His lips moved on my ear as he said, “All magical items that interest the Mithrans go back to the Sons of Darkness, one of whom disappeared here, in New Orleans, long ago.” My confusion must have shown on my face because Bruiser said, “The makers of all vampire-kind, the sons of Judas Iscariot.” With no warning at all, he bent, slid his arms under my knees and around my back, and picked me up.
My heart did a major stutter stop-and-go and I gasped. He carried me through the foyer and pushed open my bedroom door. My bed was unmade. My room was a disaster. This was not the way I wanted this to play out. “Bruiser. What—?”He dropped me on my bed. I bounced. I’m pretty sure I squealed.
Bruiser turned on a heel and left me there, amid the twisted, unwashed sheets and squished pillows. “Get some sleep.” He shut my door.
“Wh— Get some sleep? No fair!” I shouted through the door.
I heard him chuckle as he let himself out the kitchen side door.
“So totally not fair.” I punched my pillow. Not that I had indicated to him that I’d welcome any romantic overtures. Well, except for the kiss at the door. And maybe a hot make-out session in my shower once. And on a limo floor. But then there had been Rick, who had torn a raw, painful wound inside me. Maybe that was what Bruiser had been waiting for? For me to heal?
Jane is silly kit, Beast murmured at me.
I pulled off my clothes, dropped them on the floor, and smoothed the covers over me. Even with the sounds of hammers and skill saws in the background, where the house next to Katie’s was being renovated, I was asleep in an instant. But his words hung in my mind, part spoken in Bruiser’s voice, part from a fragmented memory. A Son of Darkness disappeared here.
CHAPTER 13
Who Was That Masked Man?
I woke with a jolt, the dream slipping away. Which totally sucked, because when a dream-thought slipped away, it was always vitally important. All I could remember was Jodi saying something about penguins. No. Wait. It was Peregrinus. The old vamp in town, along with his partner, Batildis, and the blood-servant the Devil. The blood-servant who had hurt Reach.
If Reach was telling the truth. Was Reach really hurt? Would he have made up something like being tortured by the Devil? The dream was about the vamp and the Devil—a blood-servant so terrifying she had no name, only a title, who had built a bomb and put it at my door. Maybe. Or perhaps it had been her master, Batildis. Where were the Devil and her vamps? In New Orleans? Was the Devil acting alone or with the help of other human followers, other blood-servants? What the heck had they gotten from Reach? I was having a hard time putting things together, because the bad guys had all the intel.
These bad guys were vamps, so being here in New Orleans probably wasn’t because of just one reason, but many reasons, multilayered and overlapping. That felt right, but logic wasn’t pulling the dream any closer; rather, it was tearing at the dream like talons until there was nothing left but a feeling of disquiet. A feeling that I was missing something important, some instigating event that brought the attention of Satan’s Three to New Orleans. Unless that event had been publicized all over the world on TV. Yeah. I gave a mental sigh. It was looking more and more like this was all my fault. Again.
My cell buzzed and I rolled over in bed to grab up the phone. It was a text from Soul, saying she was clearing her calendar. It was about time. I closed my heavy cell, staring up at the ceiling as the overhead fan twirled lazily above me.
I heard footsteps in the foyer and a soft tap on my door. “Hold on,” I said. I flipped the covers away and looked for my black robe, which was nowhere to be seen, so I pulled on the wrinkled clothes I’d dropped to the floor. When I opened the door, Eli stood there, his dark skin appearing even darker in the shadowed foyer. He was wearing his business face, which meant even less emotional expression than usual.
“Someone’s watching the house,” he said.
The gnawing worry ramped up. “Again?”
“You’re popular in the whacked-out fangy crowd.”
“Thanks, I’m sure. But it’s daylight. Not a vamp.”
“Okay. But my money’s on the vamps anyway. Maybe a vamp’s blood-meal, but still a vamp.”
“No argument.” I slipped my bedroom shoes back on my feet and left my room, following Eli. “Where?”
“Not the usual place.” The usual place was the house cater-cornered, across the street. It had a small nook at the door and low, wide porch walls supporting the posts holding up the porch roof, making it perfect for pots of plants or for a watcher to sit and observe. I’d found more than one spy there. “This one is actually in a house. Directly across the street.” He stopped to the side of the kitchen window, which was small and obscure, but looked out over the front street. I leaned over to get a better view.
“See the window to the left of the door, second story?” he asked. “That curtain’s never been open before. It’s just a crack, but there’s a small round object, like the end of a scope, in the opening.” Eli handed me a pair of binoculars and I reshaped them to my face.