by Faith Hunter
I leaned in. Molly’s a redhead. She might have straightened her hair. And then I realized how stupid that was. Molly was not tied in to my case. The timeline was impossible. I was reaching for straws. I was starting to panic about my best friend.
The Kid said, “The other one looks like a dude, with a nose ring.”
Once he pointed it out, I could make out the ring. It was an aggressive piece of jewelry.
“From what Alonzo didn’t say, I’m guessing the chick’s a vamp, and was turned when she was about fifteen. He implied that she was classy, like an old-world vamp, though the words he used were ‘like she was a movie star, like from the ’forties. You dig? Like, a real classy chick.’” I managed a partial smile, but I didn’t think it fooled Alex at his mimicry. “The other one he didn’t say anything about, but I’m guessing it’s the vamp’s blood-servant or primo or something.”
“How many redheaded vamps have lairs or homes in New Orleans?”
“A few. I pulled up six. If we could get a name—”
“Yeah.” I stood. “Anything on Mo— On the family case?”
“Nothing new. I made it into the hotel security footage, but it’s a lot of work to locate the right floor and right day without access to their dedicated system. I’ll text you the minute I get anything. The plates from the limo that the ‘family case’ got into were hard to trace because your source didn’t give you a state for the rental agency. The car was rented out of Galveston, Texas, seventy-two hours ago.”
My forehead crinkled in surprise. Texas? Leo didn’t rule Texas. I didn’t know who did, but it was in a database somewhere. The Kid went on. “Within an hour, but not on the same credit card, two buses were rented, all vamp-specific, which could have nothing to do with the limo rental. Or it could be related.” He shrugged. “I can’t rule it out, so I included it in my report.”
“Yeah. Good,” I murmured, trying to figure out what Texas had to do with anything in New Orleans. “Find out which vamp rules Texas,” I said. “I’ll ask Bruiser to look into who came here and who is on Leo’s territory. Vamps are real careful about traveling into another vamp’s hunting grounds.”
The Kid snorted at the term, but that was the way vamps thought of land—space filled with humans to hunt and drink.
“I’m supposed to be at vamp HQ before dusk for chili and a security meeting,” I said. “I’ll go alone. You and Eli keep working. And maybe send Eli to the black cab limo company to talk to Alonzo?”
Alex laughed softly and looked up at me under his shaggy, curly hair. “Yeah. Big brother could probably get all the info we need.”
“Tell him no broken bones, no blood, no witnesses—real or electronic.”
“Hmmph. Eli will charm the dude.”
“Eli? Charm?” I thought about the way Eli acted around me—no charm at all if you didn’t count innuendo and verbal sparring, most of which had dried up now that children were on the premises. And then I thought about the way he had handled himself at Guilbeau’s, with Scott Scaggins. The former Ranger had skills that were vastly underused. “Okay. Yeah. Eli can charm Alonzo.” I drank my tea and the spicy warmth eased some of my internal chill away.
Before I finished the mug, Big Evan came in, Eli behind him. Evan was grumpy, glowering at me, but at least he didn’t jump me in my own living room. EJ, unimpressed by his father’s size and attitude, raced to him, squealing. There was no way to be out-tuded by any guy, no matter how big and gruff, when a toddler (holding his sister’s doll) was hanging on his pants demanding to be picked up. I managed to keep my grin off my face, but Evan clearly knew the picture he presented wasn’t overly formidable; he heaved a breath at lost opportunity and lost machismo, and lifted his son to his shoulder. “You got anything?” he asked after EJ kissed him on both cheeks and tugged on his beard.
I pointed to the couch. “Angie, will you watch your brother for a minute?”
“Okay,” she said, not looking up from the TV, which was playing a Disney film, one with fish, the title escaping me. Evan set his son down beside Angie while I got him a mug of coffee and a package of cookies that he had brought in the travel supplies. Old-fashioned Fig Newtons, which I hadn’t had since I was a kid. I bit into one as Evan lumbered back to the kitchen and sat down. He slurped his coffee and said, “You’re about to piss me off, aren’t you?”
“Maybe.” I turned my mug in a circle on the tabletop. It made little scuffing sounds on the old wood. “I left a message for Leo that Molly was in town and missing.”
