Death's Rival jy-5 Read online

  Angel Tit, Martini, and Chi-Chi, three of Derek’s Vodka Boys, were watching the torture, faces in battle mode, unyielding and closed. Leo’s vamps were standing apart from one another, vamped out as well, staring, mesmerized by the caged vamps’ pain and fear. I could smell their arousal and bloodlust, hunting instincts quickened, even for the pain and blood of one of their own. The blood-servants were busy with handheld electronic devices, or looked bored, or stared at the portrait of Katie with rather more interest than the painting warranted, except that it was not in the line of sight of the cruelty.

  “Your master’s name,” Derek said, his voice holding no inflection, no clue to his feelings. If I hadn’t been able to smell his anger and self-loathing, I’d never have known how he felt about the job he was doing. “Your master’s name.” When the vamp shook his head and whimpered, Derek jabbed him again. The smoke was reddish, as if suffused with aspirated blood.

  “Where is the master of New Orleans? Where is Leo Pellissier?”

  The vamp shook his head violently. “I don’t know. I saw him taken away. I don’t know where. I don’t know!” he screamed, when Derek touched him with the cross again.

  “Ramondo Pitri,” Derek said, changing the subject of the interrogation, pulling the cross away. A layer of skin clung to it, crinkled with heat.

  “The Enforcer,” the vamp shouted. “Pitri was my master’s Enforcer.” As if the admission had released a dam, he took a gasping breath, his ribs shivering oddly as they expanded, not a human breath at all, ribs moving snakelike. He kept speaking, the words gushing. “He was sent to reconnoiter and research Pellissier’s Enforcer, in preparation to initiate a legal blood-challenge to her as laid out in the Vampira Carta.”

  I blinked. Stepped into the room. Leo’s scions turned as one to me, staring, still as death, still as vamps. A laugh wanted to titter up in my throat. I’d killed Ramondo Pitri. I’d killed a man and started a vamp war.

  “Ramondo was trying to discover information,” he continued, “to find out why Jane Yellowrock was so special.”

  “Shut up, Kleto. Shut up!” the other vamp whimpered. That gave us one name and one nickname, Kleto and Corpse. We were making progress.

  Kleto ignored him. “He wanted to learn how Leo’s Enforcer made her way up the ranks so quickly, before he challenged the stranger to draw first blood.”

  Katie stepped toward me, her blond hair falling forward in a wave that swished like silk as it moved. Her interest pricked my predatory and territorial instincts; I almost reached for a blade but stopped myself before I could complete the move, which would have been taken as the gravest insult. A smile answered my abortive attempt, and it was like being studied by a hungry predator, daring me to try and take her down. It all happened inside of three heartbeats, banging against my ribs.

  And the caged bird kept singing, as if having something he could say were a lifeline. “He was supposed to issue a Blood Challenge to Yellowrock according to the Carta, but he was worried that she was some kind of supernat, a were or something, so he went to her hotel room.”

  “A blood-challenge, Enforcer to Enforcer, for first blood,” Katie said, her eyes holding me, unblinking, black and bloody, “is one acceptable first step to one master issuing a Blood Challenge to another—mortal combat for his position.”

  “But Leo’s Enforcer killed him. Without provocation.”

  I didn’t think shooting an armed man in my hotel room, one carrying multiple weapons, including the gun he had drawn—the gun with an illegal suppressor—was exactly without provocation, but I kept my mouth shut. Or Katie stared me down, which was not something I was willing to consider. Once again, flying by the seat of my pants and without enough info to do my job had caused problems—this time, big problems—and had resulted in a ticked-off, vamped-out vampire holding me within her sights. I could feel her compulsion wrap around me like electric razor wire, cutting and burning.

  She took a breath, and I forced myself not to take one with her. Katie tilted her head to the side, that snakelike movement they do when they forget to act human. “You killed an Enforcer before he could issue challenge to you. This is not allowed under our law. You are permitted to take a life only in self-defense, official challenge, or mortal combat. As an Enforcer without a blood-bond, you are a danger to us all.”

  “Leo got a copy of the police reports. It was good enough for him.”

