I grinned back at him. “Sure. Let’s go talk to Wrassler.”
Wrassler and Eli were in a corner of the main room, talking softly. Someone had turned on the fifty-inch TV to a home shopping network. The models were posing in tummy-shaping underclothing and long thigh-slimming leggings. Which looked really hot and uncomfortable. I joined the men while Shooter patrolled the ground floor again, his weapon back in his hands.
“Ash,” I said softly.
Wrassler thumbed through his cell and held up a pic of some clothes and ashes with the odd brown, white, and red coloring. Same theory, different scene.
“Yeah. Like that,” I said. “I see no way that the vamp—ire,” I added, “was turned into ashes. No burn smell, no magic smell, no easy way in or out, no weapons found. Do we call the police?”
“No. Leo has people working on it. I’ll collect the ashes. Thanks.” He heaved a breath and ran his eyes over the people in the seating area. They had begun to stand, stretch, and move toward us. It was time for Wrassler to give them the bad news that their expressions suggested they were already expecting. And time for Eli and me to head home. Or scurry away before the predictable emotional breakdowns, take your pick.
? ? ?
We got home just after dawn and I fell into bed, exhausted, bleary-eyed, my head stuffed full of vamp business. It was only on the edge of sleep that I realized that Leo hadn’t really talked to me about the witches or their disappearances or Molly or Bliss or Rachael or any of the things I had needed to discuss. He had given me a hint and changed the subject before I realized it. “Dang,” I mumbled into my pillow. “He did it again.” But he had given me one thing I hadn’t had before—the names of Shoffru’s ships, which offered me a line of research.
? ? ?
I rolled over at noon after too little sleep but with my brain whirling too fast to find dreams again. I rose, stretched, showered, and dressed in casual clothes and warm socks, braiding my hair into multiple braids and twisting them up into an intricate bun that made it look as if I had much thicker hair. Silver stakes kept it all in place. It felt weird to be able to do this on my own. Christie, one of Katie’s girls, had taught me how to do the fancy bun. She had taught me how to put on makeup too, but I was always much more sparing than the dominatrix.
I laid my night’s work clothes out on the bed, going for the side-zippered pants I had picked up at HQ the night before, with a slim, tailored white shirt, black vest, and black jacket. I needed to replace my black boots, and my dancing shoes were showing their age, but I ran a damp rag over my old black dancing shoes, the ones with the sturdy heel and the strap over the instep, and set them at the foot of the bed. There was nothing fancy about my ensemble, more useful and serviceable than swank, though the fabrics were top-of-the-line.
After doing some online banking, I traced the names of the ships Leo had given me, the Ring Leader and the Lady’s Virtue. Shoffru and a cohort had captained both pirate vessels, and also had owned property on the island of Saint Domingue. I sat back, staring at the screen of my laptop, feeling a frisson of knowing, of being absolutely certain that I had found something important, but having no clue what it was. I cross-referenced notes from other cases, and when I found it, I was elated and horrified in equal measure.
The island had been home of the Damours, vamps I had killed during the black magic ceremony that had as the centerpiece the sacrificial deaths of witch children. The Damours who were part and parcel of Adrianna and why she wanted to kill me.
Bruiser had given me a history on the Damours’ blood-family, which I had transcribed into truncated notes. I opened that file and read Island of Saint Domingue: vamps’ haven. Clans in strict social/political society based on race/wealth. White vamps on top, vampyres du couleur libre—free vampires of color (also landowners and slave owners)—in middle, slaves at bottom: workers, sex toys, blood meals. Slaves treated barbarously.
The history lesson all came back. The slaves had wanted freedom. Duh. The vampyres du couleur clans had little political power because of their race, and they wanted equality with the white vampires. The whites wanted status quo. Some, both white and mixed race, had the witch gene and practiced blood magic, dark rites. Some with the witch gene never quite regained sanity, even after they passed the devoveo state and were unchained. I had read accounts of the atrocities the island’s fangheads practiced. Their cruelty was legendary.