Samuel's eyes were just eyes, and when he laid a chaste kiss across my wrist it was just a kiss, no extras. I rewarded his restraint with a smile.
«Ah, Samuel, always the gentleman,» Auggie said.
«Something you could learn from,» said the woman in white, who had to be Samuel's wife, Thea.
«Thea,» Samuel said, a slight warning in his tone, but it was very slight. Jean-Claude had warned us all that Samuel's only weakness was his wife. She got her way most of the time, so when dealing with the Master of Cape Cod, you had to negotiate with both of them.
«No, she's right,» Auggie said, «you were always a better gentleman than I.»
«Perhaps,» Samuel said, «but one does not have to say such things out loud.» There was an edge of heat in his voice, the first stirrings of anger.
She bowed a body that was inches taller than his, bowed and hid her face. I was betting it was because her face just didn't look sorry enough. Her dress was somewhere between cream and white, and it matched her skin and her hair. She was all whites and creams and pearls. At first glance you might think albino, but then she raised her eyes back up to us both. Her eyes were black, so black that her pupils were lost in the color of her irises. Her lashes were golden, her eyebrows gold and white.
Muscles played under her thin arms as she stood and smoothed her long dress around her body. Her coloring was odd, but not outside human norms. Her white-blond hair fell to her waist. Her only jewelry was a circlet of silver set with three pearls, the biggest in the middle and two smaller to either side, surrounded by tiny but brilliant diamonds, so that the light flashed and winked as she moved her head. Her pale neck was smooth and unadorned, with no gill slits. Jean-Claude had told me that when they wished, the maids of the sea — his phrase — could look very human.
«May I present my wife, Leucothea. Thea.» He took her by the hand and drew her into a low curtsey.
Did I curtsey back? Did I tell her to get up? What should I do? What Could Meng Die have done that was taking Jean-Claude this long to sort out? She was so on my shit list.
Not knowing what else to do I offered her a hand up. She took my hand, raising a softly startled face to me. Her fingers were cool against my skin.
«Are you helping me rise like a queen taking pity on a commoner, or do you acknowledge that I am your superior?»
I helped her to her feet, though she moved like a dancer and hadn't needed the help. I dropped her hand, and said what I was thinking. When in doubt I usually do. «Okay, truthfully, I'm not sure who outranks who between the two of us. If Jean-Claude had been here then you could offer up to him, but it's me, and I don't mean to be insulting, but I'm just not sure who tops who here.»
Thea's pale face looked surprised, but Samuel looked pleased.
Auggie laughed an abrupt, very human-sounding laugh, turning me to look at him. «Jean-Claude said you were a breath of fresh air, Anita, but such an honest breeze, I'm not sure we're up to it.»
«I like it,» Samuel said.
«Only because you are hopeless at deceit,» Auggie said.
Samuel gave him a look. «None of us who have risen to Master of the City is without deceit, old friend.»
The humor in Auggie's face softened, and faded. I realized that of almost all the other master vamps I'd ever seen, his face was the most mobile, the most expressive. Now it went suddenly blank the way all the old ones could do. «Fair enough, old friend, but you do prefer honesty.»
Samuel nodded. «Aye, that I do.»
«You like honesty?» I said. «Then you are going to love me.»
There were abrupt laughs from at least two different corners of the room. In one of the corners was Fredo, slumping artfully, his black T-shirt a little bulky in places from all the knives he hid on his body. There were other knives out in plain sight, two huge ones on either hip like an old-time gunslinger. His dark face was set in laughing lines, his black eyes glittering out from the fall of his dark hair.
The other laugh had come from almost the opposite corner. Claudia was nearly six foot six, the tallest woman I'd ever met, and a serious weight lifter. She made the too-thin Fredo look frail. Her black hair was tied back in its usual tight ponytail. She wore no makeup, and her face was still startling in its beauty. Claudia cared less about looking like a girl than I did. But even with the weight lifting, her body was all woman. Without the extreme height and the muscles, she would have been one of those women who couldn't go anywhere without getting hit on, or at least leered at. She still got the leers, but most men were afraid of her, and they should have been. She would probably be the only other woman carrying a gun tonight. At the moment her face was soft with the laughter that was still bubbling in her throat. She had a nice laugh, deep and throaty. I wasn't sure I'd ever heard her laugh before.