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I knew Jean-Claude was centuries old, but I'd never had such obvious proof, never had it shoved in my face. The portrait bothered me for another reason. It made me wonder if Jean-Claude had lied about his age.
A sound made me turn. Jason had slumped into one of the chairs. Jean-Claude stood behind me. He'd taken off his jacket and his curling black hair spilled across the shoulders of his crimson shirt. The shirt cuffs were long and tight at the wrist, held by three antique jet beads just like the high neck of the shirt. Without the jacket to distract the eye, the pale oval of skin framed by the red cloth gleamed. The cloth covered his nipples but left his belly button bare and drew the eye to the top of his black pants. Or maybe it just drew me. It was a bad idea to be here. He was just as dangerous as the assassin, maybe more. Dangerous in ways I had no words for.
He glided towards me in his black boots. I watched him walk closer like a deer caught in headlights. I expected him to flirt or ask how I liked the painting. Instead, he said, "Tell me of Robert. The police said he was dead, but they know nothing. You have seen the body. Is he truly dead?"
His voice was thick with concern, worry. It caught me completely off guard. "They took his heart."
"If it is only a stake through the heart, he might survive if it was removed."
I shook my head. "The heart was taken out completely. We couldn't find it in the house or the yard."
Jean-Claude stopped. He slumped suddenly into one of the chairs, staring at nothing, or nothing I could see. "Then he is truly gone." His voice held sorrow the way it sometimes held laughter, so that I felt his words like a cold, grey rain.
"You treated Robert like dirt. Why all this weeping and wailing?"
He looked at me. "I am not weeping."
"But you treated him badly."
"I was his master. If I had treated him kindly, he would have seen it as a sign of weakness. He would have challenged me and I would have killed him. Do not criticize things that you do not understand." There was anger in that last sentence, enough to brush heat along my skin.
Normally, it would have pissed me off, but tonight... "I apologize. You're right. I don't understand. I didn't think you gave a damn about Robert unless he could further your power."
"Then you do not understand me at all, ma petite. He was my companion for over a century. After a century, I would mourn even an enemy's passing. Robert was not my friend, but he was mine. Mine to punish, mine to reward, mine to protect. I have failed him."
He stared up at me, eyes gone blue and alien. "I am grateful to you for seeing to Monica. The last thing I can do for Robert is to tend his wife and child. They will want for nothing."
He stood suddenly in one smooth motion. "Come, ma petite. I will show you to our room." I didn't like the our, but I didn't argue. This new, improved, emotional Jean-Claude had me confused.
"Who are the other two in the painting?"
He glanced at it. "Julianna and Asher. She was his human servant. The three of us traveled together for nearly twenty years."
Good. He couldn't give me some bullshit about the clothing being costumes now. "You're too young to have been a Musketeer."
He stared at me, face carefully blank, giving nothing away. "Whatever do you mean, ma petite?"
"Don't even try. The clothing is from the 1600s, around the time of Dumas's The Three Musketeers. When we first met, you told me you were two hundred and ten. Eventually, I figured out you were lying, that you were closer to three hundred."
"If Nikolaos had known my true age, she might have killed me, ma petite."
"Yeah, the old Master of the City was a real bitch. But she's dead. Why still lie?"
"You mean why am I lying to you?" he said.
I nodded. "Yeah, that's what I mean."
He smiled. "You are a necromancer, ma petite. I would have thought you could judge my age without my help."
I tried to read his face and couldn't. "You've always been hard to read; you know that."
"So glad I can be a challenge in some area."
I let that go. He knew exactly how much of a challenge he was, but for the first time in a long time, I was bothered. Telling a vamp's age was one of my talents, not an exact science to be sure, but one I was good at. I'd never been off by this much. "A century older, my, my."
"Are you so sure that it is only a century?"
I stared at him. I let his power beat across my skin, rolled the feel of it around in my head. "Pretty sure."
He smiled. "Do not frown so, ma petite. Being able to hide my age is one of my talents. I pretended to be a hundred years older when Asher was my companion. It allowed us freedom to wander through the lands of other masters."
"What made you stop trying to pass for older?"
