Skinwalker

“You have to tell me how you do that someday—know who’s here and who’s not.” When I didn’t rise to the bait, he said, “He came to feed Miz A and Bliss and me.”

Something like shame swept through me. Bliss. She had been injured while under my protection, attacked by a vamp and bled nearly dry. And I had gone racing off after the culprit while the victim still needed care. I was an idiot. “How is she? And how are you?”

He gestured me toward Katie’s office. “Better now. Bliss has had a hard time recuperating. She needs blood support to continue healing, and with Katie on holiday . . .”

Holiday? Is that what they’re calling it? “And you called Leo.”

“No. Leo came on his own.”

“Oh?” That surprised me.

“Leo brought her home the night she was attacked in his club. He was pulling up to the Mojo when the attack took place.”

Leo probably saw me leave the club, moving with Beast speed. Combined with the taste he took when he healed my arm, he should have known what I was, and he hadn’t. Of course I now knew less about what I was. A skinwalker? Accidental practitioner of black magic? Troll sat down, releasing a pent breath, part exhaustion, part melancholy.

“You cleaned up,” I said, looking around the office. “It looks new.” I remembered the morning the liver-eater had attacked Katie. There had been a fair amount of blood. Not as much as at the Broussards’, the house where Ken and Rose got digested, but enough. I smelled strong cleansers on the air. An air filter hummed in the corner. A big one.

Troll flipped a limp hand. “Lot of experience cleaning up blood.”

I figured he did, living in a whorehouse with a vamp. But I didn’t say it. I was getting better at controlling my natural rude instincts. “How’re the girls?”

“Fine. A couple were patched up at the hospital after the attack, and Leo fed them too. They’re right as rain, now.”

“And Miz A?” In an overlay of snapshot images, I remembered the blood and the extent of the housekeeper’s wounds. She had lost a lot of blood and a good portion of deltoid and other upper arm muscles.

Troll started to answer, but something changed behind his eyes, a flitting of reconsideration. “She’s better. Still with us.” It didn’t smell like a lie, but the little telltale wrinkles around Troll’s eyes suggested that he wasn’t telling the complete truth either.

Better? Still with us? Had she been close to death? Drained enough to be turned? Was Miz A chained in the basement of Leo’s house, a mindless bloodsucking machine? I almost asked. I opened my mouth to ask. And Beast caught the flavor of unfamiliar vamp. Close.

I whirled. Saw a blur of vamp speed. Whipped out a cross. Stamped my leg behind its knee. Twisted. Punched with my left hand, holding the cross. I struck it. Knocked it off balance. Rode it down. Trace of scorched vamp flesh.

Beast screamed. I ripped away the cross. Brought it down. An inch from her face. She howled and swiveled away. Her fangs were out. There was fresh blood on her mouth. It carried the scent of Indigo. The little blonde with blue eyes. I pulled a stake. A hand gripped my arm with steel strength. It stopped me. I growled, scenting Leo.

“Not her, little vampire killer,” he purred. “She is mine. George.”

Bruiser, moving faster than a human, knelt at the vamp’s head and pushed my cross away. He slid his hands under the vamp’s shoulders and pulled. Inside me, Beast slunk down into a crouch, watching as Bruiser removed the vamp. Amitee. Leo’s soon-to-be daughter-in-law. Leo was out . . . drinking . . . with his son’s fiancée. Now that was just sick. . . .

Then . . . had the vamp been at Katie’s gathering? I didn’t remember seeing her. Could a male liver-eater take a female form? I couldn’t take a male’s. I didn’t think it was possible, but I was unlearning a lot of impossibilities.

I let Leo lift me to my feet, like a dance step. He lifted my arm, hand at my hip, turning my body, my feet following, across the vamp’s body beneath me, three steps into Katie’s office. Amitee took off fast. Nearly getting staked musta made her itchy.

Leo’s eyes locked mine as we moved, dark and old, bled black, but controlled. Utterly controlled. Beast liked it. Beast liked the power that flowed over us like a warm hand. “Put that away, if you please,” Leo said, his face so close his breath brushed my/our cheeks. No smell of fresh blood on him. He hadn’t fed off the girls.

My heart pounded, the hard thump of danger, instant fighting, and faster cessation. I forced down adrenaline, fought to control the shakes quivering along my arms and legs; draped the cross around my head; tucked it under my clothes. I pulled my hand free and stuck the stake into my hair. I wasn’t even sure why I was following his requests. I could feel him pushing at me, testing the parameters of my mind, but this didn’t feel like vamp mesmerization. Not exactly. But there was Beast, telling me to let him have his way for now. Beast, testing the waters for something I couldn’t even imagine. “She’d been feeding. I want to see Indigo. Now,” I said, still parsing the scents.

“Tom, would you please ask Indigo to join us,” Leo said.

