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  “I know,” Misha said, walking back to me, a grin on her face. “Best chocolate evah.”

  “Yeah. It is,” I said around the chocolate. “Um, why am I here?”

  Misha pointed to the comfy upholstered chair set catercornered to the tea table, and I took my seat as she served herself chocolate and coffee. As she mixed her coffee, she said, “What did Reach tell you?”

  “That you had a book deal. Book about vamps.”

  “Yes.” She looked up under her brows, the grin still in place. “You don’t have to look so ferocious about it.”

  “I’m not looking ferocious.” What does ferocious even look like? “I look worried,” I said. “Vamps are dangerous.”

  “Not the sane ones,” she countered.

  I sat back in the chair. “You’re kidding, right?”

  For a moment, Misha’s face altered with some inexplicable emotion, but before I could identify it, the emotion vanished, replaced with the professional Misha. No, the professional Camilla Hopkins, reporter for Torch News.

  “According to all my sources, the Mithrans who live by the Vampira Carta live by the rule of law, protecting blood-servants and blood-slaves, providing them legal rights and opportunities and the freedom to leave service anytime they want.” It sounded like a promo quote from a vamp PR firm. Just what we needed, the media believing the vamp crap.

  I picked up my tea and sipped, stalling, trying to figure out why Misha was here and why she wanted to talk to me. “The Vampira Carta also tells them how to divide up territory,” I said distinctly, “and the cattle that live in it. Cattle are humans. They eat humans.”

  That odd look flashed across her face again and it left me feeling cornered somehow, as if I was way more involved with the project than I knew about. Shock raced down my spine, hot and then frigid. What was her book really about? Some kind of exposé?

  “Mish, what’s your book about?” I asked carefully, not letting my reaction show. “And don’t fob me off.”

  Misha passed me a sheaf of papers, and I set the weak tea down to go through the typed pages. There were twenty, the content in outline form. The first pages had HISTORY, broken down into CREATION, MITHRANS, NATURALEZA, THE DIASPORA, EUROPEAN COUNCIL, NEW WORLD MITHRANS, and MISCELLANEOUS, with even more subcategories and suggestions and explanations beneath. The next section had POLITICAL HIERARCHY, with MASTERS OF THE CITY, HEIRS, SCIONS, PRIMOS, SECONDOS, BLOOD-SERVANTS, and BLOOD-SLAVES. “This is your outline for the book?” I clarified.

  Misha nodded, sipping her coffee, hiding her lower face behind the cup. I remembered her doing that when we were kids, only back then it was orange juice or iced tea she hid behind. I flipped through the pages. There was one labeled HOW TO KILL MITHRANS—HUNTER METHODOLOGY. Another was labeled WHAT SCIENCE HOPES, and beneath that was a list of researchers’ names and the higher-learning institutes that paid them to think. One read MITHRANS AND MAGIC, another was labeled MITHRAN BLOOD AND MODERN PRESERVATION. There was MITHRANS AND WITCHES, and I flipped on through, not liking this. The vamps I knew were not going to like this, either. Leo was going to have kittens. And maybe kill me for being part of it in any way.

  And then I found it. Near the back there was a section on VAMP HUNTERS. My name was at the top. The chill I’d been holding down shocked its way through me.

  I had never hidden what I did for a living—killing vamps was my main source of financial income. I had a Web site dedicated to advertising my skills, with a headshot of me in vamp-hunting gear, a bio (mostly candid), and a list of kills. I hadn’t updated it recently, but clients could reach me through the contact link. No, I didn’t hide who I was or what I did, but I didn’t put it out there for the whole world to see either, especially in what could become a best seller.

  I closed the pages and set them on the table between us. The anger I had kept from my face vibrated through my voice when I said, “You’re making me a target. And you want me to help you?” I stood and pivoted on my heel, heading for the door. Somehow Misha reached it before me.

  “Not outing you,” she stated. “Not going to say anything you don’t want said.”

  I let a small smile pull up one side of my mouth. “Oh yeah? You gonna let me have the right to edit out anything I don’t like?” Misha’s face fell. “I figured not.” I reached around her for the doorknob.

