The Book of Life(172)

“I had no choice but to kill them, Ransome.” It took an effort for Matthew to keep his voice even.

“Even now Baldwin would rather I kill Jack than risk having him expose our secret. But Marcus convinced me I had other options.”

“Marcus told you that last time. Yet you still culled us, one by one. What’s changed?” Ransome asked.

“I have.”

“Never try to con a con, Matthew,” Ransome said in the same lazy drawl. “You’ve still got that look in your eye that warns creatures not to cross you. Had you lost it, your corpse would be laid out in my foyer. The barkeep was told to shoot you on sight.”

“To give him credit, he did reach for the shotgun by the register.” Matthew’s attention never drifted from Ransome’s face. “Tell him to pull the knife from his belt next time.”

“I’ll be sure to pass on that tip.” Ransome’s domino paused momentarily, caught between his middle and ring fingers. “What happened to Juliette Durand?”

The muscle in Matthew’s jaw ticked. The last time he came to town, Juliette Durand had been with him. When the two left New Orleans, Marcus’s boisterous family was significantly smaller. Juliette was Gerbert’s creature and had been eager to prove her usefulness at a time when Matthew was growing tired of being the de Clermont family’s problem solver. She had disposed of more vampires in New Orleans than Matthew had.

“My wife killed her.” Matthew didn’t elaborate.

“Sounds like you found yourself a good woman,” Ransome said, snapping open the ledger before him. He took the cap off a nearby pen, the tip of which looked as if it had been chewed by a wild animal. “Care to play a game of chance with me, Matthew?”

Matthew’s cool eyes met Ransome’s brighter green gaze. Matthew’s pupils were growing larger by the second. Ransome’s lip curled in a scornful smile.

“Afraid?” Ransome asked. “Of me? I’m flattered.”

“Whether I play the game or not depends on the stakes.”

“My sworn allegiance if you win,” Ransome replied, his smile foxy.

“And if I lose?” Matthew’s drawl was not treacle-coated but was just as disarming. “That’s where the chance comes in.” Ransome sent the domino spinning into the air.

Matthew caught it. “I’ll take your wager.”

“You don’t know what the game is yet,” Ransome said.

Matthew stared at him impassively.

Ransome’s lips tipped up at the corners. “If you weren’t such a bastard, I might grow to like you,”

he observed.

“Likewise,” Matthew said crisply. “The game?”

Ransome drew the ledger closer. “If you can name every sister, brother, niece, nephew, and grandchild of mine you killed in New Orleans all those years ago—as well as any other vampires you killed in the city along the way—I will throw myself in with the rest.”

Matthew studied his grandson.

“Wish you’d asked for the terms sooner?” Ransome grinned.

“Malachi Smith. Crispin Jones. Suzette Boudrot. Claude Le Breton.” Matthew paused as Ransome searched the ledger’s entries for the names. “You should have kept them in chronological order instead of alphabetical. That’s how I remember them.”

Ransome looked up in surprise. Matthew’s smile was small and wolfish, the kind to make any fox run for the hills.

Matthew continued to recite names long after the downstairs bar opened for business. He finished just in time to see the first gamblers arrive at nine o’clock. Ransome had consumed a fifth of bourbon by then. Matthew was still sipping his first glass of 1775 Château Lafite, which he had given to Marcus in 1789 when the Constitution went into effect. Ransome had been storing it for his father since the Domino Club opened.

“I believe that settles matters, Ransome.” Matthew stood and placed the domino on the desk.

Ransome looked dazed. “How can you possibly remember all of them?”

“How could I ever forget?” Matthew drank down the last of his wine. “You have potential, Ransome. I look forward to doing business with you in future. Thank you for the wine.”

“Son of a bitch,” Ransome muttered under his breath as the sire of his clan departed.

Matthew was weary to the bone and ready to murder something when he returned to the Garden District.

He’d walked there from the French Quarter, hoping to burn off some excess emotion. The endless list of names had stirred up too many memories, none of them pleasant. Guilt had followed in their wake.

He took out his phone, hoping that Diana had sent him a photograph. The images she sent thus far were his lifeline. Though Matthew had been furious to discover from them that his wife was in London rather than Sept-Tours, there had been moments over the past weeks when the glimpses into her life there were all that kept him sane.