I felt the bite of Katie’s power, siphoning at my own, nips of electric teeth. It hurt. Beast resisted, claws digging deep in my psyche. Katie moved around the room. Fresh blood coated her lower jaw. A single drip landed on her crusted breast, glowing like a ruby on her dried-blood flesh. She had fed. She smelled like she-cat blood. I looked around. Safia was still missing.
Katie found Leo in the throng. Everyone in the ballroom felt the moment their eyes met. Sparks flew and danced on the air. It was Fourth of July and Mardi Gras and New Year’s all at once and even the humans in the room could see it, feel it, erotic and sexual and primal, like battle and sex all at once. I felt the tug deep in my belly. Instantly, I remembered a photo I had once seen of Leo and Katie, her skirts tossed high, him servicing her with his mouth, her head thrown back in ecstasy.
“Katherine, do you challenge me?” Leo asked. Bruiser tried to stop him, but Leo stepped away, out onto the center of the ballroom floor. Behind him, Kemnebi watched, his black eyes full of anger and disdain for the wolf changing and for the vamps and blood-servants who had no resistance to vamp power. His claws and paws began to reform into human. It was clear ol’ Kemmy was no longer having trouble fending off the power grab.
“Leo?” Katie whispered. Her voice was rough and coarse, not the liquid velvet it once had been. “My Leo?”
Leo reached Katie, one hand following the length of her crusted hair, blond beneath the dark stain of old blood. He cupped her face, a look of joy in his eyes. He encircled her waist with an arm and pulled her gently to him, embracing her. Leo breathed out, his breath like a caress. Katie relaxed, resting against him. The dance of power in the room slowed. And Leo’s fangs pierced her throat so fast even I didn’t see the strike.
Katie screamed and hit him in a scissor motion, bringing both arms up and back down. The blow drove them to the floor. But Leo kept his fangs buried. His arms imprisoned her, his legs wrapped around her as they rolled across the floor. Everyone still standing scattered. Fights broke out as they moved.
Bruiser reached my side, holstering his weapons. “Katie has the blood of eight clans,” he said. “She isn’t sane just now, but she’s powerful as hell. Leo can’t let her take over.” He was gone and I was left putting sense to the words.
Katie was back, unexpectedly, from the grave that healed her. An unexpected rising meant she was likely not sane yet, as vamps had a tenuous hold on that particular mental state. She’d been buried with the blood of
eight
clans mixed into her coffin, absorbed into her very flesh. She was like a fully charged battery, designed to draw even more. At the moment, she was power incarnate, insane and hungry, unless Leo could defeat her and drink down her power. Thanks to the recent mini war, there were fewer total vamps and only
four
clans in the city, for the Master of the City to draw on to seal his power base. Leo’s four to Katie’s eight.
He’d asked her if she challenged him.
Crap
. He’d made it a legal duel. She hadn’t replied, too nutso to make a rational response, but she hadn’t stopped stealing power that was his by right either, making it a legal challenge for the position of Master of the City. I couldn’t think of a better way for Leo to keep his people safe—all the alternatives meant another war. If an insane master vamp as powerful as Katie divided the clans or took them over, things were gonna get
really
bad,
really
fast. So Leo threw himself onto the pyre as sacrifice like a good leader—who wanted to stay in power—would. I wasn’t gonna be happy having to admire Leo for that.
My thoughts took an eyeblink of time, but in that moment, the power draw stopped. Carnage began. Across the room, vamps shook themselves awake and stood. Wolves attacked. Fights broke out between species. Blood-servants raced to their masters, offering throats so the vamps could function again and maybe get them all out alive.
Roul shook like a dog and looked around, his humanity restored but not his temper. He was a mad dog.
No. Don’t say it.
I swallowed back a crazy laugh. Roul put his head down and bulled into a pack of fighting wolves and vamps just as the group rammed into a table of meats, sending food flying. The place reeked of blood—vamp, were, and human. In a corner, two vamps from clans no longer in existence, and always hated enemies, tore into one another. Other fights broke out and blood-servants joined in. It was a free-for-all. And I wasn’t dressed for it, as usual. Kem stood all alone, observing, his mouth in a snarl. Looking around the room. Looking for Safia.
I keyed my mike. “Angel, give me some good news.”
