Broken Soul

by Faith Hunter

  I smelled the reaction of the people in the room. Le Bâtard already had enemies. Good.

  Her voice pedantic, Adelaide continued. “Le Bâtard turned Peregrinus, Batildis, and our Grégoire, and while Grégoire walked away from his maker’s cruelty, Peregrinus did not. It is said that he emulates his sire and still serves him. Le Bâtard seldom leaves France. Peregrinus and his sister—sister in the Mithran manner, being the children of a common sire, but partners and lovers—travel often, and are accompanied by the Devil, their primo blood-servant, and a swordswoman who has never been defeated in Blood Challenge. Wherever they travel, they leave in their wake a swath of death and destruction, and always a number of missing children.” I frowned and so did lots of others at the table. “They have come to be known as Satan’s Three. They have, purportedly, been looking for magical items for years, all over the world,” Del said.

  I looked up at that one as quick thoughts tumbled over in my mind. Now it all made sense. I had magical items in a bank vault, which Reach would have known. I had thought about moving in here, but maybe that wasn’t such a good way to protect my client. If I was here, then all the attacks would be here. If I was out there, then Satan’s Three would come to me first, thinking me the easier nut to crack.

  Del said, “After recent events, it is no surprise that seekers of the magical would show up here, in the States.”

  I said, “We believe that Peregrinus and his cronies are here in Louisiana now, without Leo’s leave. We also believe that it was the human blood-servant known as the Devil who kidnapped and tortured the world’s best researcher on vamps while two vamps, a male and a female, looked on. Reach disconnected before I was able to get a description of the torturer, except it might have been female and it had birds tattooed on its arms. Her arms. Whatever.” Electricity seemed to race through the room as the words penetrated and they realized the importance of it all.

  “Our best guess is that while the Devil worked on Reach, he or she got everything in Reach’s databases. That means my file, Leo’s file, and probably the file on everyone here at HQ. Reach was nosy and I don’t doubt that he had the security protocols, which is why Aardvark was only in hard copy. We’ve changed passwords and set up the one protocol that Reach couldn’t have, but it may be a case of too little, too late. The Three want something that they think I have or that Leo has.”

  I continued. “Next item is the brownouts. We’ve had people all over checking the HQ wiring and making replacements. It’s taking forever, because some of the wiring is decades old and not in use or hidden inside walls, which then have to be torn out and repaired. Frankly, we need all the wiring torn out and new wiring installed from top to bottom, but there’s not enough time between now and the Europeans’ arrival to do that, so we’re stuck with making jury-rigged repairs while looking for the causative factor for the events.

  “The Otis repair people and the electrical wiring company people have been in and out. They’ll continue to be on the buddy system with our people. Let’s make sure the workers are always—and I mean always—with someone from security. You need to take a bathroom break, you call for backup. The workers need a break, you get someone to go in with them. Most of the repair people are related by blood-servant status, but any one of them could have hidden connections to one of the groups who hate nonhumans. No outsiders go alone at all, and if they have any kind of electronic devices on their person, they leave them in your hands when they go to restrooms. Understood?”

  There were nods around the table, but I felt an itch between my shoulder blades. I had done deep background on all of these guys and gals. But it was very possible that I’d missed something. It only took one ticked-off human with a hand grenade or a pipe bomb.

  “Del, our greatest concerns are rewiring security, food service, and emergency lighting, in that order.”

  Del nodded and made a note to herself.

  “Okay, folks. Let’s talk about the rainbow light-dragon. Leo called it a ‘Grand danger. L’esprit lumière. L’arcenciel.’” I stumbled over the French. “Anyone know what that is?” When no one volunteered, I said, “I’ll be finding out. Meeting adjourned.”

  • • •

  Wrassler led me to Grégoire’s boudoir. That was the only thing I could call it. Bedroom was too plain; suite was too businesslike; quarters was too military, though there were parts to all of those in the three small rooms. The woodwork at the ceiling was heavily carved, coated with gilt, and the walls had been painted in shades of blue that would complement the color of Grégoire’s eyes. I knew that because there was a life-sized painting of Grégoire just inside the door, his eyes matching his velvet clothes, gold lace at his wrists.