“And the fanghead said what?”
“Nothing so far. It’s been three hours and no reply.”
“I’ll bust—”
“Nothing and no one,” I interrupted without looking at him. “I’m heading there shortly. I’ll deal with it. And if you can’t sit things out, then I’ll start telling you nothing. You’ll be out of the loop, and anything you do might endanger Molly. She’s in trouble. She’ll need you whole and hardy and full of power. So stay here. Protect your children.”
I felt magic swirl into the room, dark and stormy. I didn’t look up. I didn’t want to see what was in Evan’s eyes. He kicked back his chair and it hit the countertop before clattering to the floor. Eli stepped into the room.
“Dude. Chill,” Eli said.
A moment later, the spiraling wind eased to nothing. “You really got a pair of big ol’ brass ones, don’tcha, Jane?” Without another word, Evan left the room.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I murmured to the tabletop.
CHAPTER 6
Well-Trained Junkyard Dogs
The rest of the day was busy but fruitless. Eli got nothing much from Alonzo. The driver of the black cab that had taken Bliss and Rachael from the party had taken the driving gig through his Internet Web page, and it had been paid for with PayPal. Which was just amazing. Vamps using PayPal. Who’da thunk it? The driver gave Eli the PayPal info and e-mail, which went nowhere when the Kid tracked it down, and the address where he took the girls when he picked them up from Guilbeau’s. Which was another vamp party, at the Arceneau Clan Home.
There was nothing new on any case by the time I got dressed for vamp HQ, and I was feeling pretty itchy at the inactivity, and useless in my own house. I wasn’t going to a party or a fight, so I didn’t dress for either. I was in jeans, ancient black Lucchese boots, a T-shirt under a silk shirt I’d bought in a consignment shop, my gold nugget on its doubled gold chain, with the mountain lion tooth wired on. And I wore only a few weapons. By my usual weapons’ standards I was nearly naked, but, because of the rain, I was being driven to my appointment, and self-protection was never a problem when Eli was around. I could see no weapons on him as he steered the French Quarter streets, wipers on low against the drizzle, but I was betting he was carrying three handguns and as many blades, with extra mags easy to hand, and that the back of the SUV was full of weapons, secured just under the floor.
The drive was silent beyond me saying, “Thanks for keeping Big Evan from trying to hit me. Or blow me away.”
To which he answered, “Big dudes bleed, and it’s a pain in the butt to get out of wood floors.” I laughed and Eli gave a slight smile—tantamount to a belly laugh for him.
After that there was only the patter of rain, the swish of wipers, the splash of vehicles plowing through standing water, and the hum of motors. It was pleasant.
When we slowed in front of the steps leading up to HQ, Eli said, “You sure you don’t want me to come with?”
“Nah. Help the Kid keep Evan occupied.”
“Alex has him looking at surveillance footage from the hotel.”
I thought about that for a moment and said, “Stuff Alex has already viewed, and found nothing, so that Evan doesn’t see something first, and go off half-cocked?”
Eli let his lips stretch to something nearly like a smile. “My brother came up with that all on his own. Devious. I think we’re rubbing off on him.”
“I think he’s growing up.”
“Yeah.” There was a note of confusion in his voice. “Call when you need a ride. Call if someone else brings you home. Keep me informed.”
“Will do.” I opened the SUV door and scampered up the stairs and into the air lock in the foyer. Eli’s SUV motored away, the powerful engine thrumming steadily. I went through the meet-and-greet with the two newest twins. None of them were really related, but whoever put the teams together was going for a look-alike theme. This time the team was male and female, with long blond hair in ponytails, dark eyes, sculpted bodies, and similar heights, about five-ten or so, dressed in black. They looked polite and deadly, as if they’d smile convivially as they shot you dead.
I deposited my weapons and the leather file on the tables and the woman frisked me, still smiling. I needed to get up-to-date on the names of new security personnel, and make sure that only teams with the most experience got access to the doors. Good gatekeepers were a necessity and I hadn’t taken that into consideration when I redid the security protocol handbook. That was change number two. I hated the paperwork that went into being Leo’s part-time Enforcer. Old blood-servants weren’t always the easiest to retrain, and the ones in security needed to be flexible, hence me in the position, helping out the hundred-plus-year-old Bruiser, Leo’s primo. My weapons were locked away as I watched. “You are aware that in a security situation I’d get to keep my toys.”
