Page 9

CHAPTER 9

Twenty-four years ago…

Nine-year-old Dante Arundel stood in his father’s “office,” actually the expansive foyer of their San Francisco Pacific Heights mansion, and watched Benoit Arundel deal with the business of the day. His father was an important person, a feared man. Women called him handsome, and Dante supposed that was true. Wavy blond hair swept his shoulders, shiny with the care his valet took of it.

Dante was the heir apparent, the legitimate son, so it behooved him to pay attention to his father’s mood, and to pay attention to events, for at any moment Benoit could snap out a question and expect Dante to figure out the answer.

Dante had seen men die for inattention.

Benoit’s imposing velvet-cushioned antique chair—his favorite, and worn around the edges—rested on an elevated platform. Dante’s mother, Raine Arundel, sat on Benoit’s right, but down a step. She was also an important person, although a woman. She was Benoit’s advisor, the person who decided who would be received and who would be rejected. It behooved her to present the right people, the ones who brought gifts and groveled with proper gratitude. Occasionally she got it wrong, but not often. Benoit’s reprimands were swift and painful.

Dante consulted his schedule as a thin worn woman, Pola Daire , arrived through the front door with her pretty, four-year-old daughter, Mary. He glanced at his mother.

She made the almost invisible gesture that told him not to worry.

But she was worried. He could see a tightness around her mouth.

No wonder. Romani. Benoit called them vermin, a scourge on the earth. He carried in him generations of old-world prejudice and, although Dante didn’t know why, a particular loathing for the Daire family. Benoit wanted to eradicate them. He intended to eradicate them. Dante watched as the guards put the woman and the child through the metal detector, then wanded them, then ran their purses and shoes through an X-ray.

So Benoit feared them. As he should. Weeks earlier, Denny Daire had been slaughtered in his suburban Napa home while his wife and child were out running errands. Pola and Mary had disappeared; Dante had presumed his father’s men had caught up with and eliminated them, too. Yet here they were, walking in as if they’d lost all good sense. As if Pola had lost all good sense.

At a nod from Benoit, Axel did a body search on the woman. The man was a brute, he enjoyed her humiliation too much, and when he removed a small wrapped box from her purse and started to untie the bow, she spoke in a low threatening tone that made Axel glance at Benoit, put the box through the X-ray again, and hand it back to her.

He leaned over the child. Mary was wide-eyed and skittish; she’d been taught not to let strangers touch her. Pola had to kneel beside Mary and speak quiet encouragement, and the look Raine gave the guard made him go over the child quickly and unobtrusively. He did examine Mary’s necklace and ask her about it, and at her mother’s urging, she spoke of it in a voice that tripped and stammered.

Axel laughed at her, imitated her stutter.

Mary hung her head.

Raine snapped her fingers, and Axel stopped laughing. Yet he still grinned as he dug through the capacious pockets on Mary’s white ruffled apron and brought forth three small toys, meant to keep the child busy: a doll, a punch-button puppet, and a video game.

With a shrug at Benoit, he let them go, and Mary eagerly collected her toys and looked wide-eyed around the room.

Benoit leaned over and spoke a question to Raine, and she passed him the tablet with the application that had won Pola her chance to attempt to pass through hell. Benoit ran his eyes over the form. Dante knew the moment he read the information that had won her entrance; Benoit’s eyes narrowed, he looked at Raine, who inclined her head, and he handed her back the tablet. He gestured Pola toward him.

She took a moment to speak to Mary, admonishing her to do as she’d been instructed. Mary looked concerned and confused, then she nodded, yet her lip trembled. Andere, their oh-so-dignified and formal butler, moved toward her in that unobtrusive walk of his. He moved quickly, but without drawing attention to himself. His full head of dark wavy hair was trimmed and subdued by his barber. He was tall, wore his suit well, never presumed, observed every situation, and responded accordingly.

Dante could not imagine him dressed in anything but black-and-white.

Andere knelt and spoke in a gentle voice, and offered Mary a handful of the lemon candies he always carried in his pockets. She looked up at Dante as if needing reassurance about taking candy from a stranger.

He nodded and smiled, giving her permission. He was well-acquainted with the restorative power of those French candies. Many a time after his father punished him, the sweet-tart taste of lemon had helped him regain the composure Benoit demanded of his heir. He hoped they gave the little girl pleasure now, in these decisive moments she couldn’t possibly understand.

Pola walked toward Benoit with her shoulders back and her chin up. Benoit preferred to see applicants cower, but in the end, defiance or entreaty would make no difference. He would do what he would do. Probably she knew that, or possibly she didn’t know how to grovel.

Pola stopped the prescribed distance away and offered the wrapped box.

Drawn by the sense that this moment had consequences he couldn’t comprehend, Dante drew close enough to hear Pola speak.

Her voice was low, husky, vibrant. “Master, I brought a gift.”

A bribe.

“It is the tribute you demanded of my husband.”

“You are wise.” Benoit accepted the box and flicked the bow open.

Dante exchanged glances with the bodyguard Benoit insisted Dante keep with him at all times. Nate was ten years old, tall and broad, stoic and taciturn. His last name was Arundel, so he was a relative of some kind, and he and Dante communicated without words. They both understood the significance of this moment.

“This small red glass bottle, the Bottiglia di Fiamma—”

Bottle of Flame, Dante translated from Italian.

“La Bouteille de Flamme,” Benoit said assertively.

