“Right,” I said, headache spiking again, feeling tired in every bone of my body. “Everyone’s scrambling for power.”
“My personal concern is that if Leo leaves Louisiana and goes into international waters, aboard a European ship, to fight, who will be in control of his lands while he is away?” Soul asked. “Who will inherit if he loses? What will happen to the humans and the political balance we have established so far? It’s precarious, especially with new laws being proposed in Congress for paranormal citizenship. I want someone with Leo to handle all of that and Ayatas has the experience, the charm, and the diplomatic know-how. But not if he lost control and tried to kill one of you.”
“He says he’s related to Jane,” Eli said.
“I see.” Soul paused, perhaps in thought. “I have been unable to confirm or deny this in any official records. The records of Jane Yellowrock began the day she walked out of the mountains at a supposed age twelve.” She hesitated and then went on again, as if feeling her way through what she wanted to say. “Aya’s records appear when he supposedly entered an orphanage at age four and ended when he ran away at age fourteen. He reappeared at a supposed age twenty, having changed his name, and acquired an education by taking classes in three different universities, two online, graduating with a degree in criminal justice. There are photos of him at only one of those schools,” she added, telling us that his history might have been faked. “And in the one photo we have of him at the orphanage, his ears appear to be shaped differently.”
Children’s faces altered drastically as they grew, but the shape and placement of ears never changed except by surgery. Ears were as individual as fingerprints. What Soul was describing stated that Ayatas had assumed the identity of a dead child, a runaway from the orphanage. It was typical of the way long-lived paranormals maintained a legal position in the world. Ayatas was likely older than his papers claimed. I had guessed that all skinwalkers were long-lived. That my father died only because the white man had shot and killed him before he could shift and heal. And that all skinwalkers were yellow eyed, like me. All assumptions, but with some small amount of evidence to support them. Ayatas could be far older than he looked.
“As to whether he is related,” she said, “no one has done a genetic comparison to determine a relationship. Some creatures recognize one another’s familial scent. That didn’t happen?”
He smelled like skinwalker, not like me. “No.” Though Beast thought so. And genetic comparisons wouldn’t work anyway. I’d seen my DNA. It was a mess.
“So he’s here. He’s both lying and legit. He has a job to do,” Eli said. “His shooting at Jane appears to be a mistake. Pretty big mistake for an officer of the law. Damn stupid,” Eli said, letting ire into his voice. “He should be put on administrative leave. An internal investigation should be begun.”
“Yes.” Soul laughed softly, almost sadly. Her laughter had always reminded me of bells and woodwinds and it made me want to smile with her, and hide my own braying laughter. Now it just made my head hurt worse. “And when he tells an IA investigator that he drew on Jane because she smells like a dangerous cannibalistic paranormal creature? And Jane is once again put back at the top of the PsyLED’s ‘person of interest’ list?”
Eli’s eyes narrowed and he looked at me to make sure I understood that we had just been blackmailed. Soul had us over a barrel.
“I will need to discuss this with Aya, though I would prefer to keep it out of his record,” Soul added.
Aya, I thought. She called him by a nickname. Soul liked him.
“We won’t be making any reports,” Eli said, but I could hear his unwillingness to let the attack go.
“Leo will not speak to any law enforcement agency or special agent. I would consider it a personal favor,” she said, “if you would introduce Ayatas to Leo and smooth the way for negotiations.”
“Copy all that. And we’ll consider it a personal favor if Ayatas keeps his weapons in his pants,” Eli said. “We’ll be calling if he kills someone, and PsyLED can clean up the mess.” Eli tapped off the cell and drew his weapon, looked at me.
“I can send the request to Leo’s secretary,” Alex said, glancing at me beneath his long curls. When I tilted my head a fraction of an inch in agreement, he added, “If anyone can get Leo to see a cop, it’s Scrappy. That’s what’s called the fine art of delegation.” He tapped on his official cell.
“Edmund?” I asked without raising my voice, hiding the gel pack under a decorative pillow. “You can let him out.”
The shelving opened fully, revealing the small stone-lined room beneath the stairs, the revolving weapons-safe in the corner, the foot of the small bed, and Ayatas. He stumbled out, obviously having been pushed. The shelving door closed on the daylight, protecting my master-vamp primo from the sun. Ayatas looked a little the worse for wear, his long black hair snarled, his clothes rumpled, but no smell of blood on the air, no vamp blood and no skinwalker blood, which meant that the man calling himself my brother had managed to avoid getting rolled, hadn’t allowed himself to be sipped from, and Edmund hadn’t forced him to drink vamp blood, a trait I liked in my primo. Things had gotten a little physical, but there had been no forcing a blood bond. Forcing a bond was horrible. I knew that from my own personal encounter. I still had problems dealing with, well, lots of things, because of that experience.
“You people are insane,” Ayatas spat out. He sounded remarkably like a cat and Beast peered through my eyes. I could tell she was captivated by the man and I wondered if my eyes were glowing gold. It happened.
“Why?” I asked. “We didn’t kill you. The vampire didn’t drink you down even though you shot at his master and we woke him from his beauty sleep. And we’re providing you a room to clean up in. We’ve been really nice hosts.” Except for the whole squishing his balls and keeping him cuffed and tossing him into a lair with a sleepy vamp. Reporting him to his up-line boss and mentor. Yeah. There was all that.
Eli tossed him his cell phone and Ayatas caught it in midair without a bobble. “Call Soul,” Eli said. “Then go clean up. The rest of your belongings are in the guest bedroom upstairs, front left corner. Clean sheets. Towels on the foot of the bed. Late lunch in twenty.”
“It’s Eli’s white chicken breast Cajun salad made with capers and dill,” Alex said, without looking up from his tablets, laptops, and personal desktop computer and Wi-Fi/cloud system with all the latest bells and whistles. Desktops like this had to be hand-built and the components had cost us over five grand, but it allowed us to act as a hub for every computer system, security system, cell phone, tablet, and GPS tracking system owned by Leo’s people. Alex was bent over it, tapping away.
“And if I don’t like dill?” Ayatas asked, shaking his hair back and wiping his face with his shirtsleeve.
“Starve,” Alex said, again without looking up. I smiled slightly, thinking, That’s my bro.
Ayatas FireWind disappeared up the stairs, his fancy shoes silent on the wood treads. Either he had special soles or he moved like a cat. Or a hunting Cherokee warrior. I was going for doors number two and three. I closed my eyes and dropped my head back again, pulling the gel pack from beneath the pillow and laying it in place, eyes closed.
“Still happy you didn’t buy that bigger place?” Eli asked, a little knowing spite in his tone. He had found a traditional Creole townhome, only a few miles away, that was roughly three times the size of this house. But this was home, or as close as I’d ever gotten. Not that I’d told him that. I’d just said the larger house was too expensive. And it had been. Still was.
“Very. But we have to stop taking in strays,” I said.
Eli and Alex both snorted.
Alex said, “We have almost everything integrated and Bodat will be in town later today to help me finish up.”
That was good news and bad news. With the new system, we knew where every one of Leo’s people were at all times, who they were chatting with, and what burner devices they were using to try to keep their activities secret from the MOC. The Kid—Alex—had devised several algorithms to keep the information from being too overwhelming, but even so it was not a one-man job. If Yellowrock Securities was going to survive the Sangre Duello and stay in NOLA, we needed serious geekish help. We were going to have to outsource or hire someone in-house. Either would change the dynamics of our lives. Again. So Bodat was the best choice, even if it meant we had to find him a place to stay temporarily. No way was he staying here long term. Just thinking about the garlic-smelling, doughy-fleshed teen was enough to give me the shivers and make my headache feel worse.