The Master of the City stared at me for a long moment, assessing my independence and self-containment before sliding his eyes away. When he did, something snapped inside me, like a dried stick breaking, audible and sharp. I put out a hand and caught myself on the nearest doorframe, my balance unsteady for a moment. I glanced around the room to see every vamp and blood-servant staring at Leo, mesmerized. Yeah, freaky.
Leo looked them over, breathing in their scents. His eyes closed and he raised his face in something like ecstasy. He jerked his head to the right and opened his eyes, searching the ceiling and the perimeters of the room. Confusion and anger etched his face for an instant before it melted away to the usual expressionless manifestation of vamp-dom. I had no idea what he had smelled or what his reaction meant. He took a breath, this time so he could speak.
“We will meet and treat with our ancient enemies, the Cursed of Artemis,” Leo said. “We will parley and be bound by the treaty that we sign in blood. We will be bound as the fathers of all Mithrans, the Sons of Darkness, are bound, by honor and by duty. By command of the Sons of Darkness, this night begins cooperation between species on this hemisphere, as it has already begun in Europe and elsewhere. The humans have grown strong, too strong to battle. They have not constrained their population growth, and our territory shrinks. The Cursed of Artemis and the Mithrans have no choice but to parley.” The words “no choice,” were spoken without inflection, yet still managed to sound forced and unwilling. “Are we agreed?”
With one voice the vamps murmured, “We are agreed.”
Leo stepped into the room, his scions behind him, ten blood-servants behind them, Bruiser at the forefront. He looked pale. They all did. Leo had fed well on his most trusted. I hoped they didn’t all pass out from blood loss.
As the group cleared the open doorway, two other forms stepped into the opening, one from the left, one from the right. A voice from the back of the room announced, “Sabina Delgado y Aguilar, priestess, and Bethany Salazar y Medina. Outclan, keepers of the histories, the Blood Cross, and artifacts of power.”
I watched as the two women, who studiously ignored one another, stepped into the room. I mentally filed away the surnames of Bethany, as they weren’t in any dossier the cops had on her. Once again, I had to wonder, as I had over the last few weeks, how and where the women had gotten the last names, as neither was from a Spanish region, and neither surname had likely been around a fraction of the centuries they had.
The women walked with heads high and feet soundless into the reception room. They were as different as two women could be, Sabina looking matronly but starved, chaste, and set apart in her white, nun-style dress and wimple, her skin the pale olive of her Mediterranean origins. Bethany was dressed in African splendor with ivory and gold necklaces, earrings, rings, and bracelets. Her body was swathed in a billowing red silk shawl over a full, apple-green silk skirt and a tight matching top that seemed to make her dark skin glow. She was barefooted and gold rings were on her toes. She flowed to Leo and kissed his cheeks, holding his face between her palms. Sabina came behind her and kissed Leo as well, murmuring, “The outclan honor the Master of the City.”
Leo kissed the women in the same fashion and said, “The Mithrans honor the outclan.” More softly he said, “Let us welcome our guests.”
Two lesser blood-servants stepped to a different doorway and unlatched the double doors; they swung inward, heavy and stately on silent hinges. On the other side stood Kemnebi, the black were-leopard I’d seen change on TV. He was ebony black with the sculpted features of an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus. His lips were full, his tip-tilted eyes were blacker than a moonless night. He was dressed in the flowing white outer robe of an Arabian prince; beneath it, a full black silk shirt was gathered into black trousers. Black boots polished to a sheen threw back the light. His head was uncovered, black hair shaved close. He wore a gold torque around his neck centered with an image of a falcon. I was sure the falcon was the Egyptian god Horus, which was confusing, because the goddess, who had supposedly cursed the weres, was Greek.
Behind him stood a woman, wearing a long full coat woven of shimmering cloth of gold, that hung open from her midriff to reveal a white silk skirt and tunic. Hair—blue-black, lustrous, and glistening—hung from either side of her white headdress to her thighs. I had long hair, but this girl had me beat. Her skin and features looked Mediterranean, not African, and her bare feet showed in raffia sandals, toenails polished deep purple. She had henna tattoos on the backs of her hands and up her feet, disappearing beneath her clothing. The smell of cat, perfume, and faintly of dead fish wafted from her.
I felt Beast rise from deep inside me and stare out at the weres, curious, questing. Like Beast? she thought. I didn’t know, but my attention held to them with a laserlike focus. They were the closest thing to a skinwalker I had encountered since the insane liver-eater skinwalker who had been masquerading as Leo’s son. And him, I had killed.
“The International Association of Weres and the Party of African Weres greets the Louisiana Council of Mithrans. I am Kemnebi; this is my assistant Safia. We are black were-leopards from the African Congo, of the country of humans called Gabon, from the region of the Rapides Mabila, and from the tribe of the leopards who reside there. We come to parley with you.”
Leo started in with his names and titles. “Leonard Eugène Zacharie Pellissier, Master of Clan Pellissier, Master of the City of New Orleans ...” I blanked him out. Heard it all before. When he finished, he started in on the names and titles of Sabina and Bethany.
“Names are important to weres,” Bruiser said softly beside me. He had maneuvered close while Kemnebi spoke and I slid my eyes to him and back to the action on the floor, where Leo and the black were-leopard were shaking hands and sizing each other up. And both were sniffing the air, as if scenting was part of their recognition process.
“Is that so?” I murmured.