The Vampire Narcise rd-3 Page 5

  At the very least, it would provide some very stimulating activity.

  Giordan looked out over the glittering lights. There were gently rocking carriage lanterns, and higher, stable street-lights. The glow of oil lamps, from bright yellow to dull amber, shone from unshuttered windows. The City of Light, named for being the center of education and enlightenment since the medieval monks built their narrow streets, was a more apt nickname than most realized.

  He was high enough, here on the silent rooftop, that the shouts and cries from below were indiscernible, mingling with the low hoot of owls and the distant rattle of bridles and carriages. Bonfires blazed in red-orange pockets as spectators waited, reserving their places for the morning’s executions. Giordan fancied he could even see the wicked gleam of the guillotine blade in its large black frame.

  He wondered how long this madness would last, how long the likes of Robespierre and Hébert would escape a similar fate. Giordan had lived more than a hundred years, and one thing he’d come to realize was that fanaticism and violence had a way of turning on to those who wielded them.

  A cool breeze ruffled his curls as he lifted a glass to sip his favorite Armagnac. Warm and pungent, the brandy’s potency was a different experience than that of the lifeblood he’d enjoyed earlier this evening, courtesy of Damaris. Not for sustenance did he enjoy the liquor, but for pleasure and weight and taste, and the different sort of looseness it gave him.

  So it was for the Dracule: when they ate cheese or fruit or pastries, or any sort of food, or partook of wine or ale, it was purely for pleasure. Texture, taste, scent. A reminder of their enjoyment from mortal days, a social activity. But not at all necessary.

  He allowed the brandy to settle on his tongue, swirling it thoughtfully in tandem with a myriad of thoughts, a spectrum of emotions. A burst of laughter erupted below, coming from one of his balconies on a lower floor. Ah, good. His guests were enjoying themselves.

  What more could a man ask?

  Friends, companionship, social engagements… He was rarely alone. He need never be lonely.

  Yet…he’d escaped from his own lavish party to find solitude on the private rooftop. Potted lemon and orange trees, surrounded by luminaries, released their scent into the breeze. A long ledge, planted with rosemary and thyme, contained the low bushes as they sprouted fragrantly. There was a bench if he chose to sit, and even a small pit should he wish to burn the neatly tied fagot resting in it. A fat beetle scuttled across the edge of the bench and Giordan smashed it with his boot.

  Pity that he could only utilize the space once the sun went down, for he wondered how different Paris would appear in the daylight. What the creamy rows of houses and their peaked roofs would look like, neat and perpendicular and shoved together like rows of pointed teeth, knit together like the patterned stitches of a shawl.

  Perhaps if he had such an unobstructed view, he might see La Chapelle-Saint-Denis from here: the place of his origin, of his birth.

  Not his literal birth. He wasn’t certain where that had been; in the countryside, he suspected. But the place where he’d lived—no, no, where he’d existed. Merely existed.

  Those memories still pierced him, still caused his throat to close up. Still, more often than he cared to admit, had him waking, desperate, in the middle of the day, wondering if there would be enough bread for dinner or a place to sleep. Remembering the scrap of wool he tried to huddle beneath during the snows. Fighting off the memory of rough hands and the stink of unwashed men unlacing their breeches, shoving him into dark alleys.

  Here he was, rooftops and decades away from those days, from his own Terror.

  And, here in Le Marais, only a few streets from a new obsession: Narcise Moldavi.

  A shadow moved on an adjacent rooftop across the way, but he’d already sensed the cat. Elegant and slinky, padding four-footed across the ridge, it turned and looked at him with knowing blue-gray eyes. The moon stroked its pale fur with a hint of blue and silver, leaving the creature to look almost luminous.

  Giordan paused with the glass halfway to his mouth and lowered it, watching. Waiting.

  The cat’s long tail twitched and it gave a low meow, as if to taunt him.

  But there was a street—albeit a narrow one—five stories below, between his balcony and the cat’s roof peak. That was far enough that Giordan wasn’t overly affected by the feline’s presence. This was just about as close as he could get to a cat now without becoming weak or even paralyzed, a fact that he despised.