  “Okay,” she said. I stopped. “I’ll let you read over anything I write about you, and if it’s wrong or untruthful I’ll take it out.”

  Which wasn’t a huge help. The truth was bad enough, and I wanted to keep the few secrets I had left to myself. But if I left the hotel room, even the right to take out the lies would be off the table. I was smart enough to know that much. Reach would tell her anything she wanted if the price was right. If I stayed, I might be able to bargain for my privacy and secrets. My fists clenched and opened as I hesitated. “What do you want from me?”

  “I need an intro to Hieronymus here in Natchez and to Leo Pellissier in New Orleans. I’ve tried but they won’t talk to me. I need someone to give me that extra edge.”

  I stepped back and stared at her, waiting, giving Misha a chance to make her case.

  “My book deal is structured so I get the biggest payout on delivery of the manuscript. I need the money.”

  “We all need something.”

  She ignored my derision. “So far, all I have is a contact with a primo blood-servant of a minor clan here in Natchez, a human I talked to ten days ago named Bryson Ryder.” She was watching my face, and hers fell. “You’ve never heard of him?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t remember that name from my quick perusal of the Natchez files, and the first thing I had looked at was clan names, their blood-master’s heirs, and primos to get a handle on Natchez’s organizational structure. “Clan name?” I asked.

  “Clan Petitpas.”

  I shook my head. There was no such clan, not among Natchez’s established houses. Misha turned her head away, letting that blond hair cover her face for a moment before lifting her eyes. “Bobby said you would help. He said to tell you that I need you.”

  Bobby looked up at the sound of his name and I met his eyes across the room. The words I need you triggered a memory from our mutual pasts. Bobby Bates lying on a playground, beaten and bloody, the bullies having run off, one eye already blackening, his red hair mussed and filled with playground dirt. “I needed you, Jane,” he had whimpered. “And you came.”

  Unlike when I had trailed Ann Shelton and her pals down to the gym, finding Bobby on the playground, being attacked by a small group of vicious boys, had been luck. If I hadn’t . . .

  Bobby looked from me to Misha and back. And smiled.

  “Okay.” I hadn’t expected to speak—I certainly hadn’t expected to agree to help Misha write a book—so I clarified, “I’ll tell you what I can that isn’t covered by the employee/employer relationship.” I walked back to my chair and picked up my teacup. “You do know I work for Leo, right?” She nodded, and I sipped. The tea was light and flavorful, delicate like the “flower” that had bloomed in the cup. And from out of nowhere I got an idea. Go me. “I’ll share, but I want it both ways. I’d like what info you already have on the local vamps.”

  “Quid pro quo,” Misha said, her eyes dancing. “Fine. As long as you agree to not write a book on the subject.”

  “Write a— Yeah, sure. Fine. Done. I’ll try to arrange intros. But if the vamps you want to talk to say no, then I have no control over that.”

  “No ambushing them in alleyways and making them talk by threatening to break their fingers one by one?” She smiled, her blue eyes sparkling.

  “No. None of that. They’d break me in two with one hand tied behind their backs. I want all this in writing.”

  “I’ll have my lawyer send you something to protect your interests and privacy and give you the right to read the book before it goes to the editor. So let’s start there, with the Mithrans’ physical strengths. My sources tell me that the Natura
leza are harder to kill than regular vampires. Yes or no? And Jane. Thank you again.”

  I didn’t try to stifle my sigh this time, remembering the feel of Lucas Vazquez de Allyon’s flesh trying to reknit and heal, even as my blade severed his head. “Yes.” I drank my delicate, flowery tea, feeling like an idiot. I had been played. I knew that. I just wasn’t sure how it had happened. “Definitely yes.”

  • • •

  My appointment with Misha and my trip down memory lane concluded, I was back in the SUV cab with Eli, the Kid on speaker phone while I instructed him to research Bryson Ryder. If the human wasn’t a primo of a known clan, then I wanted to know what he really was. It was dumb, but I felt responsible for Misha. “While you’re at it,” I suggested, “create us a listing of any properties owned by Big H’s clans.”

