“Thirteen.” His smile widened. “Lucky number. Be careful. And pick up Wrassler’s Judge on the way. He texted that he wanted you to use it today.”
“Yeah. Okay. That’s . . .” I shook my head at the ludicrousness of what I was about to say. “That is so nice.”
I took the stairs because the elevator shaft was open with the elevator locked on the top floor as part of my lousy plan. “Yellowrock in stairway B,” I said into my headset. “Heading up.”
“Copy, stairway B,” Angel Tit said back.
I increased my speed, picked up Wrassler’s weapon, and reached Leo’s office fast. I wanted to get this over with and didn’t want to be on this floor when the trouble hit. I knocked on the door, which was cracked open, and stepped inside. On the air currents I smelled Leo and Grégoire and Katie. And Del. Oh, goody. The vamp council’s top members all in one place just for me.
Stopping at the opening to the office, I waited. The silence was disturbing on an organic, biological level. No breathing except Del’s and mine, only two hearts beating. Del sat at the desk, a legal pad before her, a pen in her hand, and was dressed in a black sword-fighting suit, her hair up in a severe bun. She didn’t look at me, which told me something, but not what. Nothing on the vamps moved except their eyes. The three studied me in my Enforcer gear as I studied them.
Leo and Katie were sitting on wooden stools at his desk, which made sense, as they were weaponed up like the love children of samurai warriors and the Terminator, and sitting in a chair would have been impossible. Grégoire was leaning against the wall, looking lazy, or as lazy as the unbreathing undead can.
Their battle gear was downright pretty. Grégoire’s was a dark gold leather with an overlay of bright brass-over-steel chain mail that caught the light. Leo’s was black leather overlaid with blackened titanium chain mail and the entire outfit seemed to absorb the light. They made quite a pair. Katie’s battle gear was white with steel and looked all wrong with her white skin and ash blond hair, until I saw the white hood and face plate, like a beekeeper’s hood or a fancy version of the sword-fighting gear worn in Blood Challenges. Del had guns on her. At least three that I could see from my angle. I hadn’t remembered that Del was a gun-gal.
Since no one said anything, I decided to make offense my best . . . offense. “You didn’t call me up here to kill me, did you? Or to pay me back for staking you? Because last time I saw you upright, you were . . . rude.”
A fleeting smile crossed Leo’s face. “You are safe. The error of my ways has been pointed out to me by my primo and lawyer, Adelaide.” A faint smile lit Del’s eyes when she glanced up at me. Her eyebrows lifted in some kind of warning before her attention dropped back to the paper. “My Enforcer,” Leo said. “I ask that you allow me to bind you, that we might communicate in the coming battle.”
It sounded like a formality but I wanted to make sure he knew I was serious. I pulled a silver cross out of my neckband to dangle over my gorget. It was already glowing, with such powerful vamps present, and it brightened my dark clothing. My voice had no inflection at all when I spoke. “No.”
“Why do you stay with our master, Leo?” Grégoire asked.
“Money. And because I’m learning stuff I need to know.” I hooked my thumbs in my utility belt and kept my knees loose, my body balanced. I looked as relaxed as he did, but I was ready to move. My hands were positioned directly over my red-handled .380s, which I’d made ready to fire as I climbed the stairs.
“Such as?” Grégoire asked.
When I answered, I looked at Leo, not his heir and his spare heir. “I’ve learned the reason why all the vamps have such an interest in Leo’s prime real estate. Swamps and a river and ports and jazz aren’t reason enough. The real reason isn’t even because of the world political situation. Most of the reason is because of the magical things that are missing from vamp history. For a while, the EuroVamps thought you had them and that kept you safe, as they were afraid to attack you.” I let some of my anger at him creep into my voice. “But because of what’s hanging in the basement, all that’s changed. Joses Bar-Judas. The Son of Darkness. Is. Hanging. In. Your. Basement.”
Leo was staring at his hands, loosely clasped on the table. Katie was resting across the tabletop, her head in the crook of her arm, staring at him, her face unguarded, and at ease, almost human. Her eyes . . . soft.
Holy crap. Katie is in love with Leo.
Mate, Beast thought at me.
“Yeah,” I said to all of them.
Leo nodded once, the light catching the curve of his jaw.
My voice hard, I went on. “When Peregrinus got Reach’s files, he got more than hints about artifacts. He found out about the SOD.” Leo nodded again. “Now? Knowing it’s down there—that he’s down there—means that they’ll start coming. It’s out—all your secrets are known now, even if only to a limited number of people. The secret is out. Soon they’ll all know.”
“Yes,” Leo said.
“And what will you do with Joses?”
“Do?”
“Yeah. Leave him on the wall, chained and starving?”
Leo laughed, but the sound wasn’t human. It was the royal laughter of a king who was ticked off. “Shall I set him free? Joses was riding his own arcenciel, which was set free by accident in the fight to take him prisoner. The bite it gave him tore him near unto true-death and stole what remained of his humanity. He has been raving for decades.”
“But one bit you. And Gee.” I stopped. “Oh!” The understanding hung in my mind like a single candle flame in a dark cavern. “Once you had him, you were stumped. You couldn’t set him free. You couldn’t bring him back to sanity or control him. So you hung him up to cure, like a scion. You three had been drinking from Joses—who had survived an arcenciel bite—for years, and Gee from you. You were immune.”
“It seems so,” Leo agreed.
“Holy crap.” I stared at him, trying to make sense of all the possibilities that had just occurred to me. “You drank from him, like, regularly because his blood is so powerful. But you couldn’t control him until you got hold of the pocket watches I found in Natchez. Once you had a few of them with the discs made of the iron spike inside, you had a way to manage him. At least a little bit.”