Black Arts jy-7 Page 19
Leo sat back in his chair. His power rose in the room, a slow, coiling draft of energy, familiar and spicy, like black pepper on my tongue, this time mixed with blackberries and anise, a strange combination that signaled anger to the hind reaches of my brain. I backed two steps and my knees touched the chair, but I stayed standing.
“The witches are my affair. You are not my adviser, nor my priestess; you are my Enforcer. It is a position of power and honor, which you claimed, and which I allowed even though, like George, you are not one to be bound. Within the confines of that position, you will not work against my policies, my strategy, or my needs. And I will have respect from you, Jane.”
I flinched and sank into the chair. He didn’t know that Beast was bound. From Leo’s viewpoint, everything I’d done, everything that had been done to me, had been a decision on my part or had led from a decision or choice I made. A court of vamp law might suggest that even the involuntary feeding and binding had resulted directly from the moment I had claimed to be Leo’s Enforcer. By claiming the position, I had tacitly agreed to be fed upon and bound. The Mithran version of a forced Vulcan mind meld had been the result. It had been an intimate violation. Not my fault. Not my fault, some small logical part of me stated.
It wasn’t my fault. It also wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t legal in a human court of law. But to a fanghead it was all that and more.
A memory flared through me, my body, flat on my back, held in place by the vampire priestess and Bruiser as Leo bowed over me, fangs extended. The pain as he ripped into me.
Not my fault. Not my fault. But that knowledge was not much help at the moment.
I had been such an idiot, and Leo had used my idiocy to his benefit. Though it might not be my fault, I hadn’t looked before I jumped, flying by the seat of my pants.
Adelaide reached over and took my hand. The contact was a shock, my hands like ice. “She doesn’t know, Leo. She doesn’t understand about the council and the witches.”
Which wasn’t what I was reacting to, but I wasn’t going to share my thoughts. Leo considered me, his eyes narrowed, his face still a thunderstorm. He took a breath he didn’t need and blew it out hard. “That is not a topic to be discussed tonight,” he said to Adelaide. “We have more immediate issues to resolve.”
CHAPTER 12
Do We Call the Police?
Leo went on. “The gather tomorrow night will be for two purposes,” he said, pulling my mind back to the present. “To welcome the applicants from Mexico, and to formally announce to my people the intent of the European Council to visit. The latter is known, of course, but the announcement must be accomplished pro forma. I have also been informed by Raymond Micheika that we are also to receive visitors arriving from Africa. They will be accorded the same respect as the last visitors.”
Though I’d never met the man, I remembered the name. Micheika was a rare African werelion, and was the leader of the International Association of Weres, and the leader of the Party of African Weres—PAW. Surprised, I asked, “Is Kemnebi coming?”
“I was not informed of the identity of the arrivals,” Leo said sourly, “only that three cats were to arrive, along with a grindylow and several servants.”
“So you’ll be housing Mexican vamps and African weres and parading your newest applicants for admission to the NOLA vamps all in one evening.”
Eli chuckled. “That’s a FUBAR waiting to happen.”
“What is a fubar?” Leo asked.
Quesnel, the sommelier, entered through the door before I could reply and started pouring the wine. He held the bottle up high and let it gurgle into the glasses, which I thought was highly entertaining. As Quesnel passed the glasses around, Leo stood, the genial host. “A toast,” he said, lifting a glass. “In honor of my new primo.” He lifted his glass.
And the best part? The MOC was still moving stiffly. I had put a whammy on him. And that part of my night felt really, really good.
• • •
Eli, Wrassler, and I spent the rest of the night going over all the security protocols and implementing the changes to the parking area out back. The Kid called in the middle of the meeting and told us he had nothing new to share. It wasn’t a necessary call from an informational standpoint, but it made me feel better to know that someone, somewhere, was still working on finding Molly, Bliss, and Rachael. We were going in circles trying to find them, and I was getting itchy under my skin just thinking about the passing time. The call kept me from screaming. Or lashing out and beating up someone. Neither would be productive.
We were nearly done when Wrassler got a text on his cell. He held up a hand to stop the discussion and dialed a number. “Tell me everything.”
