“Fine,” I said as we passed through the brick gates unscathed. “Question. You knew all this before we got here, didn’t you?”
“I knew some. There’s been some chatter about magical devices. Alex has been monitoring it and did some deeper searching in Reach’s database. As soon as we heard about a magical device near us, I got in touch with people I know.”
Reach had been the best researcher of all, ever, anywhere, when it came to the arcane, the weird, the woo-woo stuff. Then he’d been attacked by a human and two vamps and disappeared. Or so we thought. There wasn’t any direct evidence either way. I still didn’t know if Reach was alive.
I’d come into possession of his database in what, under any other circumstance, I’d call coincidence. But I no longer believed in that, not when it came to the vamps and the layers of history and death and conspiracy they so loved. Someone had wanted me to get the data. I just didn’t know who yet.
Deep inside, my Beast chuffed with amusement. I didn’t know why, but I’d learned that Beast would tell me stuff when she was good and ready and not one moment sooner. I said, “And you got in touch with your friend Joe. A former Ranger?”
Eli gave his patented nonsmile, a twitch of his lips that he probably thought was cool. It could also have been constipation. Someday I’d hit him with that one and see how he reacted.
“Someone in the Vatican, maybe? People who want the magical stuff I’ve collected?”
“They think they can heal the world’s wounds with them,” he said. “And they think they’re the only ones who should have them.”
“Which means they’re the last people on earth who should have them.”
“Correctomundo.”
“Joe. Former military?”
“Current.”
“I thought you were on the outs with the Army because of me.”
Eli gave me a real smile, showing a hint of pearly whites. “Worth it, babe. Totally worth it.” More seriously he said, “I have friends who know why I was blackballed and who still keep me in the loop.”
I looked away. The guilt about Eli’s being ostracized by the military always got me deep down, but I also knew he was speaking total truth when he said it was worth it. I could smell that on him. “Okay. Joe. What’s he do?”
“Joe is the U.S. liaison in charge of overseeing the Pope’s safety.”
“Wait. The Pope as in the Pope? In Rome? That Pope?”
“Oh yeah. You have no idea how much the U.S. has invested in terms of time, intel, and equipment, keeping the Vatican’s citizens safe and alive, all of them, for the last twenty or so years, since the jihad extremist movement got so big again.”
“Okay. And Joe says?”
“That there was a blip in the Holy Vicar’s security intel yesterday morning, and it necessitated sending a small group of God’s warriors to the U.S. They landed at John F. Kennedy International this morning. They have a direct flight charter scheduled for New Orleans at four p.m. And then, unless they go the helo route, they’ll have a drive in.”
“Oh crap. We’re gonna have to fight the Vatican, aren’t we?”
“The Holy Roman See, to be specific, not the Vatican. And the See is considered a sovereign state. Which means all their men will be considered papal representatives and will be accorded all protections under law afforded to all international ambassadors on U.S. soil.”
“Soooo they can do anything to anyone and get off scot-free. But . . .” I thought it through. “The vamps are currently under a temporary but similar legal protection.”
“Until the U.S. government in all its wisdom and glory—”
I snorted derisively.
“—decides if they are citizens or not.”
“So we have to involve Leo. Like, now.”
Eli laughed evilly. “He’s sooo gonna be pissed.”
I’d have socked him, a good, solid thump, but it would have only made him laugh harder.
? ? ?
We didn’t have long before the people from Rome arrived and made a bad situation worse. I was pretty sure that Lucky, despite being a witch whose ancestors were technically hunted by the Catholic Church since the witch hunts in the Middle Ages, and terrorized by the Church in the time of the Inquisition, was a Catholic. Pretty sure. Not totally. But his daughter, Shauna, and her vamp husband had been married in the yard of the Catholic church. . . . Would the priest be in trouble for his part of the ceremony? Crap. This was getting sticky. I decided to go back to Boudreaux’s Meats, ostensibly for lunch. And after a good meal, Eli and I needed to get info. Any way we could. Even if it mean hurting Lucky. That bothered me. A lot.