  “Yeah, I’ll just snap my fingers and they’ll appear, collated in a file,” the Kid said, his tone full of snark. “I’m not Superman. You have no idea how impossible that last request is, do you?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Don’t know, don’t care. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll buy you a cape and matching tights.” I hit END on the call.

  Eli looked at me out of the corner of his eyes, a faint grin present in the crinkles of his eyes. “Cape and matching tights?”

  “He’d be cute. We can call him Captain Nerdman.”

  Eli actually chuckled, an evil little sound.

  Back at Esmee’s, I changed into blue jeans and an old jacket over a T, weaponed up with nine mils, one in a spine sheath for left hand draw and its twin in a shoulder holster that put the weapon beside my left breast and under my left arm for right-hand draw, extra mags easy to hand, and blades in boot sheaths. I joined the boys in the breakfast room.

  “Here’s what I have on the name Misha mentioned,” Alex said. “Bryson Ryder is human, married, a father of two, lives across the river in Vidalia, Louisiana, in a three-bedroom house. He works as a CPA and keeps a small office off Carter Street that advertises open hours in the daytime.”

  “Misha said he was a primo blood-servant,” I said. They were usually well-off and lived on the vamp’s premises, where they were handy to do laundry or clean the pool or, in this case, do the books. And be available for sex and dinner, of course.

  The Kid said, “He’s more likely a vamp’s occasional snack, and Misha was using him for background info. And before you ask, no, there’s no answer at his home or office.”

  “We’ve got the time, and nothing else to do until eight. Let’s do a run-by,” Eli said, studying the addresses on satellite maps. “If the office and the house are empty, we can check them out and be back in plenty of time. If there are people there and it looks okay, then we’ve had a nice drive.”

  By check them out, I knew Eli meant “break into and look around,” which sounded fine to me, except for any getting-caught-and-slapped-in-jail part. Our eight p.m. meeting was with Hieronymus, a meet and greet to sign contracts. Eight was just after breakfast time for a vamp, and we wanted to be armed and dangerous and ready for anything.

  “And about that other thing,” the Kid continued. “Charly’s leukemia? I verified that she’s on chemo, on six different kinds of meds, including prophylactic antibiotics, some supplements to mitigate the effects of the round of chemo she finished last week, and one I can’t pronounce or find online.”

  “Misha took her daughter away from home and on the road, on business, the day after she finished a round of chemo?” I asked, startled. “I am not happy with Mish. But I guess there’s some reason for what looks like total stupidity. I mean, okay, she has a book deal going, but surely any publisher would delay a deadline for a sick child.”

  Eli said succinctly, “Deductible and twenty percent.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” Insurance and medical bills were not things I had to worry about, not with my skinwalker metabolism and healing.

  “She has her job as on-air personality at Torch News,” the Kid said, “and full benefits. But according to her financial records, Charly’s uncovered medical bills are already at twenty thousand dollars. I don’t know what she got for her book deal, but that’s a lot of dough.”

  “Okay, Misha has to bring in large amounts of cash and fast,” I said. “But still. The day after a round of chemo?” I shook my head. “Something feels hinky.”

  Back in the SUV, Eli pulled out and headed west, over the Mississippi. Lately, my whole life seemed to be spent crossing the Old Miss.

  We took 84, also known as John R. Junkin Drive, across the river and into Vidalia. Eli found the business, and we both noted the Closed sign and the dusty Christmas tree in the front window. I didn’t need to look at Eli to know how strange that was. We drove around several blocks, looking for banks and ATMs, which had the best security cameras, and any other businesses that looked profitable enough to have cameras running. When we were satisfied that we had a line of entry that would be unobserved, we parked the truck near a trailer park and meandered back on foot, moving with enough purpose that we looked like we belonged, but not with so much intent that we looked like we were working ourselves up to rob someplace.

  When a cop car motored toward us, Eli’s entire gait changed into badass street thug, and he took my hand. I cozied up to his shoulder and giggled like some mindless girl in love. Beneath his jean jacket I felt a blade sheathed to his arm and muscles hard enough to crack a coconut. The cop glanced at us but didn’t react otherwise.

  When I figured he was gone, I glanced back and let go of Eli. “Not bad,” he said.

