Bruiser looked at me strangely but stepped away, pulling his cell. I almost reminded him about Innara's statement that cellular communications were being monitored, but what the heck. He was a big boy.
I moved into the open area, scent-searching. I walked through the entire place in the next few minutes, breathing shallowly, letting Beast stare through my eyes and parse the scents. But the faint reek of the rogue maker vanished. It--he? pretty sure it was a he--was gone.
Frustrated, I let Beast settle back to her rest and stared out over the throng, which had grown considerably since our arrival. I spotted a small group of blood-servant-security types, all by their lonesome. They were my kinda people, and I had met some of them, so I smoothed my dress, pasted on a smile, and approached. Two of the men--identical twins, right down to the matched tuxedoes--parted to provide me with an opening. "Hey, gorgeous," one said. "You clean up right nice."
"Brian and Brandon of Clan Arceneau," I said, accepting mirror-image cheek pecks from them. "Or is it Brandon and Brian? You look restored, rested, and healthy."
"Thanks to you," one said, sliding an arm around my waist and pulling me into the group. To the others he announced, "This is the Rogue Hunter, who saved Gregoire." That got me sharpened interest from the ones I didn't know.
The other twin said, "And incidentally, our butts too. The ugly one"--he thumbed at his twin--"was nearly dead from blood loss by the time she dispatched the rogue and sent help our way. But I'm distraught that you can't tell me apart from the ugly twin. That is a sympathy hug you're giving him, isn't it?" he said, sliding into my other side.
Looking back and forth between them, I grinned to show appreciation of their twin-based humor. "I try to be diplomatic to the less fortunate, and if I could figure out which is the prettier twin, I would ignore him, I promise."
"That ugly mole marring the perfection of Brandon's face is how you can tell us apart."
I spotted the tiny mole at Brandon's hairline, and said, "That lovely little beauty mark?"
"Nicely said. For a killer in a vamp-whore dress," a small woman interrupted.
Shock went through me in a jolting zing. Brandon and Brian went still. I slid out of their loose embraces and in front of them, instantly assessing. Growing up in a children's home, I'd been verbally and physically sucker punched a lot, but it never got easier to take. It hardly seemed fair that she would come at me now, when I had to fight in a dress and couldn't stake her to kill her. And Bruiser had my good knife. Before I could respond, a second woman joined in the wordplay.
"Are you saying she's a vamp-whore, Sina?" the second woman asked. "Or the dress is made by a vamp-whore?"
"Adrianna says she stinks of Leo Pellissier," Sina said, "but the dress is slutty advertisement too."
"Adrianna?" I asked, through lips suddenly gone numb with an adrenaline spike.
"First Scion of Clan St. Martin," Brian said slowly. "Meet her blood-servants, Sina and Brigit." St. Martin, who had just broken with Pellissier and formed a new playground gang with Rafael of Mearkanis as head bully boy. The two vamps in red dresses had been Adrianna's as well. What was this, tag-team-Jane day? A way to stir the vamp waters? I had to assume old Rafe had sent Adrianna gunning for me, but I had no idea why.
The two women had been standing together but now separated, breaking the tight grouping of blood-servants. The circle expanded, like a fighting ring, as the nonparticipants stepped back and the two women moved in. Both were short with wiry, fat-starved bodies and frizzy brown hair, though Sina was African-American and Brigit was Caucasian. They were dressed in similar black, sleeveless dresses that showed off their well-defined arms and freed their limbs for fighting. My heart rate sped up and Beast bared her killing fangs in my mind. My arms automatically lifted away from my sides, ready for defensive moves. I couldn't help the smile that pulled back my lips as Beast thought, Fun!
"Yeah, she does smell of Leo. The Master of the City is sucking on his son's murderer," Sina said.
"Not just sucking, you ask me." The two women laughed, taunting.
"Actually, I'm the one who scent-marked the Hunter," Bruiser's soft voice said over my shoulder, "in the hopes it would keep her from having to kill some stupid little vampire for assaulting her or some stupid little blood-servant for living up to the designation."
"You calling us stupid, George?" Brigit asked, her eyes brightening in anticipation. "You wanting to take us both on?"
"The thought is unpleasant in the extreme," he said. "It gives me nightmares."