The Dark's Mistress (The Saint-Pierres) (9 page)

“Exactly.”

“Your mother raised you well enough.”  Viviane made the face she always did when she spoke of Lyric.  So she didn’t get along with her daughter-in-law.  Who could ever be good enough for her son?  “I’ve a chapbook signed by Rimbaud in my room.  Another gift from Rhys.  You stay here and I’ll run fetch it.”  She floated away like the ethereal ghost of the past that yet haunted her.

Johnny flicked a white flower near his shoulder, pinching if off at the stem, but finding it didn’t have a scent.  “Signed by Rimbaud?  My grandparents are so cool.”

* * *

He stood up in the balcony again tonight.  Watching her with that crazysexy switchblade smile.  While Kam sang to the frenetic crowd of sweating bodies drowned in leather, lace, studs, and blood she could only wonder what Johnny’s blood tasted like.  It would be like nothing she had ever tasted and like everything that could drown her. 

Or it could rescue her.

As the guitarist peeled into a thundering riff on his glittery black Stratocaster, Kam wandered to the edge of the stage, allowing the red spotlight to infuse her pores as she looked up at the man who swam through her veins.  He made her smile, and that wasn’t cool.  Not during this stage show.

The song she sang was a popular one, though her rendition hardened it, burned the edges to a crisp.  Johnny knew it; she’d seen him singing it a few times.  Winking at him, and waggling the microphone in invitation, she received from him a ‘what me?’ point of his finger to his chest.

She nodded, and announced over the guitar solo.  “We have a treat tonight, my dark pretties.  You want a duet between the Dark’s Mistress and Johnny Angel?”  The name for him just came to her.  It was corny but it fit with him standing high above promising her salvation with a spread of his arms and a wink from his blue eyes.

The crowd chanted and bounced, pumping their fists.

Kambriel threw the microphone toward the balcony.

Johnny leaned out to snatch the mic, and picked up the next line without missing a beat.  He stepped up to the railing, balancing on the narrow iron bar.  From his scuffed boots, up the snug-fitted black leather pants to the tee shirt and vest studded with spikes, he was heavy metal to the bone.  Add in the guyliner, and a raspy croon and the vampiric angel won them over.  He crouched on the railing and growled the dark and sexy lyrics to the masses, which they sucked up like blood raining from above.

And there it was.  That gorgeous smile.  Singing and smiling, and commanding those below him with his dark charm.

Kam grabbed the backup mic from a stagehand and met his vocals with a harmonization that meshed as if they’d been born to make music together.

Johnny climbed onto the outside of the balcony railing, one hand clasped about a bar and his body leaning out wide.  He knew how to work the crowd.  She was surprised he wasn’t a headliner in the local clubs.  Hell, on the international stage.  He was that good.  His voice liquid and deep, she wanted to lose herself in Johnny Santiago.  She was one of those who stood below, arms raise in worship and voice honed to a shout.

Bringing the song to a close, Johnny screamed out the repeating, defiant pledge to rock the night.  He thrust up a triumphant fist.  The audience raged and stomped their feet.

Thumping the universe, he’d called it.  Yeah, it sure as hell felt like it.

The guitarist nodded to Kam, sort of a ‘he’s not bad’ acknowledgement, and the band took their leave of the stage to wait for the encore.

* * *

Johnny tossed the microphone down to a stagehand, and jumped back onto the balcony booth.  He was high on the adrenaline rush singing always injected through his veins.  And Kam had given him that injection.

High-fiving a demon who walked by and acknowledged him with a raise of his whiskey bottle, Johnny headed for the stairs.  He’d meet Kam backstage, and—

The flash of a silver brooch caught his eye.  Odd, as jewels and spangled clothing sparkled everywhere in the club.  What held fast his interest was the knowledge he’d seen that diamond jewelry before.  It was shaped like a dragonfly, and he knew it was old, from the eighteenth century.

“G-ma?”

Heart dropping to his knees, he pushed through the hyped-up crowd and to the hallway that led to the dark rooms lighted along the floors with violet stripes where couples slipped away to engage in illicit sex and lots of blood and biting. 