“Got none, Legs,” he said into my ear. “The little green guy got out, the cops have showed up at the front gate, decked out in paramilitary gear. They have ladders and they’re coming over the walls. They’ve got every unit in the city headed your way. Oh. And the wolves are loose. Who! Who let the dogs out?”
“Not funny, Angel,” Derek said, reaching my side.
“Sorry, Sarge.” He didn’t sound sorry, but he instantly started giving updates on the location of the wolves loose in vamp HQ. Not all of them had stayed in the ballroom.
Derek and I met eyes. I said, “We need to find the female were-cat. Katie fed off her.”
He gave me a chin-jut of understanding. “You take care of the MOC. I’ll get the premises locked down and the wolves contained.”
“How?”
“Trank guns. All my guys got ’em.”
I should have thought of that. But who would have expected werewolves to attack? And if not wolves, then who had he been planning to tranquilize? Q and A for later. Job now.
We spun in opposite directions, Derek trotting through the doors issuing orders, me wading through the vamps after Leo and Katie, caught in a mortal embrace.
I was stopped by Dominique, heir to Arceneau, and Bettina, master of Laurent. They were facing off, the energies between them cracking with fury. Both had blood-splattered clothes and bloody mouths; both had flushed skin and smelled warm-blooded. They had fed. Fully.
I grabbed an arm on each and shook them hard. “You can challenge each other tomorrow night. Get your vamps and servants together and follow me.” I was as surprised as anyone when they looked from each other to me and nodded.
Dominique called aloud to Grégoire. Bettina closed her eyes. Shaun Mac Lochlainn, her heir, and her other two vamps raced through the melee to her side, all three with torn clothes and bloodied bodies. The summoning was impressive, and so were the men who responded to her call. It made me wonder if she had mind-joined with Shaun. More to think about later. More slowly, Dominique and her clan
gathered
. The human blood-servants followed, surrounding their masters. The clan leaders had gone from mortal enemies to allies in a human heartbeat.
“Wall off Leo and Katie from the rest of the room,” I said to the vamps, “and then give Leo what support you can. If Katie wins, this night will be a bloodbath.”
“I like bloodbaths,” Dominique said. I didn’t want to inspect that line too closely, especially as her eyes were alight and she looked so cheerful all of a sudden. They all did. The smell of blood and fighting was like drugs to vamps.
Mac Lochlainn and his pals moved in front of us and started clearing a path between the fighting vamps and humans, some by asking, others, those too belligerent or out cold, by simply tossing. We moved forward with an awful efficiency. I heard bones break as the vamp warriors cleared the way. A lot of people were gonna be sore tomorrow. If they lived through the night.
Kabisa and Karimu, Arceneau’s soldier twins, worked to the side, holding off four wolves, using blades with ruthless efficiency. Sending the wolves yelping, bleeding, limping away, where “my guys” tranked them. They fell so fast that they maintained wolf form.
Ooh rah
.
I spotted Leo and Katie in a corner of the room, bodies wrapped around each other seemingly melded together. Fangs and claws were embedded in flesh and they held each other still, like two wrestlers, evenly matched. But Katie had her fangs in Leo’s throat and Leo had his buried just below Katie’s right collarbone. Not a good site for draining a victim.
Katie lifted a hand and smoothed Leo’s hair, like she might soothe a pet, her hand steady and controlling. I didn’t like that one bit. Leo was splashed with blood, his clothes ripped and showing pale skin. Very pale skin. Katie was harder to judge under the garish blood-based body makeup, but I was thinking she had a well-fed, rosy hue.
“Dominique, how do we separate them when we get there?”
The blond woman turned to me, blood on her chin. Surprised, she said, “We feed him.”
“Ah. Right.”
Moments later, we reached Leo and Katie. Dominique held out her hand and Karimu, eyes fierce and intent, placed a clean blade in it. Dominique sliced her own wrist and held it near Leo’s face. He opened his eyes and slid his fangs from Katie’s chest. He sank them into Dominique and sucked hard. She hissed. Fell to her knees beside Leo. A moment later, Leo released her; Dominique fell over and was carried away by her blood-servants as Grégoire knelt in her place, rolling up his sleeve. The two men held glances a moment, Leo’s vamped-out, Grégoire’s calm and still.
Grégoire said, “My pledge to you. My pledge to Pellissier. My pledge to the Master of the City.”
