Cold Reign

by Faith Hunter

  My heart slowed and my fingers suddenly ached. The Marchands had come from France for Amitee to marry the vamp masquerading as Leo’s son Immanuel, the liver-eater I had killed when I first came to New Orleans. Everything, every freaking thing, went back to Immanuel.

  Immanuel and his friends had wanted to kill Leo and take over the city. Immanuel, Amitee, and Fernand had been traitors. Yet Leo had kept the brother and sister around even after his heir was killed. Why? Was it part of the homily that said we should keep our enemies closer? Callan and Fernand were standing together, Fernand’s hand on Callan’s shoulder. It would have been all cozy, lovey-dovey if Callan hadn’t been pointing a gun right where I had been standing. I thought about hurting them both but put it off for now. There were other things I needed to see, and they might lead me to other enemies.

  Too many enemies, too many plots. Only one thing was certain. This situation had nothing to do with the United States Navy or an attack on the military. That had been a feint or an unhappy accident. This was a direct hit on Leo and the fangheads on U.S. soil.

  Spotting a kid in a red jacket and black pants dripping on the marble floor, I moved in. He was holding a nine-millimeter sideways in one hand. It was a street gang firing stance, one where aiming was more a general-direction thing, not target practice. I leaned in and sniffed, getting a good whiff of his weapon, his clothing, his armpits, and his breath. He was whacked out on drugs, cheap liquor, and vamp blood. I moved closer to him. Breathed in through my mouth, air moving over my tongue with a soft scree of sound. Vamp blood. And sex. A lot of both and recently. He’d been fed and rolled and seduced and sent on a quest. All by a vamp I didn’t recognize. The kid was maybe fourteen.

  Kits . . . Beast hissed. Not sucklings. Not yearlings. But young. To be kept at mother cat’s side, taught to hunt. Taught to survive. Not ready to be mated.

  Anger rumbled through me. I moved through the fracas into the area where the elevator opened.

  Security was rushing from the parted doors, faces in that cold, hard combat mode that former active-military types always wore in emergencies. They wore SWAT-type flak jackets and they carried small subguns. Not good. They were about to kill humans, kids, gangbangers, for sure, but gangbangers who might have been rolled by vamps. I had to stop this.

  Time juddered, sound beating against my ears. The lightning sizzled. Thunder hammered the air. Gunshots. Screams. Shadows and motion, and then it all stopped. I didn’t have long. I ran to the first man racing off the elevator and grabbed him, yanking him out of his time and into mine. Into my arms. Up off the floor, using his momentum against him, spinning him. Letting go, I leaped back, leaving him hanging in midair. He’d fall and most of the others would land on top of him. A pileup. Time stuttered. Shuddered. Almost out of no-time.

  I raced through the melee, knocking bullets to the floor, ruining aims by slapping against weapons, knocking guns out of loose grips. The vamp I had shot was nearly to the outer door. I leaped into the air and kicked her knee. I heard the bone break, slowly, snaps dragging through her flesh and into the air.

  I touched her and she fell, screaming, into no-time. And time snapped back. I caught her, shoved a silvered blade under her chin, and carried her back inside. “Tell the gangbangers to back off, or I’ll toss your head into the battle.” I sliced into her flesh. “Now!”

  “Detener,” she said.

  Bullets chiseled into the walls, floors, people. Shrapnel flew. Screams and the smell of blood filled the air. I shoved the blade an inch into her flesh, into a blue tattoo, getting a nose full of silver-scorched skin and blood as I took a breath. “Louder,” I growled.

  “Pararse! Detener! Stop! Withdraw!”

  Gangbangers whirled and vanished, darting into the rain. The ones who were cornered put weapons on the floor. Ten seconds after time went back to normal, the battle was over.

  We lost the redheaded male vamp. Callan and Fernand vanished as they popped away at vamp-speed. The security types were mostly untangled in front of the elevator. And I was about a quarter of the way to Beast-form. Fortunately it was still dark and the storm still raged. I threw the injured vamp at Wrassler and growled, “Get her to Leo. Have him read her. I want to know everything she does, pronto.”

  “I know nothing that could be of use to you,” she said, sounding Frenchy, not even bothering to struggle in Wrassler’s arms.

