As Guccio moved, he made the cloth dance in a way designed to lead Adam into making assumptions about his movement and the dagger position. Twice Adam was sure he saw the beginning of an attack, but the wolf disagreed, reading the vampire’s intention differently. Adam listened to the wolf.
Guccio moved the cloth in a fluttering swoop, while the dagger appeared in a reverse grip, slashing at Adam’s throat. The blade lay backward along Guccio’s arm. Most blocks or grabs would result in serious damage to Adam’s hands. As it blurred across Adam’s throat, the vampire bent his wrist back, allowing the blade to snap forward and take a wider path. Guccio’s body was close behind it, sliding in an arc past Adam.
Adam jerked his head back. The blade sang as it passed by, slicing open nothing but air. Adam threw a hard jab. He hit, but the fluttering cloth had made him misjudge, and it was just a glancing blow, barely hard enough to make Guccio throw in a short step to regain his balance. The vampire whirled past Adam, discarding the tablecloth. The green woven linen fluttered to the ground to land across the dead woman’s feet.
As Adam pivoted to face the vampire again, a sharp pain drew his attention to the fork sticking out just under his ribs on the left side. Guccio must have grabbed the fork with the tablecloth and used the cloth to conceal it.
Silverware, real silverware was sterling silver, 90 percent silver. Everything except the knife. Had Guccio stuck him with a table knife, Adam could have pulled it out and expected his body to heal in a reasonably rapid fashion.
The fork burned.
Guccio grinned at him, then tilted his head, listening. Adam heard it, too. The fork had penetrated Adam’s diaphragm, allowing air to seep into his chest cavity. His left lung was slowly collapsing, and pulling the fork out would only serve to accelerate the process. Wounds made with silver had to be healed just like humans heal. This small wound changed everything, and they both knew it.
Adam backed up slowly, and Guccio shadowed him, the vampire’s movements lazy. He was confident of his victory. Now that the prey was wounded, there was no hurry. Werewolves kill their prey quickly, but vampires, like cats, enjoy playing with their food.
Adam intended to use Guccio’s confidence and eagerness against him.
He opened the pack bonds. Although the only one of his pack nearby was Honey, she was a deep well of power, and she gave it freely. Her energy trickled into him, cool and refreshing, swallowing pain.
Adam continued backing away, breathing shallowly. He angled along an overturned table until he bumped into one of the larger tables, where someone had been clearing the table and left one of those carts with a black tub on top, a tub filled with dishes.
Bonarata’s people dined off fine porcelain china.
The busboy—busperson?—had kindly stacked the plates for Adam. He picked up several in his left hand and with his right he Frisbeed the top one at the vampire.
Guccio was less than ten feet away.
Some people might think a plate a poor weapon. Some people weren’t werewolves who could launch the things at speeds a major-league pitcher would envy. The first plate hit the arm Guccio lifted to block it and exploded, sending sharp fragments of glazed porcelain flying like shrapnel. The impact also knocked the knife from Guccio’s hand. It flew, hit a table, and fell to the ground a dozen feet away. Not entirely out of play but close enough.
The second plate took Guccio full in the throat, the narrow edge sliced like a knife, parting flesh and opening a second mouth that bled dark, viscous blood.
The third plate struck Guccio in the forehead, shattering on impact and leaving another bleeding cut with large shards embedded in his skull.
Staggered by the rapid impacts, Guccio took another couple of steps back. Blood from his forehead ran into his left eye. He wiped it clear and opened his mouth to say something.
And Adam pulled the H&K from his shoulder holster. The first shot took the vampire just below his left eye. A .40 wasn’t the biggest caliber in the world, but modern ammunition made the most of it. Adam wasn’t carrying target rounds.
A large portion of the vampire’s head blew outward, fragments of bone and tissue flung eight feet or more.
The vampiric magic that bound Guccio to his half life didn’t give up easily. Guccio wasn’t dead; he swayed on his feet with a confused expression on his face. Apparently his high-velocity lobotomy had degraded his thinking skills because he just stood there. The raw tissue writhed and pulsed in the open wound as the vampire’s body struggled to repair the damage.
“A gun?” said Bonarata quietly.
“Why didn’t you shoot him earlier?” asked Marsilia. “You had time to do it after you sent Iacopo to me.”
“Because,” Adam said, “I needed Bonarata to know that I can defend my territory from vampires without any help at all. Guccio is one of your strongest vampires. He attacked me armed with a dagger—and I could have defeated him with a stack of plates.” He put two more rounds into Guccio, this time between his eyes.
Guccio dropped bonelessly to the floor, faceup. There were three neat holes and only a little blood from the gunshots. The real damage was hidden from sight. He had been a pretty man, but his features were only visible for a moment.
Dead vampires as old as Guccio dry up and turn to ash pretty quickly.
“The gun just makes things quicker.” Satisfied Guccio was permanently dead, Adam looked at Marsilia. “But if I’d used the gun right at the beginning, there would have been one less casualty.” He looked at Bonarata. “In my territory, I’d have used the gun.”
“Why was he fighting so hard?” asked Larry. “He acted like he actually had a chance. Once Adam saw to it that the assassination did not take place, Guccio was ended. Even if he had taken Adam out, his element of surprise was gone. You wouldn’t have let him live.”
Bonarata looked around the mostly empty room and sighed. Besides Adam’s people, there were five or six vampires.
“My people,” Bonarata said. “How many of you were obligated to follow Guccio while he was alive?”
All of them raised their hands.
“Raising new children is troublesome,” Bonarata said. “You all understand how it works? You collect sheep and tend them. And in a few years, five or six on average, if you are careful, you will have one prepared who can become your child. For that one, you will have tended a dozen who, for one reason or another, will never live to become vampires. Once you have changed your fledgling, for years afterward, sometimes decades and sometimes centuries, you still have to feed them and make sure that they are not misbehaving. Eventually, you hope, they will go out on their own and be able to produce their own children.”
“I am Bonarata’s child,” said Marsilia. “And I know a few others, but there are only a few of us.” She gave Bonarata a quick, affectionate smile. “He is too lazy to tend children.”
It must have been an old joke because he smiled back. “We vampires are selfish creatures.”
Marsilia completed it by saying, “It is the only reason vampires haven’t taken over the world.”
Bonarata said, “Stefan is the only vampire I know who never was tied to his Master by magic-driven obedience. I myself destroyed my maker when I decided what I wanted to become. I could not afford to have someone who I would have a hard time refusing.”
Wulfe had been Bonarata’s maker.
Marsilia said, “We believe that once a vampire can survive on his own kills rather than needing supplementary feeding from his maker or another Master to maintain their humanity, it is time to release them from obligation. When a child of mine quits feeding from me, the tie of obedience fades, though it doesn’t disappear.”