by Faith Hunter
I gave him an update on the security status of vamp HQ, in preparation of the gather, and finished with “We still have to go over the changes to parking area security, and we have two choices. We can let the limos drive to the front door and let off their passengers, then park on the street, or we can let them drive in back, park, and get out there and walk in. Parking on the street is safer for us and can be arranged with NOPD, but that means no privacy from the press and telescopic camera lenses. The second is way less formal and parking in the back means we could have a car bomb or other device in the backyard.”
Still moving slowly, Leo put his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers, tapping his lips with them as he thought. And I realized he was moving, not just slowly, but stiffly. I smiled, feeling my lips pull up in wicked glee. Leo was sore. Go, me.
“Can you get access to a bomb-sniffing dog?” Leo asked.
Still smiling, I narrowed my eyes and Leo inclined his head. I had suggested a bomb-sniffing dog once already and been denied. “I am sure one can be borrowed from the Federal Aviation Administration or NOPD or some other local law enforcement.”
“Excellent. Then we will direct all vehicles to the back until the lot there is full. Any latecomers drive through, let off passengers, and then park elsewhere. Security from the other clans can patrol the outlying areas, freeing Derek and his crew and my own clan security crew to patrol inside the council house. There will be no need to involve NOPD.”
Behind him and to the side, the door opened and Adelaide entered, carrying a tray with a teapot, a coffee carafe, and cups. Del, a lawyer, doing waitress service? And then I saw the marks on her neck, tiny, nearly hidden by the high collar of her shirt, but there. I took a slow breath, and over the vamp scent of Leo and the strong odors of the beverages, I smelled human blood. My hands clenched. Leo had fed from her and was now, likely, breaking her in.
I stood and took the tray from Del and set it down, and as I rose, I took her wrist, stopping her from pulling away. She stared at my hand on her arm for a long moment before meeting my gaze. “I’m fine,” she said, no emotion in her voice.
“Reading my mind?”
“No. I know you. You’re worried about me. You’re worried about Leo using me.” Her eyes were a cornflower blue in the lamplight, matching the tiny flowers in her shirt. But she didn’t look worried or afraid or sad or abused. She looked . . . shuttered. Closed. Detached. Determined. I couldn’t read anything more specific. “Leo and I have come to an agreement,” she said.
“What kind of agreement?”
She looked pointedly at my hand and I released her wrist, sitting on the edge of my chair. “He has tasted me. He knows I don’t have an agenda regarding him. He knows his home, his office, and his body are safe from me. He is satisfied. And he will not demand a sexual relationship with me.”
“What makes you so special?” I asked. Leo always demanded to sleep with his people. He considered it a vamp perk.
“I threatened to sue,” she said in the same emotionless tone. She smoothed her skirt, giving me a chance to swallow my shock and the bark of laughter, which would probably have ticked Leo off. “After some discussion, he considered it likely that I would win,” Del went on, “and that such a lawsuit would bring unwanted attention.”
Leo raised a single imperious eyebrow at us, probably for talking about him as if he were not in the room.
“Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.”
A slight smile, one that would have done Eli proud for its minimalist style, found her lips. “We are now discussing the end of his demands on his female servants and scions. He was unaware that such practices are antiquated”—she glanced at Leo and her smile widened—“and against the law.”
“Enough,” Leo said. He pointed to the other chair. “Sit.”
“Of course,” Del said. And suddenly I got it. I beat Leo on the workout floor, but it was really Adelaide Mooney who was beating him senseless. Who’da thunk it? And go, Adelaide!
“I now will accept questions,” Leo said.
I blinked in surprise. He would? “Uhhh . . . ,” I said. Great rejoinder.
Eli said, “Why did you beat your primo to a pulp? Just for starters.”
Leo held the Ranger with his eyes. “My primo has been acting contrary to my needs. He has placed another’s needs before my own.”
“And?” I asked, feeling that there had to be more to it.
“Onorios cannot be bound,” Leo said simply.
