Death's Rival

“Well, crap.” Why couldn’t it be just one? “If I stand down are you gonna shoot me?”

Chi-Chi barked a laugh, the humor not affecting his aim in the slightest. “I might.”

Great. “I have a problem with trust when the other guy is armed.”

“Don’t we all?”

We could stand here all night. And Bruiser could die. Hoping I wasn’t being stupid, I raised the weapon, removed the magazine, and unchambered the round. I stepped back. Chi-Chi shrugged, not easy to do while lying on the floor, and sat straight up. Still using mostly his abs, he rolled to his feet, proving he had stayed in top shape after finishing active duty with the marines. Lastly, he holstered his sidearm. “What entry?” he demanded. I pointed at the kitchen, and, keeping me in his field of vision, he walked through my house as I followed. He knelt and inspected the door, swinging it open and closed. He grunted, “One kick. Size eleven or twelve. Smooth soled, so not wearing boots. All our guys are in boots tonight.”

“I knew it wasn’t one of your guys.” I almost added, It was a stranger’s smell, but didn’t. Go, me. I didn’t respond to his odd look either, after my comment about trust problems. What else could I have meant, right? “There may be a security leak in Leo’s chain of command, and it puts Bruiser in danger. He knows who drank from Leo, and therefore which vamps are loyal to Leo and can be eliminated from the short list of potential suspects. The ones who didn’t drink from the MOC may be involved in the attack. Go keep the primo alive.”

Chi-Chi raised a single brow. There were three shaved lines in it, giving the brow a jagged look, like a lightning strike. The look said that he wasn’t in my chain of command and didn’t take orders from me. I thought about that, and about the fact that one of Derek’s men might be the traitor. But who better to guard Bruiser than someone who wanted to keep his lack of loyalty hidden? I pursed my lips and added, “Please.”

Chi-Chi laughed again, the odd bark of sound. “You have trouble with that word.”

“How long have you known the Vodka Boys and the new men in Derek’s Tequila Posse?”

“Posse? Nobody says posse no more. We been together off and on for as much as nine years, most of us.”

“Any of you have bad financial trouble?”

His face hardened in the moonlight. “You calling one of us a traitor?”

“Not beyond the realm of possibility. Is it.” It wasn’t a question. The job market in New Orleans sucked. Chi- Chi walked back to the front of the house and out the open door. Without a reply, he disappeared into the shadows, silent as a cat. Drawing my gun, I reinserted the round from my pocket into the magazine, snapped it home, and chambered a round. I stepped into the shadow beside the door, feeling it close behind Chi-Chi.

“Your security sucks,” a new voice said.

Lips tightly closed, I smiled and crouched low to the floor, pointed my weapon in the direction of the voice. I had smelled him as he entered, a clean but musky undertone that was natural to him. Not my thief. But maybe there was more than one. I could start firing and hope to hit him, or I could chat a bit. Chatting sounded safer. “Unscented deodorant, no cologne, unscented shampoo, and a body odor that says you shower often,” I said. “You carry at least three weapons, all recently cleaned with an aerosol lubricant. Dry lubricant is better. It doesn’t leave such a strong scent.”

“Most people can’t smell lubricants after an hour or so.”

I adjusted my aim a fraction. “I’m not most people.”

“Sergeant Lee said that much.”

My insides clenched. Derek sent him? To take me out? “What else did he say?”

“You probably aren’t human. You pay well. You need security experts—weapons, tactics, intelligence, and electronics. I’m looking for a crew to join, but if the security of this place is any indication, you aren’t what I’m looking for.”

“Not my house. You got a name?”

“Younger. Eli.”

“Training?”

“Courtesy of the U.S. military.”

“Ranger?”

“Is this a job interview?”

I thought about that. I had asked Derek for some guys of my own. He said he knew someone, but if he’d given me a name I didn’t remember it. “Could be. How many knives do you carry? Silver blades? Stakes? Crosses?”

“In this town? Unknown territory, full of vamps? I opted for two of each. And I like steel—keeps an edge better than silver.”

“Silver plating on the flat of a steel blade poisons vamps, so if you didn’t get them with the first cut, they get sick, sometimes fast. I usually carry thirteen stakes and at least one cross, silver, in a lead-lined pocket. That way if a vamp surprises me, it won’t give away my location when it glows.”

“Hmmm.”

I had a feeling I had made a point, and that his cross was on his neck on a chain for all the world to see. “Silver is expensive,” he said, sounding grudging.

“So is dying. You work for me, I’ll supply the silver.”

I could practically hear him thinking. Even more grudgingly, he asked, “About this place?”

“Looks like I’ll be staying for a while.” I surprised myself with the words. I hadn’t intended to say them. Not ever. “You can handle the upgrade. Leo Pellissier or Katie Fonteneau can pay for it.”

He named a price that made me wince. “That’s for the first month, for two of us, my brother and me. Room and board is included in the price, along with a few upgrades on the house—easily secured windows, better doors, and a security system.”

“I don’t cook.”

“I do. But you buy the food.”

I took one hand off the weapon and reached up. Flipped on the light. Younger and I were aiming directly at each other, except his aim was a little high. Above my head. I chuckled softly. Eli frowned.

CHAPTER NINE If I Lose, the Kid Eats Like a Soldier

Eli Younger was my height, give or take an inch, solid as an oak, fast on his feet, maybe mid-thirties, and not what I expected at all. All Derek’s men were black and former marines. The Ranger was probably at least half white, and . . . Different was too ordinary a word. He had dark gray eyes that might have a blue haze to them in direct sunlight, dark hair cut military short, skin as brown as mine, and a still-healing, jagged scar that started at his left jaw and ran down his neck to disappear into his shirt collar. It didn’t look like a knife wound. Shrapnel, maybe. No tattoos that I could see.

I took a beer from the fridge and passed it across to him. Eli grinned at the fridge, twisted off the top, and drank. I was pretty sure he was smiling because the inside light no longer functioned. Security. Or maybe it was the stack of steaks inside. He seemed like a man who’d like steak.

I prepared tea for me, boiling water, pouring dried leaves into a strainer. Setting an antique pot in the sink and filling it with hot tap water to temper the old ceramic. We studied each other as we worked—him on his beer, me on my tea. I was tired, so I chose a strong Irish breakfast blend and got out the sugar. I worked in silence. It didn’t seem to bother him, which was nice. I never knew what to say to men who needed chitchat. While the water heated, I sat and said, “Tell me about your brother.”

His eyes shifted for a moment, and I figured I was about to get a portion of the truth. “Alex is my height, just turned eighteen, a graduate from MIT. He’s on juvie probation, but if you hire me, you hire him. We’re a team.” I thought about that for a moment, then nodded, waiting for more. “He got caught hacking into the Pentagon.” A smile pulled at my lips and about a hundred emotions flitted across Eli’s face before he settled on wry. “Yeah. He wants to know what happened.” Eli touched his scar. “He hates secrets. I wouldn’t talk, so he tried hacking in,