? ? ?
He pulled his car in behind Jane and parked next to the bike she called Bitsa. He’d learned when she explained that the Harley was made from bitsa this and bitsa that, by a Harley Zen master, mostly from two old rusted bikes. He’d been a motorcycle man in his day. Someday he would show her his collection, and perhaps offer her one of the older pan heads. But not until she was already his.
With the key, he unlocked the restaurant and held the door for her. She lifted her eyebrows at the gallantry and he smiled, waiting for a comment about her being strong enough to open her own doors. But this time she said nothing as she moved into the dark of the club. She stood in the shadows, sniffing in long bursts, breathing in that odd way she had, so like a wild animal. Upon their first meeting, she had growled at him. He smiled to himself as he turned on the lights. She had taken both him and Leo down fast. It was one of his best memories of her—and he had many.
Lights on, the bar was revealed for what it was. An old building renovated to current standards for bathrooms, sprinkler systems, and wheelchair access, with a long bar, food service and kitchen, storeroom, and bandstand stage in front of a dance floor. He had watched Jane dance there several times, her body lissome and supple and exceedingly flexible. His smile widened as he remembered.
Jane moved across the room, smelling everything, going into bathrooms, checking out every part of the empty building. She ended up at the back door, and when she called he met her there. “Open this?”
He hadn’t checked this entrance himself. It was a fire escape, and was unlocked from the inside during business hours. There was no way for anyone to use it without an alarm going off. But Jane didn’t know that, and so she’d found something he had missed. Fresh eyes and better-than-human nose. What is she?
Using another key, he turned off the alarm and unlocked the door, which opened onto a narrow alley, no more than three feet wide.
When the door was open, Jane dropped to one knee and studied the filthy ground, sniffing, studying the alleyway. “Female vamp. Old. She stood in the alley for a while, then came in through here,” she said. “Someone turned off the alarm for her and opened the door, so she has an accomplice. Human, I’d say, male, healthy, possibly a new blood-servant, blood-drunk, complaisant enough to do anything she wants.” She pointed at the paved alley and George knelt beside her. “See these marks? Heels. Stilettos. Tiny feet, maybe a size five.”
George saw what she was pointing to. He’d studied tracking with an old Arapaho Indian many years ago, but learning gained from a moccasin-wearing teacher was difficult to apply to modern footwear in a paved alley. He made a soft hmmm as he followed the footprints with his eyes, losing the print about ten feet down. Jane stood and moved along the alley, avoiding piles of trash and feces and wet spots that indicated vagrants had used the alley as a public toilet. He grimaced. He’d see it was hosed down after this was over.
She stopped in front of a recessed area in the brick of the building beside her. Like RMBC it had been many things over years, once a dress shop, once an art gallery, once even a strip club, back when this part of the French Quarter had catered mostly to the flesh.
Jane bent and studied the door, and once again he thought she was smelling it. Satisfied, she said, “I’ll be right back. I’m going to walk around it.” She moved into the daylight at the front of the building. Shortly she appeared at the back of the building, navigating the narrow space. Her jeans were dirty. Her T-shirt was dusty. Her boots were caked with something he didn’t want to inspect too closely.
“She lairs here”—she thumbed at the building—“coming and going through this door most of the time, though she accessed the front door a few times too. The human who lets her in lives with her. And I believe she’s there now. Do you want me to take her?”
“No. Not now. I’ll pass the information to Leo. He’ll make the final decision.”
Jane shrugged. “We’re done here, then.” She looked at her boots. “Is there an outside spigot in back?”
“Yes. I’ll let you back in from there and out through the front, to your bike.”
“Ducky.” She turned on her filthy heel and moved, catlike, back into the shadows.
? ? ?
When she came in the back door, she smelled fine, and he looked the question at her.
“It wasn’t anything too nasty. Just an old, squishy hamburger.”