Death's Rival

door in cardboard and shrink-wrap leaning against the wall. I hadn’t even noticed it until he pointed it out—there was too much other destruction. “Then I cover it with a hinged bookcase. It’ll do in a pinch, especially as it has an escape hatch.” He peered into the hole in the floor. It was framed with wood and was wide enough to admit a skinny person. Me. Or a vamp. They were always skinny.

I evaluated the Ranger. He would have a harder time fitting through unless he could knock a shoulder out of joint. Some people could, but it hurt for a long time after. His clothes were tighter today, revealing broad shoulders and a tapering waist, narrow hips and sleek butt in jeans and army-beige tee. Likely six-pack abs if he took off his shirt. I shook my head and then chuckled at the thought of Leo’s face if I barged into his lair in the middle of the day. Or if I had survived his aborted attempt to burn me out by hiding in his own lair. The MOC would not have been amused.

Eli asked, “Something funny?” I shook my head but let my grin stay in place as I moved farther into the safe room to peer over his shoulder, licking egg off my fingers. Below the opening in the floor was damp earth covered with water-beaded plastic. “The passageway comes out in two places,” he said, “under the side porch, and at the back of the house. I’ve already been to Katie’s to check out the hidden room under her stairs and start renovating, but Tom suggested that I not work on it today. It might be inhabited.”

I nodded. Inhabited. Right. Multiple vamps had been at Katie’s and they would need a safe place to sleep by day.

“I’ll check it out tonight,” he said. “For now, I’ll finish off the wall repairs and buy a hinged bookcase. We can store the ordnance here. You got any books to put on the shelves?” I figured he meant something other than Tactical Weapons Magazine and Gun Digest, and shook my head again. “You don’t talk much, do you?” He was turned away, but I could hear the laughter in his voice when he added, “I like that in a woman.” Before I could think of a snarky reply he added, “I’ll pick up some books at a secondhand bookstore today.”

Since I had been identified as a woman of few words, I just shrugged and went back to the eggs. They were pretty good with salt. I put on tea, and was cracking and salting my fourth when Stinky-Boy said, “I got something.” He looked up, and when I didn’t look impressed, he grinned. “I got you a history, and I found it before Reach did.”

I dropped the shell into the garbage and leaned over his shoulder, reading the file as I chewed and swallowed the egg. “What is Greyson Labs?”

The kid grinned up at me. “It’s the company that paid the salary of Ramondo Pitri, the man you killed in Asheville.”

I stopped chewing, and said, “And you figured this out how?”

“I tracked down Pitri’s bank records and got a look at his pay stubs. Greyson designs cancer-fighting drugs.” He was grinning ear to ear and it was an amazing piece of detective work, but it wasn’t much on its own.

“So, is this laboratory tied in to the mob?” Pitri had known New York mob affiliations, with one of the major families there. “Or into the vamps in some way? And how did you . . . You didn’t hack into a bank, did you?”

Eli went nearly as still as a vamp. The kid just grinned, and I felt a rubbery dismay waggle down my neck. When he saw our reactions, he laughed. “No. I didn’t hack a bank. I could if I wanted to, but it was a lot easier than that.” Eli remembered to breathe and I shook my head. “Pitri had a few contacts on social media,” Alex said, “and I tracked him through them. I’m tracking Greyson on the international financial markets now, but it’s a little slippery. If we can find the top shareholder or owner of the company, we might have your big, bad disease-producing vamp.”

“I’ll need more than a possibility and a name to take to Leo, and way more than a possibility to act,” I said.

“I’ll get more and put all current info into a report for you. It’ll be ready by lunch and I’ll update it as I find new intel.” He looked at his brother. “There will be lunch, right? Not just eggs?”

“Protein,” Eli grunted. When he did, the iron-hard six-pack abs flexed, visible behind the sweaty tee. Wall dust filtered off him. I considered whether he’d end up with a nickname. Most people of my acquaintance got nicknames, but nothing fit yet. Alex was still in contention for Stinky-Boy, but Kid was slowly migrating to the top of the list.