Tom. Troll. Right. I pushed Beast farther down. She let me, amused. Beast was playing, though I didn’t know if she toyed with Leo or with me. Or with both of us.

Leo led me to the sofa and I sat where he placed me, in the corner, one knee up, sandal in the seat. One arm along the back, so I could push up and over fast if needed. Leo sat on a tall stool near the bar. He was wearing a suit. Tie. Fancy shoes. We waited. Moments later, I heard footsteps clattering down the stairs: heels, one pair; soft-soled shoes, also one pair, that gait Troll’s. Indigo’s voice, giggly, happy. I began to relax and felt my shoulders droop. Felt Leo’s eyes on me when they did. Speculative.

Indigo came through the doorway, her big blue eyes blinking at the change in light. She saw Leo and she smiled. Saw me and stopped. I inspected her, not hiding my perusal. She looked fine, except for tiny dots from a recent feeding. They were closed, nearly healed. No torn throat, just nice clean punctures, the flesh properly treated so the wounds would constrict, the sign of a vamp in control of herself. Then why had Amitee attacked me? Troll stopped behind Indigo, standing framed in the doorway.

“The vamp who fed on you tonight,” I said. “Is she a regular?”

Indigo raised a hand and her fingers brushed across her throat. A smile played across her mouth, lighting her eyes. Sexual awareness, pleasure, and something more. Fondness. I could tell she liked Amitee even before she spoke, answering more than I had asked. “She’s nice. She don’t”—she glanced at Leo—“doesn’t—ask for weird sh—weird stuff. She pays well, tips better, and treats me like a lady.” Her eyes and face went sly and taunting, as if hoping to shock. “A girl likes a little romance sometimes, you know?”

I didn’t react, which seemed to disappoint her. “Thank you, Indigo,” I said, polite.

“I got a client, at the Iberville,” she said to Leo. “You want me to take a cab?”

That caught my attention. Why was Indigo asking Leo about business? Wouldn’t Troll take over for Katie? I glanced at the doorway. Troll was standing stiffly in the shadows, his face a mask. Something was hinky here.

“Until the rogue is brought down, my driver will deliver you all to your assignations,” Leo said. “Let George know when you will want the car. He’ll make arrangements.”

Troll looked down. He was not a happy troll. I grinned at my humor. When Leo raised a brow at my amusement, I waved it away. I had a job to do, and then I was outta here. I was so not getting into vamp politics. As long as I got paid. And as long as they didn’t get me killed.

Indigo said thank you and Leo dismissed her. Actually dismissed her. Like a king or something. He said, “You may be dismissed.” I didn’t bother to hide my snort or the wider grin at that one. Leo did his brow-lift thing. The man was so smooth he wouldn’t slide on an oil slick. He looked at Troll standing in the shadows. “Tell Ipsita to meet me at the door in an hour.” Troll didn’t look happy, but he nodded.

Ipsita was the South Asian girl, delicate as a rosebud, the girl who looked like she might be twelve. She roused my protective instincts. Knowing she was of legal age didn’t help me to see her differently, and the idea of her going on a “date” with an old vamp made me grind my molars. And anyway, why is Leo making off with one of Katie’s girls? I didn’t realize I had spoken that last part aloud until they all turned and looked at me. Crap. Even Indigo stuck her head back in, a look of surprise and puzzlement on her face.

In for a penny . . . “It seems to me that until Katie gets back, Tr—Tom should be in charge.” I looked at Troll. “Does Katie have legal papers written up about who takes over if she is”—stuck in a coffin in a pool of vamp blood?—“indisposed?”

Leo lifted his head. “I am Katie’s master. It is fitting that I assume command for her while she is unwell.”

“Maybe in the Dark Ages, but not in the United States and not now.” So much for me not getting into vamp politics. “Tom? Where does Katie keep her legal papers?”

He entered, keeping well away from Leo, and knelt at Katie’s desk. Using a small key, he unlocked a file cabinet cleverly tucked against the wall, in a shadow. Papers rustled, the silence charged with something volatile, explosive. Indigo disappeared. Smart girl. I wasn’t so wise, however. I stuck around to see what happened to the hornet’s nest I was currently kicking. A moment later Troll withdrew an expandable file and stood behind the desk, the folder in both hands, indecisive. Okay, scared to death. I could smell his fear.

I got up from the spot where Leo had placed me, which suddenly bothered me a lot more than it had, took the folder, and centered it on the desktop. I opened it. “Which ones?” I asked. Troll reached around me and tapped a tab about midway back. I couldn’t read the tab’s print; it might have been French. I withdrew the papers and opened them, scanning the first five sheets of legal mumbo jumbo, not understanding what I saw even though it was in English, but using the time to think. Leo was old. Real old. Maybe even feudal-times old. Back when honor meant something. I held the pages out to Leo. “What does she want?” ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">