by Faith Hunter
“There is no current investigation,” the third guy growled.
“Right. Well, there is now. And I’ve requested that you join me, but it isn’t mandatory. You want glory and promotion, you’ll say no. You want to do some good, you’ll stick around.”
“I’m in,” the third guy said. He leaned over the table and put out this hand to me. “Sloan Rosen.” I took it and shook. He was human, African-American, heavily tattooed, even on his fingers, with jailhouse tats. Which was very interesting. They reminded me of LeShawn’s.
“Jane Yellowrock.” I looked at Rick and back, drawing conclusions. “You were undercover too?”
“With the Crips. Until last year when I was outed by arresting four of the top local boys. Now I have a bounty on my head, some secretive vamp clan is out to get me, and the big shits can’t figure out where to put me. And I figure you’re here to make sure we’ll all go down fighting.”
I put it together with a twisted grin to show I was being ironic, not insulting. “So, as far as the brass is concerned, having you on this team puts all of us in danger. The vamps can track your scent, and the Crips are standing in line for you and would happily take us out to get you.” He nodded slowly, lips pursed, and I said, “But if it makes you feel better, Leo Pellissier will probably plow through all of them to get to me for killing his son. Just being near me is a death sentence. Bet Leo wins.”
“You two children can have a pissing contest about who has the biggest bounty on your heads later. For now, we have work to do. Rick, pass out the food; Jane’s stomach is growling so loud I can’t hear myself.”
Rick stood and placed grease-stained bags in front of each of us. I smelled oysters inside mine and started salivating. The kits were missing, I might have a hard knot in my belly, but the Beast still had to be fed.
“I want you all to study the info on the stolen witch children,” Jodi said. “Look for ties, connections, anything that might have been missed previously.” She flipped files at us the way a cardsharp flips cards and we all set them to the side of our paper plates of food and opened both. I don’t know how Jodi was able to leave her bag closed, but she did, and kept talking.
“Because there was never any proof the witch kids were killed, taken over state lines, and because no ransoms were ever demanded, neither FBI nor the state police has ever been called in. Until now, local policy has been to shunt the disappearances to inactive juvie case files thinking that the kids just ran off and will be back, or that they were taken by human family members to get them away from witch influence.” She looked at me. “Thanks to an official letter from the office of the Blood Master of the City, that policy has now changed.”
Office . . . Bruiser. Bruiser had done that.
Hard delight gleamed in Jodi’s eyes. ”I’ve been told you had something to do with it,” she said to me. These cases might not advance her career, but she wanted them. It wasn’t well-known, but Jodi’s mother was a witch, and I was guessing that so was her late aunt. The relationships gave her a personal interest in discovering what had happened to the missing witch children and acquiring justice for them if possible. I tilted my head to show it was nothing. Which it had been on my part. Bruiser had done it.
“According to Jane,” Jodi continued, “witch children are being killed in black magic ceremonies by vampire criminals who are raising young rogues. Clan Pellissier would like the offenders ‘brought to the day.’ ”
I looked up at that. My current contract with the vamp council used those words, whose archaic meaning meant killed true-dead.
“George sent us a copy of your contract,” she said to me. “The figures are blacked out, of course. But it gives us official permission to carry silver rounds in our weapons and stake any vampires we catch in the act of black magic.”
“Sweet,” Sloan said through his sandwich. It came out “Shhhwee.”
“Rosen is our electronics guy. He took down the Crips mostly with electronic monitoring. He stole their books and put a stop to a lot of weapons and cocaine trafficking that had connections to a South American vamp clan. We’re still hunting down three humans with the evidence he collected. If we need anything listened in on, he’s our man.”
“If it helps at all,” I said, “I think a Rousseau is responsible for young rogues being raised all over the city and for the witch children kidnappings.” I filled them in on what I knew and what I guessed. I pointed at the file cabinets. “The red folders helped.”
Jodi gave me a knowing half smile. “Rick said you wanted copies of the woo-woo files sent to your house. They’ll be messengered over by a marked unit ASAP.”