He reached Viviane, who was being fawned over by two men and a woman.  Dressed in a clingy red sheath, her eyes were shadowed with blue to match her irises.  Not her style, at least, not that Johnny had ever seen her wear.

“Grandma, what the hell?”  He tugged her from a groping fang junkie and away from the entrance to the dark rooms reeking with incense and anticipation.  “Where’s Rhys?  Did he bring you here for a bite?”

“Oh, Johnny, sweetie.”  His grandmother twirled, extending an arm above her head in display.  “I’ve made a great escape!”

“No.  You don’t go out alone, Viviane.  You’re not allowed.”  He mined for the cell phone in his back pocket.  “I can’t believe Grandpa Rhys let you go out on your own.”


“I had to leave without telling him, Johnny.  He called to me.”  She tilted her head aside his shoulder and walked her fingers up his chest.

Johnny clasped Viviane’s fingers.  “He?  Who are you talking about, G-ma?”

She tilted up on tiptoes to whisper at his ear, “Himself.”

“What?  No,” came out in a gasp. 

Viviane had just uttered the devil’s name.  Every paranormal breed that walked this realm was aware of the dark prince, and took pains to never speak his name.  What was Himself doing talking to his grandmother?  She must be in one of her crazy moods.  She was imagining things.

“He whispered ‘wolf slayer’,” Viviane said.  “That’s me, you know?”


Yes, Viviane had told him tales of her slaying a wolf with her bare hands back in the eighteenth century.

“I don’t know what’s going on, Viviane, but I am calling Rhys.”

“Please, Johnny.  I want to find Him.  He’s promised the wolf slayer dark pleasures.”  Viviane dashed her tongue over her lower lip.

Johnny pushed speed dial and was thankful when Rhys answered on the first ring.  “Where is she?  Johnny?”  Apparently Rhys was aware of his missing wife.

“I ran into her here at Club l’Enfer.”

“Shit.  I didn’t hear her leave.  Will you keep an eye on her until I can get there?”

“No problem, Grandpa.  Hurry.  She’s not in top form.”

Rhys promised it would be less than half an hour.  Johnny added another fifteen minutes for traffic.  Viviane grabbed him by the face and said urgently, “It’s in her heart, Johnny.  You can get it out.”

“What? G-ma?  Who are you talking about?”

“The pretty one.”  She smiled sweetly, slipping into another persona.  Rhys couldn’t arrive soon enough.

“Come with me.”  He directed Viviane to the back of the dance floor just as the crowd’s incessant shouts brought The Dark’s Mistress back on stage for the encore. 

Babysitting his grandmother was not what he’d had in mind for tonight, but there was no way he’d leave her alone.  She wasn’t right in the head now if she thought the devil Himself had called her here.  But good thing she’d been compelled to the one place he was tonight.

Strange coincidence.

“Dance with me, Johnny!” 

Viviane grabbed his wrist and tugged him to the dance floor, where she was sucked into the bustle of jumping, gyrating, fist-pumping bodies.  She was quickly sandwiched by two men who took her in from breasts to thigh. 

Johnny gave them the evil eye and showed them his fist and fangs.  Enough to make them back off.

“Oh, G-ma, you are trying my patience tonight.”

* * *

After half a dozen encore songs Kam thanked her band mates and headed to her dressing room.  The guys in the band, well—she didn’t know where they went after a show.  Or where they lived before shows.  They never practiced together.  What were their names?  The four musicians simply came together in an amazing cohesion when all were placed on stage. 

Devilish magic, she knew that.  Questioning it would not get her any answers.  And really, she didn’t want to hear the truth.

She wasn’t surprised to find Johnny lounging on the black velvet chaise in her dressing room, but she was surprised when he leapt up to kiss her in greeting.

She’d been so far from closeness and sharing and empathy lately, it was nice being with someone who wanted to be around her and touch her and didn’t demand such with threats to her very soul.

And yet.

She pushed him away before his lips could touch hers.  “I saw you on the dance floor with a gorgeous woman.”

“Really?”  His switchblade smile irritated her now.  “She is gorgeous.  I’ve known her forever.”

