Free Burnt Offerings by Laurell K. Hamilton

raised goose bumps on my skin, but she couldn't capture me with her eyes. She was powerful, but she wasn't a master vampire. I could feel her age like an ache in my skull. A thousand years, at least. The last vamp I'd met who was that old had cleaned my clock. But Nikolaos had been Master of the City, and Yvette would never be that. If a vamp hadn't attained master status in a thousand years, she, or he, was never going to. A vamp gained power and abilities with age, but there was a limit. Yvette had reached hers. I stared into her eyes, let her power tickle across my skin, and wasn't impressed.
    She frowned. "Impressive."
    "Thanks," I said.
    Balthasar stepped around her and went to one knee in front of me. He put one hand on the back of my chair and leaned into me. If Yvette wasn't a master, then he wasn't her human servant. Only a master vampire could make a human servant. Which meant he belonged to someone else. Someone I hadn't met yet. Why did I get the feeling I'd be meeting that someone soon?
    "My master is a council member," Balthasar said. "You have no idea what kind of power he wields."
    "Ask me if I care."
    Anger flared across his face, darkening his eyes, making his grip on my chair tight. He laid his hand on my leg just above my knee and started to squeeze. I'd played with the monsters long enough to know what supernatural strength feels like. His fingers dug into my flesh, and I knew he could keep squeezing until muscle popped and he bared my bones to the air.
    I grabbed his silk tie and pulled him close, and shoved the barrel of the Firestar into his chest. I watched the surprise chase across his face from inches away.
    "Bet I can blow a hole in your chest before you can crush my leg."
    "You wouldn't dare."
    "Why not?" I asked.
    A touch of fear flowed through his eyes. "I am the human servant of a council member."
    "Not impressed," I said. "Try door number two."
    He frowned at me. "I don't understand."
    "Give her a better reason not to kill you," Jean-Claude said.
    "If you shoot me here in front of witnesses, you will go to jail."
    I sighed. "There is that." I jerked him close enough that our faces almost touched. "Take your hand off my knee, slowly, and I won't pull this trigger. Keep hurting me, and I'll take my chances with the police."
    He stared at me. "You would do it, you really would do it."
    "I don't bluff, Balthasar. Remember that for future reference, and maybe I won't have to kill you."
    His hand eased, then moved slowly away from me. I let him move back, his tie sliding through my hand like a fishing line. I eased back in my chair. The gun had never made it out from under the tablecloth. We'd been the soul of discretion.
    The waiter came over anyway. "Is there a problem?"
    "No problem," I said.
    "Please bring our check," Jean-Claude said.
    "Right away," the waiter said. He watched a little nervously while Balthasar got to his feet. Balthasar smoothed down the wrinkles in his linen pants, but there's only so much you can do with linen. It really isn't meant to be knelt in.
    "You have won the first round, Jean-Claude. Be careful that it does not become a Pyrrhic victory." Yvette said. She and Balthasar left without ever taking a table. Guess they weren't hungry.
    "What's going on?" I asked.
    Jean-Claude sat back down. "Yvette is a council toady. Balthasar is the human servant of one of the most powerful council members."
    "Why are they here?"
    "I believe it is because of Mr. Oliver."
    Mr. Oliver had been the oldest vampire I'd ever met. The oldest one I'd ever heard hinted at. He'd been a million years old, no joke, a million years, give or take. For all those with a head for prehistory, yes, that does mean he wasn't Homo sapiens. Homo erectus, and able to walk around during the day, though I never saw him cross direct sunlight. He'd been the only vamp to ever fool me for even a few moments into thinking he was human, which is nicely ironic, since he wasn't human at all. He'd had a plan to take out