Chapter Twenty-One

 

 

 

Halloran insisted on sticking to his battered duster and brown waistcoat. He hadn’t dressed up for Ambrose the last time he was summoned, and he wasn’t about to start now. Asher could ask nicely and he could threaten, and still it made no difference. Pigheaded didn’t begin to describe Halloran’s insolence.

“How many vampires in this town do you think get to sit at Ambrose’s table? And you’d not only pass up the opportunity, but you don’t even care about making a good impression,” Asher lamented as they trooped down the stairs.

So far, all of his meals had been brought to his room by the same mute, hollow-eyed maids he’d glimpsed on his previous visit to Ambrose’s home. He didn’t mind.

The rest of the house teemed with vampires, half of them Ambrose’s brood, and occasionally scuffles broke out among the youngest. The maids were the only humans there, barring the beautiful Angelita. Asher had been told that she, too, resided in the house, though he had yet to catch so much as a glimpse of her. Perhaps she, too, kept to her room. Perhaps, unlike Asher, she was banned from leaving it even during the daylight hours.

“For a man who plotted his assassination,” Halloran muttered, “you’ve sure changed your tune.”

The foyer was empty, gaslights gleaming in the brass sconces on the walls. It was almost enough to make Asher feel as if they were alone.

He placed his hand on Halloran’s arm and squeezed. I haven’t. He knew better than to say it aloud. “I heard about Octavian,” he offered instead, a harmless observation should any other vampire overhear.

Any reply Halloran might have offered was silenced by the whisper of the dining room doors swinging open. Malachi stood in the gap. “There you are! I almost thought I’d have to drag you two lovebirds down here myself.”

Asher’s insides churned. Over Malachi’s shoulder, he could see the rest of their party assembled around the table. Gold cutlery and ivory-white bowls shone in the low firelight. The room was made even darker by deep a mahogany fascia and a burgundy tablecloth. Only six places had been arranged around the dinner table, a sharp contrast to the banquet Ambrose had hosted on Asher’s last visit.

The reason for it rested with the vampire sat at the head of the table, staring broodingly into the fire.

“Father, look who’s joined us,” Malachi enthused. He looped an arm around Asher’s elbow, hooking him like a fish on a line.

Ambrose peered up. His gaze passed over Asher like he wasn’t there. “Any news?” he asked, addressing Halloran and Halloran alone.

“We’re still searching.”

“That bastard,” Ambrose muttered under his breath and returned to staring at the flames dancing in the grate.

“Just for one night, can’t we talk about anything else?” Malachi grumbled. “No, Halloran, you sit by me. Asher, you’ve met Angelita, haven’t you?”

Asher had, but it took him a moment to connect the pallid, gray-haired creature to Ambrose’s left with the lively brunette who’d danced and laughed so heartily on the mayor’s arm. “Of course…” He fumbled for an appropriate compliment to pay the young lady, but all he could think of was how diminished she appeared. “Miss, it’s a pleasure.”

She smiled and held out a bony hand, which Asher discovered was as cold as it was fragile.

“And Doctor Matheson,” Malachi added, “whom you already know.”

The quack nodded in acknowledgment. Two spots of color crested on his cheeks, a telltale sign that the wine before him might have been a refill.

Asher sat. He had prepared himself for a markedly different evening—as sure to be uncomfortable as it was for flies to follow a herd, but not like this. He’d expected Ambrose’s ego to have been fueled by the raid on Redemption. He’d teased Halloran with the so-called exclusivity of such an invitation even as he expected to find the dining room teeming with Ambrose’s acolytes.

“This is what our evenings are usually like,” Malachi lamented. “A quiet supper, a bit of conversation—”

“You’ve sent out scouts?” Ambrose asked, his focus once more to Halloran.

“A bit of beating the old dead horse,” Malachi finished with a drawl in his voice.

His father heard him this time. His eyes narrowed.

Two seats from Malachi, Asher would have felt it if something was lobbed at him under the table. He certainly saw nothing fly over the bronze-covered platters upon it. And yet Malachi seized as though he’d been struck.

Asher wasn’t the only one to notice. Dr. Matheson jolted in his seat. Angelita let out a long breath.

“My men will find him,” said Halloran, alone in appearing unruffled.

“Your men?” Ambrose spat. “You should be out there looking for him yourself! I don’t pay you to sit around.”

Halloran returned the mayor’s sputtering temper with a level gaze.

Asher suppressed a shiver. The temperature in the room seemed to have dropped about twenty degrees.

“You paid me to burn down Redemption,” Halloran said evenly. “Thanks to Asher, that’s what I did.”

Thanks to…what? Asher couldn’t chisel surprise out of his expression swiftly enough.

Ambrose noticed it. “That’s certainly what you claim.” As strange as it was to see him distracted and brooding, the return of Ambrose the shrewd was much worse. “Tell me,” he asked, looping one massive hand around his glass, “how did you aid us, boy?”

The transition from invisibility to center of attention left Asher fumbling. “I, uh…” He swallowed in a dry throat, the plates on his neck rearranging with a succession of faint clicks.