Sloan drained his Coke can, set it on the table with an empty twang. To Jodi, he said, “We done? ’Cause I’m outta here. Dinner with the wife and kids.”
“After eating all that?” Jodi said, swiveling so he could get his longer legs out.
Sloan stood beside her, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin. “Fast metabolism.” He balled up all the empty papers and utensils. I shoved the last bite of bread and oyster in just in time, and salvaged a paper boat of fries and onion rings. Jodi cleaned the table with a disinfectant wipe she took from her pocket.
“I’ll keep you up to date, Yellowrock,” she said, “until we get the Trueblood kids back.”
“And Bliss,” I said. “She was taken by the same guy.”
“Right. Bliss. You did know her real name is Ailis Rogan, didn’t you?” When I shook my head no, she asked, “Do you know if she has any family? ’Cause Katie’s bouncer has no record of any.”
“No. Bliss wasn’t very forthcoming about her past.”
“Runaway?” Sloan asked. “I’ll check old records and see if anything matches up.”
“I’ll e-mail you all our addys,” Jodi said to me. Waving her arm to indicate room 666, she said, “Our official work area is here and next door. The brass’s idea of a joke, I’m sure. I’ll get some PCs, a landline phone or two, an empty file cabinet, a whiteboard, and a map.
“I’ll be here and at my desk for paperwork till midnight thirty. Later.”
She and Sloan Rosen walked out together. I didn’t look at Rick as I got up and slid across from him to the warm seat just vacated.
Out of curiosity, I said, “What do you know about a guy named Derek Lee, former marine? Lives—”
“I know Derek Lee. Word on the streets is that he’s put together his own little army and is going after gangs. We have a few unexplained bodies that might be notched into his bedpost, like the bloodbath in Crips territory Jodi came from today. How do you know Derek Lee?” That last was a cop question, asked in a toneless, staccato voice, with an underlying threat.
I shrugged. Cop threats don’t impress me much. “I heard he’s going after vamps and gangs with vamp connections. I’m thinking Derek works for Leo from time to time.” When I said the words, several little things clicked in my mind. “Question: If the master of the city officially recognized that some of his species were practicing ritual black magic, and a purge became legal by the Vampira Carta, what would happen to the clans?”
“I don’t have a degree in Mithran Law, They could be disbanded or reorganized by the master of the city. Why?”
An unconscious Holy crap sounded in my mind. At my adrenaline spike, Beast stirred and stared across the table. “Derek said something about the Crips once. If he’s been fighting them, it might be with Leo’s unofficial backing.”
I had called Derek before I left the house. I was meeting the ex-marine and his crew soon, to raid a few warehouses in the district, looking for the lair of a vamp who kept her children chained for the safety of the public. Not something I wanted the cops to know. Not something I wanted Leo to know. Unless Leo had been pushing me in that direction all along. Had I been herded like prey? Beast snorted in affront.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re thinking, lady, but you’re startin’ to scare me again.”
I looked at Rick. Who was looking at me just the way a wo
man wanted to be looked at. Not something I could put into words, but a look I recognized when I saw it. He reached out a hand and I placed mine into his, letting a smile soften my lips.
Knowing I was probably screwing up something that might be really good if I gave it half a chance, I said, “Did Leo tell you to seduce me?”
Rick dropped my hand, leaving it in the middle of the table. He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin as if he were wiping beer—or the remembered taste of my mouth—away. “No one tells me who to sleep with.” And he left me alone in room 666.
I pulled my hand back into my lap. “That went well.” Beast hacked a laugh. I stood. I had work to do, most of it on the computer and in the files I’d photographed and sent to myself, the files from this very room. Odd how I ended up back here all the time, in the woo-woo room. On the way out of the NOPD, I discovered that I had missed a call from Derek Lee. And what he told me made me smile.
