“Sounds dreadful,” Nicholas said. “What do you want us to do?”

“For now, just keep your eyes and ears open. If you hear of anything the least bit suspicious, tell me immediately. The last thing I want is a bunch of humans running scared. They might be weak and sometimes stupid, but they’re persistent when they get their tails in a knot. One more thing, there’s a new hunter here in LA.”

“Anyone we know?” Nicholas asked, and then frowned. “It’s not that Blood Thief, is it?”

“No,” Rhys said, grinning, “it’s not her.” Those who knew Daisy had good reason to fear her. In spite of being young and a woman, she had been a force to be reckoned with.

Rhys remembered Daisy well. He had been at rest here, in the pantry of the meeting house, minding his own business, when her brother, Alex, had attacked him. The two of them had been locked in a life-and-death battle when Daisy burst into the room and hurled a bottle of holy water at his head. Rhys had howled in pain and fury as the water burned his skin. With murder on his mind, he had whirled around to face her. He could only imagine how frightful he must have looked, with his eyes glowing like hell’s own flames and his fangs dripping with her brother’s blood. But it hadn’t slowed her down. With a wild cry, she had pulled a stake from her pocket, lunged forward, and driven the damn thing into his chest. Had her hand been steadier, her aim true, she would have destroyed him on the spot.

Funny, how things never turned out the way you expected. He had fully intended to avenge himself on the Blood Thief and her brother; instead, they had become reluctant allies. But that was all in the past.

His gaze rested briefly on each member of the Council. “All right, you all know what to do. Now get out of here.”

Chapter 6

Tomás Villagrande strolled through the streets of New Orleans admiring the lacy iron balconies that fronted so many of the buildings, the Spanish moss that hung from the branches of the trees, giving them a somewhat gothic look that appealed to him.

In the old days, the city, founded in 1718 under the direction of Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, had been known as La Nouvelle-Orléans. Tomás had walked its streets then, too.

The city had changed much in 292 years.

He had not.

A thought took him to the French Quarter, his favorite part of the city. He strolled down Bourbon Street, which was virtually unchanged from days gone by and was still the center of town. Rows of townhouses and cottages lined the sidewalks, many with elaborate wrought-iron balconies, flagstone courtyards, and bubbling fountains.

The first floors of many houses had been turned into commercial enterprises, with living quarters upstairs.

No matter the time of day or night, the streets in the Quarter were always crowded. Tourists quickly learned three things about this part of the city—the bars never closed, the food was spicy, and there was music everywhere. Jackson Square was another area that bustled with activity, a place where fortune tellers, jugglers, musicians, and artists gathered to perform and sell their wares.

A thought took him to the Garden District, which remained one of the city’s most popular and picturesque areas. The houses, done in magnificent Victorian, Greek Revival, and Italianate styles, were beautiful, timeless. The Garden District had originally been the site of a plantation, but later it had been sold and subdivided into lots for wealthy Americans.

Leaving the Garden District behind, Tomás thought briefly about the young man he had dined on earlier. He had left the body of his victim atop a stone angel in St. Louis Cemetery #1 where it was sure to be found. By morning, the citizens of New Orleans would be in a state of frenzy, as were the sheep in New York and Chicago and a few other cities where Tomás had left evidence of his presence with the bodies he had left behind. The word “vampire” would travel the length of New Orleans before dawn.

Thanks to Anne Rice, New Orleans knew all about vampires, he thought with a grin. Some of the most popular tourist attractions were the vampire tours, including a stop at something called the Vampire Tavern. Tomás had, in years past, appeared to one tour group or another. He had let them see him as he truly was, with his eyes glowing red and his fangs extended, and then vanished from their sight. It was always good for a laugh. Yes, it was entertaining to stir up the masses from time to time, though he had changed his mind about urging those of his clan to come out of hiding and prey openly upon the populace. It had been an idea born out of the dreariness of his life.

A full-scale war, once started, was difficult to curtail, even for one as old and powerful as he.

He thought of the body he had left behind in St. Louis Cemetery #1. The cemetery, located eight blocks from the Mississippi River on the north side of Basin Street, and one block from the inland border of the French Quarter, was the city’s oldest and most famous burial ground.