  The entrance was wide with cabinets on either side of the door. I could smell steel and lemon oil, baby oil, lacquer or varnish—something to coat wood—and leather. The scents were different from the smells a gun cabinet would have held. These cabinets held swords. Metal weapons. Probably lots of different blades. My hands itched to open the doors and sniff through them. Wrassler led me on inside.

  To the left of the door was a tiny room with one whole wall dedicated to wines, most with dusty labels. There was a narrow bar with crystal decanters and crystal glasses for decanting and drinking wine. The rest of the room was taken up by a delicate sofa, a tiny table, and two small chairs, all looking like something a French king might have used. And maybe had.

  To the right was a closed door and I knew better than to open it uninvited, but I guessed it was a closet and dressing room. Grégoire was a dandy and his closet probably took up the biggest room in the boudoir suite.

  Directly ahead was the bedroom, most of it blocked by Wrassler’s broad back. The room was like something out of a French castle. Silks and tapestries and rugs piled on top of rugs and art stacked several deep against the walls. In most of the artwork a female was front and center. Batildis. Batildis in velvets and silks and lace, posed in fields and libraries and fancy salons. And in others wearing nothing, posed on beds and horses and . . . with Grégoire.

  This discussion was going to be harder than I had expected. He had been in love with Batildis. And if vamp emotions were anything to go on, he likely still was. Wrassler said something French that had my name in the middle, and Grégoire said something back. Wrassler nodded me to the chair by the bed and stepped out of the way, allowing me to see the rest of the room, which was filled with tables and chairs and knickknacks and art from centuries of living.

  Grégoire, wearing a blue silk dressing gown, was on the huge wrought-iron bed. The frame was shaped with fleurs-de-lis at every angle, an ornate, exotic structure that made the iron look like lace. He was lying back against a stack of pillows, blue silk linens over him and beneath him. Curled up beside him, a happy smile on her face and a smear of blood on her throat, was Amy Lynn Brown, a new scion who had come from Asheville along with Adelaide Mooney. Amy was the kind of person who would disappear into a crowd in a heartbeat, nondescript, brown everything, and on the surface, mousy. But Amy was famous. Her blood brought scions back from the devoveo in record time. It was brilliant to have the injured vamps drink from her, and from the smile on her face she wasn’t averse to helping out in any way required.

  Grégoire was vamped out from feeding but as Wrassler moved toward the doorway, his fangs clicked up into the roof of his mouth and his eyes bled back into the famous blue irises. His skin was pink from the blood he had taken and he licked his lips. “Thank you, Amy,” he said. “When I am more myself, I shall court you and shower you with gifts. You are a treasure to drink from, your blood like the finest wines of my home country.”

  Amy blushed, bobbed her head, and skedaddled. Grégoire didn’t move, which was not a good thing; nor were the cold eyes he turned to me. His scent was flowery and soft, like the seashore and spring blossoms, but underneath it was a trace of frustration, like creosote in the sun. Grégoire looked like a fifteen-year-ol
d human kid in the big bed, but the vamp had fought and debauched his way all through Europe for centuries. He was not a fanghead to take lightly or to treat as anything less than a dangerous predator.

  “Um . . . are you still paralyzed?” I asked. Great. Fantastic greeting, Jane.

  He let a silence build between us, as he scrutinized me, his face neither soft nor forgiving, his body unmoving and more dead than usual. “I can move my head,” he said at last, and I flinched at the words. He slid across the pillow, mussing his long blond hair against the blue silk. “I am able to move my left foot and toes,” he said, the covers wiggling in demonstration, but his gaze not wavering. “My left hand is also much improved.” His fingers wiggled. “And other bodily functions have returned in full. But I am still paralyzed, yes.”

  “Sorry about that,” I said. “I didn’t intend to hurt you so bad.”

  “You were perhaps planning a love tap?”

  “Ummm . . .”

