by Faith Hunter
“George Dumas called.” When I didn’t say anything, Rick said, “He wants to know if we’re seeing each other. He wants to ‘court’ you.” Rick waited as if expecting me to say something. But I had no idea if we were seeing each other or not. I had no idea if Bruiser was serious about wanting to “court” me, or was looking for a way to keep an eye on me, or had been told by Leo to sleep with me for some nefarious Leo-reason. My life was way too complicated.
I stood and pulled out my keys. “Thanks for the warning.”
Faster than a human could ever move, Rick’s hand slashed out and grabbed my wrist. His grip was crushing, were-strong. “Don’t you want to know what I told him?”
I looked back and forth between his eyes, seeing nothing there that I could read. The reek of big-cat heated the air, the smell of jungle, and murky water, and musky male. “Not really.” I jerked my hand to the side, away from his palm, against the weaker pressure of his fingers. Broke his hold. I dropped thirty bucks on the café’s counter and walked outside. As I got into my SUV, I tossed Evangelina’s scarf and hair into the passenger seat. The first patters of rain made little splats against the windshield as I took the wheel, feeling the leather give under my grip.
Molly might be in danger. Might. Maybe. I had no idea how witch magic worked, except that interrupting a spell or a working was dangerous to both spell caster and spelled. I had no idea what to do and I wasn’t used to feeling helpless. I needed to research spells and stopping them. I needed to go after Evangelina and knock some sense into her. I needed to be doing something. Instead I started the vehicle and backed away from the café, useless.
I spent the next few hours in my room, researching spells and how to interrupt them. There was precious little on the Internet about the subject and most of it was contradictory. When I ran out of info, I talked on Leo’s fancy cell with the paddler, Dave Crawford, who had organized the creekers—adrenaline-junky-kayakers who took the most dangerous, steep whitewater runs—to look for grindy markings, and aligning the newest sightings on a map. I was pretty sure where, within twenty-five linear square miles, the grindy was holing up. When I took into consideration the folded terrain inside that twenty-five square miles it was more like a hundred square miles. It was a huge amount of area to search.
Frustrated, I pulled on tight exercise clothes, black spandex, and went looking for a sparring partner. Wrassler, standing guard in the hallway in front of Grégoire’s room, told me how to find the hotel’s fitness area, his smirk ringing bells in my mind. I jogged downstairs, and took it in fast: the small room and blood-servants. The B-twins had cleared space, machines pushed to the side. Some tinkly Oriental or New Age music played over the speakers. The twins were dressed in black cotton martial arts uniforms—traditional karate Gi tops with kicker pants, and were still warming up. The clothes told me a lot about the martial forms they practiced. We had the place to ourselves. Wrassler had known they were here, of course.
The door closed behind me with a soft whoosh. The twins paused in their stretches and I grinned at them, letting Beast rise in my eyes. They stepped apart slowly, facing an opponent. My heart started to pound, a fierce, hard rhythm. “How quickly does vamp blood heal you boys?” Brian laughed and shook out his hands, setting his feet, carefully balanced. Brandon bent his knees, finding his own perfect readiness position, one hand fisted in a defensive posture. With the other, he made a little “come and get it” motion. I leaped.
It wasn’t play. It wasn’t practice. It wasn’t sparring. It was the closest thing to real combat I’d had, outside of fighting for my life, in years. I proved to myself that longtime blood-servants were faster than humans, stronger than humans, and sneaky as cats. They didn’t play by TV rules, attacking one at a time. They played by fire ant rules—swarm and destroy. Punches, open handed and fisted, kicks, sweeps, blocks that disguised punches, kicks that hid more kicks, attacking from both sides and from front and back, holds better suited to judo or the wrestling mat, and moves that were strictly illegal in the fighting ring came at me. I loved it.
For nearly half an hour, they attacked, the beating we were giving and receiving growing in speed, force, and complexity, until we moved in a blur. The scent of vamp blood, their blood, human sweat, testosterone, and big-cat musk-and-blood filled the space; faint lust pheromones added to the wonderful stench. We overwhelmed the air-conditioning, our body heat condensing on the door and windows. When I cheated, using momentum and the Gi tops, throwing one brother into the other, both men lost the tops, fighting bare chested. Which made Beast pant with delight. I took two hard punches, one to the face, before I got her back into the brawl.
