Page 35 of The Assassin and the Libertine
“Mes amis,” I began, silk in my tone. “Surely you don’t want to fight me for this old slip of a thing? She’s an aging widow, too wizened to survive more than one bite in an evening. Come, take my advice—there are far better meals wandering around tonight.”
“But she’s already right here,” one of them said. “That’s dead convenient.”
The three guffawed uproariously at the wordplay.
I sighed. “So, you aim to take her from me?”
“If you’re too selfish to share, then we’ll have to teach you some manners,” the drunkest said. “Some brotherly love, if you will.”
One of them lunged at me. I sidestepped his charge and tripped him with my walking stick. Before I could turn to him, the other two were upon me. One punched my stomach and the air left me. I doubled over with a wheeze. The other grabbed my hair and hauled me up, landing a punch on my jaw. I whirled around and grabbed one man’s arm, breaking it easily. He screamed and fell to the ground. The second aimed another blow at my face, but I saw it coming and ducked. His fist smashed into the stone wall behind me and he shrieked. He got back up but froze, stunned by something behind us.
I turned to see Daphne pirouetting gracefully away from the first vampire, then bringing her fist up to smash him squarely in the nose. He grunted with the impact but reached out again, trying to grab the blonde curls that had come undone from beneath her hood. She leaned back, using his momentum against him, and dodged out of the way while he fell forward. Then, with a speed that rivaled any vampire I’d encountered, she jumped on his back, yanked one arm behind him and bent it upward in an immobilizing hold. She flicked her empty wrist anda thin wooden stake slid from her sleeve into her palm. She held it threateningly above the prone vampire’s back—exactly above his heart. The whole fight was over in a matter of seconds.
“Enough!” she yelled. “Étienne, are you all right?”
“Mais oui.”
Fierce energy rolled off her crouched form. I’d never desired another woman more.
“You!”
She jutted her chin at the man standing next to me. He cradled his broken hand and looked at her fearfully.
“Pick up your friend with the broken arm over there and gonow,or this one is dust.”
She started to slowly sink the wooden stiletto into the vampire’s flesh, and he yelled a stream of profanities that shocked even me.
They scrambled down the street at a dead run, not daring to look back.
“Now,” she said to the man. “My friend and I have some questions and I think you’re in an excellent position to answer.”
“Get drained,” he growled.
Daphnetskedand twisted the stake in further. The man howled in pain.
“First question: what do you know of Madame de Pompadour?”
“Who?”
“The king’s mistress. The rumors say that she was killed by your kind.”
“I don’t know anything about that!” The man screamed again. Tendrils of smoke began to curl from his wound.
“No? Because we followed the trail of a bleeder to an address around here.Rue des Oubliés. What do you know of it?” Daphne leaned on the man’s arm.
“It’s nearby, but no one goes there!” he shouted. “Please, release me. It burns—putain de merde—it burns!”
“Why does no one go there?” she demanded.
“Ease up and I’ll tell you. I swear, I’ll tell you,” he gritted out. By the look on his face, he seemed close to passing out.
She lessened the pressure on his arm and slid the stake partway out. The man panted.
“No one goes there because it’s haunted,” he gasped.
Daphne leaned forward again and hissed at him. “Do you think I’m stupid?Haunted?There’s no such thing.”
“Just like there’s no such thing as vampires?” he wheezed with a laugh. “Look, lady, I don’t know if it’s real ghosts or not. People don’t go there because they say it’s haunted. Strange noises. Awful smells. Unnatural darkness. It’s a bad place.”