Half an hour before dusk, I roared into the Breaux Mart grocery store where Derek had told me to meet him and set my booted feet on the pavement. The black steel-walled van that pulled in beside me and idled might have worried a lesser woman. Cops call them snatch vans, among other things, none of them nice, because the vehicles are perfect for grabbing a woman or child and making off with her. I reached over my shoulder and placed a hand on my shotgun, ready to pull. I wasn’t frightened, just cautious. Really cautious. A faint click sounded and the tinted window lowered with electronic smoothness. I cut the engine and set the kickstand. Derek pushed back dark glasses. “Jane with the funny last name.”
“Derek with the marines. How long you been working with Leo Pellissier?” Me and my smart mouth.
“Six months. Ever since the Crips decided to make my boys into their boys and kill any who thought better of the offer. Why? You got a problem with it?”
This wasn’t the first time I’d heard mention of the Crips. Another coincidence? Not likely. It was all starting to come together. Not that I had any idea what the final picture would look like. “Not really. I’m not fond of the Crips or any other gang that allies with a practitioner of dark magic and a few rebel vamps getting ready to start a vamp war.”
“Is that what’s happening?”
“I’m thinking yes.”
“You ain’t stupid, Injun Princess. I’m not fond of any fang-heads. But the devil you know . . .” he said with a bitter smile.
“The story of my life. How many you got with you?”
The side door slid open, revealing six young men—three I knew from mapping the hunting territory in their neighborhood—kneeling in the back open space, all but one dressed in black combat fatigues and armed to the teeth with military or military surplus equipment. I spotted shotguns, one assault rifle, numerous knives and vamp-killers, but nothing in the way of body armor. When I commented on that, one of the men unbuttoned his black shirt to reveal a chain-mail vest and a neck choker, a T-shirt beneath to protect his skin. “Silver-plated steel works better in combat with a vamp than armor. Guns are loaded with silver shot.” He nodded at the shotgun strapped to my back. “What you carrying?”
“Various weaponry. Shotgun is a Benelli M4 Super 90, loaded with silver-fléchette, hand-packed rounds.”
“The model M4, designated by the military as a Joint Service Combat Shotgun? That M4?” I half smiled and he went on, the early-twentysomething man sounding as if he quoted from a military handbook, showing off. “Steel components have a matte-black, phosphated, corrosion-resistant finish. The aluminum parts are matte and hard anodized, the finish reducing the weapon’s visibility during night operations.”
From the back, another man took over. “The model M4 shotgun is considered by many experts to be nearly idiot-proof, and requires little or no maintenance, operates in all climates and weather conditions, can be dumped in a lake or pond and left for long periods of time and not corrode. It can fire twenty-five thousand rounds of standard ammunition without needing major parts replaced. That Benelli?”
“That Benelli,” I agreed, my smile widening. “Mostly, though, I just like the fact that it’s idiot-proof.” The men shared a masculine chuckle for the little lady and her nice, safe weapon. “All you guys ex-military?”
“Why you asking?” the first man asked. His tone made it clear they still weren’t interested in me knowing their names.
“We have a license to kill any vamps harboring the maker of the young rogues, and the young-rogue maker himself, of course. But there’s no room for human collateral damage. Local law won’t turn a blind eye to mistakes. So we’re looking for the best of the best, which means military, not gangbangers. Shooters have to be sure—absolutely sure—what you fire at.”
“Not a problem.” Guy number one tossed me a set of low-light infrared goggles. “One man wears these. He goes in alone and quiet—recon. Places all humans visible to him as warm and living. Then the rest of us go in and take out anything dead and cold.”
I bumped his age up to mid-thirties as I turned over the goggles. I hadn’t known for sure that vamps wouldn’t register on infrared. Learn something new every day. “Sweet,” I said, tossing them back.
“The gear is from bounty money. Cash you got us for the vamp heads paid for all this.”
Which got me thinking. If they were working with or for Leo, why hadn’t he paid for their gear? Questions for another time. “Master sergeant?” When he nodded, I said, “I’ll make a run-through ahead of the van, spotting any eyes. You got ears?”
