Vamp Mojo was nothing like the bar from my own world. We walked in the front door and were met by two blood-servant bouncers, one a big, former special forces soldier with a bald head and muscled biceps the size of my thighs, and one a small, lithe, Asian guy with cold eyes and hard hands. I leaned slowly in and whispered in the former-soldier’s ear, “Evangelina sent us to talk to Amaury.”
“Not with the weapons,” he whispered back, “I don’t care if the Devil himself sent you as a present.”
I started removing the weapons, setting them on a table to the side. It was an impressive pile when I was done. Then I assumed the position, palms flat on the wall and feet spread. The small guy did the pat-down and while his hands cupped my breasts and got a little friendly below my waist, I ignored it. For now. When I picked my weapons back up, it would be a different matter. The muscle ignored Jo and Laz, as if my obvious weaponry was all that mattered. Which was odd, as they had magic that might put my guns to shame. With the hairsticks and derringer under my braids, we walked into Vamp Mojo.
The place stank of blood and sex, and was mostly in shadow, lit by gas lanterns, the flames protected from drafts by glass globes. The bar ran along the back, serving the usual beer and liquor, but also coffee, tea, and blood. The vintages sat on stools inside the bar, every one of them pretty and mostly naked. Every one of them with half-healed bite marks on their wrists and the inside of their elbows, every one of them severely anemic and blood drunk, happily stoned on sips of vamp blood.
There was a dance floor and a stage to the side, but set up higher, about three feet off the floor, and there were brass poles with totally naked dancers mounted on each. Laz leered. Jo rolled her eyes. I followed the scents on the air conditioned breeze to a booth in the corner. The stink of unknown vamp and power, and also the familiar—Leo Pellissier.
Leo was debonair and pale-skinned, his long hair pulled back into a queue, tied with a black silk ribbon. He was wearing black pants and a black silk dress shirt open at the throat, and he looked strangely diminished here, less powerful, less commanding. He looked oddly anguished.
There was a woman on his lap, blonde and delicate, his fingers tangled in her hair. Katie Fonteneau, and a half dozen other names. She was different in this world. Coarser. She was wearing a scarlet bustier, garter, and panties, with black stockings, and that was all. And though Katie was on Leo’s lap, another vamp was drinking from her.
He was not as pretty as Leo, his skin duskier, his hair a bit coarser. And he was sucking on Katie’s neck while one hand massaged her breast. Cute. Katie was moaning, but I could see her face and she was not enjoying the attention. She was being abused by someone in power, which just got all over me. Despite that fact that Katie was half nutso in my world, I liked her.
“Careful,” Jo whispered in my ear. “He’s got some magic in him. Like a sorcerer again. Jesus, what is it with sorcerers in this place?”
“Great.” I rapped on the table and said, “Hey, fanghead. You got visitors.”
Amaury went deadly still at the insult. So did Leo and Katie, and nobody does immobile like a vamp. It’s that not having to breathe thing that makes it so effective and so spooky. Slowly, he opened his eyes and stared at me over Katie’s head. Katie rolled her eyes back at me, afraid, and I had never seen her afraid. Only Leo did the expected—sat back in his seat and quirked up a brow, all old-world hoity-toity. He looked me over carefully and thoroughly, taking note of the silver hairsticks with a little quirk of his lips, before turning curious attention to his uncle.
Amaury withdrew his fangs from Katie’s throat with a little click. He lifted her by her head, up into the air, and placed her across Leo. It was an amazing feat of one-armed strength, spoiled when there wasn’t enough bench seat for her and she nearly fell to the floor. Jo caught her by the arm until she got her feet under her, and helped Katie off toward a door behind the stage.
I stared at Amaury, maintaining a half-smile and attitude until Joanne got back. Then I said, “I understand we have to talk to the chief suckhead of New Orleans.” When in doubt, go for crass.
Amaury leaned back in his seat, arms out to his sides, his shirt billowing open to reveal a chest with sparse hair and a gold chain, the disco kind they wore in the seventies. He was typically Frenchy, like Leo, with black hair and black eyes, and the scent of his power was like static electricity on the air, tickling my nose, making me want to rub it. Jo’s eyes went gold and if she was a cat I’d have said her hackles stood up. She got stiff and still, and watched Amaury like he was the Devil himself.
“I am the one you seek. You will show me proper deference.” He raised the fingers of his left hand and did a little twisting motion. The scent of power grew stronger, harsher, like bees buzzing on the air. “Kneel.”
His power landed on my shoulders like a weight, and I locked my knees. I pulled on Beast’s energies, and could see from my peripheral vision Jo doing something to maintain control too. Laz just looked amused. I let Beast flow into me, her claws kneading my brain painfully. No way was I gonna kneel to this guy. He’d been dangerous and power-mad before he was killed on my world, and I could tell he was even worse here. He’d had a few decades longer to work his villain-charms in this world. “Don’t think so,” I said. “We’re not from around here, and we’re not yours to control.
The power shut off instantly. Amaury sat up, clear calculation in his eyes. “Every magic user in this region is mine to control, and their magic mine to use as I choose.” He tilted his head slightly. “It has been so since I held back the waters of Katrina and saved the coast and the city.”
Jo’s lip curled. “You took their power as payment for saving them?”
“I did. It was fair recompense for my services.”
“Sure. Whatever,” I said. “We’ve made the required appearance and now we need to be outta here. We were called here for a purpose. We have business to attend to.”
“Wait.” Joanne kept staring at Amaury like he was something the cat dragged in, but she still ignored me even when I rolled my head until my neck popped and glared at her. “All the magic here flows through you?”
Amaury nodded once. Jo made fists and stood her ground. “Then you’ve got to know what called us here. There’s something that needs doing here, and either you know what it is or you’re not as hot as you think you are.”
The casual insult rolled off her tongue so trippingly it took a moment for Amaury’s expression to go black. Then it shivered back to reasonable so fast I wasn’t sure I’d seen the darkness. Calculation lay beneath the reason, though: he was assessing us, deciding what to say, while Leo watched me a little too intently, a little too much of the predator in his gaze.
“There has been a disturbance,” Amaury finally said.
I grinned, thinking, in the force, but I didn’t say it. Go me. Jo sucked her cheeks in like she was holding back a grin herself, and I had a feeling that if we looked at each other, we’d start to giggle. Not gonna happen. I kept my eyes on Amaury and forced my lips down.
“A girl, a voodooine, was given a task. A simple task, and she failed.” His sneer came and went in a flash, which I thought took a lot of cajones from a guy who couldn’t even maintain a power base without stealing magic from other people. “She was meant to create a love spell, and instead I have sensed a rift and the arrival of a thing I do not recognize. A demon, I should say, which not even my power can locate or contain. Perhaps this demon is why you have been called to my territory.”