The baron said nothing as the ancient Vampire drew a wheezing breath and continued his energy-sapping rant from his hidden crypt three parishes away.
“All of that would have been fine, except that there was a fire at your estate that left human bodies, shell casings, rocket-propelled grenade blasts, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That cannot be dark-glamoured away by your Unseelie friends. That cannot be removed from the collective consciousness of the entire American public. That is already in news archives!” the elderly Vampire shouted.
Elder Vlad didn’t allow Baron Montague to draw a breath to interject. His voice became punctuated by warning hisses as his rage spun out of control.
“That is a highly visible debacle that literally leads to your front door, which means it has led to our front door! It could possibly open us up to human investigation into all establishments, like our casinos, bars, restaurants, waste management contracts, oil companies, our military mercenary and security firms abroad, everything that is linked to you-which is way too much at risk. Do you realize that if the stupid humans believe that this is all a part of Mexican drug cartels moving into the southern region, crossing the border, with their economy in shambles and an aggressive new administration, they could nationalize a significant part of what we own? The war started at Buchanan Broussard’s wolf house-his lineage is from Texas-that’s been all over the news, including the mysterious disappearance of him and his daughter only months ago. The humans have made a leap in thinking-and it all circles back to us!”
“I will fix this, sir… You have my word.”
Elder Vlad drew a shaky breath. “You might want to ensure that you do before the trial.”
“Yes, Your Eminence.” Baron Montague sat up and then stood. “They must have clear evidence that we were involved, and they don’t.”
He bent and held his head as Elder Vlad sent a black lightning strike through his mind. Tears of black blood leaked out of his eyes as the ancient, stronger entity exploded in a fit of rage.
“You do not know how you could be implicated, simply by monitoring the situation, as you say. How many times do you have to see with your own eyes, Sasha Trudeau was human, and US-military trained! She wouldn’t allow the wolves to simply rip your liaison to shreds and to decapitate him to reverse his spells. They captured him in iron and rowan bondage! They are not so foolish as to go to war directly with Cerridwen!”
“Queen Cerridwen Blatand of Hecate is coming to trial here?”
“If this doesn’t go right,” Elder Vlad said very quietly, “I will rip your heart out myself with my own bare hands when I see you. As I said earlier, fix this.”
“What do you mean they went dark?” General Westford shouted into the cell phone. His short, blond hair was spiked with nervous sweat and his ruddy face had bloomed to near crimson as his voice exploded into the receiver. “I want to know what the hell is going on in New Orleans, Doctor. Has Sasha Trudeau flipped near her twenty-fifth birthday like the others did? Is the virus in her system under control or what? Is she stable? Do we need to send a Special Forces squad to put her down?”
“No, she’s fine and doing what she’s been trained to do in Delta Force, Special Ops Command. She’s in full control of all her faculties and is advancing the cause of the PCU.”
“But how can that be when there are bodies all over creation?” the general shouted. “This is supposed to be a covert operation. I’m getting calls from the Joint Chiefs; everybody needs answers and I haven’t got any to give them!”
“The entire reason PCU came back into this region after having left it not so long ago is that Captain Trudeau rightfully suspected a resurgence of evil-entity activity that could threaten the human population here.” Xavier Holland dragged his fingers through his gray hair, speaking in deferential tones while pacing away from the séance still in progress. “She went undercover with her known sources, and at present, I don’t know exactly where she and her team-”
“Find her! How dark could they be if a state trooper said what sounds like two of her men came through a roadblock carrying what our boys said were biohazards! Holland, this bullshit came right to my door! The Paranormal Containment Unit is supposed to do just that-contain the threat, not have it spill out into the city streets of New Orleans in broad daylight in car chases and gunfights! This isn’t the Wild Wild West.”
“Sir, I assure you that-”
“State police called for us to send in backup, if we could, because they think we’re about to go to war with the Mexican drug cartel on our borders. They’re about to contact the White House, do you read me?” General Westford let out a hard breath. “Local law enforcement said one of our USMC guys told them that he was under my authority to transport biohazardous weaponry through the region on some secret mission. After the roof of the bar in the French Quarter blew up and a plantation in the high-rent district burned, they remembered that and called me, Holland! They wanted to be sure no viral threat was released in the explosions and are asking if they need to evacuate the area!”
Xavier Holland cringed, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples. “Sir, we will fix this.”
“You’d better, because NOPD lost six good men in a firefight in the bayou-and from the way it sounds from what was left of them, it could have only been Werewolves involved! Tell me it wasn’t Werewolves and we can end this call right now.”
“Sir, we will have more intel and a full report when Captain Trudeau returns, but I hesitate to speculate-”
“Stop yanking my chain, Holland! Was it Werewolves or not that savaged those poor boys in the bayou?”
“We’re pretty sure it was that phylum of supernatural that attacked those innocent officers, which is why Captain Trudeau went to extreme measures to apprehend the perpetrators of-”
“Jesus H. Christ in heaven, man, I’ve got local authorities with credible witnesses saying that they saw men jump off a fucking three-story building to land in the street like ninjas-and they were with a woman. A gray-eyed woman who sounded too suspiciously close to Captain Sasha Trudeau. Then they vanished. How is that going dark? That travesty happened in broad daylight, Holland! People on public transportation saw it, a news chopper got part of it! Later they recovered a military vehicle at the burned-out Montague mansion! Rocket-propelled grenades, military-issue C-4, M-16 rounds. I want answers!”
“The mansion was owned by a leading Vampire Cartel suspect, sir.”
Dead silence met Doc Holland’s response.
“What am I gonna tell the new president when he calls?” the general said, his voice now weary and subdued. Fear made his question sound like more of a plea than a direct demand for answers. It was clear that the man was struggling for comprehension as his world turned upside down. “The Vampires have a cartel? I thought it was just one or two… like… like Dracula or something. I thought that was who was working with a couple of infected Werewolves…”
“No, sir, there are covens of Vampires… nests all over the world, just like there are federations of Werewolf clans-some friendly, some hostile. That’s what our captain went in to root out.”
“But PCU is only a handful of soldiers and some special subject matter experts.” The general’s voice had lost all its bluster and sounded like that of a bewildered child.
“Yes, sir,” Doc said, looking back at Clarissa, concerned about her worsening condition. “This is why we’re hamstrung.”
“We need more resources,” the general said quietly. “This wasn’t a few isolated incidents. With our small staff, how long will we be able to keep this from the general population? I need a full line item in the budget, to hell with bank bailouts. This is a cabinet-level conversation… We might need a new cabinet-level post, for all I know. I might really have to take this to our commander-in-chief after all, Xavier.”