“We heard from Phillip Hastings.” His voice was toneless and sere.
I looked up at him. Battle face. This would be bad news.
“Bighorn Pack tracked down three of the rogue pack. The rogues had targeted NOLA’s homeless population and the grindylow had already killed them. The grindys and the wolves gathered the bitten humans into an empty boxcar to await the full moon.”
The full moon. When the humans would change and then—if they had no control over their werewolves—would die at the claws of the grindys. Or stay human and live. I looked back at the oatmeal. Wondering if I could do something to stop that, knowing that I could not. Knowing that the humans’ fate was already decided by the were-taint in their blood. I shoveled in more oatmeal, though now it was tasteless.
“Bighorn Pack has set up a feeding regimen and showers and portable toilets for the bitten men. They’ll be well cared for until the full moon, but they will be prisoners.”
I grunted. Hating this. Hating not being able to save people who would die because of no fault of their own. This sucked.
“You meditated when you fought,” Eli said.
“Zen,” I said. Though it came outChhhsssin.
“And in a meditative state you are a fighting beauty to behold.”
“Ducky,” I said. Or tried to. It came out sounding obscene and Eli chuckled. I swallowed and said, “I sliced and diced him to pieces.”
“And took his head. And your rep as a fighter just went through the roof. Five challengers from the Sangre Duello just dropped out.” He watched my face and answered before I could ask, “Yeah, word got out fast.” More softly he added, “Andromeda Preaux is dead.”
I looked up in confusion.
“Andromeda. The woman in the jewelry shop. She’s dead. Her store was shot up this afternoon in what looks like a gang shoot-out. Six victims: three gangbangers,Andromeda, a blood-servant who smelled like lemons, according to the surgeon who worked on her, and a homeless man who had been sleeping in the doorway.”
I closed my eyes, remembering the woman who had offered me a way out the back when she believed I was in danger. The woman who had been willing to defend a stranger. I pushed down the need to hit something, to save a woman who couldn’t now be saved.
Hate pack hunters,Beast thought.
Yeah,I thought back.I hate helplessness more.Hiding the need for vengeance, I asked, “And the lemon-smelling woman?”
“She was still under from anesthesia when she disappeared from the recovery department. They think she was carted out in a laundry basket right in front of the sheriff’s deputy on watch.”
“Des Citrons got her back.”
“Looks like it. Let’s go. We have more ceremony tonight.”
I wiped my face and gathered up my weapons harnesses. “I’d rather be chasing down and cutting up Clan Des Citrons. Ceremony is boring,” I said.
“Not when you’re around.”
I grunted a final time and led the way to the elevator.
• • •
Back in the Council Chambers, I studied the hole in the ceiling and the small brick-walled tunnel beyond it. The space was maybe thirty by thirty inches and black as pitch. Eli craned his body around and sent a tight beam of light into the hole. Mr. Prepared always had a flashlight on him. The tunnel went straight up for about fifteen feet and then angled hard to the left. Right at the angle there was a smear of black. I sniffed and thought I caught the faintest scent of old fire and fresh lemons. “Soot?” I asked.
Eli said, “Boost me up to your shoulders.” I bent my knees, hands on the floor. He stepped on my shoulders, the hard rubber of his boots cutting into my muscles. I didn’t complain, and stood to give him height, watching as he fingered the brick at the lower edge. It was broken and shattered evenly all around. “Hammers. I’d guessthere used to be a fireplace in this corner and it was removed during some renovation.”
“There was,” Leo said calmly from behind us. “In 1917.”
“Where does it go at the angle?” Eli asked, stretching to the left, his light shooting a thin beam of illumination up the shaft.
His voice carefully unemotional, Leo said, “Down to the small library on this level and up to the fireplace in my office.”
I bent my knees again and Eli leaped to the floor. I brushed off my jacket and stretched. “Let’s check out your office,” I said grimly.
Derek said, “I’ll check out the library.”
