Eli and I filed in after her, and I was doubly surprised to see Amy Lynn Brown sitting on the couch in Katie’s office, next to Big Evan. The young vamp and devoveo prodigy didn’t even stand, she just lifted her wrist. Shiloh fell at her feet and drank. When the young vamp had taken all she safely could, Katie offered the girl her own wrist.
I had never seen Katie do that for anyone. Katie’s blood was special, composed as it was now of the blood of eight clans, and I had to wonder why the old, cagey vamp would be so generous, until she turned her teal green eyes to me and asked, “Do you claim this one?”
I hesitated, knowing that either way I answered, I wouldn’t like the result. I nodded and Katie smiled, showing her fangs. I almost backed up a step at her expression but stopped myself in time. Katie said, “My master insisted that I offer apologies to you for the blood I forced.”
Instantly I was on the cold floor in the warehouse, Katie’s fangs buried in my flesh, pain like lightning shooting through me, hearing Big Evan’s niece slurping my landlady’s cold blood. I lifted my chin, waiting, knowing that she could hear my heartbeat suddenly racing.
“My blood is valuable,” she said, “far more than yours. We are now as blood equals, owing each other nothing.”
I thought about that, about agreeing with her, wondering if that meant I, and the people who looked to me for protection, would still be safe from her. I said, “I agree to . . . not kill or injure you or yours? And you agree to not kill or injure me or mine? And I get to keep the house.”
Katie narrowed her eyes before it hit me what I had just asked. I had meant that I would get to keep my rent-free status on the house, but it came out different. And it suggested that my blood was worth as much as her own. Maybe even more. Very carefully, I didn’t move as Katie’s eyes slowly bled to black. With her fangs down, she was fully vamped-out. However, when she spoke, her voice was even and without inflection. “Agreed. I will have the papers sent over to you via messenger. Taxes and insurance are due. Pay them.”
I gave a minuscule nod. I had just accidentally outbargained a powerful vamp for a house. And won. Go, me. But maybe it was smart to not acknowledge that win for fear it would sound gloating. Carefully I said, “We are even.”
As I spoke, Shiloh slid to the floor in a boneless glide that ended with a muted thump of her head on the thick rug. She was grinning and rosy-cheeked, a tiny drop of cherry red blood on her lips. Drunkenly, she licked it away. “I will keep the girl alive,” Katie said, “for three days. On the third day, if you have not ended the death spell that is draining her, she will die. I will also care for and respect the blood-servant tie between the Mithran you claim and her new blood-servants.” She looked at Bliss and Rachael. “I will not treat with them as traitors to my household but as former employees who have found a new master. You are released from my service.”
It was a better bargain than I expected, and it gave a place of safety and service to Bliss and Rachael. It also made me wonder about the value of my skinwalker blood, but I knew better than to ask. “Done. Eli, Evan, we need to go now.”
And then the doors blew off the house.
I leaped for the front entry. The windows smashed in, glass shattering everywhere. My ears popped as the pressure changed, midleap. Wind blew through, whirling and smashing things to the floor. Batting me out of the air like a fist to the gut as my leap took me clear across the entry to protect the humans and the vamps.
Magic ripped across me, scoring like knives, stinking of burned sage and scorched human hair. The lights went out. It was as dark as it had been in Shiloh’s lair, and as I watched through the open door, lights all down the street popped and went out. I knew, somehow, that Jack Shoffru’s magic interfered with electricity, which was how he cast such great don’t-see-me spells and charms while in Leo’s headquarters. A weird silence settled over the French Quarter as the lights continued to go dark. I stepped for the open door, the M4 in one hand, the stock between my elbow and my body, held close, a vamp-killer in the other hand.
Talons and fangs out, Katie raced past and I caught her with the shotgun, swinging her by the waist back toward the office. “Stay put,” I whispered. “Keep them safe.”
Wind ripped through the house without warning, battering me back into the office, as if the air itself knew where its prey was. I shouted over the roar as I rolled the sofa over the humans and bent my own body back to a crouch.