Cold Reign

  Liar, liar, pants on fire, I thought as their scents again changed. They were here to cause trouble at the very least. To start the war they denied at the very worst.

  “What further accommodations do your masters require, beyond that already agreed upon or in negotiation?” Del asked.

  “Information only,” the one on the left said.

  Del inclined her head, waiting.

  Leftie said, “Our master wishes to know how many Onorios Leo Pellissier has in New Orleans. How many Enforcers? And how many outclan priestesses?”

  “And if we disclose this information, will we be provided with the same information from among the full delegation of European Mithrans, now in U.S. waters, aboard the ship hidden beneath an obfuscation working? The ship from which you disembarked only hours past?”

  The speaker hesitated a fraction of second before saying, “Of course.”

  Liar, liar, pants on fire.

  Del smiled. It wasn’t a pretty smile, all warmth and welcome. It was a gotcha smile. Smoothly, she continued as if she hadn’t paused. “As well as from the Mithrans and Naturaleza hiding in Pellissier lands and drinking of Pellissier cattle? That is assuming that your masters still maintain control of all their Mithrans.”

  I tensed and a faint tremor of shock trailed through me. Del had just gambled, and that was unexpected. She had just informed them that we knew the boat was offshore and under a witch-working. But she was also claiming to know with a certainty that the entire European delegation was aboard. Which I was certain that we did not know. To make it worse, she had told them that we knew there were EVs already ashore, and claimed that the two groups could have split into factions, that the EVs in NOLA might be unaligned or working to separate ends. Which they could be. Or not. It was a dangerous and brilliant tactic. If the emissaries claimed the Deadly Duo were part of their group, they then laid claim to their successes, mistakes, and failures. If the emissaries denied the Deadly Duo and their cohorts, then that left the EVs in Leo’s hands and judgment. Last, she hinted that the vamps had been captured, which was total bluff. But the emissaries had no way to discern the truth of her claims in real time.

  Del tilted her head, smiling, waiting. Showing teeth.

  Following an uncomfortable length of time, Leftie said, “We speak for the Emperor Titus Flavius Vespasianus. No others.”

  Del’s expression didn’t change. The emissaries had just delivered any vamp on shore into Leo’s hands. She said, “Ah. So be it.”

  The two blood-servants bowed, turned, and walked away, back into the airlock. Or tried to. The glass didn’t open. Not right away. They stood there, backs to the small crowd. As stage exits went, this one was embarrassing. The doors slowly opened and they stepped through. The doors closed. And then Derek’s man made them wait. And wait. And wait for the outer doors to open. Backs to the room. Standing. Silent. They didn’t betray by so much as a twitch that they were unhappy with the waiting, but I bet myself that the airlock stank of irritation and maybe even a little fear.

  And then they were gone, the luxury car rolling smoothly out the drive.

  As soon as we were certain that the iron gate had closed behind them, Del turned to me. Instead of saying hi, she said, “Sabina is missing. I sent a contingent to the cemetery across the river, but there was no sign of her anywhere. No one has seen her, not since the attack here when Grégoire went missing.”

  “Someone sent for her to feed Leo when he was injured,” I said. “When did she go back to the cemetery?”

  “She couldn’t be found,” Del repeated. “She isn’t here. She isn’t at the cemetery.”

  Derek tapped his earpiece and said, “Alex just found video of a body being removed from HQ following the attack, two hours after Grégoire was taken. This one was removed by unknown humans during the time when we were healing Leo and securing the premises.”

  “Not so secure then,” someone from the back of the crowd muttered.

  Derek made a growl worthy of Beast.

  “Sabina was kidnapped. That’s why Macario and Gualterio asked the questions about Leo’s people,” I said, figuring it out.

  “They know we’ve lost her and Grégoire and Brandon and Brian. They were baiting us. Del baited them back. Nice con, by the way,” Derek said to Del. “But what did they gain by coming here?”

  Del was still grinning. She had been having fun, lawyer-style, with the kind of verbal repartee she had enjoyed before she became Leo’s primo and took over “protocol and political rubrics and other fusty duties,” Del’s words for boring crap.

