Blood Cross

by Faith Hunter

Chapter 19

 

  No good deed goes unpunished

  Room 666 was just as dull and boring as ever, but this time it smelled heavenly. From the bottom of the stairs I smelled fried grease and onions and seafood. Jodi had brought takeout food with her, thank God. Despite my worry over the kits, my stomach growled as I pushed open the door.

  The cops were sitting around the little table, Jodi and Rick and another guy I didn't recognize, all with colas in sweating cans in front of them. When I slid into the seat next to Rick, he gave me a look. "You coulda said you were coming too. "

  "I coulda. More fun this way. "

  Jodi said, "You two flirt on your own time. " Rick snorted. I popped my Coke open so I didn't have to respond. "I've been offered this case because my boss is ticked that I have an in with vamps. " She glanced at me. "Since I attended a vampire council meeting. "

  "No good deed goes unpunished," I said. Jodi and I had attended a council meeting together, a first for an NOPD cop at any level of authority. Her boss had been peeved not to be invited, and in a childish reaction, had clearly been giving her scut cases.

  "I can't promise it will help any of our careers, especially if any more witch children are taken, but I've been offered the witch child kidnapping cases, the newest and the cold cases. Those previously investigated by my aunt Elizabeth. We'll be under the SCD, the special cases division," she said to me. I nodded. "The current investigation - "

  "There is no current investigation," the third guy growled.

  "Right. Well, there is now. And I've requested that you join me, but it isn't mandatory.

  You want glory and promotion, you'll say no. You want to do some good, you'll stick around. "

  "I'm in," the third guy said. He leaned over the table and put out this hand to me. "Sloan Rosen. " I took it and shook. He was human, African-American, heavily tattooed, even on his fingers, with jailhouse tats. Which was very interesting. They reminded me of LeShawn's.

  "Jane Yellowrock. " I looked at Rick and back, drawing conclusions. "You were undercover too?"

  "With the Crips. Until last year when I was outed by arresting four of the top local boys.

  Now I have a bounty on my head, some secretive vamp clan is out to get me, and the big shits can't figure out where to put me. And I figure you're here to make sure we'll all go down fighting. "

  I put it together with a twisted grin to show I was being ironic, not insulting. "So, as far as the brass is concerned, having you on this team puts all of us in danger. The vamps can track your scent, and the Crips are standing in line for you and would happily take us out to get you. " He nodded slowly, lips pursed, and I said, "But if it makes you feel better, Leo Pellissier will probably plow through all of them to get to me for killing his son. Just being near me is a death sentence. Bet Leo wins. "

  "You two children can have a pissing contest about who has the biggest bounty on your heads later. For now, we have work to do. Rick, pass out the food; Jane's stomach is growling so loud I can't hear myself. "

  Rick stood and placed grease-stained bags in front of each of us. I smelled oysters inside mine and started salivating. The kits were missing, I might have a hard knot in my belly, but the Beast still had to be fed.

  "I want you all to study the info on the stolen witch children," Jodi said. "Look for ties, connections, anything that might have been missed previously. " She flipped files at us the way a cardsharp flips cards and we all set them to the side of our paper plates of food and opened both. I don't know how Jodi was able to leave her bag closed, but she did, and kept talking.

  "Because there was never any proof the witch kids were killed, taken over state lines, and because no ransoms were ever demanded, neither FBI nor the state police has ever been called in. Until now, local policy has been to shunt the disappearances to inactive juvie case files thinking that the kids just ran off and will be back, or that they were taken by human family members to get them away from witch influence. " She looked at me. "Thanks to an official letter from the office of the Blood Master of the City, that policy has now changed. "

  Office . . . Bruiser. Bruiser had done that.

  Hard delight gleamed in Jodi's eyes. "I've been told you had something to do with it,"

  she said to me. These cases might not advance her career, but she wanted them. It wasn't well-known, but Jodi's mother was a witch, and I was guessing that so was her late aunt. The relationships gave her a personal interest in discovering what had happened to the missing witch children and acquiring justice for them if possible. I tilted my head to show it was nothing. Which it had been on my part. Bruiser had done it.

  "According to Jane," Jodi continued, "witch children are being killed in black magic ceremonies by vampire criminals who are raising young rogues. Clan Pellissier would like the offenders 'brought to the day. ' "

  I looked up at that. My current contract with the vamp council used those words, whose archaic meaning meant killed true-dead.

