“Jodi. Not to screw up her wedding.” I pushed back mychair. “Okay. Let’s go see the crime scene, and then we can go to see Leo’s tomb.”
***
In a slow rain, water shushing all around us, Bruiser and I pulled up near the cemetery in the Garden District. It was odd how many vamp things seemed to happen in or near graveyards, but when you’re mostly dead, maybe you feel at home hanging out with the other dead people.
Our security parked around us, blocking the street, and when we got out, a human met me with an umbrella and a soft-spoken “My Queen.” He held the open umbrella over my head, protecting me, as if I was too weak to do it myself and might melt in the rain. Or too important to be allowed to get wet.
I held in the irritated sigh and smiled at him. “Thank you.”
Bruiser joined me and took the umbrella, gesturing the armed man down the cement pathway before us. In most places in the U.S., burials were accomplished below ground, but in a few locations, like NOLA, the water table was too high to allow for the typical six-feet-under burials. Here, the graves were often above ground, making for an old-world feel in the graveyards.
Silent, we walked between family crypts, the rain puddled everywhere. It was dreary, dark, and I asked, “Is it still dark enough for us to have bodies, or have they crisped in the dawn light?”
“As I understand it, they are still intact. The cleanup crew is in a van down the street, awaiting our arrival, and we hope to get the bodies out of the light before the rain lets up and the clouds clear.”
Ahead was a blood-splattered mausoleum, scarlet spray up along one sidewall, where it was protected from the rain, and down into the puddles, where it had turned the water the color of cherry Kool-Aid. The colorful water was running along the pathway and into the grass to either side. The bodies were between two crypts. Their heads were nowhere to be seen.
Bruiser and I walked up, and the HQ security who had been guarding the site stepped back.
Together we studied the bodies in the dim light. Headless vamp bodies were not a surprise, but usually the damage was caused by a sword or a vamp-killer. Here, it appeared as if their heads had been torn off. There had probably been a lot of blood on them, but the drenching rain had washed the flesh clean and pale, the bloodless hue of most Mithran vamps. The neck tendons had retracted, the blood vessels too, as their hearts pumped out the last of the blood. The only indication that they were vampires were the claws at the ends of their fingers. They had been vamped out when they died, and the nails hadn’t retracted.
“It looks like they were out for a stroll,” one of the guards said. It was one of the Tequila Boys, Blue Voodoo, and I was pretty sure we had danced a wild samba last night to something loud and Latin. We exchanged nods. “No visible defensive wounds,” he said. “We haven’t searched the bodies. Shall I check their pockets?”
“Yes,” Bruiser said.
Blue Voodoo did a thorough search, handed Bruiser the cells, and laid out on the ground two nine-mils, extra mags, four ash-wood stakes, credit cards, all in the name of John Smith, and a package of breath mints. He checked their collars and said, “Brooks Brothers, both of them.”
Bruiser knelt and checked all the fingers against the cell’s fingerprint button. None of the fingers worked.
A voice called out, “Found a head!”
Bruiser and I followed the voice through the falling rain and met one of the new security guys a good hundred feet away. He was standing over a head. It was pretty banged up, but there was no doubt it was a vamp, even with broken-off fangs, torn lips, and a broken nose.
“Anyone recognize him?” Bruiser asked.
No one replied.
“I had hoped facial rec on his phone would allow us access,” Bruiser said.
“Got the other head!” a woman called.
This one was away from the bodies at a different angle. I was glad I was wearing my waterproof boots. My feet were covered with diluted vamp blood, and my pants were soaked.
This head was also a vamp, but it had taken all thedamage to the back of the head. “Anyone know him?” Bruiser asked. Again no one replied. “Do you have a plastic bag?” Bruiser asked the guard. When she nodded, Bruiser said, “Bag it and bring it to the car, please. And alert the cleanup crew they can get in here.”
Back in the SUV, I scrubbed off my boots with sanitizer wipes and dried off my pant legs with a cloth the driver handed me. As I toweled myself, Bruiser held the first cell over the dead head, and the phone came on. “Modern security measures,” Bruiser murmured, appreciative, flipping and tapping through. “Not much here. Burner phone.”
He stopped, staring at a photo.
“What?” I asked.
He turned the screen to me. It was a pic of a parchment scroll, the kind that very old, hidebound vamps used for official proclamations, demands, and invitations. There was a smear of red on the bottom that looked like a wax seal. With two fingers, he made the photo larger to read the calligraphy-style writing. I leaned over his arm and read. It was a list of addresses. The top three were the old Rousseau Clan Home, now the Yellowrock Clan Home, Grégoire’s rebuilt Arceneau Clan Home, and my freebie home. Below were the rest of the vamp clan homes in NOLA.
I could smell Bruiser’s fury rising. “This is an assault list,” he said, his voice vamp-soft and vamp-silky.
Beast thought the power and emotion was sexy. She rolled over and showed her belly at the tone.
Down, girl,I thought to her.
