Bones closed the few inches between them, settling his mouth over hers in a firm, leisurely kiss. She tasted of wine and prime rib, and beneath that was her own taste. Sweet, like crushed flowers.
A scraping sound from above made Bones yank to the side with a curse. Someone was up there.
In the next moment, pain seared his back, just a few inches below his heart. As Bones spun around, he spotted a redheaded vampire perched on the roof on the other side of the alley.
“Ralmiel,” Bones muttered, recognizing him. He jerked away in the next split second before another arrow was fired off. This time, it landed in the building instead of his flesh.
“’Allo, mon ami,” the vampire called out genially. “Stand still so I can kill you.”
“Oh my God,” Becca gasped.
“Go into the parade now,” Bones ordered her, shoving her in that direction.
Another arrow came at him, striking him in the arm he’d extended to push Becca safely away. Bones yanked the arrow out, spun to avoid another one, and propelled himself straight up in the air. Since he was in the alley, most bystanders wouldn’t see him, and the ones who did would be too drunk to remember it clearly, anyhow.
Ralmiel gave an infuriating chuckle as he sprinted away, leaping over the roofs in gravity-defying strides. Bones chased him, drawing several knives from his sleeves. He flung them at the vampire’s back, but only one landed, and not in his heart. Bloke was fast.
“You cannot catch me, mon ami!” Ralmiel laughed, darting across the next roof onto the steeple of St. Louis Cathedral.
“Too right I can,” Bones growled, crossing the same distance in an aerial leap. He reached inside his sleeves, grasped two more knives, and rocketed them at the vampire.
The knives landed in Ralmiel’s chest, but he’d jerked back in a life-saving microsecond that meant the difference between them piercing his heart and burying less harmfully into his sternum.
“Sacre bleu,” Ralmiel swore, yanking them out and toss-ing them off the roof. Then he smiled at Bones. “Close, though, non?”
Bones reached in his sleeves again—and came up empty. Right, he’d given his coat to Becca, and it held the rest of his knives.
Ralmiel aimed his crossbow, then gave a snort as he saw that he, too, was out of silver.
“Normally it takes no more than four arrows, mon ami. I wasn’t expecting you to be so quick. We’ll have to continue this another time.”
Bones jumped onto the church’s roof. “We can settle this without weapons. Come on, mate, afraid to only use your hands in a death match?”
Ralmiel had an odd grin. “I think I will let you live to-night and kill you tomorrow. Or the next day. I get paid the same either way.”
Bones let out a short laugh. “Decided to take one of the many contracts out on me, did you? After I kill you, mate, I’ll be curious to see what your corpse is worth.”
Ralmiel sketched a bow, squeezing something in his hand. “I think not.” Then he vanished in front of Bones’s eyes.
Bones stared at the spot where Ralmiel had been. What kind of trick was this?
Since they were in New Orleans, the heart of magic and voodoo, perhaps it was a sort of spell. The few other times Bones had run across Ralmiel, he damn sure didn’t have the power to dematerialize on his own. Bones didn’t figure he’d hide such an ability, either.
Though that begged the question of why Marie would allow Ralmiel, a known hit man, in her city to hunt the hitter she’d hired. If Bones was dead, then he couldn’t take care of her problem with the LaLauries, could he? He’d have to inform Jelani of this. Perhaps Marie wasn’t aware of Ralmiel’s presence.
But now to find Becca, and erase from her mind all the things she’d just witnessed.
5
The next day, Bones went out of the Quarter to a shop titled The Swamp Rat, noting with amusement the layer of ground brick sprinkled across the threshold of the door. It was a voodoo defense barrier, supposedly capable of keeping out anyone who meant the shop owner ill. Pity it didn’t work against people who didn’t believe in voodoo. Or vampires.
As soon as he stepped inside, Bones flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED and locked the door behind him. A wizened little man behind the counter glanced up, blinked…and then, of all things, tried to run.
Bones was across the room and over the counter in less time than it took the elderly shop owner to clear his seat. He chuckled as the man let out a spate of Creole that cursed Bones, his parentage, and several of his ancestors.
“Remember, Jean-Pierre, I speak Creole, so anything you say can and will be held against you and all that rot.”
“Debil,” Jean-Pierre said in English with a hiss. “I ’oped I’d seen the last of you years ago.”
“Now, mate, you’ll hurt my feelings. Don’t know why you take such an aversion to me. Your grandfather and I got along splendidly, and I know I’m glad to still find you here.”
Jean-Pierre’s eyes flicked around the shop, but it was empty of anyone but Bones and himself. No surprise there; the wares he had on his shelves were ugly, shoddy T-shirts and other miscellaneous gimmicky items, all in questionable condition and priced higher than most of his competitors.
But Jean-Pierre’s real business was voodoo. The shops along the Quarter were for the tourists or the uneducated. Jean-Pierre supplied genuine ingredients for the practiced, discerning buyer, and his family had been in the business since almost the inception of the city. He was someone who knew many of the city’s darkest secrets. And because Jean-Pierre had inherited the family trait of being immune to vampire mind control, Bones couldn’t just use his gaze to glare information out of him, more’s the pity.
“Now then, what did I want to ask you about? Ah, yes, redheaded bloke who goes by the name Ralmiel. Vampire, ’round my height, and has the most amazing new trick of disappearing into thin air. What do you know of him?”
From the expression on Jean-Pierre’s face, he did know something about Ralmiel, but he didn’t want to share the information.
Bones didn’t lose a fraction of his smile. “Need me to bash you about a bit before you answer? No trouble at all. Just let me know which bone you’d like broken first and I’ll get to it straightaway.”
“Debils,” Jean-Pierre hissed. “Nothin’ but grave walkers, the both of you, ’cept even the earth don’ want you.”
Bones waved a hand. “Yes, right, we’re all wretched blokes forsaken by God and Mother Nature herself, now get on with it.”
Bones really had no desire to start beating on the little man. That would take too long.
“Redheaded debil, he come ’round every so often,” Jean-Pierre said, spitting out the words. “He have fetishes made for him, use magic.”
“Vampires are forbidden from using magic. It’s one of the few laws Cain laid down for his people. I’m surprised Ralmiel uses it so blatantly.”
Jean-Pierre’s mouth curled. “Cain. God should have killed him for murdering Abel, not made him into a vampire as punishment instead. As for Ralmiel, those who see ’im use magic don’t live long enough to tell about it, I think.”
That would keep word from spreading, true enough. But a few people had to know aside from Jean-Pierre. “This magic Ralmiel uses, who makes it?”
“Don’ know.”
Bones gave Jean-Pierre a measured stare. “I won’t enjoy it, but I’ll either beat the answer out of you, or I’ll take you with me and keep feeding off your no doubt dreadful-tasting blood until you tire of being my snack and you tell me then.”
“Hope she curdles your blood to dust,” Jean-Pierre spat, but gave Bones a name. And her location.
“You ring me if you see Ralmiel again,” Bones instructed Jean-Pierre, writing his number on the back of one of the sloganed coasters for sale on the counter. This one had a tagline of “It won’t lick itself!” Quite true, that.