I decided to change tactics. “Where did you get the bracelet that matches the one Adrianna wore?”
“My uncle had it in his possession when he died. I have seen no reason to return an object that sings with power to a blood-sworn scion who is untrue and seeks my death. And who I might yet use to my own ends.”
Smart move, I thought. “Why are you answering my questions?”
Leo let a small smile slip free. “Because, while you are technically and contractually released from my service, you remain my Enforcer. I know this. You know this. Though you are currently free of the obligations attendant to that office, and though I have charged you with an unrelated task, you are loyal, Jane Yellowrock, to my people, and to me.”
I frowned. I was?
“Any information that I have is yours to know, insofar as it pertains to the task at hand.”
I scowled at him, using my ankle to hook the stool on rollers that was half beneath the desk, pulled it out, and sat, putting us on a level. “So why didn’t you tell me that?”
“You did not ask. I did not think to offer. There is much that happened so long ago, and that I have forgotten, and that comes back to me often in small flashes and rarely in great shocks of memory.”
Leo was being nice. Honest. Charming. Dang it. “Sometimes you really get under my skin, like a chigger or an embedded tick—which is an appropriate analogy.”
“You insult when you desire a favor. Odd behavior.”
“I thought I was entertaining.”
Leo smiled. “I am tired. I have been informed that you were shot at while attempting to gain entry here. Are you well? I do not smell blood.”
My anger abruptly evaporated. I hated it when Leo was the calm, rational one. “I’m okay,” I said on a sigh and closed my eyes, scrubbing my face with both hands. “I was driving one of your armored vehicles. Now I’m turning it over to NOPD and I’ve requested another be made ready. Yes. I was shot at. I’m fine.”
“Yes. You are,” he said, a soft, almost compassionate note in his voice.
With my eyes still closed, I smiled. Only Leo could be so totally disarming. But I didn’t say it aloud, shaking my head, instead.
Leo said, “The local police did not capture your assailant, but they did find fingerprints at the windowsill from which the shots were fired. If they are on record, there will be an arrest.”
“Which will just tick off the populace even more.”
“Indeed. What do you want, my Enforcer who is not?” he asked.
“I need access to the properties owned by the SoD, especially this one.” I opened my eyes and tapped the paperwork. “Every room, every nook and cranny. And I need any magical item in your possession that will put out the fire of the Blood Cross. I hooked Santana and I think he’s still burning.”
Leo’s smile widened. “I may die for your foolishness, but I will die truly entertained.”
“You happiness is what I live for, Your Great and Mighty Fangy-ness.”
“I could only wish that were true.”
I decided not to reply to that. “Magical weapons? Something that will put out the fire of the Blood Cross?”
“I have nothing that will douse the fire of the Mithrans’ creation. But what I have you may have.” Leo stood and walked to the tapestry that had shifted when he entered his office. I wasn’t invited, but I followed him anyway, through the previously hidden passageway into the next room, the one with the formerly secret elevator. A lot of Leo’s secrets had come to light since he met me, and now I learned another. He stood in front of a bookcase, wearing his skintight yoga clothes—which showed way more of him than I needed to see, though the vision of a perpetually young, perpetually toned and fit man was no eyesore—and started removing books and putting them back. It reminded me of the trope movie scene where someone removes a book and the bookcase swings open, but was much more complicated.
After a series of moves that might have nothing to do with opening the case, and might have been nothing more than sleight of hand, he pressed a panel in the back of the bookcase and I heard a click. Leo replaced all the books before he pulled on the case, which took some leverage and upper-body strength. The muscles of his shoulders, back, and buttocks stood out against the stretchy fabric. I had never looked at Leo’s backside in skintight knit pants before and the view was mighty nice. Again—something I would never tell him, and would only even think when I was sleep deprived and under stress.
Rusty hinges and warped wood screeched as the case opened. Inside was another safe, a twin of the one on sub-four. Leo opened it with little spins and clicks, and the thick door swung open to reveal five compartments. From the upper-left compartment he removed three pocket watches and held them out to me. “You have several at your disposal,” he said. “It takes twelve to activate a witch circle, and until recently—when Adrianna used many to activate the spell to free Santana—we had enough between us.”
I took the watches, letting the chains drape over my fist. Carefully, I didn’t let my expression change because there was no way that Leo should know how many watches I had in my possession. And I was not gonna let him have the pleasure of knowing that he’d just thrown me. Fortunately, the MOC wasn’t looking at me but at the watches in my hand.
“Since the ones that once hung on Joses were destroyed by my enemies, we are several short. This is all the priestesses had left of the iron spike.”
The iron spike of the hill of Golgotha, the spike that would allow the bearer to control all vamps. Right. The fabled weapon of mass destruction, the weapon that was said to have come to the Americas in the care of vamps fleeing the Inquisition. The one thing that would allow vamps to be controlled. Or so they said. Who really knew what it did? So far as I had been able to determine, it had never been used against vamps. All we really knew was that when twelve of the pocket watches were placed in a witch circle, one that forced witches into a full-coven working, it did as intended. Of course, it killed the witches it used, but vamps would never worry about the deaths of nonvamps.
“Question. Why didn’t you give these to me the morning Santana got away?”
Leo turned back to the safe and began to close it up. He said, “I did not have them the morning that the Son of Darkness was set free. I requested them from the priestesses and they were delivered after dawn today via human courier.