair, which was rumored to be in the Warehouse District, the same part of the city where the most recent vamp party took place - when I saw the witch glamour and the watching witches. Not likely that the witchy happenings were an accidental concurrence; at this point, I wasn't willing to believe in coincidence.
Rick passed me another sheaf of papers, photocopies of letters and news accounts with a face sheet titled "History of the Purge." Date of occurrence: the late seventeen hundreds. Page two was a summary composed by Elizabeth Caldwell, who noted that Renee Damours had brought her chained family to New Orleans from Haiti and immediately purchased several large blocks of land, including some along the