Vampiras in the abstract were one thing. Becoming a vampira herself—could she do it? Her family wouldn’t be pleased but the only one she really had left was Cousin Mac, the overprotective dude who spent all his time chasing bad guys for the Army.
Okay, the odds of survival were horrific. Worse, she’d have to live in a brutal world where law and justice often depended on one man’s whims.
Her mouth worked, shoving away the foul taste.
But her brain kept dragging the idea back to her.
She’d keep Ethan forever if she became a vampira. Ethan, the only man who’d ever understood her. Ethan, who’d been her lover off and on for fifteen years. What more could a woman want?
To live in light, not darkness, where she’d still be a Texas Ranger.
NEW ORLEANS, AUGUST 6
Twan knocked twice, paused, and knocked once more, still surprised at the rendezvous choice. He’d walked in for the last half mile, of course, knowing there’d be no safe parking close by and with his nerves jangling worse than during any stakeout. But he was dressed like a gangsta, in an oversized Saints jersey and baggy jeans used to hide weapons. He carried himself like one, too, flaunting the cockiness he’d once envied. Nobody had bothered him or given him more than the usual wary looks, simply accepted him as belonging to these brutal streets.
He’d always known a Livingston Brothers warehouse lurked behind these boarded-up storefronts, sheltered by their famous layers of security. But they were an old family, who’d been making money here since before the Stars and Stripes first rose over the Crescent City. He’d never thought they’d risk everything by getting involved in something like this.
The tiny side door opened and a brief ray of light flashed over the ancient cars and motorcycles squeezed into the narrow street. Robuchon poked his head out, glanced around, then nodded and stepped back.
Twan followed, catching and closing the battered door. It swung easily and silently, betraying a steel core under its painted exterior. He eased his duffel higher onto his shoulder, finally able to carry it more blatantly. The strap snagged his jersey, displaying what he wore underneath.
“Good, you’re dressed,” Robuchon grunted, leading the way through a jumbled warehouse of dimly lit Mardi Gras props, where oversized papier mâché heads jostled for space with gilded spears and small tractors.
“You’re not,” the taller man pointed out. It had been years since he’d worn body armor for any reason other than to prove he could still fit into it. With luck, this set could still do the job, despite being out of warranty and ripe for collapsing at a bullet’s approach. At least his night vision goggles were new, courtesy of a salesman so unfamiliar with New Orleans that he thought a deputy chief could authorize new equipment if he liked the item well enough.
He peeled the football jersey over his head and worked to replace it with an NOPD jacket from his duffel. He’d wear his own team’s colors to meet whomever was waiting.
“Doc said he’d only okay it if I passed the treadmill test.” The bureaucrat squeezed between an immense green alligator’s jaws and a princess’s purple skirt, his skin briefly gleaming like a ghost’s. “So I’m handling comms.”
Ouch. “Good to know that’ll work smoothly for once.”
Robuchon spun around, his eyes blazing with rage above his crisp shirt and tie. “Crush the bastards for me. After what they did to my daughter—” His voice broke, his fists opening and closing. The single lightbulb’s harsh glare carved brutal lines into his face.
“Your daughter? I didn’t know you had one.” Shit.
“Not many people still remember.” He gave a joyless bark. “She was dragged into Bacchus’s Temple thirty years ago but the scum denied ever seeing her.”
“I’m sorry, man.” The same stark light roughened Twan’s matt brown hand when he gently touched Robuchon’s shoulder.
“Fished her body out of the Gulf a month later, looking like an ME class poster on difficult victim identification.” He stopped, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
How many stories had he heard like this over the decades? Didn’t make it any easier now and it sure hadn’t helped improve his nightmares about what happened to Jamaal.
“Tonight we’re taking back our city, dude. I promise you we’re going to start seeing some justice around here.”
Their eyes met in the single bulb’s harsh glare, under a gigantic Roman centurion’s sword. They clasped hands, one light, one dark, locking their fists until they were linked forearm to forearm. Icy fire leapt between them, the pledge stronger for being wordless.