  His only friend from those years living hand to mouth, dirty and cold, had been a large, fat orange tabby with yellow eyes. When things had started to change, when he’d had two sous to rub together, and then four clinking in his pocket, and then eight and then they began to multiply faster than Giordan could believe, Chaton (a decidedly uncreative name to be sure) had been with him.

  The night Lucifer visited, deep in Giordan’s dreams—or perhaps they had been nightmares—Chaton had been curled next to him on the bed, purring. This was long after Giordan had bought his own well-appointed home, with the largest, softest goosedown mattresses he could find, after his incredible financial luck had taken hold. And so it was that, when Giordan awakened the next morning after a hazy, dark dream in which the Devil had promised him immortality and power and even more riches, the first thing he saw was Chaton.

  And that, horribly enough, was also the last time he would pet or hold or come near the companionable feline.

  For, along with life everlasting and the requirement of fresh blood to live, along with the Mark of the Devil like evil black roots on his back, Giordan had also acquired his own personal Asthenia. His Achilles’ heel.

  Each of the Dracule had a specific weakness, the proximity of which tightened the lungs and weighted the limbs, making one feel as if they were trying to slosh through water. The nearer it got, the more helpless one became until, at the mere touch of the item, one felt as if one were being branded.

  Thus, Giordan, who’d given up death and age, had also given up his pet to become his Asthenia as soon as he laid eyes on Chaton that morning.

  It was a sacrifice he bitterly regretted, a hundred fourteen years later.

  He turned his attention from the blue-eyed cat, who’d positioned itself to watch him with an unblinking stare, and toward the east. Toward the roof of Moldavi’s home, which would soon be lit by the pink icing of dawn.

  Cezar owned a narrow house near the edge of Le Marais, but most of his living quarters were located safely under the ground. Giordan had walked through skull-lined catacombs well beneath the rue to find his host. The subterranean lair was radically different from where most Dracule resided, and he couldn’t help but wonder about the reasons for it.

  Security, most likely. To keep both him and his valuable sister safe.

  Giordan took another sip and at last allowed his thoughts to go where they wished.

  It had been two weeks since the evening she was here, the night things had changed. Since he’d fallen in love with her…just like that.

  Ever since the moment she’d fed on him, her full lips pressed to his skin, her teeth sinking into his flesh, he’d known. He’d never felt such strong emotion. Such…completion. Such—

  A raucous burst of laughter exploded in the silence, and Giordan turned as someone called his name.

  “There you are,” cried Suzette, a made vampire who’d shared his bed—and blood—on many occasions.

  She and a small group of his acquaintances were just emerging from the door that led to the rooftop. They chatted gaily, bottles of wine and ale dangling from their fingers. And, of course, in their wake trailed two of Giordan’s well-trained servants, available to set right anything that might go amiss.

  “Whatever are you doing up here alone, darling Giordan?” asked Felicia, another sired vampire with whom he’d traded bodily fluids. She slinked her way over toward him, and Suzette merely rolled her glowing eyes and turned to the man on her arm. Jealousy was not o
ne of her vices.

  He smiled at them, his host smile, his not-quite-mirthful-but-very-friendly-one, and gestured out to the City of Light. “But I was merely waiting for you to join me. The view is lovely, no?”

  “Not nearly as lovely as this,” crowed a drunken Brickbank, one of Voss’s friends. He was leering down Suzette’s exceedingly low-cut bodice, which, due to the size of her breasts and the way they were plumped up, had a deep, dark vee between them into which a man might slide his entire hand, sideways. Giordan knew this from personal experience, and although the thought might have tempted him in the past…tonight it did not.

  “What sort of treat do you have planned for us this evening?” asked the Comte Robuchard, walking idly about the small space. “Some music perhaps? A blazing fire on which we can roast chestnuts?” He was one of the few mortals who knew about the Draculia, and who was invited to some of their activities. Paris was rife with secret societies, but the Dracule was one of the few that was truly underground and unknown, even by some of the upper class.

