Lachish was the head of the New Orleans coven, the woman leading the Witch Conclave, and she was in charge of vamp/witch reconciliation. She was a stout, stern middle-aged woman who looked like someone’s grandmother, but was really a magical force to be reckoned with. The twins, Elizabeth and Boadicea, were two of Mol’s remaining witch sisters and were always in trouble. Or making trouble.Or stirring up trouble. Despite which, I liked them both a lot.
The Vampira Carta and its codicils contained the rule of law for the Mithran vampires and it contained protocols and rules for proper behavior between vampires, scions, blood-servants, blood-slaves, and cattle—the demeaning term for the nonbound humans whom vamps once hunted, sometimes for sport. The Carta provided proper procedures and conventions for everything, including challenging and killing each other in a duel called by lots of names: the Blood Challenge, the Sangre Duello, and the Blood Duel, to name three.
“A Blood Challenge,” Mol said, her eyes squinted, unblinking in thought, “Enforcer-to-Enforcer, or primo-to-primo, for first blood, is a common proper protocol for visiting vamps. It’s one acceptable first step to one master issuing a Blood Challenge to another. But if the first blood challenger loses on the first pass, they usually don’t offer formal challenge to the death.”
A fight to the death, with a sword, was a challenge I was destined to lose, which reminded me of the scar. I reached up under my arm and pressed the flesh there. I felt a ridge of tissue, but it was no longer sore or tender. The healing in the sweat house had given better results than I had expected, short of a true shift to another form.
“Having a primo makes you a master,” Molly said, “while still being Enforcer to Leo. It would put the challenger in a difficult place protocol-wise. A primo or an Enforcer can fight that first battle for any master. Is Edmund any good?”
“Yes,” Eli said. “Better than his position would indicate. He’s a former Blood Master who lost his position to an inferior fanghead, inferior in terms of vampire power, compulsion, and fighting ability. We’ve always thought he gave up the position instead of fighting for it, for reasons that have never made sense to us.”
“Interesting,” Molly said, picking at the pile of pineapple and onion and peppers I wasn’t eating. “One has to wonder why he fell so low, and why he’s still so low. Machinations, maybe? Leo doing what Leo does best?”
“Plans within plans,” I said.
“And this fanghead primo. He has no place to sleep? How about the bolt-hole/safe room you turned into weapons storage?” She was referring to the long narrow room under the stairs, hidden by a bookcase in the living room.
“We secured the entrance from under the house, but I could unsecure it,” Eli said. “I could put a lock on this side of the bookcase opening so he couldn’t get in through there. That would leave the house safe from him. There’s enough room to put a cot there, but no place for his belongings.”
“You are not seriously considering having Edmund stay here,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Big Evan would have a cow.”
“There is that,” Molly agreed. “Evan has cows often.” She pushed away from the table and wandered into the living room, where the kids were watching some animated, improbable movie, where the girls were all wimps, waiting to be saved by a prince.
Angie Baby was telling her little brother what was wrong with that scenario. “The princess would have a sword and lots of magic spells and point her magic wand and the bad man would go ‘poof’ and be gone.” And it made me smile. Angie would never be a wilting violet, waiting to be rescued.
Big Evan was upstairs, arguing with Alex about research. The Kid’s room had become a library filled with things we borrowed from the sub-four storage at HQ. Journals, newspapers, letters, diaries, vamp and human histories that were being scanned and, where possible, automatically added to our ever-growing database. I could smell the Kid’s frustration from here. He wasn’t used to anyone butting in on his methods or trying to change his organization. Currently he was updating info on the Mings, specifically chronicling their vamp connections through the last hundred years, hoping to find a clue on who might have taken Ming of Mearkanis. From the snippets of conversation, Evan wanted him to concentrate on the witch aspect, and right now, not later.
I transferred my attention to Eli and said softly, “Now,why do you think Molly would be so agreeable and then walk off like that?”
Eli chuckled, the sound grim and admiring all at once. “So she can declare innocence when we do this thing. So she can lay the blame cleanly at your feet and Big Evan can get mad at you, and you can find a way to make it work without her being at fault.”
I swiveled my head, watching my BFF scooch onto the couch between her kids. “Dang. Molly’s sneaky. And maybe a genius.”
“Sylvia assures me that all women are geniuses that way. Except you. She says you ‘think like a man and don’t give a good damn who you piss off,’ ’scuse the language. Mostly she’s right.”
I was pretty sure the quote was an insult. “I think like a cat, not a man,” I said, but otherwise she had me to a tee.
Eli’s cell made a burbling sound. He flipped the Kevlar cover open and said, “A text from Edmund Hartley.” He chuckled as he read. “He’s delivered all his unused furniture from his room at headquarters to a storage unit.” Eli glanced up from his cell, “According to Alex, Edmund actually owns the storage unit facility, and he personally has access to ten units. Alex thinks they’re full of stuff left over from being a clan Blood Master. Or weapons of mass destruction. Or dead bodies in fifty-five-gallon drums. Or gold bars. My brother has an imaginative and warped mind.” He went back to the texts. “Edmund is on the way here. He wants to know where to park his vehicle.”
From the street, I heard the high-pitched roar of a four-cylinder car. To a road enthusiast, most four-cylinder vehicles sound like vacuum cleaners, but this one sounded different. Powerful. I stood to look out the window and saw a bronze-poly-toned sports speedster gleaming in the dark and the streetlamps, a car to rival my Harley Bitsa for style, design, and sheer kick-ass-ity. “What is that?” I breathed.
“That,” Alex shouted down the stairs, “is Edmund’s Thunderbird Maserati 150 GT. It’s one of the few 1957 prototypes still in existence.” He smacked down the stairs in hisflip-flops and out the side door. The rest of us followed to see him throw open the side gate to the tiny alley between my house and the one next door and rush into the street. “Yes!” He pumped his fist. “Thatis a one-of-a-kind car called alittle rocketbecause of its incredible power-to-weight ratio. One like it fetched more than three million at auction a few years back.”
“Three mil? I thought Edmund was broke.”
“Methinks Eddie lied,” Eli said.
“Is that Brute in the passenger seat?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Alex shouted over the sound of the engine echoing off the narrow walls as the little rocket eased into the tight alley and into the side yard, between the barbecue grill and the brick wall. “Ed’s bringing Brute. Leo kicked him out of HQ for reasons unknown. I’m guessing the werewolf peed in his shoes or ate his Barcalounger.”
“This is getting ridiculous,” I said. I felt an itch between my shoulder blades, as if someone had a laser scope on me, a high-powered rifle aimed at a kill site. I was breathing too fast, heart beating too fast.Crap, crap, crap.I didn’t like this at all.
Too many people in our den,Beast thought, panting hard.Shift into big-cat and run. We find new den. Alone.