Tomás grinned ruefully. Only in New Orleans would graveyards be considered places of interest. Since the city itself was built on a swamp, the deceased were buried in above-ground tombs. The cemeteries had come to be known as “cities of the dead” due to the elaborate sculptures and decorative artwork that adorned the crypts and mausoleums. Many of the tombs were well maintained; some were surrounded by decorative wrought-iron fences, others were little more than piles of crumbling red brick. The tomb of the fictional vampire, Louis, from Interview With a Vampire had been located here. It was rumored that Anne Rice had purchased a tomb in #1 for her eventual use.

There were those who considered the cemetery to be located in a bad part of town, since it bordered the Iberville housing projects. On the plus side, the New Orleans Police Department was practically right next door. Still, wise tourists didn’t visit the place alone, didn’t stay after dark, and certainly didn’t carry anything of value with them.

Marie Laveau, the legendary “voodoo queen,” was buried in the cemetery. Even now, long after her death, believers and nonbelievers came to visit her tomb, where they performed an act most thought odd. First, they left a gift—either of food, money, or flowers—for her spirit. After that, they turned around three times, and then inscribed an X on her tomb in hopes of receiving blessings in the future.

Tomás had met Marie on several occasions. Both of them. Few people knew that when the first Marie Laveau retired, her daughter, who had also been named Marie, took over. Both had been tall, statuesque women, with curly black hair, flashing eyes, and reddish skin. Back in the 1800s, people of all colors and classes had sought Marie’s help, whether with ordinary, everyday problems, or affairs of the heart.

Marie wasn’t the only famous person buried in the cemetery. It also held the remains of Bernard de Marigny, a French-Creole playboy who had introduced the game of craps to the United States.

He paused on Bourbon Street to listen to a little Dixieland, his foot tapping to the music as he scanned the crowd. He wasn’t looking for prey now, at least not the kind he dined on. His gaze came to rest on a raven-haired beauty with bright blue eyes and the kind of complexion that used to be described as peaches and cream.

When her gaze met his, he inclined his head. Unable to resist the compulsion in his eyes, she walked toward him, slim hips swaying. He assured her she had nothing to fear as he slipped his arm around her waist. Young men were for relieving one’s hunger, and he took them quietly, quickly. But young women. Ah, how he loved the taste and smell of young females. Before killing them, he often made love to them, giving them pleasure before he thrust into them one last time, before he drank the last drop.

A thought took them to the Ferretti, which was moored in the harbor. He gave her a tour of the yacht, and she was suitably impressed, and then he took her into his bed, where he impressed her several times before the sun came up.

Chapter 7

Rhys stood hipshot against the end of the bar as he listened to the idle chatter of the well-dressed men and women around him. Outwardly, he seemed much the same as the other men. He wore the same expensive clothes, drove a flashy car, owned real estate in the city, including the building where he kept his primary lair. But inside, he was still the bastard son of a prostitute. The world changed. Kings and queens and presidents came and went. People were born, grew up, grew old, and passed on, but he remained always and forever the same, never quite able to shake off the feeling that he was inferior to those around him, never able to forget the scared little boy who had become a thief to survive.

He was still stealing, he mused somewhat bitterly, but instead of gold and silver and fancy baubles, he stole the life’s blood of his victims.

He snorted softly. The humans in the room were no better than he was. He could hear their innermost thoughts—the middle-aged man to his left had just embezzled three million dollars from his employer; the brunette at the other end of the bar was having an affair with her husband’s brother; the well-dressed black man standing near the entrance was checking the crowd, looking for an easy mark. The balding man on his right had just lost his job and was contemplating suicide.

Straightening, Rhys closed his mind to those standing nearby. He had no interest in their mundane lives, didn’t care a lick whether they solved their problems or not. What mattered was that it was almost midnight. Time to visit Shore’s and the ever so lovely Megan DeLacey.

Megan paused in the act of hanging a new pair of slacks on the circular rack in the center of the store. Rhys was coming. She knew it by the sudden, rapid increase of her heartbeat, by the way her skin grew warm all over.

She was trying to figure out the how and the why of her reaction when he walked into the store.

Tall and blond and wearing clothes she had sold him, he looked like he had just stepped off the cover of GQ. She couldn’t help wondering if he had spent as many minutes as she had deciding what to wear.

He smiled his hypnotic smile as he closed the distance between them. For a moment, she forgot where she was, forgot everything but the incredible attraction that flowed between them. What was there about him that left her feeling weak and shivery inside, that made her want to give him anything he desired?