A Taste Of The Nightlife Part 19

"Ilona." Subsonic warnings filled Anatole's voice and the rest of my goose b.u.mps came out to get a better listen. "This is not reasonable."

But Ilona waved words and warnings away. "It is entirely reasonable, Anatole. The little girl needs her eyes opened."

"What are you talking about?"

"I am talking about this dangerous navet that daybloods like you carry about."

"Like me?" She wanted to bite Brendan because of me? "You got it in for chefs?"

"The families." Ilona spat the words. "The 'loved ones' who can't let go when the transition is complete. You want so much to believe your brother has not changed, that he is still the living high school boy he used to be."

Wait. What? How is this suddenly about Chet? "I accept what my brother is."

That was atical error. I knew it as soon as I saw Ilona's big, fangy smile. "If you truly accept our kind, then you will not mind seeing this. You are, as you remind me, a chef. Why would you be bothered by the sight of someone enjoying a meal?"

"I won't do it with Charlotte in the room," said Brendan flatly.

"Then we have nothing more to discuss." Ilona draped herself gracefully over the nearest chaise longue, revealing a pair of black stiletto shoes on her feet. How many decades of practice do you need before you can glide in stilettos?

"Ilona, you are being ridiculous." I had thought Anatole would be angry, but he just sounded tired. The kind of tired your father turned on when you were six years old and it was nine o'clock and you still wouldn't get undressed for bed.

Father? I looked at Anatole. I looked at Ilona. Father?

"I'm being ridiculous?" Ilona rounded on him. "You're tailing around after a Maddox, playing boy detective, and I'm the one being ridiculous?" Rage poured off her in waves. I wanted to run. I needed to run. There was the door. Time to go.

Except that would mean leaving Brendan alone with two vampires. That this was enough to make me hold my ground made me feel slightly better about myself.

Not that Ilona was paying any attention to Brendan or me. "You could be magnificent, Anatole. A leader, a king among our kind!" She spread her arms wide. "But what do you choose to do with yourself? You consort with a creature who would not hesitate to kill you. You write trivia in a squalid little paper for fools who like to call themselves UV-challenged, and you say I'm being ridiculous!"

"Excuse me." Brendan cut in. "It's my blood you want, and I'm not objecting. But," he added, "because it is my blood, you answer all my questions as well as Charlotte's."

Ilona's eyes narrowed. "You do not set the conditions here, warlock."

Brendan did not look away. He undid the cuff of his b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rt and rolled it back, just enough to expose his forearm with its strong tracery of veins. A thin, straight scar ran from his wrist up his forearm and disappeared under his sleeve.

He held his arm out.

Anatole smiled, and I got the feeling he was impressed. "Your move, Ilona."

I thought she'd refuse. I hoped she'd refuse. Whatever Brendan was playing at, this game was not safe. I didn't care what magics he could pull out or how he thought he could s.h.i.+eld himself. This wasn't like giving to the Red Cross. This was the Feeding and it was different.

Ilona stared at Brendan's wrist and licked her lips. I started forward, but Anatole gripped my shoulder, holding me back as effectively as if I'd been leashed to an iron post. Brendan went down on one knee in front of Ilona. She took his arm in her graceful, dead-white hands, running her fingers over his veins.

"No." I struggled, and Anatole's fingers dug in hard. "It's not worth it!"

No one was listening to me. Brendan's attention was all on Ilona. Ilona opened her mouth, fangs glittering in the streetlight.

But before she could get any further, the shadows s.h.i.+fted. Gla.s.s shattered and a silver missile shot between us and thudded on the carpet. I had just enough time to see an letered canister roll to a stop.

Pop!

Yellow-white gas boiled into the air, carrying with it the unmistakable scent of garlic. Anatole stumbled toward the window, hand clamped over his mouth. More gla.s.s shattered and the light was gone. Two dark figures swung in through the window.

They had stakes, and crosses.

18.

Die, vampire!"

Anatole threw himself backward. The two ninja-style silhouettes hurtled past and landed in the center of the carpet, stakes and crosses held high. Ilona snarled. Ninja Silhouette One charged her, but Anatole snaked his long arms around its waist and flung it aside. The Ninja Silhouette howled in outrage and slammed against the wall hard enough to shake the chandelier. The vampires' contagious fear and anger swirled through the air like the garlic smoke, so my throat burned as much from the need to scream as from the rank gas.

