Sneak Peek at THE HOB & HOUND PUB

The City of Lights…and Shadows

Paris is my new favorite city! Granted, I haven't been many places but still. I'd thought we were headed straight for England to hunt down Aldith. Instead, we flew into the City of Lights. Russell and Godfrey continued on without us to do some reconnaissance and get us a place to stay. Cadmael, an ancient Mayan warrior and Clive's vampy friend, was watching the San Francisco nocturne. Audrey, Leticia's former lady's maid who had been turned into a vampire to keep her in service in perpetuity, was covering for me at The Slaughtered Lamb. Owen said she was having a ball and the customers were starting to relax around her.

With Abigail, my homicidal aunt, and Leticia both gone, San Francisco was the safest it had been in quite a while. Aldith, Leticia's mother and the woman who had declared war against Clive almost a thousand years ago, was in England. We needed to skewer the heart of the hydra or more vamps would be coming for us. And we would soon, but not now.

Now we were strolling hand in hand around a glowing glass pyramid between fountains at the entrance to the Louvre. I stopped at one of the smaller glass pyramids to look down into the museum. I had to keep pinching myself. I was in Paris!

It was after hours, but Clive knew a way in, one Rémy, his French vampire friend, said still worked. The massive high baroque palace surrounded us on three sides as Clive walked us away from the lights toward a shadowy corner between the Richelieu and Sully wings. Once the expansive courtyard had cleared out, Clive swung me around so I was clinging to his back and then scaled the wall to the roof.

We jogged along the narrow metal beam between the stone fa?ade of the building and the newer glass domed roof. I followed, not looking down, as heights were not my friend. Clive ducked behind a statue and circled to the back of the gorgeously ornate attic of the pavilion centered in the wing.

"The last time I was here," he whispered, "these were government offices. The finance department, I believe."

He took my hand and led me to an ornamental hexagonal medallion. It appeared fixed in place and yet when he pushed, it swung in. "The museum used to be one long wing." He pointed to the wing opposite us, across the courtyard. "Remy said this wing was gutted and remodeled to expand the museum."

A grin flashed in the darkness. "Let's take a look."

He sat on the lip of the opening, his legs dangling into the darkened hall below. "No heartbeat. The guard is in another wing." He pulled me onto his lap, my legs swinging beside his own, his arm tight around me. A moment later, we were dropping forty feet. Clive took the impact before he loosened his grip and my boots hit the polished floor.

I looked up at the open panel, a tiny piece of starlit sky visible. "You left the hatch open," I whispered.

"All the doors are alarmed. That's how we're getting out. Now, where to first?" He took my hand and we strolled down the huge airy halls, pausing to study paintings and sculptures.

I knew there were guards walking the museum with us, but Clive's sensitivity to heartbeats meant he heard them coming long before they appeared, giving us time to hide behind a tapestry or wall.

We wandered for hours, only seeing a small portion of the vast collection. It felt almost religious, this realization over and over of the greatness, the near divinity of some. We all leave a mark on the world, through our relationships, our actions, our words, our creations, but some have created art so remarkable that tens of thousands flock to experience it daily. It was staggering.

I enjoyed the surprises too. The Mona Lisa was small and roped off to keep visitors far away. Clive and I didn't want to trip any silent alarms, so we stayed behind the lines. It was beautiful, if a little underwhelming.

The Winged Victory sculpture, however, was magnificent. She stood atop a staircase in a large open hall, an artery for other galleries and floors—easily seen by guards entering from every direction. I couldn't tear my eyes from her. Power, glory, confidence, she awed and inspired me. I wanted to hold her essence deep within myself, to call upon it in moments of darkness and fear.

I was studying the marble statue one minute, the folds and movement of her skirt, the detail and lift of each feather in her wings, when I was picked up and raced down multiple halls, turning this way and that. When Clive finally put me down, we were standing in front of Botticelli's Venus and theThree Graces Presenting Gifts to a Young Woman.

"What the heck?" I whispered.

"Guards from different sectors were all about to converge on that hall. We have a little time before the guard for this sector returns." He pointed to the painting. "And I thought you'd enjoy this one."

Moving in closer, I tried to take in the fresco, the soft colors, the delicate beauty of the women in their billowing robes. The age and cracking of the plaster did nothing to diminish the beauty. If anything, it lent to it.

Turning to Clive, I said, "And you were around when this was first painted." It hit me at the oddest moments. My new husband was ancient. One thousand being the new thirty, if you were a vampire.

He quirked an eyebrow at me. "Problem?"

I shook my head and shrugged, turning back to the fresco. "Decrepitude looks good on you." I'd just leaned in to study the bride's features when I was snatched up, thrown over his shoulder, and carried down darkened passages again.

