“The Kid thinks it might be Louis Seven.”
Yellowrock Securities had recently received info about the European Court of Mithrans. Louis VII was a powerful vamp in the inner cadre of the vamp-emperor. He had been a king himself in France when human, and had been called Louis le Jeune, or Louis the Young. Or the Younger, for short. Funny about the way it matched with the Youngers’ last name. “Okay. Louis Seven. Was he on the roster as one of the EVs we might expect as part of the parley?”
“Yeah.” The European vamps were planning to take over the U.S. hunting territories and cattle, which meant coming to visit Leo—a visit he couldn’t refuse—and then killing Leo. The negotiations for how many vamps, which ones, how many of their humans, and how long their stay would be had been ongoing for months. I hadn’t bothered to do much more than scan the bios of the players because they kept changing with every diplomatic snag. “The Kid sent me a history lesson on Louis the Young,” Eli said. “You want it?”
“Not really. But I don’t think I have a choice.” I sounded grumpy because I didn’t particularly care for history, but with the layered motivations of the long-lived Mithrans and Naturaleza, history was not only important, it was vital to staying alive. History had always been about people I loved being dead, or undead people trying to kill me or Leo, or both. I slouched back on the leather seat, prepared to be bored.
“Louis was a Capetian King of the Franks from 1137 until his supposed death at age sixty, in September 1180. But he was really turned by Eleanor of Aquitaine during their marriage. He swore to the Vampira Carta, but he’s bloodthirsty and still thinks of himself as the French king.”
“Yada yada yada. Old fangheads. Got it.”
Eli leaned toward me, elbows on his knees, hands dropped and fingers folded loosely together holding his Coke. “This is where it gets interesting. The line of the Capetian Kings ruled France from 987 to 1316, thirteen generations in almost 330 years. Then the line ran out of male heirs and the direct line of the House of Capet came to an end in 1328, when there was no surviving male heir. When the last Capet died, the throne passed to the House of Valois.” Eli went silent.
I sat up and stared at him. His posture was casual and relaxed, deceptively so. The lights through the heavily tinted windows created shadows that seemed to crawl across his face. “Valois,” I said. “That’s important. Somewhere in my notes Grégoire was intro’d as Blood Master of Clan Arceneau”—I dredged up the phrasing—“of the court of Charles the Wise, fifth of his line, in the Valois Dynasty, turned by Charles—the well beloved, the mad—the son of the king.” Grégoire, or Blondie, as I called him when I was being obnoxious, was Leo’s secundo heir. And Leo’s BFF. And Leo’s lover. “If a Capet or a Valois is in town, then Grégoire could be in danger?”
“And Leo. And some of his people. And if Alex’s line of reasoning is correct, one or more may be here. In the city.”
“Ahead of the official parley. Sooo. Maybe to cause trouble to divert our attention from something bigger. Or as part of a sneak attack, to be followed by a bigger sneak attack? Something they’ve been planning for years? Decades?” I put it together with what I already knew. “A king of France—” I interrupted myself as a stray thought intruded and went backward in history. “And Hugh Capet was turned by . . . ?”
“The bag of bones hanging in sub-five basement in vamp HQ.”
“Well, crap.” I rolled the half-empty cola can across my forehead, hoping the chill would cool off my brain. The Son of Darkness, or what was left of him, was hanging in the lowest sub-basement of the Mithran Council Chambers, and he was Leo’s source of power, an addictive blood-meal, and nothing but trouble, even back when he was sane-ish and free. As a piece of undead flesh with no heart, he was a bargaining chip or an excuse for a vamp war.
Everything in the vamp sub-basements was trouble, from the paintings and mementoes stored there, to the SOD, to the redheaded bloodsucker prisoner named Adrianna. I’d killed her a few times already, and each time Leo had brought her back. She was a future problem, though, not part of this.
Deep inside, Beast thought at me, Cold mountain stream. Good water. Not stinky water here. Want to go home.
“I know,” I muttered. “I know.” I waved away Eli’s questioning expression and drank down the Coke, hoping for a boost in my metabolism. Caffeine and sugar are two of the few stimulants or depressants that work on my kind. “So the vamps who are rising revenant are tied into the historical line that sired Grégoire.”
“Yes.”
“Is it too big a jump to be worried that any still-living vamps who were made by the Capetians might respond too? Like Grégoire?”
“Might have already done so,” Eli said grimly. “We’ve been out of pocket.” He reached for the gear bag and returned my cell. We’d been offline for a little over five minutes. That was about the max we could manage while working. We turned on the cells and I texted the Kid about dinner, with a phrase that meant record our conversation. It said simply, “Takeout from Marlene’s.” Alex would record everything said and we could go back over it later, picking out details.
“I have a feeling that Leo’s appearance at the wharf tonight wasn’t happenstance but to prove something to himself,” Eli said. “Now we just have to get him to tell us what and either confirm or deny our speculation.”
“I’ll get right on that.” I tucked the cell in my jacket pocket and finished off the Coke as the limo door opened and wet, fog-dense air billowed in. Rain was starting, which would decrease the fog but make driving just as dangerous. The chauffeur stood there with an umbrella over his boss. Leo slid across the seat: dry, elegant, relaxed, and satisfied. The devil in an eight-thousand-dollar Brioni suit. Lights pulled up behind us, a second limo arriving. The six others—vamps and humans—raced through the rain to the car and tossed two body bags inside to the floor, and five of them got in after. They pulled away at speed. The sixth vamp came to the window where Eli sat and tapped. When the window went down he held out his open palm. “Key fob,” he said. It was Tex, a vamp turned in the eighteen hundreds, tall, rangy, and with a distinct Texan accent.
“Why?” Eli asked.