Silent, working out the kinks, he walked around the room, bare feet solid, body as balanced as a walking tree, looking Eli and me over, considering.
I grinned at my partner and said, “Yeah, but I’m still holding back. A lot.”
“You are not holding back,” Daniel said, disbelief etching his face. “Seriously? Still?”
“Bro, she is absolutely still holding back.” Eli bent his injured knees, testing for damage that might need more than ice, elevation, anti-inflammatory meds, and time to heal. “When she really lets go, it’s nothing like human speed or human strength. She’d twist your lil’ bobblehead right off that skinny neck.”
I managed to keep the discomfort off my face. I still wasn’t used to part of the world knowing that I was a supernat, and was even less accustomed to hearing it spoken of like it was no big deal. It had been my secret for so long that it still felt like a big deal. But Eli was right. If I let go with Beast-strength and -speed, I could do some damage. Once he knew I’d been holding back, my training and sparring sessions with Daniel had changed. Now he pushed the normal human boundaries, trying to see what my limits were. There were two problems with that: I didn’t really know what my boundaries were, especially with the newfound ability to fold or bubble time, and my limits seemed to be changing now that my Beast and I had soul-bonded.
Daniel tossed a dry towel to Eli and the two guys dried off, still trash-talking.
I ignored them and pushed off the floor to my feet, seeing my reflection in the long wall mirror. I was moving a little differently now, smoother, more catlike, limbs and joints and muscles rolling and balanced and effortless. It was freaky. In the last month or so, my eyes had started to glow more often as Beast stared out at the world through my vision. Again, freaky. I still had my long black hair, currently braided close to my head, and the copper skin of my tribe—Chelokay, or Tsalagi, the Cherokee. Also known as The People.
I caught a towel tossed my way and wiped down. Showers would have to wait until we got back to the house. The dojo wasn’t set up for lockers and shower stalls.
Outside, the fountain tinkled in the enclosed courtyard. A cat made a mrowr sound, probably telling Daniel that it was suppertime. Cats could be demanding that way. I know. My Beast is a mountain lion and she’s big on being fed, though she prefers her food freshly caught and slaughtered by her killing teeth.
From the pile of gear on the floor, I heard both of our phones singing to us—both playing “Hit Me with Your Best Shot,” by Pat Benatar. It was the ringtone for Alex, the other Younger brother, and the tech partner of Yellowrock Securities. If he was ringing both lines, this couldn’t be good.
I bent and caught up both cells, underhand throwing Eli’s to him and opening the Kevlar cover to mine. Eli said, “Go ahead.”
“Get to suckhead HQ. Something’s going down.”
Eli and I grabbed up our gobags and trotted from the dojo, into the alley, moving fast. I gave a single wave to Daniel as the door shut behind me. I had a glimpse of Sensei, still standing against the wall, fists on his hips, looking better than Eli’s opponents usually did. I knew he wanted to go with us—he had been hinting it—but dealing with vamps took practice and a lot of emotional and verbal restraint. I wasn’t sure how restrained Daniel would be if a male vamp came on to him for dinner and a date. Vamps were a lot less reticent about sexual matters than most humans, and Daniel gave out strong, uncompromising hetero signals, a challenge to any vamp. Eli had quickly learned to fob them off with a laugh and a polite refusal, but Daniel struck me as the belt-him-first-and-stalk-away-mad-second kind. Which could get him dead, fast.
“You’re on speaker,” Eli said to Alex as the dojo door closed. “It’s too early to be a vamp problem. An attacker would fry.” I closed my cell and listened.
“Nothing on the outside cameras. It’s inside. At the ballroom.”
Vamps could maneuver inside most of vamp central, the windows being long and narrow and newly covered by electric shutters. I took a breath to speak and got a lungful of alley stink that was enough to bowl over an elephant. It smelled of urine—some of it not from cats—and all of it baking in the summer heat and humidity. I said, “Gimme details, because I’m not heading back to vamp HQ to settle a love spat or to get in the middle of a long-standing feud between vamp factions.” There were too many vamps in the relatively small space, and there had been more than a few violent incidents. Vamp-on-vamp action was outside my job requirements as long as no humans got caught in the cross fire.
