“Stop it, you two. Quint, if you drop that bacon on the floor, I will personally break some body part,” I threatened her. “Bacon is precious.”
Quint’s posture altered instantly, as if a switch had been flipped. She put the bacon strip on a paper towel, her back to Alex and me. Alex grinned as if this was all a good joke. I shot him a warning look and he just grinned wider. Male, young, and amused at the antics of the females. I’d seen that look before on men. I’d probably have to beat his butt in the gym someday to remind him being male did not make him invulnerable or right. And then spar with Quint to garner the respect she wasn’t used to giving her...assets.
I sat at my place at the kitchen table. Centered in the table on the round serving thingy was a pot of tea under a pink knitted tea cozy. I was certain that I did not own a pink tea cozy, and that no one in my household would ever have purchased such an item. If Eli had purchased a cozy, it would have been in camo colors. If Bruiser had purchased it, the cozy would have been dove gray or black. Alex would have rolled his eyes at the thought of giving me a cozy. Therefore, Quint, sociopath and killer, had brought a pink knitted tea cozy to my house. “Ummm. Nice cozy?” I asked. Because I hated the color pink, which she knew.
“I crocheted it for this teapot. It has roses and gilt and the pink is a perfect match,” she said, sliding a full serving platter in front of me. It contained two pounds of bacon, at least a dozen scrambled eggs, and two tall stacks of flapjacks. “Real maple syrup, warmed, and local hand-churned goat-milk butter, which is why the butter is white and not yellow. I know you like protein or gruel after a shift, but Eli warned me you like that nasty stuff fixed only one way and I haven’t been told how. And oatmeal is disgusting. So you get meat.”
Quint crocheted. And cooked. Someone had been messing with timelines or I had waked in an alternate dimension. Except she was carrying more weapons than Eli did, so that hadn’t changed. At a glance I counted two nine-mils in a double thigh rig, a .32 at her spine, a nine-mil under her left arm, and a tiny .22 on her left ankle, over the yoga pants. She also was strapped down with five vamp-killers and three throwing knives. Same Quint.Just... dang. Quint had crocheted me a pink tea cozy. She knew I hated pink. If I reminded her I hated pink, would she shoot me? Why had she made me a cozy? I touched the little hat-for-a-teapot and found it to be soft. Lacy work. Pretty.Okay. Fine. “Thank you.”
“It’s also pink so that if we ever need to hide a listening device in it no man would think to look in the fibers. Most men hate pink and avoid it. I added a tiny pocket on the edge to hide a mic.”
“Ah,” I said. Now that made Quint-sense.
I tasted the eggs. They were perfect. So was the bacon. I poured maple syrup over the thin pancakes and the bacon and dug in as if I were starving. Which I was. My hands were bony, and when I touched my abdomen, I could feel my hip bones jutting against the skin. I still had mass and muscle, but I lacked fat.
“Edmund is due to arrive any day now,” Alex said, taking his chair next to me. “And we’re not ready.” The Kid was lean and muscular from workouts with his older brother, and he smelled good, meaning he had showered. He was also growing a moustache, which was patchy and thin, but was thicker than the last time he tried to grow facial hair. Growing up. Quint slid a plate in front of him. It contained the same kind of food, but not as much of it.
“Eli?”
“Not happy to still be in the hospital.” Alex frowned and his expression told me I wasn’t going to like what he said next. “He lost a chunk of muscle and his PT will suck this time, even with vamp blood.”
This time.Because Eli had been wounded so very often in his life.
“Percentage of expected return to normal function?” Quint asked, pouring tea into my mug. The mug was white with red lettering that said, “Touch My Tea, Lose a Hand.” It was new; I liked it.
“Eighty-five percent,” Alex said, his voice hard.
“Unacceptable. We need an Infermeri,” Quint said, pulling her cell. “I’ll get my uncle to contact and intercede with Florence, and with Shaddock, and convince herto return to New Orleans. Then I’ll get him to locate more healers seeking permanent placement.”
“Why would Quesnel know about Infermeries?” Alex asked. Which meant there was something missing from his research files.
