“Things did not go well,” he said. The MOC was prescient. Maybe he read tea leaves. Or blood stains in the bottom of his glass. Or maybe he had access to the security system here at Shaddock Central. He had access to the cameras in all his Louisiana vamps’ clan homes, so why not here as well?
“No. They didn’t.” I considered Leo. Yeah. The MOC may not know much about computers, but Leo’s wealth could buy all the knowledge and expertise he wanted. Smart money said he had access to everything. “They had a sane vamp in captivity, a Naturaleza. He got free.”
Leo breathed a string of French curse words into the cell, then broke off right in the middle, and laughed. It was one of those silky laughs they do when they have you over a barrel, a gotcha laugh that made my skin want to crawl into a hole and curl protectively around itself. “It is my understanding,” he said, “that you are my Enforcer.” He capitalized the term, saying it the way he did Rogue Hunter, making it a title.
Titles and Leo’s delight meant that I was in trouble. If I said no, then I had lied to the vamps. If I said yes, then I was agreeing to a relationship with him. Which meant that I had to drink from him. And to Leo, drinking and sex went hand in hand. Or fang in vein. Leo had tried to kill me enough times while he was seriously whacko for me to avoid that like the plague. Crap. A dozen possible responses flashed through my mind. I settled on, “Not . . . officially.”
“Not . . . officially,” he repeated, as if tasting the words. “This is correct. I would advise you to choose your words with more care in future, when you claim to be something you are not.” I took a breath. I had dodged a bullet. “Yet,” he added. Ooookay. Maybe not so much dodged as still in the laser sights, but the trigger hadn’t been squeezed. “For now, I confer upon you the temporary entitlement to pursue and dispatch this Mithran who holds the Vampira Carta in such disregard. Allow me to speak with the sheriff.”
Yep. Ol’ Leo had access to the security cams. “How much?” I asked.
“Pardon?” he said, going all Frenchy on me. Leo knew what I was asking. When I didn’t reply, he sighed into the cell, and said, “I will meet your usual terms, plus twenty percent, as this Mithran is no young-rogue, and will be more difficult than others to dispatch.”
I thought about that for a long moment and nodded, though he couldn’t see it. Except in the cameras. I looked up at one and said, “Thirty. And you pay for any and all research and hazard pay for any backup, assuming I need them.”
Leo laughed, a low caress of sound that brought a flush of heat to my face even from hundreds of miles away. “Your terms are acceptable, my Enforcer.” The endearment flowed over me like a caress. Vamps, the really old ones, can do that—affect the pleasure centers of the brains with just their voices. Dang it. “Compel Pickersgill to heal your leg,” he added.
Yep. Leo was in Shaddock’s system. “I’ll make sure I’m healed,” I said, skirting an honest acknowledgment. I needed to shift to fix my knee. No vamp was gonna get his tongue on me if could help it. The mention of my leg brought the pain in it hammering to the surface.
I called Grizzard over and handed him my cell. I was just about to be assigned carte blanche to execute a thinking killing machine, and the local law was being told to stand down and let me do my job, all under the auspices of a clause under the Vampira Carta that was tenuous at best and down right illegal at worst. My only other choice was to let him go on a killing spree and allow the sheriff’s men to try and take him down. Between a rock and a hard place. Again. Go me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
You Are Dead Meat
Working the accelerator and brake with my left leg, I sped down 70 into a low-hanging fog, a bag of ice strapped on my knee with a length of flex. Using the speakerphone, I made calls as I negotiated the curves, the first to Reach. Fortunately Leo was paying for his services. “Jane Yellowrock,” he answered, “my most interesting client. What can I charge you for today?”
“This goes on Pellissier’s tab.”
“My favorite words,” he said. The tab had just gone up by a huge percentage. Reach would work for anyone, but his prices were on a sliding scale and vamps had to pay more. I could hear keys clicking in the background. “Work order name?”
“Thomas Stevenson, formerly—”
“Lincoln Shaddock’s primo, turned just after 9-11, and still chained.”
“Not anymore. Sane, psycho, and free.”
“Sounds like a fun search. And because he’s crazy and hungry, you need it fast. More money for me. You need all pre-turn financial records including tax info, banking both on and offshore and in numbered accounts, real properties in his name, and a quick run through of friends, family, and acquaintances. Probably need a list of any properties they own as well.”
“Good. And while you’re clacking around in virtual space, see what you can find on a history of Evangelina Everhart. I want deep background. If she potty trained early or wrote a poem in third grade, I want to see it.”
“I have the financials on the witch collated, and am sending them over now. Anything else?”
Dollar signs were dancing a tango in my hindbrain. This was gonna cost Leo a fortune. The fog thinned and I gunned the engine, only to hit a thicker patch that forced me to brake hard. “Probably. If so I’ll call. Send the records to my e-mail. Anything hinky, call.”
“Will do.”
The call ended and I slowed again as the white closed in around the SUV like a blanket. I dialed Derek twice before the call went through, the atmospheric conditions ripe for interference. On my third try he said, “Go ahead.”
Short and sweet. That’s Derek. And if his attitude was anything to go by, I’d either be finding new help or taking our problems to the boxing ring. Maybe literally. “I’ll be away a while. You’re in charge of Grégoire.”
“Fine.” He hung up with a resounding click, hard to do on a cell.
Rain splattered against the windshield. I needed both hands on the wheel, which meant I needed hands-free calling. Next on my wish list from Leo. More urgent, I needed to get to Evangelina’s, and see if Shaddock was there. And I needed to help Big Evan find a way to wake Molly up from Evangelina’s spell, if he’d let me. And then I had to find a way to . . . Crap. Again, I was flying by the seat of my pants and had no idea how I was gonna accomplish the job and still keep my friends safe.
The phone rang and it was Molly’s number. Again. I punched the call button and heard crying. Angelina. The guilt and worry I had been shoving away rolled over me like a tsunami. It’s the middle of the night. What is she doing up, using her mother’s cell? “Hey, Angie Baby.”
“Aunt Jane, you need to come see me. Now. Mommy and Daddy won’t wake up. Come now. Come now!”
My heart did a cartwheel that left me breathless. “I’m on my way.” I switched to my right leg, pressed the accelerator to the floor and fishtailed around a curve. The road disappeared as the headlights illuminated only fog in a roiling wave. I compensated and braked, depending on the antilock breaking system, before easing the accelerator down. “I’ll be there in less than a hour. Can you let the wards down?”