Katie was naked as a jaybird, standing on a mussed tapestry of some kind, in a field, with a brook nearby and lots of trees. The painting was done in daylight, with shadows falling as they would have in sunshine, which meant it was painted before Katie was turned. In the distant background was a building. Not a castle, more like a fancy palace. Behind Katie was a pedestal, and on the pedestal were two crowns, one resting at an angle over the other. But the brushstrokes and the colors of the pedestal were different from the cracked and shiny patina of the rest of the portrait.
I reached out and touched them, comparing the textures of the paints. The pedestal and crowns had been added later. I felt Troll moving closer, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I said, “I don’t remember this painting when I upgraded the house’s security system, soon after I got to New Orleans.”
Troll didn’t reply.
“It was added after Katie redecorated, wasn’t it?”
He remained silent, immobile. I didn’t turn, but I felt and smelled Troll’s tension and something like pain. More softly I asked, “It was sent here, wasn’t it? It was a message. That the Europeans were coming and that Katie was to remember old loyalties.” My fingers stroked again over the pedestal and its crowns. Crowns that, at some point, had been joined together and were currently glowing with each lightning strike in my bedroom.
I turned to Troll, studying him. He looked tired, worn, beaten. Avoiding my eyes, he slowly sat on the gold couch, fingers dangling between his knees, his sleeves hanging to his middle knuckles. He shook his head, the soft lights tacking across his bald dome. “I kept hoping that Leo would come here, would drink from me. Would know what my mistress was doing. He didn’t. He remained far away.”
As if Leo had known . . . “When did the painting arrive?”
“Just after you came to New Orleans. Prior to the first visit by the weres and the successful parley.”
Were-creatures had come out of the closet recently, and the Party of African Weres and the International Association of Weres had visited Leo and reached a political accord, in what had probably been direct defiance of the Europeans.
“You know I have to stop her.”
“And you know I can’t let you harm her.” In a move that would have impressed a vamp, Troll snapped his hands. Two small handguns dropped into his palms.
I was already moving. Kicked up my leg. Stepping into the motion, adding momentum and spin. He was a big guy, but a well-placed kick to the wrists beat weight lifting any day. I followed it up, stepping closer and swinging a fist into his jaw. The impact sent his jaw swinging, broken. My other fist landed slightly higher, a direct hit to his temple. He went down. Landing with a thump on the polar bear rug several feet away. Out cold.
On a human, the force and location of the hits would likely have resulted in a need for surgery on his jaw and possibly permanent brain damage. Movies that show the injured getting up and continuing the fight are just stupid. Most no-holds-barred fights end in less than a minute.
I took away the guns, sliding them out of the metal harness that had snapped the weapons into his palms. Secreted them in the couch cushions. While he was out, I sent a text to Eli and then did a back-side pat-down on Troll. Ignoring the broken jaw, I flipped him over and did a front-side pat-down, which was when I discovered the blades in his underwear. If he had been conscious I might never have found the blades. As it was, I turned my head to the side and worked in my peripheral vision when I removed them. They were warm and slightly sweat-damp. He might have tried to kill me, but I liked Troll and I never wanted to get this personal with the big guy. And he was Rick’s uncle back a few generations. I might need Rick. No point in making him mad for getting fresh with a family member.
I needed somewhere to put Troll. I made a quick call on Katie’s landline phone, as I had forgotten my own cell back at the house. I grabbed an arm and rolled the big guy to a sitting position and then up into a fireman’s carry, keeping one of his broken wrists in mine. His scent changed as I repositioned him. I staggered under the weight. “Holy crap, dude. What do you weigh? Four hundred pounds?”
“Three fifty,” he said, his words muffled by the broken jaw. “Wimp.”
“I broke your jaw and both wrists,” I said as I carried him out the front door into the rain. Grunting. Breathing too hard. “Don’t wimp me.”
“I been drinking Katie’s blood for over a hundred years. You think I couldn’t evade if I’d wanted to?”
“So you wanted to be taken down?”
“I wanted to be taken to Leo and read,” Troll said, “with no one the wiser.”
I walked out the door and stood in a soft rain in the dawn light and thought about his too-soft words. Then I started hiking down the street, his weight making my joints ache. After a block, I said, “You can’t say no to Katie, who is working with the EVs as a spy in Leo’s camp. But you think the EVs are going to backstab her once they’re finished with her. So you want Leo to know, and then take her down easy and lock her away. Give her a chance to become loyal to him again.”
“Katie’s always been loyal to Leo,” he said. More sadly he added, “She loves him to the moon and back. But Le Batard has her younger sister prisoner. A vamp scion named Alesha Fonteneau.”
“And the bastard is threatening Katie with killing the sister?”
“Yeah. Alesha is . . . was Leo’s foremost spy in the European vamp camp, the one Leo calls Madam Spy. Le Batard found out. He hurt her. Bad. Sent photos to Katie. She lost it. Now stop asking me questions. I hurt. Get Leo to read me.”
“Okay. Thank you, Troll.”
He rumbled a laugh, the sound more pain than mirth. I walked on. Around me traffic increased, but no one even slowed down to look at me. In New Orleans I was either too dangerous to notice or just another street artist on the way to the corner I paid the city to use. Either way, not their business. A few minutes later, Troll said, “For reasons I don’t fully understand, I trust you, Jane Yellowrock. Don’t make me regret all this.”
“I’m a sweetheart,” I said, doing a little bounce and readjust. He grunted when his gut landed on my shoulder. “What’s not to trust?”
When he could speak again he said, “You’re a stone-cold killer, Janie. But you got morals. If this city survives, it’ll be because you turned the tide.”
“Your jaw healed already, didn’t it?”
“Close to eighty percent, yes.”
“Pretend to be unconscious when Derek takes you to HQ.”
“Will do.”
A heavily armored SUV pulled to the curb and the hatch opened. I dumped Troll into the back and pressed the button to close the hatch. I leaned in the passenger window to see Derek at the wheel. He looked like hell, wrinkled and rumpled, smelling of vamp blood, sweat, and gunpowder, a coms earbud in his ear. “Take him to Leo. He tried to kill me. He needs to be bled and read, and not by Katie.”
“You think she’s in with everything that’s happening now?”
“She’s in love with Leo. If she’s a traitor to him, then Leo’s enemies have to have some kind of leverage, forcing her.”
I spun away, through the rain. “Legs!” Derek shouted.