  “Whatever.” To Wrassler I added, “Clear the area and get the bomb squad in here. There are bombs set up in the ballroom.”

  His eyes whipped around the room, taking in the changes to the architecture. “Copy, Legs.” He yanked the vamp off her feet and moved away.

  I shouted, “Eli. With me.” By the smell, one revenant was still on premises and had made it down the stairs to the basements.

  Before I could lead the way down, lights and sirens pulled up under the porte cochere. Rick LaFleur led the way in with members of local and state law enforcement, the men and women wearing navy rain gear with the letters NOGTF on the front. NOGTF was the New Orleans Gang Task Force, a multiagency task force with the FBI. I spotted cops as they took off into the night after the running kids. Rick caught my eye and I gave him a single, hard nod. He returned it. He was dealing. Good. I raced down the basement stairs, Eli on my heels.

  Down and down and down, through another passageway, and down and down, following the scent of the rev. But the twice-dead thing stopped before he hit the deepest basement and the thing that hung on the walls there. The revenant wasn’t in sub-five with the Son of Darkness. He had veered off course into sub-four. I knew in my bones what the rev was after. Adrianna. The vamp Leo had kept alive despite all the times I had killed her.

  Leo had kept Fernand and Amitee, and even Callan near him. He had a plan on how to use them all. I hoped he’d find success with all that. I figured it was about as likely as a six-foot snowfall in Hades.

  I raced down the hallway, following the faint stink of rot. The Gray Between hovered around me as I ran; my fangs disappeared and my pelt shimmered into flesh. I returned to fully human without having to stop and change. Something was happening to my magics, but I didn’t have time to analyze it. We spun around the corner and found ourselves staring down the barrel of a gun from floor level.

  In front of the sealed doorway to Adrianna’s prison, lying in a pool of her own blood, was Ro Moore, one of Leo’s new security people out of Atlanta and Katie’s new Enforcer. With her shirt, she had fashioned makeshift bandages that covered her left arm and shoulder, the sports bra beneath drenched in blood. A nine-millimeter was in her right hand holding a steady aim on us. When she saw us, she laid the gun on her middle, and her body quivered in what smelled like relief and pain.

  Eli dashed to her, murmuring, “How many rounds? Where are you hit?”

  “Two in my left shoulder, nine-mil. I think one punctured a lung.” Ro coughed and blood came up with the expelled breath.

  We now had WiFi in the basements and I called up to Bruiser, saying, “Wounded in sub-four. We need medic—”

  Edmund popped into place at my side, startling me.

  “—A-SAP,” I said, closing the cell’s Kevlar cover.

  Ed knelt at Ro’s side and peeled back her bandage. “You are the human female who fights in cages.”

  “Yeah,” she gasped as he probed the wounds. She wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist. “I can usually take care of myself. But there were three of them. With guns.” She chuckled and more blood splattered. “They don’t allow guns in the pit.”

  “Wise decision there.” Edmund ripped the strap of the sports bra from her, without jostling her body. “Are you averse to close physical contact with me? You are badly injured. I will need to—”

  She coughed again and blood went everywhere. I could hear the fluid gurgling in her lungs. Edmund had been many things in his long life; one was a physician. He pulled a blade and slice
d two of his fingers deeply enough that the blood wouldn’t clot over too quickly.

  “I am most sorry,” he said. And he thrust his fingers into the wounds. She coughed and gagged and writhed, smearing the blood beneath her like some kind of artwork for a horror flick. Ed put his free hand on Ro’s head and said, “Be still. All is well.” His voice fell low, slow, the tone they use when they draw on their power to mesmerize. “All is well. Do you know how much the Master of the City approves of you?” he said in the same easy tone. “He sets you on guard duty, in the bowels of the building, an indication of how much he trusts you with his secrets and his body.” Ed looked up at us and mouthed, Medic!

  I had seen Ed heal with his blood and his magic. He had brought me back from the brink of death. But I wasn’t human. Ro was dying. Fear sliced along my nerves and I raced back up the steps. Snagged two paramedics as they came in the outer door. “Downstairs. Elevator.” I didn’t mean to shove them and their gear and the stretcher into the elevator, but somehow that was what I did. They landed with a jumble and clatter of metal and hard plastic. I stabbed the button, trying to remember how to get to the sealed door once we got off the elevator and how many walls I’d have to punch out to get the stretcher through.

