She released my neck and I jerked away from her threat, or her curse, whichever it was. She was gone; the place where she had stood and held me was vacant, filled only with swirling air and the reek of old blood. Real old blood. The stench curdled in my nasal passages. I didn’t know when the priestess had last fed, but she needed another dose. Cold prickles raced across my skin, as much a reaction to her words as to her touch and her strength. I hadn’t gone for a weapon. Hadn’t even tried. Not normal. Not good.
I shook like a cat after a dunking in a winter-cold stream and blinked away my fear. I could deal with my reactions to the priestess later, since I had lived through the experience. I touched my neck, missing the silver collar the wolf Fire Truck had broken in the fight where I first met Gee. For a moment I thought I smelled the peculiar pine and floral scent of him. My pulse pounded beneath my fingertips and I sucked a deep draught of air. Turned left and right, searching. The scent was gone. Had never been there at all.
I imposed calm on my system, and forced my thoughts to the info the priestess had given me as part of her threat. A Son of Darkness—one of the first vamps—had possibly been killed by a big-cat. By Leo’s own son, maybe, a skinwalker who had access to big-cat fetishes. Or maybe by another were-cat, here without the MOC’s permission. Was that what she was hinting? As usual, Leo hadn’t found it pertinent to share that information with me. I checked my mike and stepped to the doorway of the ballroom, scanning for trouble.
Everything was okay. Hunky-dory. Music was playing on the loudspeakers, a big band swing number, lots of horns and a funky sounding bass. I had a mental image of a vamp DJ spinning tunes somewhere out of sight. Or a Wolfman Jack. Definitely appropriate for tonight. Titters rose in my throat and I swallowed them back down, concentrating on the ballroom. Four couples were dancing, including Bruiser, who was spinning a master vamp through a series of complicated moves. He looked good with Dominique, her blond elegance against his dark sophistication. Humans were gathered around the food and drink tables. I glanced up at the nearest security camera and flashed an OK sign, knowing that Vodka Angel’s Tit would see it.
A half minute later, I heard breaking glass. From above. It fell like stained sleet, tinkling toward the floor, the colors of blood and sapphire, narrowly missing two vamps who leaped away with vision-stealing speed. I looked up. Caught a whiff. Pulled my H&K and a vamp-killer even before I identified the scent.
Wolves
... The glass landed, nearly silent on the rugs.
Werewolves dropped into the room, plummeting from the ceiling ...
like my dream
. It was like my dream. But the three were in human form, falling from the broken stained-glass windows in the high arches, spinning down on zip lines, two males and one female.
Clothed. Not naked. Not my dream
.
“Werewolves in the ballroom,” I said into the mike, taking in the room. Leo was vamped out, fanged and clawed, Kemnebi stood beside him, scenting, his human lips wrinkled back, his hands black-furred and clawed. He turned to Leo, as his snout began to reform in a shower of blue-black sparks. “Backup. Now!”
The female wolf wore Middle Eastern dress much like the were-cat assistant, and her skirts belled out as she slowly descended, showing tanned leg and lace undies. The males landed first, on pointed toes like dancers and unhooking their harnesses as they landed; one guy turned and caught the wolf-bitch. It was graceful and balletic and dangerous on every level I could imagine. Wolves had gotten in. My security measures had failed.
I
had failed.
I took aim at Roul Molyneux. Before I could fire, three weres raced into the hallway behind me in wolf form, claws clicking on the marble floor.
CHAPTER 10
You Want Me to Shoot Him, Boss?
Holding aim on Roul, I turned so the werewolves faced my vamp-killer, which protected my side. An additional three weres showed in the open doorway across from me, the door the vamps had come through at the start of the party. And behind them was the little green guy. Had he let them in? It was the only thing that made any sense. I gave a fast update into the mike, location of the bogies and their numbers. I ended with, “The head were-cat grew front paws and claws.”
Like Roul had done when I met him.
But I didn’t say that part. The wolves to my side had stopped. Muzzles down, snarling, snouts wrinkled, ears pinned, they closed on me, steps careful and slow. They had fought me once before or they would have attacked without a second thought. With a sliding snick of sound, I chambered a round and took careful aim on the closest wolf. A human woman stood behind him, a hand to her mouth. My guns were loaded with silver, but if I missed, a human or a vamp would die just as easily. There were too many of both in the ballroom and collateral damage was unacceptable.
