“Huh. Dress code?”
“I’ll be working. Guests are expected to wear black tie.”
Rick gave me a slow smile, one with a twinkle in his black eyes, and said, “I look good in a tux. But I look better out of a tux.”
“Yeah. I remember.” I looked at the time on his phone and stood before I got myself into trouble I might not get out of. “I gotta change and get to HQ. Come on. Walk me out.”
He slid an arm around my waist and half danced me back out into the warming, uncertain spring air.
• • •
“I’ll take Bitsa,” I said to Eli, my eyes on my cell, a thumb flipping through text messages, “and change closer to party time. You bring my clothes and the weapons and gear when you come, and get Derek and his guys set up in back. The New Orleans Police Department’s gun-and explosive-sniffing dog and his handler will be at HQ at five p.m. I’ll leave it up to you where you want to keep them, but I’m sure the dog will need water and a place to do his business. Ask the gardener. That’s all I got.” I looked up at Eli. “You got anything?”
“Just an undying happiness that I don’t have to wear a tuxedo or get all dolled up like a girl. You polished your nails,” he accused.
I curled my fingers under, admiring the bloodred color. “Tia did it for me. I’m just a working stiff like you, tonight.”
Eli chortled, and before he could play on the word stiff, I said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll never be stiff. I’ll never have a stiffie. So don’t go there.” Angie walked down the stairs from where she had been napping, and I said, “Kids present,” which put an end to any smart retorts by Eli.
“Aunt Jane? You going to a party?” Angelina asked, stopping at the bottom of the stairs. “Do I get to watch you become a princess?” Angie had watched my first-ever transformation into vamp security, and never forgotten it.
“Not tonight. Just lipstick and hair.” I pointed at my head.
“Oh.” She dangled by her arms from the banister. “You find my mommy soon, okay? And bring her home. I miss her.” Her mouth pulled down and her eyes welled with tears.
I rushed to her. “I’ll find her, Angie Baby,” I said, cursing myself at the promise I might not be able to keep.
Angie threw her arms around my neck and hugged me. “I love you, Aunt Jane. But I miss my mommy.” She smacked a wet kiss on my cheek and raced back up the stairs into her bedroom. She left me feeling all hollow inside, an emptiness that ached, and cooling tears on my cheek.
“Anything on Molly?” Eli asked softly.
“No,” I said, heading out the door. “Big Evan is getting antsy.”
“Tell me about it. I’m outta here.”
• • •
I steeled myself against Leo’s pull on Beast and walked into vamp HQ to see Wrassler and Jodi standing in the foyer. She was dressed in her casual cop khakis and jacket, and nodded a greeting to me. “We’re done for now. I’d like the crime scene to be left as is until forensics can take one last look.”
Wrassler said, “Not a problem, ma’am. I’ll attach a padlock right now.”
“The body’s gone, though, right?” I said, with a half smile.
Jodi ignored my question and asked one of her own. “You got any idea who killed him yet?”
“Not me,” I said, “and if Leo knows he isn’t saying.”
Wrassler kept his face bland. Too bland. I had to wonder what Leo knew. And why he wasn’t sharing.
“Oh. Forgot to tell you,” Jodi said. “The guess about Galveston paid off. Shoffru came in at the port. We have records of passports. Vamps did it legally this time.”
The news was helpful but not currently relevant.
“Okay. I’m for home and a shower,” Jodi said. “Jane, what am I tonight, cop or guest? Because if I’m a guest I have no idea what to wear.”Wrassler said, “The house has a few cocktail dresses on hand for when the blood-servants have to do formal-wear duty. You look like about a size eight?” Jodi nodded uncertainly. He pulled out his cell and started keying in info. “I’ll have something delivered. You want them sent to cop central or home?”
I wasn’t sure whose mouth had dropped lower, Jodi’s or mine, but Jodi managed a “Thank you,” and gave him an address I knew wasn’t hers. Smart woman. Sending a dress from a vamp to the NOPD was likely to get her a ribbing if not questions from the brass. Giving her home address gave the vamps too much knowledge. I wondered what friend would be getting a delivery. She left quickly thereafter and I watched Wrassler watch her go. Jodi made a trim figure, her stance capable and no-nonsense.
“She didn’t give me her real address, did she?” he asked, his eyes tracking her out the front door.
“Nope.”
“She’s cautious. I like that in a woman.” Wrassler was interested. As in interested.
I hid my smile, and while his upper brain was off duty, I said, “I’d like to talk to the humans who attacked my house.”
