“Alex, room cameras on, please.”
The Kid whirled, met my eyes, and punched a key on one of the keyboards. He searched the room electronically and with his eyes. Leo had chosen a spot where Alex’s cams, even the ones that could detect beneath anobfuscationworking, couldn’t spot him, maybe in front of the weapons cabinet. Frustrated, Alex shoved back to his desk and punched keys, searching though camera views. The vamps and humans were confused, looking from Alex to me.
Alex whirled his chair again and pointed a finger that suggested I was right about where Leo hid, behind a witches’obfuscationworking. Listening in? Planning an attack? Planning a practical joke? Leo didn’t joke. But he did play games.
No one else’s fangs were down. Leo hadn’t attacked.
Softly, I said, “The Dark Queen recognizes and honors...” Notour guest. This used to be his HQ. He had titles out the wazoo. I needed something better. Something fancier, but nothing came to me. I settled on, “the clan Blood Master, Mithran, and outclan priest, Leo Pellissier.”
“Ah, my Jane,” he said, just as quietly. Leo suddenly appeared, just about where my nose had suggested he stood.
The sounds of shifting bodies and soft gasps were suddenly loud in the emotionally charged room as the vamps and humans found and focused on Leo. In the aftermath of the shock, the room fell oddly quiet. I met Leo’s eyes in the shadows. He looked vaguely amused. He was also fully vamped-out. I hadn’t noticed in the dark of the null prison attack, but his hair was longer, a little straighter, curling only slightly at the ends. His suit was severe, his black shirt of fine cotton or linen, not the silk he used to favor. The little white priest’s collar he wore threw me again, despite the certainty that he wasn’t the vamp he had been before he died the second time.
“Forgive my unannounced entrance, My Queen,” Leo said, blowing slightly, that pretty hair flowing forward and back. “I present myself to the Dark Queen and the Master of the City of New Orleans, in your place of power, unarmed, as is customary among visiting Mithrans.”
Leo Pellissier, former MOC of NOLA and most of the United States, had just acknowledged and recognized not only me, but also the power he had arranged for me towield, and he’d laid no claim to anything or anyone, not even his own clan and bloodline.
Knowing that everything we said and did would be interpreted and reviewed by vamps for decades, if not forever, I stood and walked around the table to Leo’s corner. His irises were so dark they had always looked black, even when not vamped-out. His skin was whiter than I had ever seen it, bloodless, the result of either his healing or thefame vexatum, the enforced hunger that Mithrans, and especially the outclan, practiced, to build their psychic powers, as opposed to the drink-’em-till-they-die Naturaleza. His expression was grave (the thought of which almost made me laugh), and when he met my eyes, he made no attempt to roll me or take me over. There were no feeding or sexual undertones to his gaze. It was just... nice.
“We are graced with the presence of the former master of the city,” I said, using the royalwe. “May we offer you refreshment?” I asked. “Both human and Mithran would consider it an honor to feed the thrice born. Or if you want”—I let a small smile crease my muzzle, not exposing my fangs, which would be a sign of aggression to a vamp—“some boudin balls,” I finished. Vamps didn’t eat much in the way of food that might feed a human, and never boudin balls. Like, not ever. My eyebrows went up as I gestured to the greasy, nearly empty tray again.
Leo returned my smile and chuckled, his fangs still down and his eyes still vamped.
A second wave of shock swept through me. Vampires couldn’t laugh and be vamped-out at the same time. It wasn’t possible.
Except for thrice-born Leo Pellissier.
Even Katie Fonteneau, also a thrice born, but in no way a priest or priestess, hadn’t been able to vamp-out and laugh. So far as I knew he was the only one. And I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a very bad one.
“Sooo,” I said into the silence. “Boudin with extra hot sauce and a chaser of beer?” I’d sorta tricked Leo into eating super-hot sauce once and his reaction had been less than happy.
His expression telling me he remembered the event, Leo shook his head and said softly, “Only you, my Jane.” Louder, he said, “I would be honored to listen to the security update. My Grégoire and your Edmund are returning soon, to my—your city.”
