Bruiser chuckled in the manly way they do when they’re thinking about sex. He drove with one hand and took mine with the other. We drove the rest of the way to the greenway holding hands, not looking at each other, me with a silly little smile on my fangy mouth.
The car Grégoire had been taken away in was a black, four-door Lincoln, and it had been pulled off St. Louis Street and onto the greenway grass before it was abandoned. Bruiser slammed the SUV into park and we rushed to the vehicle through the rain. I grabbed Bruiser’s arm as he reached to open the door. “Possible explosives,” I said. “The bomb squad is going to make overtime today.”
“I’ll call it in,” Bruiser said, and called NOPD. While he talked to dispatch and was put through to three other departments, telling the same tale each time, I walked around the Lincoln and sniffed things out. I caught the bloody spoor of Grégoire; he had been carried away. I started the muddy slog on the Lafitte Greenway, which wasn’t as pretty as that might have sounded, being a treeless stretch of grass and not much else. However, their trail ended at tire tracks in the mud. They had switched cars. My shoulders slumped, though I followed the tire tracks for a dozen blocks, the vehicle heading lakeside, until the mud no longer left a trail. I had lost Blondie.
Back at the SUV, the bomb squad hadn’t yet made an appearance, and the storm had gotten much worse, like an out-of-season hurricane, but with sleet and frozen rain. Even in half-Beast form I was shivering and miserable. Bruiser held my door for me, as if I were wearing a ballroom dress and not the soaked leathers. I was so getting some nonleather armor.
We had to find the witch who was bringing in the storm—hopefully Adan Bouvier. And locate Grégoire. And the vamps and humans who took him. And we had to stop all of them and then stop the boat offshore. At some point, I had read a text update from Alex that the Coast Guard was patrolling the waters watching for vamps and humans who might want to make it ashore, but in the rain and wind, humans would surely miss a lot. Clearly there were more than just two European vamps in town. Maybe the entireEuroVamp contingent was coming ashore in twos and threes, ready to do that whole preemptive strike on Leo. My heart rate increased as a spurt of adrenaline shot through my bloodstream. Alex had said something about vamps coming ashore in a rubber dinghy while the attention was focused on shore. Too much was going on and I was confused and hungry and tired.
Using the SUV’s onboard computer, I got Internet access, texted Alex, and got a fast answer. At the same time we were watching ICE and the feds and baiting Rick, a motorized dinghy carrying six passengers had come ashore, at least two of them vamps. Alex was working to identify them all now, and when he sent me some stills, I was able to assure him that two of the vamps were out of commission, one dead at the burned-out Arceneau Clan Home and one in the back of the SUV. The humans were DBs too. Considering the storm and the distance from their insertion point, I could likely account for all the hours between landfall and torture/arson.
Alex also sent me pics of the vamps and humans who had gone after Grégoire. My heart clenched and the blood froze in my veins, even though there was no surprise in his identity. One of the vamps was Le Bâtard. Grégoire’s sire.
Bruiser’s cell chirped again. He answered and listened. When he ended the call he said, “Let’s go. We’re needed at the Council Chambers, and the Mithran in the back will cook if left out in the sun too long.”
I looked up at the sky and said, “Sun?”
Bruiser didn’t even laugh. Seeing me shiver, he turned the heater to high and also ran the air-conditioner, trying to get some of the moisture out of the vehicle. In our short absence, it had grown colder and wetter and the windows were fogged. I hated New Orleans winters. And summers. The weather here nine or ten months out of the year. Hated it.
My honeybunch whipped the wheel and gunned the motor.
“You gonna tell me about the call?” I asked when Bruiser sped through a yellow light, turning over to red. Bruiser seldom ran lights, probably habits left over from the dayswhen vamps and their servants ran under the radar and did everything possible to avoid the attention of law enforcement. Not today.
“You asked about the new cages in the scion prison. One was not coated in silver. Adrianna is missing.”
“You are freaking kidding me.” Though with my fangs it came out,U r fek’g kiddick ee.
