“Being in their presence allows us to easily open a passageway from this world into our own. They enrich us. They fulfill us. They bring us joy.”
That was what I’d been waiting to hear. All Mercy Blades were . . . whatever Gee was. Not human. Not vamp. They were other. “How many of you are there?”
“Four in this hemisphere at this time.” He closed his mouth firmly, and I knew that was all I’d get about his kind.
“Why are you telling me this?”
Gee took a slow breath and closed his eyes as if to keep me from seeing what was in them, but his scent increased, the jasmine growing stronger. He opened his eyes and watched me as he spoke. “George Dumas did not kill Safia.”
That was what I had been thinking too. Bruiser had been set up.
“I believe that the were-cat’s clandestine lover witnessed her murder, when she allowed him into Leo’s private office in the council chamber, through the outer wall.”
My heart stuttered. He meant that Rick had seen her killed. I didn’t react, though my heart squeezed down painfully on the probability.
“If I am correct, then he saw her die, and escaped from the killer by great luck. If I am right, then he would know why she was killed. He would know who used the gun and who tore through her throat. He and he alone would know.”
I answered, my voice calm and reasoned. “It’s a possibility. But the lov—the guy is missing at the moment.”
Gee’s eyes stared into mine. I wondered what he saw in the instant before he leaned close and breathed in my scent. His lips were open, his tongue touching the roof of his mouth. I froze, holding still. His tongue was pointed like a hawk’s, deep red in color. Not human. “You are goddess born,” he whispered. “Ask one of the old ones what this means.” Without another word, he left the house, the door opening and closing behind him as it hadn’t when he entered. The ward, which shouldn’t have admitted him in the first place, didn’t buzz.
I closed my eyes with the sudden release of tension. And with pain. Rick had been sleeping with Safia, according to Gee, who had no obvious reason to lie to me. I looked at the photos Gee had provided and wondered what else I’d need to bring this case to a close. Finding the guilty parties was worth what I was spending minute-by-minute for Reach to find Rick—who knew more than anyone alive what had happened in Leo’s office.
I stared down at the photos as I dialed Bruiser’s cell. When he answered, I asked, “Of the cold case files, how many of the victims were Leo’s enemies?”
“All of them. Hello, Jane. How are you today?”
I didn’t answer his pleasantry. “Had they been his enemies for a long time?”
“Likely. The humans were all blood-slaves of his uncle Amaury, and they became Leo’s enemies after his uncle’s demise. The Mithrans were Amaury’s scions as well.”
“So anyone who had been part of the clan back before 1915 would know who had needed to be killed to make it look like Leo was cleaning house. That’s a lot of blood-servants, -slaves, and vamps.”
“Yes.” His voice deepened. “Have lunch with me.”
“No.” I clicked off the phone, but not before I heard him laugh.
I couldn’t do anything for Rick, and nothing else came to mind, so I made a call to the Pellissier clan home to set the stage, then dressed in jeans and a denim jacket, packed a small bag, and left the house. I was about to play a hunch, go with my gut, and unlike in TV-land, guts were notoriously unreliable. But . . . someone was trying to prove that Bruiser had been Leo’s hired gun. Which he had been. And someone was trying to prove Leo was guilty of murder. Which surely he was. Bloodsucking fangheads didn’t live centuries without killing somebody. I didn’t mind if the guilty went to jail for crimes they committed, but I did mind that someone might be planting and manipulating evidence to force the issue.
Tyler was the only player in the game who had tried to tick me off. Tyler was trying to take Bruiser’s position, which gave him motive to help whoever was trying to frame the big guy. Or at least turn a blind eye. Tyler lived in the clan home, with access to info and all the older vamps and vamp-blood-enhanced humans. I had a feeling that Tyler could tell me something. Or his belongings could.
Leo’s house stood at the end of a well-paved but little-used road, no other houses within sight, and farm and fallow land lining the road for miles. It was on a bend of the Mississippi River, the levee visible in the distance in the daylight, a tug boat hooting, sounding lonely. The clan home was built on high ground, the artificial hillock rounded and smooth, some twenty feet above sea level, higher than the levees. Curlinglimbed live oaks arched over the long drive, standing like sentinels on the rising ground.
The white-painted, two-story brick house was a mixed architectural style, half plantation home, half something vaguely European, with dormers in the tall slate roof and gables at each corner, and with turret rooms on the second floor.
Porches wrapped around both stories, interrupted by and incorporating the turrets. It was originally built in the nineteenth century, and to me had always screamed construction by slave labor. Slave labor currently kept Leo’s clan home painted and pristine, but by willing blood-slaves, not by humans bought and transported wearing chains.