by Faith Hunter
“Derek with the marines. How long you been working with Leo Pellissier?” Me and my smart mouth.
“Six months. Ever since the Crips decided to make my boys into their boys and kill any who thought better of the offer. Why? You got a problem with it?”
This wasn’t the first time I’d heard mention of the Crips. Another coincidence? Not likely. It was all starting to come together. Not that I had any idea what the final picture would look like. “Not really. I’m not fond of the Crips or any other gang that allies with a practitioner of dark magic and a few rebel vamps getting ready to start a vamp war.”
“Is that what’s happening?”
“I’m thinking yes.”
“You ain’t stupid, Injun Princess. I’m not fond of any fang-heads. But the devil you know . . .” he said with a bitter smile.
“The story of my life. How many you got with you?”
The side door slid open, revealing six young men—three I knew from mapping the hunting territory in their neighborhood—kneeling in the back open space, all but one dressed in black combat fatigues and armed to the teeth with military or military surplus equipment. I spotted shotguns, one assault rifle, numerous knives and vamp-killers, but nothing in the way of body armor. When I commented on that, one of the men unbuttoned his black shirt to reveal a chain-mail vest and a neck choker, a T-shirt beneath to protect his skin. “Silver-plated steel works better in combat with a vamp than armor. Guns are loaded with silver shot.” He nodded at the shotgun strapped to my back. “What you carrying?”
“Various weaponry. Shotgun is a Benelli M4 Super 90, loaded with silver-fléchette, hand-packed rounds.”
“The model M4, designated by the military as a Joint Service Combat Shotgun? That M4?” I half smiled and he went on, the early-twentysomething man sounding as if he quoted from a military handbook, showing off. “Steel components have a matte-black, phosphated, corrosion-resistant finish. The aluminum parts are matte and hard anodized, the finish reducing the weapon’s visibility during night operations.”
From the back, another man took over. “The model M4 shotgun is considered by many experts to be nearly idiot-proof, and requires little or no maintenance, operates in all climates and weather conditions, can be dumped in a lake or pond and left for long periods of time and not corrode. It can fire twenty-five thousand rounds of standard ammunition without needing major parts replaced. That Benelli?”
“That Benelli,” I agreed, my smile widening. “Mostly, though, I just like the fact that it’s idiot-proof.” The men shared a masculine chuckle for the little lady and her nice, safe weapon. “All you guys ex-military?”
“Why you asking?” the first man asked. His tone made it clear they still weren’t interested in me knowing their names.
“We have a license to kill any vamps harboring the maker of the young rogues, and the young-rogue maker himself, of course. But there’s no room for human collateral damage. Local law won’t turn a blind eye to mistakes. So we’re looking for the best of the best, which means military, not gangbangers. Shooters have to be sure—absolutely sure—what you fire at.”
“Not a problem.” Guy number one tossed me a set of low-light infrared goggles. “One man wears these. He goes in alone and quiet—recon. Places all humans visible to him as warm and living. Then the rest of us go in and take out anything dead and cold.”
I bumped his age up to mid-thirties as I turned over the goggles. I hadn’t known for sure that vamps wouldn’t register on infrared. Learn something new every day. “Sweet,” I said, tossing them back.
“The gear is from bounty money. Cash you got us for the vamp heads paid for all this.”
Which got me thinking. If they were working with or for Leo, why hadn’t he paid for their gear? Questions for another time. “Master sergeant?” When he nodded, I said, “I’ll make a run-through ahead of the van, spotting any eyes. You got ears?”
The same guy tossed me a headset. I pulled off my helmet and settled the headset on. “Now, this is what I’m talking about.” I had used civilian-style headsets once before in Asheville, when I worked a dicey run to track thefts from a secure warehouse with the security firm where I did my internship. This wasn’t too different. “Testing.”
“Copy, Princess,” a voice said into the earpieces.
“I e-mailed you the street addresses of the likely warehouses,” I said.
He turned a small laptop to me, the screen showing a map. “The Warehouse District is upscale and we might have to do on-foot recon. You got too many weapons to pull it off. Hicklin here looks the part.”