Brendan roared something and tackled NS2. The garlic grenade popped again and another wave of gas filled the room. Anatole hit his knees, hands pressed tight against his eyes.

I dove for the spitting canister, wobbling badly on my stupid borrowed heels, and scooped it up. Pain bit hard through both palms.

"Hot!" I dodged Brendan, who was sprawled full length on the floor, grappling with NS2. "Hot coming through!" I hurled the garlic grenade out the shattered window.

"What the h.e.l.l!" came the New York echo.

"Sorry!" I swung back around toward the fight.

Ninja Silhouette One towered over Anatole, who was now on hands and knees. Ilona screamed in Russian.

"Light!" Brendan struggled to hang on to NS2's ankle while he waved his smartphone in the air. NS2 kicked free of Brendan and grabbed Ilona by the knees, toppling her. Above us the chandelier shuddered, clinked and flared to life. I and the vampires all yelled as the sudden light hit our eyes.

Now I could see faces. Margot-Ninja Silhouette One-held Ilona down with one hand and wielded an industrialsized silver crucifix with the other. Ian-NS2-had the stake.

Chet stood by the curtains, crouched and ready to spring.

Chet stood by the curtains.

Chet.

Brendan stared wildly at his cat-suited relatives and gave what I can only a.s.sume was the traditional Maddox family greeting.

"You morons!"

Chet straightened up and avoided my pedestrian-in-the-headlights stare.

Anatole didn't waste time on salutations. He snagged the neck of Ian's unitard, dragging him away from Ilona.

"What do you think you're doing?" demanded Brendan.

"Rescuing you, you idiot!" Ian clamped onto Anatole's wrist and threw himself sideways so they both rolled across the floor in a ma.s.s of flailing limbs and multilingual curses.

I still couldn't move.

"Rescuing!" shouted Brendan.

Vamp and vamp hunter banged against the metal desk legs and came to a halt with Ian very much on top. He brandished his stake and grinned like a teenager about to get laid. Ilona scrambled to reach under her desk. I jerked back into motion and jumped to stop her, but I collided with Chet hard enough to bounce, and lost my balance on those stupid, stupid heels. My brother caught me by the shoulders before I could fall and grimaced apologetically.

"You were getting bitten, Brendan!" Margot dove toward Ian and Anatole.

"You followed me?" Brendan grabbed Margot and hauled her away from that tomcat fight.

In a split second Anatole rolled Ian under again. He came up kneeling on Ian's chest and holding the stake under the warlock's tufted chin. I gotta say, Ian now looked considerably less enthusiastic about being on the floor.

"You were having us followed!" Margot tried to yank her arm out of her brother's grip.

"Brendan! He'll kill me!" squeaked Ian.

"No, he won't. Unlike you two, Sevarin's not a moron."

"Thank you for the compliment." The words would have sounded much smoother if Anatole hadn't bared his fangs at Ian right then. "But I do feel grievous bodily harm is a viable option at this time."

The door flew open. A pair of male vamps in black turtlenecks and slacks charged in. Now I knew why Ilona had gone for her desk. Whoever thought of a vampire office with a panic b.u.t.ton?

"Kill them!" Ilona drew herself up straight. "They laid hands on me!"

Chet shoved me behind him, but he didn't need to bother because Anatole turned his head to look at Ilona. May I never see such a look leveled at me. It froze the two new vamps right in their tracks, and even Ilona seemed to shrivel.

Slowly, Anatole stood up and backed away so Ian could scramble to his feet. Even from where I stood peeking behind my brother's back, I could see the balding warlock tremble.

"Yours, I believe." Anatole held out the stake to Ian.

"Anatole . . ." began Ilona. You could have heard the threat in Hoboken.

"No." Anatole brushed his suit coat down. "Despite appearances, Ilona, you are not a moron either. If three dead Maddoxes are found in your theater, you will start a war."

Vampires do not stare daggers at each other. They stare AK-47 full automatics and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

"Ilona, I have reached my limit," said Anatole. "If you do not care for your personal safety, you might at least remember how many of your secrets I hold, and that I have access to more kinds of media than you ever knew existed. The Paranormal Squad would be very intrigued by your latest moneymaking scheme, and your separatist movement friends would be most interested, I'm sure, to know about your current lover." He looked right at Chet.

