“Come on, Aunt Jane. I’m your escort to Security.”
Escort?I didn’t need an escort. I started to object, but sighed instead. I had been shot, been shaken by a dragon, dropped a few feet to the street, dislocated some joints, thought I’d broken some bones, which, considering how much it hurt to breathe deeply, might have been ribs, and I hadn’t shifted and healed on my own. I was still sore and aching and bruised, probably the way a rabbit felt after being shaken by a big dog. I remembered thinking a similar analogy when it was happening. My people had seen that happen. They would be edgy for a while. “Sure. Why not?”
CHAPTER 7
So You Got Your Panties in a Twist
Shiloh opened the doors of Security and my eyes found Alex. “Eli?”
“He’s good. Out of surgery just now, and in recovery.”
“Bruiser?”
Alex’s expression went stiff and formal. “Politics. Better him than you. My Queen.”
Because I have a big mouth and am known for hitting first and—maybe—being nice later. Right. I blew out a worried breath and took in the room. The main security room was packed with people: Alex to the left with a couple dozen security cams on his personal central monitor, many of the same views up on the even bigger monitors overhead, the stench of scorched coffee coming from the coffeemaker, a lot of chairs around a huge table in the middle of the room with food boxes in its center—Krispy Kreme donuts, pizza boxes from two different restaurants, and a platter of boudin that had been grilled, sliced into blackened two-inch lengths, circled with cheese and crackers and fresh fruit. I ignored everything but the meat, pulling the platter closer and eating several pieces, which wereunfortunately cold, before I tuned in to the activities. Or maybe it was the name that tore my concentration from meat and spices to the conversations around me.
“Who is Bruiser having to deal with?” I asked.
“Clan Arceneau. Grégoire’s clan,” Alex said without turning around. Without the proper fancy deferential mumbo-jumbo.
I felt the surprise in some of the vamps at his lack of kowtowing. I felt the speculation that I wasn’t strong, dominant, capable of ruling. I remembered the fact that Kojo and Thema said I was toolaissez-fairefor a vamp royal. I tried to figure out what I’d need to do to keep the lines drawn, to keep respect from the vamps and yet keep me as me, accessible and not a horrible person. There had to be a way other than cutting off heads.
I took my seat, my back to the coffeemaker and the solid wall there, and popped another length of charred boudin into my mouth and mushed the spicy food around while I considered my conundrum. Boudin was basically heavily spiced ground-up meat and didn’t need my killing teeth at all. This one was crawfish-based and had no rice filler, and my salivary glands practically moaned with delight. So freaking good.
I swallowed and took a drink from the water bottle that had appeared, almost magically, at my side. I showed my teeth. “Start at the beginning, Alex Younger. Little brother. Head of Communications for Yellowrock Securities, for Clan Yellowrock, for the Master of the City, and for the Dark Queen,” I said, naming his titles. Reminding the vamps present who he was to me and what power he wielded.
Alex’s head jerked up and around. He took in the room before he met my eyes, his already knowing, because we had talked about the line I walked with the older vamps. He knew how hard I worked at being accessible and still keeping the vamps in their places, subservient to me and therefore forced to follow my rules and the new vamp laws in the Vampira Carta of the Americas. “My Queen,” he said, the words sharp, but a hint of laughter in his eyes. “Forgive me.”
I inclined my head, all regal-like. “Put up the photos of my kills before I became what I am today.”
Alex managed to hold in his grin. With the push of a button, a series of heads—heads without bodies—appeared on the screens. There were quite a lot of them.
To the vamps who had reacted to Alex’s lack of subservience, and now probably to my lack of table manners, I said, “I am the Dark Queen. I’m also a really good fighter. That head in the middle there?” I pointed. “That’s de Allyon. He used to be the MOC of Atlanta. I cut off his head after I chewed off his assassin’s head with my teeth.” I grinned to show them off, wondering if I had meat stuck in them. “Okay, Alex. Let’s view the prison attack.”
“Yes, My Queen. Missing from the null prison are two lower-level witches and two of yourTsalagiclanswomen.”
“Tell me about the witches.”
“A low-power mother-daughter team who called themselves Butterfly Lily and Feather Storm.”
The names were instantly recognizable. Most witches didn’t go for the sixties’ Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll names. The true honor was to have been named with a known witch clan—like Everhart. Women with a little power but born outside of a clan sometimes named themselves, like the very low-power witches Butterfly and Feather.
I didn’t know why they might be in witch jail. The two were weak, mostly powerless, but helpful and sweet. I liked them.
When Rick, my former boyfriend, went furry the first full moon after he was bitten by a were-creature, they had tried to help him control his magics. They hadn’t succeeded, and since then, had clearly gotten themselves in trouble with the witch council, enough to be in lockup for a while.
I owed them a boon for trying to help Rick. It was my job, therefore, to rescue them.
“Well, crap,” I muttered. Louder I asked, “Why them? They don’t have enough power to interest another witch, let alone a vamp putting a coup together.” I remembered the medication in the cell at witch-null central. “They aren’tpowerful enough to make their own healing potions or amulets. They don’t have enough power to do anything illegal. There were witches with a lot more power in that prison.” I remembered Tau, the witch and dis-Onorio, orsenza onore—a dark Onorio, and others I’d fought and beaten since I came to NOLA.
Taking them didn’t make sense, unless the attackers didn’t know which prison room each witch was in, which would mean they had less-detailed data than we had thought. Or, maybe they were more interested in getting the heartbox and abandoned the witches to help the team trying to take out Eli. I shared all my thoughts with Alex.
“Don’t know what they knew about the jail part, My Queen,” Alex said. “As to the reason why someone might take weak witches and not stronger ones, I took the liberty of calling an Everhart.”
By his tone, I knew he meant Liz, Eli’s girlfriend. Liz and I weren’t besties, but we were getting along better. We had even hit Café du Monde for beignets and coffee and a convo one day a week or so ago before she flew back home to Asheville. I wasn’t a girly girl, not one to “do lunch” or “do coffee” with anyone not in my little circle of friends, but I had decided I needed to make an effort with Eli’s girlfriend, especially as she might be long-term, but also because she was Molly’s and I claimed Molly as one of mine.
The two hours at Café du Monde had flown by and cleared the air between us. We had laughed a lot, something I didn’t do enough.