I finally got a name, or half of one. It was a start. I looked Hicklin over, a twenty-something with slicked-back hair and a shaped Vandyke beard. “Nice suit.”
“Itches,” he complained.
“I bet.” I kicked Bitsa into life. Beast rose through my consciousness and stared out through my eyes. I gave the master sergeant a nod and wheeled my bike around, heading toward the Warehouse District and a war with some of the Rousseau Clan. I didn’t bet on it being pretty.
* * *
We reached the Warehouse District, the area yuppie-crowd trendy, many of the old warehouses remade into retail and living space for the upwardly mobile. Museums and art stores were everywhere, some chic, all expensive. Many of the old warehouses had been redone into fancy condos and apartments, homes with indoor pools, gyms, and security. I didn’t expect any less than great security from the warehouse I was looking for. I peeled away from the van following me and took side streets, rounding corners with tight leans and a burst of speed, checking out the back ways for the intense, varied scents of the rich and fangy.
Beast reached through me, testing the wind for vamp scent, and just as the sun was setting caught a whiff. An old vamp in sunglasses and loads of sunscreen out for an early stroll turned to stare after me as I whizzed past. But he was alone. And he was someone I recognized from the vamp graveyard when Katie was put to earth. A Desmarais elder. Not my quarry. Not my prey. I was looking for mingled Rousseau smell—lots of vamps in one place.
Half an hour later I was on a back alley off Iberville, near Decatur Street, when I caught a whiff of them that quickly grew stronger. Mixed Rousseau smells and an odor of rot came from a ventilation shaft in a brick building that took up half a block. The likely lair was on the back, opening to what once had been an alley. Parking took up a goodly space in back, enclosed utilities area on one side. There were no windows on the lower story at back and sides, three rotating security cameras, one secure garage-style door that looked heavy-duty steel, and next to it, one steel entry door with a tiny steel-mesh-reinforced window, the kind of glass used in prisons. The door had its own keypad entry, camera, and intercom speaker; the security was tight and up to date. Perfect. I glanced at my research. This was one of the addresses once owned by Renee Damours, though the title had transferred to a Henry Poitier back in the nineteen fifties. “Possible target,” I said into my mike. I slowed and eased around front; gave the address to the van boys.
The front of the place had been subdivided into three businesses, one an art store. I parked Bitsa in the next block and unhelmeted. I was wearing too many weapons to look like a shopper, but I could look as though I had bike problems. I knelt near Bitsa and pretended to study the back wheel.
Hicklin appeared from my left, meandering, one hand in his pants pocket, tie loose, his phone hanging from one ear. His voice came over my headset, chatting, just a guy killing time window-shopping after work, maybe waiting for a lady friend to join him for supper in one of the hip, pricey restaurants nearby. “You know it, man,” he said. “Boss is banging her and his wife is clueless. She catches him and the business will go into a divorce settlement. We’ll all be out of a job. . . .” He nattered on as he studied the wares in the windows, getting the lay of the land, looking for cameras and other security. Looking for back doors. He entered the business on the corner, an art store with statues in the front windows, colorful, modern
swirly things that looked like clayware. “Later, man.”
Inside, Hicklin chatted up the salesgirl, flirted, a natural-born player, all the byplay coming over the headset, which looked like his cell phone. I tinkered with Bitsa. Hicklin had a date with Amy later in the evening if he wanted, but he finally got to the point, asking her how long she’d worked at the store, and discovered she was the owner’s daughter. “Tell me about the building. I have a sister who’s a chef, relocating up from a chef school in Charlotte. I’m considering investing in a restaurant for her.”
Amy filled him in, leaning across the counter, chatting with the rich customer. “It’s, like, two hundred years old, with walls three feet thick. The woman who owns it is one of the old vampires, kinda creepy, you know, like real old? Not humanlike at all. She uses the back half, all three stories, the lower one for storage for her businesses, and the top two floors for living. If you call her living.”
