Which I took as a yes, but that didn’t really help me much. From my memory, I pulled up the formal words for my next request—which was the primary reason for my visit, and the biggest reason I might not walk out of here under my own power. “The Master of the City of New Orleans,” which was Leo’s less formal title, “has dependable and confidential physicians in his employ who might assist with finding a cure. He requests . . .” I took a steadying breath. This was the most dangerous part. “. . . that you allow me to draw a sample of your blood for testing.”
Nikki stepped toward me, vamp fast. I stepped back, toward the door. Beast does not run from predators. The voice in my head reminded me that running from vamps activated the chase instinct. Not that it mattered. The opening was suddenly filled with a blood-servant—the big, bad, ugly guy who had held the door, all brawn and speed and no brains. The tension in the room shot up like a wildfire hitting a stand of dry pine.
On reflex, I ducked right, backed into the corner of the room, pulled the nine-mil and a vamp-killer, the one I’d killed the blood-slave with. I knew the vamps would smell the fresh blood, even after the thorough cleaning I’d given the blade in the ladies’ room.
Nikki-Babe followed so fast I didn’t see him move. He was so close I could smell who he’d had for dinner. I heard the distinctive click of fangs snicking down on the little hinged mechanism in the roof of his mouth. In a single heartbeat, his eyes vamped out. “Pellissier must still be caught in the dolore of grief to ask such a thing,” he said, black pupils the size of quarters spreading into bloodred sclera. “He is insane still, from the loss of his son.” No trace of white or iris remained in Nikki’s eyes, and no trace of humanity. This was going to hell in a handbasket fast.
I shoved the gun up under Nikki’s chin. “Silver shot,” I warned, on a whisper. He stilled, his eyes twisting back to Rosanne. “Look, lady,” I said to her, “I don’t want trouble. Leo just wants to help. Girrard DiMercy is back with him, and Leo is sane again.”
Ro lifted a hand. The pressure in the room died. “Girrard has returned to him?”
“Yes, and Leo thinks his private lab can find a cure to the sickness.”
She thought about that for a moment. “You know how to do this taking of blood?” I nodded. “You may.” Nikki-Babe started in with a barrage of oddly accented Italian, clearly disagreeing with her decision, but I ignored him. According to the Vampira Carta, she was in charge. I slid away from Nik, keeping him in my side vision, and stepped to the desk. Ro rolled up her sleeve. Oh, goody. I wasn’t gonna get sucked to death.
I holstered the weapons and opened the small tote, taking out the blood drawing kit. I wasn’t skilled at taking blood, but I knew how to do it. I pulled on gloves and tied the tourniquet around Rosanne’s arm. The pustules were here as well, and the smell of the sickness was gag-inducingly strong this close to her. There was a vein right in the middle of her arm, slightly plumped by the tourniquet. I cleaned the bottles and tubes, each with different-colored tops and containing different anticoagulants, with alcohol, and then the sticking site with foamy brown soap and Betadine. I pulled the cap from the needle and stuck the sharp needle under her skin. She didn’t flinch, though I wasn’t experienced with the procedure. If it had been a stake, maybe then . . .
I stifled the thought and pushed the first bottle on, then the next, then four more tubes in succession. When I was done, I popped the tourniquet. Put a square of gauze above the insertion site and removed the needle. Flipped the safety cap closed.
I met Ro’s calm eyes, and she smiled slowly, tilting her head the barest fraction. The expression on her face suggested that she had accomplished a goal, and I was reminded of the photo that arrived at Leo’s from an anonymous source. Yeah. Ro had sent the photo and had known that Leo would send help. She might have preferred an armed rescue, but she trusted Leo or she wouldn’t have allowed me to draw the blood. Vamps were sneaky. I liked that about them. I nodded back slightly to show I understood.
I held the site while I dropped the torn packages, the bottles, and tubes into a zip-lock baggie and sealed it up. I was supposed to label the tubes with name, date, and time, but that could wait. I was ready to get out of here and so was Beast. I could feel her unease padding through my mind like a lion in a cage, back and forth, back and forth.
Chilled moisture soaked my thumb and I glanced at the puncture site to see blood oozing up from beneath my grip. I grabbed more gauze, applied it, and held harder, but the blood welled faster. Vamps don’t bleed. Not like this. “Crap,” I whispered.
Nik pushed me aside and took Rosanne’s arm. And he did something I’d never seen a vamp do before. Instead of licking it clean, he wiped the puncture site, tossing the bloody gauze into the garbage. A vamp ignored blood. Didn’t lick it. And then he spat onto the wound. I almost said eeeewwww but caught myself in time. I realized he was worried she was contagious.
Vampire saliva closes wounds, causing the veins and skin to contract and constrict. It’s usually applied with a tongue laving. This was weird. Okay. This gig was making me rethink everything I thought I knew about vamps, and I had been on a steep learning curve ever since I hit New Orleans.
The tiny wound stopped bleeding. Nikki-Babe looked at me and I nodded my thanks. “I’ll be going now,” I said.
“I don’t think so,” a voice said behind me. I turned and saw a man, human—or as human as the fangheads’ dinners ever are. I knew this guy wasn’t one of Ro’s usual blood-servants; even if I hadn’t been able to smell the new master on him, he wasn’t in the dossier. He was maybe seventy years old, looked twenty-five, and was powerful—meaning that he had fed on the blood of a master for a very long time. Bald, six feet and a smidge, blue eyes, reddish beard needing a trim, casual clothes, shirt half-tucked, as if he’d dressed and gotten here in a hurry. He was a righty.
And he had a gun pointed at my chest.
CHAPTER THREE
I Started to Squeeze the Trigger
Holding his eyes, I slid the tote strap around my shoulders, shoved it back out of the way, and walked straight toward him. Keeping loose. Letting Beast bleed into my bloodstream and into my eyes. My heart rate sped as her adrenaline pumped into my body. His blue eyes widened. Beast-fast, I swerved right, forcing him to move cross-hand. And back left, into his personal space. I body-slammed him. Hard. Hooked his ankle as he shifted and shoved.
The gun went off. Wild shot. Toward the ceiling. I caught his gun hand, flipped him, and landed one knee in the middle of his spine with all my weight. Took his gun away while he tried to remember how to breathe. Banged his head on the floor so hard he had to see stars.
Fun, Beast thought. More!
The shadow over me shifted. I lifted my eyes. Nikki-Babe was standing over me, still vamped out, blocking the light. Fangs latched down, claws out, waiting. If I really tried to hurt the stranger, he’d kill me, and I didn’t know why. Ignoring the looming shadow, I leaned in and sniffed. Blue Eyes smelled of witchy-power, not his own, but something he had obtained from a powerful witch or coven—probably an amulet of some sort. The witchy stench nearly overrode the blood-signature scent of his master, but not quite. It was a vamp-scent I recognized. The undertang made me hesitate, but only for a moment. For now the amulet was more important. Whatever spell he had was underneath him, inactivated, and I had better keep it that way. I pulled his arms back and secured them with a zip strip. Then added three more strips. He was a blood-servant to someone very powerful, with a witchy charm on his person. I wasn’t taking chances.
I flipped him over, slamming his head against the marble floor. He grunted.