I poked him in the arm, and it was hard and firm as wood. It didn't feel like flesh at all. "Is this illusion?"
"No, ma petite." He looked at me at last, and his eyes were solid drowning blue. "Both forms were real." He stood, and even standing next to him I could not see him breathe.
The brunette was on all fours reaching for Jason with a hand that fell into wet pieces as it moved. Jason screamed and pressed himself into the wall as if he wanted to crawl through it. He hid his face like a child ignoring the monster under his bed, but this was no child, and he knew the monsters were real.
"Help him," I whispered, and I wasn't sure which of us I was talking to.
"I shall do what I can," Jean-Claude said. I was staring at him when I heard the next words in my head. His lips never moved. "If they break the truce first, ma petite, then you are free to slaughter everyone in this room."
I stared at him, but his face betrayed nothing. Only the echo of him inside my head told me I hadn't hallucinated it. There was no time to bitch about the fact that he'd invaded my head. Later; we could argue later.
"Janos." That one word reverberated through the room until it echoed up the soles of my feet like a deep bass drum.
Janos turned to look at Jean-Claude, his skeletal face set in a pleased expression. "You rang?"
"I challenge you." The three words were bland; they fell like off-key notes jangling along my nerves. If the tone bothered Janos, you couldn't tell it.
"You cannot prevail against me," Janos said.
"That remains to be seen, does it not?" Jean-Claude asked.
Janos smiled until the skin nearly snapped. "If by some miracle you best me, what do you want?"
"Safe passage for all my people." I cleared my throat. "And the two girls."
"And if I win," Janos said, "what do I get?"
"What do you want?"
"You know what we want."
"Say it," Jean-Claude said.
"You give up your safe passage. We get you, to do with as we like."
Jean-Claude gave a small nod. "So be it." He pointed at the rotting vampires. "Get them away from my wolf."
Janos smiled. "They will not hurt him, but if you fail... I'll make a gift of him to my two beauties."
A low sound like a swallowed scream crawled from Jason's throat. The brunette's hand started the crawl down his stomach to his privates. He screamed and pushed her away, but unless he resorted to violence he was trapped. And if we broke the truce first we were dead, but if they broke the truce... Jean-Claude and Janos had moved back to the center of the room. They stood a few yards apart. Jean-Claude stood with his feet spaced as if he was bracing for a fight. Janos stood with his feet together, easy, unconcerned.
"You will lose everything, Jean-Claude; what are you up to?"
Jean-Claude just shook his head. "Challenge has been offered and accepted; what are you waiting on, Janos? Are you afraid of me at long last?"
"Afraid of you? Never, Jean-Claude. Not a hundred years ago, not a moment ago."
"Enough talk, Janos." His voice had gone low and soft, yet it carried through the entire room, and crawled up the black walls to rain down in drops of sound that were dark and anger-filled.
Janos laughed, but the sound had none of the touchable qualities of Jean-Claude's voice. "Let us dance." Silence fell so abruptly on the room I thought I'd gone deaf. Then I realized I could still hear my own heartbeat, the blood rushing in my own head. Waves of something rose between the two master vampires like heat rising off summer pavement. What poured along my skin wasn't heat, it was... power.
A whirling, rushing storm of power. I'd felt Jean-Claude go up against other vampires, and I'd never felt anything like this. My hair streamed in a wind that was coming from the two.
Jean-Claude's face was thinning down, his white skin glowing like polished alabaster. His eyes were blue flames that bled sapphire fire down every vein under his skin. His bones glowed gold. His humanity was folding away, and it wouldn't be enough. He would lose.
Unless they broke the truce first.
Kissa stood by the door, still guarding it. Her dark face was impassive. She was no help to me. The two rotted things still crawled over Jason. Only Ivy and Bruce were still standing. Bruce looked scared, Ivy looked excited. She watched the two master vamps with half-parted lips, her lower lip drawn under with concentration or excitement.