“I’ve seen vamps, but not an old one. What’s she like?”
The back of the building sported a windowless lower story and wide, arched windows on the two top floors. I hadn’t consciously noted it but they’d been heavily draped. Cars could be pulled into the lower level through the garage-style door using an automatic opener or the keypad. Perfect vamp lair.
“Short. Pretty, in a pale-as-death way. But not real human-normal.” Amy took up a strand of shoulder-length hair and twirled it around and around her fingers as she thought. “One night she shows up here, asks me if I’m interested in being a blood meal for a friend of hers. She’d pay me, like she was a pimp or something. I was so not into that. I told her no, thank you. And she stands there, unmoving, not breathing, for over two hours. I had customers and we had to work around her, like she was a statue or something. It was freaky, you know? And then I looked up and she was gone. When I checked the security cameras, she just disappeared. Like she teleported out something, except the door opened real fast and closed.”
“How did she get in and out? Is there a door from her part of the warehouse to here? Or to one of the other stores?”
“No way. She’s real into security. She’d freak if we had a way to her side. Daddy thinks she bribed a fire marshal to keep the sections separate against local fire regulations.”
While the two decided on a time to hook up for the evening, dinner and maybe more, I said, “Derek, this looks promising.” More than promising. By the scents, I knew this was it. Had to be. Tension shot through me. “How do you want to do this?”
“I copy. You wait here till my boys say they’re ready. We got monkey stuff.”
“Monkey see, monkey do?”
“No. If you see no evil and hear no evil, you can’t rat anyone out. No offense.”
I smiled. “None taken. Security cameras?”
“Will go out exactly thirty seconds before the doors blow. On my mark, start around back. When you hear the blow, move fast.”
“Got that.”
“Copy, Injun Princess. The word is copy.”
I just grinned and waited. All along the street, true night fell. New Orleans is at its best at night, balmy air like a caress, smells of the river and cooking foods, people walking leisurely, languid after a hot day at the office. I felt rising tension, mixed excitement and fear, knowing I could be on the verge of getting back Molly’s kids. I checked the foot traffic. “Derek? What about foot traffic?”
“We’re okay out back. On my mark, and thirty, twenty-nine . . .”
I started Bitsa and motored with the countdown as I followed the lethargic after-work crowd. I was at the back parking area when a muffled boom took me by surprise. And took out all the lights in the block. “Go, go, go, go, go!” Derek shouted into my headset. Adrenaline shot through me. Beast reared up high in my mind, claws piercing. I gunned Bitsa and raced through the human-sized door, now hanging by one hinge, just behind a man carrying a shotgun and a sword, a black satchel over his back. Derek? Maybe.
I abandoned the bike just inside. Pulled the Benelli and opened out the folding stock. The smell of vamp was overpowering. Rousseaus. Lots of them. The point man moved through the darkened building, checking everything out with his goggles, giving report as he moved. By the commentary, he was twenty feet in front of Derek.
“Hallway, clear. Left, clear. Right, clear. Stairway”—a door banged open and a cool shaft of air fell into the hallway—“clear on this level. No bogeys noted above. No way down.”
Left meant a room to the left. Right was a room to the right. There was no downstairs. I understood. Over the headset came “Garage clear. Two vehicles. Both cool to the touch. Garage exterior door, one interior door for entry. Locked. Steel reinforced. Hinges on inside. Camera down.”
From outside came the words “Fire escape clear. No doors or windows opening. No movement.”
“Hallway door, no window,” the man in front of Derek said. “Locked, reinforced, hinges inside.”
“I got it,” Derek said. He knelt in front of me. I didn’t watch what he did, but covered us from behind. Just in case one of the rooms had a doorway we hadn’t seen. Or a concealed exit. Or a hungry vamp sleeping under a table.
“Back.” Derek and the point man backed up and we each entered a room, Derek with me. “Five, four”—I covered my ears to protect them from the explosion—“three, t—” The explosion took out his words. Dust blew into the hallway, along with the smell of rotten meat and old blood. It was a charnel house effluvia. Derek cursed.
