My partner, the former Army Ranger, chuckled. “Think you got me pegged, babe?”
“Yup. Yes, your brother is nosy, and yes, he is correct. Edmund Hartley did come visit with a letter from Leo. Yes, it offers us a gig as part of my Enforcer position southwest of New Orleans, in Bayou Oiseau. But I don’t think Clermont would have told Leo everything. He’s canny and sneaky and probably wants help on his terms. He probably kept back mucho info from Leo, hoping to salvage the situation in his favor. So we might be walking into a mess.
“And yes, there has been a suggestion, made by Edmund, that Edmund should be my primo. It sounds like something he’d come up with, all Machiavellian, and probably with an evil intention and outcome all planned out. You know. The usual vamp crap. And what do you think about it all?”
Eli chuckled, and I heard his sweetie pie in the background.
“Put her on speaker.” Eli thumbed a button and I said, “Hey, Syl. It shouldn’t be dangerous. But it is dealing with Cajun vamps and witches, so all redneck possibilities will apply.”
Sylvia chuckled and said, “You have my blessing and an order for you to keep Eli’s blood in his veins.”
“I’ll take all precautions.”
“And, Eli, you keep her blood in her veins too.”
“That’s the plan, boss.” He clicked the speaker off, and, a moment later, ended the call.
“Boss?” I asked.
“Syl and I don’t do PDAs.”
PDAs. Public displays of affection. Even verbal ones, it seemed. “So, you’re in?”
“Syl’s got a murder scene to take care of. Some big muckety-muck in Natchez took a three-tap, and had a kilo of cocaine in the trunk of his Mercedes. I’m heading home, because while I love the woman, watching her and her crime scene techs crawl around in some guy’s guts and brains isn’t what I call a romantic evening. We’ll talk when I get there, about Edmund wanting to be your primo. That should be my job.”
“No, you’re my partner. If I accepted, Edmund would be our vampire servant.”
“Come to think of it, that sounds all kinds-a classy. He could clean our toilets. See you soon, babe.”
The call ended and I stood there, still staring at Alex, who hadn’t yet looked up, ignoring me the way only a gamer in the middle of a World of Warcraft game could. I said, “Take a shower within one hour or I’ll pull the plug.”
He snorted, the sound remarkably like my own. “No, you won’t.”
I lifted my brows at the challenge and started toward the cord.
“I have battery backup,” Alex said, his voice sly, his eyes still down.
“Shower. Or I’ll stop all credit on all computer and all related purchases. And I’ll tell Eli how bad you stink.”
Alex lifted his arm and took a sniff. “Holy sh . . .” He did look up then. “I’ll be in the shower before he gets to town. And I’ll strip the bedsheets and put new ones on both the beds upstairs. And I’ll put out fresh towels. And I’ll wash a load of clothes.”
Yeah. He stank that bad. “You could also call the cleaning service and they could clean the whole house while we’re gone. Not the shower part. You’re on your own for that.”
“Spoilsport.”
“True dat,” I said, in the patois of Louisiana. I left the room to pack. I no longer had fighting leathers of any kind, thanks to the battle with the Son of Darkness, and I still didn’t have Bitsa, so I wouldn’t need bike riding clothes, which meant that it didn’t take long to pack. Packing done—jeans and T-shirts, boots and undies, toiletries and one pair of summer jammies—I took the time to call my own . . . whatever he was, and schedule a few hours at his place for when I got back. We were seriously overdue for some “us time,” but Bruiser was still out of town doing something Onorio-ish. We made plans for when I got back, which was likely two days away at best. Lately our trips were overlapping. Sometimes working for suckheads . . . well . . . sucked.
? ? ?
I-10 was a straight shot west, and rest stops, gas stations, and restaurants were few and far between, yet, even with a straight shot and no roadside distractions, the trip to Bayou Oiseau took longer than we expected because of the rain. A front had moseyed in and settled over the lower half of the state like it intended to sign a lease and stay. Beast slept as we drove, and I spent the drive time reading the case notes aloud to the boys so they would be up to speed on the small town and the events that took me over when Bitsa needed a mechanic on my only other trip there.
The inhabitants were mostly Cajun—vamp, witch, and human. The vamps had a bad history of abusing the populace for generations, and they knew (or had known) nothing about the Vampira Carta, which are the legal papers that govern all Mithrans. Worse, the vamps had not been aligned with Leo, and therefore had no oversight.
The witches were unaligned with the NOLA witches. Ditto on the lack of oversight.