  "George sent us a copy of your contract," she said to me. "The figures are blacked out, of course. But it gives us official permission to carry silver rounds in our weapons and stake any vampires we catch in the act of black magic. "

  "Sweet," Sloan said through his sandwich. It came out "Shhhwee. "

  "Rosen is our electronics guy. He took down the Crips mostly with electronic monitoring. He stole their books and put a stop to a lot of weapons and cocaine trafficking that had connections to a South American vamp clan. We're still hunting down three humans with the evidence he collected. If we need anything listened in on, he's our man. "

  "If it helps at all," I said, "I think a Rousseau is responsible for young rogues being raised all over the city and for the witch children kidnappings. " I filled them in on what I knew and what I guessed. I pointed at the file cabinets. "The red folders helped. "

  Jodi gave me a knowing half smile. "Rick said you wanted copies of the woo-woo files sent to your house. They'll be messengered over by a marked unit ASAP. "

  Sloan drained his Coke can, set it on the table with an empty twang. To Jodi, he said,

  "We done? 'Cause I'm outta here. Dinner with the wife and kids. "

  "After eating all that?" Jodi said, swiveling so he could get his longer legs out.

  Sloan stood beside her, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin. "Fast metabolism. " He balled up all the empty papers and utensils. I shoved the last bite of bread and oyster in just in time, and salvaged a paper boat of fries and onion rings. Jodi cleaned the table with a disinfectant wipe she took from her pocket.

  "I'll keep you up to date, Yellowrock," she said, "until we get the Trueblood kids back. "

  "And Bliss," I said. "She was taken by the same guy. "

  "Right. Bliss. You did know her real name is Ailis Rogan, didn't you?" When I shook my head no, she asked, "Do you know if she has any family? 'Cause Katie's bouncer has no record of any. "

  "No. Bliss wasn't very forthcoming about her past. "

  "Runaway?" Sloan asked. "I'll check old records and see if anything matches up. "

  "I'll e-mail you all our addys," Jodi said to me. Waving her arm to indicate room 666, she said, "Our official work area is here and next door. The brass's idea of a joke, I'm sure. I'll get some PCs, a landline phone or two, an empty file cabinet, a whiteboard, and a map.

  "I'll be here and at my desk for paperwork till midnight thirty. Later. "

  She and Sloan Rosen walked out together. I didn't look at Rick as I got up and slid across from him to the warm seat just vacated.

  Out of curiosity, I said, "What do you know about a guy named Derek Lee, former marine? Lives - "

  "I know Derek Lee. Word on the streets is that he's put together his own little army and is going after gangs. We have a few unexplained bodies that might be notched into his bedpost, like the bloodbath in Crips territory Jodi came from today. How doyou know Derek Lee?" That last was a cop question, asked in
a toneless, staccato voice, with an underlying threat.

  I shrugged. Cop threats don't impress me much. "I heard he's going after vamps and gangs with vamp connections. I'm thinking Derek works for Leo from time to time. "

  When I said the words, several little things clicked in my mind. "Question: If the master of the city officially recognized that some of his species were practicing ritual black magic, and a purge became legal by the Vampira Carta, what would happen to the clans?"

  "I don't have a degree in Mithran Law, They could be disbanded or reorganized by the master of the city. Why?"

  An unconsciousHoly crap sounded in my mind. At my adrenaline spike, Beast stirred and stared across the table. "Derek said something about the Crips once. If he's been fighting them, it might be with Leo's unofficial backing. "

  I had called Derek before I left the house. I was meeting the ex-marine and his crew soon, to raid a few warehouses in the district, looking for the lair of a vamp who kept her children chained for the safety of the public. Not something I wanted the cops to know. Not something I wanted Leo to know. Unless Leo had been pushing me in that direction all along. Had I been herded like prey? Beast snorted in affront.

  "I don't know what the hell you're thinking, lady, but you're startin' to scare me again. "

  I looked at Rick. Who was looking at me just the way a woman wanted to be looked at.

  Not something I could put into words, but a look I recognized when I saw it. He reached out a hand and I placed mine into his, letting a smile soften my lips.

  Knowing I was probably screwing up something that might be really good if I gave it half a chance, I said, "Did Leo tell you to seduce me?"

  Rick dropped my hand, leaving it in the middle of the table. He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin as if he were wiping beer - or the remembered taste of my mouth - away.

  "No one tells me who to sleep with. " And he left me alone in room 666.

  I pulled my hand back into my lap. "That went well. " Beast hacked a laugh. I stood. I had work to do, most of it on the computer and in the files I'd photographed and sent to myself, the files from this very room. Odd how I ended up back here all the time, in the woo-woo room. On the way out of the NOPD, I discovered that I had missed a call from Derek Lee. And what he told me made me smile.

