I stood in the edge of the woods, wondering if there were more such sites in the trees. It wasn't impossible. But Bruiser was waiting. Patiently. Which made me feel guilty.
He was still beside his car when I walked back, his butt against the high gloss, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses against the light. Unlike me, he wasn't sweating in the heat and humidity. I wondered if his ability to withstand temperature changes was a result of the blood sips he got in return for being a blood meal to Leo, or if it was natural to him. No way to ask and be polite, of course, though if I hadn't needed something from him, I might have asked anyway. I grinned at the thought and he cocked his head. I waved it away and said, "I don't guess you'd consider giving me access to the security around this place so I can come back anytime I want."
His lips twitched in what might have been a smile and he shook his head once, an abbreviated but unequivocal no.
"Okay. I ran across some things in my research into vamp attacks that you can help me with instead." Bruiser's brow lifted a bit, as if he was amused that I'd put him into the role of assistant. "How about out-clan and devoveo?" I was pretty sure I knew the answers, but in my business, "pretty sure" was worth roughly zero. I needed to know for dead certain.
The heavy-lidded look slid away. "Where did you come across this information?"
Bruiser was my best source of all things fangy and I knew I had to give to get, but not this time. I hated negotiation. "My source"--if the NOPD woo-woo files could be described that way--"is confidential. I want to know what they mean."
Thoughts flickered deep in his eyes. After a moment he cocked his head and seemed to come to a decision. "Devoveo is the state of the young rogue. The ten years of insanity when they have to be kept confined. The curse of the Mithrans is the fact that they must enter the ten years of the devoveo and may not come out of it."
"Have you ever heard of people drinking witch blood to stave it off?"
He looked confused. "No. The reason witches are seldom turned is that they suffer from devoveo far beyond the usual decade, and often must be destroyed by their sires. But I have no idea what the effects of drinking their blood would be."
"Oh." Though I'd expected no new revelations, I was still disappointed.
"The out-clan are part of their history. Before the vampires were divided into clans or families, they were all one family. When their society became too large and unwieldy to manage on their own, and when humans began hunting them, there was a diaspora and many of the oldest sired clans in new lands, others later joined existing clans, banding together for safety and defense, and some few chose to be considered out-clan. From the out-clan group came the keepers of the past. They act as historians, ambassadors, deal brokers. Peacemakers when necessary."
"So Sabina and Bethany really are among the oldest. Like, nearly two thousand years old." When he inclined his head, I added, "And the ground they inhabit is holy to the vamps."
"Not holy ground. The eldest Mithrans are respected, venerated, perhaps, not worshipped. The priestess is the oldest Mithran in this hemisphere. And Bethany was her acolyte."
"Was?"
"There have been disagreements between them several times over the past centuries; the last time was over the issue of slavery during the Civil War. The rift has never been healed."
Bethany had been a slave. I could see where discord might be possible. I had a feeling there was more to everything he'd said, but Bruiser stood straight and opened his car door, leaning inside to pick up an envelope and a box, handing them to me. "The check is for the heads you delivered to the vampire council. And Leo wants you to have the other as a gift, but he didn't want it wrapped. And no, I have no idea why it should go to you."
I tucked the envelope into a saddlebag. Taking the box, I flipped back the lid. Wedged between layers of packing material were bones and teeth. The small bones looked like paw bones, the larger long ones like foreleg bones. The teeth were encased in a lower jawbone, the canines several inches long, one with its tip broken off. I was pretty sure they all came from a sabertooth cat. A cold chill shot through me. Leo had given me his "son's" fetishes, the things Immanuel had used to become a sabertooth lion and kill. The things that might have driven him insane. My instinct was to refuse them.