“Oh.”  Kam brushed past him, readjusting the horns on her head so they stopped slipping over one ear.  “I suppose I do have a boyfriend, so I can’t complain that you have other women.”

“Kam, really?  You’re jealous because you saw me with Viviane?”

“Her name is Viviane?  Pretty.”  She bowed her head.  Something in her chest pulsed too hard for a heartbeat.  Is that what disappointment felt like?

Johnny wrapped his arms around her from behind, and even as she struggled to push him away, she reached up and clasped his fingers to hold him close.  Couldn’t he be all hers?

He kissed her cheek and said, “Viviane Hawkes is my grandmother, Kam.  She’s a vampiress who was born centuries ago.”

“Oh.”  The pulse in her chest stuttered then resumed normal function, a joyous leap through the meadow after butterflies.  “Oh hell, Johnny, I was jealous.  Do you go out with your grandmother a lot?  I mean, she looks as young as us, but you have to admit that’s kind of weird.”

“I did tell you family is important to me.”  He sighed and walked around to sit on the edge of the bed.  “But no, I don’t go out often with my grandmother.  Once in a while.  She’s a lot of fun.  She was out on her own tonight and that’s not supposed to happen.  She’s...touched.”  He tapped his temple.  “Crazy, actually.  And Grandpa Rhys didn’t notice her slip out.  It’s a good thing I saw her.  She was mumbling weird stuff about the devil telling her to come here.”

Kam clutched the hard leather bustier lined down her middle with metal clasps.  Again her heartbeats thudded too hard, painfully.

“But like I said, she’s not right in the head,” Johnny explained.  “Though she did say something to me like, ‘it’s in her heart; you have to get it out’.  I think she was talking about you.  Do you have any idea what that could mean?”

Kam stopped herself from turning from him, and cautioned her expression not to freak out and give away her deepest fears.  “Something in my heart?” she managed lightly.  “I don’t even know your grandmother.  You say she’s crazy?”

“Happened a long time ago.  I shouldn’t bother you with it.  Rhys picked her up.  And my dad is safe—“

“Your dad?”

He waved it off with a shrug.  “Just some weird stuff going on with him lately, too.  But it’s all kosher.  Now I can focus on you.  Sorry if I made you jealous.  But then, it’s kind of cool you were.  Come over here, mistress of the dark.  Can I have a real kiss now?”

Relieved to dismiss the subject of what may be in her heart, Kam slipped into Johnny’s arms and kissed him with a desperation that chased away her fears and guided her from the smothering darkness and toward a misty kind of hope.

Standing between his legs, she kissed him back as deeply as he kissed her.  In that moment she felt as if she were his girl.  No one else could make a claim to her, and that’s the way it had always been.

Though, she couldn’t stop the thought that kissing here at the club was not the wisest thing to do.  Not when
he
had spies everywhere.  Had Himself really led Johnny’s grandmother here?  Why would he do that?

“Thanks for the song,” Johnny said, breaking from the kiss.  “We sing well together.”

“We sing like we were meant to duo,” she agreed, kissing him once more. 

“Johnny Angel, eh?”

She shrugged.  “It just came out.  But it’s fitting for your pretty eyes and heart-stealing smile.  Are you sure you’ve not wings hidden under that leather vest?”

“Hell, if I did, I’d be flying all the time.  But you saw how well I could stay in the air when we leapt from the Eiffel Tower.”

“It was still flight.  First time I’ve ever flown.  Did you come to take me away again tonight?”

“I was hoping you’d want to get out of here.  I love the club’s atmosphere, but how can you deal with it night after night?  It’s so dismal and dark.”

“Isn’t that what we are by our very natures?”

“I don’t know where you grew up, Kam, but vamps are not the creatures of the night the media makes us out to be.”

“Says the guy who had to leave early to beat the sun home.”

“Would you have invited me in to your place?”

She hadn’t been ready for that intimacy.  Never had she invited a man into her home.  As well, she wasn’t sure Himself wouldn’t find out.  Dare she take the chance with Johnny?  She wanted to.