“Yes, ma’am,” they said together.
“Right this way, Ms. Yellowrock,” the woman said.
We entered the foyer and I stopped, closing my eyes and breathing in over my tongue. Vamp, blood, sex, vampvampvamp, food, blood, and vamp. No hint of Molly. No hint of magic on the air. And if the vamps Molly had left with were here, I didn’t know the scent sigs well enough to identify them. Just the stink of vamp that made me want to sneeze. I opened my eyes to see the security woman watching with undisguised curiosity. I narrowed my eyes at her and she took a step back fast. I flipped a hand, indicating I was ready to continue, and it was a moment before she turned on a heel and led me to the elevator in the back of the building. We went up a floor and down a hallway, to a room I hadn’t been in recently—the blood-servant lounge. She opened the door for me and the air that whiffed out smelled heavenly, of beef and pork chili with beans, rice, and beer. Yummy. I also smelled humans, human blood, human sweat, and blood-servants, scents that were axiomatic anywhere vamps laired.
I entered and stood to the side of the door, inside the spacious room. Two blood-servants were arm-wrestling, muscle-bound, bald, tattooed, and sweaty. On one large-screen TV a game was playing. A cooking show was on the other. The clack of pool balls breaking, an exhaust fan, and lots of voices filled the space, as potent as the smells. Though some of the occupants were in business black, most were dressed casually in jeans and tees, boots, barefoot, some of the guys in shorts and no shirt, one of the women in camo, boots, flak jacket, weapons, the works. The eyes of the men followed her around the room, which allowed me to watch them, unobserved.
My eyes fell on one familiar face, one that shouldn’t be here, no way, no how. Blond, blue eyed, sassy, elegant, and gorgeous, Adelaide Mooney hadn’t told me she was coming, even though I had seen her two weeks ago in Asheville.
I put two and two together with the info about Leo’s hostages from Lincoln Shaddock’s city, and felt a grin try to split my face apart, but I held it in and sauntered across the room. I drew on Beast’s stealth senses to help me move casually, smoothly, as if I belonged here. Which I did, sorta. I was nearly on her when Adelaide turned to me and lifted a delicate eyebrow. I so wished I could do that one-eyebrow thing, but it wasn’t something one could learn—the ability to lift one brow was genetic.
It was odd to look directly into the eyes of a woman. At six feet, I overtopped most females, and while I was never vain, looking directly at Adelaide Mooney always made me feel inferior and plain. Adelaide was drop-dead gorgeous, and since she was a blood-servant, that was funny on all sorts of levels.
“My mother said hello, and to remind you that she owes you one,” Del said, rather than a more conventional hello.
I blinked. I hadn’t expected her to lead with that. I had been part of the team that saved Dacy Mooney’s life, but the researcher who developed the vaccine cure for the vamp plague had really been the hero. All I’d done was help to get her treatment until the meds were ready, but somehow Dacy seemed to think it was all me and this wasn’t the first time she had sent thanks. “Okay. Sure. Whatever.” Man, was I charming and suave or what? “Ummm. You’re welcome. Again.”
That got me a smile and I rolled a shoulder in a shrug. “Buy you a beer?”
She laughed, that feminine tinkle-bell sound so many women could do, which I never had mastered. “Sure.” She reached into a refrigerated ice-filled bucket, one with beer labels on the sides, and pulled out two cold German ones. She twisted off the tops and I accepted mine. We clinked bottles and sipped. The brew was rich and malty and bubbly and delicious. Dang. I was feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.
“So, you’re a hostage?” I asked.
“In a manner of speaking, yes. Luther Astor and I. He’s the Mithran donation, but it’s all very proper and polite. I get my job description tonight.”
“Who went to Asheville in your place?”
“Dominique and a human named Winston Beavers.”
I paused with the beer halfway to my mouth. Dominique was Grégoire’s heir, and with Grégoire in Atlanta, that left a hole in vamp politics in general and a huge hole in Clan Arceneau’s leadership. If I wasn’t mistaken, that meant that one of my archenemies—which sounded so comic bookish that I grinned—was in the leadership of one of the city’s most powerful clans. And the girls I was looking for had been on the way to that clan home to party-hearty after leaving Guilbeau’s—in a car with a redhead. Said archenemy was redheaded. Of course, I hadn’t actually talked to anyone who had seen them at the clan home party. All I had was indirect evidence and I knew better than to trust that. Well. Wasn’t that ducky? I wondered why I hadn’t been informed about all the changes in Clan Arceneau. Oh. Right. I wasn’t hanging around vamp central much these days.