  It took too long. Too long, too long, too long for the elevator to descend. I punched the button again. Maybe a dozen times. The elevator finally dropped gently down.

  “Ma’am? What do we have?”

  I turned to the paramedic and managed to take a breath. I saw my reflection in his eyes. My own wide and terrified. Face too pale for my usual golden-hued skin. I realized I had panicked. I never panicked. I— Oh. The storm. It was affecting me in lots of ways, more than I realized. I gathered my brain around me and forced my shoulders down, forced in a breath. I said, “Female, aged twenty-two to thirty-five. Two GSWs, left shoulder. Left lung penetration. Coughing blood. Possible hemothorax. A doctor is with her, but he has no equipment.” I looked at my hands. There was a splatter of blood on them from when Ro coughed. I had panicked. That was strange.

  The elevator stopped. The doors eventually opened. I grabbed up the medical kit, which probably weighed a good forty pounds, and sprinted down the hallway. Then stopped and waited for the paramedics to get the stretcher sorted out. It took forever. And I understood then that I really liked Ro. She had moxie, was resourceful and practical. And tough as nails.

  I had never bothered to make a friend of her and that bothered me.

  We rounded the hallway and the paramedics went to work, taking direction from Edmund, who gave them everything about her from pulse and respirations to the fact that her lung had partially collapsed and most certainly she had a hemothorax. More detailed and better medical information than I had known.

  I watched as the medical types got IV lines going, started plasma expanders, put pads under her knees to restore some blood pressure to keep her from going more shocky. She was paler than most vamps. Blood-drenched. I couldn’t stand here any longer. I needed to be doing something. I pulled a vamp-killer and the nine-mil, which I had safetied and holstered, all with a round in the chamber. Stupid. Unless I needed it in a hurry. Then maybe not. I felt as if I were waking up from a hazy dream. “Who’s in the room?” I asked Eli.

  “Ro says a revenant and a human wearing red and black.”

  “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  Eli opened the door and took left; I took right. On the floor beside the cage against the far wall was a dead human who might have been wearing black and red. There was so much blood I couldn’t tell for sure. I didn’t have to check for a pulse. His throat was gone. A revenant wearing gray rags had his back to us, and he didn’t turn, too busy trying to get the cage gate open. The mesh was tightly braided and woven stainless steel, coated with silver, and it cut and burned through vamp skin like a blade through butter. The latch was the highest-quality steel and spelled. And the dead human hadn’t thought to bring lock cutters.

  The door closed with a sharp sound and the rev whirled to us. There was life and light in his eyes. And blood and tissue and dog fangs at his mouth. But he telegraphed his move and I was already in a hard backswing. He dove for us. I took him down with the vamp-killer. His head bounced off the ceiling and landed on an empty cage. His body dropped. I knelt at it and studied the neck. The pink thread was pulsing with magic. I lowered my face and sniffed. There was the faintest trace of mixed vamp blood on him, the same mixture that was in the blood bottle. Which I had misplaced. Maybe in the limo. So much had happened in the last few hours, I was uncertain. Oh. Right. I’d last been holding it in the limo and had seen Eli take it. It was safe, wherever he had stored it.

  I looked into the only occupied cage, into the face of the beautiful fanghead who had tried to kill me the first time she saw me. Her red hair was long and curly and as wild as she was, and she was dressed in jeans and a loose-woven, pale aqua sweater. Beneath the sweater, on her upper arm, gold gleamed. She was wearing a snake bracelet, one that danced with magic in a dozen shades of red, charcoal, and black. I had taken her jewelry away from her. It was all infused with magic and she was not allowed magic. Yet she wore magic tonight.

  Outside, lightning struck close again. I felt it in my bones, an electric zapping that hurt. But it didn’t do anything to my magic because it never found me. Instead, the magic in the lightning, or perhaps only a tiny bit of it, as Adrianna didn’t burn to death on impact, found the bracelet. The gold lit up. The lights overhead flickered off and on several times. Adrianna gripped the mesh and leaned into it. Lightning swirled into the mesh, sparking and glinting, before vanishing. There was no stink of her flesh burning, no smoke. Adrianna opened her eyes, stared at me, and laughed.