The same guy tossed me a headset. I pulled off my helmet and settled the headset on. “Now, this is what I’m talking about.” I had used civilian-style headsets once before in Asheville, when I worked a dicey run to track thefts from a secure warehouse with the security firm where I did my internship. This wasn’t too different. “Testing.”
“Copy, Princess,” a voice said into the earpieces.
“I e-mailed you the street addresses of the likely warehouses,” I said.
He turned a small laptop to me, the screen showing a map. “The Warehouse District is upscale and we might have to do on-foot recon. You got too many weapons to pull it off. Hicklin here looks the part.”
I finally got a name, or half of one. It was a start. I looked Hicklin over, a twenty-something with slicked-back hair and a shaped Vandyke beard. “Nice suit.”
“Itches,” he complained.
“I bet.” I kicked Bitsa into life. Beast rose through my consciousness and stared out through my eyes. I gave the master sergeant a nod and wheeled my bike around, heading toward the Warehouse District and a war with some of the Rousseau Clan. I didn’t bet on it being pretty.
We reached the Warehouse District, the area yuppie-crowd trendy, many of the old warehouses remade into retail and living space for the upwardly mobile. Museums and art stores were everywhere, some chic, all expensive. Many of the old warehouses had been redone into fancy condos and apartments, homes with indoor pools, gyms, and security. I didn’t expect any less than great security from the warehouse I was looking for. I peeled away from the van following me and took side streets, rounding corners with tight leans and a burst of speed, checking out the back ways for the intense, varied scents of the rich and fangy.
Beast reached through me, testing the wind for vamp scent, and just as the sun was setting caught a whiff. An old vamp in sunglasses and loads of sunscreen out for an early stroll turned to stare after me as I whizzed past. But he was alone. And he was someone I recognized from the vamp graveyard when Katie was put to earth. A Desmarais elder. Not my quarry. Not my prey. I was looking for mingled Rousseau smell—lots of vamps in one place.
Half an hour later I was on a back alley off Iberville, near Decatur Street, when I caught a whiff of them that quickly grew stronger. Mixed Rousseau smells and an odor of rot came from a ventilation shaft in a brick building that took up half a block. The likely lair was on the back, opening to what once had been an alley. Parking took up a goodly space in back, enclosed utilities area on one
side. There were no windows on the lower story at back and sides, three rotating security cameras, one secure garage-style door that looked heavy-duty steel, and next to it, one steel entry door with a tiny steel-mesh-reinforced window, the kind of glass used in prisons. The door had its own keypad entry, camera, and intercom speaker; the security was tight and up to date. Perfect. I glanced at my research. This was one of the addresses once owned by Renee Damours, though the title had transferred to a Henry Poitier back in the nineteen fifties. “Possible target,” I said into my mike. I slowed and eased around front; gave the address to the van boys.
The front of the place had been subdivided into three businesses, one an art store. I parked Bitsa in the next block and unhelmeted. I was wearing too many weapons to look like a shopper, but I could look as though I had bike problems. I knelt near Bitsa and pretended to study the back wheel.
Hicklin appeared from my left, meandering, one hand in his pants pocket, tie loose, his phone hanging from one ear. His voice came over my headset, chatting, just a guy killing time window-shopping after work, maybe waiting for a lady friend to join him for supper in one of the hip, pricey restaurants nearby. “You know it, man,” he said. “Boss is banging her and his wife is clueless. She catches him and the business will go into a divorce settlement. We’ll all be out of a job. . . .” He nattered on as he studied the wares in the windows, getting the lay of the land, looking for cameras and other security. Looking for back doors. He entered the business on the corner, an art store with statues in the front windows, colorful, modern swirly things that looked like clayware. “Later, man.”
Inside, Hicklin chatted up the salesgirl, flirted, a natural-born player, all the byplay coming over the headset, which looked like his cell phone. I tinkered with Bitsa. Hicklin had a date with Amy later in the evening if he wanted, but he finally got to the point, asking her how long she’d worked at the store, and discovered she was the owner’s daughter. “Tell me about the building. I have a sister who’s a chef, relocating up from a chef school in Charlotte. I’m considering investing in a restaurant for her.”