  Her shoulders lifted and her fingers opened out, claws dropping down and spreading. Her fangs clicked down, not instinct, but a carefully controlled action, something she did with purpose, a control only the very old ones, and very powerful ones, have. “Leo is not here,” she said. “He has been taken by an enemy. For now, perhaps forever, I am master.” Which made little lizards rush up and down my spine on cold, sticky feet. “This war appears to be, technically, legally, your fault. Now the rival Mithran may do anything he wants.”

  “Not Jane’s fault,” a voice croaked behind me.

  I whirled and caught the naked man before he hit the floor. “Bruiser,” I whispered.

  His skin felt colder than a cadaver’s. He was sweat-slicked and ashy and he stank like a three-day-old grave. But he took a breath and I felt his heart against my chest, beating like a wounded kitten’s, fast and weak. Not concerned about what I was giving away by a show of strength, I lifted him up and over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry, steadying his bare lower back and his thighs, his arms dangling over my shoulder; Bruiser was too big to cart any other way without dragging his feet or banging his head on the floor. I carried him back down the twisty hallway into the office and set him down gently on the leather sofa, found a throw, and wrapped it around him. It was teal cashmere with aqua silk tassels and fringe, the soft textures sharp as nails on my fingers, the colors overbright, almost harsh. Shock. I was in shock.

  The priestess was nowhere in sight, but Katie knelt at his side and stroked his temples, her claws scraping his skin. She focused on him as if she could read his state of being through his skin. And maybe she could. What did I know? “George,” she murmured. “You will live. And still mostly human. Do not despair. Do not despair.”

  Mostly human? What did that mean?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Your Security Sucks

  The heir of the Master of the City—and most of the Southeastern United States—looked up from Bruiser’s face, her eyes gathering up my consciousness like a spider weaving a silk grave for its dinner. My mind struggled in her grip, kicking. “You claimed the position of Enforcer. Leo did not refute you. Yet you did not drink from him? And he permitted this?”

  My mouth went dry. When I didn’t reply, she went on. “An Enforcer must be bound by the Master of the City, bound body and soul by blood and . . . Pourtant, vous n’avez pas fait l’amour.”

  I had an idea what she had said, and, no way, José, but I settled for a succinct “Uhhhh.”

  “You claimed a right that you did not understand. I did the same once, when I was offered the life of the immortal night. I was young and beautiful and so very sure of myself, and foolish beyond understanding.

  “As I did, you claimed the honor, not knowing what was required. No, you are not bound. I do not smell his blood in you. You are without the protection of the Master of the City.”

  That part felt like a threat, and Beast thought so too. She bit down into my mind and shook it like prey, her canines like ice picks in my soul. The action and the pain brought me to high alert. I took a deep breath and blew it out. Put a hand on my new vamp-killer. Slowly. Deliberately.

  Katie’s eyelids widened, pupils constricting in surprise. Her mouth made a pretty little O, distorted by fangs worthy of an African lioness.

  And I grinned, showing my blunt human teeth and my beast-soul. Feeling Beast rise in me, knowing my eyes were glowing golden, like my Cherokee name. Golden Eyes. “Leo could have taken me at any time,” I said, “and forced me into submission.” I realized how true it was as soon as I said it.

&nbs
p; We would have resisted, Beast murmured; I ignored her.

  “So Leo wanted me unbound. He wanted me unbound, uncompliant, and unsubmissive. Free. Unlike the rest of you.”

  “He wanted your love, free and willing.”

  “Maybe that was part of it.” Most certainly that was part of it, but we don’t always get what we want, I thought. “But he left me free, for his own reasons. I’m guessing one reason is that some enemies require a clear mind. Some . . .” I cocked my head and let my eyes take in the vamps between me and the way out, the only door. Old vamps, all of them. Not one younger than early nineteenth century. “. . . some youth. Some creativity.” With my left hand, I pulled the brand-new cell from a pocket and tossed it to Katie, only feet away. With animal reflexes she caught it. “Call him. Maybe he has his cell with him, wherever he is, and assuming he isn’t true-dead. Maybe he’ll tell us where he is and to come rescue him. And while you have him on the phone, ask Leo why he left me unbound.” Katie looked from me to the thing in her hands. Someone would have tried to reach Leo already, but I knew from experience she had no idea how to use a cell phone, and only with reluctance would dial the old-fashioned landline on her desk. I let my smile widen. “Yeah.” I glanced at Bruiser, lying pale and broken. He had two scars on his chest, bullet wounds. His chest moved with a breath, faint and shallow. Abruptly I remembered the tearing sound when something deep inside him gave way and he bled to death. He had died. Right in front of me. And he was alive again.