  The cages. They were brand-new. The mesh was a different design. The metal bright and clean and untouched by time and prolonged contact with vamp flesh and blood and air and water. Shiny. Either they weren’t really coated with silver, or Adrianna had gained a silver immunity, which would be very, very bad.

  I pulled my cell and sent a text to Alex. Get someone in here to make sure the sub-four scion and prisoner cages aren’t wired into a power system, regular electric, security system, or somehow getting to the SOD. Make sure they are silver. Adrianna not burning to touch.

  He sent back, K.

  “I remember those,” Adrianna said. “I want one.”

  I looked into Adrianna’s eyes. Pretty sane. Ish. Holy crap. Maybe the way to cure vamp insanity is a silver stake through the brain. “Eli, we need that bracelet.”

  Adrianna slapped a hand over her upper arm, hiding the gleam of gold. “Mine.”

  “Nope,” I said. “Mine.”

  Edmund entered the room and looked around like a dapper decorator unimpressed with the décor. Until he spotted the rev head on the cage top. He showed teeth in predatory pleasure and said, “This is why I love working for you, my mistress. Never a dull millisecond.”

  “I smell blood,” Adrianna said. She held her palm against the mesh, not burning. Not burning at all. “Give.”

  “No,” I said. To Edmund, I added, “We need to get her bracelet off. Someone gave her more magical stuff.”

  “Good,” Edmund said. “The hidden security camera should show us who and when.”

  “You installed a hidden surveillance camera?”

  “Technically your second installed it, but it was my idea.”

  Eli snorted, and I got the feeling that Edmund’s contribution was more in the vamp’s head than in reality. “It isn’t tied into the system. I’ll pull the drive now and insert another. We can take it to Alex for review.” Eli went to a spot next to the door and peeled back a length of tape that was the same color as the wall. Behind the tape, Eli had cut into the wallboard and planted a small camera. He removed a tiny drive, inserted another, and closed the tape over it. Unless someone was looking for a small hole next to the door, it was invisible. “It’s in real time, s
o it will take a while.”

  I walked to Adriana, who had been watching us avidly. “Give me blood,” she demanded.

  “No,” I said. “I won’t. Edmund, will you liaise with Sabina and Bethany and get that bracelet off her?” My primo went still, that undead thing they do when they display all the life of a wax mannequin. I grinned at the wall, not looking at him directly, my Beast playing. “What? You thought being my primo was going to be all bloody fun and games? There’s politics too.”

  Eli said to me, “He could bring in enough minor vamps to take it off her and deliver it to the house. Up to you.”

  Regally, I nodded my head at Edmund. “I am not averse to either method. Make it so, Number One.”

  Edmund went from still as wax to staring at me. “You are . . . teasing me?”

  “Pretty much,” I said. “I still need that bracelet, but it’s up to you how I get it.” I stepped to Adrianna’s cage and rattled the gate. It was secure.

  There was a faint pop of sound. Blood stench billowed into the room. I whirled to see a blood-splattered Leo in the open doorway. Blood ran in rivulets over his crimson clothing. Adrianna moaned.

  “Leo?”

  “Où étais-tu?” he whispered, the words strangled.

  “What—”

  “They have taken him!” he screamed. “They took my Grégoire. You were not here. You were supposed to be here.” Leo dropped to his knees. Tried to catch himself with a hand on the jamb but slipped in his blood. He had lost two fingers on his right hand. He face-planted and lay still. His shirt was cut to ribbons, as was the flesh beneath. There was a knife sticking from between his shoulder blades. Behind me, Adrianna laughed, the sound low and mocking.

  • • •

  Things moved fast. Katie, Leo’s heir, with the most powerful blood in the city, Dacy Mooney, the visiting heir of the Shaddock blood clan from Asheville, and others gathered to feed their master. Someone sent for Sabina to help feed him. Bethany, the other priestess, raced down the hallway to feed Leo, opening the flesh of her fingertips and smearing it over the MOC, sticking the same fingers into wounds I hadn’t noticed. When he was at least stable, the vamps carried the MOC to his rooms. I followed behind, useless, and I finally got to see where Leo spent his private time.