“Fine. You wanna talk or you wanna fight? ’Cause you will surely lose if you choose fighting.”
He laughed, the sound one of silken delight that vamps employ when they want to cajole and charm. Or insult. I could hear the insolent amusement in this tone. From my right I heard the distinctive sound of a shotgun readied for firing. From my left, I heard the same distinctive sound. And I saw a small red laser appear on the forehead of a vamp lost in the shadows until then. The chuckle died away and the targeted vamp stepped back, behind the door and into safety. A silence filled the night where the Doucette Clan Home stood, the silence of the dead, broken only by the breathing of humans. I counted ten, three of them my guys, two of them Muscles and me, making five more on the porch high over my head.
“How you get your men onto my land?” the vamp asked. “Close to my home?” It was a real inquiry, touched with mild confusion, and it identified the speaker as Clermont Doucette himself.
I didn’t answer his question. Instead I repeated my own. “Talk or fight?”
“Talk,” Clermont said. Before the word died, his men had safetied and holstered their weapons, or broken open the shotguns. A match was struck and an oil lamp was lit inside, visible through an unshuttered window, though I was certain the light I had seen earlier had been electric. The men and women who had previously barred my way cleared a path across the front porch and left the head bloodsucker in the center. A woman carried the lamp from the doorway to a table on the porch and set it down before backing away.
“We talk,” Clermont said. “My house de same as your house, my blood de same as your blood, your safety good as my safety. My word on dis.”
It sounded like a formal saying, the giving of his word, and I knew that meant something to people as old as Clermont. I figured I was supposed to say something back, and I thrashed around in my skull for anything appropriate as a rejoinder. I settled on, “Yeah. I won’t shoot you or stake you unless you attack me first.” After a moment I added, “Or behead you.”
Clermont chuckled, this time with real amusement. “Bring Pierre Herbert for healin’,” he said to someone at his side, and a young human raced down the steps, passing me. I didn’t like having anyone behind me, but I figured Derek had him covered. I gently pushed Muscles away and took a deep breath, trying to settle my heart rate and calm myself. It was never wise to go into a nest of vamps when one smelled worried. Muscles looked at me over his shoulder before moving up the stairs, his feet loud on the plain wooden treads. I followed more slowly, holstering my weapon as I climbed. At the top, Clermont and I looked each other over, taking in details and drawing impressions.
He was tall for a man of his time, nearly six feet, lean and gangly, with dark brown eyes and blondish hair, a combination that seemed common in this area. He was dressed in worn jeans, an ironed white dress shirt, a suit jacket in pale gray or dull blue, and a narrow, charcoal-colored tie. And boots, which somehow surprised me, though boots were ubiquitous in Louisiana. A pair of reading glasses perched on his head and reflected the light.
I don’t know what he thought of me, but he indicated the chair closest and waited until I sat, the gesture of a man of his time for a woman, not the way a warrior would act with another warrior. But I wasn’t in a position to gripe about his good manners. I was now in the nest of vipers, and no matter how good Derek or Margaud was, any Doucette could kill me way faster than my people could react to save me.
Clermont leaned in and sniffed delicately. “What kind of predator you is?”
“Not one that will hurt you or your people unless you try to hurt me first.”
Clermont thought about that for a while, putting together the phrase “try to hurt me,” with the thought that I obviously believed they would not be successful. He nodded slowly and studied me. “I like you boots.”
Which was just weird. I said, “Thanks. Um. They’re Lucchese. I like yours too. Tony Lamas?”
He grinned happily, showing only his human teeth, and pulled up his pant legs to display his boots. “You know boots? Dat a good ting. Tony made dese boot for me hisself in nineteen forty-two. Bes boots I ever have, dey is.” He dropped his pant legs and said, “I got wine, beer, cola, bottled water, coffee, tea. May I offer you some libation to wet you whistle?” he said.
All I could think was, Crap, I have no idea how to handle this. I said, “Uh, thanks but no thanks. I’m fine.”
He spread his fingers as if to say, “Fine. Down to business. State your piece,” which was a lot to gather from a single gesture, but there it was. Clermont crossed his ankles and laced his fingers in what looked like a posture personal to him, back when he had been human.
I wasn’t good at diplomacy, blowing things up and shooting things being more my way, but I gave it a shot. “Leo Pellissier sent me to . . .” I paused and chose my words carefully, “to inquire about Shauna Landry, who, he has heard, is here against her will, to be turned against her will.”
“Why?” When I looked puzzled, Clermont said, “Why Leo, Blood-Master of New Orleans, show an interest in us now? Why not a hundred year ago, or when he take over for dat worthless king Amaury?”
To that I had no answer. After a seriously awkward pause, I said, “I think he thought it was your choice to swear to him, or him to conquer you in a Blood Challenge, and he . . . mmm, he, mmm, respected you too much to come after you.” Which was a lot better than he thought you weren’t worth the effort. Knowing Leo it was the latter.
“Blood Challenge? Like a duel?” Clermont asked.