Excerpt: Promises to Keep

Chapter 1:

Jay liked hunting with Nica. She was… well, very nearly feral, for lack of a better word. Her mind was like a candle, burning and focused, occasionally fluttering in the wind. She was a creature of whims and impulse, cravings and wildness, and she was just fine with that.

The vulpine shapeshifter picked her way through the snow with a smooth stride broken only with the occasional catlike toss of her stiletto-booted feet. Jay wasn’t sure how she could walk in the heels, especially with the snow and occasional patches of ice, but she managed. He had seen her kill a vampire using one of those stilettos and her bare hands, so he knew they served a purpose.

Above the boots, she was wearing an a-line black silk off-the-shoulders gown with golden embroidery around the low neckline and sliding at an angle from the waist to the hem. There was a gold necklace at her throat, rubies in her ears, a knife strapped to her thigh, a knife in each boot, and a stiletto hidden among the copper highlights in her elegantly high-twisted chocolate brown hair.

Jay’s weaponry was concealed beneath a tux. The black silk jacket, which matched Nay’s gown fairly well, had been hand-made for him, though the green-and-gold damask silk vest had been bought at a whim quite a while back. Nay had assured him that it complimented his hazel-green eyes and auburn hair, which he had pulled back in a ponytail for the night.

The costumes were necessary; the event they were planning to crash was black tie only.
Nica pulled from her tiny hand purse a small white card, with a time and address on the front, to refer to it one more time.

“This is it,” she said.

Their cab had dropped them off at the wrong house, which was a more inconvenient error in a neighborhood where the houses seemed to have between five and ten acres of land each. They had made their way to the next house over, and up a half-mile-long private driveway before now standing before an impressive manor. Each window held a candle- real fire, none of the safe, modern electric varieties- and the trees out front sparkled with silver-blue lights. The front yard, which was obviously a garden in other months, was decorated by elaborately carved reindeer in various poses of grazing and leaping, all carved from fine white marble that glistened in the snow.

The aura of vampires that wafted from the seasonally-decorated estate took his breath away. Nica had warned him that this group was powerful, and he had tried to prepare himself, but at that moment he had to shut his eyes and sort out the power swirling around him. He didn’t think he had ever been among this many powerful ancients.

“The property belongs to Kendra, of course,” Nica narrated, as they approached the front door, which was dark oak carved with elaborate Celtic designs. The center boasted actual stained glass, which depicted a falcon in flight above a mountain valley.

The obvious hand-made art made him nervous to reach for the doorknob. He wondered if Kendra had made the carvings, or the window, or the statues, or none or all of the above. Members of her line were as famous for their artistic inclinations as they were for their intense, borderline psychotic temperaments, but he was unsure how many forms of art Kendra practiced. Almost two thousand years old, she had certainly had time to learn a variety of skills.

“Ready?” Nica asked, as they hesitated on the front step, listening to Christmas carols drifting from the interior.

Nica’s enthusiasm and excitement was like a cloud of lightning. He tended to think no one would be able to resist picking up on some of that electricity. Jay flashed a smile, and reached for the doorknob.

Before he could turn it, the door opened from the other side, revealing a sable-skinned bloodbond in a crimson, corset-laced strapless gown and elbow-length white gloves that only concealed some of the scars on her arms. They left bare the two signatures, Nikolas and Kristopher, on her shoulders.

The bloodbond looked at Nica, and her expression brightened before she greeted the fox in what sounded like rapid French. She took Nica’s hand and drew her forward before embracing her and kissing each of her cheeks in turn. Nica responded to the greeting in the same language, though she struggled somewhat with it.

“I’m so happy you could both come,” the bloodbond said, in gently accented English, looking to Jay. “My name is Marguerite. Nica is a good friend of mine. Merry Christmas, both of you.”

Marguerite’s mind was as completely warm, welcoming and trusting as her voice. She had absolutely no concern about inviting them in to her masters’ holiday gala.

Maybe she knew that anyone who stepped into this place would be stunned beyond any ability to do harm by the sheer volume of beauty. Nica had also warned him that Kendra’s Christmas party, which she called her Heathen Holiday, was primarily a showcasing of her line’s best art from the year before, but he had no experience to compare this to.

The center of the front hall was occupied by a sculpture. Jay didn’t know much about such art, but he was pretty sure the life-sized huntress with a falcon just spreading its wings to launch itself from her proudly upheld fist was made of blown glass, not otherwise carved or molded.