“You out there, Eldridge?” Passard called.
“Betcha!”
Twan separated from Robuchon, tapping their fists together to seal the vow, and stepped into the next room. It was much more brightly lit, filled with vehicles, from bicycles and scooters, to tractors and pickups. Three walls were covered with equipment racks and an occasional boarded-up door. But a massive, rolling steel door occupied the fourth—and a half dozen hulking, black trucks were parked in front of it with a glorious logo on their sides. Dozens of men and women were gathered around, all heavily armed.
For the first time in far too long, all traces of a migraine disappeared from Twan’s life.
The FBI’s Tactical Support Branch had come to help his town. Thank you, Jesus.
“Evening, Passard.” He tried to make it sound as if working with the FBI was no big deal.
“Eldridge, this is Brian Roberts, who’ll be leading the FBI tonight.”
“Pleasure,” Roberts said, a hawk-faced man with a five o’clock shadow and a piercing stare. “Thanks for that heads-up you sent us a few weeks back on those human traffickers. It really panned out.”
Twan nodded and shook hands, keeping his expression noncommittal. He had a CI he’d only met once but whose information was always golden. For the past few years, he’d made a habit of sending the tips onto the Feds rather than watching them disappear forever down Chief Broussard’s corrupt gullet.
Roberts beckoned another man forward, a tall blond with a horseman’s easy stride. “Templeton, here, is a Texas deputy sheriff, who’s dealt with Madame Celeste before.”
Eldridge shook hands, paying more careful attention this time. Anybody who’d tangled with that voudun and survived deserved respect. Cold hazel eyes—well, that figured. No fool was going to escape her clutches. But his tactical vest? He was wearing that superexpensive, flexible body armor which cost as much as Twan’s nephew’s motorcycle had. If he was an everyday deputy sheriff, Twan would start drinking tea out of those sissy little decorated cups and saucers.
Templeton nodded to him, his mouth twitching. “And this here’s Hennessy,” he drawled, all sweet reasonableness, “who’s a fair hand with a shotgun.”
Fair hand? Probably meant better than expert.
Twan cast an assessing eye over the equally well-dressed dude beside Templeton. His black hair was a little longer than fashionable, enough that he’d put it into a tight clip at his nape. But his eyes were gray, like silver shards of light in a hawk’s face. Not the type to relax too easily around, although the ladies probably swooned over him.
“Listen up, fellows,” Roberts said from in front of his truck, his voice effortlessly carrying across the room. “We just got our search warrant from the judge. There are a lot of RICO charges, as we expected, but we also got the murder charges.”
Hot damn, he’d never thought any judge in this state would go that far out on a limb against Madame Celeste. Racketeering—well, that was a criminal case. But murder? The evidence must be even better than he’d hoped.
“We figure we’ve got no more than an hour before Madame Celeste’s crew learns the warrant’s been issued. I’ll do the knock-and-announce, as the team leader,” Roberts went on.
Of course. His warrant, his team.
Twan waited politely for the rest of the speech, so they could board the fucking trucks and get on the road. Good thing he spent so much time worki
ng out to vent his frustrations and ward off the damn migraines. At least he wouldn’t be bringing up the rear behind these buff young agents tonight.
“Eldridge, your folks will turn out the lights inside the casino at our signal.”
“Yo.” Big Sis was watching for their arrival and would signal their father, a master electrician who’d worked for the city for decades. The Old Man would throw the switch, cutting the power to the sub-grid containing Bacchus’s Temple, something he’d been dying to do ever since it had hijacked that brand-new power plant planned for a hospital.
“And, Eldridge?”
He cocked an eyebrow.
“This is your town. Want to fire the breaching charges and blow the door open?”
Twan’s heart stuttered against his ribs. A New Orleans cop was being given the chance to open the gates on the biggest corruption case during the past century—and a black cop at that?
“I can’t think of a damn thing I’d rather be doing, sir.”
