Room 666 was just as dull and boring as ever, but this time it smelled heavenly. From the bottom of the stairs I smelled fried grease and onions and seafood. Jodi had brought takeout food with her, thank God. Despite my worry over the kits, my stomach growled as I pushed open the door.
The cops were sitting around the little table, Jodi and Rick and another guy I didn't recognize, all with colas in sweating cans in front of them. When I slid into the seat next to Rick, he gave me a look. "You coulda said you were coming too."
"I coulda. More fun this way."
Jodi said, "You two flirt on your own time." Rick snorted. I popped my Coke open so I didn't have to respond. "I've been offered this case because my boss is ticked that I have an in with vamps." She glanced at me. "Since I attended a vampire council meeting."
"No good deed goes unpunished," I said. Jodi and I had attended a council meeting together, a first for an NOPD cop at any level of authority. Her boss had been peeved not to be invited, and in a childish reaction, had clearly been giving her scut cases.
"I can't promise it will help any of our careers, especially if any more witch children are taken, but I've been offered the witch child kidnapping cases, the newest and the cold cases. Those previously investigated by my aunt Elizabeth. We'll be under the SCD, the special cases division," she said to me. I nodded. "The current investigation--"
"There is no current investigation," the third guy growled.
"Right. Well, there is now. And I've requested that you join me, but it isn't mandatory. You want glory and promotion, you'll say no. You want to do some good, you'll stick around."
"I'm in," the third guy said. He leaned over the table and put out this hand to me. "Sloan Rosen." I took it and shook. He was human, African-American, heavily tattooed, even on his fingers, with jailhouse tats. Which was very interesting. They reminded me of LeShawn's.
"Jane Yellowrock." I looked at Rick and back, drawing conclusions. "You were undercover too?"
"With the Crips. Until last year when I was outed by arresting four of the top local boys. Now I have a bounty on my head, some secretive vamp clan is out to get me, and the big shits can't figure out where to put me. And I figure you're here to make sure we'll all go down fighting."
I put it together with a twisted grin to show I was being ironic, not insulting. "So, as far as the brass is concerned, having you on this team puts all of us in danger. The vamps can track your scent, and the Crips are standing in line for you and would happily take us out to get you." He nodded slowly, lips pursed, and I said, "But if it makes you feel better, Leo Pellissier will probably plow through all of them to get to me for killing his son. Just being near me is a death sentence. Bet Leo wins."
"You two children can have a pissing contest about who has the biggest bounty on your heads later. For now, we have work to do. Rick, pass out the food; Jane's stomach is growling so loud I can't hear myself."
Rick stood and placed grease-stained bags in front of each of us. I smelled oysters inside mine and started salivating. The kits were missing, I might have a hard knot in my belly, but the Beast still had to be fed.
"I want you all to study the info on the stolen witch children," Jodi said. "Look for ties, connections, anything that might have been missed previously." She flipped files at us the way a cardsharp flips cards and we all set them to the side of our paper plates of food and opened both. I don't know how Jodi was able to leave her bag closed, but she did, and kept talking.
"Because there was never any proof the witch kids were killed, taken over state lines, and because no ransoms were ever demanded, neither FBI nor the state police has ever been called in. Until now, local policy has been to shunt the disappearances to inactive juvie case files thinking that the kids just ran off and will be back, or that they were taken by human family members to get them away from witch influence." She looked at me. "Thanks to an official letter from the office of the Blood Master of the City, that policy has now changed."
Office . . . Bruiser. Bruiser had done that.
Hard delight gleamed in Jodi's eyes. "I've been told you had something to do with it," she said to me. These cases might not advance her career, but she wanted them. It wasn't well-known, but Jodi's mother was a witch, and I was guessing that so was her late aunt. The relationships gave her a personal interest in discovering what had happened to the missing witch children and acquiring justice for them if possible. I tilted my head to show it was nothing. Which it had been on my part. Bruiser had done it.
"According to Jane," Jodi continued, "witch children are being killed in black magic ceremonies by vampire criminals who are raising young rogues. Clan Pellissier would like the offenders 'brought to the day.' "
I looked up at that. My current contract with the vamp council used those words, whose archaic meaning meant killed true-dead.