Chapter 7 - Ameera
7
AMEERA
I find a measure of peace when I drive, in the smooth shifting of gears and the brisk acceleration of my Porsche 911 as I weave through the evening traffic. It’s also a relief to get out of my house after nights and nights of taking care of Anson. Now that he’s willing to learn how to be a vampire and has been working on it for several nights with some success, I feel safe leaving him for a short time. I have him sequestered in my daytime resting place to keep him and others safe while I’m out, but I still worry. He’s been distant and almost cold since the night his father visited, and has made no attempt to touch me, let alone initiated any kind of intimate contact. It makes me afraid he won’t want anything to do with me once he’s finally able to control his emotions and his bloodlust on his own. It makes me afraid that even after saving him from true death, I’m still going to lose him. The grief I feel at that thought threatens my own control, and I buckle down on my shield to keep myself in check.
I’m relieved for the distraction from my problems as I reach my destination, and I park along the sidewalk in front of Haven Hall, Anson’s nightclub. It’s raining again, like it has been a lot lately, so I use an umbrella to stay relatively dry as I exit my car. I frown at the growing puddles and the water rushing along the curb toward the sewer grate as I hurry toward the main entrance. All this rain is going to make Anson’s ward on the club fade that much faster. It’s just one more thing he’s going to lose since I turned him. I can’t do anything about his failing ward, but I’ll be damned if that happens to his nightclub.
I ascend the steps that lead to the door and nod at the tall, hulking man with dark hair standing there. He’s one of Anson’s bouncers whom I’ve met before, though I don’t know his name.
“Welcome back, Miss Fatali,” he says with a nod, his shrewd eyes taking me in. “How’s the boss? He feeling better?”
I smile as I step under the awning above the entrance and close and lower my umbrella. “Getting better every day,” I tell him. “He’ll be back to work before you know it.”
As far as Anson’s staff knows, he had an emergency appendectomy and is at my home recovering. It seemed the best way to cover up Anson’s sudden absence from the club and give me the time I need to teach him how to control himself.
He smiles. “Good,” he says, then smirks. “Tell him things are going pretty smooth around here. The temp manager he hired is doing a great job of running things, even if he is a little… weird.”
“How so?” I ask with an arched brow.
The bouncer shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess we’re all just used to the boss’s more personal style of management. This guy is so detached and emotionless, he almost doesn’t seem human.”
I frown, not liking the direction this conversation is going. I meet the bouncer’s eyes and apply a subtle nudge to his mind with my glamour as I speak. “I’m sure it only seems that way. He is a temp after all, and getting emotionally invested would only make it harder for him to leave when Anson returns to manage the club.”
He stills and blinks a few times, then nods in agreement. “Yeah, yeah. That makes sense.”
“I’m here to check in on things for Anson,” I say with a smile. “May I go in?”
He startles as if coming back to himself. “Sure thing.” He pulls the door open and motions me in.
“Thank you,” I say with a nod, then step into Haven Hall.
I survey the club as I walk toward the door that leads to Anson’s office. It’s not anywhere near as packed as the last time I was here, but I guess that’s to be expected since it’s a Monday and the club’s monthly open mike night. I can’t imagine the band that’s on stage fumbling their way through a song would ever attract a large crowd. I enter the back hallway and walk down to the last door on the right, then knock on it.
“Enter,” an inflectionless male voice calls out from inside.
I open the door and step inside to see a familiar vampire sitting at Anson’s desk with an open laptop in front of him. He’s dressed in a crisp dark blue suit that sets off his short pale blond hair and equally pale blue eyes.
His brows rise as he looks up at me. “Mistress Fatali,” he says, his voice still devoid of any emotion or accent. “What an unexpected surprise.”
“Lucian,” I say as I close the door behind me.
Devora’s former manager wasn’t my ideal choice to run Anson’s club during his absence. Lucian’s loyalty is primarily to himself, but he owes me for sparing him after overthrowing Randall Lynch, the vampire brood’s previous leader, and for letting him run Devora, the underground vampire club that burned to the ground last week in my confrontation with the Twins and Roman Durant. He also has the experience to ensure Haven Hall runs smoothly until Anson can take care of it again himself. I’m not sure if Anson would agree with my choice, but since he hasn’t asked once about his club, a disturbing fact I’m trying not to dwell on, I’m not going to question my choice.