“After that, Templeton and his men will be the first ones to enter.”
Only a half dozen men in the lead to take the brunt? That’d be a bitch and everyone else would have to hustle to be effective backup.
“We’re heading for the watch center in the rear of the building, on the fifth floor.” Roberts’ finger drew a circle.
Where the bitch ran the entire town, and the state, and the whole fucking Southeast, like a goddamn puppet master. Not caring who or what she killed, even if it was only a little boy who’d gotten in her way.
A muscle jerked in Twan’s cheek.
“Once we get up there, Eldridge will take the horn and start soothing ruffled feathers, especially his fellow NOPD cops. We’ve got to keep him safe. Everybody got that?”
There was a murmur of agreement. Crap, now he’d have babysitters watching his ass.
Roberts tapped a big but remarkably simple diagram pinned to the wall.
“The watch center is in the old warehouse, separated from the casino proper by bank vault doors on every level. Two flights of stairs—one team for each flight. The sudden power failure should be automatically interpreted as a burglary of the casino, causing all the doors to close.”
Twan’s old man had been mulling his revenge over for years, even figured out how to sabotage the cutover switch which was supposed to automatically trigger the backup power generator in Bacchus’s Temple whenever they lost city power. Just to make sure their UPS would provide enough power to close the doors and latch them shut, after the casino lost power and the backup generator failed.
He’d pulled that off a couple of days ago, calling it routine maintenance, same as he’d looked after them for years. Hell, he’d even gone into the fucking casino and bought beers for the electricians there!
He’d nearly scared the shit out of his two oldest kids. Twan still couldn’t believe he and Big Sis had let their dad go through with it.
The result should keep one set of bad guys in the casino and another, smaller set of bad guys in their dormitory. Totally separate from each other.
Messing with them could be fun.
“However, the guards’ dormitory is outside the casino in this area and we expect to encounter at least three dozen hostiles. We’ll let those locked up in the casino stew until we have the time and leisure to take them out slowly.”
Roberts was sounding happier and happier the longer this went on. Was that how a fellow got through the FBI’s tactical training? Jesus.
“We have one advantage: There’s been a big fire at Rosemeade Plantation, Madame Celeste’s country estate. Given the house’s great age and distance from a fire department—”
Arrogant witch probably terrorized every hamlet for miles around the place, stomping anything which might support a fire department.
“It’s burning very rapidly and is expected to be a complete loss. We anticipate Bacchus’s Temple won’t receive many reinforcements from there.”
Templeton was smiling. Not openly and not nicely. How much did he know? Maybe they’d have an easier time blasting their way into Bacchus’s Temple than they’d hoped. God willing.
“We believe the main armory is in the casino itself, near the vault.” Roberts drummed on the map.
Good location.
“However, another one is probably near the watch center. Try to move fast before they can resupply.”
Yeah, like that’ll be a cake walk. Twan exchanged disgusted glances with Passard.
“Since the casino is closed to the public between two a.m. and five a.m., we’re not expecting any civilians to be present.”
Most casinos stayed open twenty-four hours a day. Bacchus’s Temple allowed the privileged few to remain that long, if they were already within a private suite. But nobody except its own staff was allowed to move around during that three-hour window. Word on the street said they needed the time to clean up the worst forms of debris, such as orgies and murders.
Twan had never had any reason to doubt that bit of gossip.
“Therefore, if you receive fire, you are free to return it. However, if fighting spills out onto the public streets, Marines will come ashore from that amphibious assault ship currently paying us a shore visit.”
What the hell? Twan glared at the obnoxiously calm son of a bitch. Federal troops on his streets?
“They will form a cordon around the Treaty Museum, which is federal property.” Roberts looked significantly at Twan. “Plus its approaches, including Bacchus’s Temple.”
Bringing in ’bout the only folks with enough firepower to save civilian lives and keep that voudun fenced in. But, crap, this stuck in his craw! He forced himself not to shout. “Governor agreed to this?”
