Grégoire turned his attention back to Shaddock and bowed slightly, saying, “Grégoire, blood-master of Clan Arceneau, of the court of Charles the Wise, Fifth of his line, in the Valois Dynasty, turned by Charles—the well beloved, the mad—the son of the king. Here by decree of Leonard Eugène Zacharie Pellissier, turned by, and heir of, Amaury Pellissier, his human uncle and Mithran father, now true-dead, to negotiate the petition of Lincoln Shaddock for rights to claim Asheville and surrounding territory as Master of the City . . .”
Yada yada. I zoned out on the confab, seeing a flicker of shadow at the front entrance. The protestors were trying to get in, bodies pressed against the glass, voices raised, chanting, “Vamps go home. Vamps go home.” Real original, and no threat unless they had guns or were willing to break in, which I had to consider. I touched my mouthpiece to com channel and said to Derek, “Moving to the front. Get the principals to the Black Bear Grill, out of sight.”
“Copy,” my second in command replied. He switched channels and relayed my orders.
We had two communication channels, a command channel between Derek and me, and a general channel that went to all the security staff. Moving to the front, I listened as the B-twins and Shaddock’s Chen led the way to the hotel’s restaurant, which we’d taken over for the first night of the parley. I felt immensely better as the doors to the restaurant closed with a firm snap. This initial meeting allowed the primary negotiators to chitchat and take one another’s measure while their minions gave a final tweak to the rules the vamps would operate under, and shuffled and finalized the talk schedule.
I had never been a bodyguard, and I wasn’t looking forward to the whims of vamps changing my security measures on the fly, but that was part of the job too—flying by the seat of my pants, moving my men here and there and hither and yon and trying to keep everyone out of trouble. Playing in the vamp sandbox was an exercise in creative use and placement of assets.
While they did what vamps and their blood meals do, I wandered around the hotel, making sure none of my men were mispositioned or left a blind spot where trouble might hide. I also triple-checked the communication gear and walked the entire external perimeter of the hotel, the nearby parking garage, and every hallway, stairwell, wine bar, nook and cranny of the joint. Again. It was obsessive but it also was keeping me awake.
Near dawn, the first something unexpected happened. I was checking out the men’s rooms off the lobby when I was alerted over my com headgear. “Legs, something’s up. The blood-servants are going ape-shit,” Derek said.
Wrassler, my number two guy, and one of Leo’s blood-servant security goons talked over the chatter. All I made out was, “—in here now . . . Leo . . .”
I hotfooted it out of the john, Beast-fast. “What?” I asked as I entered the Black Bear Grill. They were all watching a TV monitor, local cable news showing a scene of flashing emergency lights: police, ambulance, even an antiquated fire truck with Cocke County Rescue Squad painted on the side. In the background I could make out a bridge and the reflection of red and blue flashing lights on still water. On-screen was a wild-haired, heavily bearded man, maybe mid-twenties, with multiple piercings and lots of body art. “Dude, it was bad. I mean blood and guts and stuff. The deputy was saying it had to be fangheads, what with the injuries. Like one a’ them rogues that goes psycho and eats people and shi—uh, stuff. Like, sorry, dude. I cuss a lot.”
“Oh crap,” I murmured. My cell phone rang. It was Leo. “Yellowrock.”
“You will take any necessary personnel and deal with this. If it is a rogue, dispatch it. If it is something else, you will make this situation go away.”
“Sure, Leo. But—” The line clicked off. I was just an underling, the paid help. Unlike the vamps, I didn’t deserve good manners.
CHAPTER TWO
Vamp-Fang and Werewolf-Bite Scars
Eyes gritty from lack of sleep, I knelt on the bank, jeans absorbing the wet from the river-slick rock. Just upstream from me, two commercial rafts slid under the bridge where a couple had been attacked before dawn, the screaming voices of laughing children tearing the air. Someone slapped a paddle onto the water, the sound echoing. My Beast flinched deep inside, but I didn’t react. I was too busy studying the scratches on the rock in the early morning light.
There were three parallel lines, the one in the center longer than the ones to either side. I put my fingers into the grooves, feeling the rough edges of the slashes. Using the excuse of a better view, I bent lower, getting my nose to the rock. I sniffed. The water smelled of iron and fish, sunscreen, treated sewage, chemicals, and age. The grooves smelled different. Still fishy, but with a particular, sour, dead-fish stench I recognized.