Chapter 38
Thirty-Eight
Roberto had sent Tobias.
He wasn’t alone; Anastasia had come too, and she was one of the strongest vampires in Boston, with a large territory north of the river. She wore an elegant evening dress that fell somewhere between Victorian frills and modern chic, and exuded hauteur as if the errand itself were beneath her.
She wasn’t wrong.
But Antoine couldn’t take his eyes off Tobias, and he knew they’d turned red, his anger barely restrained and slipping through his glamour.
How dare he walk into my home?
Tobias wore a blue suit over a white shirt with polished black loafers that suggested he shopped at the same stores Minh had. Or maybe it was Roberto he was sucking up to; business attire was more his style.
It was an ironic contrast to Antoine’s black T-shirt and jeans. Belle followed him in, her hoodie pulled up, her head lowered, the hint of an amused smile just visible.
“Welcome, Anastasia,” he said, deliberately excluding Tobias. “Uphold our traditions, and keep my domain tranquil.”
“Your trust is met with solemn commitment.” She returned the formal greeting in her gentle voice, furrowed her brow at Belle, then graced him with a smile.
Tobias said nothing, but Antoine didn’t care. He was going to kill him anyway.
“Roberto has you playing messenger?”
“So it would appear,” Anastasia replied, with a hint of coolness.
So. No allegiance there. That was a relief. He inclined his head slowly, showing his respect.
“May as well get on with it then.” He gestured to the door in invitation, and Anastasia turned with grace, leading them out. Tobias narrowed his eyes, following her in a way that allowed him to keep Antoine in sight, not exposing his back.
And so he should.
Belle kept her head down. The illusion was simple; if they assumed she was Cally and didn’t look too hard, they might not recognize her.
All of the vampires had met Belle, but only once, and not when she was dressed in jeans and a hoodie with her face partly obscured.
Even her demeanor was different. Disguise enough—unless any of them could detect power.
The two vampires hadn’t come in one car but brought their own, and a thrall held the door of a Bentley for Anastasia, while Tobias was already pulling off down the road.
Antoine climbed into Belle’s SUV, and she drove after them.
Anastasia’s car turned east on Route 9, heading back into Boston, while Belle turned west, toward Roberto’s house.
“Message delivered and she’s gone,” Antoine noted. “Keeping to the letter of his instruction, not the spirit of it.”
“He is a fool to use powerful vampires as errand boys,” Belle said dryly.
“Insecure in his new role.”
“Perhaps.”
The roads were quiet, reflecting the late hour, and Belle drove more sedately than usual. They turned onto I-95 with no sign of Tobias’s car, but Antoine knew he’d be there when they arrived.
“Thank you for coming.” He filled the silence, wondering how many times he had now thanked his sire.
“I’ve openly admitted my interest in you,” she replied, keeping her eyes on the road ahead. “It would be a mistake to let you go alone, wouldn’t it?”
It didn’t need a reply. They both knew to do so would greatly increase the chance he would disappear again, on whatever excuse Roberto contrived. Maybe that was why Anastasia hadn’t hung around; for whatever reason, she didn’t want to be witness.
Roberto’s house lay down a private drive, secluded by trees on all sides. Landscape lights illuminated the ground with a soft yellow glow a hundred feet in all directions, presumably for the thrall guards’ benefit. No vampire would desire such light pollution.
Antoine extended his senses, quickly locating his own thralls at the far tree line, and telling them to stay where they were.
Thralls in suits waited as they pulled up, armed with automatic weapons with watchful eyes and twitching trigger fingers.
More than when the Curia itself had been in attendance, as though it were another show of strength.
Belle ignored them as she got out, tugging her hood forward and keeping her head down.
They walked to the main door as a thrall opened it, and Tobias met them inside.
“He’s in the basement,” he said, leading the way as though he owned the place.
The main room of the house was an open-plan arrangement with a few scattered sofas and a large meeting table in the center, set amid four columns.
Two vampires watched with curiosity, both of them from peripheral territories north of Boston, neither with much influence.
Lackeys hiding in Roberto’s shadow, maybe feeling safer here than in their own houses, after the free-for-all mandate the Curia had issued during their visit.
If there had been conflict in the north suburbs, Antoine hadn’t heard about it.
A flight of stone steps led down to the basement where Antoine had been put on trial before the Curia. Tobias waited at the bottom by the door, and as they walked past, his hand reached up to sweep back Belle’s hood.
Antoine was faster, grabbing his wrist before it could make contact. “Don’t touch what’s not yours.”
Tobias curled his lip, jerking his hand free, but not before surprise flashed in his eyes at Antoine’s speed.
Belle hid her smile with a quick dip of her head, maintaining her role as a demure, intimidated chattel, and Antoine had to lean into his anger to suppress his amusement.
The basement ran the length of the house above, the low ceiling and stone walls exactly as Antoine remembered, but where five chairs had stood before, now there was only one. It was grander than those the Curia had used, a throne for a play-acting king.
Roberto sprawled in it, wearing a suit large enough to be called a tent, his bulging stomach barely contained by a white shirt stretched taut.
There was muscle beneath the fat, his prodigious strength a thing of legend in Boston circles, though Antoine had never had first-hand experience.
Not for the first time he wondered what nature of vampiric magic could result in such a form, when no other vampire managed an ounce of excess body fat.
Perhaps Roberto had been even more corpulent before he had been turned, but either way, this was now his form for eternity.
Or at least until I kill him.