“Yes, she did. The Marines can’t come inside Bacchus’s Temple but they will only allow law enforcement personnel to exit.”
“Sounds okay.” Just pray it don’t happen.
“These instructions have been cleared all the way to the top. Questions?”
Place could become a bloodbath, if they got this wrong. Twan bit his full bottom lip and said nothing else.
“Very well, let’s load up and move out. Eldridge, you’ll ride with Templeton and me. Passard, you’re with the other team.”
“You get those sons of bitches.” Robuchon’s harsh whisper trailed Twan toward the trucks. “No matter what it takes.”
Twan nodded shortly. Tonight he was going to start reclaiming his turf.
“Your gun, sir.” A fresh-faced kid of about thirty handed him a Remington. “We’ll give you a fresh one, with an autoloader already mounted, just as soon as you fire.”
“Thanks.” This one fitted into his hands sweetly, just like his old piece had. Perfect.
“Sweet scattergun.” Templeton grinned at him, holding the truck’s door.
“The best.” He stepped inside and found a seat beside Hennessy. His pulse was steadier now than when he’d walked to his desk that morning.
The ride was short, his prayer inside the truck heartfelt and brief. He rubbed his gold detective’s badge with his thumb, making sure the star and crescent would stand out. Those dawgs were going to know it was New Orleans police who hit them.
The truck turned onto Canal Street, immediately identifiable by the smoother pavement and faster pace. A few minutes later, it turned again, sweeping through a one-eighty, and stopped. A fist pounded from the cab and they tumbled out to form up. The other truck pulled up on the casino’s other side, its team just visible by that entrance.
Bacchus’s Temple loomed over them from above the cobblestones, four stories of purple and gold monstrosity, edged by streetlamps. The back showed the original bricks’ outlines, especially where windows had been filled in. A narrow porch stood just above the street, sheltering heavy brass double doors used for bank deliveries, supposedly a re-creation of something from ancient Rome.
Twan tried not to think about the multitude of surveillance cameras rotating regularly back and forth. But why no outside guards? Had
the fire at Rosemeade confused their leadership that much? Who gave a damn, if it meant an easier time serving the warrant?
Was Big Sis watching as they’d planned?
He scanned the high-rise overlooking the Temple and the Mississippi River beyond. She loved her view, especially in the summer, but if she was using her secretary’s office tonight instead of her own . . . Nope, there was her flashlight, a little pinprick of light against the blinds.
“Now, Eldridge,” Roberts hissed.
He saluted her with two fingers.
An instant later, every light vanished, collapsing the block into velvety blackness. Twan’s old man and Jamaal’s grandfather had taken the Eldridge family’s first piece of revenge.
Twan’s night vision goggles automatically compensated. Roberts ran up the steps to the porch, with Templeton at his heels, ballistic shield at the ready. Twan matched strides with them, determined not to shame New Orleans’s rep. The others pelted behind in a deadly chorus.
Arriving at the top, they leaned against the narrow columns for an instant, listening for any bullets singing an unfriendly welcome.
Nothing.
Roberts glanced at him, the movement marked by moonlight glinting on his NVGs until he seemed a creature from a Mardi Gras allegory.
Twan nodded fiercely. Dear God, how many years had he been stoked for this? He quietly flicked off his shotgun’s safety and all but purred at its near-silent smoothness. Time to show those bastards who the man really was.
Templeton chuckled softly.
Roberts pounded on the brass doors. “FBI!” he bellowed, providing the knock-and-announce so they could legally enter. But as brief as possible, to give those murderous dawgs little time to form up.
Two cameras hissed and swiveled, pointing their silver eyes at him.
Crap. The insiders had taken manual control of the surveillance system. They were definitely on the alert.
Roberts sprang back and Eldridge lunged forward. He settled the shotgun against his shoulder, aimed it—and blew out the first hinge in an extremely satisfying whump!
An instant later, the second hinge also vanished in another whump!
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