  Half an hour before dusk, I roared into the Breaux Mart grocery store where Derek had told me to meet him and set my booted feet on the pavement. The black steel-walled van that pulled in beside me and idled might have worried a lesser woman. Cops call them snatch vans, among other things, none of them nice, because the vehicles are perfect for grabbing a woman or child and making off with her. I reached over my shoulder and placed a hand on my shotgun, ready to pull. I wasn't frightened, just cautious. Really cautious. A faint click sounded and the tinted window lowered with electronic smoothness. I cut the engine and set the kickstand. Derek pushed back dark glasses. "Jane with the funny last name. "

  "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 notfond ofany 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-flechette, 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 twentysomething 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 are
a 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, likereal 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 overtwo 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 muffledboom 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. "

  Leftmeant 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.

  "B
ack. " 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 shhhhftof 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 face 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.

  "Another on the fire escape," a second voice said. "Moves like human. "

  "Let's have a chat with our hosts," Derek said.

  The men quick-stepped toward the stairwell but positioned themselves outside. One man threw something. I closed my eyes and covered my ears just in time. The explosion shattered through my hands, against my eardrums. The flash-bang took out the humans descending the stairs. I had no idea what effect it might have on a vamp except to make him mad.

  Derek and his boys raced into the confined space and brought down three forms. The humans were on the floor, incapacitated by the noise, but the vamp was fine, if by fine that meant really vampy and ticked. But he wasn't fighting, which was odd. Derek's men shackled them all, the humans in steel, the vamp in silver. I stepped into the stairwell.

  The vamp hadn't fought because he had been snared with a silver mesh net formed of tiny interlocking crosses; his face and hands were burned and blistered. Derek had thrown the net, bringing down the vamp with no fight at all. I fingered the glowing mesh. "Now, this is cool. I got to get me one of these. "

  "I'll send you to my supplier later," Derek said. "Silent alarm went out three minutes ago. We probably got another three minutes before the cavalry shows up. Either make him true-dead or talk fast. The silver mesh will make him uncomfortable enough to maybe chat a bit. "

  "Good. " I toed the vamp. He wasn't pretty, a recent, partially healed scar marking the left side of his face diagonally from outer brow, alongside his nose, across both lips, to the right side of his chin. He looked tough, a warrior, given vampire life for some great sacrifice, maybe. It didn't happen often, but it did happen. And I had seen him at the vamp party at the Old Nunnery. "Where are the witches?"

  He spat at me. Before the spit fell, Derek landed a kick in the vamp's side. He oofed with pain. I knelt beside him so he could smell my scent. And I pulled a vamp-killer, my favorite knife, eighteen-inch blade with a hand-carved, elk-horn handle, a gift from Molly's husband. His eyes widened and he met mine, pulling a vamp glamour. "Release me. " The words reverberated through me, aching with need. Beast put a paw on my mind, and pressed down, giving me control I lacked on my own. I took a breath, feeling the sticky command dissolve. He tried again. "Release me and I will give you all that you desire. " English wasn't his first language, his accent vaguely Italian.

  Derek shook his head. "We're Leo's. We got protection from vamp mind control. "

  "Tell you what, bubba," I said, "you tell me where the Damours are, and maybe I'll let you live. "

  His eyes bled back to half-human, the whites less bloody, the pupils less black and wide. I was pretty sure his irises would be brown when he wasn't vamped out. "You do not fall to me?"

  "She's the Rogue Hunter," Derek said. "She don't fall to nobody. " He was staring at the far wall, gun at the ready, not letting his eyes meet the vamp's, a weird look on his face.

  "I have heard of this one. You follow her? Awoman ? She is not even human. "

  "She's more human than you. Now answer the nice lady or she'll blind you. I know you can heal from it, but it'll be painful. And time-consuming. "

  More human than you? Nice lady?And he didn't react when the vamp told him I wasn't human. . . . Great. Can't a girl keep a secret or two?

  "What are you? You do not smell of witch, like
my mistress and masters. "

  I was right. Renee, her brother/hubby, and currently unnamed other brother were witches/vamps, no longer members of the long-chained, and no one knew how long the adults had been sane. They were witches who practiced dark magic, yet who had survived the purge. And they were killing witch children in spells. More and more, it all made sense.

  I pivoted on a heel and went back to the long-chained ones. I sniffed, mouth open, along the bodies of the Damours' three-hundred-year-old teenagers. They fought and growled, tearing at their shackles as I did so, fought to get to me, to the blood in my veins. I caught a whiff, buried under the scent of vamp. Both children carried the witch gene.