Promises to Keep

chapter 2


JAY HAD BARELY stepped through the front door of Kendra’s mansion, when he stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the larger-than-life sculpture that dominated the front hall.

The artist had captured in blown glass the very instant when a proud huntress launched a falcon from her wrist. Her expression held despair, and hope, and pain, and power, all at once. The falcon seemed like her soul, freed of its earthly bonds. Could she fly with it, or was she forever earthbound, cursed to only dream of the skies?

He saw that his hand had risen, and grabbed his own wrist to stop himself from touching the sculpture. Instead, he reached up as if to casually rub the back of his neck, and let the back of his hand brush the silver hilt of his knife.

A hand like iron closed over his wrist, and another twined in his hair as a melodious voice observed, “You smell of dead blood and adrenaline, witch.”

The voice startled him—a sensation he didn’t often have, since his power gave him an awareness of others that tended to make it impossible for anyone to sneak up on him. Staring, transfixed, at the statue had been stupid, but how could he have avoided it? Likewise, the mind that flowed over his at that moment made his knees weak. It had to belong to Kendra.

“It’s remarkable,” he said, struggling to focus on the danger and not the power of her. “As are you.”

He didn’t mean to say the last bit aloud, but he couldn’t help himself. Her mind was like a supernova, full of brilliant colors, swirling fire, and enough gravity to pull entire planets in her wake. What made her thoughts burn with such intensity? Was it always like this, standing in the presence of a mind more than two thousand years old? Or had she always been this way, even before the change?

Kendra mentally responded to both compliments while maintaining a razor-sharp focus on his movements. If Jay struggled, she would snap his neck before he could try for a knife or focus his magic to fight.

“It was his last work,” she replied, “and it may be the last thing you see, unless you explain what brings such a pedigreed hunter to our holiday.”

He should probably have started with that explanation.

“Nikolas invited me,” Jay answered. “He hoped he could convince my cousin, Sarah, to come if she knew someone else here.”

Though he had been assured of Kendra’s fondness for Nikolas, the emotions Jay sensed from her in response to his name spoke of possession more than affection. Sarah’s name barely elicited a blip of recognition.

“I have not seen Sarah. Nikolas left a few minutes ago. And you still smell of blood.”

Honesty was a gamble, but Jay wasn’t good at bluffing. “That is why I am late.”

With her skin touching his, Kendra’s thoughts were as clear as fine crystal as she considered what to do with him. Given the importance of her holiday, anyone of any consequence in the vampiric world was currently in this house. That meant Jay couldn’t have killed anyone terribly important tonight.

She could kill him just on principle, but Nikolas probably had invited him, which meant the laws of hospitality applied.

“Well,” she said, slowly releasing first his hair and then his wrist, before taking a step back, “I suppose every cherry tree needs its branches pruned now and again to produce the best fruit.”

It took him a moment to realize that she had just given approval to his killing her kind.

Moving his hand away from his knife, Jay turned, and found that the woman standing before him was every bit as regal and elegant as the huntress in the statue. Her lush blond hair and generous figure were showcased in a gown where silver and scarlet dragons cavorted on silk damask.

Of course she wears dragons. No lesser creature could do her justice, Jay thought as he tried to untangle his tongue, focus despite the pure power assaulting his metaphysical senses, and say something intelligent.

“My lady,” he managed.

Amused, Kendra held out her hand, which Jay nervously accepted. He kissed the back, feeling slightly foolish but afraid to do anything less.

Meanwhile, she sized him up critically. An hour before, he had thought he looked good. Now he was acutely aware that while the tux fit, it was not a handmade one-of-a-kind item, as Kendra’s gown no doubt was.

“Your patron has already left for the evening,” she pointed out. “I assume you intend to do the same.”

He spoke quickly, words prompted as much by the disdain he could sense from her as by his own intentions. “My invitation might have been for Sarah’s benefit, but I was still honored to receive it. Your holiday is famous for its art. I would hate to leave without a chance to take it all in.”

She was skeptical, but she was also two thousand years old, and confident in her own immortality. She wasn’t afraid of him, or for her guests.

“Enjoy yourself, Jay Marinitch,” she said at last. “Mind your manners.”

She swept away and left him alone in the front hall, and only then did Jay become aware of the thundering of his own nervous pulse. As his family and other vampire hunters often reminded him, Jay had never been a paragon of common sense. They would have told him he had to be suicidal to have accepted Nikolas’s invitation in the first place, and that it was beyond insane to stay once he’d learned Nikolas was already gone. But in the moments when Kendra’s attention had been on him, Jay had been submerged in the most extraordinary aura he had ever experienced. He couldn’t stand to go back out in the cold. Not yet.

Instead, he read the plaque at the base of the statue.

