I leaped to my feet and raced to the hallway. I grabbed Eli and yanked him into the Gray Between with me. I tossed him over my shoulder, raced out the garage door. He shouted something, but I ignored it. Sprinting through the sleet, my claws gripping the asphalt for stability. I leaped over the fence. Landed on the roof of a car parked in the street. Slid off. Hit the ground hard, knees buckling, paws sliding. Eli lost all breath. I skidded across the road’s ice-hardened surface, caught my balance. Set Eli down and raced back inside. Leaving him alive. Back in time.
In the Gray Between, I sprinted to the bricked room. Sabina was draining a woman on one of the beds, one of the long-chained. I remembered Eli’s comment about wasted protein. Beside her stood Gee DiMercy, the Mercy Blade of the NOLA vamps. There was a knife in his hand, the misericord, the blade of mercy. It was blooded. On the upper bunk was the body of a dead man, his head removed and hanging from the fingers of Gee’s other hand. When Sabina was healed, Gee would kill all the scions who had not recovered from the devoveo. It was his job. It was his nature. I gathered the silver chains and left them to it.
In the hallway, I chained Louis le Jeune. He had drunk enough ancient blood that his wounds were almost healed, all but the silver head wound administered by Eli’s guns. That might take a while. I stuck a silver stake into the head wound to impede the healing and made sure the silver chains were too tight to break, even if he had an immunity to the poison. Now that Louis was stable and out of commission, I needed to take him to the SUV, but first things first.
I looked down at my chest. The star of energies was a slow-moving pattern of red and silver. Controlled by or controlling my half-form. The lowest angles of the star bracketed my abdomen, passing through my hips and to my feet. I had a feeling that the magics were currently protecting me from blood loss and nausea. Woo-woo stuff.
In the main room, I positioned an arm around Grégoire’s neck. I jerked back, bringing him into no-time with me. He gasped and kicked, struggling. Into his ear, I said, “We’re gonna bargain, you and me. Do you want to kill your sire?” His struggles stopped. I eased off on the throat pressure. “Yes or no?”
“Yes. What bargain do we strike?”
“You will tell not one single person what I can do. Not in spoken language, not in written language, not in paintings, not in music, not in pantomime, not in sign language. Not when you share blood with any other creature. If you can’t promise me that, I’ll let Le Bâtard go and hope to kill him some other time.”
“That monster raped me for forty-two years.” Grégoire stopped and just breathed for three tortured breaths, human breaths he no longer needed, except for the pain he had endured, the memories he carried. Softer, he continued. “Then he sold me to his friends. I would cut off my arms and give them to you for the chance you offer.”
I didn’t tell him that it would be hard to kill Le Bâtard without arms. Instead, because I knew vamps and how they thought, I said, “And?”
Grégoire laughed softly as if he had read my mind. “I offer my word and a boon.”
“Done.” I set the small man on his feet. “Hold my hand.”
Grégoire placed one hand in mine. With his other, he drew his sword. We moved back into to the hallway, where Grégoire saw his tormentor, his sire. Grégoire vamped out so fast, if I’d blinked I would have missed it. In the small warrior such a fast transition wasn’t a sign of loss of control, however. It was deliberate. Focused. A controlled speed.
“He has been wounded,” Grégoire growled around his fangs.
“With silver. Like you. Eli cut his throat and shot him. Don’t tell my partner, but the wound wouldn’t have been lethal. It entered the temple, missed the brain, and came out the other side. It blinded Le Bâtard, but his optic nerves will probably heal in seconds. Throat too. He’ll be hungry.”
Grégoire laughed and the sound traced along my spine like jagged sleet from outside. A glacial hatred centuries in the making. “So long as he can see me when I kill him, I will be happy.”
“I’m leaving you in time. I’ll be slipping out. Don’t play with your supper too long. Leo is under attack at HQ. We could use you and Sabina and Gee there.”
“Attack? Our enemies are here.”
“Factions?” I asked.
Grégoire snarled, “Oui. And Titus would use them all.”