"Asher needed help, and I was not master enough to help him." He looked up at the portrait. "I... humbled myself to gain him aid."
"Why?"
"The Church had a theory that vampires could be cured by holy items. They bound Asher with holy items and silver chains. They used holy water on him, drop by drop, trying to save his soul."
I stared up at that handsome, smiling face. I'd been bitten by a master vampire once upon a time and had the wound cleansed with holy water. It had felt like a red-hot brand was being shoved into my skin, like all the blood in my body had turned to boiling oil. I had vomited and screamed and thought myself very brave for not passing out altogether. That had been one bite mark, one day. Having what amounted to acid dripped on you until you died was in the top five ways not to go out.
"What happened to the girl, Julianna?"
"She was burned as a witch."
"Where were you?"
"I had taken a ship to see my mother. She was dying. I was on my way back when I heard Asher's call. I could not get there in time. I swear by all that is holy or unholy that I tried. I rescued Asher, but he never forgave me."
"He's not dead?" I asked.
"No."
"How hurt was he?"
"Until I met Sabin I thought Asher's scars the worst injury I'd ever known a vampire to survive."
"Why did you hang the painting if it bothers you this much?"
He sighed and looked at me. "Asher sent it as a present, to congratulate me for becoming Master of the City. The three of us were companions, almost family. Asher and I were true friends, both masters, both of near equal power, both in love with Julianna. She was devoted to him, but I had her favor as well."
"You mean a menage a trois?"
He nodded.
"Asher doesn't hold a grudge?"
"Oh, no, he holds a grudge. If the council would allow it, he would have come with the picture and had his revenge."
"To kill you?"
Jean-Claude smiled. "Asher always had a strong sense of irony, ma petite. He petitioned the council for your life, not mine."
My eyes widened. "What did I ever do to him?"
"I killed his human servant; he kills mine. Justice."
I stared back up at the handsome face. "The council said no?"
"Indeed."
"You have any other old enemies running around?"
Jean-Claude gave a weak smile. "Many, ma petite, but none in town at the moment."
I looked up at those smiling faces. I didn't know quite how to phrase it, but said it anyway. "You all look so young."
"I am physically the same, ma petite."
I shook my head. "Maybe young isn't the word I want. Maybe naive."
He smiled. "By the time this painting was made, ma petite, naive was not a word that described me, either."
"Fine, have it your way." I looked at him, studying his face. He was beautiful, but there was something in his eyes that wasn't in the painting, some level of sorrow or terror. Something I had no word for, but it was there just the same. A vampire may not wrinkle up, but living a couple of centuries leaves its mark. Even if it's only a shadow in the eyes, a tightness around the mouth.
I turned to Jason, who was still slumped in the chair. "Does he give these little history lessons often?"
"Only to you," Jason said.
"You never ask questions?" I asked.
"I'm just his pet. You don't answer questions for your pet."
"And that doesn't bother you?"
Jason smiled. "Why should I care about the painting? The woman's dead, so I can't have sex with her. Why should I care?"
I felt Jean-Claude move past me, but couldn't follow with my eyes. His hand was a blur. The chair clattered to the floor, spilling Jason with it. Blood showed at his mouth.
"Never speak of her again in such a manner."
Jason touched the back of his hand to his mouth and came away with blood. "Whatever you say." He licked the blood off his hand with long slow movements of his tongue.
I stared from one to the other of them. "You are both crazy."
"Not crazy, ma petite, merely not human."
"Being a vampire doesn't give you the right to treat people like that. Richard doesn't beat people up."
"Which is why he will never hold the pack."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Even if he swallows his high morals and kills Marcus, he will not be cruel enough to frighten the rest. He will be challenged again and again. Unless he begins slaughtering people, he will eventually die."
"Slapping people around won't keep him alive," I said.
"It would help. Torture works well, but I doubt that Richard would have the stomach for it."
"I couldn't stomach it."
"But you litter the ground with bodies, ma petite. Killing is the best deterrent of all."
I was too tired to be having this conversation. "It's 4:30 in the morning. I want to go to bed."
Jean-Claude smiled. "Why, ma petite, you are not usually so eager."
"You know what I mean," I said.
