by Anna Windsor
She almost greeted with Blackmore with I’m so surprised nobody in Ireland killed you, but Bela’s nervous expression made Camille hold her tongue.
Even Dio looked squirmy and uncomfortable, totally out of character.
Camille tensed, waiting for Blackmore to instantly say or do something stupid to piss Andy off, which he could usually manage in a few seconds.
He cleared his throat, nodded to all of them, Andy included, and addressed himself to Bela. “Duncan told me to get over here, but he wouldn’t tell me why. Said I had to hear it—and see it—for myself.”
Bela nodded. “Nice to see you,” she said to Saul, but she didn’t offer Blackmore the same courtesy. She just gestured to the end of the sofa where Camille wasn’t sitting. Both men eased their tall frames onto the leather cushions, Saul closest to Camille—and Blackmore without arguing or bitching about not having time.
Dio’s right eyebrow lifted as she glanced at Camille.
Camille shrugged.
Maybe Blackmore’s time with the Mothers had taught him some manners. Camille found herself wondering how many wolf bites, burn scars, and wind-related shrapnel injuries he had taken. She was pretty sure Blackmore hadn’t dared show up on the beaches at Motherhouse Kérkira this last summer to aggravate Andy. The fact that he was still alive was pretty much proof of that.
Bela didn’t wait for any uncomfortable silences to extend themselves, or give Blackmore too much of a chance to step in muck right away. She explained quickly and succinctly about John Cole’s spirit surviving the events in the alley a year ago, and the fact that Camille had inadvertently helped him take another body. “We don’t feel certain of everything yet, so we’re watching, and John’s allowing that. If something goes wrong, I think we’re all ready.”
Camille’s entire essence ached at the sound of this, but she kept her mouth shut.
Nothing bad will happen. He’s not really a demon hybrid. It’s not the same. And it wasn’t—yet it was.
Contradictions. Camille held back a sigh. That pretty much defined John, didn’t it?
“Whose body did you give him?” Jack Blackmore asked Camille, and she was surprised by the undisguised happiness in his dark eyes. The scowl he usually wore had faded away, too, leaving a handsome, almost relaxed-looking and eager man waiting for an answer.
Saul Brent was smiling, too. Camille didn’t think Saul really knew John, but Saul knew Duncan—and all the OCU officers were always glad to gain a powerful new fighter.
Camille hated to complicate things by spilling this next part, but truth was truth. “John got Strada’s body. Well, his human-form body.”
Blackmore’s expression became more troubled even though he seemed to be trying to keep himself in some sort of Zen state. “The Rakshasa leader. You … put John in demon skin?”
Camille kept herself from glaring at Blackmore, but it was a near miss. “It wasn’t like I had a choice. This was an accident. Happenstance. Strada’s body was there, so that’s the body John got.”
“And Strada?” Saul asked. “What happened to his insides? His … spirit, or whatever a demon has?”
Camille’s hand moved to her heart. “We call it essence. Strada’s dead, but his essence isn’t. Not completely.” She did her best to explain about the remnant energy, finishing with, “As far as we can tell, as long as John’s not exposed to extreme projective energy or knocked out or impaired in some other complete way like that, he’ll keep control.”
Blackmore’s eager happiness had definitely been tuned down a few notches, and that scowl Camille remembered so well was trying to sneak back across his face. “So he could turn demon. He could lose control and let that monster loose.”
“As could any of the demon hybrids allied with the OCU.” Bela’s voice remained icy calm, but her eyes communicated mistrust of this man, who’d once tried to take Duncan Sharp to a laboratory to more or less study him to death. “My husband has a monster inside him, too, but he does pretty well with it, don’t you think?”
Blackmore seemed to consider this, and Camille figured he was thinking about Duncan, and maybe also the three Lowell brothers—two part demon and one full-blooded—not to mention all the other creatures who had cast their lots with the NYPD’s Occult Crimes Unit. Similar alliances and partnerships had formed all over the world with different paranormal crime units during the years the Sibyls spent defeating the Legion cult. Now the Dark Crescent Sisterhood had thrown down against the Rakshasa, and anybody who could help in that fight was welcome.
