I drew my weapon but didn’t chamber a round. I should have. But I didn’t. Somehow this didn’t feel like an ambush. Which, of course, would make it a really good ambush. I pressed a light switch on the wall and the foyer brightened.
“I don’t see a DB,” I said, looking around. “No blood spatter on walls or floor. No stink of decay on the air. But Cai did have blood on his shirt.”
Patterns at my feet drew my eye. The foyer had been refloored in white marble. In the center, tiny pieces of gray marble, brass, and glistening steel had been inlaid and formed a pair of blades, the sharp steel blades crossed. The single-edged blades themselves had been embedded in the floor; theyappeared real but were strangely shaped. One blade looked as if an ax had been crossed with a machete and then a dragon had taken a bite out of the sharp edge. I knew nothing about fighting with blades, but even I could tell the dragon-bitten section was for snagging an opponent’s blade out of their hand. The other blade was similar but without the snagging-dragon-bite, and a longer cutting edge. They were different but they were also clearly a pair of blades intended to be used together. The ends of the blades, where they should have attached to real handles—hilts?—were made of brass or gold and were shaped like dragon snouts, as if the steel was erupting from their mouths. Above and between the crossed blades was a green, faceted square.
“Ingram,” FireWind snapped. There was an edge of “pay attention” in the tone.
“What’s that?” I pointed at the floor.
“Ming’s new crest,” FireWind said, his tone still sharp. “Since she became MOC.”
As if my up-line boss hadn’t just snapped at me, I holstered my weapon and started taking pictures, sending them back to HQ. Aya grunted in approval. I was learning how to read him. I flipped on more lights and took shots of the parlor to the left and the hallways leading off into darkness. According to county records, the clan home of the Master of the City was nearly twelve thousand square feet, so I wasn’t getting much of the house, but it was the first time I’d been in a position to film it.
As I worked, Rick explained to me, still a newbie, “It’s customary for the Master of the City, the most powerful Mithran in the territory, to have their crest inlaid in the entry floor of the city’s Council Chambers headquarters, to remind friends and visiting enemies alike who they would have to fight and conquer. Ming is both the MOC and head of the only vampire clan in Knoxville, so her home does double duty.”
Ming had been given MOC status by Jane Yellowrock. I remembered that. When I had taken photos of everything I could without wandering around, I pulled the psy-meter from my pocket and quickly took a reading of Ming’s foyer. The readings were all over the place.
At a warning signal from Rick, I slid the device away.
Cai wandered toward us from the main sitting room. “You’re still here?”
“Ming demanded to see me,” I said. “She said she had a body for me. Get her. Please.”
“Oh. Sure. Sit sit sit sit.” He waved to the sitting room. Then he said, “No. Wait. Tea. I should make tea. Come come come come. This way.”
I looked at FireWind, who had a faint smile on his face and gestured I should take point. Cai led the way to the kitchen, which was decorated in black and white with emerald touches here and there. Two six-burner stoves, each with three ovens, and the commercial refrigerator and commercial freezer made my heart thump hard with envy. This was a bakers-canners-chefs’ paradise. It would make the Nicholson mamas at God’s Cloud of Glory Church turn green.
Cai put on a kettle and got out a fancy tea tin and six cups with saucers. He started humming, something that sounded like a dirge, then suddenly he was whistling what sounded like the music for the oldGilligan’s IslandTV series.
I looked at the bosses. Both were trying not to appear amused but not doing a good job of it. I wasn’t amused. Things felt wrong here. As the water heated, Cai wandered along the counter and out the door at the far end.
“What in God’s good heaven is happening?” I asked, my voice soft.
No one replied, but Rick and Aya began to open cabinet doors and drawers and I realized they were conducting a search. For which we didn’t have a subpoena. Aya pulled a bottle from a small refrigerator and spun it slowly. “Nineteen forty-seven Cheval Blanc. A bottle sold at auction for over three hundred thousand dollars recently.”
A bottle of wine?That bottle was worth more than I owned altogether in the whole world.
Rick opened the commercial refrigerator and said, “The blood-servants are eating well. Whole suckling pig, baby potatoes, and asparagus.” He shut the door.
Feeling emboldened, I checked out the stoves and the ovens. They were not just functional, they were works of art, and I ran my hands across the decorative steel corners. The stoves had to cost a fortune, but vampires were often quite rich.
I turned off the kettle, which was steaming, but I didn’t make tea. I wanted to read this place, which meant I neededsomething made of wood that had been here a long time. The floors were marble tile; the cabinets looked new and were painted black inside and out.
Aya closed a second wine fridge and opened a huge pantry. Now I had pantry envy. And it had wood floors.
I held up a hand to let him know I was about to go to work. Walking past him, I slipped off one shoe and placed my bare foot on the wood floor.
Cold and ice met my questing energies. I pushed through, to the underside of the wood planks, and then to the wood supports beneath. Wood, unless petrified, always had a form of power that I could read. Here there was nothing. The wood that constructed this house was truly dead. It no longer had energy, no longer had a…a soul, for lack of a better word. I slid my shoe on, stepped back into the main kitchen, and made hard eye contact with each man, trying to communicate,Problem. Magical problem.
It wasn’t like we had ESP or anything, but they had hunted on my land. There was a bond between us. Rick, who had holstered his weapon, redrew it.
Ming of Glass entered.
I took a step back.
Ming’s hair was down, a long straight sheen of hair, blacker than night, falling to midthigh. She was dressed in a purple fuzzy robe tied at the waist. She was barefoot, wore no makeup, her eyes closed. Her fingernails and toenails were painted, each a different color, with flower appliqués like a hippie or a townie teenager. She carried no weapons, not that vampires needed to. Theywereweapons.
And the Master of the City was dancing, moving to music only she could hear.
