“Though I did not attend, there was un petit bal at Mearkanis Clan Home, full of pomp and ceremony, but according to those who attended, it was tout à fait ennuyeux.” He translated without my asking, “It was utterly boring. It began at ten of the evening and ended two hours after midnight, which made it a dismal failure.”
A faint smile crossed Leo’s face and his voice began to sound more French as he took the trip into his past. “Successful parties of the time lasted through the night and often into the next day, taken into lairs and . . .” Leo waved the thought away with an indolent hand, but I got the idea. Caligula had nothing on the vamps.
“You weren’t there?”
“No. J’ai eu d’autres plans.” When I raised my eyebrows in question, he added, “I had other plans. In the early evening I was with Adrianna and one of her friends. Adrianna wanted something, I no longer remember what. When I refused her, she and her paramour left in a righteous fury.”
“You drank from them and boinked them and then turned them down.”
Leo shook his head, his black hair swinging until he tucked it behind his ear. “Americans have such crass names for lovemaking.”
It didn’t sound like lovemaking to me, but I kept my opinion to myself.
“Later in the evening, I was with Katie and one of her new girls. In the days after, I discovered that when Adrianna and her friend left my apartments, they went to the Mearkanis bal. Santana left the party with them, ce qui a peut-être contribué à l’éclatement de la soirée. Forgive me. Which may have contributed to the breakup of the evening.
“In those times of horse and carriage, travel across the city was time-consuming and often used for business or lovemaking or even sleep. We know that when the trio arrived at Acton House, their clothing was awry and the scent of blood was strong in the closed confines of the carriage. Santana ordered tea and a small repast to be prepared, and the three retired to his room. They were later joined by others, but these were not seen by the maître d’hôtel. There was clearly a scuffle, though no one heard anything out of the ordinary.”
“Of course, with vamps, screams and loud noises were commonplace.”
“Oui, oui. Vous dîtes la vérité. When the maître d’hôtel, Professor Acton, brought breakfast just after sunset—a young mulatto boy, as ordered—he discovered the room, with the body of Adrianna’s paramour on the floor, and Santana, who was on the bed. The professor sent the boy to collect me in my rooms, and I sent word to Amaury, who was across the river in the clan home.”
A young mulatto boy, as ordered. A boy. For breakfast. It took effort, but I kept my face clear of my thoughts, and my heartbeat even and steady. Not easy when I really wanted to smack Leo for his callous cruelty. “What shape was Santana in?” I asked, my words flat.
“Pardon?”
At Leo’s polite query, I clarified. “When I saw him in your dungeon, he was a bag of leather-covered bones. What did he look like when you found him?”
“Physically, he was thin, his flesh rough and browned, as if scarred, what is called keloid scarring. He had lost the ability of coherent speech. He had lost the ability to control his bowels. He was raving and dangerous, and when my uncle arrived he established control and sent us into action. We gathered Santana up in his coach and carried him to the Council Chambers, which were much smaller and less stately than now, but which had the deep basements spelled to keep out groundwater. We removed the scions from the lowest basement and secured them in a separate scion lair. We prepared the wall for Santana. Amaury sent me back to seal the room at Acton House, and he put out the word that . . . le Fils des Ténèbres avait disparu avec les marées. Meaning that Santana had sailed on the tide.”
“So who was the fourth person at Santana’s party?”
“I do not know. No one does.”
I knew. Immanuel. Not that I’d tell Leo that his son had been there. Too much angst where the dead heir was concerned. “And the young boy? The one who was supposed to be breakfast?”
Leo’s eyes lost the glossy light of distant memories and focused on me, taking in my body language and scent. His eyes went steely. “He entered my uncle’s employ, where he served, happily, until the end of his days.”
“Yeah. I’m sure he did.” And this time I couldn’t keep the loathing out of my voice.
“Times were different then, mon chat,” Leo said, his words laced with threat. “Social and political mores were different then. It was nothing to see such a boy selling himself in the streets to buy a crust of bread. Do not judge what you cannot comprehend from your easy life in this day and time.”
To which I had nothing to say. Nothing at all. Not I, who had helped my grandmother kill a man when I was five, more than a hundred fifty years ago.
“You are dismissed.”
I stood and left the room, but not because he had told me to.
* * *
My head full of Leo’s voice, like velvet sliding along my mind, I left the office and followed Eli to sub-four, tracking him by smell to the odd little room I had discovered once before. That time, I had entered through a hidden stairway that opened in the closet, to find everything rotted and hanging off the hangers. The room beyond had been in as bad a condition, so dusty it was a health hazard. It had been sealed off, as if a shrine to someone departed. Only later had I learned that the room had been Adrianna’s. I’d had the secret stairway access closed off and sent someone in to clean out the place, but I hadn’t been back to inspect it.
I came in through the hallway. The room was totally different, with new carpet, the walls painted with shiny golden tones. There were new, copper-toned linens on the modern, Swedish-style, black-painted bed, the furniture having sleek lines and contemporary chic. I sniffed, picking up Eli’s scent and the slightly older but still powerful scent of Adrianna. She had spent enough time there to imprint on the room, she and two human blood-servants. No one had mentioned them, and I had a feeling that they were among the humans who had been laid out on the sub-five floor, drained and happy, and then turned. They’d be no use to me for at least ten years, when they finished the curing process and reemerged as fangheads.
Eli was standing at the foot of the unmade bed, a new, wheeled, lightweight, carry-on piece of luggage in a floral pattern opened out on the mattress before him. He had shed his leather jacket and stood where he could see every angle of the room, wearing T-shirt, leather pants, combat boots, and headset. “Been calling you, babe,” he said, mildly. “Pinged your cell, which you didn’t answer. Called you on the headset. Which you didn’t answer. Ten more minutes and I’d have been forced to come looking for you.”