He was standing at the sink, drying his hands; he pushed a tiny laptop to the center of the table and opened it. It must have been sleeping because it opened to a company Web page instantly. Blood-Call’s graphics were red and black with two beautiful, scantily clad couples on the front. One partner of each couple was a vamp, and the other was being a meal. It was clear that sex was on the menu as well as blood. Eli scooted his chair closer to me and we both leaned in, studying the screen, arms almost touching.
“I’ve traced it back through several shell corporations to an offshore account,” Alex said. “The mailing address is a PO box on the main island. The shipping address is here.” He pointed to the screen. “I have a World of Warcraft buddy on the island and he’s doing some footwork to see what’s at the address. I’m betting it’s a café or an empty lot. The finances trace back through four shells to a numbered account. There’s no way to find out anything further. No way to see if it ties to Lucas Vazquez de Allyon.”
“Why not?” I asked. “Someone has to come in from time to time and deal with the accounts.”
“Not offshore accounts. Not if they have the numbers and the passwords. Back in the day, someone had to show up in person and open an account. Now it can be done electronically and no one at the bank ever sees the client. I tried tracking the money back, but I couldn’t get through.”
He looked at his brother with a sly grin. “Offshore banks have better security than the Pentagon.” Eli raised his eyes without lifting his head, and Alex laughed at whatever he saw on his brother’s face. He looked back and forth between us, his expression changing to speculation. He grinned at his brother and went back to the dishes.
That speculative look suddenly made me aware that I was sitting close enough to feel Eli’s body heat, close enough to feel the fine hairs on his arm graze mine when he moved. My limbs went heavy. A slow warmth settled deep inside me. I felt Beast start to purr.
I kept my eyes on the screen as Eli sat back. When I could trust myself to speak casually, I stood and said, “I’m beat. I’m heading for bed.” Beast hacked deep inside and Alex looked over his shoulder again at his brother, then at me, and he grinned. Crap. I turned and went to my room without another word. And I slept in boy shorts and a tank instead of naked. Men.
*
The phone rang, waking me before dawn. I knew without looking that it was Leo—I could feel him pulling on the blood-bond. I wanted to ignore the cell’s insistent ringing, but my hand went out all its own and I picked up the phone, hit the TALK button. “What?”
Bruiser said, “At sunset yesterday, Lucas Vazquez de Allyon, Blood Master of Atlanta, Sedona, Seattle, and Boston, claimed blood-feud with Leonard Eugène Zacharie Pellissier, Blood Master of the southeastern states, in direct contradiction of the Vampira Carta.” His tone was stiff and formal, and I knew that Leo was right there, listening, exerting all sorts of emotional overtones to the conversation.
For a moment, I froze, that electric stillness of remembered fear and pain, Leo’s fangs buried in my throat. Beast placed a paw on my mind, all claw and spiking demand. We are not prey.
I sucked in a breath that sounded of sorrow as much as remembered agony, and shoved down on my fear, letting Beast trap it beneath her claws as if it were her dinner. The memory of the feeding eased. Beast was right. We are not prey.
His voice even more unyielding, Bruiser said, “We believe that somehow he knows we discovered who he is, and this forced his hand.”
Somehow. Yeah. Like the leak I warned you about that you can’t find. All I had to do was send you a report on Blood-Call and Lucas, and everything changed. But I didn’t say it. I didn’t rub salt in the wound. Go, me. “Okay,” I said to Bruiser and to Beast. “Why blood-feud and not a Blood Challenge? What’s the difference between the two?” I asked, rolling up to my butt, sitting in the middle of the bed, the covers wrapped around me in the chill. I was facing the windows at the front and side of the house, seeing car lights move past one, seeing the bushes move with a slight wind in the other.
“A challenge follows the protocol of the Vampira Carta, all the rules and regulations set therein. A blood-feud is a much older contest, one from before the Carta was written, and it puts aside the Mithrans’ most important legal document. According to historical precedent, there are no established protocols for the feud. Because you killed his Enforcer, Ramondo Pitri, unprovoked, de Allyon can declare blood-feud, according to the old ways.”
It always came back to the man I had killed in Asheville. But I remembered what Aggie had said yesterday morning. “His Enforcer was in Asheville to check me out, to see why I had moved ahead of all of Leo’s people into the rank of Enforcer, cutting you out of the position too. He could have looked me over on the street, in a restaurant, anywhere. Yet he was in my room, his gun drawn, with an illegal suppressor on it. Seems to me he was going off the reservation, hoping to take me out first. Seems to me that I’m lucky to be alive.”
I heard background noises and then Leo said into the phone, “Unfortunately, my Enforcer, we have no evidence of that. When my George suggested that very scenario to de Allyon’s messenger, he asked for proof. We had none to offer, except for the human police reports, which are not sufficient in a Mithran court. Only a Mithran eyewitness would be acceptable to others of my kind.”
“Right,” I said, and though I knew he could hear the sarcasm, he went on, unperturbed.
“Therefore, the demand for blood-feud remains. I have petitioned to the Outclan Council of Mithrans for a ruling on the matter, and they have put it on the agenda for when they meet again in the new year.”
“Meantime we’re all in the crosshairs,” I said.
“Precisely. My George will send you the information we have on the methodologies of blood-feuds.”
I heard background noises again, thinking over the “my Enforcer” and “my George” phrases as the cell was passed around. Leo was staking claims—pun intended—as I had done with my use of the words “my Eli” last night.