Beast is good to go. Where are I/we going? Hunting? Beast wants to hunt! Have never hunted in this form. Claws are short. Jane has kit-fangs. Jane should take white man’s gun and knife. Can shoot and cut flesh from prey and eat. Jane will like raw meat.
Erp. No hunting. No raw flesh. “Good to go” is just a saying.
I got the feeling that Beast was disgusted by my response, but she didn’t reply. As I padded down the steps to the main level, I heard Alex saying, “Texted George and Eli. Texting Janie now. Hang on.” My cell in my thigh pocket buzzed just as Eli strode in the back door, pocketing his cell. His body mechanics were all battlefield alert and ready for action. Bruiser entered through the front, also pocketing his cell. This couldn’t be good.
I reached the office first.
“Hey, Janie. Where’s—never mind.” He tapped a button. “Gang’s all here, Wrassler.” To us he added, “HQ security is on FaceTime. You need to see.”
The guys stood behind and to my sides. On the screen, a pixelated image began to form, flickering pale cream and black with a splotch of green in one corner. The video cleared and stabilized, revealing a cemetery, New Orleans style, with mausoleums situated along a white shell drive. The frame scanned around slowly, revealing the vamp graveyard, easily identifiable because all the mausoleums had been scorched in the fire that burned Sabina, the outclan priestess, and sent her into hiding, and also because I had studied this scene often over the last months. The warrior statues on top of each small building had become brittle and fractured, missing arms and hands and one without a head, the base metal of their swords and adornments melted. The videographer paused at the chapel or, rather, where the chapel had once been. It was gone now, just a foundation, blocks blackened and cracked. No one in New Orleans had heard from Sabina. Her last words had suggested that she was burned so badly as to be true dead, even though she was extremely powerful and very advanced in age.
I leaned into Bruiser. He smelled of the winery, the sweetness of grapes he had harvested, pressed, and mixed with other kinds of grapes from other mountain vineyards and now were fermenting in huge stainless steel vats. By the sweetness of new wine on his breath, I deduced that he and Josue had been tasting the red, Bruiser giving the younger man instructions. Bruiser’s arm went around my middle, and he hugged me close. Even after all this time, it was still odd to be close to a man taller than me.
On the screen, the view changed, sweeping slowly back to one mausoleum, the Pellissier crypt, blackened and so heat-damaged the stone was cracked and fragile-looking.
Wrassler said, “This is why I contacted you, Queenie.” The screen changed as he walked around the small building to the side that was hidden from the road and the chapel. The wall had a hole in it, one not caused by fire. He walked closer, focusing on the damage, and said, “It’sabout three feet by two. It appears it was knocked down from outside, maybe with a short battering ram.”
“Why not use the door?” I asked.
“The fire sealed it. The flames were so hot they heated differing materials and fused them together. The result means the door is stronger than the walls.”
I thought,Someone busted in.No one clawed out of the caskets inside and got away. Leo wasn’t alive. Not that I hoped he would rise from the dead again. That was where revenants came from, and they were dangerous as rabid wolves and had to be put down by rogue-vampire hunters. Like what I used to be before I got stuck with the Dark Queen gig. “When?”
“The guard makes a round every six hours. It was like this at noon and she called me. I wanted to check it out before I notified you.”
“Without messing up the debris,” I said, “can you hold the phone inside and let us see the caskets?”
There was some fumbling as someone else turned on a cell flashlight and both cells were held inside the hole. Inside, the caskets were all blackened by heat that had penetrated the walls from outside. Based on the wreckage, there had been five superheated cement vaults, the caskets inside pulled out and dumped onto the floor. The vaults had been busted into chunks and dust; the caskets were ruined, blackened, pitted charcoal, and most were open, empty. There were bits of vamp remains here and there, not much more than pieces of charred skeletons. I’d have expected the bodies to be less intact. Vamps burned easily.
As the cells scanned around, Bruiser’s hold on me had tensed. In the carefully controlled tone of Leo’s primo, Bruiser asked, “Is there any way to tell which one was Leo’s?”
“His was on top,” Wrassler said. “The caskets on bottom were less burned than the ones higher up. So this one,” a finger entered the field of view, “or that one. I can go in and be sure.” He meant be sure that Leo was burned, not taken.
“Don’t go in,” I said before I thought. “We’ll be there before morning.” I didn’t want Wrassler to touch anything. I wanted to see for myself.
Still in the same tone, Bruiser said, “We’ll be there twodays early. Make certain that Yellowrock Clan Home is clean and aired out and Jane’s personal residence is also prepared, including the new rooms upstairs.”
“Yes, Consort. Sending teams to prepare.”
“Put two full-time guards on-site at the cemetery, silver ammo, wood stakes, silvered blades, and a silvered cage,” Bruiser said. “They have orders to shoot and stake any Mithran who might approach them, burned or not. Should that occur, they are to toss the body into the cage and contact me directly with photos of the Mithran. I will give orders. Those orders might include a beheading. Make certain the guards understand that.”
“Even if—”
“My master is dead. But even if that isn’t true, he was beheaded. He would rise a revenant. We will not dishonor him by allowing him to continue in that state.”
“Yes, Consort. If a trespasser is human?”
“If it’s the Firestarter, execute her. For any others, the guards may use their own discretion. Make certain they’re also armed with nonlethal weapons that might disable humans.”
“Yes, Consort.”
The video ended and Bruiser stepped away from me. “My Queen, I will finish the packing and have your jet prepped for flight.”
Packing. All the suitcases piled on the floor for Wrassler and Jodi’s wedding in just a few days.Right. And I hadn’t said a word to Wrassler about the wedding. I’m an idiot. “Yeah. Sure. Thanks.”
Without looking back, Bruiser walked from the room, his footsteps tapping up the stairs.
Eli was watching me. I could feel his eyes. When I didn’t look his way he said, “He called Leomy master.”
