Oh hell no. “Define intercede.”
“I thought perhaps I could give my testimony on a video and you could present it at the hearing.”
I closed my eyes. “And then they’ll demand I give up your location and I’ll have to lie to Zrakovi.” Again. “Won’t you be safe in Vampyre?”
“No, and neither will Terri. She will have to come with me,” he snapped, sounding very much like the old Adrian. I hadn’t missed him.
That meant he was going to sell out the Vice-Regent. “Melnick will track you down, even in Barataria.”
Adrian looked away too quickly; I’d nailed it. Holy crap, Melnick was up to his fangs in all of this. “Look, I can’t make a decision without hearing the facts. All I can promise is that if I decide not to help you, I also won’t turn you in. That’s the best I can do without knowing more.”
He didn’t speak right away. I went to pour myself a glass of water, and returned. I more than halfway hoped he wouldn’t tell me. If I had a lick of sense, I’d walk across the hall and go to bed, leaving Jean and Adrian to scheme and plot on their own.
“It was Melnick, as you guessed,” Adrian said. “He killed my father because he’d decided to turn himself in and throw himself on the mercy of the Elders. His magic doesn’t work in the Beyond, he didn’t like being a feeder for the vampires, and he couldn’t see a role for himself. He, of course, wouldn’t consider letting them turn him even after paying Melnick to turn me.”
I couldn’t blame him for being bitter, except he had almost gotten me killed. “How did Jake get involved? And what was the point of Melnick setting the bombs?”
Adrian clammed up again, so I waited, and he finally spoke. “Jake happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. He saw Melnick setting the bombs, so Melnick lured him to Vampyre, had one of his men tear up my father’s body while he and Jake fought, then he trapped Jake in the transport and sent it back. Perfect timing.”
Perfect indeed. And there was Zrakovi standing at the transport when Jake arrived. Talk about rotten luck.
“Here’s something that’s bothered me all along.” I set my glass on the coffee table. “Who was Melnick’s target?”
“Quince Randolph.” Adrian got up and began pacing. “It was all to get rid of Randolph, and if you got killed in the process, all the better.”
I was missing something big here. “Why would Melnick want to kill Rand?”
Adrian stopped and looked down at me. “You’re missing an important question.”
That much, I knew. “Which is?”
“Ask yourself this: How did Melnick know when to strike, and where? How did he know Quince Randolph was still in the building, as were you, but that the rest of the potential vampire allies had left?”
A chill stole across me, goose-pimpling my arms. “He was working with someone on the inside.” Who wanted Rand dead? Crap on a stick. “Melnick was working with Mace Banyan?”
“Give the girl a prize,” Adrian said, sitting again. “After the bollocks of the first council meeting, Melnick was desperate for allies. He’d blown it with the wizards, and everyone knows the fae are crazy. So he and Banyan made a deal. He’d kill Rand, and the elves would align themselves with the vampires against the wizards.”
God, my head hurt. With Rand gone, there would be nobody to oppose Mace, and unless the wizards secured an alliance with the fae, which would be difficult, they’d be outnumbered by a landslide.
Forget Adrian. Maybe I’d move to the Beyond and ask for asylum.
“So you see why I can’t go before the council,” Adrian said.
“Sure.” I rested my head against the sofa back. “I need to think about this.” I needed to talk it out with someone, but there was no one I trusted. Maybe Jean, but he was too close to it.
Wait. That wasn’t true. There was one person. I stood up. “I need to go back to my room and think a while.”
“Very well, Jolie, but I request that you do not think too long,” Jean said. “I received a message shortly before your arrival that the council is to meet tomorrow to discuss Jacob’s fate.”
Well, wasn’t Zrakovi efficient these days? Trying to prove himself decisive First Elder material, no doubt.
“Where’s it going to be?” The cabbie who’d brought me to the hotel from Eugenie’s house had talked of nothing but the explosion on the Tulane campus.
Jean retrieved a sheet of paper from the end table, shrugged, and handed it to me.
I scanned it. “The New Orleans Museum of Art, at ten p.m.?”
It made some sense, I guess. NOMA would be closed by then, and the Celebration in the Oaks holiday light show, which spread behind the museum through City Park, would be closed as well. They’d been shutting down early each night because of the weather.