“Got nothing that makes sense,” Alex said. “Still pulling up camera footage. But it’s bloody and it’s bigger than the usual fanghead altercation.”
Still moving at speed, we emerged from the alley, clanged the gate shut, and made it to the SUV, with Eli beeping the vehicle open. The trapped heat exploded out. We opened all the doors to let it air, which gave us time to take in the scenery. Traffic clogged the streets in the French Quarter so badly that we might not be able to get out of the parking spot unless someone was looking for one and let us out so they could get in. It was bumper-to-bumper gridlock. I’d be glad when my Harley was repaired and I could again weave through the New Orleans traffic. “We’re gonna hafta hoof it to HQ, Alex,” Eli said, “but we’re not going in wearing street clothes. We’ll change here. Give us details as they firm.”
“Copy. Better you than me in this heat, dude.”
Eli got behind the wheel and synced up our cells to the vehicle. I took the backseat and started gearing up—leathers, weapons, boots. Not easy in the backseat of an overheated SUV with windows tinted vamp-black, even one as roomy as the brand-spanking-new one Leo had provided for my use. Eli turned on the cab lights and the AC, but it would take forever to cool off. I shook out a handful of baby powder and tossed the container to Eli, both of us liberally powdering down the sweat and sliding the leathers over our limbs as Alex began to give us the particulars.
“Looks like it started in the sub-four basement about three minutes ago. Two fangheads fighting over a human woman. She’s hurt. Del sent down reinforcements, but they got caught up in it and now it’s a brawl.”
Eli spat a curse under his breath, sliding on his new, high-tech combat boots and yanking on the laces. He had a point. Injured humans meant we had no choice but to intervene.
“It’s getting nasty. Sending you vid now.”
On the SUV video screen, we had a clear view of a sub-four hallway and about ten vamps. It was a bloody mess, not abnormal for vamps fighting, but weird to be happening before dusk, when most older vamps were sleepy or sleeping, and the young ones were out cold, often unable to be roused.
“That looks wrong,” I said of the fight. “But I’m not sure why.” I checked the loads of my weapons and slid them into the oversized gobag. We were licensed to carry in Louisiana, but no one wanted to get detained if a hot, sweaty cop, stuck in traffic, saw us jog by.
“Yeah. They look . . . stumble-y. Like Night of the Living Dead but faster,” Eli said.
“That’s it. Vamps are graceful, and these are klutzes. I’m ready,” I said, strapping on my thigh rig.
The SUV’s engine went silent and we slid from the dark interior into the humidity. It was like being hit in the face with a soaking-wet, wrecking-ball-sized sponge. Eli beeped the SUV locked, and we reactivated our cells and started down the sidewalk, moving fast.
Holy crap. We had to jog in this heat?
As if reading my mind, Eli called back, “It’ll put hair on your chest.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Inside me, Beast chuffed and sent an image of my half-Beast shape, covered in Beast pelt. I didn’t have the breath to reply, not in this heat, and just kept jogging, the late-day summer sun like a steam torch on my exposed skin. I followed Eli down back alleys and, once, through a T-shirt and tourist-kitsch business, out the back, through the courtyard, into the back door of a restaurant, and out the front onto the street on the other side. No one stopped us, but I’d bet we’d en
d up on someone’s YouTube channel somewhere.
To Alex, I said, “I know Del is in charge, but notify Bruiser that something’s transpiring at HQ. Just in case.”
“Copy,” Alex said, his voice toneless enough to make my skin itch.
Bruiser was my . . . something. Boyfriend was too high school, lover was too sex-specific, significant other seemed more long-term and stable than what we might be starting to have. So my something was the best I could do. But he was also the former primo of the Master of the City of New Orleans, and Del, while capable, might need some backup. Informing him was not the same thing as calling for Bruiser’s help like said high schooler. Or at least I didn’t think it was. Having a “my something” wasn’t exactly common for me.
We rounded the corner, approaching vamp central from an oblique angle, not one I took often. I needed to walk the area more. Next winter maybe. During a hard, cold rain.
