Instantly Katie let me go and practically slithered into Leo’s arms. Across the way, Grégoire, Leo’s secundo heir, watched the two, his face impassive. I had no idea what was happening between them; the ménage à trois had never made any kind of sense to me.
On-screen, Bruiser was trying to remove the brooch pinned to Ming’s flesh, but the slightest touch caused her to writhe and rave in pain and madness. Bruiser stopped attempting to remove the ornament and stared at the nearest camera as if searching out Leo. The Master of the City leaned into a mic and said, “Bring her home. And bring the chains that bound her, that I might scent of them.”
And in that moment I accepted how dire things might really be. If a witch had done this, Leo would know. If a vampire had done this, Leo would know. If a were-creature, Leo would know. And there would be vengeance and retribution. No matter who had imprisoned Ming, nothing good would ever come of it. New Orleans vamps had been through one war already, a war that had resulted in the destruction of half its clans. There was no telling what might happen if there was another vamp war so close to the Euro Vamps arriving. Or if the vamps and witches went to war. Whoever had done this had been brilliant. Sadistic and brutal, but brilliant. Everything I had hoped for, worked for, sacrificed for, to keep my godchildren safe, to keep the human population of New Orleans and the greater Southeast safe, to keep all the witches in the U.S. safe, was about to unravel all at once.
Plots within plots, schemes within conspiracies within intrigues. The vamp way. And I had little hope of figuring it out and stopping it in time.
Something sharply angled appeared at the top of the screen and was lowered into the pit. It was the wooden box that looked way too much like an oversized coffin for my comfort. To keep from saying so, I picked up a donut, stuffed it into my mouth, and chewed. When the transport box settled into the muddy bottom, Bruiser lifted Ming in his arms and placed her inside. Then he climbed inside with her, holding her like a lover, as a winch lifted the big box slowly out, the pseudocoffin wanting to swirl and twist, but held steady by the Roberes.
When the box rested on the churned-up land, lying flat in the mud, the twins rinsed the two figures with clean water from blue five-gallon bottles, the kind people drank from in doctors’ offices and in places where clean drinking water was scarce. The rinse water drained between the slats of the boards until it ran nearly clean. When they were finished, the boys handed in what looked like a foam mattress pad and pillows and blankets, tucking everything around the woman as Bruiser, his wrist still in her mouth, eased his body out. He whispered something to Ming of Mearkanis and she released his wrist. Quickly a humancrawled into the box and settled beside her, offering his wrist. Another human crawled in on the other side.
No way would I have done that. No freaking way. Humans were crazy.
“How long, George?” Leo asked, his voice deceptively soft. “How long has Ming of Mearkanis been in the pit?”
Bruiser gestured off to the side, and the pumps went silent. One generator went dead, leaving only one to speak over. He tapped a mud-crusted earbud I hadn’t noted and repeated, “How long?” He looked at the camera and leaned into a mic held by the operator, the screen falling off to an uneven angle as the human operator did double duty. “I would say perhaps two years. No more.”
Leo shook his head and the scent of anger grew again, spiking high in the overcrowded room.
“Dominantem civitati—Master of the City and Hunting Territories of New Orleans,” Bruiser said, his words and tone formal and low. “It is unlikely that the witches who attacked your Enforcer are responsible for this horror. Not alone. Not without help. Even with magic, two strong people would not have the physical strength to accomplish this: Digging a pit. Reinforcing it with concrete and magic. Kidnapping a Blood Master and putting her here. This was done by heavy machines and agroupof people, humans and witches, working in concert, over time.”
I nearly dropped my donut in surprise.
Leo’s eyes landed on me, his expression telling me to be silent. I wondered if it was polite to be filling my belly while watching the rescue. Probably not. Probably rude as heck. Feeling peevish, I finished off that donut and took another. Leo’s expression morphed into feeble amusement before he turned back to the screen.
“But,” Bruiser went on, still speaking formally and carefully, as if by rote, or as if he knew how fragile everyone here was, watching and not being able to help or retaliate, “witches have been here. Two witches. The scent of their magical energies are everywhere, in the runes, the sigils, in the water, and on Ming’s flesh. They may not have instigated the crime, but they have perpetuated it and maintained it. Ming has been repeatedly bled, by knife toher throat, to feed one who felt no bloodlust and was not overpowered by compulsion. In fact, Ming of Mearkanis is not able to mesmerize at all at this time. It must be the effect of the brooch, and I cannot remove it alone. It must be done by the Master of the City, under controlled circumstances.”
I thought about the brooch pinned through her flesh. Magic working on a vamp. Not good. In fact, very bad.
Bruiser continued with his report. “The two humans in the pit with her have modern dentistry, ruling out them being her primo and secondo blood-servants, Benjamin and Riccard. Whoever these humans are, it’s unlikely that they signed papers to serve the Mithrans. We have taken photographs of the skeletons, which we have sent ahead. Local law enforcement will need to be called, quite soon, sir.”
Leo’s lip curled at the idea of human law enforcement, but his gaze narrowed and he said, “As soon as Ming of Mearkanis is in flight, you may contact the parish authorities and tell them that thepirate pitrevealed something other than treasure. There will be no mention of Ming. The identity of the humans may lead us to the perpetrators.”
Which totally let Eli and me off from having to do a crime scene workup on the pit. A sense of relief filled me, making me know just how much I had not been looking forward to Yellowrock Securities being involved in that.
“Yes, sir,” Bruiser said, his tone impassive.
“Well done, Onorios of New Orleans,” Leo said. “We await you and your precious cargo. Godspeed.”
Which made my eyebrows go up. Godspeed? For a vamp? Weird and weirder.
CHAPTER 8
Eww, Ick, and Grody
It was early by vamp standards, but I hadn’t slept and if I didn’t get some shut-eye, I was in trouble, so Eli and I went to the break room. I spent little time in the room, mostly because on one memorable occasion, I met two heavily tattooed men who later tried to kill some people. And succeeded. More vamp machinations. In the back of the room was a small door, set flush with the wall, a door I hadn’t known about back when. Behind the door was a small bunk room, available to anyone, human or vamp, seeking a place to sleep. There were twelve double bunks in a row, so close together that any hope of privacy was long lost. But it was better than asking to bunk in with a vamp.
Three of the bottom bunks were inhabited. A greater number of the upper bunks were being used. The room stank of sweat, old beer, bad breath, and the sort of bodily gasses that tended to accumulate around people who ate a lot of highly spiced food. I didn’t care. The sheets were clean and the room was dark, so I crashed on the bottom bunk closest to the door. Eli swung up into the one above me.
With Leo’s clan home still not finished, and stuck in thepeculiar hell of seeking a certificate of occupancy permit while not really being ready to be occupied, HQ was stuffed full and the room was seeing a lot of action. Too many humans in one small place meant very restricted sleeping arrangements. Leo had thought he could speed up things in his clan home by offering a building inspector a little cash flow and had the misfortune of meeting up a parish employee who had an unbreakable moral code. Or who hated vamps. The guy had turned Leo over to the police, who’d had no choice but to file charges. Leo had been ticked off. I’d had the wisdom not to laugh. Go, me. On that self-congratulatory note, I fell into dreams.
***
There was a new dream, but familiar to me. A green eye in my left palm, opened to see me, to read me. The feel of energies scanning through me, learning who I was, what I could do. And then the dream was gone, as if it never was. I dropped deeper into sleep.
***
It was after midnight when Eli woke me, his watch making a tiny beeping noise, too soft to wake the others. I had kicked off my shoes in my sleep and I pulled them on, stretching before following my partner into the break room and the hallway beyond.
