JК
Danse Macabre :: Гамильтон Лорел
Страница: 400 из 427I sat behind his elegant black desk, with a drawer open. I had an extra gun in that drawer. I'd loaded it with silver shot while we waited. Asher sat beside me, in a chair pulled up so he could be close enough to touch me. He was the reason the drawer was open and the gun was loaded, but not sitting in plain sight on the desk, or in my hand already. He thought it might make the discussion get off on a hostile foot. Damian stood on my other side, hand on my shoulder. His touching me, sharing his calmness, was probably why Asher had won his argument about the gun. The other reason he'd won the fight about the gun was leaning up against the door: Claudia, Truth, and Lisandro, looking very bodyguardy against the wall. Where was Jean-Claude? He was out being the media darling. Elinore, as manager here, was also playing to the media. For public events like this, she made a much better hostess. Besides, I was handling other business. The kind the human media didn't get to know about.
Merlin was sitting in a chair facing us. Adonis and the dark-haired woman from the chorus were sitting on the couch against the wall. Her name was Elisabetta, and her vaguely Eastern European accent was thick enough to walk on. Merlin's and Adonis's accents seemed to flow with their moods, but were mostly absent.
Merlin was answering my questions in that elegant from-anywhere-and-everywhere voice: «I wanted the show to be magical for the entire audience, not just the humans.»
«So you tried to roll everyone's mind, including the master vampires and lycanthropes, because you didn't want them to miss the show?» I didn't fight to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. I'd have lost the fight, so why try?
«Yes,» he said, simply, as if, of course.
Damian's hand squeezed a little tighter on my bare shoulder, his fingers caressing the edge of the collarbone scars.
«I find that a little hard to believe,» I said. There, that was calm. I hadn't called him a lying bastard.
«Why else would I have done it?» he asked. His face was very calm. I knew his eyes were dark, pure brown, but other than color I couldn't describe them much, because I wasn't making eye contact. This vampire had damn near rolled us all with no gaze. I wasn't chancing it. He was tall, dark, and handsome. He was not European. No, something darker, farther east, as in Middle East. There was something very Egyptian about him, or maybe Babylonian, because he was old. Old enough that he made my bones ache with his age. Not power, just age. I was a necromancer, and I could taste the power and age of most vampires.
Merlin was sitting in a chair facing us. Adonis and the dark-haired woman from the chorus were sitting on the couch against the wall. Her name was Elisabetta, and her vaguely Eastern European accent was thick enough to walk on. Merlin's and Adonis's accents seemed to flow with their moods, but were mostly absent.
Merlin was answering my questions in that elegant from-anywhere-and-everywhere voice: «I wanted the show to be magical for the entire audience, not just the humans.»
«So you tried to roll everyone's mind, including the master vampires and lycanthropes, because you didn't want them to miss the show?» I didn't fight to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. I'd have lost the fight, so why try?
«Yes,» he said, simply, as if, of course.
Damian's hand squeezed a little tighter on my bare shoulder, his fingers caressing the edge of the collarbone scars.
«I find that a little hard to believe,» I said. There, that was calm. I hadn't called him a lying bastard.
«Why else would I have done it?» he asked. His face was very calm. I knew his eyes were dark, pure brown, but other than color I couldn't describe them much, because I wasn't making eye contact. This vampire had damn near rolled us all with no gaze. I wasn't chancing it. He was tall, dark, and handsome. He was not European. No, something darker, farther east, as in Middle East. There was something very Egyptian about him, or maybe Babylonian, because he was old. Old enough that he made my bones ache with his age. Not power, just age. I was a necromancer, and I could taste the power and age of most vampires.