Of course. Pola gave it the Italian name, for it had been created in the fumes and furnaces of the island of Murano. Benoit was French and a bully; he had no respect for the origins and artistry.

Pola ignored Benoit’s interruption. “The bottle, stoppered with wax—”

Benoit clamped his fingers over her skinny wrist. “Say it.”

She stood straight and tall, unyielding, until Benoit began to grind and twist her bones, then she repeated, “ La Bouteille de Flamme, stoppered in wax, gives honor to the blood of J?nos, the revered founder of my husband’s tribe, a martyr who fought evil and won.”

Benoit tossed her wrist aside. Lifting the bottle, he stared at the contents. “You exaggerate. All J?nos did was die.” He showed it to the room. It was, indeed, a small red bottle, perhaps the size of little Mary’s hand; it gleamed not like glass, but like polished rubies.

The sycophants in the foyer, and there were always sycophants present, applauded gingerly—vigorous applause might attract Benoit’s attention, and that could be as painful as being ignored—and murmured their admiration and praise. Even Dante thought it beautiful and knew why Benoit had done so much to acquire it; it beckoned like a seductive woman.

Pola continued, “I bring dishonor to myself and my people by giving this into your possession, into the hands of a hated Arundel, worthy descendent of èrthu the Pale, the legendary exterminator who raped and murdered, and skewered Rom babies on his lance.”

Dante didn’t know whether the woman praised Benoit and his ancestor, or spat on him. Nor could he tell if Benoit enjoyed her calm-voiced tribute, or would take a terrible revenge. Both, probably.

Definitely.

Benoit summoned Andere, who left Mary and in his unhurried pace came to Benoit’s side. Benoit handed the box to him and spoke a single word.

Of course. Benoit trusted Andere as he trusted his wife. Andere had been a retainer to the family as long as Dante could remember, and moreover, he came from a family who had faithfully served the Arundels for generations. No one loved Benoit, but he commanded loyalty as easily as he demanded obedience.

Andere bowed to the man he served as master, and to Raine, the master’s wife, and carried the box away to be put in the safe.

“Since the day èrthu laid eyes on the vasi sanguigni—”

Blood vessel, Dante translated again.

“—so precious to my people, all the lords of Arundel have sought it, not for its holiness nor for its honor, but to own as a thing, a possession, a vanity. Now you have it, and tonight you may hold it and gloat, and in return, I seek a boon.”

Tension coated Dante’s tongue with the copper taste of blood, yet little Mary seemed unaware. She played hopscotch on the parquet floor. She turned her polished stone necklace to catch the light.

“In return for this tribute, I want you to guarantee my daughter’s safety.” Pola indicated Mary, who stood in the floor-to-ceiling mirror and admired her flowered dress and embroidered apron, her black patent leather shoes and white socks, the long blue ribbon threaded through the waves of her dark red hair. “Look at her. She’s a child. When she was a toddler, she climbed on the back of the toilet tank.”

“The toilet tank?” Benoit laughed.

“She fell. She hit her head. Since then, she hasn’t been right.”

Mary got the push-button puppet out of her pocket and made it dance in the mirror.

“You see her. She’s not smart. She didn’t speak until she was three , and she stutters. Your man—” Pola indicated Axel “—laughed at her. She can’t hurt you, Master. I beg you—”

Dante had seen this kind of desperation before; he held out no hope for the woman or the child.

Benoit interrupted Pola’s plea. “Where’s the stopper?” He leaned forward, watching her.

“I don’t know.”

“You bring me only half of what I desire. I want the stopper for the bottle. You know I must have it, for without that the bottle is worthless.”

“Then return the bottle.”

They engaged in a staring match, and to Dante’s surprise, Benoit looked away first.

Dante realized this woman must have no real hope, or she wouldn’t have come here, and most certainly she wouldn’t have engaged Benoit in a war she refused to lose.

Andere returned and in his capacity as butler, he assessed the situation and moved to take Pola away.

Before he could reach for her, Pola said, “Benoit, my grandmother told me the stopper broke many years ago. That’s why la Bouteille de Flamme is sealed with wax. Master—”

“I don’t believe you.” Benoit spoke each word clearly, a double death sentence. “No matter whether your daughter is defective. She’s one of the Romani, the seed of the lice who crawl the earth, and as such, the sooner she dies, the happier I’ll be. The safer my son will be.”

“No.” Pola sank to her knees. “No!” She crawled until she was beside him, lifted her hands in supplication.

Andere hurried forward.

The guards lunged toward them.

With a gesture, Benoit stopped them all. Pulling his big pistol from the holster at his chest, he pointed it at the middle of Pola’s forehead.

Dante turned away; his father would say he was weak, for he couldn’t stand to see the woman and child killed.

Pola screamed, “Mary! Now! Run!”

The little girl snapped out of her preoccupation with the puppet in the mirror. She dropped it, stared at her mother.

Benoit’s pistol changed direction, pointed at Mary.

Of course. Benoit preferred to enjoy the greatest amount of suffering out of his executions, and having the mother witness her child’s death would accentuate the sweetness of the bloodshed.

“Your son will pay for your sins!” Pola screamed, and slammed herself into Benoit’s chest.

Mary put her hand in her pocket, pulled out her video game, fumbled with it, then turned and ran.

At that moment, Dante knew.

He sprang forward…as the explosion rocked the room.