Inside, Hicklin chatted up the salesgirl, flirted, a natural-born player, all the byplay coming over the headset, which looked like his cell phone. I tinkered with Bitsa. Hicklin had a date with Amy later in the evening if he wanted, but he finally got to the point, asking her how long she'd worked at the store, and discovered she was the owner's daughter. "Tell me about the building. I have a sister who's a chef, relocating up from a chef school in Charlotte. I'm considering investing in a restaurant for her."
Amy filled him in, leaning across the counter, chatting with the rich customer. "It's, like, two hundred years old, with walls three feet thick. The woman who owns it is one of the old vampires, kinda creepy, you know, like real old? Not humanlike at all. She uses the back half, all three stories, the lower one for storage for her businesses, and the top two floors for living. If you call her living."
"I've seen vamps, but not an old one. What's she like?"
The back of the building sported a windowless lower story and wide, arched windows on the two top floors. I hadn't consciously noted it but they'd been heavily draped. Cars could be pulled into the lower level through the garage-style door using an automatic opener or the keypad. Perfect vamp lair.
"Short. Pretty, in a pale-as-death way. But not real human-normal." Amy took up a strand of shoulder-length hair and twirled it around and around her fingers as she thought. "One night she shows up here, asks me if I'm interested in being a blood meal for a friend of hers. She'd pay me, like she was a pimp or something. I was so not into that. I told her no, thank you. And she stands there, unmoving, not breathing, for over two hours. I had customers and we had to work around her, like she was a statue or something. It was freaky, you know? And then I looked up and she was gone. When I checked the security cameras, she just disappeared. Like she teleported out something, except the door opened real fast and closed."
"How did she get in and out? Is there a door from her part of the warehouse to here? Or to one of the other stores?"
"No way. She's real into security. She'd freak if we had a way to her side. Daddy thinks she bribed a fire marshal to keep the sections separate against local fire regulations."
While the two decided on a time to hook up for the evening, dinner and maybe more, I said, "Derek, this looks promising." More than promising. By the scents, I knew this was it. Had to be. Tension shot through me. "How do you want to do this?"
"I copy. You wait here till my boys say they're ready. We got monkey stuff."
"Monkey see, monkey do?"
"No. If you see no evil and hear no evil, you can't rat anyone out. No offense."
I smiled. "None taken. Security cameras?"
"Will go out exactly thirty seconds before the doors blow. On my mark, start around back. When you hear the blow, move fast."
"Got that."
"Copy, Injun Princess. The word is copy."
I just grinned and waited. All along the street, true night fell. New Orleans is at its best at night, balmy air like a caress, smells of the river and cooking foods, people walking leisurely, languid after a hot day at the office. I felt rising tension, mixed excitement and fear, knowing I could be on the verge of getting back Molly's kids. I checked the foot traffic. "Derek? What about foot traffic?"
"We're okay out back. On my mark, and thirty, twenty-nine . . ."
I started Bitsa and motored with the countdown as I followed the lethargic after-work crowd. I was at the back parking area when a muffled boom took me by surprise. And took out all the lights in the block. "Go, go, go, go, go!" Derek shouted into my headset. Adrenaline shot through me. Beast reared up high in my mind, claws piercing. I gunned Bitsa and raced through the human-sized door, now hanging by one hinge, just behind a man carrying a shotgun and a sword, a black satchel over his back. Derek? Maybe.
I abandoned the bike just inside. Pulled the Benelli and opened out the folding stock. The smell of vamp was overpowering. Rousseaus. Lots of them. The point man moved through the darkened building, checking everything out with his goggles, giving report as he moved. By the commentary, he was twenty feet in front of Derek.
"Hallway, clear. Left, clear. Right, clear. Stairway"--a door banged open and a cool shaft of air fell into the hallway--"clear on this level. No bogeys noted above. No way down."
Left meant a room to the left. Right was a room to the right. There was no downstairs. I understood. Over the headset came "Garage clear. Two vehicles. Both cool to the touch. Garage exterior door, one interior door for entry. Locked. Steel reinforced. Hinges on inside. Camera down."
From outside came the words "Fire escape clear. No doors or windows opening. No movement."
"Hallway door, no window," the man in front of Derek said. "Locked, reinforced, hinges inside."
"I got it," Derek said. He knelt in front of me. I didn't watch what he did, but covered us from behind. Just in case one of the rooms had a doorway we hadn't seen. Or a concealed exit. Or a hungry vamp sleeping under a table.