I holstered one of my matched Walther PK380s at my right thigh, and the other one at the small of my back for a left-hand draw. The semiautomatic handguns were lightweight and ambidextrous, with bloodred polymer grips that perfectly matched the red of the T-shirt. Which was a girly thought and one I didn’t share with Eli, though I could imagine his expression if I did. The .380s offered less stopping power than nine-mils, but vamp central meant the possibility of collateral damage, and killing anyone or anything by accident was not on my schedule, now or ever. The .380 on my thigh, I pulled and holstered several times, testing the friction of the holster fabric, before I loaded it with standard rounds. The one at my spine was loaded with silver, just in case of vamp or were-animal attack. I liked to be prepared for both kinds of bad guys—human and supernatural big-bad-uglies.
There was a special sheath in the thigh rig for a fourteen-inch vamp-killer—steel with silver plating along the flat of the blade. Steel to cut flesh, silver to poison vamps or weres. The thigh holster had deep pockets for stakes, and I inserted silver-tipped ash stakes with little wooden buttons on the ends so I could shove them into a vamp without hurting the palm of my hand if needed, and also so that I could get a good grip if I ever wanted to pull one out. It had happened. The stakes were a new design and though they resembled knitting needles, they were easier to use than my old model. Into my calf holster went a six-round Kahr P380, a small semiautomatic with a matte black finish, loaded with standard ammo.
I stood and looked myself over in the long mirror and frowned. I looked long and lean and feminine, and even the gun strapped to my hip and thigh didn’t fix that. “It’s the cowl-neck,” Eli said, reading my mind again. “Makes you look soft and sweet.” He did that little lip-twitch thing he called a smile. “Good disguise, except for the gun. Which makes you look hot, in a deadly sort of way.”
I shook my head at the left-handed insult and passed him the clear, rounded thing I’d found under me after the battle with the lillilend. Not wanting to steer him to my own result, I asked simply, “What do you think?”
“This that thing you tucked into your boobs after the fight?”
“Yeah. Who else saw?”
Eli shrugged. “Bruiser. No one else, I think.” He ran his fingers over the curved side, which was blunt and smooth, and then over the opposite side, which was irregular, ripped-looking in spots, with longer fiber-like things hanging off. “Thin, clear, luminous, flexible, and slightly iridescent,” he said, bending it to test its plasticity. It sprang back into shape. “What I could make out of the thing in the gym, it was vaguely snakelike. Scale? Like from a snake? Ripped out of the skin underneath?” He mimed pulling one off.
“I think so,” I said. Weirdly, the spot on my chest where it had touched my skin continued to tingle. I rubbed my sternum, trying to stop the reaction. “I should send it to Leo’s lab, in Texas, for DNA testing, but they already have the gunk off the floor.” I bent it and held it to the light, where the surface swam with color like the surface of a pearl. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll keep it.” I tucked it into a slit in the thigh holster that buttoned shut, discovering as I did that there was even a small pocket in the rig, holding a tourniquet and sterile bandages. Bruiser had thought of everything. I liked that in a man. “Let’s get this debrief on the road.”
We were walking into the security/conference room when Eli’s cell did that little jangle-buzz that let him know he had a text. “Alex has everything secure,” he said, “and all non-Jane footage ready for viewing.”
The air of the conference room was redolent of scorched coffee, fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts, the heated scent of Onorio, to tell me that Bruiser was present, Grégoire’s intense personal vamp scent, gun oil, the reek of fired weapons, and testosterone. In other words, it smelled wonderful. The underground room had a security console, a huge monitor/TV screen, a massive table, and comfortable rolling desk chairs.
The primo, Adelaide Mooney, opened the meeting with the info that Leo and Gee were being treated by the priestesses. She assured us that they would both be okay, but it would be tomorrow night before we’d see them again. With the fast healing of vampires and whatever species an Anzû was, that sounded pretty ominous. Del looked haggard but elegant, dressed in a monochrome blend of blond tones that matched her hair, which was down and curling on her shoulders. I remembered seeing her at some point in the gym, sword raised. It had been only a glimpse, but it looked as if Del knew her way around sharp objects.
When she finished her report, I asked, “Can you tell us what Leo was saying when the thing flew into the room? It sounded like, Lepree lumyear. Larcencel. Larcencel.”
Del’s eyes flicked down and back to me. I wasn’t sure what the reaction meant, other than she wanted to be done and outta here. She stood and said, “The Master of the City said to give you this.” She passed a folded scrap of paper to me. On it was written in a shaky hand, with what looked like a ballpoint pen, the words, Grand danger, mon cour. L’esprit lumière. L’arcenciel.
It wasn’t Leo’s usual fancy, calligraphy-like script, and I’d never seen him use a ballpoint pen or write on a torn piece of paper, but the words on it had the right Ls in them to be his handwriting. “Okay. What’s it say?”
Toneless, she replied. “It says, ‘Great danger, my heart. The light spirit. The rainbow.’”
“What’s wrong with his heart? Did the bite damage it?” For that matter, did Leo even have a heart? Fortunately I got my mouth closed before I said those words.
“I believe that Leo is calling you his heart,” Bruiser said, his tone droll.
“Oh. Okay. No.” I looked at Del and finally was able to deduce her expression as an unwilling possessiveness. Del and Leo had begun a relationship that included more than just blood sharing, and this read like I was poaching on her territory. Though how that all worked when Leo was still sleeping with Grégoire, I had no idea. “I’m not his heart. He just calls me that to tick me off.”
“I see. Well . . . if you need me, I’ll have my cell and in-house radio.” She turned on her expensive two-inch heels and left the room. I followed her into the hallway, but she cut me off with a terse, “I don’t have time now, Jane.”
I stepped back fast at her abrupt words. An embarrassed flush shocked through me. I don’t make friends easily and—
“Sorry,” Del said. Her shoulders slumped and she rubbed her forehead. I didn’t get headaches much but Del looked like she was in pain. “It’s been a difficult week.”
Tentatively, I said, “Leo giving you a hard time?”
She dropped her hand. “I’m not the primo he’s used to working with,” she said stiffly, as if she had heard the words once too often recently. “He’s still grieving for George, and there’s nothing I can do to take away the fact that he’s lost his right-hand man. It’s also taking me a while to get up to speed. I don’t know where things are located, filed, or stored. I made a mistake ordering wine for a small gala Leo has planned. We got a delivery of ‘substandard, even for American swill,’ wine that I liked and that cost a small fortune. He broke every bottle. Every single one. Quesnel was horrified.”