Antoine strode into the middle of the room, Belle keeping a half-pace behind him and to one side. “You sent for me?”
Small eyes in Roberto’s round face fixed him with a stare full of hatred. “The shortest entombment in vampiric history,” he drawled. “Next time, I’ll find somewhere deeper.”
Antoine crossed his arms and waited, while Tobias walked past him to stand by Roberto’s chair. It really was like a king and his jester, and the thought sent a flicker of a smile across his lips.
Roberto noticed. “You find that amusing?”
“I find various things amusing. However, perhaps we could get to the point?”
Roberto leaned forward slowly, resting one elbow on his knee. “You are very bold, Antoine. What makes you so bold, I wonder?”
If he already knew, he would’ve called out Belle as soon as she’d walked in. To not do so would’ve been the epitome of disrespect, not least because for all his strength, Belle’s was greater still. Antoine stayed silent.
“Perhaps you have powerful allies,” Roberto mused, as if he liked the sound of his own voice. Maybe he did know about Belle after all, even if he hadn’t yet recognized her presence. “Either way, something has given you courage where before you begged for your life on your knees.”
Antoine clenched his jaw. “If you summoned me merely to insult me, I assume this meeting is done.” He turned away, but Roberto spoke again.
“I claim jus dominii as Curia in Boston,” he said, his voice strong and echoing through the stone chamber.
“My Latin is rusty,” Antoine said, as Belle tensed, showing she recognized the phrase. A sense of dread built within him. What had Roberto found, if even Belle’s confidence was weakened? “You may have to elaborate.”
“The right of superior authority to take a chattel of my choice.” Roberto’s eyes flicked to Belle. He let a slow smile curl his pudgy lips, savoring his moment of triumph. “I’m sure I will find something… interesting to do with you.”
Antoine’s pulse thudded heavy in his ears; his fists clenched until his nails bit into his palms. This was no coincidence; Roberto’s monologue of power hadn’t referred to an ally, but to Cally herself. He knew. Somehow, he knew.
So that’s what would’ve happened if I’d brought her.
“I refuse.”
Roberto leaned back in his chair, sadistic delight glinting in his red eyes. “You can’t refuse.” He raised one hand and pointed at Belle. “Leave her, and go.”
“Can he do this?” he asked Belle. It was clear she knew; it was equally clear she’d been remiss on yet more of his education on vampiric laws.
It was Roberto who answered. “Of course I can. It may not be a custom practiced in centuries, but it’s still valid.” He smiled with his own hubris.
“I don’t care,” Antoine ground out. “I still refuse.”
“Good,” Roberto said. “Then I will entomb you again, this time for defying a demand of your Curia, and claim her anyway.”
“That you cannot do.” Belle spoke at last, reaching up to sweep back her hood, her posture changing as she straightened. “Rejecting such an archaic decree does not warrant entombment.”
“Lady Belle!” Roberto’s pale face somehow seemed to pale further, but anger swiftly replaced his shock. Beside him, Tobias flinched, taking a half-step back. “Why are you here? You should be in Europe!”
“I go where I please.”
“With him?” Roberto gestured with a fat thumb toward Antoine. Then his eyes narrowed. “Are you his sire?”
Belle gave him her best imperious look. “What I am is a Curia member of greater rank, and you would do well to remember it.”
“Yet you enter my domain without announcement!”
She huffed a bored sigh. “As I never left, there was no need.”
“You have no sway here,” Roberto blustered. “I do what I want in Boston. If I choose to entomb a vampire in my territory, that is my right.”
“If you do,” Belle replied, “I’ll invoke censura, and expel you from your seat. Then what will it matter?”
His mouth fell open. “You can’t… You have no right!”
Belle waved one hand airily. “It may not be a custom practiced in centuries, but it’s still valid.”
Roberto glared at her, glinting little eyes full of hate as she stole his moment of triumph. The tableau held, neither Roberto nor Belle looking away, until at last Roberto let out a slow breath, and leaned back once more in his chair. His gaze shifted to Antoine. “You still refuse?”
“Obviously.”
“Then I enact expropriatio terrae.” He jabbed a finger toward Antoine.
“By Curia right, I strip you of your territory and brand you Outcast. Henceforth your domain is dissolved, divided between Dedham and Milton. From this night, if you are found within Boston, you may be slain without consequence.” He scoffed at Belle while Tobias grinned, flashing his fangs. “You can’t stop that.”
The decree came steeped in contempt, and Antoine’s blood flared hot as the words sank in, despair and fury colliding as his hands clenched into fists. Could Belle truly do nothing? He held his breath, waiting for her to intervene again.
“Indeed I can’t,” she said instead, as if the whole business were beneath her, and what hope Antoine had was snuffed out. “However, it is customary to give the outcast time to leave. The minimum is—”
“Seven nights,” Roberto said through clenched teeth, as though his intent had been to attack immediately. “Now begone, Outcast.”
Antoine held his gaze, his back straight in defiance, memorizing every line and plane of Roberto’s face in this moment.
Hate and contempt urged him to issue a challenge on the spot, but Belle’s caution was a leash on his fury.
Roberto was still too strong. Yet part of him felt relief at the banishment; there was an appeal to taking Cally and starting a new life somewhere away from all of this petty politics.
Except he knew he wouldn’t; he couldn’t. Not until Roberto was dead.
He said nothing, only turned on his heel and strode from the chamber, Belle following in his wake, while Roberto’s chuckles echoed around him.