I dropped Grégoire’s hand, leaving him in real time, staring at his tormentor. I hefted Louis’ body over my shoulder. I carried him through the warehouse, pausing for a moment over Bruiser, knowing he was alive, seeing how well he was healing, and then trotted into the night.
Back at the SUV, I spotted Eli, his legendary badass calm long gone. His mouth was contorted in fury as he shouted. Droplets of spittle hung on the air; his breath was a cloud of condensation in front of his face. I was pretty sure he was cursing me.
I dumped Louis on the ground and went to stand by Eli. I touched him and he whirled out of time, into the Gray Between. I caught his arm as he finished his scream, which was inventive and foul. “No pizza for you tonight,” I said.
“Son of a bitch!”
“Neither.” I opened the front door, which may have warped it in its frame as it pulled too fast through time, deposited him in the car, and slammed the door. Sometimes I loved the incredible strength of my half-form. Okay. All the time.
In back, I lifted the hatch, tossed Louis in and closed it. Letting the Gray Between go, I opened the passenger door and climbed in. Eli grabbed my hand. “Jane? What the fu—funny bone of Satan. You’re okay?”
“I’m . . .” I stopped and touched my stomach. “I’m amazingly good.” I touched my fangs and smoothed my pelted face. “Hunky dory.” I pointed out at the weather. “Right as rain.”
“Ha-ha. You ever carry me out of a fight again and I’ll break your neck.”
I play-socked his upper arm. “I love you too. Update on HQ?”
“Alex? You got that?” he asked his cell.
“I got it. You can break her neck tomorrow. For now, we got more problems at HQ. Unknown vamps came in through the side entrance again but disappeared. Seems there’s a hidden stairway in the brick passageway leading from the side entrance, one you can see with a four-thousand-lumen flashlight. Once you’re beneath the building.”
“Another passageway we didn’t know about,” I hazarded.
“Yeah and it opens straight in Leo’s bedroom. Macario and Gualterio Cardona knew about it. Just the two of them came in. They attacked Leo in a hidden lair, a tiny room off his bedroom, trying to take him away with them. He was better, but not healed. He was able to fight them off, but they hurt him bad.”
My heart might have stopped, but he continued. “Wrassler was on guard on Leo’s room and heard the commotion. He broke the door down.”
“Get Wrassler on conference.” I looked back at the metal fence around the compound, seeing lights moving in the parking lot. I needed to get back there. Now.
Alex said, “Wrassler, I have Jane and Eli on conference. I was telling them you got to Leo before the MOC took the shadow bridge to vampy hell. How is he now?”
Wrassler said, “Katie and Bethany are with him, healing him.”
“What?” I said. “Wait. Did Leo feed and read Troll? Katie’s primo?”
“No. His injuries weren’t bad enough for Leo. He was passed off to a lesser Mithran.”
“Crap!” I shouted. “Get someone in there. Katie’s sister is a prisoner of Le Bâtard. He turned her against Leo!”
Wrassler cursed and a clatter came over the connection as he shouted for reinforcements. “On my way to the lair,” he yelled back into the phone. “Janie! Are you one hundred percent sure of this? A false accusation against the heir of Clan Pellissier, who is also the heir of the Master of the City, is a certain death sentence.” Wrassler sounded short of breath, a very big man, still in physical therapy, running on his prosthetic leg. “Janie? How sure?” he demanded.
I didn’t know how to answer. If I was wrong . . . “Sure enough to kill both of them myself, not sure enough to risk you. So don’t make an accusation. Just show up and stand there, unless Leo’s in danger. We have video of the woman known as Madam Spy, Alesha Fonteneau, in chains, coming ashore with a small group of unknown vamps in the storm. Madam Spy is Katie’s sister. She looked bad. Bethany, on the other hand, has probably been working with the Europeans, or a faction of them, for centuries. She always wanted the Blood Cross— Crap. Get someone to the vamp cemetery to guard Sabina’s stash. If Leo’s enemies get the Blood Cross—”