Since my health might depend on it, I cemented the scene in my mind. Mount Panachaikon loomed like a giant ogre over the groves of olive trees and gnarled lines of grapevines that dotted the surrounding acreage. Growing like a melanoma from its big toe was the seventeenth-century building housing Vayl’s former Trust. Only Cole, my wannabe beau and sometime shooting partner, could’ve described the villa correctly. He’d have taken one look at its massive block-on-block-on-block design with multiple outer staircases, random balconies, and tiny shuttered windows and said, “This is definitely a LEGO house. The haunted kind. Are they building another amusement park here?”
The mansion’s stone-walled front entrance discouraged visitors. Its path led, not to the lane where we’d parked our green metallic Range Rover, but northeast down a steep hill to a warehouse-sized building surrounded by weeds. So we’d come around back, through the double-doored gate to our right, which still stood wide open. Vayl had expected Eryx to open the way for us, but now the walk-in kinda made you wonder about their security.
Behind us a long mosaic-topped table surrounded by teak chairs ran the length of a jasmine-covered pergola that had been built off a three-car garage. Its quaint wooden door was also framed by vines. To our left someone had arranged another seating area, almost restaurant-like in its scattering of round metal tables and director chairs. Large planters filled with miniature orange trees softened the stone wall that formed the perimeter of that section of courtyard.
Between us and the villa, the Trust members formed a united front. At first glance anyway. Six vamps and five humans, all dressed in special-occasion duds, ranged themselves in a rough semicircle around Disa except for two human guards, who stood like giant totem poles behind her.
The vamps’ combined powers, as intense and unpredictable as a lightning storm, practically made the air crackle. Vayl had warned me about this, but words fell way short of the reality. Facing them felt like opening up the door of an air-conditioned SUV and stepping into the heat of the Sahara. My cheeks burned as I experienced the force of a unified Trust, something Vayl had said even he might have difficulty resisting. Especially if we had to stay any length of time. We were going to have to watch each other’s backs every second on this one.
And damned if a couple of vamps didn’t try to move behind us just as the thought crossed my mind. But a jolt of Vayl’s arctic strength stepped them back. That and his pronouncement, delivered in his clear baritone. “We come at the invitation of Hamon Eryx. He signed a blood oath guaranteeing us safe passage in return for a boon to the Trust. Do you honor your Deyrar?”
“I am the Deyrar!” Disa screeched.
“So the Vitem has decreed,” said a busty, tavern-wench type as she laid her hand on Disa’s shoulder.
Vayl had either sketched or found pictures of the major players still likely to be, as he put it, “walking in the Trust.” I recognized this one as Sibley. A member of Eryx’s Vitem, which my boss had compared to the president’s cabinet, she’d been his most conservative adviser. Now her role seemed to have morphed to ass kisser and morale booster. But she didn’t seem comfortable in it. As soon as she touched her leader, Sibley yanked her hand back and brushed it down the skirt of her long red dress. In that moment I saw a whole lot of white in her eyes.
Since she stood closest to Disa, I’d tagged Sibley as the most powerful member of her Vitem. Otherwise I’d have assumed that honor went to the dude standing next to her. His silver hair, pulled back in a tight ponytail, accentuated his smooth, fine-boned face. I guessed an age, added twenty years for the hair, and decided he’d been turned sometime after his fiftieth birthday. Given his maturity and office, he could’ve puffed and strutted like an elder statesman. But the way his eyes darted around the scene reminded me of a chipmunk ready to jump for cover the second he spied an owl. This guy’s gotta be Marcon.
It was easy to pick out the other Vitem members from the fact that they lined up on the other side of Disa, each with his own set of groupies. The vamp directly to her left kept glancing at her and nodding whether she had anything to say or not. I figured he had his head so far up her ass he should probably learn sign language. But then, Vayl had already given me the lowdown on his old nemesis, Genti. To give the toady credit, at least he was a simple soul. All he wanted from life was the quickest route to Easy Street.
He and his crew looked to have raided Bob’s Costume Supply before rushing out to confront us. Genti wore a furred, feathered top hat and a purple velvet smoking jacket over leopard-print pants. The other male vamp was dressed like the gunner for a WWII bombing crew, while the female seemed to be impersonating a homeless woman. Since I didn’t recognize either of them, I decided they must have arrived after Vayl left the Trust. Their human guardian, while beautiful in a Californian blonde sort of way, wore her hair in dreadlocks. Ick.
The last Vitem member caught my interest because, of the entire group, he seemed the least scared. And he was the first vamp I’d met since Vayl who didn’t smell of the grave. I’d begun to believe this meant something significant for their souls. It was just a theory, though. And really, who knew?
Vayl’s psychic scent reminded me of a walk through a pine forest. This guy I’d put more in the area of . . . freshly picked grapes. I studied him as closely as I dared, considering I was still covering a wanted felon. Though his hair hung longer, straighter, and redder than mine, it somehow accentuated the masculine planes of his face and the iron gray of his eyes. A sleek blue-silver pinstripe suit complemented his slender build and his height, which equaled Vayl’s.
So this must be Niall, I thought. Though Vayl hadn’t said so, I’d gotten the feeling he and Niall had been friends before the break. Niall’s partner, a Greek stud named Admes, was a fierce warrior, according to Vayl, and absolutely loyal to Niall. A human in his mid-forties rounded out their group, his quiet, alert demeanor telling me if I ever wanted to get to the vamps, I’d have to mow through him first.
“The Trust has always respected the wishes of its Deyrar, both past and present,” said Niall, whose accent put his birthplace somewhere in the vicinity of Dublin. It made me wonder how a son of Eire had wandered so far. Or if he’d been exiled from his homeland just as Vayl had been over two hundred years ago. “What was the boon Hamon asked of you?”
“What does it matter?” shouted Genti. “Vayl turned his back on the Trust. He deserves nothing from us!”
Vayl had told me Genti’s roots lay just north of Greece, in Albania, though he looked like a native with his coal-black hair and dirt-brown eyes, which were starting to cross with rage. I couldn’t decide if he and his group were genuinely pissed at Vayl for leaving, or if they despised him for returning. Only the human’s message was clear. And the come-get-me look she sent Vayl made me want to grind her face into the ground.
Niall gave the Albanian a slap on the shoulder that seemed friendly. It made him wince. “Honestly, G-boy, do you ever stop shouting long enough to hear what’s actually being said to you?” he asked. “Because it sounded to me as if Hamon was after something from Vayl.”
“My name is Genti Luan, you Irish hound, and if you do not say it with the respect it deserves, so help me I will pin you to a cross and watch you sizzle!” As soon as Genti revealed his whole name, Niall darted his eyes at me, his lips quirking. Hmm, interesting. In this place, where knowing someone’s full name gave you real leverage, Niall had just handed me a weapon.