Which made me feel better, but still . . . A vamp with three-inch fangs was no easy prey. Jude was more than six feet six, and his muscles had muscles. The ones on his chest started dancing beneath his thin-knit shirt. If he had been wearing pasties, they would be twirling. Beast hacked with amusement at the image, and suddenly I grinned. Eat his heart, eh? I thought.
My good humor seemed to surprise the big guy. He blinked and vamped out fast, his pupils going wide, sclera suffusing with blood. Jude didn’t have much control for an old vamp. If he didn’t overpower me and kill me in the first rush, I could use that against him. Maybe. If I was very, very lucky.
“This woman murdered our previous Enforcer,” de Allyon said. His expression didn’t change. It hadn’t changed the entire time he’d been in the room. But his scent changed, and I could tell he was not a happy fanghead.
“Point of information,” Bruiser said, his eyes on me. There was speculation in his gaze, and something else. Something like trust. I gave him a slight nod. He said to the gathered, “Personal defense is not murder. There were no witnesses, no challenge, and no resolution. All human police reports were sent to the Outclan Council and we await their ruling.” Which was news to me.
“Human police are of no interest to us,” de Allyon said.
“Maybe not in the past,” a voice said from behind me.
I whipped my head to the back of the room. Rick. The arm of the law. Beside him were the white wolf and the neon green grindy. To his side was Soul, looking like an escapee from a realm of succubae, dressed in layers of misty, shiny gauze that moved in the room’s air currents. I looked over at the chairs, and knew who the fourth chair in the proceedings had been set for. The Psychometry Law Enforcement Department of Homeland Security.
Why was PsyLED involving itself with a blood-feud? My heart started beating fast, too fast, and I took a breath to calm its racing. But the vamps were too focused on Rick to even notice me. Sabina’s face stretched into an unfamiliar, satisfied smile. I thought back to her words, “You drew the eyes of the legal apparatus of this nation with the debacle in Natchez.” Sabina had hatched plans of her own to end this war? Sabina had called PsyLED to the parley? If not her, who else? I looked around the room. No one else. Dang. Go, priestess.
Rick took his place in the vacant seat across from the priestess and said, “PsyLED is interested in these proceedings, and wishes to know how the Vampira Carta handles rogue, Naturaleza vampires.” De Allyon’s vamps bristled at the term “rogue” being applied to them. It was an insult. Rick knew better, which meant he had used the word deliberately. “We are also looking into numerous deaths and disappearances in the Atlanta area among the homeless, as well as the use of possible weapons of mass destruction in Sedona, Seattle, and Boston.”
Weapons of mass destruction? I thought. Oh yeah. Plague was considered a WMD. Now, that I did not consider.
De Allyon’s mouth curled down. “We are not humans, we are not cattle, to be brought beneath the hand of the human law and the human world.”
Sabina said to the gathering, “The Outclan Council has approved the presence of this nonhuman and his nonhuman creatures, and observation by the human law enforcement agency, at this parley.
“The human police have determined that the evidence,” she continued, “in the attack in the city of Asheville, is consistent with personal self-defense, not formal mortal combat, nor murder. The Outclan Council will rule shortly on the conclusion reached by the human law enforcement. For now, we must rule on this point of order.”
To de Allyon she said, “How say you? Do you accept the challenge of Pellissier’s Enforcer? If so, such combat will take place immediately, before the discussion on the agenda resumes.”
De Allyon’s lips drew down in the faintest of frowns. “We accept.”
My breath eased out between my lips. Oddly, though I now had to fight an old, powerful vamp, I relaxed. By his fighting me, the entire blood-feud could be averted and de Allyon would be back under the Vampira Carta and the rule of the Outclan Council. Whether I lived or died, others would survive the bloodbaths recounted in the histories.
Sabina said, “Combat is approved by the council. As Pellissier made the challenge, de Allyon has choice of weapons. Pellissier will have choice of location. De Allyon will decide the number of rounds, not to exceed ten, and no fewer than three. Combat will begin at my count. De Allyon? Weapons.”
“Bare hands,” the Enforcer said. “No defensive gear, no weapons except skill and muscle and what the combatants find in the field of battle.”
Ice flushed though me. That was not what I wanted to hear. Not when I was wearing such cool weapons and when Jude was such a hulk. Not when the field of battle was a bare floor and brick walls. If I shifted, would it be considered cheating? If I shifted, my secret would be out in a very real and dangerous and final way. Beast put a clawed paw on my brain and pressed down, the claws bringing both pain and relief. Unlike my opponent, I wasn’t alone.
Beast sent me an image, and I wondered what would happen if I just pulled a gun and shot the Big Guy. Though there was no guarantee that a bullet would actually pierce the wads of muscle. It might take an RPG. My grin widened, and the bag of muscle’s confidence slipped for a whole second. And then the perfect location for this little fight popped into my mind and I hoped Big Guy remembered that lapse when I killed him.
“Pellissier. Location?”