I studied Leo as I considered his request. Grégoire was my Warlord and had once been one of Leo’s lovers and his best friend. Blondie hadn’t come home when Leo rose from the dead. So far as I knew, they hadn’t seen each other, and I thought my warlord would have come home to see his lover. Ed hadn’t been back either. They were still in Europe, until the coronation, the night I formally crowned Edmund Emperor of Europe. Like, soon. Real soon.
Between Grégoire and Edmund, the NOLA vamps had killed every European suckhead opposed to Edmund’s ascension to every fanghead throne of Europe. Those beheaded vamps were also the ones who might have opposed my ascension to Dark Queen. Two birds, one war, a cleansing set up by the now-outclan vamped-out priest standing in my security room. Before he died the second time.
Leo had made sure Edmund was bound to me, was my primo, was also acting Emperor of Europe, and I was master of Clan Yellowrock and MOC of NOLA. Convoluted, layered, twisted, braided, and complex as possible. And weirdly, Katie hadn’t come home either. None of Leo’s closest lovers and political cadre had come to visit. Part of Leo’s layered plans? If so, it was a political situation that gave all the advantage to me, Leo’s wild card who, sadly, knew next to nothing about politics.
Of course, I did have access to other forces: arcenciels—some of whom didn’t want me dead on sight—an angel-blessed werewolf, three Onorios, powerful witches, possibly Gee DiMercy, though he was less certain, and others, as well as the aforementioned werewolf-blessing angel, Hayyel. Not that any of them were bound to help me, and the angel might be in trouble. There was always that.
“Have you talked to Grégoire?” I asked. Because thelast time I saw him, Blondie had been homicidal and probably suicidal from the loss of his life in NOLA, the banishment of Katie (Leo’s other favorite lover) to Atlanta, and the death of Leo. Leo was back but he was not Grégoire’s Leo. Leo was a changed vamp.
I had to wonder if the diminutive blond swordsman knew that. Would Leo’s changed personality and status turn Blondie into a danger to himself and non-enemy others? Did Grégoire have a new love? What was his emotional state? Would he flip out when he came back to face NOLA and all the changes he had left behind? I had no idea if there was a way to find another Anzu, one who could stay by his side to help keep him sane. If Grégoire came back, would he try to kill me?
Yeah. That. Probably. I needed a spreadsheet to keep things straight, but I didn’t say so out loud. Some eager-to-please vamp would gift me with a thousand-page spreadsheet with footnotes and links to other stuff.Gah!
“No,” Leo said. “We have not spoken.” He smiled. “I do not have a cell phone.” Which might have been a joke of sorts? Two older vamps in the room chuckled.
One of Grégoire’s many titles was the Blood Master of France, a position he had claimed after Grégoire killed all other contenders. Would Blondie even show up here for the coronation or would he stay in France? Was he avoiding Leo? That could be bad. We had made all our plans with the assumption that Grégoire would come back with Edmund, but nothing was certain yet.
When I officially crowned Edmund, his new, formalized position would cement peace and allow Edmund to recognize the current MOCs he had endorsed across Europe, vamps who had allied with him, and to appoint newer ones in the cities that no longer had a master, bringing an end to any lingering vamp war there. But if Edmund died on the way here, or died here, or on the way back, everything Leo had created and planned would go up in smoke. And the war Grégoire and Ed had stopped cold, by killing all the Naturaleza enemy leaders of said war, would revive. There would be no stopping it as young, less powerful vamps duked it out and set themselves up as warring kings of every small town and city.And the European humans would go to war as they almost had before Edmund forced peace on the vamps there.
Except the peace there had sent all fighting enemy vamps west, to the Americas, and their leader now had an ongoing alliance with three witches, two liver-eaters, and a bunch of fangheads and humans who wanted territory and power. All in the middle of a coronation and plans and constantly evolving security measures.
And Eli wasn’t here. He was in hospital. Eli, who was managing the ongoing plans and security measures, including the fact that Edmund and his entourage had been intended to stay in the old Rousseau Clan Home, now the Yellowrock Clan Home.
On second thought, a spreadsheet could actually be handy.
