Cold Reign

“Go visit Sabina if she’s in. Or the crazier one, Bethany. Both of them know what you are. Both have witch magic of one kind or another. They may have thoughts about what’s happening. But stay away from the electronics and the windows.”

At the last part, I wanted to go Duh. I wasn’t in the mood to visit either of the priestesses, even if they were old enough to be awake in the daylight. One was spooky crazy. The other one was just nutso. I avoided interpersonal interactions with them like I would a plague victim. But it was all good advice. I said so. Eli gave me his battle nod, more of a twitch than anything else. We pulled around back to check out the spike strips in the entrance drive and the laser eyes and the cameras, but as we braked, the lightning got worse, the cold got colder, and the rain got harder, throwing up a thick white mist to mix with the odd fog. It was disconcerting and my magics did the time-stutter again. So I left Eli to the inspection and ducked inside between lightning strikes.

Once in HQ, I wandered the halls, seeing only humans because even though it was storm-dark out, it was still technically daylight, and the noon hours were the middle of the sleep cycle for vamps. Lightning came in groups—bunches? clumps? gaggles?—and my magic continued to splutter and sputter, sometimes bubbling time, sometimes not. I discovered it was wise to simply stop in place each time it bubbled and wait it out; otherwise I’d appear to vanish to the humans around me. I didn’t want stories of ghost-Jane to start circulating. The stops made me acutely aware of HQ. The carpet or wood flooring or tiles under my feet. The lighting. The security cameras placed prominently in corners. The real cameras better hidden in picture frames and light fixtures. The colors, textures, decorative and architectural elements that seemed to flow from one area to another. Leo had money, and his personal and business space screamed class. Not something I knew a lot about. His people screamed it too, in the way they walked and moved, their posture self-confident, the quality of their clothing and uniforms. Leo had spared no expense making his people feel comfortable. He never had. They looked cared for and they smelled safe and happy. I’d been in vamp households and clan homes before, and few were as contented-smelling as this one. That implied that they really liked it here. How much of their contentment was because they were blood-bound? Addicted to vamp blood. High on blood. They had asked to become bound. Signed contracts for that. Entered into the blood-meal relationship with eyes wide open, knowing that once addicted, they could never leave, not and maintain the youth and vigor that vamp blood gave them. But that was the case in every vamp home. What about this one made it smell happier?

As I maneuvered through the hallways, I found my hand on my throat, at the place where Leo had bitten me. When he had tried to force me into a blood-bound relationship. Had he expected that once I was bound to him I’d want to stay that way? And why had he claimed me? I had to believe that it was to keep me from being claimed by the EVs. I was a valuable resource he didn’t want to lose until after the EVs were defeated. And . . . when binding me didn’t work, he gave me a primo. Sneaky bastard. I needed to talk to Leo about a lot of things. Someday. When the world wasn’t trying to fall apart.

Mixed in with contentment, the hallways were also full of the other scents that permeated a vamp’s household, that mixture of dry herbs and wilting funeral flowers, sex and excellent coffee, gunpowder, blood, and sweat. The smell made Beast—a predator herself—sit up and take notice. Good vampire smell. Smell George. Smell Leo. Mates . . .

Yeah. No. Down girl. Not plural. Not the fanghead. Only Bruiser.

Beast hacked with laughter.

Not knowing what else to do (and feeling a sense of disaster in the worsening storm), I stopped humans to talk about the weather. I wasn’t the chatty type, but their surprise at my noticing them seemed odd. I always noticed—the way they moved, the way they smelled—I just didn’t engage in useless conversation. Even now. This convo about the weather was important because the weather was not acting like itself. Not that the humans had noticed. No one had any ideas about the weird storms, and most locals pointed to the fact that New Orleans always had weird weather. “What’s new?” was the most common reaction. As the minutes passed, I reached the lower levels, where the effect of the lightning was less. It seemed that being underground even a bit abated my magic’s reaction to it and the stuttering of time eased.