  Ever the good host, Giordan pushed away his lingering thoughts of Narcise and immediately responded, “I thought perhaps I might jump from the roof tonight.”

  This suggestion—which he’d only just thought of—was met with squeals of delight and masculine roars of approval.

  “That will be even more exciting than the night you danced among the flames in front of a crowd of varlets,” cried Felicia. Her fangs had slipped free, and now they dipped into her lower lip as she smiled. “They thought they were witnessing the Devil himself!”

  “It would be most exciting,” Suzette agreed, her arm now slipped through that of a different one of their male companions. “Shall you do a flip, or merely swan dive from the edge?”

  “Hmm,” he said with a grin. “I must do something fantastic, no?” Giordan had begun to peel off his favorite coat of bronze brocade, and he tossed it to one of the ladies with whom he hadn’t shared a bed. Loosening the ties at the knees of his breeches to give himself more freedom of movement, he looked down to the street below.

  A fall or dive wouldn’t injure a Dracule, unless, by some unhappy event, he or she impaled oneself on a piece of wood, through the heart. Or if some guillotine-like metal happened to be there on the way down to slice one’s head from one’s shoulders. Neither of which were the case.

  Such a feat would, to be sure, frighten or startle any mortal who might witness it, but that was part of the thrill. This was no worse than a mortal riding a horse at full speed and leaping over a high fence: dangerous but hardly lethal unless something went wrong.

  And nothing would go wrong for Giordan. He was an entertainer, not a fool.

  “Bernard,” he said, gesturing to one of the hovering servants, “go below and ensure that I have a clear area to land.”

  Once having ascertained that there was nothing that might hinder his fall from this angle, he undid the cuffs of his shirt, rolled up his sleeves and poised at the edge of the roof.

  Amid the shouts of his friends, his companions, those who filled his nights with activity, he flashed a bold smile and jumped.

  He’d purposely launched himself at an angle away from the roof, and caught the railing of a lower balcony on the same opposite building where the cat had been. He swung briefly, then released and somersaulted away from the landing, flipping so that he ended feetfirst onto the narrow cobblestone street.

  The force of landing on half-bent legs caused him to stagger into another two steps, making it less than perfect—but at least he didn’t land on his arse or head. Then, breathing heavily, Giordan looked up at the shadows lining the edge of his rooftop and executed a neat bow.

  Cheers and applause filtered down, and a pair of hack drivers gaped from where they’d been chatting next to his faithful servant Bernard, but despite the commendation lauded upon him, Giordan didn’t feel like smiling.

  He’d entertained. He’d gifted his acquaintances with food and drink and entrée to his home and club. He had conversationalists all around him, at all times.

  But inside, Giordan felt as if he was missing something.

  And he knew exactly what it was.

  3

  Narcise swung around, saber high above her head, and slammed the flat of its blade against her much taller opponent’s skull.

  He staggered, his red eyes springing wide-open, and his arms flailed awkwardly.

  Her teeth gritted in a feral smile, she followed through on the stroke, spinning on the balls of her bare feet, and then nearly gasped, and definitely slowed, when she saw Giordan Cale sitting next to her brother.

  He hadn’t been there a moment ago.

  The angry roar of tonight’s opponent dragged her attention back to the battle, and Narcise tightened her suddenly sweaty fingers over the sword’s grip just as he lunged at her. She couldn’t lose focus; she couldn’t let her guard down.

  She’d been ready to finish this off, and would have ended with the blade against his throat if the sight of Cale hadn’t distracted her.

  He was sitting slightly behind her brother, as if a chair had been pulled up for the late arrival at the table, which boasted several other spectators. Though they were in shadow, she could tell that his eyes were fastened on her, and even from here, she felt the heat in them.

  I would have intervened.

  Damn him to hell, he might have to intervene tonight if she couldn’t get her concentration back. Not that Cezar would let him.

