I waved to the Kid, who was still sipping energy drinks. He had made a pyramid tier of them up along the side of the table he used as a desk, and he looked like he was wired to the max, his entire focus on the integrated screen and the smaller screens that surrounded him. “Info when you want it,” he said to me, “but you gotta boogie. Press conference in twenty-seven minutes.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” I crossed the house to my room but left the door cracked so they could hear me. There wasn’t time for worrying about high school–variety boy-girl awkwardness, but there was the need to maintain lines of propriety. Or my prudish nature. Or both.
Eli said, “I put your clothing and leather gear on your bed and the weapons gear on the kitchen table. You’re missing a blade, a fourteen-inch vamp-killer.”
I flipped on the light switch and saw the gear on my bed. “Yeah, I remember. It needs replacement, blade and hilt both. They were damaged beyond repair in the fight at HQ. The spell the vamp used on me burned it to slivers.” I eased the shirt off and inspected my arm in the overhead light. The thick scar tissue was an odd, pale red tracery, as if someone had drawn lines and whorls on my golden Cherokee skin and filled the spaces between with pink marker. I hadn’t noticed the redness in the heat of the shower earlier. Weird.
“I’ll add a new vamp-killer to the list,” Alex said. “You do know those things are expensive, right?”
I touched one of the red lines and felt a faint shock quiver through my skin. “I’ve noticed,” I answered wryly. “Leo gets the bill for that one, though. Send an invoice to Raisin, and make sure you get an acknowledgment. As of dusk, I’m no longer the Enforcer and things will change.”
“Say what?” Eli said.
I felt their interest practically zing through the crack in the door. They moved closer to hear better, shuffling on the wood floor while I pulled on my best leathers, debriefing them on everything Leo had told me and everything I had deduced about Joses/Joseph. I finished with, “So if Jodi comes through on a contract with the governor and/or the mayor, I’ll have the unenviable job of removing the heart from Joseph Santana and taking it to Jodi Richoux.”
“We’ll,” Eli said.
“We’ll what?” I asked, hooking the reinforced leather jacket over my silk knit T. Oddly, my arm felt better with the jacket over it, the slight pressure of the thick materials giving me ease. I really needed the healing T-shirt given to me by some witch friends, but no way was I appearing on TV in a fuzzy purple T with a red dragon on the front.
“We’ll have the unenviable job,” he said.
“Musketeer crap,” the Kid said.
I smiled and opened the door, my fingers busy rebraiding my hip-length hair, my injured right fingers not working properly, making my movements awkward. “All for one?”
The guys didn’t answer, but I guess they didn’t have to. In the kitchen, I strapped on the tactical thigh rig and adjusted its holsters for weapons at thigh and shoulder, and this time, for maximum effect, I strung the M4’s harness on too. I accepted the weapons as Eli handed them to me, checking the loads on the semiautomatic handguns, making sure there were no rounds in the chambers as they went into holsters. Then I slid the blades and the stakes into the specially made sheathes in the thigh rig and in the leathers. And the boots. And my braided hair that I had wrapped into a big bun.
“How about this one?” Eli asked. He was holding a gift from Bruiser, an antique Mughal Empire blade Bruiser had given me when he declared his intentions to take our relationship to the next level.
“A little too fancy?” I asked.
“Good PR for the media should someone notice it and ask,” Eli said, which could have been unusual thinking for the shooter, except that he’d been teasing me off and on about dating Bruiser.
“The MOC’s hot-chick Enforcer has a boooyfriend,” Alex said.
Eli chuckled, the sound evil. They knew I’d turned down multiple requests from the media—local and regional—for interviews about my relationship with the vamps and their humans. But this time, I might need the media to help keep the public hysteria down. I remembered the scent-feeling-taste of riot-worthy fear hanging in the air outside the kill bar.
“Fine. Give it here.” I ignored their surprise as I figured out how to strap it through the stake loops, but high, near my hip and groin. The silk velvet sheath looked like rubies against my black leathers. “Okay. Eli, you’re right.” I held in a sigh, knowing if I let it free, I’d sound like I was whining. “We need to make an appearance.” I made little bunny-ear quotation marks in the air. “I suggest I ride in on Herbert’s Harley and you follow in the SUV.”
“Helmet off,” he said, “silver stakes in your hair.”
Louisiana had no motorcycle helmet law, so that was feasible, but it suddenly struck me as funny that Eli was thinking about media impact. “You going into the personal image business, Eli? PR with a gun? Big bad Army Ranger in makeup and eyeliner?”
He scowled—twitch of lips, harder eyes. “Wasteful and inefficient.”
“I’ll take that as a no.” I adjusted the silver stakes in my hair so they formed a crown out around my head. “Okay, Kid. Text Jodi. Tell her we’re on the way. Make sure we can get through from the park. And remind her that she wanted regalia,” I added sourly. “I don’t want a video of a cop patting me down on the morning news. When we’re done with the media dog and pony show we need a plan of attack. I want Joseph Santana’s heart in my hands.”
* * *
Most of the streets in the area were one-way streets, and despite the early hour, the crowd and the media had made them all impassable. But by the time we got close, the cops had opened a narrow corridor starting at Washington Square Park. I pulled in front of the SUV, slowing, letting the media and the crowd get an eyeful and an earful. The Harley announced us with that signature rumble, the pistons firing at uneven intervals due to the V arrangement of the cylinders, that specific Harley engine design that made me miss my bike more than ever.
Over the engine roar, I heard a lot of chatter about me, half-flattering, half-unflattering, and a lot of it salacious, but at least no one took a potshot at me. Or if they did, they missed.
The cops had commandeered an empty lot at Burgundy and Elysian Fields Avenue, and Eli and I pulled in, parked, and made our way to the makeshift stage only a few minutes before six a.m. Jodi met us there. She had freshened her makeup and combed her hair, but she looked tired, the kind of tired that came with a life of stress, bad food, scorched coffee, and impossible hours. She gave me a modified nod and indicated that I was to join her at a tent near the stage, which was a flatbed trailer with temporary stairs at the back.