I ended up in the workout gym, where I discovered Gee teaching swordplay with two wooden sticks to an advanced student. The woman was Ro Moore, a self-proclaimed Alabama backwoods hillbilly, boxer, wrestler, and MMA cage fighter. Ro had no fear and didn’t believe that there were limits of any kind on her abilities. She was putting on a show for the gathered security types in the Spanish Circle form of sword fighting, also known as La Destreza. She’d be peppered with bruises tomorrow, because if Gee was holding back, it didn’t show. The clack of wood staves was so fast I had to pull on Beast-vision to follow. With each hit, Gee was whapping her hard, but the slender, muscular woman wasn’t backing up. She even managed three touches on Gee, which humans never did. I didn’t know which vamp she was drinking from, but whoever it was had given her remarkable strength and speed. Sword work seemed to be something Ro was born to do, her prominent shoulders, narrow waist, and long arms giving her a long reach, longer than Gee’s. But Gee was inhumanly fast. He backed her up a step. Then two.

Ro ducked beneath Gee’s staves, dropped to one knee, and swept her other leg out to impact Gee’s knee in a move I had learned in the dojo. Gee’s leg buckled and he nearly fell. Instead, he swept around and caught both of Ro’s practice sticks in his, did some kind of swivel motion, and ripped them from her hands. There was a collective intake of breath among the watchers and an instant of silence as the sticks flew. They smashed into the wall across the room in a clatter.

But by then Ro was dead. Not dead as in lifeless, but as in flat on her back, Gee’s staves at her throat, crossed for a scissors move that would have sliced her head off had the staves been blades and the fight been real. One of his feet was on her abdomen; the other pinned her right hand. She was immobilized. And Gee was ticked off.

“Who taught you this move, human?” Gee demanded.

“An old man named Clementine. A cage fighter who thought I showed promise.”

Gee backed away, crossed his staves in front of him, and bowed. “You have done well. Next time follow it up with a strike to the jaw and one to the heart. Go ice your knee. Drink from your mistress this evening. You will need healing, as will I.”

Ro rolled to her feet and backed away, far enough for Gee to miss if he was planning a sneak attack. She crossed her hands as if she still held staves and gave him a deeper bow, but without taking her eyes from him. Smart woman.

Gee was about to call the next student when I pulled my magics close to try to keep them steady and said, “A moment of the Mercy Blade’s time for the Enforcer?”

It was a formal request. I was getting good at using the ceremonial speech of vamps, which worked better than, “Hey you, Bird Brain. Got a minute?” My invitation was all proper and curly, like calligraphy of the mouth.

Gee scooped up Ro’s staves in addition to his own and headed my way. He was dressed in skintight black, his dark hair tied in a short queue, and he sauntered across the floor as the gathered humans dispersed into small groups. Gee was fine, despite the blow to his knee. Whatever Ro had kicked, it hadn’t been his real knee, but some other bird body part hidden by glamour. A lot of people now knew he was bird-shaped in his natural form, but he didn’t show that off unnecessarily.

Oddly, Troll, Katie’s primo, helped Ro out the back door, which claimed Ro for Katherine Fonteneau, aka Katherine Louisa Dupris, Katherine Pearl Duplantis, Katherine Vuillemont. Katie was Leo’s heir, owned the oldest continuously operating whorehouse in New Orleans, and never showed any interest in her blood-servants or scions learning swordplay.

I was watching the pair so tightly that I missed the toss and caught the staves only inches from my face. Barely blocked the Mercy Blade’s strikes, three clacks of wood against wood. Parry and block were often considered cheating in the vamp version of La Destreza, though the archaic rules were confusing. I blocked three more strikes and caught my balance. Attacked, circling my staves, still heated from Ro’s hands, circling, thrusting, moving forward, drawing on Beast’s speed in addition to my own skinwalker speed.