After leaving Ash, they'd gone downstairs to gather up Fury. One minute she'd been telling Amanda that she'd call her and the next, they were inside another house.
"I really wish you'd give me some warning before you do that," she said to Vane as she looked around to get her bearings.
They were in a huge living room that was twice as large as the one in Kyrian's home. The whole house was completely dark and tomblike. Sterile. Cold.
The room had expensive, hand-carved mahogany paneling and was filled with more antiques than Bride had ever seen in one place before. Not to mention the marble floor with its intricate Roman-style pattern. It was like touring a European castle. Or a mansion. Everything she could see bled good aristocratic breeding and taste. Unlike Kyrian's house, there was nothing modern or comfortable here. No stuffed sofas, no television, no obvious phones or computers. Nothing. Even the books lining the exquisite bookshelves appeared to be leather-bound antiques. The sofa was obviously from the Georgian era and had very little padding underneath the burgundy fabric.
But the strangest thing of all was the statuary. Statues of two women who appeared to be nude Roman nymphs flanked the winding staircase. The fact that they were antiques wasn't what was odd, it was the bright red pasties that covered their stone-white nipples.
"What in the world?" she asked.
Fury burst out laughing as he saw them.
"Jeez, Vane, call before you drop in. You're lucky I didn't shoot your ass."
Bride turned to see a tall, darkly handsome man enter the room. He had shoulder-length black hair, sharp dark brown eyes, and about three days' worth of beard.
Dressed in a loud orange Hawaiian shirt and ripped jeans, he carried himself like a man who knew he could kill anyone who came near him.
"Is he the vampire?" Bride asked in a low tone.
"No," Vane said as he looked at the man in disbelief. "He's Mafia. Otto, what the hell are you doing here? Dressed like that? What the hell happened to your clothes? You look like you're morphing into Nick Gautier."
"Suffering in eternal damnation," Otto said, scratching at his beard as he neared them. "They transferred my ass over here, against my wishes I might add, to serve Dickhead Rex because he has to have someone who speaks Latin and Italian. God forbid the man have a normal plebeian Squire who just speaks English. Oh no, we must have one with breeding." Otto sounded much like Alfred Hitchcock with that last word.
"So why are you dressed like Nick?" Vane asked.
"Just to piss him off. It's truly the only thing that keeps me sane around here."
Vane burst out laughing. "Let me guess, you the red pasties man?"
"Oh, hell yeah. I can't wait till he gets up and freaks over that one." Otto deepened his already low baritone voice and added in an accent that was almost Italian but not quite, "Do not touch nor even breathe upon the statuary, Squire.
Unlike you, it's priceless." His voice went back to normal. "Nah, priceless will be his face when he sees it tonight."
This time it was Fury who laughed. "I don't know you," he said, walking toward Otto with his hand extended, "but I can already tell we're going to be friends.
Fury Kattalakis."
"Otto Carvalletti." He shook Fury's hand, then looked back and forth between the two wolves. "You two related?"
"Brothers," Vane said.
"Cool," Otto said, turning toward Bride with a charming smile. "You must be Bride." He took her hand as well and she noted he had a black spiderweb tattoo over the back of his knuckles. "Welcome to the madness that is our world, my lady, though personally, I think you're insane for wanting to be here."
Otto kissed her hand and bowed low before her. The action elicited a deep growl from Vane which Otto chose to ignore. "By the way, Bride, you can relax. I am technically human, though my multitude of siblings would deny it. And barring the pasties, I'm really not some sicko. When you meet my boss, you'll fully understand why I have to rattle his cage."
Otto headed for the stairs. "If one of you good wolves would howl, I could do the whole 'the children of the night, what music they make' speech." He looked back at them when neither Vane nor Fury howled. "Or not. Okay, mental note to self that the wolves have no sense of humor or have never read Dracula or seen one of the movies. No problem. Follow me and I'll show you to your rooms.
One quick rundown of the rules. We try to be as quiet as possible in the daylight so as not to wake Count Penicula."
"Penicula?" Bride asked.
"My pet insult for Valerius. Much like the good Roman general who owns this house, it's a combination of penis and Dracula."
Bride would have laughed, but had a feeling it would only encourage Otto to be bad.
They followed Otto up the stairs.