I didn’t need my enhanced hearing to make out that the person on the other end was hysterical, crying, gasping for breath when she wasn’t screaming. “Sonya’s gone! She’s gone! She went to her rooms to change and she never came back!”
I heard screaming in the background. Running feet. Eli looked at me and placed a hand on the blade at his side. I could almost read his thoughts as the other hand touched his chest. No flak jackets. No Kevlar. But all his toys were close at hand. He made a pointing gesture, I nodded, and he trotted off, to get our weapons and bring the vehicle around.
Over the phone, the woman was back, screaming, “We went to check on her. Her clothes are in a pile on the floor, like she just dropped them. Which she never would! She’s so picky about her things. It’s so anal it drives me— Never mind. That doesn’t matter.” I could almost see the girl waving the unimportant away with a frantic hand. “She’s gone. Vanished.”
“Jocelyn, take a deep breath,” Wrassler said. He sounded calming and soothing. “That’s right. Slow down. Take another breath. Good.” I had no idea who Jocelyn or Sonya was, but Wrassler knew, and from his expression he was deeply concerned. “Now, tell me. Was there a pile of ash or grit, like granules of sand, in or near her clothes?”
Jocelyn was shocked silent, and then we heard her take a shaky breath. “How did you know that?”
Wrassler didn’t answer her question. “Mr. Pellissier’s Enforcer and I will be there in a few minutes. Touch nothing. Do nothing. Understand?”
“Yes.” She sobbed and gulped. “Like on those crime shows. Evidence and all.” Jocelyn sobbed again. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
“We don’t know. But you are Sonya’s primo.” Which told me who they were, and left me feeling gut-socked. I had never heard of the two. As the Enforcer and head of security, I should know every vamp and primo in the city. And clearly I didn’t. “Take all the others,” Wrassler said, “and leave the suite. Go to the bar. We’ll be there in five minutes.” He closed the cell. “Come with me,” he said, starting back down the hallway, looking around.
“Eli’s getting his gear,” I said, mind-reading.
Wrassler pulled a mic out of his shirt collar and tapped it active. “Bring my SUV around, one driver, one shooter.” He tapped the mic off and began removing the coms apparatus as he led the way. Without me having to ask, he said, “Sonya is a new scion, released into the world only two weeks ago. If there’s ash or grit, then that makes two killed in just days.”
“Any history on vamps turning to ash?” I asked, remembering that Reach was supposed to be researching that.
“Nothing that Reach has bothered to tell us,” Wrassler rumbled, anger in his tone. He pushed the way out of the back of the building and rushed into the waiting car—a typical vamp-mobile, armored body, heavily tinted windows, and armament in the side panels of the doors. The lead vehicle rumbled off as I hopped into Eli’s SUV and belted in, gearing up as best I could as he tore out the gates after Wrassler.
In minutes, we pulled up in front of a narrow three-story building just off Bourbon Street. There was no sign, no neon, no nothing to identify the place, just three shuttered windows, long and narrow, and a tall wood door bound with rusted metal, a large ornate lock, and a door handle. On the second sto
ry above was a wrought-iron balcony with columns shaped like leaves and flowers, and some kind of supporting iron filigree along the roof. Four long, narrow doors and windows, closed and shuttered, lined up with the ones on the ground floor. The third floor was similarly arranged, but the windows and doors were out of sight from the angle on the street as we pulled up, which I knew Eli didn’t like.
“I’ll scout around,” he said, parking and taking off into the shadows.
Much more slowly, Eli’s extra go-bag slung over my shoulder, I followed Wrassler and his shooter, a security guy I knew served Clan Pellissier but couldn’t name. For now he was P. Shooter, which made me smile. P. Shooter wore jeans and a sweater, and had enough guns on him to take out a street gang. I tucked my braid into my T-shirts to dangle down my back, out of the way. Unholstered a nine-mil and readied it for firing.
Wrassler knocked and a tiny access panel in the door opened and shut instantly. Stupid. They needed cameras. All an invader would need to do was stick a gun in the panel when it was opened and fire. The door opened and a well-rounded, buxom woman fell into Wrassler’s arms, breathing as if she’d run a marathon. I could smell her fear-stink sweat.
