Beast shoved her power into me and I threw myself back and up. Taking Clermont around the neck in a sleeper hold, I shoved the vamp-killer at his neck. “Hold!” I shouted.
Everyone on the porch and steps and inside the house went still and silent. My ears buzzed with complaint. Into Clermont’s ear, I said, “Thanks for knocking your kid outta the way so I didn’t have to kill him. And sorry about that hospitality thing and all, but if your suckheads don’t back off, I’ll kill you. Understand?”
Clermont nodded slightly, the silver scorching his skin where it touched. I caught the scent of burned, dead flesh and curled my lips back against the stink. And realized that a sleeper hold was likely useless to a vamp except for immobilizing him. Good thing I’d been holding the blade.
“Derek?” I asked.
He bent over Lucky and checked his pulse and pupils. “He’ll live,” Derek said, his tone unconcerned. “I mighta broke his jaw, though.”
“Margaud. Report,” I said. “Numbers?”
Slightly garbled by my earbud, I made out Margaud’s words. “Vamps? Ten I can count. Witches? Six standing. Dem was under de house, behind de pilings, and their sigs blended in widda pigs. Sorry bout dat.”
Sigs. Heat signatures. Right. I raised my voice. “Witches, sit on the ground. Vamps, sit on the porch. Now!” When no one moved, I said into Clermont’s ear, “Tell them. This gets settled one way or another, and I don’t really care how. Oh, and by the way. I have Leo Pellissier’s permission to take him your head. In writing.”
“Sit,” Clermont said. The vamps and their humans sat. When the witches didn’t follow suit, Derek kicked one witch in the back of the knees. He fell; the rest sat. Derek and his men went around gathering guns and blades. They made a nice pile at the base of the stairs.
When everyone was disarmed and sitting, I said to Clermont, “I stabbed one of your people with a silvered knife. If they get fed enough blood by a strong enough vamp or their master, there is a chance they’ll live. Also, I fired standard ammo, but my sharpshooter used silver-plated. If it didn’t pass clear through him, your idiot son might have a silver slug in his chest. Can anyone here dig that out?”
“Surgeon, I am,” Clermont said, surprising the heck outta me, “or was, long time ago. I still know how to dig out a rifle round. And my blood is strong. I can treat my people.”
“Well, good.” Which sounded lame, but it was all I had.
“You gone call dat Leo? Take my head?”
“I’d rather not. You willing to make your son act like he has some sense?”
“I am. You willing to make Lucky Landry act like he have him a brain he head?”
“I am. I guess that means I’m letting you go, now.”
“Dat be right nice. Pain de neck you is.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. And so did Clermont. As he did, his fangs—which I hadn’t even noticed—clicked back into the roof of his mouth on their tiny little hinges. Vamps can’t laugh—a human emotion—and be vamped out at the same time. I let him go and he bent to the vamp lying on the porch boards. Blood was a dark pool beneath her and she was breathing with the painful rasp of a human who had traumatic lung damage and whose lungs were filling up with blood. Clermont bent over her and held his wrist to her mouth. Her fangs bit into him, and her slips sucked like a starving baby’s, a weak and desperate motion. A minute later, she reached up and grabbed his wrist, holding him to her, and her sucking increased in depth and intensity. A minute after that, Clermont peeled her away and a human man sat beside her, cradling her close so she could latch onto his neck. It was intimate and loverlike, and I turned away. Some things I just don’t need to see.
The witches were sitting on the ground at the bottom of the stairs, three of them laying on hands, healing Lucky Landry. “Margaud?” I said. “We have anything or anyone else on the way or hidden with the pigs?”
“No sir,” she said, sounding like a soldier who had just been censured by her sergeant. “Clear.”
“Derek, Clermont, Gabe, and Shauna. As soon as Lucky can think straight and Gabe has the silver out of his body, we’re gonna have us a nice long talk. We have aaall night.”
It took two hours to heal all the injured, and while I waited I drank the tea Clermont had promised. It was a delicious, stylish, pungent black from China, described on the package as a Super Fancy Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe. Having discovered that we were fellow tea-lovers, he and I talked teas while he dug the slug out of his son. It was bizarre conversation, talking about attractive, chunky, golden-tipped, first-flushes from various provinces in China, India, Sri Lanka, Ceylon, and other places. To a non-tea-lover it was silly talk, and I caught Derek rolling his eyes once as he drank coffee passed out by a beautiful, mixed-tribe, American Indian blood-slave, one who was over a hundred years old and not above teasing the much, much, much younger man with sly looks and come-hither stares. Not that Derek understood that she was a slave-by-choice and old enough to be his great great grandmother. Vamps and their humans are sneaky.
Derek called Auguste and Benoît in. The brothers had been waiting in the dark to remove us in retreat or victory, either one. And then Derek, Auguste, and a vamp went to get Margaud, who didn’t want to abandon her position to sit with the enemy suckheads. She put up a good verbal resistance and fired off three warning shots before I pulled out my earbud. Eventually, someone took her off the air. I didn’t know how Derek finally convinced Margaud into the airboat, but Derek was good-looking and persuasive, or maybe the former military angle worked. Or maybe her brother just picked her up and tossed her on board. Don’t ask, don’t tell.
Near two a.m., I judged that everyone was healed and calm enough for discussion and called all the participants to the front porch. There weren’t enough chairs, so Clermont made everyone but the main participants sit on the floor, equaling out one and all. There were vamps and humans and witches sitting side-by-side, close together, sharing floor space without bloodshed. It would have been inspiring had Clermont and I not promised utmost retribution to anyone who caused trouble.
I opened the meeting with a few vampire terms and their meanings, including the devoveo and the doloro, the insanity of freshly turned vamps and the insanity of vamps who suffered the loss of a close loved one. I explained that witches were seldom successfully turned vamp, remaining in the devoveo forever, and ended with a plea for both sides to find a way to end the rift between the races and find a way for the lovers to be together. It was a lot of words for me, with even more mmms and hmms and uhs, and ahs. I’m not a public speaker. Not at all. It’s easier to shoot first and divide up the dead later, but maybe I was growing up.
When I was done, Clermont stood and spoke to Lucky Landry. Lucky was tied to a chair and to the porch railing, just in case, but he listened far better than I expected, maybe because Clermont opened with the words, “I tired a this war between coonass and coonass.”
Despite himself, Lucky chuckled and looked down. He took a deep breath and said, “I tired a it too.” He looked at his daughter, sitting on the floor, hand-in-hand with Gabe, love and determination in her eyes. “You want dis suck— You want dis vampire? You love him for real?”
“I do,” Shauna said. Her chin came up defiantly. “And I’m carrying his baby.”
Lucky pulled in a breath and the flames danced along his bound arms.
“I love him, Daddy. If you hurt him, I’ll never forgive you. Not. Ever. And I’ll spend the rest of my life keeping your grandchild away from you.”