Cerulean Sins   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

I looked at Jean-Claude. "Others?"

He had the grace to look embarrassed, but it didn't work completely, his eyes looked pleased. "If Musette can report to Belle that I have a harem of men, then Belle will cease to be worried about you."

I shook my head. "I don't think so, Jean-Claude. I think she's got a taste of me now. She's either going to be afraid of me, or attracted to the power."

"I believe she marked you once to torment me, ma petite. She does not truly want you as her human servant, but she is angry with me, angry with you for having me." He shook his head. "She thinks like a woman, ma petite, and not a modern one. You think more like a man, so it is hard to explain to you."

"No, I think I've got an inkling. You're going to try and convince Belle's people that you didn't dump her for any woman, but for a lot of men."

" Oui. »

"And if the sight of a lot of gorgeous men torments Paolo, too, so much the better."

He smiled, but it left his eyes hard and unpleasant. " Oui, ma petite. »

I didn't say it out loud, but Belle Morte wasn't the only one who rarely did anything without having more than one motive.



44

The banquet was in one of the inner rooms of the Circus. One I'd never seen before. I knew that the place was huge and I'd seen only a fraction of it, but I hadn't realized I'd missed a room this size. It was literally cavernous, because it had originally been a cave, a huge, towering, space that water had carved out of solid stone over a few million years. There was no water now, only rock and the cool air. It was the way the air tasted, the way it touched your skin that let you know somehow that all this dark splendor was nature's handy work, not man's. I don't know what the difference between natural caves and man-made ones is, but the air feels different, it just does.

I expected torches for the night, but was surprised to find that there was gas. Gas lamps placed around the room, chasing back the dark. I asked Jean-Claude when he'd installed the gas, and he said that some bootleggers had done it during prohibition, that the cavern had been a speakeasy. Nikolaos, the Master of the City before Jean-Claude, had let the bootleggers pay rent for the space. Her vampires had also fed on the drunken revelers. It was a good easy way to feed without getting caught. Since the prey was already breaking the law, it wouldn't go to the police, to say where the vampire attack had happened.

I'd never been in a room that was lit entirely by gas lamps. It had that soft edge of firelight, but it was steadier and burned cleaner.