Hard breathing, running footsteps, and Derek issuing commands filled my earpiece. He and a Vodka boy appeared on either side of the weres behind me, boxing them in. At the sight of them, the wolves stopped. They sat in the hallway, tongues lolling, looking proud and happy; they’d gotten into vamp HQ. “The dog learned a new trick,” I muttered. One growled at me, ears going flat, looking less doggy and more wolfish. Before I could decide how to respond, Derek’s other soldiers raced up, covering the doorways and the ballroom. And Tyler stalked into the room, a compact selective-firing shoulder weapon—a submachine gun—held in both hands, supported high on his chest. With it, he took aim at the were-cat envoy, Kemnebi. “You want me to shoot him, boss?” In less than eight seconds. Everything had gone FUBAR.
Behind me, Derek and Vodka Hi-Fi had weapons on the weres. Knowing my flank was covered, I stepped into the room, moving my gun hand from target to target, catching a quick look at Bruiser. He was standing much like me, but holding two sidearms, his body poised to cover two segments of the room, presenting a smaller target to two different adversaries. His feet were spread and knees slightly bent, ready for either shot. His jacket was shoved back, one pant cuff was hitched up, showing sock and a bit of leather. His face was white, mouth a thin line.
Dominique stood to his left, her cheeks bright red in a paper-white face. Fangs out and holding a wicked-looking knife. Leo had been shoved behind her, the sclera of his eyes bloodred, pupils fully dilated. Ten razor-sharp claws and more than two inches of bone-hard canines ready to fight. Vamped-out and pissed.
Crap
. This was gonna get messy.
“We were not told that
wolves
were to attend,” Kemmy said, disdain in every syllable. “We do not treat with wolves.”
“Yeah? Well, I got a feeling that your little green guy didn’t stop them,” I said. “Maybe when he ran around the backyard, wolves were coming over the walls and up to the roof without ever touching the ground.” I didn’t add that it was a rookie mistake. I didn’t even have a camera pointed up. Could werewolves jump twenty feet in a single bound? Mentally castigating myself, I repositioned myself and my weapons between Leo and the were-cats.
Cat.
The female was gone. My panic-o-meter shot back into the stratosphere. I took in the entire room. Placed every vamp and were. No girl were-cat. When had she disappeared?
Leo shot a look at me, vamped but in control. Relief slammed through me with my blood. At least one thing was okay, then. He turned to the were-cat. “The wolves are not here at your command?” Leo asked, his words only slightly distorted by his state.
“My kind killed the last werewolf in Europe during Charlemagne’s reign. They are the
lesser
were. Their females do not survive. They cannot breed true. We do not treat with
dogs
.”
Charlemagne’s reign was in the eight hundreds. During the time that vamps lived in Rome as Mithrans. Had that been part of what caused the vamps to disperse? Some kind of supernatural war?
“We are no’ dogs. We are wolves,
predators
like you.” Roul turned to the nearest camera.
Crap, crap,
crap
! I forgot about the media
. His natural charisma hitched up a notch, and his accent practically made love to the cameras. “Leo Pellissier is murderer and thief. And I have proof, I do.” Roul looked like a GQ fashion plate, strawberry blond-streaked hair fanning out in a mane, wearing pants, boots, and a white shirt rolled up at the arms, the neck open. He stepped away from his two cohorts, head back, striking a pose, rakish and theatrical. The cameras were all trained on him, loving him.
I glanced at his companions. The man with him was dressed similarly but in dark brown, and the woman was swathed in silk styled like the were-cat’s dress, but hers was pale blue; she was dressed so much like the missing female were-cat that the skirt, top, and head scarf outfit had to be required dress. Blond hair fanned out from her veiled face; only her eyes showed, heavily shadowed, and her lids sparkled with something that looked like gold dust. Her skin glowed, darkly tanned. The smell of rut filled the air, wolf in heat, and vamps and weres alike stared at her. The were-bitch walked without a limp, proof that her kind healed from nonmortal wounds as fast as I did, because I remembered hamstringing her. But I’d used a silvered blade, so she probably had an ugly scar, not that I’d noticed one when she displayed her legs on the way down.
The reporters were eating it up with a spoon. Careers would get made tonight.