CHAPTER 14
Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum. I Smell the Blood of a Witchy One
Wrassler’s gaze jumped from Jodi to me and went from somewhat lustful to full-on intent. Blindsided. And he gave away something, though I wasn’t sure what. I set a slightly interested expression on my face and said, “Now, if you please.”
“Leo has read them. They’re out.”
“Out as in asleep? Blood-drunk? Anemic from blood loss? Or dead?”
“Blood-drunk.” He sighed and rubbed his hand over his bald scalp. “Leo said not to take you to them, but I’m betting that won’t work for you.”
“Nope,” I said again.
“So I made a video of them, with a time stamp.” He thumbed through his phone and pulled up a video. “Here. They’re breathing but asleep. Less than two hours ago. It’ll be at least eight more hours before they wake enough to be coherent.”
“And what did Leo find?” I asked sweetly.
“Nothing you didn’t know. That Adrianna is in a lot of hot water. She got them blood-drunk, bound them, fed them the lie that Leo wanted you dead, and ordered the attack on you. She led it herself. Leo called her in, but she hasn’t shown.”
“Oh boy. Adrianna is rebelling against her sworn master of the city, in the absence of her clan blood-master.” This was like a soap opera, vamp-style. Not bothering to hide my delight, I said, “What does Grégoire think about all this?”
“Not funny. He’s pissed that Leo hasn’t found her. Scuttlebutt says he’s leaving Atlanta and coming home to deal with her.”
I chuckled. “Out-of-town guests, his heir missing employees, a missing witch in his town, and open rebellion in his ranks, the European Council on the warpath, and his second most powerful clan in the hands of Adrianna, a psycho Celt with fangs. Yeah. Leo’s not happy.”
“Keep that laughter to yourself,” Wrassler advised. “Leo’s sent his Mercy Blade to find Adrianna.”
“Ah.” And that said it all. My smiled faded. Vamp law in the United States was not yet the same as human law, with Leo having declared them to be independent, the way tribal Americans were independent. Sorta. So far, the political and justice systems seemed happy with that, because incorporating the superstrong, human-blood-drinking, daylight-sensitive vamps and the full-moon-shifting weres into the human legal system meant very expensive changes to police departments, jails, and prisons. For vamps, the Mercy Blades took the place of cops, acting under the direction of the vampire to whom they were sworn. Gee DiMercy had several duties, and one was to give the mercy stroke of death to vampires who were insane, but who were still part of a master’s clan or house. The fact that Gee DiMercy had been sent after Adrianna meant that she had been given a death sentence by her master.
My job as a rogue-vamp hunter was a bit different. I usually tracked down the unaffiliated insane vamps and killed them. Or I had until I’d taken the job from Leo and gotten my Beast bound. Dumb move, that.
I let all the info shuffle through my mind. I didn’t like Adrianna. She was totally psychotic. She had attacked my house when my godchildren were inside. She wanted me dead. I didn’t necessarily want her dead, just . . . contained. Maybe in a silver cage. Not that I had any say in the matter.
I had a truly panic-worthy thought. Was Adrianna involved with Molly’s disappearance? Terror rose in me, but I shoved it down, hard. Fear wouldn’t help Mol. I needed to save the energy for when I found her, for the fight to get her free. I brought myself back to the concerns at hand.
Wrassler handed me his cell and I studied the video. The time stamp was just what he’d said—assuming no one had tampered with the electronics. The humans were asleep on twin beds, breathing smoothly. Both were fully clothed, if a little pale. One was drooling, the other was smiling. Blood-drunk for real. “Okay. Whatever. Let’s go over the final security arrangements. Who’s on electronic monitoring?”
“Angel Tit.”
The rest was boring logistics.
• • •
Ninety minutes before the festivities, Eli arrived and sent my clothes to the ladies’ locker room where I had showered before. He was already dressed in night camo, and together we did a final run-through of the house and the grounds. Everything was in place. Derek and his men had shown up at the same time as NOPD’s bomb sniffer dog, and Eli and the former Marines had secured the premises. It wasn’t exactly a lockdown, but it was close. Every car would pull through the gate out back, pause for the bomb-sniffing dog—who was a cute Jack Russell, black Lab mix—then motor up, beneath the little drive-through-roofed area that Wrassler called a port kashar, but spelled it porte cochere on my notes. French, probably. The passengers would get out and receive a good crotch-sniffing by the dog. Well, not really, but I could hope. The mental image of a two-hundred-year-old vamp with a dog nose in his crotch was giggle-worthy, but not something I could share under the circumstances.