Callan had been a vampire kept in a cage at Katie’s and I’d nicknamed him Corpse, verbally abusing him, allowing the vamps to torture him. Well, maybe torture was too strong a word, but they hadn’t been playing tiddlywinks with him. He had served a vamp named de Allyon but claimed it was only because his master kept him alive. He had boxer’s shoulders, the thighs of a cyclist, long, slender fingers, and an angel’s face, but he’d been turned for his looks, not his brains. Or so I’d thought. When De Allyon had been defeated, Callan had asked to join Leo’s power base and been welcomed in. He’d been healed by Sabina and fed by Christie, one of Katie’s working girls. Now it appeared that his loyalty was lacking. Part of the attack on Leo’s power base. And maybe the brainless part had been a ploy.
Fernand Marchand was a longtime troublemaker, had been a suspect in more than one security leak. Dark haired and jaded, he was the brother to Amitee Marchand . . .
My heart slowed and my fingers suddenly ached. The Marchands had come from France for Amitee to marry the vamp masquerading as Leo’s son Immanuel, the liver-eater I had killed when I first came to New Orleans. Everything, every freaking thing, went back to Immanuel.
Immanuel and his friends had wanted to kill Leo and take over the city. Immanuel, Amitee, and Fernand had been traitors. Yet Leo had kept the brother and sister around even after his heir was killed. Why? Was it part of the homily that said we should keep our enemies closer? Callan and Fernand were standing together, Fernand’s hand on Callan’s shoulder. It would have been all cozy, lovey-dovey if Callan hadn’t been pointing a gun right where I had been standing. I thought about hurting them both but put it off for now. There were other things I needed to see, and they might lead me to other enemies.
Too many enemies, too many plots. Only one thing was certain. This situation had nothing to do with the United States Navy or an attack on the military. That had been a feint or an unhappy accident. This was a direct hit on Leo and the fangheads on U.S. soil.
Spotting a kid in a red jacket and black pants dripping on the marble floor, I moved in. He was holding a nine-millimeter sideways in one hand. It was a street gang firing stance, one where aiming was more a general-direction thing, not target practice. I leaned in and sniffed, getting a good whiff of his weapon, his clothing, his armpits, and his breath. He was whacked out on drugs, cheap liquor, and vamp blood. I moved closer to him. Breathed in through my mouth, air moving over my tongue with a soft scree of sound. Vamp blood. And sex. A lot of both and recently. He’d been fed and rolled and seduced and sent on a quest. All by a vamp I didn’t recognize. The kid was maybe fourteen.
Kits . . . Beast hissed. Not sucklings. Not yearlings. But young. To be kept at mother cat’s side, taught to hunt. Taught to survive. Not ready to be mated.
Anger rumbled through me. I moved through the fracas into the area where the elevator opened.
Security was rushing from the parted doors, faces in that cold, hard combat mode that former active-military types always wore in emergencies. They wore SWAT-type flak jackets and they carried small subguns. Not good. They were about to kill humans, kids, gangbangers, for sure, but gangbangers who might have been rolled by vamps. I had to stop this.
Time juddered, sound beating against my ears. The lightning sizzled. Thunder hammered the air. Gunshots. Screams. Shadows and motion, and then it all stopped. I didn’t have long. I ran to the first man racing off the elevator and grabbed him, yanking him out of his time and into mine. Into my arms. Up off the floor, using his momentum against him, spinning him. Letting go, I leaped back, leaving him hanging in midair. He’d fall and most of the others would land on top of him. A pileup. Time stuttered. Shuddered. Almost out of no-time.
I raced through the melee, knocking bullets to the floor, ruining aims by slapping against weapons, knocking guns out of loose grips. The vamp I had shot was nearly to the outer door. I leaped into the air and kicked her knee. I heard the bone break, slowly, snaps dragging through her flesh and into the air.
I touched her and she fell, screaming, into no-time. And time snapped back. I caught her, shoved a silvered blade under her chin, and carried her back inside. “Tell the gangbangers to back off, or I’ll toss your head into the battle.” I sliced into her flesh. “Now!”
“Detener,” she said.
Bullets chiseled into the walls, floors, people. Shrapnel flew. Screams and the smell of blood filled the air. I shoved the blade an inch into her flesh, into a blue tattoo, getting a nose full of silver-scorched skin and blood as I took a breath. “Louder,” I growled.
“Pararse! Detener! Stop! Withdraw!”
Gangbangers whirled and vanished, darting into the rain. The ones who were cornered put weapons on the floor. Ten seconds after time went back to normal, the battle was over.
We lost the redheaded male vamp. Callan and Fernand vanished as they popped away at vamp-speed. The security types were mostly untangled in front of the elevator. And I was about a quarter of the way to Beast-form. Fortunately it was still dark and the storm still raged. I threw the injured vamp at Wrassler and growled, “Get her to Leo. Have him read her. I want to know everything she does, pronto.”
“I know nothing that could be of use to you,” she said, sounding Frenchy, not even bothering to struggle in Wrassler’s arms.
“Whatever.” To Wrassler I added, “Clear the area and get the bomb squad in here. There are bombs set up in the ballroom.”
His eyes whipped around the room, taking in the changes to the architecture. “Copy, Legs.” He yanked the vamp off her feet and moved away.
I shouted, “Eli. With me.” By the smell, one revenant was still on premises and had made it down the stairs to the basements.
Before I could lead the way down, lights and sirens pulled up under the porte cochere. Rick LaFleur led the way in with members of local and state law enforcement, the men and women wearing navy rain gear with the letters NOGTF on the front. NOGTF was the New Orleans Gang Task Force, a multiagency task force with the FBI. I spotted cops as they took off into the night after the running kids. Rick caught my eye and I gave him a single, hard nod. He returned it. He was dealing. Good. I raced down the basement stairs, Eli on my heels.
Down and down and down, through another passageway, and down and down, following the scent of the rev. But the twice-dead thing stopped before he hit the deepest basement and the thing that hung on the walls there. The revenant wasn’t in sub-five with the Son of Darkness. He had veered off course into sub-four. I knew in my bones what the rev was after. Adrianna. The vamp Leo had kept alive despite all the times I had killed her.
Leo had kept Fernand and Amitee, and even Callan near him. He had a plan on how to use them all. I hoped he’d find success with all that. I figured it was about as likely as a six-foot snowfall in Hades.
I raced down the hallway, following the faint stink of rot. The Gray Between hovered around me as I ran; my fangs disappeared and my pelt shimmered into flesh. I returned to fully human without having to stop and change. Something was happening to my magics, but I didn’t have time to analyze it. We spun around the corner and found ourselves staring down the barrel of a gun from floor level.
In front of the sealed doorway to Adrianna’s prison, lying in a pool of her own blood, was Ro Moore, one of Leo’s new security people out of Atlanta and Katie’s new Enforcer. With her shirt, she had fashioned makeshift bandages that covered her left arm and shoulder, the sports bra beneath drenched in blood. A nine-millimeter was in her right hand holding a steady aim on us. When she saw us, she laid the gun on her middle, and her body quivered in what smelled like relief and pain.
Eli dashed to her, murmuring, “How many rounds? Where are you hit?”
“Two in my left shoulder, nine-mil. I think one punctured a lung.” Ro coughed and blood came up with the expelled breath.
We now had WiFi in the basements and I called up to Bruiser, saying, “Wounded in sub-four. We need medic—”
Edmund popped into place at my side, startling me.
“—A-SAP,” I said, closing the cell’s Kevlar cover.
Ed knelt at Ro’s side and peeled back her bandage. “You are the human female who fights in cages.”