  I looked back at Katie, keeping my feelings off my face. “Keep him alive. Keep yourself safe. Leo values you both.” I paused and tested the words on my tongue before I said them. They tasted of truth. “Leo loves you both. I’ll be back soon.” I walked past Katie, snagging my cell, giving her my back, just as an African lion would give his pride his back, knowing he was bigger, badder than the others. I pushed through the vamps at the door.

  I stopped midway and took Koun’s wrist in my hand. He was still cold, pale, and shaky. “Thank you. Leo will be proud of you for saving his primo.” Maybe it was my imagination, but he seemed to stand taller. “He is honored to have the great Koun as his warrior. But even more honored that Koun knows when to fight and when to heal.” It wasn’t a lie—or not exactly. Leo hadn’t actually said the words, but he had chosen Koun as one of his four closest scions at a time when Katie was unavailable for duty. That was a lot of trust from a vamp as powerful as Leo Pellissier, Master of the City of New Orleans and half of the Southeastern states.

  There was a lot of divisiveness in Leo’s closest scions, at a time when that seemed dangerous. Maybe I could heal that some. “Leo will grieve the loss of the vam—Mithrans,” I corrected, “Louise and Peter and their blood-servants.”

  The Celt met my eyes, his own human blue in white orbs. He turned his wrist to grip mine, his fingers and palm calloused and stronger than mine would ever be. He nodded and let me go.

  In the hallway, I met Derek’s eyes, dark and hostile. I opened my mouth to give him orders. Instead, I said, “You are the most brutal human being I have ever met.” I hadn’t intended to say the words, but they matched my thoughts. Deep inside, Beast huffed with amusement.

  “Unlike humans, the vamps will heal,” he said shortly, lip curling. “It’s war.”

  “The excuse of soldiers for millennia.”

  He didn’t react. I didn’t expect him to. “The blood you sent was lost in the fire,” he said. “We got some from them”—he canted his head down the hallway toward the parlor and the cages—“but we need some from the others to compare.”

  “I have some in my house from the Seattle clan’s humans.”

  “Yeah? I’ll send Chi-Chi for it.”

  “Sure. Whatever.” I walked away from him, showing him my back too. I left the house, closing the front door behind me. And dropped against the red-painted door, heaving breaths. “Holy moly.” I put a hand to my chest. “I’m not dead.” And I fought laughter, knowing they might hear me inside. Or smell me. Sweat started to trickle down my sides, sticky and stinking of the aftereffects of fear.

  When I had myself under control, I pushed away from the door and melted into the shadows. The night was warm and muggy, and the sweat wasn’t likely to dry. So far, winter in the Deep South was a joke. I needed a shower, fighting leathers, and info. I needed food. I jumped the fence into the narrow alley separating Katie’s from the building next door and walked down the narrow space, checking the cameras I had installed as I moved. Instinct. Habit, to check my security work for Leo’s heir. It all seemed okay.

  The brick fence behind Katie’s was taller than I was by far, and I took advantage of the small hand – and footholds as I half climbed, half vaulted it, landing on the other side in the dark, and relaxed. I could tell by the smell that no one was here. I was alone. Safe. For now. Weird how a house that wasn’t mine, and never would be, felt like home.

  Inside, I stripped and showered, standing under the heated water, letting it pound my muscles, washing the smoke and blood off me. There was remarkably little blood, and almost none of it mine. I washed my hair, shaved my legs, all the girly things I do so seldom. When I shift and then shift back, the hair is always fully grown again, which, even with my Cherokee-lack-of-hairiness, is a pain to remove. But this time, it felt like therapy, like feeding my girl soul, which I so seldom did.