The point man disappeared inside the dark opening. We’d been in about forty seconds, according to my time sense. I was expecting human servants. Armed. So far, nothing.
“No live ones,” the point man said. “All dead. Lights.” Derek and I rushed inside as the point man pulled off his goggles and knelt, weapon up and ready to fire. The lights flickered once and came on. The sudden illumination sent a shock of tingles through me. Followed by a shock of another sort.
The windowless room was fifty by forty, give or take, with a fifteen-foot-tall ceiling. The walls were painted a soft coral, oriental rugs were piled deep, and leather furniture, tables, lamps were scattered in small groups, as if someone had wanted the place kept appealing. Except for the far corner where the floor was concrete with a drain in its gently sloped center. Along the walls in that corner were cots made of blackened steel and chained to the cots were vamps. No humans, no witches. I counted quickly. Nine vamps on ten cots. The tenth cot was covered by rumpled, stained sheets.
“We got cameras,” someone said as we entered.
At the sudden appearance of humans—of bloody meat, to the vamps—they all vamped out, screaming and wailing and fighting the restraints. Steel cut into wrists and ankles, and the smell of fresh vamp blood mixed with the reek of old, decaying vamp blood. The empty cot bothered me. A lot.
I scanned back and forth, the Benelli at ready. Behind me, the point man was letting in the others from the garage entrance. They raced to take out the inside cameras and I heard the shhhhft of spray cans, the chemical smell adding to the reek in the room. “We got nine vamps restrained. One missing. Seal exits,” Derek said, reading my mind. The door to the garage shut firmly.
“I got the door,” Point Man said, heading back to the door we had come through.
That left us with four shooters inside. I moved across the room to the concrete-floored area. It was about ten-by-ten with a showerhead hanging over the drain; a lever and a handheld sprayer on a long tube hung nearby. Soap and clean cloths were in a basket, and liquid bath soap and industrial cleaners stood on a narrow, wheeled table. Above it were butcher tools, the blades looking well used and well cared for, sharp. The narrow table was clean but blood lined the cracks. I bent and sniffed. A lot of blood. For a long time. From a lot of humans and not a few vamps. Under the table was a zippered body bag, and it wasn’t empty.
Trepidation climbed up my spine on cold gluey feet. I swung the Benelli out of the way and knelt. My fingers were quivering as I opened the zipper. A vamp fac
e appeared. Not Angelina. Not Little Evan. Not stuffed together into the body bag. The vamp’s head was separated from the body. True-dead. And he’d begun to stink. Like, really stink. He’d been dead long enough for his skin to be slippery and oozing. I rezipped the bag. Sniffed again. There was no scent of the kits. No scent of Bliss. They weren’t here and hadn’t been here. But maybe upstairs?
I stood and repositioned the shotgun as I walked between the cots. There were little racks above each bed holding what looked like medical charts with ID and medical details on each, which included date of birth. I stopped at the two teenagers, a boy and girl on thick foam mattresses, Adora and Donatien Damours, brother and sister. The family resemblance was evident even beneath the vamped-out teeth and eyes. Both wore clean hospital gowns and bowties, both had been showered and their blond hair washed. Both had long faces, with firm chins, high foreheads. Both were hungry. Gaunt. Starving. I looked around. They all were starving. The girl was trying to lick her own wrist where she was bleeding, but her shackles kept her too far away. She was mewling with need. I checked the other ID cards.
Sick things. Kill them, Beast murmured as I read.
I agreed, but there were reasons not to, important reasons, primarily Angelina and Little Evan. Besides, killing the long-chained wasn’t covered by my current contract, which made this a job for the council. “No Tristan Damours,” I said. “So maybe the rumors are right and he found sanity. Or maybe that’s him in the body bag.”
“Company,” a voice said in my headset. Over the speaker I heard the sound of feet clattering on stairs. Someone was coming down the inside stairs. “Heat signature is human. Two of them. Wait, one. There’s a vamp with them.” They weren’t trying for stealth either. I could hear them without the headset.