“Update, Jocelyn,” Wrassler said, edging her inside. P. Shooter and I followed and closed up behind us, looking up the narrow, curving stairway to make sure no one stood at the top. P. Shooter moved into the room, already quartering it.
“They’re all in the bar,” Jocelyn said, “and I had drinks and food brought out.” She shuddered a breath that shook her to her toes—which were bare and painted and adorned with rings and anklets. Pretty feet. Thick, beautiful arms, skin the color of walnut, but soft and oiled to a sheen, large breasts, and no bra. Long flowing clothes—a washed silk salwar chemise in purples. “No one has been in or out of the house—so far as I can tell—since we closed up for the dawn. And I kept everyone out of Sonya’s room.”
I moved to the front windows and saw that they were locked and secure. P. Shooter looked at me and gestured to the back of the ground floor. I nodded and he left to check it out. I paused and sniffed, smelling fear and alcohol and blood and perfume. Humans and two, maybe three vamps. We moved into the main room, which was rectangular, the walls painted a pale mint color with darker green trim, the floor shrimp-toned tile, and the coffered ceilings twelve feet tall. Leather sofas were in one area with a merrily burning gas fire in the corner. The bar ran along the windowless right-side wall for twelve feet or so, and was stocked with enough liquor to satisfy a platoon of soldiers on leave for a month. Across from it was a library with books and shelves and an architectural-style desk. A long table with upholstered chairs marked the dining area. The back of the building smelled of cooking and a bathroom and old plumbing. P. Shooter disappeared into the rooms there.
Incense was burning, patchouli, I thought, in two burners, trying to mask the odor of marijuana. I didn’t smile, but it was a close thing.
I counted the people sitting curled up together like puppies needing comfort on the sofas and chairs, coming up with eleven. Because of the incense, I couldn’t tell by the smell, but two were vamp-pale. Vamps each needed a minimum of three humans to feed from, which totaled up at three humans apiece. The lair was running on a skeleton feeding crew. Which was funny. Sorta.
“Where . . .” Are her ashes? Where did she die? No. Wrong. “Ummm . . .” I floundered.
“All the bedrooms are upstairs,” Jocelyn said, wiping her nose with a wrist. “Blood-servants are on the second floor. Sonya’s, Liam’s, and Vivien’s are on the top floor.” She sniffed. “Sonya’s is the middle room.”
Wrassler jerked his head to me, indicating I was to check out the upstairs. I nodded back and headed up the narrow, curving stairs by the front door. Pulling back the slide, I off-safetied, my trigger finger off the trigger, along the side of the weapon. I paused at the top of the stairs, feeling P. Shooter coming up behind me, and letting my eyes adjust, hearing my breathing, and Shooter’s, slow and steady. Smelling everything. More blood and sex and humans and vamps and alcohol and more marijuana. Lots of marijuana, the smell overpowering all the others. In the fumes of dope, I could detect everything, but not parse the scents into the finer smells, like individuals and their previous locations. The kids had been partying.
“Downstairs?” I asked Shooter, sotto voce.
“Everything secure, all locked up for the day,” he murmured. He gave me the hand signal for I’ll go right and moved out. Using basic paramilitary procedures and hand signals, Shooter and I divided the place up, me taking the left half of the second floor. The rooms were tiny, like dorms that had been halved. They were cramped and messy, and the bathrooms were worse. There were only two baths on the second floor, one on the ground floor, for the nine messy humans. And no place for a killer to hide.
P. Shooter and I headed up the stairs to the top floor. Here there were three matching suites, each done up like a swanky hotel, lots of creamy Egyptian cotton, ebony king-sized four-poster beds, drapery that puddled on the black hardwood floors, the rare rug in large blocks of bright color, similar bright pillows everywhere. Squishy tan oversized armchairs and ottomans. The three baths were long and linear, done in white marble and black tile, everything sparse and very similar. Closets were free of hiding humans. Windows were actually doors, but all were locked and secured. Shooter and I met in the middle room.
