21 Shades of Night, page 431
As the first fleck of fluid landed on his leg, he waited in disagreeable anticipation for the pain to hit. He was not to be disappointed. Her friends were at least wise enough to have doctored the water with something unpleasant. Garlic oil. The stuff was the equivalent of dropping hydrochloric acid on a human, and it burned and sizzled just as nastily. It wouldn't kill him, but he'd learnt long ago that pain and death did not necessarily follow hand in hand. The worst part about this ordeal was that he had to keep his mind sharp to control the girl, whilst making sure she didn't have an inkling of what the water did to his kind. If he made out the water was harmless, she was unlikely to try the same trick again. It was a good theory, but putting on a show of nonchalance for her benefit was going to take all of his formidable resolve and more. The drops sank into the material of his trousers and burned into his flesh. He could have ripped them off to lessen the damage, but it would have made little difference. The worst had been done and all he could do now was try to ensure it never happened again. Giving himself a moment before trusting himself to speak, he allowed her the privilege of standing upright once more.
Slowly raising his eyes to hers, he said, 'So I guess that means you can cross stakes, silver, and holy water off your list of rapidly diminishing death-delivering items.' The words came out reasonably steadily, and for that he was thankful. The garlic oil was beginning to do its thing upon his legs and in quite spectacular fashion, but he still managed his trademark smile at the end of the sentence. Only a fellow vampire would have been able to spot the tiny strains of discomfort that had begun to tighten his facial expression.
'You bit me,' she accused, aghast, her mouth pulled back in a grimace of horror.
'Oh, do keep up,' he said with a tired sigh. 'I pretended to bite you. That little morsel of fun happened only inside your head. The real thing is far better, and if you're a good girl, I might even give you a demonstration.' There was no accompanying smile after the sentence, and didn't that say it all?
'No, you bit me earlier.' Her voice was rising and sounded slightly hysterical. 'My knife,' she pointed to the blade between her feet, 'is covered in blood. My shoulder stings. You bit me.'
'Pumpkin,' he sighed, 'you'd know if I bit you. There'd be a post-orgasmic, flashing blue lights, shocked-at-the-brilliance of the world type of aura about you. All you've had is a knife plunged into your shoulder. If you're hankering after a set of puncture wounds, though, I'm sure I can oblige.' He used his index finger to beckon her forward and displayed a set of prominent fangs for her benefit. 'It's jolly good...'
'Fine.' She managed to get her trembling hands under control and used them to smooth her auburn waves carefully around her face. Rearranging the long folds of her dress, which had become decidedly rumpled as she'd worn them dangling around her face for the duration of the spanking, she then took great care to pick up the knife by its unsullied handle and looked at it with displeasure.
'You be a good girl and give it to your friends. You know exactly what will happen if you don't, Princess.' He waved her back into the ballroom beyond, where a lively orchestral tune had just struck up. Her face turned to the lights streaming through the open doors and he knew she wanted to make a break for the safety of the walls within. She had much to learn. Nowhere would be safe for her anymore. In fact, safety would not be a usable word in her vocabulary from this night forth. 'After you've finished with your death buddies, come back here and we'll go party at mine. I'll show you what you've been missing all these years.' He unearthed his fangs again for good measure, and curled his tongue around a sharp point.
He knew she had to bite down the urge to scream at him. It would have been immensely entertaining had he not been coping with third degree burns.
'You wouldn't want to give me any hints or tips on how to remove that arrogant head of yours from your body, would you?' Her voice held a simpering, sweet quality, and her little girl antics made him want to throw her down on the ground and cover her entire body with grass stains.
'What can I say?' He shrugged. 'You'll probably need to take a step over into the other side of life to find out, though. You'll never kill me as a human.'
'You're the most vile and loathsome creature I've ever met, Martinet. Using my fantasy was a low blow. Sexy stranger you may be, but you were hardly a knight in shining armour. Next time you grope around for fantasies inside my head, make sure you do the job properly,' she barked.