“New enemies,” Andy said to Blackmore without the roaring force of water behind her words. “New allies. That’s how it goes in any war.”
“I think the Rakshasa might be trying to build alliances of their own,” John said from the front door, and everybody turned to stare at him.
Camille’s eyes darted to the chimes over the table—the chimes that hadn’t given the slightest ring when he approached. They hadn’t even heard him opening the door. He was wearing a clean pair of jeans and an army-green sweatshirt, and he was carrying the demon packet Dio had written up for him. The pages already looked crinkled and well read. In his other hand he had what looked like a big gym bag.
Camille realized he probably had bags here and there in different cities—bus terminals, safe-deposit boxes, other hiding places, maybe even rented rooms or apartments that might still be his, technically, if the rent or payments had been made. As long as he had the keys, nobody would ask any questions. In his previous life, John had never known when he’d have to leave or where he’d have to go—or how fast.
Both Blackmore and Saul gaped at the image of Strada standing so close to them. Camille knew how disconcerting that could be, but she realized she had already stopped seeing the demon and started seeing only John. There were differences in the body from when Strada used it—subtle but definite. The posture. The facial expression. The energy around him, especially. This man standing before them, he was John Cole, and though he bore a strong resemblance to the former demon leader, he was becoming his own person again, inside and out.
It was Blackmore who got hold of himself first, responding to John’s comment about the demons seeking allies. “You talking about the crime lords?”
“The Balkans, the Russians, the Irish, the Vietnamese or Chinese—or somebody completely under our radar.” John slid his bag against a wall, laid his papers on top, and came through the living room. He skirted the chairs and communications platform and sat on the arm of the big leather sofa, as close to Camille as he could get without touching her. Then he folded his arms and openly studied the man who had been his commander for years.
The heat from John’s body seemed like a force to Camille, distracting her and soothing her at the same time. She was glad he was in the room. Relieved, even. Something about his presence made her feel so much more supported and so much less alone.
“I was thinking the same.” Blackmore’s tone shifted, and he focused on John more completely, like he might be seeing through to the real John, just like Camille thought she had been doing. “Tarek won’t use Strada’s methods, at least not in the same way. I half expected him to show back up with troops and guns blazing, but he’s going low-profile.”
“Gotta be collecting help,” Saul agreed, pressing one thumb into the tribal tattoos on the back of his hand. “The kind of help that doesn’t answer want ads.”
John stepped into his old Rakshasa-hunting role so smoothly Camille barely realized he was doing it. “Tarek’s probably busy making a truckload of Created to help him, too. So, you working some angle, Blackjack? What’s the plan?”
Blackmore almost started talking again, then shook his head, looked at his feet, and looked back at John. “Fuck, this is weird. I feel like I should shoot you.”
John’s grin came fast and natural. “I’ve felt like shooting you for years, so I guess that makes us even.”
Blackmore’s mouth crooked into a smile. “Nice bruise. Did Sharp kick your ass?
”
John touched the dark spot already fading from his cheek. “Better than cutting off my head, right?”
“So far,” Blackmore said, “but don’t push your luck with us. With any of us.”
John glanced at Camille, and she made sure to shift her weight against his leg. A little contact never hurt anything, and it might make him feel better. If he’d been in the room when her quad was grilling her—hell, she might have tried to get in his lap.
“I’ll handle myself,” John said, though Camille would have put money on the fact that he wasn’t nearly as relaxed about that as he was trying to sound. “We were talking plans and angles to get at the Rakshasa?”
Saul started to say something, but Blackmore raised his hand. “You’ve got no official status in this city, John, even through our old special ops channels.”
“Then give me one.” John didn’t seem the least bit distressed by this, like it was just a small hurdle Blackmore needed to remove before they could jump to the real issues.