In front of a long, beveled mirror on a stand was a heap of clothing. Tangled in the orange, pink, and shrimp floral dress were tiny gold sandals, two bracelets, a watch, a necklace, two earrings, and a heap of ash. It was brownish and white with granules of red. The brown for flesh, the white for bone, the red for blood, I guessed. I breathed in and out. Nothing had burned here. Nothing had bled here except for humans, and that some time ago. I smelled no magic, at least not over the mixed vamp/blood/weed/sex smells, already mixing with the patchouli rising from the bottom floor.
I knelt and sniffed again, short bursts of breath, my mouth open, the air scudding across my tongue and throat with a faint scree of sound. No. Nothing had burned. No smell of cremated human or roasted vamp. But the ash itself smelled like vamp—a thick and wiry smell that reminded me of cactus and hot sand. Something had turned a female vamp into an ash heap.
I pulled my cell and took pics of everything. When I was done, I pulled a wood stake and stirred the ashes. No bones. No fragments. Weird. I asked Shooter, “What’s protocol on this? Do I call the cops?”
He frowned, and I realized that he was one of twins from the council HQ, blond and lean and sorta scary looking now that I saw him armed. I hadn’t recognized him because his ponytail was tucked down inside the collar of his sweater, to keep an opponent from using it like a handle to control him, just as I had done with my own hair.
“The primo’s call. Except the primo’s new and won’t know, will she?”
“Wrassler’s call, then,” I stated, and Shooter grinned. “What?”
“Maybe I’ll have a nickname someday.” He holstered his gun.
“P. Shooter. P for Pellissier.”
“Yeah?” He nodded, thinking, securing all his weapons without looking at them, by muscle memory alone. “Can we drop the P? I haven’t used a pea shooter since . . . ever. And it sounds kinda wimpy.” He grinned again, displaying perfect white teeth, blue eyes bright and clear. He was pretty, buff, and deadly. My kinda man. If he hadn’t also been a human-shaped bag of vamp food. Ick.
I grinned back at him. “Sure. Let’s go talk to Wrassler.”
Wrassler and Eli were in a corner of the main room, talking softly. Someone had turned on the fifty-inch TV to a home shopping network. The models were posing in tummy-shaping underclothing and long thigh-slimming leggings. Which looked really hot and uncomfortable. I joined the men while Shooter patrolled the ground floor again, his weapon back in his hands.
“Ash,” I said softly.
Wrassler thumbed through his cell and held up a pic of some clothes and ashes with the odd brown, white, and
red coloring. Same theory, different scene.
“Yeah. Like that,” I said. “I see no way that the vamp—ire,” I added, “was turned into ashes. No burn smell, no magic smell, no easy way in or out, no weapons found. Do we call the police?”
“No. Leo has people working on it. I’ll collect the ashes. Thanks.” He heaved a breath and ran his eyes over the people in the seating area. They had begun to stand, stretch, and move toward us. It was time for Wrassler to give them the bad news that their expressions suggested they were already expecting. And time for Eli and me to head home. Or scurry away before the predictable emotional breakdowns, take your pick.
• • •
We got home just after dawn and I fell into bed, exhausted, bleary-eyed, my head stuffed full of vamp business. It was only on the edge of sleep that I realized that Leo hadn’t really talked to me about the witches or their disappearances or Molly or Bliss or Rachael or any of the things I had needed to discuss. He had given me a hint and changed the subject before I realized it. “Dang,” I mumbled into my pillow. “He did it again.” But he had given me one thing I hadn’t had before—the names of Shoffru’s ships, which offered me a line of research.
• • •
I rolled over at noon after too little sleep but with my brain whirling too fast to find dreams again. I rose, stretched, showered, and dressed in casual clothes and warm socks, braiding my hair into multiple braids and twisting them up into an intricate bun that made it look as if I had much thicker hair. Silver stakes kept it all in place. It felt weird to be able to do this on my own. Christie, one of Katie’s girls, had taught me how to do the fancy bun. She had taught me how to put on makeup too, but I was always much more sparing than the dominatrix.