"Welcome, Samuel, Master of the City of Cape Cod. As Jean-Claude's human servant I welcome you and yours to St. Louis."
He stood, and he hadn't had to. He could have made me come to him. His hair was a dark, dark brunette, almost black, but I'd spent too many years staring at my own hair to mistake it for true black. The careless fall of short curls reminded me of Clay's hair. Cut well, but not fussed with. He was taller than Nathaniel, but not by much, maybe five-seven tops. He looked neat and trim, well-built but not obviously muscular in a simple black suit. He wore a nice green T-shirt underneath it. If Jean-Claude had dressed him, it
would have been silk, and closer fitting. The T-shirt, like the suit, hinted, but hid more than it showed. A thin gold chain graced the neck of the shirt. On the end of the chain was a very old coin set in more gold. The coin was one of those ancient pieces they find in shipwrecks sometimes. Or maybe the shipwreck imagery came because I knew what his animal to call was: mermaids. No, really, mermaids. Samuel was unique among now-living vamps in his animal to call.
His wife was one. The man and woman standing behind the love seat had to be merpeople, too. I'd never actually met any of the sea people before.
I fought the urge to look away from the vampire in front of me. I mean, I'd seen vamps, but mermaids, that was new. I offered Samuel my hand. He took it more solidly than Auggie had, like he'd shake hands well. Then he raised my wrist to his mouth. Like Auggie, he rolled his eyes up to gaze at me as he did it. Samuel's eyes were hazel, pale brown with an edge of grayish green around the pupil. The green shirt brought out more of the green, so his eyes were almost an olive green, but they were definitely hazel, not true green. But then I had high standards for true-green eyes.
Samuel's eyes were just eyes, and when he laid a chaste kiss across my wrist it was just a kiss, no extras. I rewarded his restraint with a smile.
"Ah, Samuel, always the gentleman," Auggie said.
"Something you could learn from," said the woman in white, who had to be Samuel's wife, Thea.
"Thea," Samuel said, a slight warning in his tone, but it was very slight. Jean-Claude had warned us all that Samuel's only weakness was his wife. She got her way most of the time, so when dealing with die Master of Cape Cod, you had to negotiate with botli of tliem.
"No, she's right," Auggie said, "you were always a better gentleman trian I."
"Perhaps," Samuel said, "but one does not have to say such tilings out loud." There was an edge of heat in his voice, the first stirrings of anger.
She bowed a body that was inches taller than his, bowed and hid her face. I was betting it was because her face just didn't look sorry enough. Her dress was somewhere between cream and white, and it matched her skin and her hair. She was all whites and creams and pearls. At first glance you might think albino, but then she raised her eyes back up to us botli. Her eyes were black, so black that her pupils were lost in the color of her irises. Her lashes were golden, her eyebrows gold and white.
Muscles played under her thin arms as she stood and smoothed her long dress around her body. Her coloring was odd, but not outside human norms. Her white-blond hair fell to her waist. Her only jewelry was a circlet of silver set with three pearls, the biggest in die middle and two smaller to either
side, surrounded by tiny but brilliant diamonds, so that the light flashed and winked as she moved her head. Her pale neck was smooth and unadorned, with no gill slits. Jean-Claude had told me that when they wished, the maids of the sea—his phrase—could look very human.
"May I present my wife, Leucothea. Thea." He took her by the hand and 4rew her into a low curtsey.
Did I curtsey back? Did I tell her to get up? What should I do? What Could Meng Die have done that was taking Jean-Claude this long to sort out? She was so on my shit list.
Not knowing what else to do I offered her a hand up. She took my hand, raising a softly startled face to me. Her fingers were cool against my skin.
"Are you helping me rise like a queen taking pity on a commoner, or do you acknowledge that I am your superior?"
I helped her to her feet, though she moved like- a dancer and hadn't needed the help. I dropped her hand, and said what I was thinking. When in doubt I usually do. "Okay, truthfully, I'm not sure who outranks who between the two of us. If Jean-Claude had been here then you could offer up to him, but it's me, and I don't mean to be insulting, but I'm just not sure who tops who here."
Thea's pale face looked surprised, but Samuel looked pleased.
Auggie laughed an abrupt, very human-sounding laugh, turning me to look at him. "Jean-Claude said you were a breath of fresh air, Anita, but such an honest breeze, I'm not sure we're up to it."
"I like it," Samuel said.
"Only because you are hopeless at deceit," Auggie said.
Samuel gave him a look. "None of us who have risen to Master of the City is without deceit, old friend."
The humor in Auggie's face softened, and faded. I realized that of almost all the other master vamps I'd ever seen, his face was the most mobile, the most expressive. Now it went suddenly blank the way all the old ones could do. "Fair enough, old friend, but you do prefer honesty."
Samuel nodded. "Aye, that I do."
"You like honesty?" I said. "Then you are going to love me."
There were abrupt laughs from at least two different corners of the room. In one of the corners was Fredo, slumping artfully, his black T-shirt a little bulky in places from all the knives he hid on his body. There were other knives out in plain sight, two huge ones on either hip like an old-time gun-slinger. His dark face was set in laughing lines, his black eyes glittering out from the fall of his dark hair.
The other laugh had come from almost die opposite corner. Claudia was
nearly six foot six, the tallest woman I'd ever met, and a serious weight lifter. She made the too-thin Fredo look frail. Her black hair was tied back in its usual tight ponytail. She wore no makeup, and her face was still startling in its beauty. Claudia cared less about looking like a girl than I did. But even with the weight lifting, her body was all woman. Without the extreme height and the muscles, she would have been one of those women who couldn't go anywhere without getting hit on, or at least leered at. She still got the leers, but most men were afraid of her, and they should have been. She would probably be the only other woman carrying a gun tonight. At the moment her face was soft with the laughter that was still bubbling in her throat. She had a nice laugh, deep and throaty. I wasn't sure I'd ever heard her laugh before.
"What's so funny?" I asked them both.
"Sorry, Anita," she said, voice still full of laughter.
Fredo nodded. "Yeah, sorry, but you, 'honest'? Jesus, 'honest' doesn't cover it."
Micah had to clear his throat sharply, and even Nathaniel's face was sort of glowing with the effort not to smile at me.
I fought not to get angry, and finally managed it. Bully for me. "I can lie if I have to." And even to me it sounded pouty.
"But it's not your nature," Fredo said, which was a little too perceptive for someone who was supposed to be just muscle.
"He's right," Claudia said, and she'd finally managed to control her laughter. "I apologize for the outburst."
"She is like you, Samuel," Thea said, "an honest heart."
"That would be a good thing," he said. And the way he said it made me finally look at some of the other people in his party. My thought about inlaws was a little too accurate with Samuel and Thea: they were offering up their three sons as possible pommes de sang for me. Which I found a little creepy, but all the vamps had patiently explained to me that most of the really old vamps come from a time when arranged marriages between powers was the norm, not the exception.