“That’d be a lot easier if you weren’t dead.” Blackmore’s voice stayed very, very calm, but Camille could tell he was trying to get reality across to John. “You have no legal identity, and I can’t just pull one out of my ass.”
“Yes, you can, and I know it.” John tapped his cheek with one finger. “The face is different, but this is me, Blackjack. I’m not asking for anything you haven’t done a hundred times. A thousand. Find me an official name and social, and don’t take too long. If I’m working, I expect a paycheck.”
Saul and Dio both laughed at the same time, looked at each other, and laughed harder. Dio covered her mouth with her hand.
Bela kept a passive expression, but Andy’s eyes danced with the same mirth Camille felt. If she’d known it was this easy to play serious cards with the famous “Blackjack” Blackmore, she’d have tried this approach when he first showed up on the scene last year.
“Busted,” Andy said, not very much under her breath.
Blackmore glanced in her direction, and a splash of color touched the top of his high cheekbones. It struck Camille that he was trying really, really hard not to tick Andy off, her more than any of the rest of them. The mirrors on the wall behind Andy swirled from the increasing energy in the room, but the clouds in the glass didn’t look dark or foreboding. Whatever Andy was feeling, it was closer to neutral—or maybe light, like she was laughing at the man inside, at least as hard as Dio and Saul had laughed on the outside.
“It’ll probably be through some OCU slush funds,” Blackmore said, not looking at anyone in particular now, but keeping his eyes off the mirrors and even the chimes above the communications table. “I don’t think I can sail this one past the Pentagon, not when they paid to put you in the ground months ago.”
When Camille looked up at John, he was grinning. “Fine by me. Money’s money, and demons are demons. It doesn’t really matter who’s paying me. I’ll kill Rakshasa just the same.”
If John cared that his military career was essentially over, he didn’t show it, at least not that Camille could see. Circumstances had forced him to abandon his chosen profession before, more than once. Maybe he was used to it?
“For now, we’ll make you … how does official advisor sound?” Blackmore seemed to be trying to be sincere, and Camille could tell John knew the man well enough to know that.
“Fine,” John said.
Dio coughed to strangle another fit of laughter, but she just had to say, “If you don’t consider the fact that some of our OCU and Sibyl advisors have wings and fangs.”
John’s warmth spilled through Camille as he pressed his thigh closer to her shoulder, getting really comfortable on the arm of the couch beside her. “As long as I get creds, a permit to carry, and you pay advisors with dollars and cents instead of raw steak or some other stupid crap, I’m in.”
“No raw steak.” Blackmore made like he was taking notes, and Camille restrained herself from pulling a fake faint. She’d never seen the man joke before—at all. She wouldn’t have bet a nickel that he was even capable of it.
This time John’s grin transformed his whole face. “And don’t get me any stupid names, either.”
To this, Blackmore said nothing, but his dark eyes seemed to dance with possibilities. He gestured to Saul, who unloaded a couple of big folded papers from inside his Giants jacket. As Saul spread maps of the city across the communications platform, Blackmore explained, “This is what we’ve put together so far.”
Camille leaned in to get a better look at the papers, and so did Bela, Dio, and Andy. The maps had been marked with colored grids. Most of the grids had been labeled, and Camille read the names over each of the main sections.
“Foucci, Divac, Seneca, Sekulovich.”
Dio ran a French-manicured nail over a few other sections, shaded gray, but they had been named, too. “Fitzsimmons, McBride, and Gordon to the north, and to the south, De Luca, Bianchi, and Tenace.”
There were more, longer names, difficult to pronounce, though Camille thought they might be Russian.
“Irish and Italians.” Saul pointed to the sections Dio had touched. “And over here, we’ve got the Russians and their territories, but really, the Russians claim everything is theirs. They’re all bad, but not our worst problem right now. These boys”—he tapped the colored sections with the Balkan names—“they’re a whole new kind of ruthless.”
