She had a fall of straight black bangs, but the rest of her hair was pulled back from her face to reveal delicate ears set with jade ear spools. She was a delicate thing, petite even standing next to me and Professor Dallas, but I wasn't fooled by the packaging. What lay inside was a vampire not that old. I doubted she was a thousand years yet. I'd met older, much older, but I'd never met any vampire under a thousand that echoed in my head with the power that this one did. Power breathed off her skin like a nearly visible cloud, and I'd learned enough of vampires to know that the echo of power wasn't on purpose. Some of the masters with special abilities, like causing fear or lust, just gave off that power constantly like steam rising from a pot. It was involuntary, partially at least. But I'd never met one that leaked power, pure power.
Edward was talking to me, probably had been talking to me for a while. I just hadn't heard. "Anita, Anita, are you all right?" I felt the press of a gun not pointed at my back, but drawn, using my body to shield it from the room. Things could get ugly really fast.
"I'm all right," but my voice didn't sound all right. It sounded hollow and distant, like I was in shock. Maybe I was, a little. She hadn't exactly rolled my mind, but she knew things about me in that first contact that most vampires never figured out. I realized suddenly that she knew what kind of power I was. That was her gift, to be able to read power.
Her voice when it came was heavily accented and much deeper than that fragile throat should have held, as if the voice was an echo of that immense power. "Whose servant are you?"
She knew I was a vampire's human servant, but not whose servant I was. I liked that, made me feel better. She read only power, not details, unless of course, she was only pretending not to know. But somehow I didn't think she'd pretend ignorance. No, this was one that liked showing off her knowledge. She breathed arrogance as she breathed power. But why not be arrogant? She was, after all, a goddess, self-proclaimed anyway. You'd have to be either absolutely arrogant or crazy to claim godhood.
"Jean-Claude, Master of the City of St. Louis."
She cocked her head to one side as if listening to something. "Then you are the Executioner. You did not give your true name at the door."
"Not all vampires will talk to me if they know who I am."
"What is it you wish to speak with me about?"
"The mutilation murders."
Again, she turned her head to one side as if listening. "Ah, yes." She blinked and looked up at me. "The price for an audience is what lies on your hands."
I must have looked as puzzled as I felt, because she elaborated. "The blood, Cesar's blood. I wish to take it from you."
"How?" I asked, just call me suspicious.
She simply turned and started walking away. Her voice came like the sound to a badly dubbed film, sound long after it should have been heard. "Follow me, and do not clean your hands."
I glanced at Edward. "Do you trust her?" I asked.
He shook his head.
"Me either," I said.
"Are we going or staying?" Olaf asked.
"I vote for going," Bernardo said. I hadn't really looked at him since the sacrifice began. He was looking a little pale. Olaf wasn't. Olaf looked fresh and bright-eyed, as if he were enjoying the evening.
Dallas said, "It would be a grave insult if you refuse her invitation. She rarely gives personal interviews voluntarily. You must have impressed her."
"I didn't impress her. I attracted her," I said.
Dallas frowned. "Attracted her. She likes men."
I shook my head. "She may have sex with men, but what attracts her is power, Professor."
She looked at me, searching my face. "You have that kind of power?"
I sighed. "We'll find out, won't we?" I started walking in the direction that the cloaked figure had gone. She hadn't waited for us to decide. She'd just walked away. Like I said, arrogant. Of course, we were about to follow her into her private lair. That was arrogance, too, or stupidity. Arrogance or stupidity, sometimes there's not much difference between the two.
25
I DIDN'T KNOW where to go, but Dallas did. She led us to a small door set to one side of the temple steps, hidden by curtains. The door was still open, like a black mouth. Steps led down. Where else? Just once I'd like to see a vamp whose major hideout was up instead of down.
Dallas walked down the steps with a spring in her step and a song in her heart. Her ponytail bounced as she skipped down the steps. If she had a single misgiving about going down into that darkness, it didn't show. Dallas confused me. On one hand she didn't see that Olaf was dangerous, and she wasn't afraid of any of the monsters in the club. On the other hand, she'd believed me when I told her I'd cut her heart out. I'd seen it in her eyes. How could she believe that threat from a total stranger and not see the other dangers? Didn't make sense to me, and I didn't like what I didn't understand. She seemed utterly harmless, but her reactions were weird, so I put a question mark by her. Which meant, I wouldn't be turning my back on her or treating her like a civilian until I was convinced that that was what she was.
I was going too slowly for Olaf. He pushed past me and followed Dallas's bouncing ponytail down the stairs. He had to stoop to keep from bumping his head on the ceiling, but he didn't seem to mind. Fine with me. Let him take the first bullet. But I followed them down into the dark. No one had offered me violence, not really, not yet. So it seemed rude to have a gun naked in my hand, but … I'd apologize later. Unless I knew the vampire personally I liked having a loaded gun in hand the first time I paid a call. Or maybe it was the narrow stairs, the close press of stone as if it would close around us like a fist and crush us. Have I mentioned that I'm claustrophobic?
The stairs didn't go down very far, and there was no door at the end of them. Jean-Claude's retreat in St. Louis was something of an underground fortress. The barely hidden doorway, the short stairs, no second door — arrogance, again.
Olaf blocked my view of Dallas, but I saw him reach the dimly lit doorway at the bottom. He had to stoop even further to get through the door and hesitated before standing up on the other side. There was a sense of movement around him or rather to either side of him. Quick, almost not there, like things you see out of the comer of your eyes. It reminded me of the hands that had stripped Cesar as he walked between light and darkness.
He stayed just in the doorway, his body nearly filling it completely, blocking what little light there had been. I caught the faintest edge of Dallas. She led him away from the door further into the firelit dark.
I called down, "Olaf, are you okay?"
No answer.
Edward tried. "Olaf?"
"I am fine."
I glanced back at Edward. We had a moment of staring into each other's eyes, both of us thinking the same thing. This could be a trap. Maybe she was behind the murders. Maybe she just wanted to kill the Executioner. Or maybe she was a centuries-old vampire, and she just wanted to hurt us for the hell of it.
"Could she make Olaf lie?"
"You mean mind tricks?" I asked.
He nodded.
"Not this fast. I may not like him, but he's stronger than that." I looked at him, searching his face in the dim light. "Could they force him to lie?"
"You mean a knife at his throat?" Edward said.
"Yeah."
He gave a faint smile. "No, not this quick, not ever."
"You're sure of that?" I asked.
"My life on it."
"We're betting all our lives on it."
He nodded. "Yes, we are." But if Edward said that Olaf wouldn't sell us out on fear of death or pain, then I believed him. Edward didn't always understand why people did what they did, but he was usually right about the fact that they were going to do it, Motive evaded him, but he was seldom wrong. So … I kept walking down the steps.