the jungle rhythm, one I instinctively recognized as Savannah’s; and I opened my eyes to see Savannah’s slender extended arm, and Lord Delancaster draw his lips aside from my neck to drink the blood from her proffered spoon.
The silvery spoon drew back from his lips, and Delancaster closed his eyes in bliss. Apparently chocolate ice cream had nothing on blood. Then Delancaster leaned away. “I have her pulse,” he said. “Yes, I have it.”
I looked down sharply, clearing my head. Savannah, looking as sad as a cat whose food bowl had been swiped away, held a white cotton ball over my finger, and was unsuccessfully trying to unwrap a Band-Aid with her other hand. “Doug, a hand here.”
“Whoa,” I said. My forehead was feverish, and I felt sweaty.
“I have tasted your aura, drunk your blood, felt the beat of your heart,” Lord Delancaster said, stepping back to the center of the room. “If any vampire I meet has drunk your blood, or taken your life, I will know it. In honesty, I will very likely know if they were to spoil you. I will make this known that you have the protection of the House of Saffron, but the ban of the Lord of Georgia as well.”
“Swell,” I said, a bit woozy. I shook my head, and the room swam. “Swell.”
“Before I return to my Halloween party,” Lord Delancaster said, stepping back to retrieve his cane, “is there anything else you want to protect?”
“Isn’t my blood, my life and my sex enough?” I asked. I took a deep breath, tried to get a grip on myself. He hadn’t even broken the skin, and I’d damn near had an orgasm—no wonder mortals got so easily seduced by vampires. “Seems, ah, seems pretty comprehensive—”
“What if they decided to take their anger out on one of your friends?” he said, and I swallowed, pulling at the collar. “Or did something as childish as trashing your car? I’m sorry, but immature vampires can be petty… and creative. We do need to be specific.”
“A young witch recommended this to me,” I said. The sudden surge of adrenaline was doing a better job of clearing my head than my own efforts had. “Skye ‘Jinx’ Anderson. And I drive a POS Vespa, but I don’t want that trashed either.”
“I don’t know all modern car makes,” he said. “Is POS the model number or—”
“Piece of Shit,” I said, “and it’s a scooter, license plate MAGTAT.”
“I saw it,” he said, closing his eyes briefly, as if recalling and re-memorizing every detail. “Is there anything else you’d like to protect?”
Abruptly I flashed on Richard Sumners—he’d insured his hands for a million dollars. What the hell? It couldn’t hurt. “Just my hands. I’m a tattoo artist.”
“Your life, blood, and sex; your friend, scooter, and hands,” he said, reciting the odd list in complete seriousness. “I think that is as extensive, and as specific, as we can make the ban; but it will have to do.”
“Thanks,” I said.
He took my hand, raised it, and kissed it chastely. “Remember, this protection only lasts in the inner city. Outside the Perimeter, the vampires can no longer protect you. So please, do not forget: if you travel outside the circle of I-285, you should stick to the safe places that humans instinctively gather in—or else you will run into creatures far more dangerous than either vampires or werewolves.”
My lip pursed up. “Thank you, Lord Delancaster.”
I still couldn’t wrap my head around the vampires being Atlanta’s force of supernatural law and order.
13. THE WEREHOUSE
The werehouse stood at the edge of the Chattahoochee, a bombed-out vestige of ironworks damaged beyond hope of repair on the river’s slimy banks. The entrance was an unlikely path struggling down an embankment of a bridge crossing, a trail so trampled that the earth opened up in a jagged wound of red clay. Trash was piled everywhere, cigarette butts, beer bottles, ants swarming over mustard packets spilling out of a discarded Chick-fil-A bag. I gagged. I couldn’t stand the smell. I couldn’t imagine how the weres did either.
No doubt it was a steal on the rent.
The moon was swelling close to whole—what did that make it? New? Gibbous?—and I heard a soft thump as the vamp guard I’d been told to expect jumped down behind me.
“Ah-ah-ah,” a soft, velvety voice said, almost near enough to taste. You could almost hear him wagging his finger. “You don’t want to go down that path at this hour, mortal.”