“LaFleur. With me,” FireWind said.
So much for bosses’ days off. Ain’t no way I’d ever be a boss. The hours were terrible, nearly as bad as being a mama with twins.
Rick, his long white hair swinging, followed FireWind down the hallway.
I darted into my cubicle, slung on my shoulder harness and the suit jacket to cover it, made sure my Glock was loaded with a magazine of silver-lead rounds, grabbed the brand-new vampire tree twig, and raced to the conference room. Occam and Margot were moving chairs, so I set my vampire tree on the table and dashed to the break room, where I started setting up for a proper tea and coffee service, or as proper as we could get with our own travel mugs and disposable cups, various sweeteners, and powdered creamer.
On the overhead speakers, I heard the discussion between Rick and Aya as they went down the stairs. The outer door opened.
“Ming of Glass, Master of the City of Knoxville,” FireWind said. “How may PsyLED Eighteen assist you?” He made the question somehow both polite and unwelcoming at the same time. I envied him that skill.
Ming said, “Ayatas FireWind, leader of the paranormal law enforcement departments over many states. We have information to share.”
There was a lengthy silence before FireWind said, “Be welcome in our offices.”
Over the speakers, I heard Ming say, “You two, cover the exits. Cai, you will come in with me.”
JoJo muttered, “Whatcha think? Shall I put the external camera views up to let Ming know we’re watching her people?”
“Yes,” I said, sticking my head around the corner. “And let her know the conversation is being recorded.” I had nuked water. Started a pot of coffee. Found some stale cookies. Occam entered behind me, pulled out an ugly floral plastic tray, and set some plastic spoons on it with some napkins from a fast-food joint. I truly hoped Ming didn’t want anything, because everything we had was woefully beneath her standards.
I texted Yummy to tell her Ming was at HQ. I didn’t know why I texted her, but it seemed like something she might want to know.
I caught a glimpse of Ming following Aya down the hallway and waited out of view. The overhead speakers went silent. I heard a chair being adjusted in the office.
“We are pleased to offer Ming of Glass a chair and refreshments,” Aya said, his tone wry, indicating she had already taken a seat. “Do you wish your blood-servant to sit as well?”
“Yes. He will sit beside me with his electronic device and explain. Where is Maggoty Girl?”
I huffed a breath and walked into the conference room. Ming was sitting in my chair. Which meant it would feel like maggots crawling all over it for weeks. “Nell Nicholson Ingram greets Ming of Glass,” I said.
“I do not need names,” she said, imperious. Ming pointedaround the table. “That one is the human who finds secrets in the ether. That one is a truth-sayer and is the new wereleopard. That one is Nell’s lover.”
I didn’t blush, but it was a near thing.
“You are Rick LaFleur and Ayatas FireWind, werecat and skinwalker. Just after dusk tonight, someone attacked the clan home of the Master of the City of Asheville, Lincoln Shaddock. He was not in residence, but was en route to visit his wife.”
I sidled farther into the conference room at that one. I hadn’t known Shaddock was married. In fact, I knew that Shaddock and Ming had shared blood in the past, and I assumed that meant sex, so if he was married he’d have been doing some hanky-panky, not that vampires thought about relationships as being monogamous. And if he was married, why weren’t they living at his clan home? So many intriguing questions I wanted to ask, but I was Maggoty Girl and therefore unimportant.
“I dispatched fighters to assist Linc,” Ming continued, “and the Dark Queen’s staff was informed. It is my understanding that she had already sent him both Mithran and human replacements for those lost in a recent battle, and assistance from New Orleans, and provided new housing for them in the city. His own people held off the attack as the Master of the City returned with haste, and as his new scions and humans arrived from Asheville. Cai.”
Cai again looked much like the Cai I had first met, austere, distant, dangerous. He stood and held out a thumb drive to Aya. “Video feed of the attack.”
Aya’s hesitation was brief, but Ming saw it. “There is no subterfuge, skinwalker, no hidden electronic attack on the thumb. If I chose to attack this place, it would be far more direct.”
Though her calling him a skinwalker, twice, was surely a deliberate demonstration of just how thorough her dossier on him was, Aya accepted the small drive with a slight bow. “My apologies.” He handed it to JoJo, who unplugged some hardwired devices and plugged in some others before putting the video up on the screen overhead, next to the screens of the vamps standing watch outside. As she worked, Cai opened a small laptop and went online via his cell phone connection, ignoring us all.
On the screen, with the early night of a cloudy sky as backdrop, the footage began. We watched as vampires rappelled down a cliff wall and attacked steel-shuttered windows. Ming said, “It was clear that the attackers had not reconnoitered the clan home by day, as they were unprepared for the presence of the new steel shutters introduced just prior to the reign of the Dark Queen.”
Other camera angles of the same attack appeared. There were three vampires and a dozen humans, all with weapons. Security lights around the house blinked on and off, at times blinding the attackers. There was no sound, but two attackers fell, shot, I assumed.
“The attack went on for some time,” Ming said, “long enough for Linc to return, for his fighters to arrive. Long enough for me to send him reinforcements, though they have not yet arrived. Long enough for his wife to arrive and join him in the fight.”
The way she said the wordwifesuggested some long-standing jealousy, the kind one would find in a polygamous household, but no one commented. Maybe no one but me even heard the note of complaint, indistinct as it was.
We all watched on the screen as Shaddock’s scions from elsewhere in the city arrived, and as vamps and humans were killed left and right. Standing on the cliff edge, watching, was a lone man in church robes. “Tomás de Torquemada,” Ming said, extending an index finger, the nail painted a bloody red. “He directed the attack until Shaddock’s female appeared.”
There was a moment in the video where Tomás was there and then was simply gone. In his place stood Shaddock and a shorter, middle-aged, nicely rounded, platinum-haired woman, her silver hair flying in a wind that glimmered with power I could see, even on the camera video, as bright sparks of light.