“He gave us information about the town’s defenses,” Halloran put in. “Like I told you he would.”

“Oh, I remember what you told us.” Ambrose swirled the thick, viscous liquid in his glass. Red clung to the sides, shiny in the firelight. “I’d like to hear it from him. You wanted a more diverting evening, Malachi? Here it is. Human entertainment.”

The last time Asher had been made the focus of the party, he’d been about as eloquent as a baboon. He didn’t relish the renewed opportunity.

“Moreau took me in,” he blurted.

Ambrose snorted. “Of course he did. Like calls to like, don’t it? Traitor to traitor… Go on,” he encouraged, motioning to one of the dumb, eerie maids to unveil their supper.

A vampire’s idea of dinner was not something Asher expected to enjoy. The best he figured he could hope for was something at least vaguely comestible. He was surprised, then, to discover beans and rice floating fluffy and fat in a bowl of soup.

“Tell us more,” Ambrose goaded, before Asher could pick up his spoon.

Sing for your supper.

His mouth watering at the smell of oregano and chili rising from the bowl, Asher forced himself to speak. “It’s true, what Halloran said. Getting on Moreau’s good side put me in a position to find out the weak links in their defenses. Also saw there weren’t a whole lot of vampires left…” That wasn’t, strictly speaking, true, but the Riders had culled the population in previous assaults and Asher reasoned they wouldn’t have known just how many of their victims still had a pulse.

“And what of Moreau?”

“What about him?” Asher asked, hunger making him sloppy. He’d never starved in Sargasso, even when the harvest was poor and cattle were rustled from under their noses—Uncle Howard made sure of that—but there was a vast difference between eating to stay alive and eating enough to fill his belly day in, day out.

Ambrose hadn’t finished with him yet, though. “You didn’t happen to see where he went after the fightin’ was done?”

“No.”

“You wouldn’t have helped him escape, would you?”

“Father,” Malachi chided, more subdued than he’d been before his painful rebuke. “You’ll upset Halloran.”

Ambrose swung his gimlet eye away from Asher. “I dislike surprises. This one betrayed us once. What’s to say he didn’t jump into bed with Moreau, hmm? That he ain’t still taking orders from that cur?”

Halloran thrust out his chin. “My word.”

Silence fell over the table. Asher barely dared to breathe for fear of Ambrose latching on to his exhales as a sign that he was lying after all. For a brief moment, he contemplated telling the truth. He wondered what might happen if he were to throw himself upon Ambrose’s mercy.

A slow and painful death, most likely.

Sargasso had seen its fair share of noble acts. The only thing worse than cavorting with Moreau was killing him. Vampires always stuck together. This much was known.

A hacking cough broke the stalemate, shaking Angelita like a demon trying to worm its way out. It wouldn’t have been half so spectacular if her whole body didn’t rattle with it.

“Sweetheart!” Blood ran over the rim of Ambrose’s glass as he rushed to steady her. “Doc!”

Already on his feet and rounding the table, Matheson brushed aside one of the maids, who struck the wall with her face even though her hands were free and could’ve gentled the impact.

Angelita doubled over in her seat, clutching the tablecloth in white-knuckled fists. Whatever ailed her seemed to plateau without ceasing before another bout of coughing snatched hold.

It took Asher a moment to realize those weren’t moles on her hands but blood spatter, that her bowed lips were stained with red.

Dr. Matheson shoved his way to her side and gripped her bony arm. The sleeve of her deep emerald gown was short enough that he could easily find the crook of her elbow. He tapped once, twice at a blue-green vein, then stuck the needle of a long syringe into her flesh.

Asher cringed on her behalf, though Angelita didn’t seem to notice the injection. After a few moments, the coughing began to ebb. She slumped back into the chair, more washed out than ever.

With astonishingly gentle hands, Ambrose combed the loose curls from her brow. His guests had been forgotten. The matter of Moreau’s getaway no longer seemed to preoccupy him.

Asher dropped his voice to a whisper and looked to Halloran for answers. “What’s the matter with her?”

It was Malachi who replied. “Father’s blood is killing her.”

Even a whisper was a shout to vampire hearing. Ambrose flung a glare at his progeny, but this time there was no accompanying metaphysical slug.

No grimace twisted at Malachi’s features. “I think that’s excitement enough for one night.” He trained a tepid smile onto Halloran, dismissal audible in his voice. “Thank you for your delightful company. We must do this more often.”

Halloran rose with a stoic expression and gestured for Asher to follow. Halfway to the door, Asher turned and grabbed the soup bowl off the table. Fuck it. He was human. He needed sustenance.

Malachi caught his eye, the left corner of his mouth quirked in amusement.

An apology was warranted, but Asher chose to make his escape before anyone decided he didn’t actually deserve any supper. The last he saw of Ambrose and his decimated family, the mayor was poised over Angelita’s chair, murmuring softly to her.

For his part, Malachi had gone back to his dinner as if nothing were amiss.