That was bad. It meant the likelihood of vamps being on-site had just dropped drastically.
“Taking a chance and dropping the drone down to get a closer look,” he said.
I had seen sites where vamps had lived and eaten and killed and departed. This had all the markers, from the stuffed mailbox to the tire tracks through the lawn to the unused and dirty children’s swing set out back.
“Move out,” Eli said, his voice grim. We were out of the van and jogging through the underbrush, down the road, moving out in a fan and into our assigned positions. I followed Eli up the mound into the winter-dormant foliage that covered a low wall near the carport. I could still smell jasmine. The team began to call in with their op names and positions acquired. One voice added, “Meyer lemon trees fruit year-round. These should be producing and they’ve been stripped of fruit—all fruit, not just the ripe ones. Recently.”
I took a breath, mouth open, drawing in air over mytongue and through my nose with a softscreeof sound. I covered my mic and said to Eli, “Death. Several days old. Multiple people. I don’t smell... I don’t smell, or hear, activity.”
He covered his mic and said, “Copy that. Didn’t know you could smell activity.”
I shrugged. It wasn’t something I could explain. It fell under a category of weird, like people who could walk into a house and tell if anyone had been there recently. Movement of air currents. Presence or absence of faint sounds or echoes. Whatever.
Eli said, “Tracks in the yard are hours old. I think they bugged out.”
“And left the bodies,” I said.
• • •
We were both right. By the time PsyLED got there, we had called the coroner and left the house to the five human corpses and the dead dog. I didn’t want to think about what Des Citrons had done to the people in the B&B. But I knew this. I’d kill them when I found them.
I sent a text to Alex.Make sure this was a random kill site. No attachment to Leo or any clan.
He sent back,Roger that.The kid was growing up.
• • •
Five hours after I leaped out of bed to go to war with Des Citrons, Shemmy dropped me off at home. Eli had reached the house an hour before and I envied him the hot shower he had undoubtedly taken, as I entered the house, hearing the sound of hammers and a skill saw from the third floor, and men talking from the living room. Neither group heard me, so I stopped in the shadows of the door to eavesdrop.
Edmund said, “Titus agreed to the location, and proposed the first-round combatants. His people and Leo’s are close to deciding on a time to begin. Thank you,” he interjected as if he’d been given a glass of wine or a really good cookie. “Leo dispatched Derek Lee and an initial security crew, his entire housekeeping crew, and the combined and motley gangs of tattooed and disreputable-looking carpenters, electricians, and plumbers to the accepted house.”
“Security is Jane’s and Yellowrock Securities’ job,” Alex said. “Why weren’t we sent?”
“Derek is taking a scouting team,” Ed said. “Jane is too important in the search for Des Citrons to waste her talents watching carpenters ripping into walls and floors.”
“But if Jane’s there she’ll make sure we have indoor plumbing. And hot showers,” the Kid said.
“Showers. We don’ need no stinkin’ showers,” Bodat said.
“Forgive my saying so,” Edmund said, “but that is incorrect. You both need showers, quite desperately. What did Jane used to call you?”
“Number two? When she called my bro number one?”
“She called you shit? Dude.”
“Bodat. Shut up,” Alex said, sounding tired.
“What? What’d I say?”
“Stinky,” Eli said, his voice with that Zen modulation it acquired when he was cleaning his weapons. “Which we’ll call you again if you don’t go up right now and shower. Both of you.”
“Jeez. You people,” Bodat said.
“Upstairs,” Alex interrupted. “Let’s get cleaned up and you packed. Your bus leaves for the last inhabitable room in the toe of the state in half an hour. If you’re not in place we can’t set up cell or satellite, and Wi-Fi on the island.”
I stepped back, into my bedroom doorway.
“But what’d I say?” Bodat complained as they passed me without seeing me in the shadows.