My voice, which had abandoned me about the same time as my power of voluntary movement, came rus.h.i.+ng back.

"Lover!" I grabbed Chet by the ear and dragged him around to face me. "She's your girlfriend?"

"Ow!" answered Chet. "Charlotte! Ow!"

"You said you didn't know her!"

The color left Iona's face so fast that even her lipstick turned pale. "You wouldn't-" she started saying to Anatole. Then my words caught up with her, and she wheeled toward Chet. "You told her what?"

"Ow!" said Chet. "I told her . . . Ow! Charlotte, let go!"

"Charlotte, let go," suggested Brendan.

Reluctantly I did. Chet backed off, rubbing his ear and looking around wildly to find where he'd left his dignity.

"I'm sorry," said Chet, to me and then to Ilona. "I thought it was for the best, considering . . ."

"Considering what?" Ilona and I both demanded. Then we eyed each other, freaked out by being even this close to the same side. At least, I was freaked out. Ilona just looked ready to chew iron and spit nails.

Anatole, however, was not interested in watching Chet's attempt to weasel out of this one.

"Ilona, I am taking the Maddoxes and Chef Caine out of here," he said with a seriousness that pressed hard against my brain. "You and I will discuss this evening later, in private, and in detail."

Ilona drew herself up to her full height. "Get out of here." She said from so deep in the vocal dead zone that my skin tried to crawl off my body. "All of you, get out!"

"Ilona." Chet stepped toward her, hands out. Ilona bared her fangs at him.

"I would do as she says." Anatole cast a significant glance toward the vamp stagehands who flanked their boss.

No good reason to argue presented itself to me, or to Chet either, evidently, because he slumped toward the door. Margot and Ian seemed less convinced.

"You're just going to walk out of a theater full of vampires?" Margot planted her fists on her hips and glowered at Brendan.

"No, I'm going to run out," replied Brendan reasonably. "Are you coming, or do I get to explain to Grandfather how you committed suicide?"

This seemed to finally reach the other Maddoxes, so they didn't struggle too much when Brendan grabbed each of them by an arm and dragged them forward. Anatole held the door. I waited for Chet. He'd stopped at the threshold to look back at Ilona, searching for words to charm her down off her mountain of anger. But judging from the cold look on her face, Ilona wasn't, excuse the expression, going to bite.

Under other circ.u.mstances I would have liked her better for that. Right now, I was just interested in getting my idiotic, undead brother out of there so I could yell at him properly. Maybe I could borrow one of Margot's stakes and save us all a world of trouble. Because Ilona was Chet's girlfriend, Ilona had gone with him to Post Mortem, where they had talked to Bert Shelby, separately and together, and fang-for-rent Julie Jones was downstairs somewhere. This was all adding up to Something Very Bad.

Chet must have realized Ilona was not going to budge and he walked out behind Anatole and the Maddoxes, with me right on his heels. I felt Ilona's anger burning through the closed door all the way down the stairs.

On the main floor, the vamp stagehands were striking the show, all of them too busy to pay much attention to our strange little procession. We made it outside without being molested, although I did pull an Orpheus and look back once. I saw nothing, but I knew Ilona was there, making sure we left, waiting for us to try something, anything at all.

Anatole closed the stage door firmly behind us. In front of us, Brendan's driver climbed out of the car, cell phone in hand.

"It's okay, Kyle," said Brendan. "Just a few party crashers." I could tell Chet was not happy to be included in the sweep of Brendan's gaze. Good. I wanted him unhappy.

"Party crashers. Right." Ian yanked himself away from Brendan. "You go into a vampire lair, with a vamp and a vamp-lover, and by the time we get up the fire escape, you're on your knees and about to get drained. I know it's a huge stretch, but we thought you needed help!"

"Oh, and by the way, that guy you put on our tail?" Margot smoothed her ninja suit down. I found I had enough unoccupied brain cells in my trivia lobe to wonder what kind of foundation garment she was wearing. Because that thing was pretty much painted on and she didn't show so much as a panty line. "You're going to need to bail him out. He got picked up for indecent exposure."

"You didn't," said Brendan.

Ian smirked. "That was Margot's idea. You should hire uglier private d.i.c.ks."

"Thanks so much for that image," I muttered.