“Sure. She can make any medical decisions for me. My lawyer has the papers.”
Which was news to me, if it was true. And wife? I shook that away, even as Beast purred a satisfied Mine. “What happened?” I asked, knowing it had something to do with my trips and the vamp who was attacking other MOCs. “This is my fault,” I said.
He tried to laugh, but his breath caught with pain. I thought I heard something wet and gurgly in his chest, but the paramedic didn’t seem concerned and the sound stopped.
When he could speak, he said, “You struck the match? Carried the gasoline? Tried to kill my friend and master?”
Inside, I flinched at the two terms used together for Leo, who was both vamp and monster, but I kept it there, in the dark inside me. I shook my head no.
“Just after moonrise, Leo was sitting down to breakfast,” Bruiser said. “We heard gunfire. Vamps and blood-servants attacked, killed the gardeners and three security men in the first ten seconds. Inside of fifteen they had us pinned down inside. By thirty seconds, they had firebombed the house and were taking off on trail bikes that they must have pushed in. Then we heard the second wave, gunfire from the surrounding property. It was well coordinated. They were professionals, well trained, and they are still fighting out there.” He lifted a finger and pointed off behind the house. “How can any of that be your fault?”
I had seen the property from an all-terrain vehicle during my review of Leo’s security systems, and hadn’t liked the easy access to the house. But making Leo move into town and give up his family home hadn’t been an option. When I’d suggested the move, he had lifted a narrow black brow and uttered a laconic “No.” I hadn’t argued and I should have. Now that decision was back to bite Leo. Worse was the knowledge that I was even more involved in today’s fiasco.
“It’s my fault because the man I killed in my hotel room was the Enforcer of the master vamp who’s challenging and taking other vamps’ territory.”
Faint humor touched his features, his closed eyes crinkling slightly. “Why do you think that?”
“Leo’s enemy left me a letter on a dead man.”
“A? Z? Q?” the paramedic asked, and laughed at his own joke.
Bruiser’s brown eyes came open slowly, as if they had been glued together. There was pain in his gaze, but also intense concentration and focus. He lifted a finger and touched my hand. I almost jerked away from the contact, his flesh as cold as a vamp’s, but his fingers closed over mine. “When you first saw him in your hotel room, was his gun drawn?”
The question surprised me nearly as much as the gesture. “I don’t know.” I stared into his eyes, unable to block out his study of me. Unable to not remember. It had been months, and what I recalled about the man had been the initial lack of scent on his person. Unscented deodorant, no cologne, only gun oil and lubricants to mark him as armed, and later, the very, very faint taint of his master—which I could now identify as beerlike, hops and fermentation and the sweet smell of blood. I had been naked, asleep, when he entered the hotel suite, my body hidden behind the mounded bed linens. I had risen, whirling, grabbed the statue beside the bed, and thrown it as both a diversion and a weapon, diving for my Walther 380. His arm had been coming up. “He was turned to the side, right arm down and out of sight, looking at my weapons, going through my blades and stakes with his left hand, when I threw the statue at him. It’s all in the police reports. I didn’t lie about anything.”
“You shot first?”
I hadn’t actually seen the weapon until he fired. Spats of sound from an illegal suppressor, like books dropping flat from shoulder height. Then the sound of my weapons firing. The recoil in wrist and shoulder. The stench of gunfire and blood. “No. He shot first.” Which meant that my attacker had been already holding a drawn weapon. An odd tightness in my chest eased.
“Self-defense. Did he say anything?”
“No. He went unconscious fast, even though there wasn’t a lot of blood. I thought he was going to live until they told me that he . . . died. Later.”
“The letter the master Mithran left you. Where is it?”
I slipped my hand from his and pulled the envelope from my pocket. He chuckled, the laughter holding more pain than comedy. “Read it to me.”
I unfolded it and read the letter aloud. When I was done, he took the single page and stared at the words. I heard something stutter-thump-give-way, something from inside him. Bruiser’s hand fell to his stomach, the letter fluttering to the floor. The paramedic cursed and pushed me to the side. Bruiser didn’t take another breath, his chest sunken in and still. I pulled the new cell and speed-dialed a landline number I seldom called. I was shocked when Katie—who hated phones—answered with my name, “Jane Yellowrock.” There was rage in the words, but I didn’t think it was directed at me.
I said, “Leo’s primo is bleeding out. I need someone strong to feed him. Fast.”
“We have our own wounded. Leo is not alone to suffer assault tonight. We too are under attack,” she said, unintentionally repeating Bruiser’s words, from what felt like days ago, as he told vamp-warriors to get Leo to safety and to protect Katie. “My Alejandro and Estavan were injured as their carriage drove up. The little priestess is in a healing trance with them. The elder priestess is missing,” she spat. “The others are fighting and dying to ensure our safety. Who do you suggest I send to feed a human?”