“Hmmph,” I grunted, and sipped my beer. “You know anything about vamps from Texas being in town?” I asked.
“No. I’m still being read in, though. I’m supposed to attend this meeting tonight,” she said, “so I’m guessing I’ll be on security somehow.”
I chuckled and Adelaide laughed with me. She was a lawyer, not a shooter, and all I could think of was her stopping an intruder and making him sign a release form before belting him. I drained my beer and dropped the bottle into the empties bucket; it landed with a satisfying clink-clank. “Just to cover my bases, my friend Molly is in town and she went off with some vamps I didn’t recognize by scent.” And that felt all kinds of wrong to say aloud. “She wasn’t happy about leaving with them, though I’m not ready to call it kidnapping. Yet. Do you know anything about her?”
“No.” Del looked worried, which warmed my heart. I sucked at making and keeping friends, so it was nice to know someone cared about the people I cared about.
“We’ll get started when Derek—” The door opened, admitting Derek Lee and six of his men, all former active-duty Marines, all African-American, and each and every one badass to the soul.
Derek sought me out from the doorway. “Injun Princess,” he called out. It sounded like a barracks full of men being called to attention.
“Legs!” his men chorused loudly as they filed in.
All eyes in the room turned to me, and everyone and everything went mute, including the TVs. My palms started to sweat. I hated to be in charge of meetings. Derek, as if knowing what I was feeling, snorted in mildly malicious amusement. The seven were all dressed in night camo and looking so self-confident that the tattooed arm wrestlers puffed up like junkyard dogs.
“Sit,” I said to the room at large, and chuckled when they all did. Well-trained junkyard dogs, chairs scraping, gear dropping, space provided and taken. Wrassler followed Derek’s men in and took up a stance against the wall beside the door. I nodded to him and he nodded back, putting one hand behind him, probably to be near a spine-holstered gun. Quietly paranoid. I liked that in a man.
“I’ll make it quick ’cause the chili smells good and I’m hungry.” That got a laugh and I leaned my backside against a table, stretching out my legs, pointing my toes. “For those who don’t know me, I’m Jane Yellowrock, currently the part-time Enforcer of New Orleans, and we have visitors coming in for a gather.” That startled them, even Derek. Leo musta told them about the guests, but not about the formality of a gather. Interesting.
“I don’t know who’s coming in, and won’t until the day of arrival, but you’ve already been making guest quarters clean and secure?”
“Six guest suites in all,” Tattooed Dude One said, after a quick nod from Wrassler. He had a tattoo of a hawk on his bald dome. It was meant to be intimidating, but I thought it was cute. And knew better than to say so. I nicknamed him Hawk Head. “Two currently in use. Four more in prep. Hallway cameras are operational,” he said. “Sprinkler system and exit alarms tested and are a go. Elevators are capable of lockdown. Exits are clear.”
“Thanks.” I didn’t know him, and needed to. I made a note in my book to read the dossiers of all humans in vamp HQ. “Electronic security?”
Wrassler said, “All suites have been swept. All conference rooms have been swept. Ballroom and party suites have been swept. No surveillance detected.” Which was not the same thing as there being no outside surveillance. Got it.
“I know you’re already under tight quarters,” I said, “and this makes it even tighter, adding guests and their security to the mix, but it won’t last long. So be cool, and if they try to stir up something, bring it to Wrassler or Leo’s primo.” They nodded, including Adelaide, who was sitting at a table, beer in front of her, taking notes in a dark purple notebook. The notebook matched her tees, her boots, and the necklace she wore—a massive purple stone wrapped in copper wire. Huh. Color-coordinated all the way.
“Two changes to the protocol,” I said. “I want three people at both entries at all times when we have guests or when we have a social event. Two will stay put if one guest needs escorting. The one guard escorting will walk side by side with said guest, not in front to prevent attack from the rear. When two or more guests need escorting, one guard will lead, and the other will follow. The remaining guard will call backup to the front, maintaining a two-man team at the entrances at all times. I want that fourth guard in place before the others clear the foyer.
“Back gates are to be treated like embassy security or prison security. Anyone here familiar with that protocol?”
A hand went up and it was Tattoo Dude’s. “I worked San Quentin for ten years. Know all about the entrance protocols. If you got mirrors and other equipment, I can set it up.”
“Get with Wrassler,” I said. “Make it happen.”
When Tattoo Dude looked confused, Wrassler lifted a hand. “Me. If Janie likes or hates you, she’ll rename you.”
“And if she doesn’t?” Derek asked.