  “Since they didn’t kill anyone, as a gambit, their coming here was pathetic,” Bruiser said, “and I’m not certain to what end.”

  I looked sidelong at Derek. “Did your men get the tracking device on the emissaries’ car?”

  He gave me a single thumb-up. “Three of them. Just in case. One of which is currently off but can be turned on remotely. We also uncovered the owner of the Daimler Straight Edge, a human named Josh Martin. His only connection to Mithrans was through his last name. His several-times-great-grandpapa was the founder of Clan Martin.”

  My mouth formed a silent O as that settled into my mind, and I drew all sorts of pieces together. Clan Martin was now defunct; Adrianna had once been part of that blood clan. And Adrianna was now defunct too. Which I hadn’t announced yet. For some reason I was keeping my mouth shut about the fact that I had her head in a cooler in my house. Gee would eventually tell, I was sure, but for now it could stay my own happy, bloody little secret.

  I wondered briefly about Leo’s long game. Vamps played chess with time, and Leo was usually a dozen moves in front of the other players. But these guys had been playing for centuries longer than he had been undead. I thought back, as far back as when I first appeared on the scene. “Leo let Gee come back to NOLA. Leo made palsey-walsey with weres, with the witches, and with arcenciels. And with me. What do Louis and Le Bâtard have?”

  “No witches except those they turned. No humans with magical powers or magical items,” Bruiser said. “No weres, to our knowledge. And if they have taken Sabina, they are likely having a difficult time holding her.” He sounded pleased at that prospect.

  And no one had said so, but the two also had a storm witch working for them. Or a faction of the European witches did.

  But how did we all fit together in Leo’s big plan? Did his plan include losing so many of his key people to the gang and revenant attack? Where did the European vamps have our missing people?

  Suddenly Bruiser laughed. “Well done,” he said to Del. “They now believe Leo to be two steps ahead of them. They believe that we have people have watching Le Bâtard and Louis Seven. They’ll abandon their allies, just in case. Even if there were no difficulties between the two groups, or a possible spilt, you created one.”

  Del looked as satisfied as Beast felt when she took down a boar.

  “That’s my girl,” Dacy said. The heir of Clan Shaddock had been silent until now, but she looked tickled at her daughter’s ploy. “And now, I’ve had too much sunlight. I’m for bed.” She turned and left the foyer, her boots clapping and the fringe on her jacket swinging.

  A blood-servant brought carafes of coffee and hot tea and set up a small serving table in the foyer. I accepted a cup and sipped the excellent tea, my mind shifting through threads of history and current events, through evidence, ideas, fanghead relationships, and conclusions. It was daunting.

  Bruiser pointed to the stairs, the gesture telling me he had Onorio things to do, and disappeared into the bowels of HQ to chat with Leo, who was old enough to be awake and watching the confab on the coms system but was still likely healing from the attack, the stabbing, the silver poisoning, and the loss of fingers. Eli and I took our usual SUV back to the house, my partner silent as he drove through the rain. The storm had let up again as an arm of the slowly swirling weather s
ystem passed us and New Orleans’ massive drainage system cleared the city of flood water.

  Traffic was at a crawl when Eli casually said, “Nice weather we’re having.”

  It wasn’t funny but I started laughing, too long and too unsteadily. “Yeah. We need the rain.”

  Eli smiled, the twitch of lips that meant he had relaxed. “Alex texted me that he found some more humans and vamps who came ashore. They came in from Lake Borgne through Bayou Bienvenue Central Wetlands in an air boat. Private surveillance cameras got some pretty clear shots for night cams.” He thumbed on his cell and handed it to me. He turned the wipers on high, trying to keep up with the increasing volume of rain. I checked the time and realized the rain was right on time. The magical storm had a specific and unrelenting pattern.

  I studied the vamps sneaking into the country without going through customs. In the best still shot, they looked very unhappy, maybe even a little seasick, which gave me a case of the cheerfuls. One female was wearing a tall wig, which she held in place with both hands. She was dressed in an old-fashioned ball gown with a hoop skirt and lots of ruffles. She was soaked through and looked weighted down by the wet fabric and soaked wig, which had tilted alarmingly to the left. If the airboat sank or she was tossed overboard, she’d sink like a stone. “Do vamps swim?” I asked.