'You came, didn't you? What more do you want? Rose petals and a fanfare? Tell you what, next time I'll get out the horse and carriage and we can go for a proper ride...' Martinet didn't bother continuing. He was presented with her back as she stomped off, and damned if she didn't have a mighty fine ass to ogle.
'Your performance was appalling, by the way.' She did not raise her voice to utter the condemning statement, but she was well aware that she didn't need to. What was it with women who always needed to get the last word in?
He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, 'Good thing I'll be getting plenty of practise in later then, isn't it?' He had to raise his voice quite significantly to make sure he could be heard by her inferior ears. No reply was forthcoming, but he knew she'd heard him by the stiffening of her neck and the tightening of her fingers. Alas, she didn't quite manage to hide the infuriated shriek that burst forth from her lips and refused to be stoppered by both of her similarly maddened hands. Increasing her already rather fast pace, she continued to stalk off towards the welcoming light of the ballroom, giving him not so much as a second glance.
The Duchess stepped silently out of the shadows and almost startled him, which was shocking in itself. The girl had made him forget about everything else around him, including, most importantly, that the whole scene had been witnessed.
'Are you okay, darling?'
'Never better, Maggie. I have a thing about virgins, wouldn't you know? Well done for spotting that little titbit. You're a sharp creature, aren't you?'
'I can smell the garlic from here, Michel.' She sniffed the air as if to emphasize her point. 'The girl's gone and there is no one left to impress. You don't have to pretend for my benefit.'
'I'm impervious to pain, Maggie.' Martinet gave her a bored look. She would always suspect, but she'd never know it was a lie for certain, and that suited him just fine. Vampire politics were difficult things. Her answering snort told him all he needed to know on that score, unfortunately.
'You are just as magnificent as they say you are,' she said cheekily, giving him a sly wink as she walked calmly away, slinking back into the shadows with a speed and agility that belied her venerable age. She didn't finish the conversation on words of praise, however. 'You do know she's going to run, don't you?'
'Oh, I'm counting on it,' he replied.
There was a titter of laughter and then the Duchess disappeared from his life as quickly as she had entered it. And she did manage to get the last word in. 'Run for your life, precious,' she whispered softly on the wind. It was clear that her last sentence was not for him. Trust the Duchess to be on the side of the underdog.
‘Women,’ muttered Martinet, rolling his eyes in annoyance. He had to hand it to her, though. Never before had the sentence seemed more apt...
Chapter 9
Details
VIOLETTA WANTED TO pull things apart. She wanted to curse and rail, stomp and tear, and she wouldn't have been averse to letting a nuclear bomb explode at this moment in time, even if it took out most of the Provincia di Venezia with it. She had never felt quite so impotent in all her life. He held all the cards, every single one, and there didn't appear to be a single thing she could do about it.
Curling the blood-soaked knife into the back of her hand and concealing it within the folds of her dress, she began to forge a path through the patrons of the ballroom. The bright sparkle of the crystal chandeliers was the first thing to catch her eye and it dragged her head upward, where she admired the elegant frescos that adorned the ceilings. Cherubs danced in sunny blue skies and the intricate, gilded plasterwork that contained them almost took the beauty of the images away. The impressive room was made up of an array of archways featuring tall, rectangular, mullioned windows, and these were decorated with elaborate cream drapes and pelmets. The lighting was soft and provided a warm glow to the dancers below, but there was no mistaking the energy of the room, even if you discounted the lively tune the string quartet had just struck up.
Due to the lateness of the hour and the free bar situated to the rear of the Castello, the dancers were looking a little less formal than they had at the beginning of the evening. Bow-ties were hanging around necks, top buttons had been unfastened and shirt lapels pulled wide apart to ease the heat that now pervaded the length and breadth of the hall, and that was just the men. Some of the women had lost their masks, and others were wearing their feathered and sparkled creations at a rather unseemly angle. Skirts had been hitched up, necklines had been dipped, and a few had taken to dancing barefoot. Violetta would not have recognised the glazed looks on the women's faces before her dealings with Monsieur Martinet, but now she knew all too well what those dark, almost feverish glances meant. Here was a dance hall in heat and they all had one thing on their minds.