  Afterward, standing in my bathroom in the steam, the exhaust fan going, I coated my skin with pure jojoba oil and plaited my wet hair into a tight French braid. It wouldn’t dry quickly, but the damp didn’t bother me. I dressed with care in my long silk underwear, and when I could put it off no longer, I dialed Leo. He didn’t answer, and I closed the phone.

  I opened the bathroom door, heard a click, and stopped in the doorway. Sniffing. Someone was here. I looked around, breathing in silently, slowly, thinking, analyzing the sound I had heard. The click was the kitchen door. I had changed the locks, but that didn’t stop anyone really determined. I switched off the bathroom light, throwing the house into night shadows.

  A man had been here. I sniffed again. Yeah, a he. Male. Sweaty. Nervous. A stranger. Just like the stranger in the hotel, the one I’d killed weeks ago. I sniffed again, mouth open. Gun oil. The stink of a gun, recently fired. Herbal shampoo. Not Chi-Chi, here to pick up the blood; not anyone I knew. But if I survived tonight, I’d recognize his scent again.

  Soundless, eyes on the bedroom doorway, I stepped to the bed and felt around on the fighting leathers for the holstered Walther and a vamp-killer. I came up with the smallest one, six inches of silver-plated steel, crosshatched steel grip, and gripped it backhanded in my left. Safety’d off the gun, and stepped slowly, weight balanced evenly, into the foyer. Night sight kicked in, the shadows growing lighter, the light through the windows brighter.

  By the scent traces, he hadn’t come in through the front door. I stepped across the foyer, paused at the stairs. He hadn’t gone up there, but he had paused here for a while. More nervous. Edgy. I followed his scent back to the kitchen, to the side door. He had come and gone through here. While I was in the shower. Weapons on the bed. Nothing with me but a hair stick I could use on a vamp as a stake. Nothing to defend against humans. Stupid! He could have opened the door and shot me. So why hadn’t he? Because he had come in to kill me and heard the shower go off? Seen the weapons? Assumed I had a functioning brain cell and that I’d be armed, and had decided not to try to kill me. Instead, he had done . . . what?

  I moved through the dark house to the kitchen door leading to the ground-floor level of the long, two-story porch. The door was shut, but the wood jamb was splintered where it had been kicked open, light-colored wood splinters on the darker floor. So . . .

  I turned and studied the house, feeling, smelling, tasting the air. The blood vials. I raced back to the bedroom and bent over the shipping container. “Crap!” The bag holding the blood vials was gone. Rage boiled through me, Beast’s fury. Mine, she thought at me. Came into my den. Took what was mine. Th
ief of blood, she thought. Beast was possessive of her belongings. Of my belongings, for that matter. But . . . The laptop was still on the bed, the tiny green light showing standby mode. So was my arsenal. The intruder stole only the blood.

  That severely limited who the traitor in Leo’s organization might be. Because only a very few vamps, blood-servants, and humans knew I had the blood, and even fewer might have guessed it was in my house. A human from Seattle might have figured it out, but more likely, the traitor had been in Katie’s house only moments ago. And he or she called the enemy. Mentally, I listed the people in Katie’s tonight. Derek and his boys: Angel Tit, Martini, and Chi-Chi. Katie. Koun. Alejandro and Estavan—vamps of Spanish descent who had been loyal to Leo for centuries. Girrard DiMercy, who had not always been loyal. Five blood-servants. Bruiser. The priestess. Crap. The priestess? She was loony tunes. Or so she appeared. Reach had included her in the list of possible bad guys, Leo’s possible spy. Reach . . . Crap. Reach.

  If he had access to the security, and I had to assume he did, then Reach knew a lot more about the internal workings of the whorehouse, and more about Katie’s plans and thoughts, than I did. For all I knew, he had eyes in my house. I hadn’t done a sweep for electronics since I first moved in. I put a search in the back of my mind for later.

  There were an awful lot of choices to consider for the position of traitor. Anytime the number of possible suspects went above five, things got sticky, especially when one of them was my security expert. But what would be Reach’s motivation? He didn’t need money. He couldn’t be forced to be a traitor, like somebody kidnapped his dog, like on a cheesy TV crime show. But then, everyone had a vulnerability somewhere.