I cross the room and take a seat on one of the chairs facing Anson’s desk. “How is the club?” I ask as I cross one leg over the other, frowning at the speckles of rain darkening the silk of my black pants suit.
“Hale’s books are meticulous, and his human employees know how to do their jobs and do them well, with little input from me. The place basically runs itself and I’m just here for show.” His lips quirk up into a slight smile. “I wish running Devora had been this easy.”
I nod. “Just a word of advice,” I say. “You could put in a little more effort into appearing human. Your usual sunny disposition is apparently a bit off-putting to Anson’s employees.”
Lucian shrugs. “Believe me,” he says. “They’ll find it far more disturbing if I suddenly start faking emotions I no longer possess.”
I nod, since he has a point. “Just try not to do anything that helps them figure out what you are.”
His face hardens. “I’m not stupid enough to shit where I eat.”
I arch a brow at his choice of the word “eat”.
“You know what I mean,” he says with a flinty edge to his voice and an actual scowl. “I’m not going to feed on anyone here, and I’ll only use my glamour if it’s necessary to keep our existence a secret.”
I burst into laughter and his scowl only deepens, which makes me laugh even more. “Well, well,” I say with a grin once I’ve regained my composure. “I guess you are capable of emotion, after all.”
Lucian’s face goes blank at my comment, but a moment later, his lip quirks up on one side for a fraction of a second, giving away his reaction. “I’d appreciate it if you kept that to yourself. I have a certain reputation to uphold,” he says in his usual inflectionless voice.
“Understood,” I say, then change the subject. “How is the ward holding up?” Anson’s ward makes anyone who tries to enter the side door from the alley violently ill if they try to cross the threshold. I need to know how close they are to failing.
“Fading fast with all this rain,” he replies. “I was able to touch the doorknob with just a slight bit of nausea. It won’t last much longer.”
I’m surprised he has that much knowledge about magic, considering he’s a vampire. I didn’t know about the effects of rain and the elements on magic until Anson told me.
“Is there anything else?” Lucian asks as he shoots an impatient glance at the laptop in front of him.
I arch a brow at his impertinence. It’s not like him, but it’s not as if I know him that well since we’re not close like Samuel and I are. “I understand because of our shared history working for Lynch that you might think it gives you a certain familiarity with me. But you’ve gone too far tonight and I’m done tolerating it. I’m Master of the City now, and you will grant me the respect I’ve earned with that title, or face the consequences.”
Lucian shrinks back into his seat at my forbidding tone. “My apologies, Mistress,” he says with a sheepish expression. “I did not intend to disrespect you.”
“See that you remember yourself from now on, Lucian,” I say, his reaction and use of an honorific placating me.
“Yes, Mistress.”
I stand and stride to the door, then open it and pause in the doorway to glance back at the other vampire one more time. “And Lucian?” I say with a hard stare. “Need I remind you how important the continued success of this club is to me and how very unhappy I’ll be if anything should threaten that success under your watch?”
A fleeting spark of anger flashes in Lucian’s eyes before it vanishes, leaving behind his usual expressionless mask. “No, Mistress,” he says as he averts his gaze from mine.
I nod once, satisfied that I’ve made my point. Then I walk down the hall, planning on keeping closer tabs on Lucian for the foreseeable future. His attitude probably isn’t an indication of anything untoward going on, but I’ve been far too recently burned by some of my loyal subjects. I don’t plan on it happening again anytime soon.
I return to my car, grateful the rain has let up long enough for me not to get wet again, then drive home fretting in a very unvampire-like way over Anson. By the time I make it home, the rain has started up again, and I’ve convinced myself that I can fix this situation with focus and dogged determination. Now that I don’t have any threats against my leadership, I can give Anson and our relationship the attention it needs to survive and flourish once he’s accepted what and who he is now.
I stop the car next to the steps that lead up to the front door, instead of parking around the back of the house so I can avoid the rain as much as possible. I leap from the car and dart at vampiric speed up the steps, not even bothering with the umbrella this time. I duck out of the rain under the small awning above the door, then reach for the knob and freeze in shock at what I see propped against the door at my feet.
It’s an envelope made of black linen paper with an all too familiar red wax seal of two intertwined M’s, tilted forty-five degrees in opposite directions, pressed into it with careful precision. It’s the symbol of the Mari Mae?tri, the council of Grand Masters who rule over all the vampires in the world, and my heart sinks with dread because this envelope can’t possibly contain anything good.