“Yes, ma’am,” they said together.
“Right this way, Ms. Yellowrock,” the woman said.
We entered the foyer and I stopped, closing my eyes and breathing in over my tongue. Vamp, blood, sex, vampvampvamp, food, blood, and vamp. No hint of Molly. No hint of magic on the air. And if the vamps Molly had left with were here, I didn’t know the scent sigs well enough to identify them. Just the stink of vamp that made me want to sneeze. I opened my eyes to see the security woman watching with undisguised curiosity. I narrowed my eyes at her and she took a step back fast. I flipped a hand, indicating I was ready to continue, and it was a moment before she turned on a heel and led me to the elevator in the back of the building. We went up a floor and down a hallway, to a room I hadn’t been in recently—the blood-servant lounge. She opened the door for me and the air that whiffed out smelled heavenly, of beef and pork chili with beans, rice, and beer. Yummy. I also smelled humans, human blood, human sweat, and blood-servants, scents that were axiomatic anywhere vamps laired.
I entered and stood to the side of the door, inside the spacious room. Two blood-servants were arm-wrestling, muscle-bound, bald, tattooed, and sweaty. On one large-screen TV a game was playing. A cooking show was on the other. The clack of pool balls breaking, an exhaust fan, and lots of voices filled the space, as potent as the smells. Though some of the occupants were in business black, most were dressed casually in jeans and tees, boots, barefoot, some of the guys in shorts and no shirt, one of the women in camo, boots, flak jacket, weapons, the works. The eyes of the men followed her around the room, which allowed me to watch them, unobserved.
My eyes fell on one familiar face, one that shouldn’t be here, no way, no how. Blond, blue eyed, sassy, elegant, and gorgeous, Adelaide Mooney hadn’t told me she was coming, even though I had seen her two weeks ago in Asheville.
I put two and two together with the info about Leo’s hostages from Lincoln Shaddock’s city, and felt a grin try to split my face apart, but I held it in and sauntered across the room. I drew on Beast’s stealth senses to help me move casually, smoothly, as if I belonged here. Which I did, sorta. I was nearly on her when Adelaide turned to me and lifted a delicate eyebrow. I so wished I could do that one-eyebrow thing, but it wasn’t something one could learn—the ability to lift one brow was genetic.
It was odd to look directly into the eyes of a woman. At six feet, I overtopped most females, and while I was never vain, looking directly at Adelaide Mooney always made me feel inferior and plain. Adelaide was drop-dead gorgeous, and since she was a blood-servant, that was funny on all sorts of levels.
“My mother said hello, and to remind you that she owes you one,” Del said, rather than a more conventional hello.
I blinked. I hadn’t expected her to lead with that. I had been part of the team that saved Dacy Mooney’s life, but the researcher who developed the vaccine cure for the vamp plague had really been the hero. All I’d done was help to get her treatment until the meds were ready, but somehow Dacy seemed to think it was all me and this wasn’t the first time she had sent thanks. “Okay. Sure. Whatever.” Man, was I charming and suave or what? “Ummm. You’re welcome. Again.”
That got me a smile and I rolled a shoulder in a shrug. “Buy you a beer?”
She laughed, that feminine tinkle-bell sound so many women could do, which I never had mastered. “Sure.” She reached into a refrigerated ice-filled bucket, one with beer labels on the sides, and pulled out two cold German ones. She twisted off the tops and I accepted mine. We clinked bottles and sipped. The brew was rich and malty and bubbly and delicious. Dang. I was feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.
“So, you’re a hostage?” I asked.
“In a manner of speaking, yes. Luther Astor and I. He’s the Mithran donation, but it’s all very proper and polite. I get my job description tonight.”
“Who went to Asheville in your place?”
“Dominique and a human named Winston Beavers.”
