“Do not touch what’s mine.” Juliette’s nails dug into his scalp as she grabbed Marcus by the hair. “This is the problem with your son, Matthew. He has no respect for age and power.”
“Put him down, Juliette,” Matthew said. “As for you, Marcus, don’t interfere in Juliette’s affairs.”
“This is my house!” Marcus shouted, keeping hold of the girl. “I won’t have a child abused in it—not for food, and not for sport.”
“We all have different tastes,” Louis said softly. “In time, you will learn to accept that.”
“Never.” Marcus looked at Matthew in disgust. “I expected better from you.”
“I’ve never touched a child,” Matthew said, his eyes darkening.
“No, but you’ll stand by and let your whore do it.”
Juliette launched herself at Marcus, her fingers raised in claws.
The child, who was caught between them, screamed in terror, her weakened heart skipping beats, slowing, then stopping. She slumped to the floor, dead.
Myrna flew into the room, wearing nothing but a corset and a pair of high-heeled slippers. Her hair was in disarray, and she held a bread knife aloft in one hand.
“The child. The child.” Myrna sobbed, her eyes wild. She began slashing at the air, left and right, slaying whatever ghosts had accompanied her into the room.
“Hush, Myrna. You’re safe. No one will harm you.” Marcus shielded Myrna from the view of the other vampires. He took off his coat and draped it around Myrna’s shaking shoulders.
“Get out of this house. All of you.” Ransome appeared, carrying a gun. One of his friends had modified the barrel, and it carried a ball and charge so large it could blow off half of a vampire’s head. Ransome called his gun “my angel.”
“I think, Monsieur de Clermont, that the time has come to do more than talk,” Louis observed with a superior sniff.
* * *
—
THE DEATHS BEGAN WITH MOLLY. Her body was found in the bayou, her neck savagely torn.
“Alligators,” the city coroner said.
Juliette smiled, her teeth hard and white.
Within a few days, Marcus knew that it wasn’t alligators who were disposing of his family, one by one. All died in mysterious circumstances that suggested the Chauncey family of Coliseum Street was experiencing a colossal streak of bad fortune.
Marcus knew it wasn’t Lady Luck who was doing this evil work. It was Juliette. And Matthew.
Marcus could tell which kills belonged to which creature. Juliette’s showed an element of savagery, with gaping wounds and signs of a struggle. Matthew’s were surgical, precise. One fast, quick cut from ear to ear across the throat.
Like Vanderslice.
“There will be no more children,” Matthew told Marcus, when only a handful of his children, including Ransome, remained. All were in hiding, most of them far out of town. “Philippe gave you strict orders on this subject.”
“Tell grandfather his message was received.” Marcus sat, head in his hands, at the same table that he had gathered around with his family, telling tales and swapping insults, long into the New Orleans night.
“Tragic,” Juliette said. “Such a needless loss of life.”
Marcus snarled at her, daring her to continue. Wisely, she turned away. Had she not, Marcus would have ripped her heart out and let Matthew feast on his bones if he wished.
“I will never forgive you for this,” Marcus promised Matthew.
“I don’t expect you to,” Matthew said. “But it had to be done.”
33
Sixty
11 JULY
Finally, after two months, Miriam’s vampire blood was beginning to take root in Phoebe’s body. Some of the physical and emotional changes were subtle—so much so that Phoebe herself wasn’t always able to perceive them right away. There were moments, like the night she met Stella by the Seine, when her altered blood had been obvious. Most days, however, Phoebe looked into the mirror and saw the same face she’d always seen looking back at her.
As she approached the fledgling stage of vampire development, however, it was becoming increasingly clear that she was no longer a warmblood. Her five senses had all become laser sharp and precise. There was no such thing, for example, as background noise for a vampire. She could hear a cricket as loudly as though it were a brass band. Conversations held on mobile phones, all of which seemed to be undertaken at maximum volume, infringed on her sanity so much that she had to resist the impulse to rip the devices out of people’s hands and stomp on them. But music—oh, music was a delight. No one had told her how music would become something so utterly enrapturing. When Phoebe heard a song of any sort—classical, pop, it didn’t matter—she felt as though the notes had replaced the blood in her veins.