The vampire hadn't answered me, so I asked again, voice steady and low. I didn't sound like someone who was afraid. Bully for me. "What do you want?"
I felt the vampire look at me, almost as if he'd run a finger down my body. I shivered and couldn't stop. Larry crawled to me, head hanging, dripping blood as he moved.
I knelt beside him. And before I could stop myself, the stupid question popped out. "Are you all right?"
His eyes raised to me through a mask of blood. He finally said, "Nothing a few stitches wouldn't cure." He was trying to make a joke. I wanted to hug him and promise the worst was over. Never make promises you can't keep.
The vampire didn't exactly move, but something brought my attention back to him. He stood knee-deep in autumn weeds. My eyes were on a level with his belt buckle, which made him about my height. Short for a man. A white, Anglo-Saxon, twentieth-century man. The belt buckle glinted gold and was carved into a blocky, stylized human figure. The carving, like the vampire's face, was straight out of an Aztec calendar.
The urge to look upward and meet his eyes crawled over my skin. My chin had actually risen an inch or so before I realized what I was doing. Shit. The vamp was messing with my mind, and I couldn't feel it. Even now, knowing he had to be doing something to me, I couldn't sense it. I was blind and deaf just like every other tourist.
Well, maybe not every tourist. I hadn't been munched on yet, which probably meant they wanted something more than just blood. I'd be dead otherwise, and so would Larry. Of course, I was still wearing blessed crosses. What could this creature do once I was stripped of crosses? I did not want to find out.
We were alive. It meant they wanted something that we couldn't give them dead. But what?
"What in the hell do you want?"
His hand came into view. He was offering his hand to help me stand. I stood without help, putting myself a little in front of Larry.
"Tell me who your master is, girl, and I won't hurt you."
"Who else will, then?" I asked.
"Clever, but I swear you will leave here in safety if you give me the name."
"First of all, I don't have a master. I'm not even sure I have an equal." I fought the urge to glance at his face, see if he got the joke. Jean-Claude would have gotten it.
"You stand before me, making jokes?" His voice sounded surprised, nearly outraged. Good, I think.
"I don't have a master," I said. Master vampires can smell truth or lies.
"If you truly believe that, you are deluding yourself. You bear two master signs. Give me the name and I will destroy him for you. I will free you of this... problem."
I hesitated. He was older than Jean-Claude. A lot older. He might be able to kill the Master of the City. Of course, that would leave this master vampire in control of the city. He and his three helpers. Four vampires, one less than were killing people, but I was willing to bet there was a fifth vamp around here somewhere. You couldn't have that many rogue master vampires running around one medium-size city.
Any master that was slaughtering civilians would be a bad thing to have in charge of all the vampires in the area. Just call it a feeling.
I shook my head. "I can't."
"You want free of him, do you not?"
"Very much."
"Let me free you, Ms. Blake. Let me help you."
"Like you helped the man and woman you murdered?"
"I did not murder them," he said. His voice sounded very reasonable. His eyes were powerful enough to drown in but the voice wasn't as good. There was no magic to the voice. Jean-Claude's was better. Or Yasmeen's, for that matter. Nice to know that not every talent came equally with time. Ancient wasn't everything.
"So you didn't strike the fatal blow. So what? Your flunkies do your will, not their own."
"You'd be surprised how much free will we have."
"Stop it," I said.
"What?"
"Sounding so damn reasonable."