It hit me hard and fast. Bruiser had told me he was free of Leo. Bruiser had told me a lot, but I hadn’t put it all together. Onorios were rare, nearly impossible to make, and were considered free agents, as well as highly valued. They could stay with a master, but they couldn’t be forced to do or be anything. And their master had a dickens of a time reading their minds. Which meant that Leo would be looking for a new primo and a new Enforcer. And I realized that Enforcer likely meant me. “No.”
“I was not thinking of you, mon petit chaton avec les griffes, though I will have you assist in his training when he is chosen.”
“Yeah.” He’d called me that in the fight, and I had no idea what he was talking about, but I also wasn’t going to ask. “Right. Okay. My turn. Adrianna attacked my house. What do you know about that?”
Leo’s head went to the side. “Really?” He drew out the word into multiple syllables. He hadn’t known, which gave me all sorts of relief. “The enemies of my Enforcer sew dissidence in my ranks. I will deal with this.” He nodded at Adelaide. An electronic tablet appeared from a pocket as if she were some kind of prestidigitator, and she made notes.
“My friend Molly Everhart is in town and is missing,” I said. “I left you a voice mail. You didn’t answer. Do you know where she is?”
“The witch,” Leo said, sounding bored.
“Molly was taken from her hotel room by three vamps I didn’t recognize.”
“You saw these Mithrans?” He looked interested.
“No,” I said flatly. “I smelled them.”
Leo nodded. “Scent is much more difficult to distort and hide. The witch is of no concern to me unless she encroaches upon what is mine. And no. I do not know where she is.” Since Molly couldn’t do anything to Leo, that seemed to eliminate her from the MOC’s threat list, but I had hoped for a proactive approach. On to other topics while I had the MOC’s attention. “Adrianna attacked my house. And two of Katie’s girls are missing—Bliss and Rachael. They disappeared after a vamp party at Guilbeau’s, on their way to a party at Arceneau Clan Home. Did you know all that?” Leo’s head lifted, his eyes intent on me. I had a feeling I had surprised him again. “They left with two others, in a chartered black cab limo, and one was a redheaded female. Behind them, tailing them, was a personal limo, with a male in back. He had a narrow beard.” I drew it again on my jaw. “And what might be a gold earring.”
Leo’s eyes went unfocused, but I had a feeling a lot was going on behind them. “Shoffru,” he said.
“Could be, yeah. Jack Shoffru.”
Suddenly I was in Leo’s sights. It was a little like having a couple of blazing torches pointed at my eyeballs. Not comfy. “What do you know of Jack Shoffru?” he asked, his voice curious, silky with threat.
“Not much.” I filled him in on the little I knew, and ended with “He knew Lafitte. And since he hung out in New Orleans in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, you probably knew him.”
Leo’s face took on an expression of mild disdain. “We did not travel in the same social circles.”
A pirate was beneath the Pellissiers. Got it. “So far as I know, his sire and original clan are unknown.”
“Few mongrels know their sires.”
I grinned, but before I could say anything snarky back, Leo said, “Research his ships. As I remember it, Shoffru and his partner captained two of Lafitte’s fleet, the Ring Leader and the Lady’s Virtue.”
Oddly enough, something about the names of the ships were familiar, but
I couldn’t place them.
Leo nodded slowly, thinking, his face creased in concern, an expression he seldom showed to the world. “It is difficult to know how to treat with Adrianna. When I first knew her, she was a vivacious beauty.”
“When I first knew her, she had been working black magic with the Damours,” I said.
Leo didn’t flinch, nothing so human, but something crossed his face. Maybe longing, maybe remorse. He said, “I was powerless to stop them, the Damours. My uncle had signed a . . . a treaty of sorts with them, to leave them alone as long as they left him and his alone. After he found true-death, I was still bound by that contract. Until you came and freed us of it.”
I sat back. Thinking. Blinking in the light that suddenly felt too bright. “So you didn’t go after the Damours because you couldn’t—” I stopped. Leo had used me to break the treaty with the Damours and kill them for their crimes. I hadn’t been his Enforcer back then, which had given me opportunity he hadn’t had. “You sneaky bastard,” I muttered.
Leo inclined his head, a small smile easing the pain on his face. He looked, in that moment, nearly human. “I have been called that. And worse. Though I assure you, I was legitimately conceived and born.”
