The man gave his shotgun to the blood-servant nearest, and walked, slowly, to where Shiloh cowered, vamped out, inch-long needle fangs and sharp-as-steel talons out. She hissed at me as her witch powers gathered around her. Okay. This was bad.
To my side, Evan Trueblood was already whistling up a defensive spell to stop his niece.
The blood-servant knelt at Shiloh’s side, whispering tender words and comfort. My eyes swept across the others gathered in the doorway. The man appeared to be the oldest, and certainly the most in control. But approaching a frightened, young vamp was dangerous under any circumstances. Approaching a frightened young witch-vamp was downright suicidal.
My cell rang, blaring into the sudden silence of the room. Shiloh hissed at me and her witch energies tightened around her like a purple-green shroud. Normally, at a time like this, I’d ignore it, but it was Leo’s ring tone, set into my cell by my partner in Yellowrock Securities, AlexYounger, as a joke. Marilyn Manson was screaming “If I Was Your Vampire.” Not funny.
I answered, “Now is not a good time.”
“You will place me on speakerphone,” Leo said. It was a command, not a request.
I tapped the cell face and Leo said, “Shiloh. My child. You will be calm.” His voice filled the room, banishing the shadows of desperation and fear and the tingle of witch magic, filling the room with vamp compulsion and an odd sense of peace that even I felt. “Shiloh,” he repeated. “Youwill be calm.”
Shiloh took a shuddering breath, and the blackness of her eyes decreased, the scarlet sclera fading to pink and then to white. Her fangsschnickedback into her mouth on their tiny hinges.
I blew out my relief. Evan’s spell whispered away. The group of blood-servants took a collective breath, as if they had been holding theirs. With the greatest of vampire formality, the man beside Shiloh said, “Do you need blood, my mistress?”
“I... No,” she said. “What happened?”
Shiloh’s confusion was not a good sign. It spoke of rogue status. Of vampires who lost control, draining and killing humans with the mindless hunger of those chained in the devoveo. Of killing for the sake of killing. And everyone in the room realized that at the same time. Even Shiloh. None of us knew what to do about it. But none of us were vamps.
“Give my scion the note on the brick,” Leo said into the odd, anxious silence.
With a glance at the blood-servants to make sure they didn’t shoot me for following orders, I picked up the brick and pulled the tie. The note made ashushingsound when I handed it, unopened, to Shiloh. Her name was on the front in Leo’s fancy calligraphy scrawl—Shiloh Everhart Stone.
“Read it aloud,” Leo said to her, over the phone.
Shiloh opened the note and read, “ ‘I have granted you freedom from the chains of the scion-lair. If, when the brick was thrown into your home-lair, you did not react with the mindlessness of the rogue, you may go your own way in the matter of witch training.’ ”
I wasn’t sure how Leo had known we were having a problem withShiloh, but not much that happened among the vamps in his city was a secret. That he had taken the time to address the problem in advance filled me with warm fuzzies. Or as much warm fuzzies as I ever got in regard to the chief fanghead.
Human tears filled Shiloh’s eyes again, but she kept reading, her voice going rough and clogged with unshed tears and shame. “If you lost control, then you will do as my Enforcer has commanded.”
Leo said, “Shiloh. Did you lose control?”
The girl’s shoulders drooped and she dropped her head, silken red hair sliding over her face. “Yes, Master,” she whispered.
“You will obey your aunt and uncle, who know more of witch matters than I. You and the blood-servants I have sent to you will go for training. I will also send a loyal Mithran to assist you with learning a control you have claimed but have not demonstrated. You will return to me, to serve as you have so sworn. Do I have your word in this?”
“Yes, my master,” she whispered.
“Good. Enforcer. Place us on privacy mode and leave the house. We have much to discuss for transporting my beloved scion to Charlotte.”
I tapped the screen and looked around. Everyone was okay. No one had died. No one got drained. “Ducky,” I said. I took the cell outside the house and stood on the front porch, thehedge of thornsward only inches from my face. I could hear the others talking inside. I smelled the scent of human blood—or as human as blood-servants were.
I tucked the fingers of my right hand under my left armpit. It was chilly out, an early arctic front blowing down the Mississippi River basin, bringing what passed for winter in New Orleans. “You knew she was going to fight training,” I said to Leo. “You knew she was going to vamp out, didn’t you?”
Leo chuckled softly; the sound like liquid sex poured out through the phone and into my body. That mesmerizing thing they can do and which I had never succumbed to... and never would. “Yes, my Jane. I knew. It is what a good Blood Master must know. She will be docile now. She will accept her training. All will be well. I charge you to choose a Mithran from among my most loyal, and send them together to Charlotte for the duration of the Witch Conclave. She must be safe.”
“Because you have plans for her.” I stated.
“But of course, my Jane. I have plans for all of you.” The call ended.
“Crap on crackers with toe jam,” I said.
But... Leo had accomplished what I hadn’t been able to. And him having plans that would remake everyone’s life? No big surprise there. None at all.
Beast Hunts Vampire with Jane
