Unbound

“Amputated after the battle of New Market Heights. They told me it was a miracle I survived at all. Majestic changed me afterward, at my request. I wanted to live long enough to one day see the LaLauries die.”

Jelani’s expression was pure defiance now, as if he expected Bones to berate him for changing into a ghoul solely for revenge.

“I was turned into a vampire against my will,” Bones replied evenly. “Brassed me off for a good long while, then I got over it. Can’t change how we ended up as we are, so why bother fretting over it? If you’re looking for judgment, look elsewhere.”

Jelani seemed surprised. “I hadn’t heard that about you,” he murmured.

Bones let out a short laugh. “Why would you? It’s not the sort of tale to be bandying about, is it?”

“Don’t you hate your sire for that?”

I did.

For years, Bones had hated Ian for turning him into a vampire. But Ian hadn’t done it to be malicious—he’d done it out of a twisted sort of gratitude. If not for Bones sharing his meager food, Ian would have died on that long voyage from London to the New South Wales penal colonies, where they first met as prisoners.

But Bones wasn’t about to share that with Jelani. No need to air those particulars to a ghoul he barely knew.

“I don’t hate him anymore,” was all Bones said.

“You have a house in the city,” Jelani noted, changing the subject. “Will you be staying there?”

Bones shrugged. “Not after tonight. You can ring my cell, if you need me. I’ll send word when it’s finished.”

Jelani smiled, and it was cold. “Don’t underestimate them. Delphine took the boy during an evening walking tour of the Quarter. He was seen leaving with a dark-haired girl right after the tour had stopped at her former mansion.”

Has a sick sense of humor, does she? Bones thought sardonically. Their old home was about the last place he’d expect to find the LaLauries hunting, but it told Bones quite a bit. They were arrogant, which was good. Arrogance and a sense of invincibility were two large points in his favor toward killing them.

“How many ghouls and vampires live in the city?” Bones asked.

Jelani mulled it for a moment. “Year round, a few hundred. At Mardi Gras, that number doubles, easily. Humans aren’t the only ones to enjoy the city’s festival.”

Bugger. Which was why it was an ideal time of year for the LaLauries to hunt, of course. The abundance of people, alive and undead, made them blend that much more into a crowd.

Of course, it would make Bones blend, too. He felt confident he could catch them. What he wasn’t certain about, was how many people they might kill before he did.

“I’ll ring you when it’s finished,” Bones repeated to Jelani, and walked out of the blood-soaked townhouse.

3

The afternoon sun glinted off the countless beads people wore around their necks. The streets weren’t completely clogged yet. More people would venture out once it got dark. It amused Bones that a vampire could be about at this time of day, yet some humans let their excesses from the night before trap them in bed until dusk.

Bones’s only concession to being out in daylight was to wear shades and sunscreen. He wouldn’t burst into flames if the sun touched his bare skin, as the movies so comically claimed. Still, an hour in the sun for a vampire was akin to all day at the beach for an albino. He’d heal almost instantly, but there was no sense using his strength over something as trivial as a sunburn.

He’d already walked the length of the Quarter and back, noting the differences since the last time he’d been here—three years ago? No, it was four, because he’d celebrated the new millennium here. Blimey, the years were blinking by. It had been well over a decade since he’d set foot in London. Once I kill the LaLauries and finish tracking down Hennessey and the other miserable blokes he’s involved with, I’m going home, Bones decided. It’s been too long. I’m even sounding more like a Yank than an Englishman these days.

Only a couple blocks down was the LaLauries’ old house. Even in daylight, there were shadows shifting around it. Residual ghosts. Any sentient spooks who’d died there stayed away from the place, not that Bones blamed them. At night, the house positively crawled with old, despairing energy from its gruesome past. It was no accident that the house had changed hands so many times over the past hundred and seventy years. It was now empty and for sale again as well. Humans might not be able to see the residual manifestations, but they could sense them, on some deep level.