“That’s why you got cookies, isn’t it?” I said. “To butter us up?”
“Hadda learn something from the suckheads. Give a present when you bring bad news. The Damours were clearly trying to set up NOLA for European vamp takeover, as far back as your arrival.”
I scratched my fingers through my hair and pulled it over a shoulder, out of the way. “Agreed.”
“Why? Why did they choose the Damours and the Rochefort clan and Peregrinus and the devil? Why did they chose the Rousseau clan?”
Because Adrianna—she of head-in-a-cooler fame—was originally a Rousseau, I thought. The rest of it . . . “This is tying my brain in knots,” I said, thinking about Katie, on the inside, her sister a prisoner and a tool of Leo’s enemies.
“The long-chained,” Eli muttered.
“Amy Lynn Brown,” I said fast, speaking of the vamp scion whose blood brought scions down from the devoveo in record time. There had been murmurs about her for years before the Shaddock clan in Asheville revealed her. “The EVs planned all along to take over Leo’s territory, but when the news about Amy leaked, they moved up the timetable.” It all made sense. “We have to call—”
“Already called it in,” Alex said. “Dacy and Leo have Amy under their wings and in a safe room. One that no one knows about. No one.”
That meant us too. That meant our map of hidden passageways and staircases was still not complete. Dang vamps and their secrets. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s see the rest.” Because Alex never showed all his cards on the first pass.
In footage from another security camera, we watched as Le Batard, Fernand, and his sister walked beneath a light, from another car, this time covered in blood. The date and time stamp were from the night Edmund was attacked with silver and nearly died. I remembered the unfamiliar scents from the night Beast had tracked Ed. The Marchands had a way to mask scent. I remembered the blood bottle. If they drank from that vile mixture, it would likely change them in all sorts of ways. Crap. I hated blood magic.
“Those sniveling petits, mangeurs de morts.”
I whirled to see Edmund standing behind Alex, the bookcase door opened to the sleeping nook/weapons room under the stairs. Eli relaxed and removed the mag from a weapon. He had drawn and aimed faster than I’d turned.
“Silver?” Edmund asked, casual, eyebrows raised at the mag.
“No, but they would have hurt,” Eli said. Casually he added, “You were talking about sniveling eaters of the dead, I think? Cannibals? Which I understand is an insult of the worst sort for Mithrans.”
“They were the ones who attacked you, weren’t they?” I asked.
“I was never certain, but it now seems most likely. Their fighting forms were different from what I teach, and so I thought interlopers on these shores, not our own. But the Marchands came from France, so their styles would of necessity be different.” A strange expression crossed Edmund’s face, something cold and deadly, and was gone before I could place it. “My mistress, may I have permission to challenge the Marchands to Sangre Duello?” He meant blood duel, in the mishmash of languages the Mithrans used. It was a duel to the death.
“After we get our people back,” I said, “I don’t give a rat’s hairy behind what you do.”
“I’d take that as a yes,” Eli murmured. “Gear up?”
“One more,” Alex said, punching a tablet.
On-screen, we watched as Sabina was escorted inside a warehouse, her hands and arms bound by silver. A prisoner. “She let herself be taken,” I said. “Why would she do that?”
Edmund’s head swiveled on his neck in that eerie thing they do, that totally not-human, more bird or snakelike movement. “We are not alone.”
Eli slid from his seat, weapons in both hands. He had one nine-mil pointed at the side door and another pointed at the front door. I’d left all mine in my room. Again. Eli grunted and stuck out a hip to reveal the hilt of a blade. I gripped the weapon in one hand and slid it from the Kydex holster with the softest of snaps. The hilt was crosshatched and a little too large for my grip but good enough. Way better than nothing.
A soft knock sounded at the front door. Eli and I slid toward it through the shadows. The house was dark, no lights except the glow of screens. On the front porch was Derek. And Rick. Eli looked to me, his eyes appraising my reaction even in the dark. He racked both slides, one at a time, and removed the rounds he had chambered. Holstered his guns and went back to the table. “You called them?” he asked his little brother back in the kitchen.
“Yeah. I did.”
“Good. We need help for this one.”
I stood in the doorway, hands on jamb and door, my arms outstretched blocking the way, staring at them through the dark. Thinking of my partners, Traitors . . .
CHAPTER 16
It’s Called Method Acting
“What good are you to this SAR?” I demanded. A SAR was a search and rescue, what trained people did when a hiker or a kid was lost in the mountains and emergency crews had to go in and find them. We were going into unknown territory to search for and rescue our people. I didn’t have to say it. Rick had known me long enough to understand.
Eli said softly, “This is likely to become a close-combat situation. What we have is a reconnaissance mission and an NAR. Nonconventional assisted recovery and exfil. Let’s get the terminology right, people.”
Exfil. Which was short for exfiltration. Got it.
“And Janie is right,” Eli said, mockery in his tone. “You aren’t particularly stable these days, Ricky-Bo. Maybe you should sit this one out.”
I shot a look at my partner. He was being deliberately provocative, which made no sense. Unless he was testing Rick’s ability to deal with the stress of a mission. Part of mission readiness. Yeah. That.
Rick’s eyes began to glow, not the gorgeous black of his human days, but the green of his black wereleopard. “I don’t have control of my leopard yet, but I have other were gifts. I can get inside without being seen and look around.”
“We have cameras for that,” Eli said. “Cameras don’t cheat or lie.”
“Ouch,” Derek said. “Dude, that one went for the heart. Or the stones.” He grabbed my wrist and twisted it, breaking my hold, pushing his way inside. His body was stronger since he had started drinking vamp blood. His scent had changed too. And tonight he smelled of Leo. The MOC himself had fed his part-time Enforcer. It occurred to me then that I had fed on vamps fairly often in the last months, for healing, and hadn’t gotten noticeably stronger. Just healed. What was with that?
I quickly blocked the entrance again and felt Beast rising in my eyes but couldn’t see her glowing in Rick’s, not with his cat staring out. “PsyLED wants in on this operation? Why?”
“Jane,” he said, the single word tender and soft as a breath, voice laced with what might have been pain. Or a really good con.