Dark Heir

Steeling myself against my grief, I said, “Make sure Roman’s mom really did have a heart cath. Make sure we know where he was all day. Make sure he didn’t have a sudden need for money or favors. Get yourself some help either here or at the house. Angel Tit, if you can get him back. Get all the footage collated, all the subjects identified. I want a timeline of what happened here and I want it yesterday.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Alex said. From his tone I knew he was feeling the loss of Martini.

“Hang in there, Alex,” I said softly. “Let me know when your brother checks back in.”

“Roger that.”

I snapped my coms unit off and turned to Leo. “Why did you let her back in? What did she have that you wanted?” When Leo hesitated, I added, “What magical toy did Joses Bar-Judas get away with, and how much trouble are we in because of it?”

Leo didn’t answer. Disgusted, I pulled a vamp-killer and went to Adrianna. Still holding my injured arm close to me, I positioned the blade at what was left of Adrianna’s throat and prepared to bear down. Any vamp killed and not beheaded stood a chance of rising, a revenant, a mindless, blood-hunting, killing machine. Any vamp killed and brain-poisoned with silver stood an even better chance.

Leo’s hand landed on my forearm. “No, my Enforcer. You may not.” Effortlessly, he lifted me and the blade up, and when I was standing, he removed the blade from my hand. Deftly, he resheathed it. “She may make a bargaining chip for the Son of Darkness, assuming that he recalls his affection for her when he regains his sanity. Dead, she is useless.” At my expression—which couldn’t have been pretty—Leo chuckled. “I will feed her and care for her in a scion lair. I will not let her starve or torture her with want. And I will personally make certain that her cage is secure.”

“Sure you will. But, you see, it’s a little late for promises, Leo.” I pointed at the humans.

Leo frowned, but it was more a “waste of good food” and “more scions to chain and feed” expression than an expression of concern. I pulled a flash and went to the humans, who were being fed drops of blood by vamps, shining the light into each face. I knew two of them personally. Or I had. I tapped the mic. I gave Alex the names of the injured and dead. “Leo has decided to keep Adrianna alive,” I said. He cursed. Again. I didn’t respond; I must be getting used to the boys’ language.

“If you’re saving Adrianna, why not save him too?” I asked Leo, pointing at the other vamp.

The MOC shook his head. “He cannot be saved. He is not old enough to survive silver. He is true-dead and may rise as a revenant if you do not take his head.”

I figured it was a blood-master thing. Leo knew when his people could be saved or not. To Alex, I added, “His name is Mario Esposito.” Mario, a dark-skinned Italian vamp, had hit on me once, big-time. He had thought he was prettier and smoother than he really was, and I had used that to get something I wanted. I tried not to remember his mouth on my neck as I drew a vamp-killer. Efficiently, using the blade Leo had just put away, I cut through what was left of Mario’s cervical spine. There wasn’t enough blood left in him to spew, but the sound of the blade going through tissue was wet and sticky, followed by the harder, muted thumping and grating of steel on bone. The blade wasn’t made for boning or jointing animals, but it did the job, eventually, leaving only the stink of vamp blood meeting silver on the air.

I wiped the blade on Mario’s coat, noticing only now that it was white cloth with gold threads woven through it. Like, real cloth of gold. And Joses and I had ruined it with bloodstains. They’d never come out. A laugh tittered in the back of my throat but turned to a gasp when I stood and my jacket pulled on my injured arm. At least my stomach was feeling better. I no longer wanted to toss bloody cookies.

I tapped my mic and said, “We’re gonna need lights and equipment.”

“Roger that,” Alex said. “Eli’s on the way down.”

I pretended not to hear the utter relief in his voice, that Eli was back. “Copy.”

Ignoring me, Leo extended his talons toward Adrianna and pushed into the gore that was her head, gripping the blunt end of the huge silver stake buried deep in her temple. With a jerk, he pulled it out and threw it across the room, his tolerance of silver marking him stronger than most other vamps I knew. He scooped his arms beneath her and lifted Adrianna. From behind us, the other vamps, almost in unison, lifted their humans and popped away, moving like blurs up the staircase. Leo moved more sedately, away from the stairs, his bestie, Grégoire, on his heels. The elevator thumped and the doors opened.

Eli and Del stood there, Bruiser behind them, watching. Eli was holding a psy-meter, designed by the Psychometry Law Enforcement Division of Homeland Security for measuring ambient and active magical energy. I used to measure in at sixty-two. No telling what I measured now. I gave Eli a finger sign to wait and he offered back a truncated nod, understanding that until Leo departed, any measurement was void. I hadn’t asked my partner how he managed to get one of the rare psychometers, which were exclusive to the use of law enforcement and military. Sometimes it was better not to know stuff.

Without a backward glance at me, Leo walked onto the elevator, the others moving out of his way. He left behind droplets of Adrianna’s blood, and maybe a little bloody gray matter. I didn’t look closely at Leo’s trail. As he passed Adelaide, her eyes followed Leo, her face full of emotion, none of it good, none of it making sense. When the elevator door closed, Del moved quickly across the room and through the pocket door, up the stairs, as if chasing the vamps and their human burdens. She wasn’t running, not exactly, but she wasn’t taking her time either.

As she left, Bruiser approached, his eyes on me. At six-four, he was a tall man, even to me, topping my height by several inches. Looking every inch the Enforcer, the primo of a master vamp, neither of which he was anymore, he studied the room, the humans, the beheaded vamp, silent. But he took no command position, which felt so odd to me. He had always been Enforcer and primo, always in charge. Now he was Onorio and living off premises and . . . often in my bed, or I in his. But he never interfered when I was working, recognizing my authority as Leo’s current, temporary, part-time Enforcer. Everything was all backward.

“Suggestions?” I asked.

“One or two,” he said smoothly. “Over dinner, soon.”