Blackmore scooted the map closer to him and oriented it so Camille, Bela, Andy, and Dio could easily view all the areas. “The NYPD’s been tracking movement on the four main Balkan groups with the FBI. Mostly standard merchandising—drugs, human trafficking, counterfeit electronics, weaponry. Last week this group”—he put his index finger on the green section, marked Foucci—“did a one-eighty. Temporarily froze a lot of merchandise movements, brought in heavy-hitter higher-ups from overseas, and had some major conferences with all their cells and factions. The NYPD thinks they lost their major player in the States.”
“All they found was part of a leg bone near the docks,” Saul said. “Forensics aren’t back yet, but preliminary testing indicates everything matches up to Ioannis Foucci, and none of our guys on the ground have been able to make the old man.”
“The leg bone was chewed,” Blackmore added, sitting back on the couch. “According to the ME, some kind of large animal. My money’s on tiger.”
“Eating crime lords.” John let out a low whistle, and his hand drifted down to touch Camille’s shoulder. “That’s one way to make a lot of friends—and enemies. So which of our three competitors hired him?”
Saul shook his head. “That’s where we’re coming up short.”
“I don’t think we can assume it’s one of these three other Balkan families.” Bela got comfortable in her own chair again. “I was just a boarder at Motherhouse Russia. I grew up around here, and I can tell you when these crime lords start shooting it out, there’s no telling who might put guns in the fight—even bit players trying to get up the ladder. We could be looking at some unknowns, or maybe even the older groups—the Italians, the Irish. I don’t know much about the Russians.”
Blackmore focused on Bela, studiously keeping his gaze away from Andy. “I grew up in Jersey, and you’re right. We don’t think it’s the Russians because they just go in with overwhelming force and mow everybody down, after they break all their bones for show. As for the rest of these larger groups, it’s been business as usual for them, and the FBI doesn’t think they’re in good positions to start a war with the Balkans right now.”
“These guys are loose cannons, not playing by the rules,” Saul said, massaging the tattoos on his hand as if touching them gave him strength or focus. “When the older mobs hit them, it’ll be all-out attacks and for keeps, no little penny-ante assassination stuff—and that’s only if they think they can win.”
“The NYPD and the FBI think they can’t.” Blackmore’s tone darkened. “The Balkans are stronger than the Irish and Italians put together r
ight now, at least in New York City.”
It was obvious to Camille that Jack Blackmore had a particular hatred for the traditional mobs, even if he was keeping it pretty tight to the vest. The edge in his voice was easy to hear, and the way his eyes smoldered as they passed over the Italian sector especially—that said a lot.
“We’re sending a team here tomorrow night to do a little recon after we check it out by daylight.” Blackmore jerked his thumb toward the Divac section, gazing up at John, then looking at Bela. “Want to be that team?”
“You’re on,” John said, then backed off with a quick nod to Bela. “If, ah, everyone’s in agreement.”
The excitement and relief in John’s voice registered instantly with Camille. This was familiar territory to him. Safe ground. He had to be more than thrilled to get back to normal operations, or what had served as normal for him since all his wars began. She kept her body pressed into his, still casual, not that apparent unless somebody really studied how they were sitting. She appreciated the contact, but a less generous part of her mind started wondering if this would be what she’d have if she matched up with John—strategy meetings and quick contacts as they constantly planned their attack on the next enemy.
He could worry about the same thing where you’re concerned, idiot.
She wanted to smack herself in the forehead for putting the cart so far in front of the horse it wasn’t even funny.
“We’re in,” Bela said. “At least it’s a place to start.”
Camille shared John’s relief at her agreement, and she separated herself from him to head to the weapons closet and make sure all the gear was in order. Andy got to her feet, too, stretching to get herself limber for her afternoon workout.
Dio pointed at her. “That’s Sibyl for ‘Strategy session over, boys.’ ”
John and Saul and Blackmore nearly hurt themselves standing up so fast.
“No pig blood,” Andy said, sounding psychotically cheerful as she flopped into an ungraceful, unbalanced downward-dog position beside her leather chair. “I’m so there.”