Images of Martinet came flooding back to her, and she had no idea whether it was her weak-willed mind that had placed them there or whether he was doctoring things from his end. Her broken arm did not hurt, so she knew he was still inside her, monitoring her every move, but she had no idea how much control he had over her thoughts. Oh God, that was a lie. Judging by the way he'd manipulated her fantasy and got inside her head, he had total control of them. The thought was both mind-blowing and horrific. How could one single being wield so much power?
When one gentleman partygoer made to stand in front of her and proffered his hand for a dance, she took one long look at him and the arm was swiftly withdrawn. She'd had more than her fair share of the male species for this evening and she wasn't going to go near them for the foreseeable future. Pushing past him with renewed purpose, she set about her task. Her colleagues were waiting for her with great big smiles of undisguisable glee lighting up their faces, ready for good news. If only they knew. Plastering a weak smile to her face, which she felt subtly widened by her vampire antagonist, she tried to look suitably euphoric. A vampire kill would inspire those powerful and compelling emotions inside her and she could do nothing less than convince them of her magnificent success. If she failed, she had no doubt that Martinet would do exactly as he had threatened and massacre the lot of them. Whilst Violetta knew they did not fear death, she could not have that on her conscience. Their group was one of the few bands of vampire hunters left in the world, and if it disappeared overnight in its entirety, the world would rock on its heels. It would leave vampires, such as Martinet, with a safe breeding ground to increase their numbers exponentially, and she could not allow that to happen. The human race had to be protected at all costs. A world of bloodsucking monsters was unthinkable.
Withdrawing the silver dagger from the floaty folds of her skirt, she passed it to Connaught, her smile of satisfaction for a job well done entirely Martinet's creation. Her eyes gleamed with accomplishment and pleasure.
'Was he hard to kill?' Connaught wasn't looking at her face - he was examining the blood on her knife in greater detail. It was almost as if he didn't believe she had killed him.
'He was very hard, yes.' The words that tripped out of Violetta's mouth were not her own and she was not impressed at the vision of Martinet's body that swam before her eyes. The hard planes of his chest, the sculpted muscles that burst from his abdomen in beautiful lines, and if one cared to look lower, there were other hard things. Violetta was not amused.
Connaught, meanwhile, had slipped a finger into the lines of swiftly congealing blood and he brought it to his nose to inhale its scent. He frowned. 'Doesn't smell as coppery as it should and it's not quite as thick as I'd expect.' Handing the knife back, he gave her a puzzled look.
'He was a master, Con. His blood will be purer and thinner.'
Con's expression turned into one of disbelief. His tongue lolled about uselessly in his mouth for a moment before he recovered the gift of speech. 'He was a what?'
Violetta knew there was no need for her to repeat the statement. Con just needed a few moments to process the thought on his own. Darla, who did not suffer from the same reticence as her peer, burst in with, 'Did he have the gift?'
Huddled in their own little corner, you would have thought they were a group of old ladies discussing village gossip. Darla was interested in power, Georgette wanted to know if she'd just killed a handsome hunk, and Rafael had tactics on his mind. A barrage of questions came at her from all angles and she didn’t know where to look. She wanted to physically slap her hands over her ears and scream at them to shut up. All Violetta wanted to do was run far, far away from everybody. Oh, if only that were possible. Martinet kept her smiling sweetly and chatting away animatedly, answering all their questions with an enthusiasm that said 'I've killed tonight and oh boy, I've enjoyed myself'.
'How did you kill him?' Con asked the most pertinent question, as always. His intelligent grey eyes tilted up towards the light and his whole face creased in concentration as he tried to figure out how a little slip of a girl like Violetta could kill a hardened, master vampire and come gliding back into the ballroom without a mark upon her.
She had no idea how to answer that question, considering she was still working on the schematics of how to do the deed herself. Martinet, adorable creature that he was, provided an answer for her.
