Stupid thought.
I aimed, fired. Fired. Hit a second human, too low for a mortal wound, but she was down. Four shells gone, three left. Two humans down.
Three humans ducked behind the furniture, one on the far side of the island.
A fourth leaped atop the island. Even as her weight landed on one foot, she fired down at the man tied there. Three shots midchest. Pushed up, transferred her weight again, and fell onto me. I dropped back and down, the weapon pointed up. I had clear and complete focus on the woman’s face as she fell. Onto me. Onto my shotgun.
Miscalculation. Shock at the sight of my face. Fear. In midair, she tried to roll away. I squeezed the trigger. Upper chest, center. Took out her sternum and everything beneath it, including heart. I rolled away and she landed on the spot where I’d lain.
Three down. Three bad guys to go. Two shots left before I had to reload. At the speed the humans were moving, I’d never get that done.
The human behind the island was crouching around the side; I took aim at where the head should appear. Someone outside my field of vision tossed a pile of kitchen cloths onto the flaming stove and slammed a bottle of something on top. It shattered. The scent of good brandy filled the air. The cloths ignited in a whomp of sound and bright light. Flames leaped high Beast retreated from the forefront of my brain, shouting into my thoughts, Fire!
I centered the sights on the very edge of the island. The human behind it stuck out his head just as the woman who had thrown the brandy rushed me. I squeezed the trigger. The top of his head burst all over the cabinets behind. It was still splattering when I rolled flat to my back, weapon pointed down along my body. Tucked my toes down hard. Fired.
Last shot. The weapon bucked slightly in my arms.
The female blood-servant dropped. I was out of ammo with one human left. Where was he? Where were the vamps?
The last human raced through the kitchen doorway and into the predawn, a blur of darkness. I rolled over again, now holding a nine-millimeter that had been in the gobag. Smoke roiled slowly across the ceiling. Flames danced up the wall and dashed across the ceiling, separating the smoke and sending it rolling faster. The room was hot. My wet clothing started to steam.
Fire dashed across the room. Ignited a tablecloth. The kitchen was empty.
Except for Bruiser and a vamp.
They were sitting together on the floor, the vamp’s legs splayed like a child’s in a sandbox. Bruiser sat on her lap, his arms around her, her head pressed to his neck. She was drinking.
I scuttled close to separate her from her undead life. But Bruiser’s arms tightened, pulling her closer. Something dark and deadly crawled through me. Bruiser, loving a vamp. I centered the weapon on her head. Bruiser held up a single finger, telling me . . . Telling me to wait? Wait! While another woman sucked on him? My heart did a twisting dive.
Beast dove to the forefront of my brain and growled. Mate. My mate. Kill other.
“Bruiser?”
Bruiser’s finger rose again. I realized the vamp wasn’t drinking. She was sitting with her fangs at Bruiser’s throat but not inside his flesh.
I saw it then. The magics. Dark red rose, the color of watered blood, clear and sparkling, as if it contained bubbles. Magic like champagne. Flowing from the female vamp and into him. Into Bruiser. Into Bruiser. Into . . . He was draining the vamp.
Onorio magics, unknown magics. No one had any idea what Onorios did. What they could do. Only that they were rare. And powerful. And that Leo had three. Or he’d had three until today.
Slowly, I lowered the weapon. Safetied and put it away.
Flames roared as my hearing came back online. Heat like an oven blasted across the room. In the distance, sirens wailed.
Hunched over. Gathered and holstered my weapons. Crab-walked to the human who had been tortured and checked his pulse. He was long gone. I knew him, but didn’t remember his name. Jim? John? One of Grégoire’s people. He should have been in HQ, safe. I had no idea what had made him stay here or come back here. It had been a deadly blunder, whatever the reason.
Something darkened the doorway. I found a nine-mil in my hand again. Pointed at Gee DiMercy. “Get out,” he said. “The entire place is—” He spotted Bruiser on the floor. His eyes grew wide and a look of intense satisfaction settled there for an instant, like a bird touching down and pushing back off. The expression, whatever it had meant, disappeared.
“Why aren’t you with Alex?” I demanded.
“Edmund is with him, as are a quartet of Derek Lee’s liquor security. Arceneau Clan Home is burning,” he said to Bruiser. “The fire department has arrived.”
Bruiser nodded and reached around to the vamp’s face. He closed her eyes and stood. Her magics were a taut, twisted layer pressed tightly to her skin. She was still alive. Undead. Whatever. Bruiser lifted and carried her from the room. I followed. Gee went around front. Or flew over the house. Whichever.
Out front, Bruiser laid the vamp’s body into the backseat of the SUV. She was mostly unconscious, her eyes rolled back, her fangs out. She looked drunk. Gee walked up as the fire truck pulled into the driveway. Firemen in heavy gear piled out and began to disgorge hoses and axes and ladders. A rotund man was shouting orders. Rain fell in slow spatters, not much help against the fire.
Lightning struck close by. The Gray Between flickered on and off. Finally. Time did its little dance. I stood still, hating that the storm was in control and not me. I leaned against the SUV. Gee swiveled to me and focused on the space around me, where the Gray Between glimmered. He could see it. I said, “You told me that the storm wasn’t natural. That it’s magic. What kind of magic? Anzu magic?”
“Not a power I can control alone, but if you give me le breloque I can try to—”
“No. I remember you and the vamps and the witches fighting over that thing. Not happening. The storm. Is it witch magic?”
“Yes,” Gee said, sounding miserable, looking up into the night clouds.
I glanced back at the house. Flames were consuming the back, a raging inferno leaping for the windows. The wind, reacting to the heat, picked up. The blaze thrust, voracious, to the front door and the pure air that poured through it, feeding the fire. The kitchen and its bodies were a ruin. If I hadn’t used silver ammo no one would have known who had shot the humans. I’d be in an interrogation room as soon as the silver fléchette damage was discovered by the medical examiner. I wasn’t the only one who used the rounds but I was the best known.
Gee said, “Adan Bouvier, in the mural that is no more, was . . . is . . . a water witch with strong air capabilities as well.”
It was info I hadn’t asked for. When someone powerful gives me information for free, they usually wanted me to do their dirty work. I should have socked him and walked away. Should have. “I’m listening,” I said instead.
Gee looked up into the clouds. “If he is still among the undead, he is capable of creating such a storm.”
I remembered the black motes of power in the clouds, when the arcenciels were flying there, cavorting in real time. “Was Bouvier a friend of the Damours?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to Adan?” I asked. Adan was the fanghead who had owned Ka Nvista, a Cherokee slave with yellow eyes like me.
“There was an ‘incident,’” Gee said, “and though Leo told others he was dead, there are those of us who know the truth. He went back to France.”
“You think he’s the water witch causing this storm, either on shore with the others, or still aboard the invisible cruise ship.” I wanted Adan to be alive. I wanted it so much that my hands ached with the need. I wanted him alive so I could question him about Ka Nvista. About how she died. And more, about how she lived. And if there were more of us.
That hope, that need, I shoved deep inside, not sure when it had gotten loose.
“No,” Gee said, his dark eyes exploring the downtown skyline, then the uptown skyline, back toward the French Quarter and the river, then toward Lake Pontchartrain (downstream, upstream, river side, and lake side, in the parlance of the locals), as if scenting something only he could sense. He said, “I believe that he is on land. Here in the city. Any witch worth her salt can cast an obfuscation working over the ship and vanish in the storm. But creating a storm such as this, that takes a gift not seen on these shores in centuries. And not one practiced aboard ship, but with a witch circle, one drawn on the Earth.”