We fought hard, pulling no punches, and I gave as good as I took. It was painful, swift, and exactly what I needed, bruises, strains, sprains, blood on the mats, and all. When we were exhausted, sweating, and breathless, I heard a sound that pulled me out of the fight. The door to the fitness room closed with its soft whoosh.
I bounded out of Brandon’s fist-punch-range and into Brian’s space. Brian’s arm went around my waist, pulling me against his sweaty chest and abdomen, steadying us both, stopping the bout. Brandon whirled toward the door. We went still. Two of my security boys were inside the room, sitting on equipment, as if they had been there a while, dressed in workout clothes but looking lazy. Derek was standing in front of the door, his heels twelve inches apart, legs braced, hands clasped behind his back as if at Marine parade rest. He was dressed in baggy workout clothes. But his eyes were hard and predatory. Derek Lee was seriously ticked off.
I started to say something. Started to try to explain why I was faster than a blood-servant. As strong as one. Make that two. But Brian’s arm tightened on me in warning. I clamped my mouth shut. Brandon turned to me and said, “Nice bout, Yellowrock. Rematch. Soon. And we take the gloves off for that one.”
“Yeah. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more holding back to protect the little lady.” Brian pushed me away from him as if I burned his skin and picked up a towel. He tossed one at his brother and they moved toward the door. I fell in behind them.
Okay, I got it. Act as if nothing had happened. Riiiiight. “You boys weren’t holding back,” I said. “You gave it all you had and I busted your butts. But if you’re gluttons for punishment . . .” The twins pushed past Derek and out into the hallway. Derek didn’t try to stop them. He didn’t reach out and grab my arm, to hold me back, but I could feel his eyes smoldering holes in my spine. He murmured, “You’re as bad as the suckheads. Maybe worse. At least they don’t pretend to be human.”
I blinked but didn’t give away that I had heard, though a heated shock flushed through me. I was in the hallway, the door wide open behind me, still talking. “. . . I’ll be happy to provide the fists and feet to teach you to respect the weaker sex.”
“If it’s sex you want”—Brandon said, wrapping his arm around me and pulling me along as Brian punched the elevator button—“we can oblige on that score too.”
“Ever heard of tag-team wrestling?” Brian asked. “We can make you scream for more until you’re begging us to stop.”
And we were in the elevator, the doors closing on us. I fell against the elevator wall as the unit moved, my eyes closed. “Crap,” I said.
The brothers chuckled, twin sounds of amusement. An unwilling grin pulled at my mouth. “Tag-team sex? That’s the best you could come up with?”
The door dinged open and we stepped into the hallway. “Admit it, Legs. You have mental images right now. We know. Your heart rate sped up. Blood-servants can tell.”
I walked between and past them, feeling their eyes on me in all my sweaty glory. But I was not going to reply. Not. Going to.
“All you can think about is how big the bed is in the master room of the suite.”
“And how big we are.”
I couldn’t help my grin but I wasn’t about to let them see it. “I can be titillated without being tempted. Thanks but no thanks.”
We entered our suit
e and moved through the common space; I went into my room and shut and locked the door, hearing them laugh in that securely masculine way that makes a girl’s heart race and mental images dance around in her head. I leaned against the door at my back and remembered to breathe. I would not be tempted. I would not. Beast, however, had other ideas and a good imagination. Even better visual skills about things she wanted. I made it to the shower and turned it to scalding, stepping under the spray fully clothed. Just as quickly, I switched it to cold and leaned into the tile. Cold water sluiced down me. Very cold.
Dang blood-servants.
I got a much needed nap, followed by a half hour on the Internet again with a more refined search on breaking a coven leader’s spell without killing everyone involved—which couldn’t be done from the outside, apparently—and was dressed and ready for work as parley security chief, early. Tonight I was wearing tights, knives, and a split-skirt dress that went to my ankles, sterling silver stakes in my bun as hair sticks. A new Walther, delivered courtesy of Leo, rested at my back. Lipstick my only makeup. My eyes looked feverish, my cheeks bright with blood flush.
