“They tore into her. Drained her dry. I’ve called in all the help I could find on short notice—four Mithrans and a dozen blood-servants. I even tried to get Gertruda, the Mercy Blade, but she’s spending the night at the hospital, healing the humans of were-taint. Sheriffs,” he said, shaking their hands. He pointed to a security consol. On a screen was the scion lair. Blood was splattered everywhere, centered on a girl lying on the cold stone. She looked dead. Rogues were racing around the room, as if chasing imaginary prey. Others were standing in the corners of the room, immobile. All the cages were open. Pickersgill punched a button and said, “The human came in to feed them, and the Mithran came in behind her.” On the screen, the door opened and Sarah entered, a sweet-faced girl with balletic movements, as if she danced to songs only she heard. Behind her a tall vamp entered, moving fast, creating a fuzzed-out image on the low-quality video He hit the girl. She spun away, and before she fell, he had opened the first cell.
“Now all of them are unshackled,” Pickersgill said, returning us to the current feed, “and one is the blood relation of a Mithran who is here to help.” Translation—the vamp would resist if I had to kill his kin. Lucky me. More vamp politics, which I sucked at.
“I want to see the vamp who let them loose.”
Pickersgill frowned, but led the way down the stairs into the windowed room, our reflections moving like underwater undulations, the way they might look in bullet resistant glass. Last time I was here, I hadn’t realized they were bulletproof. Which translated to freaking expensive.
The place smelled of vamp and barbeque smoke, heavy on the sage. Someone had come straight from the restaurant. We reached the lower level and I looked over the vamps and blood-servants clustered in a sitting area. They were all dressed in jeans and leather. The servants were wearing silver chain mail armored vests with high collars, leather and silver cuffs over each wrist. Not bad, and totally unexpected in a vamp’s household.
At a gesture from Pickersgill, they parted, revealing a vamp curled in a fetal position on the floor. He had wood stakes in his belly, immobilized and bleeding onto a plastic sheet, which struck me as neat and tidy, or way too prepared. He had silver shackles on his wrists. And a pink glow all over him. Crap. Evangelina had spelled him to set the chained ones free. What was the witch doing? Trying to get herself killed? “Keep him shackled, but take out the stakes. I have a feeling he was spelled to set them free.”
“Evangelina,” Pickersgill said. It sounded like a curse. “My master has placed her under his protection. We cannot harm her.”
I sighed and lifted a shoulder. “Don’t worry,” I said. “Grégoire has ordered me to bring her to him.” A truly vicious smile grew on Pickersgill’s face. Grégoire outranked Shaddock. He could do anything he wanted to the witch. “Let’s get to work,” I said.
“They ain’t gonna be injured,” one of the vamps said. It still surprised me to hear a vamp speak with any accent other than European, and the country drawl was jarring, not that I let on. I acknowledged the heir and her daughter and looked at the speaker, an emaciated woman with collar bones sharp as plow blades. She looked stubborn. Angry. Desperate. I asked, “Is your true child one of the escapees?” Meaning born from her body in the traditional human manner.
Her head tilted, that birdlike or snakelike motion they do when they forget to act human. “Her name’s Roseanne,” she said, her expression full of resolve, eyes narrowing at me. I was pretty sure that determination was her intent to kill me if I tried to stake her child. I addressed Pickersgill. “Is there any chance the victim can be turned?”
“If there’s a spark of life left in Sarah, yes. But it doesn’t appear likely.”
I stared them down, sliding one hand into my surprise supplies. “If she can be turned, then it isn’t murder. If she’s dead, I don’t care what you want.”
The vamps swiveled to me almost as one, like pack hunters sighting prey. Grizzard took a slow breath as fear pheromones laced into the air from his skin. Scrawny’s eyes bled black in an instant. A young vamp touched her arm in warning. “Mom. Don’t.”
Without taking my eyes from Scrawny, I took in the young female. It was Amy Lynn Brown, the miracle vamp who came out of devoveo in two years time. I inclined my head at her and went on. “Any of the chained who get away from this house get staked when I catch them, even if the human woman can be turned, so it’s in your best interests to keep them contained. I won’t risk letting them kill a human. Another human,” I corrected.
Scrawny’s fangs snapped down. I stared down at her. “You have a problem with my methods, call Leo Pellissier.” I held out my cell. “Speed dial seven.” Scrawny breathed deeply, which she didn’t need to do, but it seemed to calm her, that and her daughter’s hand on her arm. She closed her eyes and stepped back from me, her pupils shrinking when she opened them again. Maybe it was the thought of talking to Leo. Or maybe at the thought that I talked to Leo. Or called the MOC by his first name. Or Amy Lynn’s insistence. Whatever. It worked.
I looked at the sheriffs. “Unless y’all want to take them in for murder?”
Scoggins said, “Hell no.”