The boy nodded and rattled off a great deal in Spanish. "Mi abuelo call on his orisha," the boy said. "He will ride him and tell you what you to do."
Mercer knew little of the unholy spirits the santero called upon to possess him in his trances. He knew the old man's followers believed that every person was born under the guardianship of a particular orisha, and that several hundred of them ruled over everything in the universe, and beseeched them through prayer and ritual offerings to help them live better and cleanse their spirits. There were colors and numbers and days of the week involved with each one that the followers honored with beaded necklaces and household shrines.
The old man sat back down in his rocking chair and carefully put aside the bottle of rum. He gripped the arms of the chair and began chanting a prayer in monotone Spanish, bracing himself as he did.
The boy brought the rum bottle to his grandfather's mouth, but instead of swallowing the liquor he spit it in four directions on the floor around his chair. His face turned dark red, and he shook all over, as if going into a seizure.
"Orisha comes," the boy whispered.
The old man slumped over, and then slowly straightened. His entire posture and bearing changed, becoming as straight as that of a much younger man. He glared at Mercer and barked out something in a deeper, frightening voice.
"Ask what you want," the boy said.
"There is a man whom I believe will destroy me," Mercer said. "I have to do something to stop him, but I don't know how. It cannot be anything that could be traced back to me, or it will be for nothing."
The santero snickered and asked something.
"Orisha ask if you have heart to do what must be done," the boy translated.
Mercer nodded. "Anything."
The old man took a pouch from the pocket of his shirt and handed it to the boy, along with a string of orders.
"Orisha say you use this. Do not mix with anything. Pour into mouth." The boy handed him the pouch.
Mercer felt his knees quake. "What is it?"
The old man grinned and said in perfect English, "Heart killer."
"I can't do my job if you keep things from me," Phillipe heard Alexandra shout.
"There are matters involved here that you cannot understand," his master said, sounding as calm as his sygkenis was furious. "I have explained this to you."
"Did you just call me stupid?"
The seneschal reined in a sigh and finished giving orders to Cyprien's personal guards. "Patrol the grounds until dawn. Be alert for any signs of the suzerain's men." Something crashed into a wall and shattered. "Stay away from the master's sygkenis."
"He should beat her," Maren muttered as he checked copper rounds in his pistol and pocketed it. He had been one of the last survivors of a jardin in Burgundy that had fallen to the Brethren during the Revolution.
Kamisor, who had served Cyprien since the holy wars, sighed. "I would lock her in an attic with no one to feed on for two weeks. That would sweeten her wasp's tongue."
"The mistress is a modern woman," Phillipe reminded them. "They expect many things our women did not, such as being regarded as an equal partner and being consulted over matters of importance to their lord."
Maren snorted. "Oh, so she wishes to be a man."
"Bizarre." Kamisor shook his shaggy head.
"She will come around. She always does." Phillipe nodded to them as they left, and then went back to his daily chore of screening the seigneur's e-mails. It was not long before he heard the front door of the beach house slam, hard enough to make the entire edifice shake. A few moments later, Alexandra burst into the kitchen.
"Where are the guns?" she demanded.
Knowing this might take a while, Phillipe shut off the laptop's screen. "Why?"
"I need to shoot a jackass vampire. I won't need a scope, either, because he's very easy to spot." She began talking to herself as she rummaged through the cabinets. "Tells me I can sit around here and wait while he and the boys take care of things." Her voice climbed an octave and assumed a deadly imitation of Cyprien's light French accent. " 'Be patient, Alexandra.' 'This is none of your concern, Alexandra.' 'You can't understand, Alexandra.'" She stopped, turned, and glared at him. "How have you put up with this shit for seven hundred years?"
He rested his chin on his hand. "I listen and try to help instead of shouting and looking for guns?"
"Jesus Christ, you're just as bad as he is." She turned back to the open cabinet and slammed it shut. Her back went rigid. "Does he own me? I mean, really, I don't get this relationship. One minute we're all lovey-dovey; the next he's wrapping me in a chastity belt and locking me in a damn closet."
Close, daily proximity to Alexandra had improved Phillipe's English by great leaps and bounds, but there were still moments when she confused him. "You are wrapped in clothing, and this is the kitchen, which is not locked."
