The Keepers. Heather Graham

the art that was her birthright. She could do so in an instant, and change back so quickly that anyone seeing her who didn’t know would assume it had been a trick of the light. So …

      She changed. She gave something that was a warning growl, fangs dripping and bared.

      And then she changed back instantly.

      “You don’t need to get huffy,” the woman told her. “Right this way.”

      She led Fiona past the scattered tables in the courtyard. Beneath one of the lovely umbrellas with its fleur-de-lis in black and gold, she saw David Du Lac comfortably seated.

      He had been leaning back, eyes shaded by his dark glasses, hands folded, toes tapping to the sounds of the jazz band.

      His pose was casual, but he had seen her coming. He rose, extending his hands to her, a broad smile stretching out across his features.

      “Fiona, my dear, welcome, welcome to my club.”

      She accepted his hands, along with the kiss he gave her on each cheek. “Valentina, be a dear and see that Miss MacDonald receives a libation right away. What will it be, my dear? A Bloody Mary is always a lovely concoction for lunchtime.”

      “I’m fine, really.”

      “You must accept my hospitality,” David insisted.

      “Iced tea, please,” Fiona said.

      She noticed that Valentina, the bitchy shapeshifter, as she would always think of the woman from this moment forth, did sniff audibly then.

      “Certainly, David,” the woman crooned.

      “David, you know why I’m here,” Fiona said, watching the bitchy shapeshifter swish away.

      “Don’t mind her. She’s a jealous vixen if ever I’ve seen one.”

      “She’s a triple D with feet,” Fiona said. “Hardly likely to be jealous of me.”

      “Ah, my sweet child, what you don’t know about your own sex!” David said, then grew serious. “But never mind. I do know why you’re here.”

      “David, this wasn’t just someone who went insane and attacked a woman, then tried to hide her body. It wasn’t someone trying to create his eternal love. This was an act of … war, really. She was left where some city guide with tourists in tow would find her. She was put on display, stretched out … David, this is extremely serious.”

      “I do know that, my child,” he said.

      “I’m not a child, David,” she reminded him quietly. “I’m the Keeper.”

      “Fiona, no offense meant. But you’re supposed to step in when we can’t police our own.”

      “This was the action of a rogue, David.”

      “Yes, yes, of course. And I promise you, if we’d known he—or she—was out there, we would never have let it happen. But have some faith, Fiona. Please. Jagger DeFarge is working the case and—”

      “He’s a vampire, David. He doesn’t want to believe that he’s hunting down one of his own.”

      David leaned back, stretching his arms out as if to encompass not only his club but the entire city. “Fiona, I love my life. Or death. Or afterlife. However one chooses to refer to this existence, I’m a good man.”

      “David, I wasn’t accusing you of anything.”

      “My point is that I don’t want anyone taking this away from me. I enjoy the money, frankly, not to mention the beautiful creatures of all kinds who cross my threshold. I revel in the music. Would I risk losing this? If I knew who had done this, I promise you, I would see to it that Jagger DeFarge knew, and that our own council handled the matter immediately. You must believe me.”

      A friendly ash blond waiter with a broad smile delivered her ice tea and asked if she wanted anything else.

      “The crawfish étouffée is to die for today,” David told her.

      “Thank you, but—”

      “Please,” David said.

      She was hungry, and she had to have lunch somewhere. “Fine, thank you,” she said.

      David grinned broadly, delighted, as the waiter moved on to place her order.

      “David, you know that I will follow this all the way through, that I’ll be in everyone’s face everywhere,” Fiona said.

      “It will be charming to have you here,” he assured her. “Fiona, I swear, I will do my utmost to help you in any way that I can. But I am asking you something, too. Give Jagger DeFarge a chance.”

      “I have to give him a chance, don’t I? He’s with the police—he’ll be front and center in the investigation,” she said dryly. “But here’s what I won’t get from Jagger, David. I don’t believe he’ll tell me when he’s suspicious of someone. He’ll protect his own until the very end—and he may cause more deaths by his unwillingness to believe the killer is a vampire.”

      “That’s not true,” David said.

      A throat was cleared behind them. “Crawfish étouffée,” the young waiter announced, giving Fiona a fascinated smile. She thanked him as he refilled her tea and handed David another Bloody Mary.

      “Who do you suspect?” she demanded, when the waiter had left them at last.

      “No one,” David said.

      “You’re a liar. But if you point me in a certain direction, I will be discreet as I investigate,” Fiona said.

      “No one, really….”

      “Liar. Who is the most belligerent? Who wants to go back to the old ways?”

      David looked away.

      She followed his line of vision toward a tall man across the courtyard, just on the other side of the small stage reserved for the jazz band. He was flirting with a woman seated at his table. She was middle-aged, slim and elegant, with fingers that dripped jewels. She was laughing delightedly at something the man was saying.

      “Who is he?” Fiona demanded, staring at David. “He’s a newcomer to the area, but a vampire, I can smell him a mile away.”

      David sighed. “Well, of course, you can,” he murmured. “All right, all right. That man is Mateas Grenard, and yes, he’s not been here long. He immediately sought out the council, though, before anyone had to find him and ‘welcome’ him to the city. He has openly disagreed with some of our rules, but isn’t that the American way?”

      “There’s not much else I can tell you,” Craig Dewey said. They were in autopsy. The corpse of the beautiful blonde still looked as angelic as when it had first been discovered. “I haven’t opened her up yet—we’ll get to that tomorrow. We’ve done the death photographs and taken what blood we could for tests—which was hard, since she’s been drained almost completely dry. If there’s a quarter of a pint left in her body, I’d be surprised. Cause of death—well, I could be wrong, but it looks pretty obvious that she bled out. It’s as if it was siphoned from her body. We’ve tried to find semen stains, and we ran a rape kit … with intriguing results, particularly given what we just found out in the last few minutes. Determining sexual assault has been almost impossible.”

      “What? Why? Was there evidence of semen? Or condoms?”

      “At least seven different brands,” Dewey said dryly. “We’re taking it step by step. I’m sorry, but it’s the only way, even though—I know you want to catch this killer before panic fills the city.”

      There was something that seemed eternally sad about the snow-white body on the table, though the white gown had been replaced by a morgue sheet.

      “You said you found something out in the last few minutes,” Jagger