  Narcise’s thoughts had thus been divided as she vaulted over a low table, giving herself space to think and distance from her adversary. Now, she had her back to the dais where the onlookers sat, and though she could feel Cale’s gaze boring into her shoulders, she was in no danger of locking eyes with him.

  A burst of anger flooded her, fueled by uncertainty, and that gave her the rush of speed and strength to duck beneath the other sword’s blade, spin around and take a slice out of her assailant’s arm.

  He cried out again in fury, but she was faster than his tall, lanky body allowed him to be—and than his lust-fogged mind could follow—and she snagged a chair, whipping it back at him. The crash of wood into flesh and bone, then its clatter onto the floor, told her she’d hit her mark even blindly. She followed through by pivoting on her toes, spinning back to face him. And then she was there, lunging, and used her blade to pin the man through his shirt and arm to the table before he could recover.

  The stake was in her hand a breath later, and she positioned it over his heaving chest. “Surrender,” she demanded.

  He surrendered and she stepped back, removing her weapons carefully as she always did, and watched as he mopped his face with a sleeve. “Big-pussied bitch,” he said, his expression ugly. All lust had faded from his eyes.

  “Cock-sucker,” she replied with calm and disdain to a common reaction. “No entertainment for you tonight.”

  She watched as he limped toward the door, which had been opened by Cezar’s guards, and slammed the saber into her sheath. Then she drew in a deep breath and turned to wait for her own guards to take her to the solitude of her own chamber.

  Hot, heavy eyes bored into her back, and she knew without any doubt that it was Giordan Cale who stared at her. She swallowed and realized her fingers were trembling, and that her body had begun to waver between hot and cold.

  Three weeks ago, it had been. Three weeks, and not only had Cezar not punished her for feeding on Cale, but he hadn’t remarked on it at all. Very odd, and certainly disconcerting.

  And though Cezar hadn’t seen fit to mention the incident that night, Narcise couldn’t banish it from her thoughts and dreams. Even now, she felt her veins pulsing and surging with desire and unfinished need.

  She became dimly aware of voices behind her, voices from the dais, and the low rumble that she recognized as Cale’s…followed by a short laugh and then affirmation from Cezar.

  “Narcise,” her brother said peremptorily.

  She had no choice but to turn
and face the audience. A quick scan identified three pairs of male eyes, filled with lust and determination—likely future opponents—and her brother’s bemused expression. Cale… He had stood and was moving toward her.

  “What do you wish to say?” she replied just as shortly. Don’t look at him.

  “Monsieur Cale has expressed disappointment that he missed most of this evening’s entertainment. And he has made a special request.”

  All at once, her body went cold, her stomach plummeting. Cale had a sword in his hand and he was examining the blade.

  “He wishes to participate in a bout of entertainment himself.”

  A flash of light clouded her vision, then receded. Two battles in one evening? Despite the fact that she’d been over-matched for her previous opponent didn’t mean that she could win against a second one in the same night.

  Particularly against the broad-shouldered man stripping off his coat in front of her.

  Cale didn’t spare her a glance as he tossed it to the table, and commenced with unbuttoning his waistcoat. He flung that aside as well, then unfastened his cuffs and rolled his sleeves up to the elbows.

  As she watched with rising trepidation, he glanced toward her bare feet and then pulled off his own buckled, heeled shoes…and then the stockings that went up to his knee breeches. Narcise glanced at his bare, muscular calves, then tore her eyes away.

  She was to fight him?

  And if he won, he would drag her off to The Chamber.

  A knot in the pit of her stomach grew tighter and heavier. I cannot let him win.

  “I wish to change weapons,” she announced. A double-sided broadsword would be heavier, but it would give her that much more of an advantage.

  “I was just about to suggest the same,” Cale said, speaking to her for the first time.

  She couldn’t help but look at him, and to her dismay, the heat was gone from his eyes to be replaced by cool determination. Her belly pitched sharply, for she would have preferred to see an emotion she could use against him. Like lust or desire.