"It's an analogy, Phil." She came over to fling herself in the chair beside him. "If I ask you some questions, will you answer them? Just answer them?"
"I will try." She didn't realize how much she was asking, as Phillipe and the other men had specific orders from Cyprien on what they could and could not discuss with her. Still, he might be able to work around that. For her he would make the effort.
"Are there a lot of changelings among the Kyn?"
Of course, the very thing Cyprien did not wish her to know. "To be honest, I cannot say." He was not lying; he had never counted them.
"All right. How many have you met?"
"One does not meet a changeling," Phillipe told her. "What happens to them removes the humanity from them. One is attacked by a changeling, or one hunts one down and puts it out of its misery."
"But Richard the black-hearted is one of them." When he nodded, she pinched the bridge of her nose. "Right. So if he's all that animalistic or whatever, why is he in charge?"
"The high lord has never… succumbed to his condition." Phillipe knew Cyprien would be furious with him, but he also understood his mistress's burning curiosity, and how much she needed the answers in order to stave off despair. "Richard never chose to be less than Kyn, like the others. He was made a changeling by the Brethren."
"They can do that?"
He inclined his head. "It is how the first changelings came about. They tortured Kyn by feeding them only animal blood."
"Michael ordered you not to talk to me about this, didn't he?" She watched his face. "It's okay; you don't have to lie. I figured he had." She shoved her chair back.
He caught her hand before she stood. "The master knows what must be done to protect us. He tries to do the same with you, but you were born in another time. He does not yet fully accept that you are not like the women we have known and changed. None of us quite understands you, Alexandra."
"I want in. I want to be a part of this. All the way." She threw up her hands. "Is that so hard to get?"
"Please, will you not listen to me now?" He saw the anger fade from her expression as she sank back into the chair. "What the master tells you about Lucan is true. He is very dangerous, and will not hesitate to use you to hurt the master."
"I can handle this guy," she insisted. "You let me go over there with a couple of guards, and—"
"—and the guards will be killed, and you will be made his prisoner. That is what men of our time did, and still do." Phillipe shifted tactics. "The master has managed to hold on to his soul all these years. If he had not, he could not love you as he does. Do you agree with this?"
"Some days I don't think the handsome snot has a single brain cell to his name, much less a soul," she said. Then, after a glance at him, she shrugged. "Okay, I agree. With certain reservations to be invoked the next time we have a screaming match."
"Lucan lost his love two centuries ago. He buried his heart with her in England." Phillipe touched the scar on his face. "He did this to me, trying to get at Cyprien."
Her chin dropped. "Lucan did that to you?"
He nodded slowly. "You yourself have seen what those who have no feeling left in them can do to another. You have repaired the damage to their faces and bodies and spirits. This is what the master fears. Why he will not let you go to question the suzerain. Every time he looks at me, he sees the same thing happening to you."
"But if I can't talk to Lucan, and no one is allowed to talk about Richard, then how can I help the Kyn?" When he would have answered, she shook her head. "This change that happens from drinking animal blood, it has to be directly related to the change that turned me into Kyn. Don't you see? It could be the most important element to my research into finding a cure."
"We will find Faryl," he promised her. "Dead or alive, his blood will give you the answers that you seek. Until then, please, Alexandra, do as the master says. If Lucan were to kill you…" He did not want to think about the bloodbath that would ensue.
She gave him a rueful look. "I think it would make him pretty happy right about now."
"Non. It would put an end to the master's sanity. I know it. You have seen how powerful he is," Phillipe said. "Imagine Cyprien with no temperance, no restraint. No heart left to care for anyone."
"That's why we have to cure this thing," she said. "No human being—mutated or otherwise—should have the power that we do. We can't handle it. Power corrupts, Phil. It makes us into monsters."
"You have the power to destroy a body as much as you may rebuild it," Phillipe reminded her. "Yet you devote yourself to healing instead of harming. Who is to say you will not someday become corrupted? Should you be permitted to have such a thing?"
"Aside from butt implants and breast lifts, there is no dark side to reconstructive surgery." She sighed. "All right, you've got a point. A small one. I'd hate you if you weren't so damn cute."