Hungry, ignoring the twins, I checked my com equipment as I stalked through the suite and down to the Black Bear Grill, where I ordered fried green tomatoes, orange glazed duckling, and the cowboy bone-in rib eye, with grilled asparagus and stag fries with truffle oil and cheese. And a bottle of wine. I didn’t once look at the prices, knowing that I could feed a family of four in Bangladesh or sub-Saharan Africa for a year on what I was letting Leo pay for one meal. I was a hedonist. I was evil. I needed to get down on my knees and beg forgiveness for everything. Instead I downed a glass of wine on an empty stomach and let the alcohol flood my system, knowing the sensation would last only minutes, but wanting the buzz, however fleeting. I tore off a hunk of bread and ate it with my second glass of wine. I felt, more than saw, the twins enter.
They flowed through the room, around tables and chairs and the other patrons, and they sat at my table. Silent, they helped themselves to my wine, looking at the bottle with disdain. They ate my fried green tomatoes when the order came. They ordered meals and salads and more appetizers. Brandon chose another wine from the list. In French. With a perfect French accent, of course. When the waiter left, I rested my arms along the chair rests and stared at them.
“We’re sorry,” Brandon said. Which was not at all what I expected them to say.
“We can’t do a job if we’re all in the sack together.”
“We can’t think straight if we’re thinking about you.”
“We can’t protect Grégoire if we’re thinking about protecting you too.”
“We might try to keep you alive instead of him.”
“If push came to shove.”
“We apologize.”
“We hope you’ll accept our apologies and lack of professionalism.”
It was sorta like watching tag-team wrestling. “Fine. You’re forgiven.”
“Good. Now let’s eat. We have a long night ahead of us.”
We ate. We chatted. And when the meal was done, we stopped in the hotel lobby to meet Gertruda, the Mercy Blade of the MOC of the Raleigh-Durham area. She had been in town all day, moving between patients in the hospital, using the healing magic and skill of her race, and this was my first opportunity to meet her. She swept through the doors, imperious. And totally unexpected. She was a plain woman, steel gray hair pulled back in a bun, wearing a denim dress with a frilly shirt underneath. She was homey, a little stout, grandmotherly. She was as unlike the other Mercy Blade I had met as it was possible to be, and she wanted nothing to do with me.
She glanced over us all, greeted the B-twins by name and ignored me totally. Lifting her nose at my proffered hand, she pulled her skirts aside and went to the elevator. “Well, that was lovely,” I said, my face burning.
The twins laughed. “Gertruda thinks women should be properly covered, with long skirts and no adornment. And no guns. It isn’t ladylike. Don’t worry about her.”
“We like you just the way you are.”
“She thinks I’m trashy,” I clarified. The twins shrugged, still amused.
We made our way back to Grégoire’s suite. The meeting was to take place there tonight, and Derek was already set up and waiting in the central seating area when we entered. He looked at me once, his expression telling me that we had things to discuss, but I knew it would be later, not when the package—his word for Grégoire—was at risk. The current phase of an ongoing job came first, before anything more personal. Derek was a pro.
Grégoire’s suite made the B-Twins’ suite look like a dollhouse, twice as big and three times as sumptuous. We checked the placement of eyes and muscle: one across the street watching the small crowd of protestors and the front door; two in the lobby where they could see the door, elevators, stairs, restaurant, and front desk; Wrassler was in the hall outside the suite. At ten to midnight, Grégoire left his bedroom and came into the common room. He looked relaxed, languid, and so beautiful he would melt the heart of a demon. No wonder Leo and he had gotten friendly. Grégoire was dressed down tonight, in pants and vest the color of port wine and a white silk shirt. He sat on the couch and crossed his legs. Okay, I got it. The formal parts of the parley were over. Now they were into the brass-tacks part.
The twins took position at the window and door where they wouldn’t hit each other with crossfire, but unless they were good shots, they might hit Wrassler through the door. I tapped my mike and told him to reposition.
Minutes passed. At twelve thirty, Lincoln Shaddock was half an hour late, a pretty dang big insult to Leo’s representative unless there was a bigger problem than I knew. I caught Derek’s eye and gave a minuscule head jerk, excused myself and stepped into the hallway, Derek on my heels. Into the mike I asked, “Who’s on tracking and traffic update?”