  “Never asked. But this batch made it to shore fine,” Eli said

  “Sad, that. I’d like to see them tip over and Marie Antoinette sink like a stone. We got a name?”

  “Not Marie Antoinette but close. According to Alex it’s one of Marie Antoinette’s ladies-in-waiting, Marie Claudine Sylvie de Thiard de Bissy, Duchesse de Fitz-James.” Eli stumbled over the French, but it didn’t matter. I got the gist. “She died in 1812.”

  “Right now she looks like it. She never got over the royal fashion styles of her time,” I said. “Who’s the vamp dude?”

  “Charles the Second of Spain. He died the first time in 1700, childless. He’d probably been a vamp for years.”

  “Hmmm. He likes modern clothes and fancy suits. And the little female?”

  “Her name is Alesha Fonteneau. She’s so pale, I’d say she hasn’t been allowed to feed. Prisoner, most likely.”

  “Oh,” I murmured, liquid shock flooding through me. I knew that name. “The underfed vamp is Katie’s sister. She’s in trouble, a hostage.”

  “Do we need to go back to HQ?” Eli asked.

  “I think . . . not.” I quickly gave him a rundown on the paintings and Troll’s broken jaw, and sending him to be healed and read by Leo. It was evident we needed a long and detailed debriefing. Things were happening fast and we were not keeping up. Someone was gonna get hurt if I wasn’t careful. “By now, the MOC knows that Katie hid things from him and might be a spy in his court, willingly or not. That’s all MOC business, not Enforcer business,” I said. “So why did these vamps, in particular, come ashore?”

  “Don’t know.” Eli turned into our street. “But whatever it is it won’t make us happy.

  “Babe?” he added. “We got company.”

  I looked up from the cell and spotted two witches on our front porch. Lachish Dutillet and Bliss. I hadn’t seen either since the Witch Conclave and they looked good—or as well as soaking-wet women could. They were confronting two armed men on the stoop, two of Derek’s six-man security sextet. Unit. Whatever. The former military types had weapons drawn and the witches were retreating slowly, while drawing up power, one from the storm and one from the earth. This day would never freaking end.

  Eli pulled to a stop and I jumped out just as he lowered his window and let out a piercing whistle. I’d never heard him do that before, and I flinched. Fortunately he was looking away from me. The four near-combatants started too. Also fortunately, no one fired a weapon. No one died.

  “Idiots!” I yelled as I slogged through the rain and the standing water. “Stand down!”

  “We thought they had you captive,” Lachish called.

  I stomped my wet boots up to the porch. “I wish someone had me locked in my house, nice and dry and sleeping. Let’s take this inside. Boys, report to Derek. And get a list of people he thinks is okay to knock on my door.” I stopped. “Who fixed my door? It was busted in.”

  “That would be me, ma’am,” one of the guards said.

  I recognized him but didn’t remember his name, and he wasn’t wearing a name tag. “Wayne Mac something?”

  He smiled with real pleasure at being recognized. “Wayne McCalla, ma’am. Fixing the door was my pleasure.”

  “Nice work,” Eli said as he moved the door back and forth. It didn’t even squeak. The witches stepped in and Eli closed the door behind us.

  Inside, the DBs and puddles had been cleaned up, the house smelling like citrus instead of death. I hadn’t even thought about that when I opened the door. I held in a grin at the imagined expressions on the witches’ faces.

  Alex had placed towels and bathroom rugs all over the foyer, along with a metal rack that was usually in the laundry, used by Eli to hang his clothes when he ironed. In a basket were towels, blankets, socks, and robes. Smart boy. I’d have to give him pizza. I pulled off everything I could while maintaining some form of decency and wrapped up in my robe. The two witches stood and watched me. As I dressed I asked, “What can the Enforcer of the Master of the City do for the witches of New Orleans?”

  “We’ve never seen such a storm,” Lachish said.