“Sadly not. She was set free during the storm. There were security problems from two lightning strikes into the grounds themselves. It’s dawn now, so she’s gone to lair, but we need to—”
“Alex,” I whispered, dragging at my burner cell, punching in the number. Alex was at the house, still terrified. Drunk on energy drinks. “Take me home! Take me home right now! She knows I took her bracelet.” My voice shuddered in my throat and froze up entirely. Bruiser’s foot hit the floorboard and the heavy vehicle plowed through the standing water. Alex’s number rang. And rang. I texted him. And e-mailed him. Stared at the cell willing it to respond, but the blasted thing did nothing. Edmund was with him. But it was after dawn. Derek’s security team was with him, but Adrianna was a powerful vamp, older than Ed. She might still be active in the daylight, as dim as the storm had left it. Adrianna was a bedbug-crazy vamp.
Bruiser tossed me a towel and I wiped off the windows and the windshield. Condensation gathered right back. The SUV became mired in early-morning traffic, many vehicles detouring around flooded parts of town. I called Alex again. Direct to voice mail. I called Edmund and Gee and left messages. I called Leo and left another one. And Derek. And Eli, the call I had least wanted to make, all going to voice mail. But not one of them called back to say they were on the way. I had to consider the reality that humans were expendable to vamps, even a valuable human like Alex and Derek’s team. And maybe because of the storm, Eli and Derek were out of cell coverage.
I could shift. Run back through the cold to the house. Get inside through Brute’s wolfie door. Shift back. Fight Adrianna bare-assed naked. I would die but it would buyAlex time. I dropped down in the seat and reached for the Gray Between. And reached. And nothing. It was closed to me.
A scream rose in my chest. Frustration and fear. Erupted into the SUV. My right fist came down. Crushed the dashboard. It cracked from the impact site to the floor. The glove box banged open, hitting my knee. My fist was buried in plastic, wedged in place. I yanked it out, tearing skin, too mad to feel the pain that had to be there. “I hate fangheads,” I growled. Wisely, Bruiser said nothing.
Behind the clouds, dawn was a gray smudge in the east, brightening the world just enough to make driving in the rain even worse. The vamp in the back cooked slightly as day dawned, the stink of burned undead tinging the air. Bruiser tore through the streets, his bow wave throwing street water up on every car nearby. Horns blew and we heard cursing in our wake. Neither of us cared.
Bruiser yanked the vehicle hard left and slammed his foot back to the floor as we entered my street. The vehicle was still moving as I ripped open the SUV door and leaped, using the vehicle’s momentum and Beast-strength. Up over the door and the hood, into the air, faster than the vehicle was traveling, and into the street. Pulled two vamp-killers. I drew on Beast-speed and tore for the house. Two bodies were on the small front porch. Derek’s men, nearly dead. The door was cracked open. The stink of gunfire and vamp filtered out. The stink of Adrianna. She was here.
I rammed the door with my shoulder. In an instant I saw Alex on the floor in a puddle of blood. Shotgun beside him, broken open. Shells scattered in his blood. I was too late. This time I was too late. Rage shoved through me like lava, incinerating everything in its path. Two of the security team were on the floor in my bedroom, at Adrianna’s feet.
Her hair was piled up on her head. She was wearing gold jewelry on both upper arms. An indigo dress, wet to the skin. The closet was open. The front door was still moving. It banged into the wall behind it.
Adrianna spun to me. Already vamped out.
In a single leap, I covered the distance to her, swords out to my sides.
She raised her hands. Magics the color of blood coiled around her.Like snakes, I thought.
I was still in the air when I brought the silvered blades down. And cut off her arms. The cuts so hard, so perfectly placed, I scarcely felt the jar as they passed through flesh and bones, just below the elbows.
She screamed. The ululation a piercing wail. The peal of a vamp in mortal danger. Dying. Her magics faltered. I landed behind her. On my bed. Whirled. With a single, perfectly placed swing, I took her head.
Blood gouged high, hitting the ceiling. She collapsed. I caught her head by the luxurious red hair. Blood scattered crimson across the room. Bruiser paused in the doorway, taking in Adrianna. Me. Holding her head by the hair, the head dropping slowly and spinning as her French twist came undone. The elegant hairstyle had never been intended to be worn this way.
Bruiser left the doorway and knelt by Alex. “Breathing,” he said. “Barely.” I nearly fell, the relief was so intense.
