Leo stood as Gee and Larry—Lawrence Hefner, not Larry; he hated Larry—were carried off the floor. Gee’s arms and legs were wrapped around the man, Gee’s Anzu magic a sapphire and indigo haze, already healing. Leo slanted his eyes to me. They were vamped out, scarlet sclera and wide, black pupils. Silkily, his accent more French than usual, he asked, “Why did the werecats attack us? We welcomed them into our chambers. We had signed accords.” He was using the royal we, which was always scary. It meant he was royally ticked off.
“I smell lemons. Smelled lemons. The scent is fading. As to why they attacked, ask Nantale about Clan Des Citrons,” I said. Now that the battle was over, my adrenaline began to break down and the pain in my head spiked again. Nausea rose like a hurricane tide and I swallowed it down desperately. I would not hurl in front of these people.
Alex cursed softly to himself. “I can’t figure out how to find the witch. Nothing’s working.” Leo strode to the half-shifted African lion and knelt over her. He lifted her head in his hand and stared into her eyes. “Why have you attacked my people?”
Nantale swallowed and swiveled her eyes to find her husband dead on the floor. Tears leaked from her eyes. “Asad and Kemnebi and Raymond Micheika, our supreme cat, signed a pact with the emperor Titus Flavius Vespasianus for the were-creatures of Africa and Asia. We were given into the claws of a vampire as her tools. I had no choice and no say, but my husband was foolish. And now I am dying.” She swallowed again, and this time there was blood on her lips, bubbling with her breath. Her lungs were compromised. “Micheika will take my kits and kill or enslave them. Swear to me that you will protect my kits and I will tell you where the papers of parley are. And you will know your enemies.”
Leo said, “I will arrange to take your kits to safety, with others of their kind.”
“The papers are in Asad’s bag in a hidden compartment. At the Royal Sonesta.”
That was a NOLA five-star hotel. Nantale reached up and grabbed Leo’s hand. He returned the grip; Nantale’s skin went pasty, and then quickly ashen. She spasmed, coughed. Just that fast, Nantale died. Leo stroked her face once and gently placed her head on the floor. It was over, whatever it had really been.
I looked around the room. Vamps were standing in small groups, and I memorized who was with whom, who had weapons drawn, who looked happy and who looked disappointed at the outcome. I opened my mouth and scent-searched for lemons, but the smell was gone. Good thing. My head hurt too bad to fight a witch right now.
Leo stood, spitting mad, and rounded on one group of vamps. He addressed Tex. “You will go to the Royal Sonesta and find the papers of parley. You will bring the offspring of our enemies here, to safety. You will treat the kits with kindness and respect, as valued guests.”
Tex slanted his eyes at me and I gave him a small nod. To Leo, he said, “I will, my master.” Which gave Leo control over some of the most important African werelions on the planet. Kits he could shape and raise as he wished. Nice move, I thought, if he brought up his foster kits to believe in personal freedom and responsibility. If. I guessed that being fostered by a vamp was better than being killed in the claws of an adult big-cat.
“Once Nantale’s kits are safe,” Leo went on, “I will contact the Party of African Weres. PAW may want the bodies for burial.” He lifted his chin slightly to Kemnebi, a very French gesture, full of disgust, but he spoke to me. “You will deal with your traitor.”
Beast peeked back out and sent me a vision of sinking our fangs into Kemmie’s back just below his skull, shaking him until his neck broke, before picking him up and carrying him away. Instead I remembered the stench of lemons and the heat of the spell that had set off the fighting. A familiar taste of magic.
Leo gave me an enigmatic look and gestured to his blood-servants. “Take the leopard to the playroom. Our Jane may use the scion lair.”
Playroom. Right. Only a vamp would think of a room full of cages and with a drain in the middle of the floor as a playroom. Leo said, softer, holding my eyes with his dark ones, “I thought I had healed the rift with the werecats. I thought you had tamed the leopard beneath Rick.”
“Magic,” I said just as softly. “Familiar magic. Someone found a way to override the bond, and fast.”
“Ahhh.” Leo knew about the anomaly’s presence in HQ and our inability to see the witch in real time.
I looked back at my people, Eli’s face closed and cold, Alex a little more blanched than I expected of the player of violent video games. But then, he had recently been attacked and left nearly dead. His hand was around his throat, fingering the new scars. I seldom even noticed them these days, but being human, he’d healed far more slowly than I did, even with all the vamp blood in him.
“I’ll handle moving the werecat,” Ed said softly, from beside me. “Rick LaFleur should interrogate him.”
My adrenaline washed away. “Right. Okay. Do it.”
And then I remembered the image of Asad and Nantale licking their lips the first time I saw them in front of the SOD. Had they wanted to drink the ancient vamp blood? Had they been in HQ tonight long enough to actually do so? Had they been in sub-five while the ceremonies were taking place? Had they drunk SOD blood tainted by werewolf bites? I had to wonder what that blood would do to them, if it would make them fall under spells of aggression. “Leo. Take a whiff of the lions.”
Leo looked at me oddly, but he bent over the lions and sniffed.
“They scent of Joses Santana, the Son of Darkness, and of magic.”
I nodded, a scant motion against the migraine. “Yeah. That’s what I figured. I think they’ve been trying to get to the SOD since the first time they came here. And I think they finally got what they wanted. I think—maybe—that they aligned with Dominique and Des Citrons, and at some point before she tossed Callan a sword, Dominique led them to sub-five, beneath a strong obfuscation spell. She had magical help, the spell big enough to hide them on the stairs. And they drank SOD blood, tainted by werewolf saliva. What would it do to them? Would it alone make them crazy enough to attack? Or was that from the witch’s and/or Des Citrons’ magic in the room? Or both, working together?”
Leo shook his head. “This I do not know.”
“Eli, with me. Alex, get to security. Check the footage and find out what happened with the anomaly. Find out when the cats got to sub-five and why we weren’t notified.” I pointed at a security guy. “You. Go with him. No one travels alone in HQ.” Alex sped away, his scent suggesting he was happy to be out of the blood-splattered room, the security guy on his heels. I turned on my paw and padded down the hallway and the stairs to sub-five.
I’d kicked off my shoes when I half-shifted and the floor was cool to the touch on the stairs to the lower basement. I looked around fast, taking in everything: old blood, werewolf-stink, SOD, and mold. The cameras were off. The last time Dominique was here, she had turned them off with a remote device.
There were no uninvited weres present, but the SOD wasn’t alone. A dozen HQ security, armed and twitchy, stood with weapons raised at three women, who were standing in a semicircle studying the human-shaped thing on the wall. They looked almost human, but were all likely arcenciels: not Soul, who I knew best, but Opal and Cerulean and one I hadn’t met. Brute was there too, Brute biting Joses Santana’s foot, drawing watery blood.
The SOD had changed even more, and I guessed that he had been fed, possibily the blood of the vampire and the witch who were hiding in HQ. He was fully human shaped, his face no longer slack jawed. His eyes were open and he was laughing silently at his wolf tormentor. I ignored him and said to the security types, “Stand down. Return to your posts, by order of the Enforcer.”
They didn’t look happy about it, but after a moment they left the basement by way of the elevator. Gee stepped out of the stairwell and bowed to the arcenciels, his face lit with joy. “My goddesses. Greetings.” In unison, they nodded to him and Gee assumed his place beside me, taking in the tableau.
“Brute?” I asked. “We were just attacked in the gym by werelions and Kemnebi, the black wereleopard who was injured here”—I shrugged, not sure of the day—“not long ago. Is it possible that they got a taste of the SOD recently?”