Chapter 13

Northmarket District, Oldtown

The Vampire Luciana Marinus was a classic Italian beauty with long dark hair that framed fine-boned features. She appeared to be in her early thirties, but the darkness behind her big brown eyes belied that—she was far, far older than that.

In 966 AD, her father, the Duke of Naples, had married her off to a Magistros (high official in the Byzantine bureaucracy), hoping to secure favored trading rights. The ploy worked. Luciana was a political genius. She had cut her teeth on the twisted, vicious politics of the Italian city-states, so it came as no surprise that she soon manipulated her new husband into giving her his blessing to ply her art on his behalf. She soon made him (and her father) far wealthier than they ever dreamed possible and herself a major force in the murky politics of Constantinople until the day she made a misstep and found herself turned by a handsome Turkish vampire.

She ruled most of the gambling and prostitution in Oldtown. With a bribe here and a careful assassination there, she wielded power with a subtle deftness that New York’s Tammany Machine could only dream of.

“Do you think he will come to your call?” asked her daughter, Hélène. While she lounged comfortably, utterly relaxed across the room on an ornate seventeenth-century settee, Luciana knew she was ready for any threat. Helen had five hundred years to acquire the skills to go along with her vampire strength and speed. Very few beings in Oldtown could stand against a fully matured vampire. The two of them had been together ever since Luciana had turned her after she found her near dead in a Parisian alley. One of Louis XIV’s inquisitors had tortured her and left her for dead during one of the monarch’s periodic purges.

The pair had moved around; the curse of immortality was constant relocation until they were lucky enough to stumble onto a half-forgotten thinning southwest of Paris in Vézère Valley. That portal led them to Oldtown. All roads lead to the ancient city.

“I do not know, if he will come.” Luciana turned and asked her stone-faced Amazon bodyguard, “What do you think, Hera?” All of her inner circle conversed in Italian. Slaves had big ears. Paranoia was the norm in the Vampire’s house.

Hera was a recent addition to her staff. A tall blond woman with a vicious scar bisecting her right cheek, she cocked her head to one side as if she were considering what to say. “I have never met him, but my sisters say that he said he would come. My people say that when the Shadow Walker says he will do a thing—he will do that thing or perish trying.”

The Luciana saw Helene had doubts. She, herself, thought maybe-maybe not. Legends get overblown. She hoped he would come to her. She could use him.

When a servant ushered Lachlan Quinn into her study, she put down the ledgers she had been analyzing and studied him. The last time she’d seen him, he’d invaded her bedroom and tossed her a sack containing the head of her former associate, a slaver known as the Leprechaun.

She motioned for him to seat himself.

He nodded to Hélène, who looked back at him with eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“He doesn’t look like much,” she said in Italian.

“For mercy’s sake, be silent, Hélène,”

The Vampire feared few beings, but she had a healthy respect for the unknown abilities of the man who stood calmly looking around the room. She saw his eyes return to her bookshelves and imagined he had to restrain himself from going over to look at them. His brilliant green eyes came back to focus on hers. His bland gaze was unsettling.

To her surprise, she felt attracted to him. The stories told of an implacable killer, but her vast experience hinted that he was more than a mere brute. She wondered if she could trust him. A dangerous thought. Nothing she had learned over a thousand years of betrayals had ever led her to believe she could ever trust anyone, especially a male. Nevertheless, the vampire thought wistfully how nice it would be if you had a man like Quinn, to watch your back and share success and failure—to face threat and resolve it. How less lonely would things be? Then she dismissed the thought. Trust invariably led to betrayal as interests diverged. But, she thought, she didn’t have to trust him to use him.

Before she could start her prepared speech, he spoke. “Tell me about Wraith.”

Shock blanked her mind. Her planned approach immediately derailed. She stalled, trying to get her feet under her.

“Wraith? What are you talking about?”

“The assassin. Come on, Mistress. No need to waste time coming up with some fancy story. Whatever you’re thinking of selling, I’m not buying. Tell me, who would have hired Wraith to put a shuriken into your bodyguard?”

“It was an assassination attempt. Luckily, Clonie shoved me away. Unfortunately, she took the star in her side. I understand we have you to thank for her recovery.” She hoped that would satisfy him. She would sooner part with gold than information.

“So, the assassin failed, then?”

“Obviously.” she looked at him with scorn. “I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

Quinn made no response to her sarcasm. He continued to watch her eyes steadily.

His gaze further unsettled her. Irritated and now and well off her game plan, she snapped, “What?”

“Mistress, I am not stupid. I know that assassin. She does not miss. Especially at two targets sitting calmly twenty or thirty feet away. Tell me the truth, or I will leave.”