“They’ve beefed up their defenses,” Alex said. “Lincoln Shaddock sent guards to protect Bedelia and her mom at their house. They’re as safe as we can make them, as spread out in the mountains as they are. I contacted PsyLED SE, and informed them of the threat. Got a polite, ‘Thank you for the info,’ but no quid-pro-quo info in reply.”
I frowned at that. I hadn’t heard from my bio brothernor from my ex-boyfriend, both of whom worked out of the Tennessee PsyLED office. There had been a violent attack in the middle of the street and at the witch prison, and PsyLED hadn’t contacted my office? The two nosy-bodies hadn’t called? Hadn’t shown up?
Littermate in danger?Beast asked.
I didn’t know.
The golden gleam of Beast’s presence in my brain faded, and the normal amber of my human irises reflected back from Thema’s eyes.
I shoved my own weapons back into their sheath and holster. Without taking my eyes from my unlikely not-quite-scion, I said, “Weapons down.”
My people put away their weapons, but they didn’t look happy about it.
I rolled my right shoulder and things popped inside me. Some of the pressure eased. “I’m the only one here who’s been through a transport circle. It sucked. If the open witch circle is a lure and an ambush, with some kind of reversedhedge of thornsworking at the other end, it would be an excellent trap. But if I had been planning to go through it, I wasn’t going alone. I was taking help.”Liar, liar,I thought. I would have totally gone alone, without even thinking about it.
Alex snorted delicately.
Thema slipped to the side and lifted my chair upright. Turned it so I could sit easily. “My Queen,” she said gently.
I sat. The weapons around the room had been holstered, but I knew all the eyes would remain on Thema. For a warrior, she had miscalculated gravely, giving in to temper and perceived insult.
To my side, the door opened, and Deon entered, pushing a tea trolley laden with trays and those round metal tops that keep food warm. The smell of boudin and spices and fat and grease flooded the room.
I swiveled in my chair and watched the small man. Deon was dressed conservatively, for him, in a red, skintight catsuit and a chef’s short white jacket. He shoved the trays already on the table to the far side, saying, “Old and cold. Good enough for the help but not the queen.”
Someone nearby snorted in amusement.
Deon placed three trays on the table in a nice semicircle in front of me and removed the tops. One tray had salmon tartare on toast points topped by leaking egg yolks and caviar, another held broiled or roasted crawfish boudin and fried pork boudin balls, the balls still sizzling with hot oil, and the third was decorated with fancy sliced breads, several spreads and dips, and sliced cheeses. No fruits, no veggies.
Deon nestled a pot of tea into several cozies near my left side and a tea mug to the right printed with the words, “If Queenie Ain’t Happy, Ain’t Nobody Happy.” He stepped back and studied the placement of the trays, nodded, and leaned into me. He kissed the top of my head. Tears flashed into my eyes at the kind gesture. Blinking away the tears, my eyes followed him as he left, sashaying once to make the glittery words on his butt sparkle. They said, “I’m the Queen’s Bitch.”
I laughed and relaxed, catching a whiff of satisfaction from Deon as the door closed. He knew me and he knew just how to disarm me. His method was similar to the way I used to disarm Leo—the unexpected, the not-respectful, the fun. Deon made HQ a lot less boring and he had a knack of doing just enough to show he wasn’t dissing my position but showing love.
I popped a boudin ball in my mouth and it was still sizzling, hot enough to blister my tongue. I breathed in and out to cool it, and when I could stand the temp, I crunched down. The flavor was amazing and seafoody and greasy. Perfect. I looked around the room. It was still too quiet. My growl must have been something new in a place where new stuff always meant problems and trouble. I swallowed and asked Alex, “Do you have the neighbors’ cell phone vids queued up?” Because no way had he not obtained copies of every security video tied into every doorbell camera and every cell phone Wi-Fi system from the houses around the null prison.
“Center screen,” the Kid said calmly, as if violence hadn’t nearly happened, and the food hadn’t been delivered. He was turning into a mini Eli, except Alex’s main arsenal was electronic and program based.
I ate crunchy boudin and raw salmon on toast with drippy, nearly raw eggs and salty-slimy fish eggs, and piles of cheese. It was a messy little bit of heaven as I watched the scenes on four screens above the table, scenes that shook and tilted weirdly, and moved from the witch circle to visions of me in the bushes to shots of the front of the null prison, as Alex arranged them in order and replayed the pertinent ones.
The salmon tartare was wonderful on top of some kind of bread made in a swirl, soaking up the egg yolk. The tea was hot and dark and had been brewed just a hair too long, giving it an edge of bitterness. No cream. No sweetener. The bitter note paired perfectly with the raw meat and sloppy egg and the bread and the scenes on the screens where none of my people died.
When my plates were mostly empty and we had seen all the footage, I said, “Show me just the footage of the abductions. And if you can line up the time stamps, that would be nice.”
Alex made a “Mmmm” sound. Keys clacked. The scenes all started at the same moment, when a female vamp raced from the front door of the witch null prison, dragging two women behind her. She raced to the circle and threw the women at the witches inside. Butterfly Lily and Feather Storm were shoved across the boundaries of the circle.
“Again,” I said. We watched the replay and I asked, “Did the circle fall or did Butterfly Lily and Feather Storm pass through the working without it exploding?”
“Unknown,” Alex said, sounding like his warrior brother and not the kid I had first met. “According to Liz, if the witches had bio material, a circle can be calibrated to allow anyone to pass through, including the two kidnapped witches.”
Biological material meant fingernail clippings with some skin attached, hair with a root attached, and anything a woman might flush. “Check finances of every person who’s had access to the prison or the prison’s garbage. We might still have someone inside. And for that matter, the dead witch might be a plant to hide the identity of the real traitor, who stole the dead guard’s ID and security number and then sent her to die.”
“On it already. Program’s running in the background and I got Bodat working on it from home. So far nothing.”
Bodat was his stinky gamer friend, a computer-nerd-gaming-geek who now worked for the U.S. government tracking and busting Russian and Chinese programs built to destroy the power grid and interfere with various intelligence communities. Bodat was now a VIP to the government.
“Also check with the city and see if anything has been going on with the rainwater runoff system or the sewage system in the area.” Because they could have used one of them to transport through.
Alex made a sound like, “Huh,” as if that was a good idea and he was reading my mind on the reasons why I suggested it. “Yes, My Queen.”