Jean-Claude took a gliding step towards me. He didn't touch me, but he stood very close and looked at me. "I know exactly what you mean, ma petite."
That brought heat in a rush up my neck. The words were innocent. He made them sound intimate, obscene.
Jason righted the chair and stood, licking the blood off the corner of his mouth. He said nothing, merely watched us like a well-trained dog, seen and not heard.
Jean-Claude took a step back. I felt him move, but couldn't follow it with my eyes. There had been a time only months ago that it would have looked like magic, like he'd just appeared a few feet away.
He held his hand out towards me. "Come, ma petite. Let us retire for the day."
I'd held his hand before, so why was I left standing, staring, like he was offering me the forbidden fruit that once tasted would change everything? He was nearly four hundred years old. Jean-Claude's face from all those long years ago was smiling down at me, and there he stood with almost the same smile. If I'd ever needed proof, I had it. He'd struck Jason down like a dog he didn't much like. And still he was so beautiful, it made my chest ache.
I wanted to take his hand. I wanted to run my hands over the red shirt, explore that open oval of flesh. I folded my hands over my stomach and shook my head.
His smile widened until a hint of fang showed. "You have held my hand before, ma petite. Why is tonight any different?" His voice held an edge of mockery.
"Just show me the room, Jean-Claude."
He let his hand drop to his side, but he didn't seem offended. If anything, he seemed pleased, which irritated me.
"Bring Richard through when he arrives, Jason, but announce him before he comes. I don't want to be interrupted."
"Anything you say," Jason said. He smirked at us, at me, a knowing look on his face. Did everyone and their wolf believe I was sleeping with Jean-Claude? Of course, maybe it was a case of the lady protesting too much. Maybe.
"Just bring Richard to the room when he comes," I said. "You won't be interrupting anything." I glanced at Jean-Claude while I said the last.
He laughed, that warm touchable sound of his that wove over my skin like silk. "Even your resistance to temptation grows thin, ma petite."
I shrugged. I would have liked to argue, but he'd smell a lie. Even a run-of-the-mill werewolf can smell desire. Jason wasn't run-of-the-mill. So everyone in the room knew I was hot for Jean-Claude. So what?
"No is one of my favorite words, Jean-Claude. You should know that by now."
The laughter faded from his face, leaving his blue, blue eyes gleaming, but not with humor. Something darker and more sure of itself looked out his eyes. "I survive on hope alone, ma petite."
Jean-Claude parted the black and white drapes to reveal the bare, grey stones that the room was made of. A large hallway stretched deeper into the labyrinth. Torchlight gleamed beyond the electricity of the living room. He stood there, backlit against the flame and the soft modern lights. Some trick of light and shadow plunged half his face into darkness and brought a pinprick glow to his eyes. Or maybe it wasn't a trick of the light. Maybe it was just him.
"Shall we go, ma petite?"
I walked into that outer darkness. He didn't try to touch me as I moved past him. I'd have given him a brownie point for resisting the urge, except I knew him too well. He was just biding his time. Touching me now might piss me off. Later, it might not. Even I couldn't guarantee when the mood would be right.
Jean-Claude moved ahead of me. He glanced back over his shoulder. "After all, ma petite, you do not know the way to my bedroom."
"I've been there once," I said.
"Carried unconscious and dying. It hardly counts." He glided down the hall. He put a little extra sway to his walk, somewhat like Jason had done on the stairs, but where it had been funny with the werewolf, Jean-Claude made it utterly seductive.
"You just wanted to walk in front so I'd have to stare at your butt."
He spoke without turning around. "No one makes you stare at me, ma petite, not even me."
And that was the truth. The horrible truth. If in some dark part of my heart I hadn't been attracted to him from the beginning, I'd have killed him long ago. Or tried to. I had more legal vampire kills than any other vampire hunter in the country. They didn't call me the Executioner for nothing. So how did I end up being safer in the depths of the Circus of the Damned with the monsters than above ground with the humans? Because somewhere along the line, I didn't kill the monster I should have.
That particular monster was gliding up the hallway ahead of me. And he still had the cutest butt I'd ever seen on a dead man.