The high brick fence that surrounded HQ was topped with coils of razor wire, and the heavy iron gate—replaced after it was damaged, not so long ago—looked fine, the central, circular drive empty of cars. Peaceful. Calm. But when I pulled on my Beast-hearing, I heard muted screams and the sound of gunfire. I sped up, moving from a jog to a sprint. “Gunfire,” I reported.
“Roger that,” Eli said, sounding calm, his breathing steady as he increased his speed to match mine. The former active-duty Ranger always sounded calm, though, so that wasn’t such a big deal. “Alex?” he said. “Update.”
“They broke the camera. Sorry, bro. Working now to integrate your new headsets into the system. Get ready to switch out.”
“That might be the intent of the weird-looking fight,” I said. “Taking us off-line and out of the intel so someone can do something they shouldn’t.”
“‘Something they shouldn’t’ covers a lot of possibilities,” Eli said.
“Is everything localized on sub-four?” I asked.
“Negative,” Alex said. “As of right now, per the cameras, it’s subsiding at the ballroom but spreading to sub-three and farther into sub-four.”
“Crap on crackers,” I said. But at least the violence wasn’t on sub-five.
Chained in the lowest basement at vamp headquarters was one of the Sons of Darkness, one of the oldest vamps on earth, one of the founding fathers, as it was. His existence there had been a secret. Not so much now. Joses Bar-Judas was trouble of the worst vamp kind—a nearly immortal blood-drinker, but this one had the powers of a superhero and the morals of Torquemada and his merry band of torturers. If Joses ever got his sanity back and his body rehabbed, he’d be capable of doing anything a vamp could do but better and faster, and he would also be able to do witch magic—no telling what kind of witch magic, but I was betting on powerful and bloody.
During the decades that his presence as a prisoner was secret, Joses had been a useful captive for Clan Pellissier, his blood giving the Master of the City, Leo Pellissier, and his cronies special power and abilities. But with his status known, he made a formidable, dangerous pawn on the chessboard of vamp politics, especially with the European vamps wanting his return. And if Joses ever truly recovered, he’d be a deadly, psycho enemy. If this fight had been about him—somebody wanting to kidnap him or kill him or drink his potent blood—we would have been in trouble. The Son of Darkness was a power I had no way to gauge, evaluate, or fight against.
We rounded the corner and raced out of the blaring sun and under the porte cochere. Baby powder, the stink of our sweat, and the smell of vamp blood filled my nostrils. “Coms system is a go,” Alex said.
Eli and I secured our official cells, slipped on the high-tech ear-protector headsets. They had been created for variable noise reduction during tactical ops, where situational awareness and interunit communication were equally important. In combat, soldiers wore helmets. We hadn’t gotten that far along in personal protection yet. The new headsets had only recently replaced the earbuds we used to use and were tied into the coms system at vamp HQ and to Alex, so we could hear what we needed to hear and yet be protected from the worst of the ear damage of weapons fire. Over the new headset, I heard Derek Lee, Leo’s other Enforcer, say, “. . . standard ammo. Continue to take the vampires down. Three-burst, midcenter shots. They’ll heal. Do not—repeat, do not—target humans. If humans are involved, use any of the nonlethal compliance methods at your disposal. Repeat, nonlethal measures for humans.”
“We’re in,” I said to Alex, who was still back at the house. Then, to the security people at HQ, I said, “This is Jane Yellowrock, We’re under the porte cochere. Protocol Cowbird.”
“Legs,” Derek replied. “Protocol Cowbird affirmed.”
Cowbirds left their eggs in other birds’ nests instead of building ones of their own. The protocol named after them had been designed not for fighting off vamps from outside, but for dealing with problems already on the inside, for instance, like a nestling that wanted to take over from the rightful owners. “Update us.”
“We’ve got fighting in the subbasements,” Derek said. “Hostilities are under control at ballroom and on sub-three, but sub-four is still hostile. Elevator is stopped on top floor, on override, at my order. But conflict has spread through basement stairs. I have men there, but they’re cut off from reinforcements. And this fight’s not according to previous methodology. They’re not moving at vamp speed.”
“Copy.” That was what I’d noted on the cameras earlier, the stumbling, zombie-dance motions, still faster than human, but not the smooth, gliding, faster-than-sight speed vamps can use. Not normal.
