Night Play(73)

"What in the world?" she asked.

Fury burst out laughing as he saw them.

"Jeez, Vane, call before you drop in. You're lucky I didn't shoot your ass."

Bride turned to see a tall, darkly handsome man enter the room. He had shoulder-length black hair, sharp dark brown eyes, and about three days' worth of beard.

Dressed in a loud orange Hawaiian shirt and ripped jeans, he carried himself like a man who knew he could kill anyone who came near him.

"Is he the vampire?" Bride asked in a low tone.

"No," Vane said as he looked at the man in disbelief. "He's Mafia. Otto, what the hell are you doing here? Dressed like that? What the hell happened to your clothes? You look like you're morphing into Nick Gautier."

"Suffering in eternal damnation," Otto said, scratching at his beard as he neared them. "They transferred my ass over here, against my wishes I might add, to serve Dickhead Rex because he has to have someone who speaks Latin and Italian. God forbid the man have a normal plebeian Squire who just speaks English. Oh no, we must have one with breeding." Otto sounded much like Alfred Hitchcock with that last word.

"So why are you dressed like Nick?" Vane asked.

"Just to piss him off. It's truly the only thing that keeps me sane around here."

Vane burst out laughing. "Let me guess, you the red pasties man?"

"Oh, hell yeah. I can't wait till he gets up and freaks over that one." Otto deepened his already low baritone voice and added in an accent that was almost Italian but not quite, "Do not touch nor even breathe upon the statuary, Squire. Unlike you, it's priceless." His voice went back to normal. "Nah, priceless will be his face when he sees it tonight."

This time it was Fury who laughed. "I don't know you," he said, walking toward Otto with his hand extended, "but I can already tell we're going to be friends. Fury Kattalakis."

"Otto Carvalletti." He shook Fury's hand, then looked back and forth between the two wolves. "You two related?"

"Brothers," Vane said.

"Cool," Otto said, turning toward Bride with a charming smile. "You must be Bride." He took her hand as well and she noted he had a black spiderweb tattoo over the back of his knuckles. "Welcome to the madness that is our world, my lady, though personally, I think you're insane for wanting to be here."

Otto kissed her hand and bowed low before her. The action elicited a deep growl from Vane which Otto chose to ignore. "By the way, Bride, you can relax. I am technically human, though my multitude of siblings would deny it. And barring the pasties, I'm really not some sicko. When you meet my boss, you'll fully understand why I have to rattle his cage."

Otto headed for the stairs. "If one of you good wolves would howl, I could do the whole 'the children of the night, what music they make' speech." He looked back at them when neither Vane nor Fury howled. "Or not. Okay, mental note to self that the wolves have no sense of humor or have never read Dracula or seen one of the movies. No problem. Follow me and I'll show you to your rooms. One quick rundown of the rules. We try to be as quiet as possible in the daylight so as not to wake Count Penicula."

"Penicula?" Bride asked.

"My pet insult for Valerius. Much like the good Roman general who owns this house, it's a combination of penis and Dracula."

Bride would have laughed, but had a feeling it would only encourage Otto to be bad.

They followed Otto up the stairs.

"When did you get so chatty, Carvalletti?" Vane asked. "I always thought you were a man of few words."

"I normally am, but I've been locked in this mansion for so long now that I'm going stir-crazy. I'm thinking I should have stayed up in Alaska. Hell, I've even been talking to Nick just to break the monotony."

Otto paused on the stairs to look at them. "Valerius isn't a Dark-Hunter, he's a life-sucking Daimon out to bleed me dry. No wonder his last Squire quit. I keep putting in for a transfer and my father keeps telling me to be a man and take my assignment with dignity. I swear, that man better not get feeble or I'm locking him up in the worst retirement home I can find."

"Dog, and I thought I had issues with my parents," Fury said from behind Bride. "Mine just want to kill me and put me out of my misery, not add to it."

"Yeah," Otto said from the top of the stairs. "You're lucky. I wish mine would kill me."

Otto led them down a hallway while Vane leaned over and spoke in her ear. "Don't let Otto's current bizarreness fool you. He was valedictorian at Princeton."

She gaped.

"And I had a brain until this place killed it. You try dealing with Valerius and Nick and you too will find yourself regressing into infancy in a matter of days. But whatever you do, don't tell Master Valerius that I ever stepped foot onto Princeton soil. He thinks I dropped out of the Barbizon School of Modeling."