"I do not aspire to such lofty heights," Jean-Claude said.
"Really?" Yvette said.
"Truly," Jean-Claude said.
She smiled, but her eyes stayed distant and empty. "We shall see."
"There is nothing to see, Yvette. I am content where I am."
"If that is so, you have nothing to fear from us."
"We have nothing to fear regardless," I said. I smiled when I said it.
Both of them looked at me as if I was a dog that had done an interesting trick. I was really beginning not to like either of them.
"Yvette and Balthasar are envoys of the council, ma petite."
"Bully for them," I said.
"She doesn't seem very impressed with us," Yvette said. She turned full-face to me. Her eyes were greyish-green, with tiny flecks of amber dancing round the pupils. I felt her try to suck me under with those eyes, and it didn't work. Her power raised goose bumps on my skin, but she couldn't capture me with her eyes. She was powerful, but she wasn't a master vampire. I could feel her age like an ache in my skull. A thousand years, at least. The last vamp I'd met who was that old had cleaned my clock. But Nikolaos had been Master of the City, and Yvette would never be that. If a vamp hadn't attained master status in a thousand years, she, or he, was never going to. A vamp gained power and abilities with age, but there was a limit. Yvette had reached hers. I stared into her eyes, let her power tickle across my skin, and wasn't impressed.
She frowned. "Impressive."
"Thanks," I said.
Balthasar stepped around her and went to one knee in front of me. He put one hand on the back of my chair and leaned into me. If Yvette wasn't a master, then he wasn't her human servant. Only a master vampire could make a human servant. Which meant he belonged to someone else. Someone I hadn't met yet. Why did I get the feeling I'd be meeting that someone soon?
"My master is a council member," Balthasar said. "You have no idea what kind of power he wields."
"Ask me if I care."
Anger flared across his face, darkening his eyes, making his grip on my chair tight. He laid his hand on my leg just above my knee and started to squeeze. I'd played with the monsters long enough to know what supernatural strength feels like. His fingers dug into my flesh, and I knew he could keep squeezing until muscle popped and he bared my bones to the air.
I grabbed his silk tie and pulled him close, and shoved the barrel of the Firestar into his chest. I watched the surprise chase across his face from inches away.
"Bet I can blow a hole in your chest before you can crush my leg."
"You wouldn't dare."
"Why not?" I asked.
A touch of fear flowed through his eyes. "I am the human servant of a council member."
"Not impressed," I said. "Try door number two."
He frowned at me. "I don't understand."
"Give her a better reason not to kill you," Jean-Claude said.
"If you shoot me here in front of witnesses, you will go to jail."
I sighed. "There is that." I jerked him close enough that our faces almost touched. "Take your hand off my knee, slowly, and I won't pull this trigger. Keep hurting me, and I'll take my chances with the police."
He stared at me. "You would do it, you really would do it."
"I don't bluff, Balthasar. Remember that for future reference, and maybe I won't have to kill you."
His hand eased, then moved slowly away from me. I let him move back, his tie sliding through my hand like a fishing line. I eased back in my chair. The gun had never made it out from under the tablecloth. We'd been the soul of discretion.
The waiter came over anyway. "Is there a problem?"
"No problem," I said.
"Please bring our check," Jean-Claude said.
"Right away," the waiter said. He watched a little nervously while Balthasar got to his feet. Balthasar smoothed down the wrinkles in his linen pants, but there's only so much you can do with linen. It really isn't meant to be knelt in.
"You have won the first round, Jean-Claude. Be careful that it does not become a Pyrrhic victory." Yvette said. She and Balthasar left without ever taking a table. Guess they weren't hungry.
"What's going on?" I asked.
Jean-Claude sat back down. "Yvette is a council toady. Balthasar is the human servant of one of the most powerful council members."
"Why are they here?"
"I believe it is because of Mr. Oliver."
Mr. Oliver had been the oldest vampire I'd ever met. The oldest one I'd ever heard hinted at. He'd been a million years old, no joke, a million years, give or take. For all those with a head for prehistory, yes, that does mean he wasn't Homo sapiens. Homo erectus, and able to walk around during the day, though I never saw him cross direct sunlight. He'd been the only vamp to ever fool me for even a few moments into thinking he was human, which is nicely ironic, since he wasn't human at all. He'd had a plan to take out Jean-Claude, take over the vamps in the area, and force them to slaughter humans. Oliver had thought a slaughter like that would force the authorities to make vamps illegal again. He thought vampires would spread too quickly with legal rights and take over the human race. I'd sort of agreed with him.
His plan might have worked if I hadn't killed him. How I managed to kill him is a long story, but I'd ended up in a coma. A week unconscious, gone, so close to death that the doctors didn't know how I survived. Of course, they hadn't been too clear on why I was in a coma to begin with, and no one felt like explaining vampire marks and Homo erectus vampires.
I stared at Jean-Claude. "The crazy son of bitch that tried to take you out last Halloween?"
"Oui."
"What about him?"
"He was a council member."
I almost laughed. "No way. He was old, older than sin, but he wasn't that powerful."
"I told you he agreed to limit his powers, ma petite. I did not know who and what he was at first, but he was the council member known as the Earthmover."
"Excuse me?"
"He could cause the earth to shake by his power alone."
"No way," I said.
"Yes way, ma petite. He agreed not to cause the earth to swallow the city because it would be blamed on an earthquake. He wanted the bloodletting to be blamed on vampires. You remember his plan was to drive vampires back to being illegal. An earthquake would not do that. A bloodbath would. No one, not even you, believes that a mere vampire can cause an earthquake."
"Damn straight, I don't." I stared at his careful face. "You're serious."
"Deadly serious, ma petite."
It was too much to take in all at once. When in doubt ignore and be terribly unimpressed. "So we took out a council member, so what?"
He shook his head. "There is no fear in you, ma petite. Do you understand what danger we are all in?"
"No, and what do you mean the 'danger we are all in'? Who else is in danger besides us?"
"All our people," he said.
"Define 'all, " I said.
"All my vampires, anyone that the council considers ours."
"Larry?" I asked.
He sighed. "Perhaps."
"Should I call him? Warn him? How much danger?"
"I am not sure. No one has ever slain a council member and not taken their place."
"I killed him, not you."
"You are my human servant. The council sees all that you do as an extension of my actions."
I stared at him. "You mean anyone I kill is your kill?"