“You will be rewarded and recompensed.”
Grégoire chuckled, the tone dismissive. “Drink, my friend. And win.” Leo sank his fangs into Grégoire’s arm at the elbow.
Over my earpiece I heard, “Sarge, cops are at the door. And ... I’m seeing blood in a hallway on one of my monitors. No one’s been fighting there.”
“Location?”
“Outside Leo Pellissier’s office.”
Ruse. Opportunity
. Battle and mayhem in the vamp-camp would be a great opportunity to accomplish a goal if one were prepared and willing to take a chance. I saw an image of a big-cat lying on a tree limb over a path to a watering hole. Waiting for the opportunity to attack the unwary. Or a great place to take a nap.
Both
, Beast assured me. There was something smug in her tone.
“Let’s see about the blood. Meet you at Leo’s office,” I said into the mike. I raced for the stairs and was third to arrive. The door was open, the stink of blood searing my nose, overwhelming my senses. A Vodka Boy was scanning the nooks and crannies, weapon ready for firing. Derek stood over the body. Lying on blood-soaked rugs was the petite, diplomatic assistant. Safia. What was left of her. Derek was cursing fluently and nonstop under his breath.
Beast shoved her way to the forepart of my brain and studied the scene.
Not a human kill. Claws and killing-teeth brought her down. But not for meat. Wasted meat, wasted blood
. Beast drew in a breath over my nose and tongue.
Gun fired here.
I processed and shared her comments but with a few sophistications of language tossed in. “No vamp would have wasted her blood. No wolf would have wasted her meat. Katie was seen on a security camera in this hallway. She had fresh blood on her face when she appeared in the ballroom.”
“Katie killed her?” Derek asked. “Old rogue?”
“Don’t know. We’re gonna need the cops, who happen to be at our door—lucky us.” I looked from the body to Derek and added, “I don’t believe in coincidences. Make copies of all the camera and TV footage. We need one for us. If any of your guys are wanted by law enforcement, get them out of here.”
“We’re clean. You let the cops in. They’ve brought in a ram to take down the front door. A white chick in an evening gown will settle the cops faster than a brother with guns.”
I’d have laughed except for the body at my feet. Instead, I said, “You get to the ballroom and tell them the cops are here. See if Leo has Katie under control. If not, stake her.”
His eyebrows went to his hairline. “You sure about that?”
“No, but what choice do we have? Katie may have killed the were-cat. Whatever she may be tomorrow, right now, Katie’s rogue. I’m the Rogue Hunter. My order.”
“Yes, ma’am. You are that.”
I didn’t take the time to inspect his comment. I raced for the front entrance, set my visible weapons on the glass table near the air-lock door, and checked over the foyer of vamp HQ. Empty. Silent. I entered the air lock. Taking a deep breath, I opened the front door.
There were cops at the entrance, Jodi Richoux at their head. Jodi in tactical gear was something to behold. Pert, a lot shorter than I am, blond hair tucked under a helmet, cinched into body armor never intended to mold to the body of a curvy woman. Ugly but efficient attire. Someone needs to talk to armor designers about female body shapes and style.
Beside her was Sloan Rosen, her second in command. He looked like a fashion plate in his armor. Just wasn’t fair. Behind them were more cops, two holding a battering ram. Jodi recognized me and said something coarse and vulgar, which I ignored. “We need you,” I said. “We have a dead body.”
It took a while to assure Jodi that the violence was contained. Based on the two species’ proximity, she had been expecting ongoing hostile behavior and vamp aggression problems. She and her team had been primed and ready, watching the live media coverage from the unmarked van just in case, and had gone into action when the first bodies hit the floor.
The cops spread out in vamp HQ, a few to prowl the hallways, a few to the ballroom, a few joined Angel’s Tit to look over camera footage, and Jodi came with me back to the body. Oh joy. Because the status of vamps had yet to be decided in terms of U.S. citizenry, and because Leo had formally declared vamps to be a separate nation, all on TV, recorded for history, Jodi passed the legal hot potato up the chain of command. Her bosses agreed to send her a CSI unit to work up the crime scene, and ordered her to seal off the building. They were sending for the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. The bureau, also known as DS, was the law enforcement and security arm of the U.S. Department of State. It would take them hours to get from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans. Dawn. Maybe later.