CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Despite herself, Selene was intrigued. She was driven down broad, tree lined avenues into a crumbling city magnificent in its decay. "What is this place?" she asked the driver. He eyed her in the rearview mirror and answered, "The only city in the world that embraces her vampires. This is New Orleans."

"Wow," Michael mumbled. "If that isn't stereotypical."

"Maybe it is," the driver cheerfully agreed. "But it's true, there are no purges here."

With that blithe comment, Selene was introduced to Ville de La Nouvelle-Orléans, the birthplace of jazz and the most haunted city in America. It was a city unlike any she had ever seen.

They were driven to a beautiful nineteenth-century townhouse nestled among towering, black barked oak trees. The house, meticulously landscaped, was ablaze with light. Similar homes graced either side of the street, each a wooden shuttered and many-columned matron of a by-gone era. Ornate iron fences enclosed each property. As they entered the gate, a smiling vampire opened the front door and ushered them inside. His genteel but casual manner unnerved Selene. He did not defer to her, nor did he assume an air of command. He greeted her as an equal. That was something she was not accustomed to.

He held out a hand to Michael. "I'm Jones. Dr. Corvin, is it?"

"Jones?" Michael asked.

"Jones," he deadpanned. To Michael, he was a breath of fresh air.

He shrugged. A tiny smile lifted the corner of his mouth and Michael caught a glimpse of a sharp fang. "My mother was a twelve year old French whore," he explained. "I came to this land in 1699 with d'Iberville. My name is a hopeless tangle of French no one can pronounce. So it's Jones. Short and sweet." He laughed and clapped Michael on the back. He gave them a brief tour of the house and bade them goodnight. Selene stared after him as he bounded down the brick steps into the rain. He was whistling cheerfully when he leapt the gate without bothering to open it. In the blink of an eye, he was gone.

"Now, that's something you don't see every day," Michael said. At Selene's puzzled expression he elaborated, "A cheerful vampire."

Most of the vampires they were to encounter shared that debonair attitude. Covens such as Selene's were virtually unknown outside of Eastern Europe. The exception had been Amelia's insular New York faction. The vampires of New Orleans did not live communally. They had no governing council nor did they subscribe to restrictive laws. They were a sharply clever, expressive band of artists, musicians, writers and intellectuals. They had no animosity toward their lycan cousins, which in the New World answered to another name, they were werewolves. Both species lived openly amid the human population. It was an unguarded secret that creatures of myth walked the streets of New Orleans. It lent an air of delectable peril to the tropical atmosphere. The humans of the city amused themselves by mimicking those mythical beings at elaborately costumed balls and masquerades. The city's Joie de Vivre culture gave its vampire and werewolf inhabitants a freedom never known by their European relatives. No, the city of New Orleans had nothing in common with Budapest.

The werewolves were a jovial yet fierce group who hunted the moss-hung cypress swamps surrounding the city. They lived in rustic cabins built at the end of long, long piers. Their women were swift eyed and fleet of foot, hunting alongside their men with skill. Their children were as wild as the swamps they inhabited.

Michael had little experience or knowledge of lycans. He came to enjoy the company of raucous werewolves who often arrived at his door and sprawled in the double parlor, sharing their ribald stories. They took distinct pleasure in the waxing and waning phases of the moon. They were unapologetic in their hungers and their desires, embracing their animal forms. This deep pride in their identity was a balm for Michael's continued struggle to accept who he had become. Not altogether comfortable with Selene, they hid their unease in deference to his choice. If they found it odd or unnatural that Michael shared his bed with a vampire, no one voiced it. And though the Louisiana werewolves knew he was a hybrid of some sort, none brought attention to it or questioned it. The more time Michael spent in the company of these remarkable men and women, the more at ease he became in his own skin. More than once it crossed his mind that Lucian, whose entire life had been consumed by grief and revenge, would have greatly liked and approved of these descendants.