  “I know you are not human, Jane, but I was not aware of your speed, nor your strength. They are secrets worth hiding, and will be of use when you face the Europeans. And my kin,” he finished, emphasizing the last three words.

  “Yeah.” I took a breath. “About your fam—”

  “Sadly, you will face them alone,” he interrupted, “if I am not well recovered. And even with your speed and trickery, you will not survive, not against Peregrinus and his Devil.” I wasn’t adept at reading Grégoire, but I thought I detected a bit of satisfaction in his tone at the thought of me dying. “It would have been better had you shared your secrets with Leo and with me, that you might be better trained and your gifts better utilized. You have kept a great weapon from us. Why?”

  “I said I’m sorry.”

  “Remorseful enough to share your blood that I might heal the faster?” I didn’t reply and Grégoire gave me a smile that contained stony gratification. “Sorrow is a wasted emotion when not supported with actions to repair the wrong. You did not answer my question. Why did you hide this when you know we face such a danger?”

  I shrugged and sighed. “Would you believe me if I said I just discovered I could move so fast?” His expression said he wouldn’t. “It’s true. I was raised alone from the time I was five years old. I didn’t have teachers. I don’t know how to use all the abilities of my kind. I’m still learning. And while I knew I could move fast, I seem to be getting”—I lifted a shoulder—“faster.” Which sounded woefully inadequate. Because, even if I knew all that another skinwalker could teach me, I’d still be floundering with the abilities that my Beast gave me. Couldn’t share that. Nope.

  “A singularity? You have never met another of your kind?”

  I looked at the doorway. Wrassler had left us alone but the door was open. I stepped to the entry and closed the door. Grégoire’s eyes were narrowed when I turned back, and he held a long, slender knife in his left fingers. I figured knives were never far from the vamp’s hand, even a hand that only partly worked. “I’m not gonna hurt you,” I said, sounding cross. “But I don’t want this getting back to Leo.”

  Grégoire’s pale blond eyebrows went up. “You think I would keep something from my master?”

  “Only if it was necessary. And this is necessary.” I sat on one of the small chairs, one made when humans were Grégoire’s size, not my six feet in height. My knees rose high and I felt ridiculous, but the position made Grégoire pause, and he flipped the knife, holding it in such a way that he couldn’t throw it in a single move. But he didn’t put it away either. I smelled a fresh scent in the room, overriding the smell of vamp blood, slightly acrid, and I eyed the blade. Poison? That was ducky.

  “Leo knows that Immanuel was killed and eaten by a black-magic user. The thing that posed as Leo’s son and heir for decades was a skinwalker, like me. But he had gone off the deep end.” At the confusion on Grégoire’s face, I said, “He’d gone crazy. When skinwalkers get old they lose mental stability and do what Immanuel did. They eat humans. Immanuel is the only other skinwalker I’ve seen in”—I shrugged, not knowing how to finish this—“in ever.”

  “Leo knows this?”

  “He knows some of it. He sent me the bones Immanuel collected. But he doesn’t know everything. Like how fast I am. Or how strong.” Or that I can now bend time. Yeah. Not that either.

  Grégoire took a breath he didn’t need and blew it out in a sound that was all French, a pah of disgust. “Leo still grieves. Perhaps it is wise to let sleeping dogs lie, as you Americans say.” He shifted his head on the pillow and smiled. “I moved my right big toe. I can feel the sheets.”

  “I’m glad,” I said. “Because I have to ask about your Mithran family.” Grégoire frowned, the expression looking hard and remote and wrong on his young face. I kept my eyes on the knife in his hand. I could shift and heal from most wounds, but a poisoned blade might have unexpected consequences. “Is there something here in the Council Chambers that Reach might have discovered? Something that Satan’s Three might want?”

  Grégoire’s eyes shifted slightly before meeting mine. If I hadn’t been living with Mr. Minimalist in all things emotional, I might have missed it. I’d have to remember to thank Eli. “What does Leo have that they might want?” I whispered.