  “Cold,” Bliss added.

  “Uh-huh. I smell tea. Want some?”

  “No,” Lachish said. “I tried your cell phone. I e-mailed. Your cell’s out of order or no longer in use and you haven’t answered e-mail.”

  I chuckled, chucked my shoes and wet socks, and pulled on dry, warm, wool socks. “Little busy. And I’ve lost two cells this week already.”

  “New record?” Lachish asked.

  I laughed harder and stood upright. Lachish looked like normal, gray-haired and a little stout, a woman who dressed to look more matronly than she had to. She had a dry sense of humor and depths I hadn’t taken the time to explore or learn.

  Bliss looked good, if good meant beautiful—Sleeping Beauty, with white skin, black hair, and witch energy that softened her even more. She looked like a victim and maybe she had been one once, but she was nowhere near prey, now that she had begun to learn how to use her magic. The little witch seemed to glow.

  I knew that the local witches were in danger because of the EuroVamps. Would the fangheads try to turn them? Kill them outright? Kidnap them? I realized that I had been staring too long and asked, “You okay? The local witches okay?”

  “You mean since the European vampires started coming ashore in small groups and casting storm magic?” Lachish asked, annoyed. “You didn’t think to call us? Ask us for help?”

  “Ummm.” Not really. And that was stupid.

  “For a very bright woman you do tend to overlook your assets,” Lachish said. “Too much the loner for too long.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. “Come in to the kitchen? Have some tea?” I repeated.

  “Thank you, no. We’re here with witch gossip.”

  I had learned that gossip in the Deep South was a thing. A very important thing. A newspaper society-column-innuendo thing. So witches here with gossip-mill info shouldn’t be surprising, but that they’d offer it without the social niceties was. Normally, gossip was shared over tea and coffee, maybe some coffeecake or beignets. The fact that they were bypassing propriety meant the info was important and they were in a hurry.

  I guessed. “You’re here to tell me that a vamp-witch on board a ship in Lake Borgne is bringing in the storm.”

  She looked mildly impressed and then spoiled it with her next word. “No. The storm and the riots are being generated and controlled by an unknown witch on land, not on ship. We’ve managed to locate her general vicinity,
near the Lafitte Greenway Trail.”

  That was where the car used to transport Grégoire had been left. I had assumed that the kidnappers had taken him far away when they changed vehicles, but what if they had just driven around the block a few times? What if they were keeping him hidden right under our noses? “Do you have any idea who it is?”

  “Not one.”

  “What if it’s a male witch?”

  Lachish took a towel from the basket and handed one to Bliss, perhaps deciding that if she was going to stand inside she might as well not drip. “Your question and your expression suggest that you know more than we supposed,” she said with asperity. As if blaming me for her inconvenience in coming here, in the rain, and getting wet.

  “I don’t know much, except a witch-vamp named Adan Bouvier was once strong enough to cast storms. He left for France a long time ago. He might be back.”

  “Another male witch,” Lachish murmured. “And he’s a vampire?”

  I almost asked who the other males were, but now was not the time. “Yes. He’s old. Like centuries. Like from before the vamps killed off all the European witches, back when the EuroVamps were turning them instead.”

  Eli was standing wrapped in a robe and looked like candy on a stick, if the look in Bliss’ eyes was any indication. He asked, “Is there any way to tell if the witch is storm-making by choice?” When Lachish looked at him blankly he said, “He could be a prisoner.”

  Lachish shrugged and rubbed her head with the towel. When she came out from under it, her hair was a wiry cloud, but she looked more cheery. She said, “I’m not sure. I’ll ask my coven. Either way, the storm’s not abating and it’s creating a storm surge. The pump system was improved and updated after Katrina, but it’s not up to a prolonged surge. We think the witch is somewhere near here.” She pulled a sealed plastic bag from her pocket and handed it to me. Inside was a scrap of a map of New Orleans with a red circle around one area. Alex took it out of my hand before I could get a good look and started tapping on a tablet, doing his electronic wizard thingy. I hadn’t even noticed him standing in the doorway.