  “Not bad, yourself. Where did you pick up that swagger?”

  He didn’t reply and I didn’t really expect him to. We were at the fence a block behind Bryson Ryder’s office. We split up, and Eli took the direct route along the fence. I strolled down three more buildings and walked along a narrow path between two that had been visible on Google. What had I ever done without satellite mapping systems?

  I turned at the corner and walked by the front entrance again, seeing no one nearby, and I texted to Eli quickly, Go. I heard a muted thump and a moment later I walked up the steps to the small house-turned-storefront, and Eli let me in. I was hit with the smell of mold, dust, and human. Fainter was the smell of vamp, mixed varieties, like the way an herb store might smell if all the canisters were emptied onto the floor and allowed to dry rot. A little chamomile, some red pepper, rose hips, lilies, and dandelion, and a hint of vanilla, but all old. Nothing fresh.

  Eli was wearing black nitrile gloves and tossed a pair to me. I caught them out of the air, two-handed. Black gloves were way cooler than blue or green. I had even seen where they made purple, fuchsia, and neon yellow, but I was partial to the black.

  “No active security,” Eli said to me. “Looks like it was turned off and never turned back on. Backup battery is dead.” Talking on a headset to his brother, he said, “Booting up.” He started up the computer, murmuring quietly as the Kid walked him through the dull intricacies of breaking into an old PC. The Kid had wanted to come along, claiming it would make our job ten times faster. Eli had vetoed that. The little felon was in Mississippi by the good graces of a lenient judge, and no way was Eli going to let anything criminal come within ten feet of him. No. That was for us. Lucky me.

  Gloved, I looked the place over. There was dust everywhere, even on the PC keyboard and the phone. There were spiderwebs in two ceiling corners. A roach motel behind the desk was full. That was one thing about the Gulf states: roaches were everywhere. They were the size of a wrestler’s thumb, crunched like bubble wrap and squirted green goo when you stomped on them, and sometimes even busted up and leaking they’d still crawl away. I’d learned to hate roaches. They were fearless. Not that long ago I found one crawling under my toilet seat. I managed not to scream and inform the boys that I was truly a girl, but it was a near thing. And it wasn’t the first time my privacy had been so rudely interrupted.

  The answering machine—an old digital model—had a blinking light. I pulled a tin
y recorder the Kid had given me and hit RECORD on the mini recorder, then PLAY, on the machine, half listening as it played. Bryson hadn’t answered his messages in weeks. Maybe months. One of the last ones was Misha’s voice, still listed under “new messages,” as if it hadn’t been played. Which was odd. The calendar on the wall was still on October of last year. There was a dead plant in the corner. Whoever Misha had talked to, it was beginning to look like it wasn’t Bryson Ryder, unless he had gone into hiding for some reason that let him abandon his business and yet talk to a reporter. Which was not impossible, but was highly unlikely.

  On one side of the back door that Eli had kicked in there was a miniature kitchen with a small steel sink, a cheap microwave, and a tiny brown fridge, like one a college student would have kept in his dorm. The fridge stank of rotten broccoli and mystery meat, but at least Bryson’s body hadn’t been carved up and forced inside. A bathroom was on the other side of the door, and the water in the toilet suggested that it hadn’t been flushed in ages, an iron-brown ring showing where water had evaporated.

  I pulled open a file cabinet. It wasn’t locked. The files inside were hard copies of his customers’ yearly taxes, three five-foot-long drawers’ worth. Nothing personal had been kept in the drawers that I could see. But in the bottom one I noticed a name on a file: CONSTANCE PERRAULT. Next to it was COLEMAN PÉRODEAU. Both were vamps. According to Reach’s preliminary research, both were lower-level scions of Hieronymus. I did a quick look for the clan Misha mentioned—Clan Petitpas. Just as I’d thought, there was no such listing.

  One knee on the floor, I flipped through the files and recognized more vamp names, blood-servants, and commercial businesses owned by the same. “Eli. Got something.” He looked up from the PC. “Misha was right about one thing. Bryson Ryder is the tax consultant to the fanged and their dinners.” I pulled out a file from the H’s. “Including Hieronymus.”