There was no one at the back entrance, and Eli stepped out, motioning me to trail him and take the left wall. He’d take the right. I nodded. He moved ahead, pressed his palm over the biometric reader, and dashed into the cool dark of the windowless, air-conditioned entrance. I followed. The doors whooshed shut behind us and I took cover behind the half wall I’d had built there for just this purpose; I blinked, waiting for my eyes to adjust. As soon as I could, I did a quick look-see and popped back behind the wall.
With the exception of Eli, standing behind a decorative fluted column, the back entrance was empty of people. The white marble flooring, with its new black and gray marble fleur-de-lis inlay, and the pristine white walls were empty of blood-and-gore spatter. Art from some of New Orleans’ best painters over the last three centuries hung on the walls, hiding things Eli and I might need someday, in handy-dandy caches built into the walls. The stairs to the ballroom were just ahead, the door open and a light angling in. I raced from behind the wall to an angle where I could see up and down at the stairs landing.
“Not moving at vamp speed? Possible compulsion?” Eli asked, taking us back to the important parts.
Multiple three-bursts from automatic weapons fire erupted over the coms system. Over it all and up the elevator shaft also echoed the piercing wails of vamps dying, high-pitched and eardrum piercing. Eli ripped off his earpieces and left the headset hanging.
I yanked mine away and then stuck it back to hear Derek say, “Best guess. Things have been dicey ever since Adrianna got here.”
Despite the heat, I was suddenly cold all over and swore silently to myself. “Adrianna? How many times do I have to kill her?” Adrianna had been on the losing side in multiple attempts to take over the position of Master of the City of New Orleans, and I’d staked her more than once in retribution. She was gorgeous, violent, and even more wacko than most vamps. I’d been paid for her head not so long ago, but for reasons that had never made sense, Leo had, once again, refused to kill Adrianna true-dead. “When did she get here?” I pulled a vamp-killer and a silver stake. No more Mr. Nice Guy. This time when I saw her, her head was gonna roll.
“Last night about eleven. Leo welcomed her and put her on sub-four in a room that used to belong to her and her scions.”
“Stairs from sub-three opening into the closet? Lock on the outside? Everything falling off the walls? Everything rotten?” I asked.
“St
airs and lock, yes. Same room, but redecorated.”
“So he knew she was coming,” I spat. “He’s known for a while.”
“Best guess.” Derek didn’t sound happy about it. “I shoulda called,” he added, a familiar ring of self-blame in his words, “I get that. But it looked like the usual vamp crazy shit.”
“Language,” Alex muttered, his voice tight as he monitored coms.
“Company,” Eli said, his voice calm, cold, and uncompromising. His combat voice. He nodded to the elevator shaft.
“Fighting’s supposed to be contained in the ballroom,” I said.
“Yeah,” Eli said, adjusting his weapons. “Funny how things change.”
But the elevator wasn’t moving, hadn’t arrived. The doors opened slowly, an unbalanced, uneven motion, the way they’d move if hands forced them open instead of the electronics. Rather than the beautifully decorated, ice white and cream-of-tartar–toned elevator, we saw an empty shaft, black, dank, and dark.
From the shaft came the stink of vamp and human blood and the recorded strains of Chris LeDoux singing “This Cowboy’s Hat.” It was an odd combo. “Blood,” I whispered, as air from the lower floors reached me. “Human and vamp. And . . . holy crap.”
Something in my voice alerted Eli, because he switched weapons faster than I could follow and pulled up his small subgun loaded with silver ammo. A black form rose in the open shaft. Eli started firing, to heck with three-burst rounds. He shot in bursts of what sounded like ten rounds each before a short pause and a second burst. Eli emptied one mega-mag and slammed a fresh one home.
In the full second and a half that it took Eli to remove and replace the magazine, the form slithered/slid/floated/flew out of the shaft. So fast it looked feathery. Beast rammed into the front of my brain. As black as the unlit chute, as dark as a minion of hell, the thing crawled across the floor on all fours, moving like a centipede, feathery, fast, as graceful as an insect or a bird or . . . a lizard. That was it. Whipping and undulating like a hybrid of an insect and a lizard, its head and neck and limbs working together and yet totally separate to propel it forward.