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“Your father’s name.”
I hesitated. The only people in the world who knew my father’s name were Cross and Mother Mercy. “You’re certain that you know this demon’s name?”
He nodded soberly. “Very, Miss Morell.”
I snatched a sushi roll with my fingers and dipped it in the brown sauce and a bit of wasabi before I ate it, chewing slowly while I stared at the vampire. Finally, my mouth was empty, and I said, “Montaine. Stephen Montaine was my father.”
He sat up, then leaned back, crossing his arms. He definitely knew that name. Well, lots of people did, which is why I didn’t bring it up. He’d been a senator and a general at different times in his career. “Jarzharad. Jarzharad the Subtle is the name of the demon with the mark you gave me.”
He took a sushi roll and leaned forward, putting it in my open mouth before I could ask him more questions, so many questions that he knew the answers to, but he apparently wanted to torture me before he answered anything. I chewed and then opened my mouth to ask, but again with the stuffing of my mouth with sushi. Okay, I could cope with this kind of torture. Mm. Such good sushi.
“Miss Morell,” he said as I chewed the second roll. “May I offer you a suggestion? Leave it be. That demon has been trying to eradicate your family name for a hundred years. You are your father’s legacy, and the demon is defeated as long as you live. If he doesn’t know that you exist, he can’t kill you, but as soon as he is aware of you…” His eyes glittered dangerously.
I shrugged. “If he’s after me, then I don’t have to hunt him.” I wrinkled my nose. “No, I’m much more interested in being hunter than prey, but I will hunt him.”
“You’ll hunt him? Interesting. And you’re experienced at hunting high level demons, Miss Morell?”
“I’ll do the proper research on the topic before I go after him.”
He nodded soberly. “That’s very reassuring. Why did I doubt you?”
I scowled at him and his unsubtle sarcasm. “I am not incapable.”
He smiled slowly, showing me his fangs. “Do you know what I think, Miss Morell? I think that you could use a demonstration of the real dangers that demons such as the one you would like to hunt presents to you and this world. To destroy him, you’d have to summon him, and that can’t be done without more blood than even I, a notoriously vicious monster, can stomach. A virgin sacrifice is de riguer, Miss Morell.”
“I am fully willing to be the virgin sacrifice if it brings down the monster that destroyed my father.”
He blinked at me, then sat back with a strange smile. “Ah, then I won’t offer any other objections. Happy hunting.” He raised his glass, still studying me like that, like I was a chopped off arm that was growing back into something interesting.
I ate two more sushi rolls until suddenly he moved, thrusting his fork towards the space between me and the doorway. I blinked as the intruder came into focus. He was a vampire, handsome enough to draw stares, dark hair, dark eyes with a ring of red that said he’d recently fed but was still hungry.
“This room is taken,” I said coolly, frowning at him.
He cocked his head and pushed the fork away from his throat before he smiled at the Scholar while taking a red velvet chair that had been on the side and putting it next to the table. “My dear, I am the Marshall of Song, and you awakened me with your fire and singing. I’m here to offer you the gift of immortality.”
I stared at him, then gave the Scholar an incredulous look. I mouthed, ‘is he serious?’ before turning back to the stranger. “No, thank you. I don’t want your gift of, er, immortality, so you can be on your way.” I gave the Scholar another look, and he gave me a slight frown before he leaned over the table, demanding Marshall’s attention.
“You’re intruding. The lady isn’t interested in your gifts or your company. Leave now before things grow unpleasant.”
Marshall frowned at him. “She woke me most pleasantly. I must reward her with something.” He turned back to me with a sweet smile that belied his red eyes. “I’ve woken to screaming, chanting, weeping, but never singing before, not like that.” He looked me up and down, pausing on the fabric of my dress. “I didn’t expect a musician to be dressed so finely. Still, I must bestow you with the greatest gift I have, and that is immortality. I always offer those who waken me with immortality, which is why they do it, I imagine. You didn’t intend to awaken me?”
I shrugged. “Sorry, it was just a routine musical maintenance sweep through your neighborhood. It needed it. If Sing fell down on you, you probably wouldn’t ever wake up again. Come to think of it, if you’re serious about owing me, you could bring snacks.”
He stared at me with his eyes pulsing red in a way that made me look at the Scholar quickly. Was the vampire trying to use compulsion on me?
“Snacks? I don’t understand. You wish me to provide you with masses of sweet maidens to drain once I’ve turned you and made you my eternal mate?”
I almost gagged at the image that evoked. I scooted my chair away from him so that the Scholar was between us. “No. Snacks at the music hall on Saturdays. If you want to show support for your city musicians, that’s where you should put it, not on the blood of maidens. We’ve never spoken, and you’re offering to make me your eternal mate? Don’t you think that’s a bit forward?”
“You probably wouldn’t survive,” the Scholar offered with a frown at Marshall. “His other first-borns would come to challenge you and drink your blood, which would have his blood, and therefore give them greater strength.”
Marshall sniffed at him with a pout. “You take the fun out of awaking.”
“Thank you. The lady is in the company of the Scholar this evening and any other evening you feel compelled to give her your gratitude.”
The new vampire narrowed his eyes at him, lips pursed like he’d eaten a lemon. “What brings The Great Scholar to Singsong City? Not your usual haunt, is it?”
“I’m in possession of the lab beneath the Library of Antiquities. I consider all of its inhabitants under my protection.”
