“Yes. It was.” The boss’ eyes crinkled slightly. “I assume the request came from me?”
“Yes, sir. Shall I report myself for overstepping my authority, sir?”
FireWind chuckled, the tone resigned. “Not this time, Dyson. We’ll need an original order with the Dark Queen’s seal delivered to us, along with a personal call from her office to the mayor, the governor, Ming of Glass, and Lincoln Shaddock,plus anyone else you can think of. Good work, Dyson. Let’s find where Torquemada and his merry band of priests—who may have abducted our assistant director—are laired. And get her back.”
“There were two white vans at Ming’s property when they showed up there that first night,” I said.
“We ran a traffic cam search for them,” Tandy said, “but caught nothing. There’s a blue million white work vans in Knoxville, and nonpriests might have leased or rented them anywhere. The FBI might be willing to put resources onto it now that we have dead humans and a missing VIP.”
“See what they say. Keep me informed.”
* * *
The weekend workday turned on its head. JoJo and Tandy worked in concert, tracking the appearance of anyone who might have seen the vampires or rented a white van to them or had a van stolen, as well as gearing up the search for missing person reports, looking for people who might have disappeared into the underbelly of the vamp world. Others of the crew began to trickle in.
As a side project, I put together a list of things Torquemada had and needed, and things we needed to do to solve any case involving him. He had:
Soul
Empty crystals with arcenciel shapes in them. Speculation: he wants arcenciels and needs them in dragon form, not human form. Additional speculation: he captured Soul in human form, a theory thatcouldbe borne out by the clear slime and blood in the shower in her apartment. Except he offered to trade for her.
Note: Two quartz crystals (that appeared to have space inside for arcenciels to be captured) are no longer in Tomás’ hands. Yummy has one; Unit Eighteen has one.
Enough human and vampire power to attack and burn out a vampire master of a city
Speculation: Probably magical gewgaws they could use for magical stuff. Spells. (Fire spells?) Workings. Probably curses.
Five homeless men, all of them tortured and killed, most with church ties to the devil dog bloodline. The bodies had traces of vampire blood in open, unhealed wounds, as if the vampires had drank from the victims but not healed them. Vampire saliva healed human skin. Question: Did vampire saliva not heal devil dogs? Again, interesting thought. Additional and opposing question: Did a fallen Catholic priest not think his people should drink from humans with fangs in skin because of the sexual component to that sort of drinking? Did he torture to get blood another way? No data for an evaluation.
The next list was things Unit Eighteen (and I) needed to do:
Talk to Mama about how many young men were removed from the church