“My uncle knows everything about Florence and her bloodline. He was one of the soldiers she saved in World War Two, and he figured out what she was. He didn’t run screaming into the dark. He accepted what he saw and helped her do her job. He was there the night she healed eighty-seven soldiers, and after the war he served her for a number of years before he went to Clan Pellissier. Excuse me.” She turned away and began speaking softly to someone on the other end of a call.
We kept eating. I finished off everything on my plate before I sat back to enjoy my tea. Black and strong, no sweetener, no creamer. Just a nice burst of caffeine, and bitter enough to work as a counterpoint to all the maple syrup. I was drinking more plain tea since Bruiser came to live with me and I was learning to appreciate the unmodified taste.
“Good afternoon, Unc. How has your day been?” Quint asked Quesnel as she circled back into the room.
With my bodyguard busy talking and staring at the security screens someone had mounted along the walls near the tall ceilings, Alex leaned close and murmured, “We need to compare notes about why Mainet wants the heart. I mean, I know what I think, but I have no idea what you think.”
“Hayyel is partially chained. I smelled a burst of brimstone during the attack on the prison. And then there’s the stuff Leo said. So, I’m guessing that Mainet has a demon chained. If so, he intends to use the heart to complete chaining the angel. Maybe force a binding between the angel and the demon, and then... I don’t know... destroy the heart or eat it, and then he’ll have access to all the power in both spiritual domains and on Earth. I have no idea what he intends to do with all that power, but whatever it is, we won’t like it.” I wiped my plate with the last smidge of toast and popped it in my mouth. Around thegooey bread, I said, “I’ve been told not to destroy the heart until Mainet is dead.”
“Mainet probably doesn’t intend to bargain for vamp redemption and make things right in heaven,” Alex said, which was what some vamps wanted. Redemption and the return of the souls they lost when they rose on the third day, batshit crazy, starving, and ready to kill any nearby human for their blood. “And if Angie is right, the Everharts will be here,” he said. “Eli will—” He stopped, his face contorting as he took in that Eli wasn’t available to do his usual jobs. “I’llhave to move some of our people to the Yellowrock Clan Home so there’s room for the witches if they want to stay at HQ.”
Alex, taking over for Eli.Crap. He knew how to do the job. We both did. Butcrap. I poured another mug of tea and this time added sweetener and creamer. “If we get a vamp healer, how long before Eli can get back to us?” I asked. “And will he be better than eighty-five percent capacity?”
He shrugged. “Can’t hurt. Could help. The Consort already offered to send the Lear to Asheville to bring Liz here, to be with Eli as he recovers. She accepted. The rest of the Everharts and Truebloods could come too, and Florence, if it’s night, or if she’s willing to fly in a coffin. The jet’s already taken off. Once it lands, they can load and be back in three hours, give or take.”
“Yeah. That works,” I said. “Push for Florence. If Quint and Quesnel have muscle, use it to get Florence. And while we’re talking about healers, ask the Roberes about protocol for getting more healers for the U.S. I agree that one isn’t doing it.”
The Kid tapped some instructions on his tablet and looked back up at me. “Done. And I’ve begun a background search for demon-calling and demons themselves. I’ve also checked the updates to the fanghead files, the ones I turned over to the most tech-competent of the security team. The updates say that Mainet is an unknown. He never flaunted his power in any public way, but he’s the heir of both of the SODs and the closest thing to the current master of all the Naturaleza. Possibly with more politicalpower than the Dark Queen herself, because he has allies in Asia and Southeast Asia. There aren’t a lot of vamps in that part of the world, but the few there are powerful.”
That would be bad.
“So, what if Mainet can force the angel to manifest in physical form,” Alex said, his tone hypothesizing, “and instead of eating the heart of the SOD himself, to obtain power, he forces Hayyel to eat the heart? How much would that change an angel? Could Mainet force the angel to destroy the arcenciels? And everyone on our side? Could he take over time?”
“Too many possibilities,” I said.
“Yeah. Okay. What’s with the red lizard?”
