Burnt Offerings - Laurell K. Hamilton [173]
“I use my master’s proxy to call a vote,” Yvette said. “I think I know what three of the votes will be.”
Asher came to stand near Jean-Claude and us. “They are not traitors, Yvette. To say so is a lie.”
“Lies are very interesting things. Don’t you think…Harry?” She held out her hand as if it were a signal and Harry the bartender joined her. I didn’t think I could be surprised anymore tonight. I was wrong.
“I see that you know Harry,” Yvette said.
“The police are looking for you, Harry,” I said.
“I know,” he said. At least he had trouble meeting my eyes. Didn’t make me feel much better, but a little.
“I knew Harry was one of your line,” Jean-Claude said, “but he is truly one of yours.”
“Oui.”
“What is the meaning of this, Yvette?” the Traveler said.
“Harry leaked the information to those awful fanatics so they would kill monsters.”
“Why?” the Traveler asked.
“My question exactly,” I said.
“My master is frightened of change, like many of the old ones. Making us legal is the most sweeping change we’ve ever been threatened with. He fears it. He wants it stopped.”
“Like Oliver,” I said.
“Exactement.”
“But the vampire killings didn’t stop it,” I said. “If anything, it’s given the pro-vamp lobby a boost.”
“But now,” she said, “we shall have our revenge, a revenge so bloody and awful that it will turn everyone against us.”
“You cannot do this,” the Traveler said.
“Padma has given me the key. The Master of the City is weak, his link to his servants weaker still. He would be easily killed now if someone would challenge him.”
“You,” the Traveler said, “you could challenge Jean-Claude, but you could never be Master of the City, Yvette. You will never have enough power on your own to be a master vampire. Your master’s power has made you try to rise above your station.”
“It is true that I will never be a master, but there is a master here who hates Jean-Claude and his servant. Asher.” She said his name like it was planned.
He looked at her, but he seemed startled. Whatever she planned, he didn’t know about it. He stared down at Jean-Claude. “You want me to kill him while he is too weak to fight?”
“Yes,” she said.
“No,” Asher said, “I do not want Jean-Claude’s place, not like this. Beating him in a fair duel is one thing, but this is…treachery.”
“I thought you hated him,” Yvette said.
“I do, but honor means something to me.”
“Implying, I suppose, that it doesn’t to me?” She shrugged. “You’re right. If I could be master of this city, I would do it. But I could live another thousand years and I will never be a master. But it is not honor that stops you. It’s her.” She pointed at me. “There must be some alchemy in you that I do not see, Anita. You bewitch every vampire that comes near you and every shapeshifter.”
“You’ve had a big taste and don’t seem too taken with me,” I said.
“My tastes run to things even more exotic than you, animator.”
“If Asher will not take the city as Master, then you cannot control the city’s vampires. You cannot make them do some terrible deed to the humans,” the Traveler said.
“I did not trust Asher’s hatred to make our plan work. It would have been useful to have control of the city’s vampires but it is not necessary. The carnage has already begun,” Yvette said.
We were all silent, staring at her, all of us thinking one thing. I said it out loud. “What do you mean, it’s already begun?”
“Tell them, Warrick,” she said.
He shook his head.
She sighed. “Fine, I will tell them. Warrick was a holy warrior before I found him. He could call the fire of God to his hands, couldn’t you?”
He wouldn’t look at any of us. He stood there, this huge figure in shining white, head down like a little boy who’s been caught playing hooky.
“You set the fires in New Orleans and San Francisco, and here. Why no fires in Boston?” I asked.
“I told you I began to feel stronger the longer I was away from our shared master. In Boston I was still weak. It wasn’t until New Orleans that I felt God’s grace return to me for the first time in nearly a thousand years.