"Fine," Gavin grumbled. "Call me again, soon."

"I will." I hung up just as Tony barged into my room.

"How long does it take you to eat and get dressed?" His hands were on his hips and he was glaring at me.

"I had some calls to make," I muttered, hanging my head a little.

Lissa, I don't have time to hug you, baby. I want to hold you. It'll have to wait, Tony sent to me. "Get back over here, we have to hammer out some details," he demanded aloud. My life's not confusing or anything.

"Lissa's not an official part of the Claw and Fang Division," Agent White said. "She's on loan and we can't say from whom."

"The Claw and Fang Division?" Bill said the term with disgust.

"It's our nickname for it," Agent Townsend said, smiling. "Lissa has special talents. That's why Tony asked for her."

"I had to make a truckload of promises and beg, along with everything else," Tony sighed.

"Is the mindspeech part of those special talents?" Bill asked. I wanted to slap my forehead and then plain slap Tony for letting that out. It had worked for the speech, though. If he'd just given me more names, it might have worked better.

"Yes, very few of our kind have that gift," Ken White said.

"What else can you do?" Dusty turned his gaze to me. We sat around Tony's suite; there weren't enough chairs so I sat cross-legged on the bed. It was still rumpled from my being in it earlier. "And I want to see the claws again," Dusty added.

"You can't touch them, you'll cut yourself," Chris Townsend let his slide out. His, like Gavin's, were darker than mine.

"Hold his hand like this," I slid off the bed and did as Merrill taught me, taking Townsend's hand, cupping the back of it in my palm and turning it over, so Dusty could see the underside of the sharp claws. Agent Townsend offered a beautiful smile at my touch.

"They're really that sharp?" Bill was looking, now.

"He can slice through that metal lamp, over there," I nodded toward the lamp in question. "But you need it to see so we won't." I wasn't pointing out its twin that I'd sliced up—it was still on the floor on the far side of the bed. Tony got another call while Bill, Dusty and Arthur examined Townsend's lengthy claws. It was the Secretary of State's personal assistant, telling Tony that Madam Secretary was scheduled to fly back tonight and needed extra guards. "We'll be out back in five minutes," Tony promised and ordered all of us to come along.

"We're getting chatter about a news helicopter flying over the highway," an FBI Agent came over to speak with Tony as we walked through the back door of the hotel. "We haven't been able to reach them to tell them to move away and we can't drive out of here until they clear the air space."

"Lissa," Tony motioned for me to come over. "Baby," he said softly, "can you do anything about that?" He jerked his head toward the helicopter in question—it was circling the highway not far from the hotel.

"Probably," I sighed. "Can I take White or Townsend with me?" In case compulsion is needed? I added silently.

"Sure. Which one of you wants to go with her?" Tony asked the two vampire agents. They both volunteered.

"Good enough, come with me," I said. There were tall, flowering oleanders growing behind the hotel so I pulled both agents along until we could duck between two large bushes. "You'll be mist for just a few," I said. Grabbing their arms, I turned all three of us to mist simultaneously.

A door was open on the helicopter and someone was indeed pointing a video camera at the hotel and the caravan waiting to depart. That's where the similarity to any official news crew ended. This is trouble, I sent, landing all three of us inside the chopper. The helicopter wobbled dangerously in mid-air as four heads were separated from bodies quickly. I didn't do any of them; White and Townsend did. I didn't even have time to squeal or wonder who was going to fly the helicopter afterward; White took over and flew the damn thing. Well, Merrill knew how; maybe I should take lessons. I held onto a strap amid bloodied bodies while Agent Townsend hauled a headless body from a seat and dumped it in the floor so he could sit down.

Townsend was on the radio quickly, telling somebody on the ground that the crisis was over. He also instructed them to meet us at the airport. I sent mindspeech to Tony, letting him know what happened.

They had rocket launchers, Tony, I gave the mental shout—the helicopter was so noisy I could barely hear myself think.

* * *

"How the f**k did they get up there?" Arthur watched as the helicopter took off toward the airport. The FBI agent was getting information from someone; he was nodding and telling Tony that the problem had been eliminated.

"You can meet up with your people at the airport," the agent informed Tony, who climbed into a car with the other three. Dusty drove and they followed Madam Secretary's convoy with no further mishaps. The Secretary of State was safely delivered to her plane and Tony and the others watched it take off before going in search of their missing vampires.

"You know, if they can do shit like that, maybe it's not such a bad idea," Bill declared, shaking his head as the three vampires stood around the confiscated helicopter while FBI agents examined bodies and combed through it for evidence.

Tony stared at Agent Jennings in mild surprise as the seasoned veteran used profanity to punctuate his statement. He'd never heard the man say so much as damn before. "No, it's a good idea," Tony slapped Bill's back. "Let's go get 'em."

The FBI was now removing bodies from the helicopter, along with two rocket launchers when Tony and his three agents walked up. "Holy shit, man, they weren't kidding," Dusty watched as the weapons were unloaded. Lissa was standing nearby, out of the way so the agents could work.

* * *

"Lissa, were any of these from the house in Georgia?" Tony came to stand beside me.

"Tony, two of the people in the Georgia house, along with the second vampire were in the air duct at the building that was blown up," I said. "But the third one wasn't in the helicopter. They were all human, too, as you can see." Tony nodded at me. He didn't ask and I didn't tell him. That second vampire had been the first vampire's brother and was most likely a mister, just as his brother was. I'd surprised him completely, taking his head. He may have had last minute plans to get out of the building but I relieved him of that notion, along with his head. Secretly I was hoping that Madam Secretary would stay close to home for a while.




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