When my feet hit the floor, we were tucked away in a shadowy corner, away from the art. Clive's mouth was at my neck, his hands dragging down my body.

"Decrepit?" His lips skimmed my jaw.

"Elderly." I gasped when he nibbled my earlobe. "Infirm." One of his hands snaked up my sweater and palmed a breast. Breath uneven, I added, "Frail." The last word ended on a moan as he unzipped my jeans and slid his other hand into my panties.

Clive took my mouth to muffle the sounds I was making, his hands and lips working me over like a virtuoso.

I crushed him to me as I flew apart. Panting, I rested my head against the wall, trying to recover. My knees almost buckled when he did some kind of secret, vampy finger twirl as he slid out.

He leaned in, his lips hovering an inch from mine. "Decrepit?"

"Doddering." I rezipped my jeans with shaky hands.

"That's it." And just like that, I was thrown over his shoulder and we were racing down darkened halls again.

Giggling silently, I smacked his butt. "I want to see the Egyptians before we go."

A few minutes later, I was put down again, my hand in Clive's as we walked through the gallery holding Egyptian antiquities. Glass cases held sculptures, jars, jewelry. Some pieces towered over us; some were kept safely behind glass. I studied hieroglyphs longer than I should have, as I had no idea how to read them, but the idea that a story was being told drew me in.

Rows of sarcophagi were lined up in a case, some gorgeously painted, inside and out, others without decoration save the faces carved at the top, the etchings on the chest. They were—each of them—extraordinary examples of skilled workmanship.

Sometimes it made my head hurt to think I was looking at pieces fashioned by hand four thousand years ago. "Hey, do you know any Egyptians?"

Clive was studying a small cat sculpture with ruby eyes. "Of course."

"I mean one who was alive in ancient Egypt."

Straightening up, he turned to me. "Yes. Well, one, really."

I rolled my eyes and kept walking. "And let me guess. You dated."

Catching my hand in his, he walked with me. "Actually, no. He's quite striking, but not really my type." He twisted our hands so the blue diamond in my wedding ring glinted in the low light. "For some unknown reason, my type seems to be bookish bartenders who give me far too much lip."

I spun him around and kissed him soundly. "You mean like that?"

His eyes had gone vamp black, so I knew I was a heartbeat from being thrown over his shoulder and taken back to the hotel—which, granted, would have been lovely—but I wasn't done. I extricated myself from his arms and went in search of a mummy. I was sure they had to have one here.

Perhaps my necromantic abilities were on overdrive in this gallery, but it was almost like I felt him calling to me, waiting behind a row of sphinxes. He was extraordinary, nothing like the mummies described in books or depicted on film. Linen strips had been woven in a geometric pattern over his face. He also had pieces—a neckband and an apron—laid over him that had been painted with such precision, it was a wonder.

"Nenu," I breathed.

"Hmm?"

"His name was Nenu…and he was loved." Someone had taken painstaking hours to weave his wrappings as they had, someone who grieved his loss.

I was stepping away when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Nenu's faceless head had turned toward me, the fingers of one hand twitching.

Shhhhiiiiiiitttttt.

"Um, just to be clear, I didn't read from the book." Yes, much of my mummy knowledge came from a movie. What's your point?

Clive had his head tilted toward the arched entrance of the hall, listening. "You didn't what?" he asked absently.

"Clive?"

When he turned, he found my shaking finger pointing at a mummy, one who now showed movement in both hands.

His eyes widened. "Oh, good Lord."

We both watched in horror as an arm moved, causing the neckband to slide off and into the side of the glass box.

"Fix it, darling. Now. We are not setting a mummy loose in Paris. We'll never be allowed to return." His elbow nudged me, hurrying me along.

"I don't know how to—" The head lifted an inch and then dropped.

"Figure it out. And hurry. The guard is coming back."

I closed my eyes and sought out the dead, not all of them, just the one right in front of me. Rest, Nenu. Your time on this earth is done. Return to Osiris. Go. I pushed on the last word and felt his spirit leave this realm.

"A bit of a time crunch, my love."

"Done."

Clive snatched me up and raced us through the halls, eventually stopping where we had started. I looked up into the hole in the ceiling. It looked impossibly far away. Clive adjusted his hold on me so I was clinging to his back, my arms around his neck.

"Hold on," he said, patting my wrist.

When he flexed his knees to jump, I said, "No way."

He leaped straight up, catching the lip of the opening. "Climb up and out, ye of little faith."

I scrambled up his body and out the hexagonal opening in the dome. Once I was back on the roof, Clive pulled himself through. He pushed the decorative panel back in place and then grinned at me in the dark.

"What shall we do now?"