  “Should I speak of my master’s secrets? Of the weapons that keep us safe?” he asked. “I have not forgotten that you once saved my life and my clan. For this, I will not kill you. I will think on what you seek to learn and the dark things hidden here.”

  I frowned, but I’d heard that tone in vamps’ voices before. I was about to be kicked out. Before he could, I said, “Thank you for the box of papers.”

  Grégoire didn’t reply. “If you will not feed me, you are dismissed. And tell the next blood-servant to enter.” Grégoire turned his head, but he didn’t let go of the knife he still held. I stood and left the boudoir, leaving the door open for Katie, who looked me over with cool disdain as she entered. Or rather, she looked me over the way she might something icky she found on the bottom of her shoe.

  My attempts to see Leo were thwarted by Derek himself, standing in front of Leo’s door. “Per the MOC. You can come back at dusk,” the former marine said. “Not before.” And from the look on his face, Derek was ready and willing to enforce the edict: it wasn’t worth fighting for. So I headed out.

  It was two hours after dawn when I finally made it back to my house, and in through the door on the back porch. The front was still sealed off with crime scene tape, and if I’d been someone not connected to the household of the Blood Master of the City, I’d be in a hotel. I needed to sleep, but my body was too wired, and my mind was too busy making lists of things I needed to do. Eli headed upstairs to repack his gobag and then to crash for an hour or two. Even Uncle Sam’s finest needed to sleep sometime.

  I was brewing a pot of tea when my cell rang with a familiar local number and I answered it with the name of my business, just in case it wasn’t who I thought it might be. “Yellowrock Securities.”

  “Jodi here.”

  I smiled into the cell. “Long time, no see.”

  “Yeah, well, if you’d keep people from leaving bombs on your doorstep, you might get some social time.”

  “Ouch. Did you catch that?”

  “I got dragged into the paperwork, liaison, and media side of things. Thanks in great part to the general knowledge at NOPD that I know you.”

  Jodi was the head of the woo-woo department, working to solve new and cold paranormal cases. She had been given the promotion as a way to punish her for knowing the wrong people, supernatural people, but it hadn’t worked out quite the way her superiors expected. Instead of sitting forever in her basement cubicle, Jodi had been thrust into cases with the vamps and the three-initial law enforcement departments. The ATF, the DEA, the FBI, and the longer acronym, PsyLED, to name a few. Jodi was making waves in state and national law enforcement and
rubbing elbows with the rich and fangy. She now had media power, enough that her superiors’ intent to ruin her career had backfired. She was fast-tracking up toward a glass ceiling that the family of known witches had never made before, or at least not in Louisiana law enforcement.

  “So what did they discover about my bomber?” I asked, hoping she’d share things most victims didn’t have access to.

  “He’s had a long-running career. Like well over thirty years. His fingerprints were found through Interpol, on another bomb in Russia.”

  “Yeah, about that timeline. I may have an enemy or three in town. Some who were alive four hundred years ago,” I said. “They go by the names of Peregrinus, Batildis, and the Devil. The vamps call them Satan’s Three.”

  Jodi cursed softly under her breath.

  “My feelings exactly. They have to be really bad to get such cute nicknames among vamps. Do some checking on them, would you? The vamps are children of a vamp named François Le Bâtard. You may have something in your files that I don’t. I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours. Ummm. Totally in a platonic way,” I said.

  “That rings a bell somewhere. Later.” Jodi disconnected.

  I ended the call on my end and took the metal box of ancient papers gifted to me by Grégoire to the kitchen table, and started a good strong black tea. When I had it steeping, I opened the box.

  The scent of age wafted up from the papers, to mix with the bouquet of George’s flowers. Pollen and catnip blended with the scents of old inks, old heavy-cloth paper, old flax paper, old vellum, and older papyrus, each in fancy manila folders, probably made of acid-free paper to protect the contents. I lifted out the topmost file and opened it, without touching the pages within. The writing on the loose pages inside was an ancient script with lots of flourishes and sweeps, like most vamp calligraphy, but more spidery and uncertain. I thought it might be Latin. Or an archaic version of one the Romance Languages. Spanish? Italian?