The woman’s expression somehow held despair, and hope, and pain, and power, all at once. The falcon was obviously her soul, flying free… or perhaps freed of its earthly bonds.

“We might as well give him a minute,” he heard Marguerite say. “That tends to be how anyone with eyes reacts when they first come in here. Jay, feel free to look around, or mingle. Nica and I are going to catch up.”

After they left, he saw that his hand had lifted, and grabbed his own wrist, not daring to actually touch this work of brilliance.

“It was his last work,” a voice said at his elbow, making him jump- an experience he didn’t often have, since his awareness of others’ tended to make him impossible to sneak up on.

“Sorry,” he said, apologizing for his reaction. Then, as he processed the words themselves, he repeated, “I’m sorry. It’s a stunning piece.” Gathering his wits, he took the time to focus his attention on the woman standing before him, who was every bit as regal and elegant as the huntress in the statue. “You must be my hostess.”

Kendra held out a hand, encased in a fine white glove, which Jay took and, mostly on impulse, kissed the back of.

“And you are the witch that Nica told me she would bring,” Kendra replied.

“Jay Marinitch, at your service.”

The courtesy was not instinctive, nor feigned, but rather a reaction to this woman’s mind, which was like nothing he had ever experienced. Was this what it always felt like, standing in the presence of one of the ancients? Or was it that artist’s soul within that made her thoughts burn with such intensity? He didn’t know, but he would have been content to bask in it for hours, perhaps days.

“Enjoy the holiday, Jay Marinitch,” she said, before moving on to greet another guest.

Jay shook himself, trying to get his focus back, but as Nica had predicted, he was completely overwhelmed. This was like trying to focus in the middle of a super-nova. There was too much power, and too much art, both physically and mentally.

And he hadn’t yet made it past the front hall.

Before he, too, moved on, though, he read the plaque at the base of the statue.
Lady With a Falcon On Her Fist.
Lord Daryl di’Bergetta.

His last work, Kendra had said, a remark Jay now understood. The vampire known as Lord Daryl had been killed the summer before, an event shocking enough that news had traveled swiftly.

Hunters frequently took down the young and the sloppy, vampires who had frequently been changed by whim instead of thoughtful intent, and who had relatively few connections to others of their kind. It was more rare for a hunter to actually strike at the kinds of individuals who attended Kendra’s Heathen Holiday, who had allies, friends, and political connections throughout the vampiric world.

Lord Daryl had not been an ancient, but he had been a powerful figure in his world, especially in the realm known as Midnight, where humans- and occasionally witches or shapeshifters- were bought and sold.

They said his own slave had killed him.

Jay shuddered, turning away from the statue, and wondering how a man known for his viciousness as a slave-trainer could possibly have created such a powerful yet delicate work of art. If anything, he would have said the work depicted the agony of bondage. How could the same hands that worked this glass have beaten the will out of countless human slaves?

He realized he was staring again.

He forced his body to move beyond the entryway.

“Lady With a Falcon on Her Fist” had been the only piece in the entry, probably intended as an honor to the deceased artist. Beyond that point, the sheer mass of talent was staggering. Paint, ink, stone, clay, metal, glass, canvas, photo, paper, wood… the materials boggled his mind, even before he began to contemplate the creations themselves. Thousands of years of talent were showcased here, in every possible medium.

And the artistic pieces were not the only works of beauty.

The members of Kendra’s line, assembled together in full formalwear, were breathtaking. Nica had told him the dress code was “more or less black-tie,” and now he understood the “more or less” part of that description. The vampires and bloodbonds in the room were from every century and every country, and their dress represented as much. Tuxedo jackets and ballgowns moved among saris, mandarin gowns, and other designs he couldn’t begin to name. He wondered if Kaleo would be wearing a toga; he didn’t think he had ever seen anyone wearing authentic Roman formalwear, but if it was ever going to happen, apparently this would be the place.

Beyond clothes, skin had in many cases been used as a canvas. Bloodbonds tended to be painted, some with elaborate masquerade-style face paint, but others with body art that complimented their attire, such as one woman whose dress had an open back that revealed shining painted butterfly wings.

He realized he had stopped dead again, staring about. No one seemed to mind- in fact, when he struggled to focus his eyes, he realized that those who were looking at him seemed to smile, amused and understanding. Like Marguerite and Nica, those around him seemed to consider his reaction perfectly normal. He realized he would have given far more offense, and probably garnered outright disdain, had he not been struck dumb for a while upon entering.