'Quickly.'
'You must be joking,' she thought grimly in reply. 'I'll make sure it's drawn out and hideously painful.'
He replied in kind, 'I'll remember that when the time comes to kill you, chérie. Drawn out and hideously painful suits me just fine. Whether it'll look just as good on you is another matter entirely.'
Violetta waited for him to laugh, but he was obviously short on humour as the evening wore on, due to the ominous silence on his end.
'Was he attractive?' Georgette, who was wearing the most expansive pink ball-gown that had graced the halls of the Castello in at least the last one hundred years or so, had only one thing on her mind. Whilst the woman couldn't have been a day under sixty-five, and if rumours were to be believed, she was considerably older, she was quite the feisty one. Primping one of her pristine grey ringlets in her hand, she winked slyly. 'You know I need details. When you get to my age, life suddenly gets very dull. When men get to my age, they become even duller, so I like to live vicariously through young little starlets such as yourself. So don't keep an old lady waiting. Was he dishy?'
Violetta could have groaned out loud at Georgette's persistence, Connaught looked embarrassed, and Darla gave a big groan of annoyance. Rafael, casually propped against the wall with one leg, looked at her with an insouciant, heavy-lidded half-smile. 'Come on, Violet, was he everything you'd ever dreamt of? Set Georgette's mind at rest and we can get on to discussing the more interesting stuff.'
Glaring at the beautiful Rafael, while resisting the urge to kick him, she had a moment's pause to realise that the man was probably the antithesis of Michel Martinet. Short blond curls, deep chestnut eyes, and a vivacious love of life that nearly always kept him in good spirits, gave him the face and temperament of an angel. His sense of humour, however, could be likened to Martinet's. It was sarcastic, cutting, and often horribly dry.
'Do tell us, Violet. Was he terribly hideous or delightfully gorgeous?' It was clear that Georgette was not about to let the question go until she had received a satisfactory answer. Raising an ornate black-lacquered Japanese fan to her face, she began to swish it about in frantic flurries, sending her ringlets flying. The pretty petals of pale pink cherry blossom that had been painted onto each rib of the fan appeared to blur into one as Georgette swung it to and fro, wafting undercurrents of her perfume to the room's occupants, which was a little overpowering at close range.
Violetta took a step back and decided she did not want to answer that question at all. Especially seeing as how dear old monster vamp was sucking up and drinking in every word they were saying. Keeping very quiet, she wondered if he'd answer it for her. She attuned her ears to the loud chatter of the ballroom beyond and watched the swing and sway of the brightly coloured dancers as they whirled around the floor. No such luck. Her lips did not move an inch. Georgette, however, kept the fan flickering at high speed, and if the question wasn't answered shortly, her old-fashioned attempt at air-conditioning might just manage to take her wig off.
There were really only two options to her dilemma. She could either ignore the question, knowing she would never hear the end of it, or she could answer it and have her face explode in heat, giving the assembled hunters a good laugh at her expense. On second thoughts, maybe there were three options. She could always lie.
'I'm not going to allow you to lie, precious,' came the ominous, I'm-always-going-to-be-in-your-head voice. 'You should know that naughty girls who tell fibs get spanked. I have no problem baring that delightful backside of yours for another round of hand tennis and you might also be interested to know that I've won awards in the subject. I'm a veritable John McEnroe.'
Violetta might have noticed the slightly strained quality of Martinet's voice had her brain not been about to explode. The man was conceited, obnoxious, and insufferable. He was going to drive her insane. Breathing in deeply, she tried to think her way around the problem. In through the nose and out through the mouth. Lie, cheat, or ignore. Lying seemed like the obvious choice. Smiling sweetly at Georgette, she opened her mouth and prepared to tell the assembled small crowd of hunters how truly dreadful and unsightly her master vamp was. The threat of a spanking did not quell her spirit in the slightest. If she had to dance with the devil, it certainly didn't mean she had to sing his tune.
