We reached the stairs and Reed stopped at the top, gestured Sorcha to his side. He signaled a waiter, who brought over a tray of champagne, stood at attention while Reed turned to his guests.
“Ladies and gentleman,” Reed said, his resonant voice carrying across the space.
A hush fell over the room. Guests turned toward Reed, moved toward the stairs to watch him.
“I’d like to thank you all for coming to our small soiree tonight. I hope you’ll enjoy the beverages, the food. You’ve all been generous, and I hope you’ll consider being generous one more time. You’ll see men and women with baskets in the crowd. Please consider making a donation.”
The plague doctor danced through the crowd with two other masked friends, all of them carrying reed baskets, pausing occasionally as guests dropped money inside them.
The entire event had been theatrical, so when two men in harlequin masks jumped suddenly from the balcony and landed in the middle of the marble stairway, I thought it was part of the act.
But when they pulled gleaming katanas from black scabbards and the subtle vibration of vampire magic filled the air, it was obvious this wasn’t part of the show.
It was an attack.
Chapter Seven
DRESSING DOWN
Ethan, I said silently, and he nodded, his body tense and ready to spring forward.
“We come for Sanford King,” said the vampire on the right, katana pointed at the crowd. The humans talked and gestured nervously, looking around for the man who’d been called out. Unfortunately for him, Sanford wasn’t difficult to spot, being nearly a head taller than everyone else.
“I believe you’re at the wrong house,” Reed said, voice booming and quieting the crowd again—except for the shuffle of cell phones as cameras snapped, messages were sent, and calls were placed.
This would need diplomacy, I thought, pulling my phone surreptitiously from my bag and sending Brody and my grandfather a message: VAMPS W/ SWORDS AT REED HOUSE TO HARM SANFORD KING. CPD DISPATCH PROBABLE.
“We’re at precisely the right house,” said the vampire on the left.
They moved down the stairs, one tread at a time, their swords extended and blades gleaming silver. With each step, the crowd moved backward, away from danger.
Sanford King might have been a criminal, but he wasn’t a coward. He pushed through the humans and moved into the clearing, looked over the men. His face had gone crimson, sweat beading on his brow. “I’m Sanford King. The fuck do you want with me?”
“You’re a killer,” said the vampire on the left. “A criminal. A parasite on the city. You deserve to die. Tonight, we’ll handle that.”
They began to circle King, lions preparing for an attack, the gazelle cornered and nervous between them. Criminal, coward, or otherwise, Sanford was human, and didn’t look like much of a match for the well-armed vampires.
Ethan and I simultaneously stepped forward to assist. But before we could take the stairs, Reed held up a hand, and his voice was low and threatening.
“Do not even think of drawing your weapons in my house. I will not have any more armed vampires here.”
Ethan showed his teeth but stayed where he was.
His house, his rules, Ethan said silently. Until we deem otherwise. Stay ready, Sentinel.
Reed snapped his fingers, and his bodyguard pulled his gun from a shoulder holster, gripped it in a two-hand stance, and began moving carefully down the stairs, barrel pointed toward the vampires.
“On the ground!” he yelled when he hit the first floor.
The vampires ignored the order. As King disappeared into the crowd again, the vampire on the right launched forward, swinging his katana with a move the bodyguard barely evaded. But avoiding the strike left him off-balance, and the second vampire executed a perfect side kick that connected with the bodyguard’s wrist, sending the gun into the air and then skidding across the floor.
The bodyguard didn’t seem worried. “Fine. You want to play it that way, we’ll play it.” He lunged for one of the vampires, who neatly sidestepped the move, sliced upward with a strike that caught the bodyguard across the chest. He hit his knees, but it was a feint—when the vampire moved closer, thinking to finish him off, the bodyguard grabbed him by the calves, pulled him to the ground, attempted to muscle him into a hold.
The bodyguard was big and muscular and outweighed the vampires considerably. But they were faster, more efficient, more athletic. The vampire flipped, squirmed out of the bodyguard’s hold, and jumped back to his feet, but he’d lost his katana. The bodyguard picked it up, grasped the handle with both hands, began to wield it like a foil, with pokes and thrusts that weren’t well suited for the blade.
The vampires adapted, working together like the predators they were. While the vampire with the katana parried, the other moved around the bodyguard’s back, peppering him with kicks to the legs and knees to keep him off-balance.
They were trained, which didn’t bode well. Vampires trained in classic fighting styles meant someone with equal skills had done the training. And there weren’t many vampires in Chicago with training like that.
The bodyguard stumbled, and the vampire with the sword jumped forward, blade disappearing into the bodyguard’s gut. He screamed like a wounded animal, went down heavily. Someone reached out, helped him scoot across marble and back toward the crowd, applied pressure to the wound.
“Goddamn it,” Reed muttered.
The vampires looked at each other, scanned the crowd. “Sanford King!”
Adrenaline became a dull itch beneath my skin. Ethan, I said again, this time the sound imploring, begging for action.
Ethan pulled out his dagger, light gleaming along the brilliant blade. “That’s our cue,” he said, not bothering to check Reed’s response—or get his permission.
I shouldn’t have been grinning, and my blood shouldn’t have been thrumming like a Corvette engine at the thought of getting out there and mixing it up with these two idiots, and yet . . .
Without taking my eyes off the men, I pulled the dagger from my purse, shoved the purse back to Sorcha for safekeeping. You want the right or left?
The one on the right looks smaller.
I narrowed my gaze at the vampire, grinned. Then I’ll take the one on the left.
You were beautiful before, Ethan said silently, but with the fire in your eyes, you are a goddess.
We’ll see how divine I am, I said and, just as my grandfather had taught me decades ago, put two fingers in my mouth and whistled with earsplitting volume.