Marie’s gaze narrowed and she waved back Jacques, who ran into the room. “You’re not afraid of my Remnants. Why?”

Another dangerously charming smile. “Answer my question and I’ll tell you.”

She glanced at me before a shake of her head dismissed me as insignificant. Okay, compared to Vlad’s fire display, the buildup of sparks on my right hand was nothing, but that didn’t mean I was helpless, dammit! Anger sent more currents into my hand, but I still hadn’t manifested a whip yet. I might only have one shot, so I needed to grow one. Fast.

“If someone had enlisted my help to kill her,” Marie said at last, “I wouldn’t need to use a spell to do it.”

“Not a direct answer. Perhaps you didn’t know who the spell was for?” Vlad said, tilting his head in my direction. “She’s new to our world, so you might not have recognized her from the pieces of skin used to bind it.”

Marie leaned forward, staring at Vlad as if they were the only two people in the city, let alone the room. “You think I don’t make it my business to know every important new person in my most powerful adversaries’ lives?”

“You consider me your adversary?” Vlad asked silkily.

“Your race, gender, and kind have been my adversaries for the better part of two hundred years, white male vampire,” she said, Southern accent deepening until it was menacingly smooth.

The Remnants surged closer to Vlad, swirling around him like storm clouds in a hurricane. Oddly enough, they kept away from me, but maybe Marie didn’t consider me worth their time. Touch him and I’ll show you how wrong you are, I thought grimly.

“If you are not the necromancer, then swear it by an oath bound in your blood,” Vlad said, leaning forward as well.

Marie let out a contemptuous sniff. “You’re in no position to make demands.”

Vlad didn’t glance at the churning, writhing mass mere inches from him. His gaze was all for Marie.

“I’m not afraid of your pets because I have personal experience with them. Their assault is agonizing, yet takes several minutes to be lethal. I, on the other hand, can explode your head off your shoulders in one-point-eight seconds, and once you’re dead, they go back where they came from.”

At that, I felt ridiculous for standing there, hand poised to strike. Guess my services wouldn’t be needed after all!

Marie’s candy-coated accent became hard. “You can burn objects and places, but you can’t burn people unless you’ve touched them, and you have never touched me, Impaler.”

Vlad laughed, low and insinuating. “Allow me to refresh your memory: you were human and running a liquor store on Dauphine Street. Pure chance that I was in New Orleans at the time. I detest the swamp, but I was traveling with Mencheres and he insisted on seeing Bones, who lived here back then.”

“Many people know I ran a liquor store in my early years,” Marie said, but from the new rasp to her voice, she was rattled.

Vlad’s coppery gaze glinted with green. “How many people know that Gregor was there, too? He and I had the same sire, as you recall, so we were well acquainted with each other. That’s why I accompanied him to see the woman he was considering adding to his line as a ghoul, if she proved useful. Took you ten more years to convince him of your worth, though, didn’t it?”

Marie’s knuckles shone through her skin as she gripped her chair as tightly as I had a few minutes ago.

“If this is true and you don’t trust my unbound word that I am not the necromancer, why haven’t you tried to kill me?”

Vlad’s eyes changed from copper to pure emerald green. “Because while I will risk a war with your people if you are, there’s no need to start one if you’re not.”

Marie leaned back, her expression icy even as a smile played about her lips. “I, too, would rather keep you as an adversary than make you or your allies my enemy.”

With that, she dragged her palm across her ring, and a tiny point I hadn’t noticed before scored a line in her flesh.

“I swear by my blood that I am not the necromancer you seek,” she said as the red drops fell. “If my words are a lie, may my own blood turn against me as witness to my deceit.”

I almost sucked in a breath, waiting. What would such a thing as someone’s blood turning against them look like, anyway? Vlad must’ve had an idea, because after a tense few moments, he smiled, hoisting his glass and taking a sip as if fire, deadly ghosts, and threats hadn’t occurred between his first taste of wine and his last one. I gave him a sharp look, as if to say, Does this mean we’re done threatening to kill her?

His teeth flashed in a grin that I translated as For now.

I finally sat down, yet unease had me sending more currents into my right hand, which now sparked like a child’s firework sprinkler. Marie glanced at it with more curiosity than concern.

“They say you can discern someone’s worst sin with a single touch, plus read the past and find people in the present through objects they’ve handled. Is that true?”

“Most of the time,” I said in a guarded tone.

Marie held out her hand in challenge. “Then tell me mine.”

If I refused, it wouldn’t go over well since Vlad had forced Marie to take a blood oath with magical consequences. Good thing he hadn’t coated me in his aura this morning or I wouldn’t be able to do anything except touch her and guess. I didn’t want to know the Voodoo Queen’s worst sin, but I took her hand anyway. She jerked from the voltage the contact released into her despite my trying to hold it back. Guess I hadn’t tried hard enough. Moments later, I wasn’t worried about how I’d electrocuted her.