“That’d be me,” a voice answered. It was Angel Tit, a nickname based on a Vodka Angel’s Delight. Until recently, I hadn’t been trusted enough to be given the guys’ real names, but security on this gig required deep background checks, so I knew them all now. But the monikers we’d used in the past had stuck with us. “No problems, Legs. Traffic is clear. The rain has made some creeks rise, but not enough to be a danger.”
Rain? Right. It had been raining this morning when I left the Sassy Sisters. The hurricane had arrived in all its wet glory, another indication that New Orleans and its problems had found me again. I pulled my phone and punched through contacts for Adelaide’s number; I had input it during computer homework. When she answered, I said, “Where’s your boss?”
“With yours, I would hope.”
“He’s a no-show.” A shocked silence settled between us, sharp and electric.
“I’ll make some calls.” She clicked off.
I looked at Derek and Wrassler. “Any chance the wolves attacked him en route?”
“Anything’s possible,” Wrassler said. “But that one’s not likely to have caused Shaddock anything but a mild discomfort. Not a half hour.” Before I could continue a list of possible attackers, he said, “The protestors are all accounted for.” At my questioning look he said, “We got trackers on the vehicles and they’re all at home, out front, or at work, according to Angel.”
I nodded. Ten long minutes later, my phone vibrated and I answered Adelaide. “Tell me something good.”
“I can’t do that, I’m afraid,” she said, her words stiff. Embarrassed. She told me where Shaddock was, what he was doing, and added, “Shall I meet you there?”
I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at the screen, eyes unfocused, thinking. And then it all started to come together. “Crap,” I whispered. When I put the cell back to my head, I said, “Twenty minutes,” and hung up.
I looked down at my dress and then at my men. “Call for two vehicles to be waiting around front in five minutes. Derek you’re with me. Wrassler, pick a guy and follow.” I stuck my head back inside Grégoire’s room. “The parley talks
are off for tonight.” Grégoire’s eyebrows went up slightly. Before anyone could ask, I said, “I’m not quite sure why, but I have an idea. It’s possible that Shaddock was attacked. I’ll call back when I know more. I suggest you stay within the confines of the hotel until you hear from me.”
Without waiting for a reply, I backed out and closed the door. “I’ve gotta change. You guys need to be in jeans and well armed.”
“Vests?” Derek asked, meaning flak jackets. Combat clothes.
“No. But weapon up. We’re going to Shaddock’s barbeque joint for dinner and dancing.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
You’ll Be True-Dead.
A bump-and-grind Country Western number could be heard out in the street, even over the steady patter of rain, an oldie goldie about a funeral in a bar, the singer propped up by the jukebox, dead. Which fit a few of the people inside, some of whom weren’t breathing and had no heartbeat to speak of. When we walked in the door, the place was mostly deserted of normal human customers, but there was still a crowd composed of vamps and the hangers-on of the vamp community, blood-slaves and junkies. Oddly, there were no blood-servants. If I didn’t already have alarms going off in my head, that alone would have spelled trouble. The place smelled of cooked meat and the dry, herblike scent of dead meat. Vamps. I tucked my three silver crosses into my shirt as Beast rose in me and peeked out, curious.
Only one couple was dancing; it was a version of the two-step, but with way more pelvis action than the song or dance style warranted. Lincoln Shaddock and Evangelina Everhart had their legs entwined and their faces close together, whispering, laughing. I smelled vamp and witch blood and sex on them, heated from the dance. And the pink spell covered them both.
I already knew that Lincoln Shaddock had bitten her, leaving two constricted pinprick spots on her neck, but I didn’t know why. They had lived in the same area for years. Nothing in my research suggested they had been together before. So why now? Why was Evangelina spelling the region’s most powerful vamp? What exactly did the pink rosy spell do? As I watched from the shadows, I saw a red mote of spell-light flash out of Evil Evie and zip around the room like a bat out of a hellhole. It whipped around and disappeared into Shaddock’s chest. “Crap,” I whispered. I’d seen that before. To my muscle, I said, “Do you see a pink glow on them?”
