He nodded, his face serious. "Visiting Leo sounds like a fun date. I'll bring the beer."
I spluttered with laughter, which was what he'd intended, and some of the darkness Sabina had painted on my soul dissipated. He reached up and traced the corner of my lips with a fingertip, the caress soft, making me shiver. I stepped away and he dropped his hand. "Seriously, Rick. I need to talk to Leo, tell him about the plot and the coup and murder of St. Martin's master and heir. We're gonna have a lot of dead vamps and a lot more dead humans. But I don't have time to do that and . . ." I looked up at the full moon. Frustration zinged through me. "I can't do it all. I can't deal with Leo and get the kids back and kill the blood-sucking Damours. And the kids are more important than anything else." I didn't have time for everything, and so someone was gonna die who shouldn't die. And it would be my fault. Again.
"As a cop, I have to warn you that even though the legal definition of a vamp as human hasn't been established in the courts, killing one without a contract might be considered illegal. Except for killing rogues. Usually. So I don't want to know about that part. But as to warning Leo, I'll do it. Well, Jodi and Rosen and I'll do it. What?" His eyes narrowed. "What's that look for? This isn't just your fight, you know. We live here. We'll be the cops cleaning up after the bloodbath."
I took a breath. It seemed to fill me for the first time since Sabina grabbed my throat. A curious delight kicked around inside me. With one exception--a bad exception, when a cop I liked a lot was killed--I've always worked alone, so I wasn't used to having help. But Rick was right. This wasn't just my fight. "You'll go talk to the master of the city." It wasn't precisely a question, and not a statement either, but somewhere in between. "Right now," I clarified.
"Sure. Why not? Got nothing better to do than kick some master-of-the-city vamp-butt."
I chuckled, imagining that scene.
"Or just dicking around with his mind. Me and Jodi might like that. And Rosen," he added.
"Okay. Thanks."
Rick straddled his bike and called Jodi Richoux and Sloan Rosen, and both agreed to meet us on a narrow bridge a mile from the Mississippi. I had made my call while Rick made his, the beauty of modern life, instant multiple-person communication. Rick helmeted up and I followed his lead. And then, because I had to head that direction anyway, I followed him back toward the city. A mile out, just past a small bridge, he slowed and pulled under a tree. Leading me to think they had been working late, the two other cops were already waiting. They'd gotten here fast, the engine of an unmarked cop car still hot and ticking.
Jodi was sitting on the hood, dressed in what I was coming to think of as her uniform: dress slacks, little stretchy shirt, boots, and jacket. Sloan, standing beside her and leaning against the car, was wearing jeans and a dark blue Windbreaker with the word POLICE emblazoned across it in big white letters. I filled them in and they discussed how the three-man crew wanted to handle the upcoming talk--which they decided should be off the books and unreported to the high muckety-mucks of the NOPD brass. I liked these three. They thought outside the vamp box. Feeling as though the talk with Leo Pellissier was in good hands, I roared off for a quick stop at home and then a rendezvous with black magic and blood rites in the park.
CHAPTER 22
Pardon me if we don't bleed for you, babe
My arrival at the house woke everyone, the bike's roar better than an alarm. Before I entered the house, I jogged to the pile of broken boulders and scraped my gold nugget across a larger piece of stone--a lodestone of sorts to the shift I'd need soon. Moving fast, I grabbed five pounds of steak out of the fridge, shoved them into a Ziploc, and tossed them onto the porch. Tossed a bag of Snickers on top.
I made it to my bedroom and back out before Molly and Evan met me at the bottom of the stairs, following me and babbling questions I refused to answer. I just didn't have time. But Molly noticed the two zippered bags and the fetish necklace I'd come for and blocked the door back to my bike with her body. I thought about taking the ruined window, but when I looked that way, it had been boarded over with a sheet of plywood and Evan had taken up a stance in front of it, his arms crossed over his barrel chest, his red beard sleep-tangled. Sighing, I looked Molly in the eye, letting a bit of Beast rise in me. "You know better than to pen me in."
Her white gown outlined her rounded curves, making her look too soft and feminine to best me in a fight, but her expression belied her size. She looked as if she'd try to take me if I pushed past her. "Tough." When I scowled at her, she said, "Not until you tell us what's happening. Why you're going to . . ." She pointed at the necklace and didn't finish the sentence.