Even a future parley with the witches was now suspect. Was the order to reach rapprochement with the New Orleans witch coven because Leo needed the blackened prisoner and some witch magic to accomplish . . . what? Crap. I had no idea.
Anger raced under my skin, burning, hot, like acid eating away at me. So many dead. Hurt. Damn vampire secrets. Damn Leo Pellissier. But I could kill him later. For now, I had a deadly puzzle to figure out.
In the basement, we had a kidnapped Son of Darkness. Leo was playing political games with the lives of humans and of his people. Black-magic pocket watches containing parts of a magical item that Leo was looking for were resting on the Son’s body. And a werewolf who had been touched by an angel, had bitten the thing chained to the wall, and was running through the city with a mouthful of the Son of Darkness’ blood in him. I had to wonder what the bite would mean to the werewolf.
Oh—and the Devil was dead, along with Batildis, which could only tick off Peregrinus. Though he had taken their bodies with him. Could he bring them back to life, a human with no throat and a vamp cut in two?
And the arcenciel hatchling was still in Peregrinus’ possession. Soul was going to be really ticked off with me. After Bethany had said the arcenciel would be solid, I had expected to see the baby dragon, maybe held prisoner by Peregrinus via some arcane means. Or maybe with jesses and a hood, the way people trained raptors to hunt. I wasn’t sure what I had seen in the basement, about the arcenciel. It was all confused.
I also wasn’t sure what I was going to tell Soul, and she didn’t seem the patient, understanding type, not when she was in light-dragon form.
The weirdness was in overlays and none of it was going to be good. Nothing was ever good in the land of the blood-suckers. It was always FUBAR from beginning to end.
I laid my head back and studied the painting on the ceiling of Del’s bedroom. All that was missing was satyrs and images of torture to make it perfectly weird. I let my eyes trace the feathered wings of an angel as I tried to remember what else I knew about the Sons of Darkness. Something the other priestess, Sabina, had said months ago. Sabina was way more sane than Bethany, but she had lost her humanity centuries ago too. She had told me that the eldest Son of Darkness had visited, a century ago, and had failed to rise one night. Yeah. That was it. Leo and Sabina entered his lair together, and the place had stank of violence and blood—of the Son’s holy life blood, or so she had said, and the blood of someone or something else. That blood had been splattered on the walls. Had that blood been Bethany’s? Had she brought Joses to Amaury Pellissier, the previous MOC? Or to Leo? The century timeline could work either way, but there had to be way more to the story, in order for the missing Son of Darkness to end up a prisoner in Leo’s basement.
Sabina and Leo had hidden the evidence. Reach had guessed or figured it out. Now everyone knew that Joses was here. Del was right. It would mean war with the EuroVamps, unless I could figure out a way to stop it.
Overhead, the lights flickered and the room went black. Which was the first time I noticed that I was in an internal room, one with no windows, one a vamp could stay in twenty-four/seven. And Leo and Del and been getting frisky, if my memory served. I sniffed the pillow again to be sure, but I didn’t smell Leo. They hadn’t spent frisky time here, which relieved me in ways I hadn’t expected. The lights came back on and the distant sound of generators went off. Power had been restored.
I rotated to my feet and groaned my way out of the room. I found the stairs and limped down to the locker room to clean up and change clothes, coming to a few conclusions. We needed several things: a full debrief, to find Brute, and to figure out where the arcenciel was in all the hullabaloo—still with Peregrinus, or escaped? We needed to know where Bethany had gone with the missing people. It was gonna be a long night.
I was on the stairs when I realized that Bruiser hadn’t shown up. I pulled my cell. Communications were up and I had three text messages. Eli’s said, Heading back to vamp HQ. W alive in hospital. Edmund feeding healing him. Alex’s said, Gimme call. Got info. Bruiser’s said, On the way. Be safe.
That text was more than an hour old, but so far as I knew, he hadn’t shown. I texted him back. Call me. And then texted the Kid to track his cell. Bruiser’s text was the one that mattered most.
I was in the shower when I felt cool air whoosh into the room. I shut off the water with one hand and simultaneously picked up the nine-mil. There was one in the chamber, ready to fire. The Judge was on the tiled ledge beside me, next to the shampoo.
“It’s me, Legs. We need to chat.” It was Derek. Who had disappeared, chasing after Peregrinus. Or helping him escape? I had to wonder whether he was in his right mind or whether he’d been rolled by a vamp who had managed to seize Grégoire, Leo, Katie, and all of vamp HQ in one night.
“Yeah?” I asked, not willing to throw back the shower curtain to see him. Knowing that if he wanted me dead, he could have already fired. I had no place to run anyway. But mostly not wanting to be naked in front of Derek. I took the weapon in a two-hand grip and spread my feet, balanced and ready. “Tell me something only we know. So that I’ll know it’s you talking through your mouth and not some foreign vamp who’s made you his.”
“You wore a party dress the first time I saw you take down a fanghead. You told me you had a magic charm to track down suckheads, but we both know you was lying.”
I chuckled.
“Also,” Eli said, “he’s got me, with a gun about three inches from his spine.”
Not again, I thought, but feeling relieved. “You boys have got to learn to play together.”
“Too close, Ranger boy. I’d take you—”
“And you’d sit in a chair the rest of your life. So go ahead. Make my—”
“Go away!” I yelled. I turned the water back on and set the gun aside. They could play Ranger versus SEAL on their own time. I still had things to think through. And one of those was, why was I always the only female in the ladies’ room? Was I so terrifying and creepy that all the other female security personnel who used this locker room made themselves scarce when I was here? It was kinda weird.
Once I was dressed, I read my new texts and sent several, one to tell the Kid I was headed into the security conference room. He’d know what to do. The guys were waiting outside the locker room door when I emerged, holding up opposite walls. Eli had an abrasion on his cheek that hadn’t been there the last time I saw him, and Derek was nursing a bloody lip. “Idiots.” I shook my head and asked Eli to run an errand for me, fast. He nodded and took off. I asked, “Your men?”
Derek’s face turned down, the lines beside his mouth making him look far older. “Red Dragon and Antifreeze are down for rehab. Trash Can and Acapulco are both dead.”
He didn’t want sympathy. I didn’t know what he wanted, but sympathy wasn’t it. I kept my eyes emotionless, but let my mouth turn down in acknowledgment of his loss. “I’d like to go to the services,” I said. “Anything I can do for the families, please let me know.”
He nodded once, a severe, clipped gesture, and I lifted a finger pointing to the conference room. Derek followed me down the hall into security, and I felt him behind me, more so than heard him. He moved as silently as a hunting big-cat.