Death's Rival

Brian was holding a leather-bound book and a pair of white cotton gloves. I looked the question at him and he said, “Gloves. To protect the book.”

 

 

I slid them on and took the small, very heavy book. I didn’t know much about old books, but I had a feeling that this one was very old. The leather felt slightly slimy even through my gloves, the paper inside was thick, like paper handmade out of old cloth, and there were pictures in the margins. The print was weird too, with lots of curlicues. Then I realized it was hand-scribed, not printed, each letter and each painting inked by hand. This was a really old book. Maybe from the Middle Ages. I saw a few words that might have been Spanish or maybe Latin. What did I know? I couldn’t read a word. “What is it?” I asked Brian.

 

He reached around me and opened it. On the right-hand page was a stylized drawing of a vampire. There was no title on the cover or the spine, but I did find one on the third page. “La Historia De Los Mithrans en Las Americas,” I said. I might not read Spanish, but I got this one. “Oh, crap,” I whispered.

 

Brian chuckled. “Yeah. Those Mithrans love to see themselves in print and paintings,” he said, sounding very upper-class New Orleans in that moment. “It’s for interesting reading. Sabina, the priestess, thinks you will find page 134 of particular interest.”

 

I turned to page 134 and found a drawing that slowly stole the breath from my lungs. It was a drawing of a Spanish conquistador, his plate armor shining, one boot resting on the fallen form of an Indian. The man beneath his boot was naked, his hair unbound and tangled on the ground. He was dead, his blood leaking into the dirt from a large throat wound. And his hands were furred and clawed. Silently I mouthed the word “Skinwalker.”

 

There were other naked Indians on the ground at the feet of the Spaniard; two had yellow eyes like mine, one was a woman. She was alive, fear etched on her face in stark black ink lines. “Can you read this?” I asked, tapping the text on the page.

 

“I am possessed of a classical education,” Brian said with a pretentious sniff, “but that book isn’t Latin, Greek, French, Italian, or modern Castilian Spanish. It’s some archaic form of Spanish. I can make out the name of this vampire, however.”

 

He reached around me, his body heat enveloping me like a warm blanket, and turned one page back. I had sparred with the B-twins once and their body heat had made the windows of the room sweat. I was cold now and wanted to lean into him. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Grégoire’s blood-servant pointed at the subtitle on the top of the page. “‘Lucas Vazquez de Allyon. El Rival de la Muerte.’ Death’s Rival.”

 

I took a slow breath, the air painful against my tight throat tissues. Lucas had known skinwalkers. Had killed skinwalkers. De Allyon was not just Leo’s enemy. He was mine as well.

 

“I have to get back to the door,” he said. “You’ll need to talk to Leo about the text. He can read it.” Brian walked away.

 

I remembered seeing books in the Pellissier Clan Home before it burned, secured in small, locked cases in his library and in his music room. How could I ask Leo about the text without having him see the yellow eyes of the prostrated Indians and draw a conclusion I wanted him to avoid? He had already seen me in a partial shift. He knew I was some kind of supernatural cat, though not a were. I didn’t smell like a were. Unless I left the vamps, and the hefty paychecks they offered, the time was coming when my secret would be made public, whether I wanted that to happen or not. But I wanted it to be a time of my choosing, not something that I let happen with no direction, no control.

 

I studied the small painting beneath de Allyon’s name. It was a pen-and-ink miniature of a vampire in his fully human guise, his eyes and hair dark brown, his nose large and Roman, jaw firm, forehead wide, with a beard and mustache in the style that used to be called a Vandyke. He wasn’t pretty, not even handsome, but he looked powerful, forceful, domineering, a man who never took no for an answer. The artist had managed to catch the brutal curl of his lips, and his disdain for anything and anyone who wasn’t him.

 

The heavy paper moving stiffly, I turned the page back to the picture of the conquistador and his dead prey, staring at the yellow-eyed woman, terrified at de Allyon’s feet. I realized that he wanted all of his enemies beneath his feet, and probably all his women. Captive and fearful.

 

On the next page was another miniature, but now de Allyon was wearing cloth pants and an animal skin over his shoulders. It was a mountain lion pelt, the puma’s head propped on one shoulder, showing killing teeth. The chill I was feeling spread and my fingertips tingled. Lying dead at his feet were more mountain lions. One had a human head. Another had human hands and feet. One was a black panther, the melanistic Puma concolor, a mythical beast as far as science was concerned. All were bound and bleeding from many wounds, but the largest wounds were at their throats where fangs had torn them out. De Allyon had killed my kind and drunk their blood.

 

Sabina had said, “Your enemy will know you by your smell.” She knew.

 

The protectors of the Cherokee had been captured and slaughtered to feed the blood appetite of a Naturaleza vampire. I felt tears prick at the back of my eyes and I breathed deeply to control my reaction, but my hands grew icy and my breath came short and fast.

 

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