Bruiser smiled slowly. “As My Queen desires.”
***
The debrief was fast, in the little meeting room off the gym. The po’boys and the bread pudding were gone, nothing left but an enticing aroma on the air, when Alexbrought up a new consideration. “A few months back, I had Wrassler update the Lost and Damaged Equipment Log. He’s been keeping tight tabs on all our gear and weapons and who signs out what and when and detailing its condition when it’s returned. He discovered this morning that we’re missing a comms set. I think Mainet’s people have it.”
Eli turned cold eyes to his brother. “Who?” He meant who lost it.
“Two possibilities. One of the newer guys from Knoxville, Long-Knife, had the set last, and placed it on the damaged list. But it’s not there and it hasn’t been repaired or replaced. So, maybe someone else took it, or maybe Long-Knife just lost it and it made its way to Mainet.”
“Maybe Long-Knifetook itto Mainet,” Eli said.
Long-Knife had been sent to NOLA by Ming of Knoxville, for a little attitude adjustment. But part of that adjustment could have been needed because she didn’t trust him. He’d been bled and read by Koun, but there were people who slipped secrets through. Some blood-servants were less loyal and harder to read than others.
“If they have the headset, then they can listen in to our communications.”
“Not anymore,” Alex said. “I shut the mic features off from here. But if I’m right, everything until then has to be considered compromised. That’s ten days’ worth of battlefield communications lost.”
That meant they knew everything that had happened at the null house. They had known about Leo talking to me. That was why Leo had bruises—because they knew he had talked to me. It wasn’t my fault. But it felt like it.
And yet, they hadn’t known about the hedge at HQ. If they were using the headset for intel, they were getting spotty info.
Bruiser set down his fragile teacup with a delicate clink. “Check back over the list and get someone to look again through the damaged equipment. Then have Long-Knife brought to our queen.” He looked at me, his brows raised quizzically. “Jane,” he said softly, “we have three options. I can read Long-Knife, in my own way, without forcing a bond. But I don’t know how deep such a readwill be since he’s neither Onorio nor Mithran and yet, something more than human. Or, you could try to bleed and read him, as you did with your crown, with Monique. Or bloodless, as you did with your subjects earlier.”
I thought back to the soul-home-style visions I had when reading Monique Giovanni, the evil Onorio. I had forced a temporary mental bond between an enemy and me, using a drop of her blood that I smeared into my crown. The visions had shown me a lot in terms of the evil that clung to her, but little of her actual plans. That form of bleed-and-read hadn’t left her chained to me mentally. Life might have been easier if it had.
Then I considered the moments in the doorway, when I touched all my team, mind-to-mind. I shouldn’t have been able to do that. It was a Blood Master’s ability and gift. Yet, I had opened a bond. I had known them then, all the group at the doorway, touching them through the blood we all consumed and with my power as Dark Queen.
But.
I had sorta accidently bound Edmund to me. And then Eli with the soul bond. And I didn’t like either binding at all.
Could I read someone who had drunk blood from the vamps I called my own? Could I read human enemies through their blood? Could I find a traitor and not bind them? Would using my crown to read Long-Knife work? What if I read too deeply? What if I someday decided I liked that kind of power?
That would make me even less human than I already was.
Or. What if Long-Knife was a plant? Someone with a... a snare in his mind. One that might trap me? Trap my mind.Holy cow. What if Long-Knife is a time bomb?
“I’d rather we hold him and let... someone stronger read him tonight,” I said. I didn’t want to bind anyone. I didn’t want to chain someone to me. I didn’t want to be attacked by a time bomb. “I think Kojo or Thema would be best.”
Bruiser poured us both more tea, his face thoughtful, as if working out moves on a chess board. The tea was the good stuff, the stuff he drank because money was noobject. “I’ll arrange that.” His expression changed, growing canny, approving, and amused all at once. “Ah. This will be interesting.” Sounding as pleased as his expression suggested, he asked Alex, “Where is the comms set now?”
“I tracked the missing comms to Marigny, but the battery is so low it barely pings. We get it now, or we don’t get it at all.”
Eli stood, talking to Alex. “Time to get it back. Text the Everharts that I need to take a small security team out the back doors and through the ward. I want Koun and Tex with me.”
Koun and Tex were my two most loyal vamps. I hadn’t seen Tex in a while. He’d begun bunking at the Yellowrock Clan Home to keep it safe, and also to have a place for his dogs.
“On it,” Alex said, his thumbs already tapping on the cell face. “Though it could be a trap.” Eli turned his battle face to his younger brother and waited until the Kid looked up and read his brother’s expression. “But then you knew that.”
“Uh-huh.” Without a limp, Eli moved away, heading to the armory. And that said a lot about our lives now, that HQ had a fully equipped armory. And that Eli was moving without a limp after a devastating injury. Healed by vamp blood and witch magic on top of various screws, metal plates, rods, and the magic of science.
I yelled at his retreating back, “Go tell your girlfriend what you’re doing.”
Without turning around, Eli lifted a finger at me. It wasn’t the middle. It might have been agreement.
Bruiser watched the door close behind Eli. “Didn’t Tex turn down the position of master of the city when you left NOLA?”
“Yup,” I said.