I waved away the comment. “Okay,” I said, knowing I’d need time to digest all the knowledge he had just given me—freely—which meant there was a hidden cost somewhere, because vamps did nothing without a price tag attached. There was a lot of info I didn’t have yet, but I decided to address this again later when I had my questions in line, and changed the subject from the past to the present. “And the girls missing? And Adrianna?”
Leo shook his head slowly, but I could tell he wasn’t happy with the conclusions he was drawing. “Adrianna is declared outlaw. None may assist her, none may shelter her. Her blood-master has agreed that she is to stand trial when she is located, and will be given to the sun should she be found guilty.”
I let that settle into me, not feeling anything. I probably should have felt something. Sorrow for her loss of undead life. Satisfaction that an enemy would be gone. Something. But I didn’t feel anything, and that bothered me. I’d have to think about that later, along with all the other things I was stuffing into the dark inside me. I went back to the problem at hand. “So, if Jackie Boy’s a Mexican MOC, why is he here, in your territory?”
Leo leaned back in his chair, his elbows on the padded leather arms, his fingers again steepled in front of his mouth. I could smell the leather as he moved, rich and earthy with tannins; I bet he paid a thousand bucks for the chair. “Shoffru is to be presented at the gather. Tomorrow night.” I sat forward. It was nice to get some specifics. “Among others, he has applied for sanctuary in New Orleans. He claims that the drug cartels have placed his clans in danger and he wishes to relocate. What would you think if a Mithran requested such a thing?”
“I’d wonder if he was relocating here so he could have a base of operations to expand a drug cartel of his own,” Eli said. “And maybe wanting access to a nearby U.S. military base. If he has delusions of grandeur.”
Leo gave an approving flutter of his fingers. “That possibility has been under consideration. Upon the basis of that argument I have requested an investigation by the human authorities—undercover, of course—into his finances, plans, and his current situation in Mexico.” Leo looked at me. “I believe that he intends to make my lands a permanent base of operations.”
Oh, crap. “You think he might challenge you,” I said.
“Of a certainty. Eventually. First, he will apply for sanctuary and offer me fealty. Should the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies not discover reasons to the contrary, I will accept. Once he is ensconced here, he will apply for blood-master of the Shoffru clan. I can hold that off for a time, but eventually I must accept. At some point thereafter he will challenge me.” Leo shrugged. “Or I can kill him now and avoid all the wretchedness.”
“Ah,” I said. I sat back too, keeping my frustration off my face by an act of will, but knowing Leo would smell it on my skin next time he took a breath.
Eli looked back and forth between us. “What?” he demanded.
Better to meet it head-on, rather than let Leo think I didn’t know. “Shoffru,” I said to Leo, “is the reason I got to beat the crap out of you tonight. Which, by the way, was immensely satisfying.”
“As well as somewhat unexpected, mon petit chaton.”
I wanted to ask what the pet names meant, but that was a game I couldn’t win. If I asked once, he might just talk French more often to get a rise out of me. I grunted instead. “Shoffru was in the audience, wasn’t he?” I accused. Leo smiled, and I said, “I figured. You coulda beaten me to a bloody pulp if you’d drawn on all the clan members, but you didn’t want him to see you doing that.”
Adelaide nearly dropped her tablet, staring at Leo. And Leo looked totally nonplussed. “What? What’d I say?”
“You can draw on the clan members who swear to you?” Adelaide asked. Leo looked away, thinking. “All of them?” she persisted.
“What?” I asked. “Can’t all MOCs?”
“Some can draw on their own clan members,” Del said. “Some can draw on the clan blood-masters sworn to them. Not too many can draw power from all the members of all the clans in a territory.” Adelaide stared a hole through Leo. “Good Lord. That’s why George became an Onorio instead of dying or turning—because he’d been sipping your blood for a century. No wonder the European Council is so interested in you. Is there a distance limit on how far you can draw? How many you can draw from at once?”