I paused with the beer halfway to my mouth. Dominique was Grégoire’s heir, and with Grégoire in Atlanta, that left a hole in vamp politics in general and a huge hole in Clan Arceneau’s leadership. If I wasn’t mistaken, that meant that one of my archenemies—which sounded so comic bookish that I grinned—was in the leadership of one of the city’s most powerful clans. And the girls I was looking for had been on the way to that clan home to party-hearty after leaving Guilbeau’s—in a car with a redhead. Said archenemy was redheaded. Of course, I hadn’t actually talked to anyone who had seen them at the clan home party. All I had was indirect evidence and I knew better than to trust that. Well. Wasn’t that ducky? I wondered why I hadn’t been informed about all the changes in Clan Arceneau. Oh. Right. I wasn’t hanging around vamp central much these days.
“Hmmph,” I grunted, and sipped my beer. “You know anything about vamps from Texas being in town?” I asked.
“No. I’m still being read in, though. I’m supposed to attend this meeting tonight,” she said, “so I’m guessing I’ll be on security somehow.”
I chuckled and Adelaide laughed with me. She was a lawyer, not a shooter, and all I could think of was her stopping an intruder and making him sign a release form before belting him. I drained my beer and dropped the bottle into the empties bucket; it landed with a satisfying clink-clank. “Just to cover my bases, my friend Molly is in town and she went off with some vamps I didn’t recognize by scent.” And that felt all kinds of wrong to say aloud. “She wasn’t happy about leaving with them, though I’m not ready to call it kidnapping. Yet. Do you know anything about her?”
“No.” Del looked worried, which warmed my heart. I sucked at making and keeping friends, so it was nice to know someone cared about the people I cared about.
“We’ll get started when Derek—” The door opened, admitting Derek Lee and six of his men, all former active-duty Marines, all African-American, and each and every one badass to the soul.
Derek sought me out from the doorway. “Injun Princess,” he called out. It sounded like a barracks full of men being called to attention.
“Legs!” his men chorused loudly as they filed in.
All eyes in the room turned to me, and everyone and everything went mute, including the TVs. My palms started to sweat. I hated to be in charge of meetings. Derek, as if knowing what I was feeling, snorted in mildly malicious amusement. The seven were all dressed in night camo and looking so self-confident that the tattooed arm wrestlers puffed up like junkyard dogs.
“Sit,” I said to the room at large, and chuckled when they all did. Well-trained junkyard dogs, chairs scrapin
g, gear dropping, space provided and taken. Wrassler followed Derek’s men in and took up a stance against the wall beside the door. I nodded to him and he nodded back, putting one hand behind him, probably to be near a spine-holstered gun. Quietly paranoid. I liked that in a man.
“I’ll make it quick ’cause the chili smells good and I’m hungry.” That got a laugh and I leaned my backside against a table, stretching out my legs, pointing my toes. “For those who don’t know me, I’m Jane Yellowrock, currently the part-time Enforcer of New Orleans, and we have visitors coming in for a gather.” That startled them, even Derek. Leo musta told them about the guests, but not about the formality of a gather. Interesting.
“I don’t know who’s coming in, and won’t until the day of arrival, but you’ve already been making guest quarters clean and secure?”
“Six guest suites in all,” Tattooed Dude One said, after a quick nod from Wrassler. He had a tattoo of a hawk on his bald dome. It was meant to be intimidating, but I thought it was cute. And knew better than to say so. I nicknamed him Hawk Head. “Two currently in use. Four more in prep. Hallway cameras are operational,” he said. “Sprinkler system and exit alarms tested and are a go. Elevators are capable of lockdown. Exits are clear.”
“Thanks.” I didn’t know him, and needed to. I made a note in my book to read the dossiers of all humans in vamp HQ. “Electronic security?”
Wrassler said, “All suites have been swept. All conference rooms have been swept. Ballroom and party suites have been swept. No surveillance detected.” Which was not the same thing as there being no outside surveillance. Got it.
“I know you’re already under tight quarters,” I said, “and this makes it even tighter, adding guests and their security to the mix, but it won’t last long. So be cool, and if they try to stir up something, bring it to Wrassler or Leo’s primo.” They nodded, including Adelaide, who was sitting at a table, beer in front of her, taking notes in a dark purple notebook. The notebook matched her tees, her boots, and the necklace she wore—a massive purple stone wrapped in copper wire. Huh. Color-coordinated all the way.
