I needed somewhere to put Troll. I made a quick call on Katie’s landline phone, as I had forgotten my own cell back at the house. I grabbed an arm and rolled the big guy to a sitting position and then up into a fireman’s carry, keeping one of his broken wrists in mine. His scent changed as I repositioned him. I staggered under the weight. “Holy crap, dude. What do you weigh? Four hundred pounds?”
“Three fifty,” he said, his words muffled by the broken jaw. “Wimp.”
“I broke your jaw and both wrists,” I said as I carried him out the front door into the rain. Grunting. Breathing too hard. “Don’twimpme.”
“I been drinking Katie’s blood for over a hundred years. You think I couldn’t evade if I’d wanted to?”
“So youwantedto be taken down?”
“I wanted to be taken to Leo and read,” Troll said, “with no one the wiser.”
I walked out the door and stood in a soft rain in the dawn light and thought about his too-soft words. Then I started hiking down the street, his weight making my joints ache. After a block, I said, “You can’t say no to Katie, who is working with the EVs as a spy in Leo’s camp. But you think the EVs are going to backstab her once they’re finished with her. So you want Leo to know, and then take her down easy and lock her away. Give her a chance to become loyal to him again.”
“Katie’s always been loyal to Leo,” he said. More sadly he added, “She loves him to the moon and back. But Le Bâtard has her younger sister prisoner. A vamp scion named Alesha Fonteneau.”
“And the bastard is threatening Katie with killing the sister?”
“Yeah. Alesha is... was Leo’s foremost spy in the European vamp camp, the one Leo calls Madam Spy. Le Bâtard found out. He hurt her. Bad. Sent photos to Katie. She lost it. Now stop asking me questions. I hurt. Get Leo to read me.”
“Okay. Thank you, Troll.”
He rumbled a laugh, the sound more pain than mirth. I walked on. Around me traffic increased, but no one even slowed down to look at me. In New Orleans I was either too dangerous to notice or just another street artist on the way to the corner I paid the city to use. Either way, not their business. A few minutes later, Troll said, “For reasons I don’t fully understand, I trust you, Jane Yellowrock. Don’t make me regret all this.”
“I’m a sweetheart,” I said, doing a little bounce and readjust. He grunted when his gut landed on my shoulder. “What’s not to trust?”
When he could speak again he said, “You’re a stone-cold killer, Janie. But you got morals. If this city survives, it’ll be because you turned the tide.”
“Your jaw healed already, didn’t it?”
“Close to eighty percent, yes.”
“Pretend to be unconscious when Derek takes you to HQ.”
“Will do.”
A heavily armored SUV pulled to the curb and the hatch opened. I dumped Troll into the back and pressed the button to close the hatch. I leaned in the passenger window to see Derek at the wheel. He looked like hell, wrinkled and rumpled, smelling of vamp blood, sweat, and gunpowder, a coms earbud in his ear. “Take him to Leo. He tried to kill me. He needs to be bled and read, and not by Katie.”
“You think she’s in with everything that’s happening now?”
“She’s in love with Leo. If she’s a traitor to him, then Leo’s enemies have to have some kind of leverage, forcing her.”
I spun away, through the rain. “Legs!” Derek shouted.
I did another one-eighty, back to the window. “Alex is on the coms channel. He said you forgot your cell and he has a message for you.” Derek put a finger to his ear. “Got it,” he said to Alex. “There was a bank robbery overnightand the robbers raided over a hundred safe-deposit boxes. He says you had boxes in the vault.”
Boxes that had previously been filled with my magical trinkets. Includingle breloqueand the Glob. But I had already removed the magical items and stored them in the closet at the house. Where Alex was, alone. The blood that wasn’t frozen in my veins plummeted to my feet.
Littermate!Beast growled.
“Alex,” I whispered. Louder I said, “Call Gee. Tell him to get to my house. To fly like a bird! Call Alex and tell him to get into the safe room! Now!” I whirled and raced through the rain and the water running in the streets and down the sidewalks.
“Jane? What? What? Alex?” he said. “Alex!” The SUV’s engine roared and tires splashed as Derek pulled the SUV around and headed back to my house. Troll was still in back.
I raced through the rain and water, feeling the pull on my waterlogged boots, splashing through water that reached my shins in places. Glanced up once. Noarcenciels. Where were they right now? I tried to pull on the Gray Between, but it stayed stubbornly locked down. Fear did that sometimes. And of course, now that I needed to stop time, I couldn’t access it. No lightning to help me along, and Beast wasn’t responding. Without the time to center myself and meditate, my magic was not perfect. With the storm, it was downright undependable.
Taking the most direct route, I dove inside Katie’s Ladies, raced through it, leaving the doors open, the walls rattling, and out into the rain in the backyard, toward my home. I pulled on Beast’s strength. Gathered myself. Leaped.
In the instant of pushing off, Beast burst through me. Pelt sprouted on my hands and arms beneath my soaked jacket. My body wrenched, hips changing shape, feet trying to grow wider in the now-ill-fitting boots. Waist shrank, shoulders expanded, rounded, stretched. My upper teeth erupted with fangs, the bones rearranging. I grunted in agony, the sound part-growl. Hunger clenched my insides. Too many half-shifts, not enough food to fuel them.