Leo pursed his lips and shot me a narrow-eyed glance. Obviously I’d spilled some beans, and he looked irritated. Flying by the seat of my pants had, just like always, put my feet into it when I landed. And this time it was vamp politics and Leo’s secret that I didn’t know was a secret. I remembered the night he’d drawn on all the gathered. Power had prickled in the air like lightning, harsh and painful, rippling across my flesh like sharp teeth. And he’d not drawn all he could. And maybe not everyone there had understood what was happening. Maybe Leo’s power was—had been—partially unknown. “Oops?” I said, by way of apology. Eli breathed out hard, a huff that sounded amused, but said nothing. “So, that night you saved my life, and punished Adrianna for attacking me, you drew only what you needed to control them,” I said. “You could have drained them into true-death.”
The MOC held up his hand like a traffic cop, stopping me. To Adelaide he said, “Decide. Now.”
“I accept.”
I had no idea what had just happened, but Leo inclined his head and pressed a button on his desk. A tinny voice said over an intercom, “Yes, Mr. Pellissier?”
“Four glasses, and a bottle of the Chapoutier Cote Rotie La Mordoree 1990, please. And see that Quesnel allows it to breathe.” From the way Adelaide’s face went soft, I gathered it was an expensive wine, but I still didn’t understand what was happening. Leo smiled at her expression. “Are you familiar with wines, my primo?”
I nearly choked. Primo?
Adelaide said, “The 1990 has a saturated dark ruby-purple color, an amazing nose with copious quantities of sweet black fruits, warm new oak, flowers, and smoky bacon fat. To the mouth it has a superb concentration of flavors, a sweet, expansive texture, like butter on the tongue, and a . . . mind-boggling”—she paused, and licked her lips as if tasting it already—“long”—she smiled, her lips lifting slowly—“finish. I tasted it when it was young. I am honored that you open a bottle now.”
“What about Bruiser?” I asked, feeling the floor shift beneath me. I had known things were changing, but, this was . . . official. Too much, too soon.
“George is no longer suitable as the primo of the master of a city,” Leo said languidly, watching Adelaide. “He has made other choices and, as Onorio, has other duties.”
Adelaide was watching Leo back, her attention totally ensnared. And willing
. And then I heard her description of the wine, as if it echoed from the tapestried walls. Crap. She was talking about a whole lot more than wine. So she would refuse his sexual attention while she was just sworn to him, one of the hoi polloi, but if she got the perks, she would add sex into the deal? Or maybe as long as it was her choice and not part of a contract, she was willing? Human women had always been confusing to me, even back in the children’s home. Del just took that confusion to new heights.
“You have other questions, my Enforcer?” Leo asked, not looking at me.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice too loud. “You knew about the witches disappearing in New Orleans, didn’t you?” I had Leo’s attention again and it wasn’t the hot and sultry look Del had been receiving. For me, his eyes were bleeding black, and his sclera were taking on a faint tinge of pink. Not that I cared. Fury for Bruiser and anger at all the freaking vamp games burned hot through my veins. I stood and leaned in to his stare. “And I bet you knew about the witches in Natchez and the way the vamps were rising as revenants—a different kind of revenant.”
I could see the truth on Leo’s face. He had known everything. He had known it all. And he had never done a single blessed thing to stop it or warn me or fix it or . . . I stepped from my chair. “And instead of warning me, you let me go to Natchez, unprepared, to deal with it.” A possible conclusion settled around my brain like a tourniquet. A headache started over my eyes and Beast hissed deep inside. Now I had the whole picture. “You were trying to find a way to keep from taking the problem to the European Council. You and your uncle before you were trying to keep the Council out of this situation and out of your territory for two hundred years. And to accomplish that, you signed and kept a contract with the Damours, let witches die by the dozens for centuries, and let Naturaleza in Atlanta and later in Natchez put witches into a circle and drain them slowly dry. You let them run a slave breeding ground in Chattanooga. You knew all about it. Everything.
“And”—I closed my eyes, letting the final picture come into focus—“you brought Adrianna back to life after I staked her because you thought she might know things you wanted to know. You kept her alive even though she was a ticking time bomb because she did know things.” I opened my eyes and met Leo’s. “And you let all that happen because you knew there were magical artifacts on these shores and you wanted them.”