LADY WITH A FALCON ON HER FIST

LORD DARYL DI’BIRGETTA

The vampire known as Lord Daryl had been killed two summers ago, an event shocking enough that news had traveled swiftly.

Hunters frequently took down the young and the sloppy, vampires who had been changed by whim instead of thoughtful intent, who had relatively few connections to others of their kind, and who tended to surround themselves with attention-drawing kills. It was far rarer for a hunter to actually strike at the kind of individual who attended Kendra’s Heathen Holiday, who had allies, friends, and political connections throughout the vampiric world.

Lord Daryl had not been an ancient, but he had been a powerful figure in his domain, especially in the realm known as Midnight, an empire where humans—and occasionally witches or shapeshifters—had been bought and sold as slaves. When Midnight had fallen two centuries ago, another group had claimed leadership over all vampires and had supposedly outlawed their slave trade, but Daryl was proof that the laws hadn’t entirely worked. It was hard for a hunter like Jay to get solid information, but it had become clear in recent years that Midnight had been reborn and was gaining power once again.

Rumors claimed that Daryl’s own slave had killed him.

Jay shuddered, turning away from the statue. How could a man known for his viciousness as a trainer, whose career had been dedicated to transforming free souls into broken slaves, ever create such a powerful yet delicate work of art?

Jay caught himself staring again.

Move, Jay.

Beyond the entry, the spectacle was overwhelming. Paint, ink, stone, clay, metal, glass, canvas, photo, paper, wood … Thousands of years of talent were showcased here, in every possible medium.

The artistic creations were not the only works of beauty.

The members of Kendra’s line, assembled together in full formal wear, were breathtaking. Nikolas had told him the dress code was “more or less black tie,” and now Jay understood what “more or less” meant. The vampires and bloodbonds in the room were from every century and every country. Tuxedo jackets and ball gowns moved among saris, mandarin gowns, and other apparel Jay couldn’t begin to name.

Beyond clothes, skin had in many cases been used as a canvas. Many bloodbonds had been painted, some with elaborate masquerade-style face paint, but others with body art that complemented their attire. One glittering creature wore a dress with an open back that revealed shining painted butterfly wings.

After letting out a squeak of disappointment when the mural he had been admiring moved away to mingle with the other guests, Jay reminded himself that he needed to pay attention to the people around him and not just the minds and art.

Kendra alone had been overwhelming. Now Jay was surrounded by such powerful, brilliant minds that it was hard to even see the faces associated with them. In this kind of daze, if someone came at him with a blade, he might just smile at the way the light sparkled on it.

Where am I? He had been wandering, paying no attention, but now found himself surrounded by music and movement.

Colors blended as couples danced in a way Jay had only ever seen in movies, formal patterns responding to the arcing melodies of a string quartet. Standing among them was like standing in a surf, feeling the rhythm. He ducked out of the way when a pair nearly spun into him, and he ran into—

Static. White noise.

The mind he faced made Jay feel as though he’d been dunked in an icy lake. Dressed in immaculate black and white, the human before him was apparently one of the help, not a guest. His mind was oddly sterile, still, devoid of emotion or wanting.

“Refreshment, sir?” the servant offered, nodding to the silver tray he carried, which was heavy with glasses of champagne and some unrecognizable finger food—probably caviar, or something equally vile. Jay doubted anyone here cared about underage drinking, but the last thing he needed was alcohol … or fish eggs.

“Is there somewhere I could sit for a while?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. This way.”

The servant led, and Jay followed with a shiver. It was like walking behind a ghost, something not altogether there.

As they entered a quiet parlor, an unsettling thought nudged into his mind: maybe this man wasn’t a servant at all. After all, Kendra’s line was allied with Midnight, the heart of a lucrative slave trade. Though humankind in this country had stopped trading people more than a century before, many immortals had a different sensibility about the uses to which a life could be put.

Midnight’s trainers had employed a bevy of methods designed to strip free will and any other vestiges of a soul from those they’d claimed to own, including many of Jay’s ancestors. Witches who went to Midnight intending to kill the trainers reappeared like zombies, intent only on obeying their new masters’ commands to murder their former kin. Was the static darkness in this servant’s mind the result of that same process?

Except for the late Lord Daryl, the trainers were exclusively from one line—all immediately descended from the so-called Mistress Jeshickah herself. Jay dared to hope they didn’t share Kendra’s line’s love of art and so might not choose to attend Kendra’s soiree. Even so, the glow of his initial fascination had dimmed, putting him on edge.

Jay found sharks, lions, polar bears, and crocodiles beautiful, each in their own way, but any one of them could turn into a man-eater given the wrong circumstances, so he tended to give them a wide berth. Beauty aside, why had he now put himself in a situation where some of the creatures around him might want just his blood, but some of them might actually want his soul?