The woman at my knees sucked in a breath that sounded pained—her first since she was shot. “Bet that hurts,” I said softly. I confiscated a fully automatic weapon with a full thirty-round mag. There were other magazines on her person, enough rounds to chew through the back of the house and anyone inside. I lifted her up and tossed her over my shoulder, glad that my secret was out and I didn’t have to hide what I was anymore. Her newly found breath oofed out once again, along with her scent. She stank of Adrianna and something else, something vaguely familiar, but the blood and Adrianna’s reek overpowered it and I couldn’t isolate the scent marker.
I carried the human along the side porch and in the side door. And dumped her to the floor at Big Evan’s feet. Without looking at them, I handed the weapons to Eli and he chuckled nastily as he looked the midsized subgun over. I yanked three zip strips out of his utility belt and secured the woman’s hands. It only took about seventy-five pounds of force to break a regular-sized zip strip. Let’s see her break three of the bigger ones at once.
“Let Wrassler in the front door, please,” I said to Eli as the bell rang. “He has another prisoner.” Eli headed to the door, his footsteps silent.
“You remember me telling you about the Damours?” I asked his retreating back. He made a waffling motion with one hand. “Adrianna was part of the Damours’ blood family, and was a mind-locked anamchara to one of the top people in the family. When I killed the Damours vamps, Adrianna was there. Leo saved her when I killed her lover, for reasons I’ll never know.” I glanced at Big Evan. He knew all about the history of the Damours. The witch-vamps had been trying to sacrifice his children when I killed the fangheads true-dead. Though memory was a dicey thing—especially when one was technically insane—Adrianna had to know that I was the one who killed her anamchara. Vamps liked vengeance, so she thought she would kill me and mine. I got that. But it wasn’t enough to make it all sit easily with me. There was still too much that didn’t fit. Unless . . .
I looked at it another way. Unless there was more than one thing going on. Maybe some of the weirdness had something to do with the European Council coming to visit. I put that possibility on the back burner of my brain.
I dialed the council house and asked to be put through to Edmund Hartley. “We’re safe,” I said. “Thanks to you. Talk to me. I need to know everything pertinent that you drank out of Tattoo Dude.”
“It was my pleasure,” Ed said. And the way he said it meant way more than a simple “You’re welcome.” But he went on, his words succinct. “In order of your earlier queries, the man I questioned was under heavy compulsion. The two were supposed to alert Adrianna when you would be within their influence, and kill you while Adrianna attacked your home to steal something of value. They don’t know what it was.
“Adrianna gave the men the weapons. They knew the blades were poisoned, but not what the poison was or if a witch was involved in making it. Neither Grégoire nor Dominique knew about the attack—a suggestion that was insulting but necessary,” he added. “No one else at Clan Arceneau knew about the attack so far as he knew. No one else here at the council house knew of it. He did not know if there were more attacks planned. He was compelled, and quite well.”
The men had been at HQ for weeks. So that put the planning of the attacks on me and my home back much earlier than that. It took time to set up a compulsion, even longer to get the men so deeply under that they would attack me in front of witnesses, though a violent compulsion might work faster in a violent human, last longer without reinforcing. I didn’t know.
If Adrianna wanted vengeance for the death of her lover, then attacking my house and my friends and my person . . .Yeah. Adrianna had been busy. Vamps strategized with the long view and might wait decades—centuries even—to carry out a plan. Yet Adrianna had seemed too unstable to make any of this work. So, either I had read her wrong or her kind of crazy was the kind that got things done. Or I was missing something.
I needed to talk to Adrianna. And by talk I meant communication of a kind that made my blood run cold just thinking of it. But no one around me was safe as long as Adrianna ran around free. I wondered if Leo would give me leave to go after her. I need to talk to the MOC. I needed to decide how far I’d go to keep my people safe. I said, “Thanks, Ed. We’ll talk later.”