“Who ordered you and your pal to attack?”
Edmund gave me the sign again, which I figured meant he had the answer. Dang, the guy was fast. Below him, Tattooed Dude relaxed as he gave in to the feeding and the compulsion of a master vamp. Edmund might no longer be a clan master, but he’d lost none of his skills.
“Were you supposed to kill or just injure?” At the hand signal again, I sped up my questions. “What was on the blade? Poison? What herbs? Where did the concoction come from? Was a witch involved? Did Grégoire know about the attack?” Ed shot me a glance of ire but didn’t break contact with the prisoner. “Did Dominique know? Did Adrianna know? Did anyone in Clan Arceneau know about the attack? Did anyone at this compound know? Are there any more attacks planned against the Master of the City? Are there other attacks planned against me or those I claim as mine?”
Edmund’s eyes shot to me and he withdrew his fangs. He lifted the hand still holding the knife and checked his watch. “Get to your home, Enforcer. They are there now.”
I said something crude, grabbed the knife that was covered with my attacker’s blood, and raced out the door. Wrassler, back from running errands for Del, was on my heels, and for a big guy, he managed to nearly keep up with me, talking through his headset mic as we ran. “Secure the premises,” he said into the mic. “Lock down!” But when I reached the front door I slammed the bloody knife tip into the table that held the trays for weapons and cursed again. “I don’t have a car or my bike.”
“I’ll drive,” Wrassler said, pushing ahead of me and out the door. We dove into an armored SUV, the powerful engine turning over. The roadway in front of HQ was wreathed in mist, the fog rising from the Mississippi and enfolding the entire French Quarter. Streetlights were halos of yellow, the mist capturing the light and keeping it close. Spell or natural, it made no difference. It would make fighting harder.
Wrassler drove like a maniac and we were at my place before my heart rate could settle. He braked about a hundred feet out. The street was silent, no radios played, no music or TV came through windows, no people wandered the pavement, drunk or homeless or bored. “This don’t look right,” he said.
The street in front and the houses to either side of my freebie house were free of fog, as a cold wind shunted through, dropping down from above, swirling around, and blasting away. With Beast-sight, I could see sparks of green in the wind; I heard distant flute music and a slow tapping, like a drum. It was Big Evan, warding the house with air magic.
Kits attacked in den, Beast hissed at me. Kits not safe!
I pulled my cell and called Eli. “Jane,” he answered.
“We’re out front. What have they done and how many are there?”
“They firebombed the house. Evan put it out, but it was risky. Wind tried to fan the flames at first. Four targets that I can see with low light. Two vamps, two humans.”
Firebomb? Again? I needed to get a magical something put over the siding so it wouldn’t burn. Low light meant he was using his toys to see in the dark. “Witches working with them?”
“Not so I could tell.” A moment later, he said, “Evan says he can’t sense anyone. The fog seems natural, coming off the Mississippi.”
“Kids?”
“Asleep in the safe room. Front door is my twelve. Tangos are four, total. Human encoms are two: at two o’clock, on the side of the neighbor’s house, and at six o’clock, outside the fence. Evan says that the human in back is coming over the wall. Vamp encoms are two: standing on the wall at our six, and standing hidden in the edge of the fog, in the street at twelve. I say again, four tangos.” Tango was Eli’s shorthand for unknown human or supernat targets. Encom was Eli’s shorthand for enemy combatants, which meant they were armed.
“Okay. I’ll take the front.” I pulled my vamp-killer and palmed the blade that had cut Tattooed Dude. And smiled. “Tell Evan to let the fog closer at the street. I’m out.” I closed the phone.
“Human at the side of the house next door, there.” I pointed for Wrassler. “The space between houses is something like six feet, so it’s close quarters. I’m going after a vamp in front of the door, hidden in the fog.”