Alex tapped a keyboard and the camera feeds at the entrance of the inn’s driveway took center place on the TV screen. To its side was a series of smaller screens, most lit with pale green light. I walked closer and took in the feed from one infrared and a dozen low-light cameras mounted in the trees. One showed a very pale form moving through the snow, from camera to camera. Alex punched some buttons and the cameras changed to infrared, but Eli showed up no better. On other screens I followed Brute and his passenger. The werewolf was a hot, bright impression on infrared, the grindy even hotter.
“Hang on,” I said to Wrassler and pointed at the screen. “Why is Eli showing cold?” I asked. I didn’t add,as a vamp.
“Cold coat,” Alex said, distracted. “So well insulated he won’t show up if he drops into a crouch in the snow. Precautions against tech-savvy enemies.”
Alex enlarged the video of the Range Rovers, creating a grainy mess as he initiated programs to clean up thefeed. Blocks of black and white and color flashed all over and resolved into the video of a vamp emerging from the first vehicle. He moved with that sliding, easy grace of the vampire, something I had forgotten or gotten so accustomed to while living among them that I no longer noted it until now, when I had been away from them so long. He had a long, lean face and long pale hair, reminding me of Legolas inThe Lord of the Ringsmovie, except cruel, hard. He wore slacks and a dress shirt and city shoes, with a long winter coat that made him appear even more broad-shouldered and slim than he already was. The color sharpened, to show the lipstick red of the Range Rovers and the gray of the gorgeous coat.
Onscreen, the vamp lifted his head and sniffed the air. Snow pattered down onto his coat and hair, not melting. Cold-blooded for real. The other vehicle’s front window lowered and Lego spoke to the other one, whose face was hidden. I regretted not having audio on the cameras.
“Eli has the driveway mined in two places,” Alex said, “but farther up, not at the street.”
“We don’t know who is in the vehicles,” I said. “We couldn’t detonate anyway.”
I returned my attention to my cell. Speaking slow, with a care for the meaning of each word, I said, “Wrassler, two groups of vamps have moved out of Europe. One group may have been in New Orleans for a while—long enough to snatch our missing people. Withdraw all of Clan Yellowrock into HQ and invite the other clans. Go on lockdown. Send word to Koun requesting that he accept the position of Acting Enforcer to the Dark Queen, New Orleans District, in addition to his position as chief strategist of Clan Yellowrock, until such time as Derek is able to resume his duties. If he isn’t interested in the job, send me a list of candidates. Alex will send a letter instructing all blood clan masters to defer to Koun, Acting Enforcer to the Dark Queen. So speaks the Blood Master of Clan Yellowrock”—I took a breath, claiming my political power—“and the Dark Queen.”
“Yes, my mistress,” Wrassler said, with a breath of relief.
On the screen, the lone vamp standing in the snow turned toward the camera recording him, as if he knew it was there. Snow fell on his face. He was green-eyed and now I could see the nearly white platinum blond of his hair. He stretched out an arm and snapped his fingers. The back door to the second vehicle opened. A girl was shoved into the brightness of the headlights: she fell to her hip, skin white as the snow. Long, straight red hair slapped down. “No,” I whispered, placing a hand on the screen. Lego grabbed the girl’s arm and yanked her up, against his chest. Dark red smears were left in the white behind her. Blood. Her blouse had once been white. It was dull with brown stains.
She was still bleeding freely and there were vamp-bite marks in her throat.
He jerked her hair, pulling her face up, into the meager light. Snow fell on it, unmelting.
Shiloh Everhart Stone. Of course it was.
“He’s got Shiloh. She’s hurt bad,” Alex said softly to Eli.
Wrassler cursed, hearing the words over our connection.
Sooo... one group of vamps or two? I had told the Flayer where I was. If a second group was, or had been, in NOLA and bleeding and reading my people, then they may have figured out where I was too. Either way, this was bad.
Eli put on a burst of speed. But the drive was uneven and unpredictable and he couldn’t run flat out without risking a broken ankle. The snow suddenly fell harder as a sideways blast of wind shunted it horizontal. We weren’t supposed to have wind at all. Brute put on a burst of speed, bounding high through the drifts.
Through the blustering snow, I watched as the vamp raised his hand and ripped out Shiloh’s throat. Blood splatted and dribbled, bright in the whiteout. He didn’t drink. He held her up by the neck and wasted the blood, a vamp insult. Lego dropped her to the snow and got back into his Rover. Sedately, the two vehicles backed out of the drive and pulled into the night.
“You are dead,” I whispered to him.
Shiloh raised a hand. Gripped her throat. And squeezed. Shutting off the meager blood loss. Meager because she had already been drained so completely. Blood oozed through her fingers.
Brute dashed after the Rovers, a flash of white wolf on white snow, and out of camera range.
Eli fell to Shiloh’s side and pulled a small blade. Without the headlights it was hard to see, and the snow grew thicker. Heavier. The night darker. Eli placed his wrist at Shiloh’s mouth, but she pushed it away. She couldn’t drink. She didn’t have a throat. She needed vamp blood to heal. And we didn’t have any. Brute raced back to Eli’s side, panting, looking all wolf and furious, as if he would attack and destroy the world. He threw back his head and howled, the sound angry and demanding. Unanswered.
“Keep my people safe,” I said to Wrassler. “That includes Jodi and Sloan.” I ended the call. To Alex I said, “Call Big Evan. Tell him about the Range Rovers. Tell him to shield his vehicle.”
“Roger that.”
“Tell him that as soon as it’s safe, they’re to turn around and go back home. Nothing is safe here.”
He didn’t reply.
“You should have told me” I whispered to Bruiser.
“To what purpose,” he whispered back. “We have done what you wanted us to do.”
He was right. I had run away. And now, my world was falling apart, my friends were in danger, and I couldn’t do a single freaking thing about it. I had sworn to protect all my people. I had failed. I needed to heal. Fast. Now. I needed to be everything I had walked away from. And more. And I couldn’t.
Except...
