“I heard.” Saber scowled and motioned with his gun. “Crawl backward ten feet, then get to your knees.”
Jo-Jo the vampire jester—and how many things were wrong with that picture?—did exactly as Saber instructed. Even when he was kneeling, I could guess Jo-Jo to be six feet tall. His polo shirt was more brown than yellow on the front. Were those bug splat spots? A slash wound on his forehead was raw and festering. Small wonder he’d asked if the bullets were silver. From the looks of it, someone had been at him with a silver knife—the only reason a vamp cut wouldn’t have healed. He held his arms slightly out from his lean torso, palms up, as if to show he’d come in peace. Saber’s expression said he wasn’t buying the innocent act.
“Now what,” Saber said, words slow and measured, “do you want with Cesca?”
Jo-Jo snorted. “To me, she is not simply Cesca. She is Francesca, Princess Vampire, Most Royal Highness of the House of King Normand.”
My stomach flipped. My breath stopped. Warmth drained from my body faster than blood from a slashed vein. How did this vampire know my full, formal title? The one Normand had so ceremoniously conferred on me. Every vamp who knew me by that name should have died—really died—over two hundred years ago.
Jo-Jo hadn’t been in Normand’s court. I remembered the bad old days all too clearly, when Marco Sánchez had kidnapped me, and the so-called King Normand had turned me. I recalled the face of every vampire in that court, had tasted the blood of every wretched human slave.
Absolutely no one—human or vampire—should know my title. So how did Jo-Jo know it?
“Cesca, you okay?” Saber asked.
I snapped to the present, swallowed past the pain, and nodded. We had nervous guests waiting, fireworks to shoot. Maybe a vampire, too, if I didn’t get answers fast.
“Jo-Jo,” I said, willing my voice steady and my body warm, “Saber asked you a question. What do you want?”
He squared his shoulders. “If the royal princess would but grant my boon, I seek political asylum.”
That jerked me back to my normal self.
“Only a country can grant political asylum, so you might as well leave.”
“Wait,” he said, fear on his filthy face. “How about sanctuary? I will be your slave, live only to serve you, my princess beneficent.”
“Slavery has been outlawed for a couple of centuries.”
“A servant then?” he pressed, his expression pleading. “I do housework. Even windows, Your Vast Wonderfulness.”
I looked down at my size-four green cotton shorts and matching scoop neck spaghetti strap top. I am not vast.
“I don’t want a servant,” I said, not bothering to keep huffiness out of my tone. “This is the US of A. Land of the free—”
“Home of the taxpayer,” Jo-Jo interjected.
“Say what?”
Jo-Jo’s sharp chin went up. “It’s a line from my comedy routine.”
Saber shook his head. “With jokes like that, you do need protection.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” the vampire agreed. “And if you’ll put the cannon away, good sir, I’ll tell you why.”
“A straight answer would be refreshing,” I snipped.
“All right, stand up slow and back up another pace or two,” Saber demanded as he turned partly to me. “Cesca, be ready to do your thing.”
My “thing” is pulling aura, the way I fed while I was trapped underground for two centuries. Of course, I only sipped from a man here, a woman there, but, in the extreme, I can drain enough energy to render a human or vampire helpless. I didn’t have to test my skill on Jo-Jo. He did as asked, and Saber signaled to the backup crew to holster or purse their weapons. Saber held his at his side.
“So spill,” I said. “What do you want from me?”
Jo-Jo sketched an elaborate bow complete with a hand flurry that made me imagine he held a frilly, befeathered hat. I had a quick vision of him in a full jester’s costume and frowned. Was he planting that picture, or was I reading his memories? The moon phases didn’t fritz out my psychic senses as much as they used to, but still, I couldn’t read Jo-Jo’s mind, which would’ve been handy to find out how he’d learned my better-forgotten title.
“My princess, you see before you, sadly misplaced in time, a jester of some former renown. I served the courts of—”
“Jo-Jo,” I cut in.
“Yes, Most Royal Mercifulness?”
“Fast-forward. Why do you want protection?”
He deflated faster than a blowfish. His shoulders slumped, and he actually seemed to age.
“The short of it is,” he said, meeting my gaze with haunted eyes, “I’m a marked man for leaving the nest in Atlanta.”
A twinge of empathy pierced me, but I didn’t let it show. I knew full well the Vampire Protection Agency allowed nests of under thirty vamps to exist, but countered, “Nests are supposed to be against the law.”
“Yeah, well, tell that to my mast—” His gaze slid to Saber. “I mean to Vlad, the Atlanta head honcho.”
“Vlad?” I echoed. “As in Vlad the Impaler?”