“And Leo. And some of his people. And if Alex’s line of reasoning is correct, one or more may be here. In the city.”
“Ahead of the official parley. Sooo. Maybe to cause trouble to divert our attention from something bigger. Or as part of a sneak attack, to be followed by a bigger sneak attack? Something they’ve been planning for years? Decades?” I put it together with what I already knew. “A king of France—” I interrupted myself as a stray thought intruded and went backward in history. “And Hugh Capet was turned by . . . ?”
“The bag of bones hanging in sub-five basement in vamp HQ.”
“Well, crap.” I rolled the half-empty cola can across my forehead, hoping the chill would cool off my brain. The Son of Darkness, or what was left of him, was hanging in the lowest sub-basement of the Mithran Council Chambers, and he was Leo’s source of power, an addictive blood-meal, and nothing but trouble, even back when he was sane-ish and free. As a piece of undead flesh with no heart, he was a bargaining chip or an excuse for a vamp war.
Everything in the vamp sub-basements was trouble, from the paintings and mementoes stored there, to the SOD, to the redheaded bloodsucker prisoner named Adrianna. I’d killed her a few times already, and each time Leo had brought her back. She was a future problem, though, not part of this.
Deep inside, Beast thought at me, Cold mountain stream. Good water. Not stinky water here. Want to go home.
“I know,” I muttered. “I know.” I waved away Eli’s questioning expression and drank down the Coke, hoping for a boost in my metabolism. Caffeine and sugar are two of the few stimulants or depressants that work on my kind. “So the vamps who are rising revenant are tied into the historical line that sired Grégoire.”
“Yes.”
“Is it too big a jump to be worried that any still-living vamps who were made by the Capetians might respond too? Like Grégoire?”
“Might have already done so,” Eli said grimly. “We’ve been out of pocket.” He reached for the gear bag and returned my cell. We’d been offline for a little over five minutes. That was about the max we could manage while working. We turned on the cells and I texted the Kid about dinner, with a phrase that meant record our conversation. It said simply, “Takeout from Marlene’s.” Alex would record everything said and we could go back over it later, picking out details.
“I have a feeling that Leo’s appearance at the wharf tonight wasn’t happenstance but to prove something to himself,” Eli said. “Now we just have to get him to tell us what and either confirm or deny our speculation.”
“I’ll get right on that.” I tucked the cell in my jacket pocket and finished off the Coke as the limo door opened and wet, fog-dense air billowed in. Rain was starting, which would decrease the fog but make driving just as dangerous. The chauffeur stood there with an umbrella over his boss. Leo slid across the seat: dry, elegant, relaxed, and satisfied. The devil in an eight-thousand-dollar Brioni suit. Lights pulled up behind us, a second limo arriving. The six others—vamps and humans—raced through the rain to the car and tossed two body bags inside to the floor, and five of them got in after. They pulled away at speed. The sixth vamp came to the window where Eli sat and tapped. When the window went down he held out his open palm. “Key fob,” he said. It was Tex, a vamp turned in the eighteen hundreds, tall, rangy, and with a distinct Texan accent.
“Why?” Eli asked.
Leo said, “I’ve arranged to have your vehicle taken to the Council Chambers where you may retrieve it, that we might speak in privacy.”
It was an order, politely stated. Tex would take our SUV and do exactly as Leo had said, but during that time it would be searched for information about us and our activities and scoured for bugs, and new GPS devices would be implanted in case the one in the SUV’s computer system was somehow disabled. All this because I refused to be bound to Leo, which would have allowed him access to my mind and guaranteed my loyalty. He had tried a forced binding once and it hadn’t worked out so well for either of us. Binding a two-souled skinwalker is harder than it looks.
Expressionless, Eli handed over the fob. Tex gave me a minuscule apologetic shrug, trotted to our vehicle, and drove away, too fast for conditions. The window went up and Leo’s limo followed more slowly, the tires silent on the asphalt, the movement of the vehicle almost undetectable.
“Update?” Eli asked.
Leo sighed, a totally unnecessary breath, and let his TV-bonhomie face fall into more normal, arrogant lines. “It has been a vexing evening.” He reached for a bottle of champagne I had only noticed as part of the background, in a silver bucket. He went through the process of opening the top, as if the steps soothed him. When the cork burst out with a soft pop, he poured the bubbly stuff into three glasses and passed us each one. Out of politeness, I sipped. I’m not fond of alcohol, except a good malty beer, but maybe Leo would talk fast if I seemed to go along. The bubbly wasn’t as good as Coke—not even as good as canned Coke—not that I’d ever say that. I’ve learned a few things in my time in NOLA, and keeping my mouth shut is one of them. Well, most of the time.
“You understand about bloodlines among Mithrans?” Leo asked. We nodded. “Some blood-family lines produce certain traits more strongly than other lines. The Damours line produced a greater and longer-lasting devoveo, leaving its scions permanently insane. The Shaddock line produces a trait for a shorter and simpler devoveo.”
“Grégoire’s sire’s ancestor produced dog-teeth fangs,” I said, cutting to the chase.
Leo’s left eyebrow quirked up above his glass. He looked amused. “Indeed. Your Alex has been industrious.”
“He isn’t my Alex.”
“You are Clan Yellowrock. Of course he is yours, along with Eli. And Edmund.”
And there was the big issue. The big change in my life. The biggest change ever. I had a family now and it had grown more complicated when the vamp Edmund Hartley moved in with us. And became my primo. That was unprecedented. A nonvamp with a vamp main servant—a butler of sorts. A butler, bodyguard, secretary, personal healer, financial advisor, upholder of my honor, personal fighter, and hairstylist. In vamp eyes it gave me more power than most vampires ever had. I still didn’t know who had come up with the idea, Ed or Leo. Not that it mattered. I’d been backed into the position. I hadn’t seen it coming fast enough to avoid it. And I didn’t know what it meant, how to stop it, or how to protect myself and the Youngers from its ramifications.
I put down my glass and met Leo’s eyes, those amazing black-on-black eyes that sparkled with power and intelligence and amusement. He was teasing me, but this I couldn’t let go. “I own no one. No one owns me. That includes you.”
“Of course, ma chérie.” But his eyes said, Yes you do. And I own you.
“I’m. Not. Yours.”
Leo breathed out a laugh, that silk velvet sound he used to charm and mesmerize. He inclined his head, a regal gesture that made him look kingly. “Your Alex will know only bits and pieces. The Capetian bloodline was descended from the first sire of the line, Hugh Capet, who gave rise to a Naturaleza line of blood drinkers with caninelike fangs, upper and lower. The unappealing trait bred out. The Valois line, from which Grégoire was sired, did not have the lower fangs. Nor did the bloodline that followed Valois, the House of Bourbon.” Even more silky, Leo finished, “Nor did the house that followed Bourbon, the House of Orléans.”
“Orléans?” I sat up. “Wait. The French kings were mostly vamps. And they ended with the House of Orléans? So . . . some of the EuroVamps we’re expecting think they own New Orleans.”
Leo nodded and sipped, unperturbed. “Events seem to suggest that we have a visiting Capet or Valois who is raising these revenants. He or she has put out a call and they are responding to that call. But our people have not been able to determine who they are or how they reached our shores. There have been no unaccounted chartered jets from Europe, no known Mithrans presenting papers for entry, nor are there sailing ships at the Port of New Orleans.”