“The Lupus Clan have file legal writ against Mithrans, yes,” Roul said. “We will see justice in court of human law.” The werewolf bitch placed a hand on Roul’s shoulder, but she was looking at Bruiser and Leo. Mostly at Leo, I thought, but I couldn’t be sure.
Leo’s fangs clicked back into the roof of his mouth and he closed his eyes. When he opened them a moment later, he looked like the Leo the media loved, urbane and debonair, a sophisticated Frenchman in contrast to the rougher, action-adventure character presented by Roul. But what Leo said wasn’t going to help put a good spin on anything that had happened so far tonight. “We will not treat with the wolves that we drove away, wolves who broke were-law, who have returned against our will and against our proclamation. Any charges they bring are specious and without merit and not binding unto us.
“We are not bound unto the system of law of these United States of America ...”—he hesitated, then added—“at this time. We are Mithrans, a separate nation, bound only by the Vampira Carta. We treat and parley as separate peoples.” He sounded suspiciously above the law in his comments, which wasn’t going to go over well in the court of public opinion, but when looked at from a legal perspective, it might have been dang near perfect.
Jodi Richoux was gonna hate that. So was the U.S. justice system—which was already having kittens over the thought of having to confine a vamp—in total darkness during daylight hours, bars far stronger than those needed to detain a human, not to mention the whole “must drink human blood” dietary requirements problem. And I had to wonder if this was the decision of all the international vamps, or if Leo was swimming in dangerous waters. The little disclaimer “at this time” might not be enough to save him if the vamps at large took umbrage with his high-handedness.
I looked from Leo to Bruiser, who was watching me. When he caught my eye he looked around the room as if telling me to do the same. The wolves had padded into the center of the room, surrounding their human-form buddies. The security types were all in the room with us, except for Vodka Angel’s Tit, the only security type guarding the perimeter. Not good. I had to wonder if the weres planned it this way, and if so, was it a cover for something else?
Before I could key my mike to speak to Angel, I heard him say, “Bloody female vamp just appeared in the building, second floor, moving downstairs fast. Approaching ballroom.”
Murphy’s Law was working overtime.
The smell of blood hit me just as she appeared in the reception room, lots of blood, with mixed scent signatures. Like the top-note in a really bad perfume, was cat blood. Below it, overriding the cat smell, was vamp blood—the reek old and rotted. That was the only clue who had come visiting, and it identified the unrecognizable female better than a calling card. Katie of Katie’s Ladies. Risen from the vamp grave that had healed her from a mortal wound. But cat blood, fresh and potent, said something else had gone seriously wrong tonight. Kemnebi turned to her and hissed.
Katie was caked in dried blood; it fell from her in flakes and granules, shifting down from her stiff dress with little shushing sounds, like reeds in a slow breeze. Hair, skin, clothes all were coated with the blood and it stank with a rotted meat smell. Back hunched, arms bent and out to her sides, her feet bare and slender, she turned slowly, taking in the room. Her magics snapped and sparked like carnelian flames, visible to Beast-vision. Powerful. Eerily potent.
She growled and Beast slammed into me at the sound, filling my limbs with strength. My lips peeled back from human teeth, and the blade felt good, like a steel claw in my hand.
Katie pivoted slowly, and as she turned, she took in a deep breath. And pulled power from every vamp in the place, feeding from them. With Beast so close to the surface, I could see the power drain shifting in the air, a bloody-reddish wind, and when she turned to me, her fangs were three inches long and stained bloody red. Her eyes were vamped out so big the entire orbs were black, leaving no trace of the grayish hazel of her irises, and only a tinge of bloody sclera.
The draw of her magic punched through the room like fangs into an artery, sucking at magic, at the life force itself. Vamps began to fall to the floor where they lay writhing, gagging. The magic pressed against the weres. Drawing on their power, draining off their control like the moon at her fullest. The wolfman with Roul grunted and fell to the floor, his back arching, starting to change against his will. The wolf-bitch sank to the floor shivering, resisting, hiding beneath her robes. Roul bared his teeth, revealing fangs, no longer fully human. Kemnebi lifted clawed paws and growled low, cat-anger. The humans were having trouble getting breaths, some fell like the vamps, and lay as if dead. One cameraman hit the floor, camera first, shattering the expensive gadget.