“I’ll pick up steak,” I said.

Eli grunted approval, and I figured that grunts made up about seventy percent of the brothers’ communication skills. The Kid shook his head. “Pizza? Pasta? A can of Chef Boyardee ravioli?” he asked. When neither of us bit, he sighed and went back to his electronic search. Moments later the printer started. I left the house on my bastard Harley, Bitsa, and picked up groceries. Steak, salad stuff, oatmeal, beer, milk, picked out a national brand of coffee, and a couple of cans of ravioli for the Kid. If he took a shower without me asking again, he got a treat. I figured it might be a lot like training a dog, but I knew next to nothing about raising boys, and what scant knowledge I did have was gleaned from children’s home kids who thrived on rebellion, so maybe I was oversimplifying. I tucked the food into the saddlebags and bungee-corded the beer to the seat for the ride back to the house.

Riding slowly, I rested my bones and my mind, feeling the stress of the last few days in the tightness of my muscles and knowing the next few days might get worse. We had a company name that might— might—be connected to the attacks.

Which made me think of Bruiser. No one had called to tell me how he was. Worried about him, about his humanity, I dialed his number, and was shunted to voice mail. “Hey, uh, you know. Um. If you’re alive, uh, call me.” I looked at the screen and said, “It’s Jane.” I closed the phone, thinking, Lame. I am so lame.

* * *

It was four p.m. when I got back to the house, and upper-eighties, but it’s always hot in New Orleans. It was November and it still felt like summer. Though locals had assured me that it gets cold in the winter, I’d yet to see any season but hot, so I didn’t really believe it. Muggy, damp, and miserable, yes; cold, no. I kicked off my shoes and unpacked the groceries, to the happy sound of shower water running upstairs. When the water went off, I nuked a bowl of ravioli and met the Kid at the bottom of the stairs with the food and an ice-cold Coke. His hair was dripping, he smelled like fruity shampoo, and his clothes were clean. From the crushed-in wrinkles, I was sure they had been balled up in the bottom of a rucksack, not folded. Not ever. He took the bowl of tomatoey pasta with the kind of awe and half fear boys usually reserve for the latest video game or smuggled-in porn. He held the warm bowl in both hands, looking around for his brother, pure guilt on his face.

“Here’s the deal,” I said softly. “You take a shower every day, you get treats. I’ll deal with your bother on the fallout. But if you stink, I’ll call you Stinky-Boy to your face and let your brother feed you.”

“His welfare is my responsibility,” a voice said from upstairs.

I pulled a spoon from my pocket, shoved it into the ravioli, and jerked my head to the kitchen. The Kid took off like he’d been spanked and I looked up the stairs to the man at the top. Eli had showered too, and he was bare-chested. His scar went from his jaw, down his neck, across his collarbone in a starburst pattern that looked like it had shattered the bone, and down to his pec. He was wearing five-button jeans so worn that I could see the sheen of skin through the faded cloth. No shirt. He was ripped, arms like steel cables and a stomach I could have danced on. I managed to swallow, hid my appreciation, and leaned a hip against the banister to watch him. He watched back. But he didn’t like it that I didn’t talk much, so I let the silence build. When his jaw gave a frustrated twitch I said, “He’s eighteen.”

“He’s on probation. Under my supervision.”

I thought about that for a moment while he watched me. “My sensei’s dojo is a few streets over,” I said. “Let’s go. We’ll spar. Winner decides if the Kid gets ravioli and other treats for keeping clean.”

Eli laughed, an amused-at-the-little-woman, self-satisfied huff that said volumes. I let a smile lift one corner of my lips. He disappeared and was back in half a breath, pulling on a T-shirt and flip-flops. My clothes were loose enough, so I just grabbed sandals and led the way out into the heat while braiding my hair fighting tight, twisting it into a queue that would be hard to grab. Eli watched my motions from the corner of his eye as I removed a handle he might have levered to bring me down.

My sensei was a hapkido black belt, second dan, with a black belt in tae kwon do and a third black belt in combat tai chi, though he hadn’t competed in years. He thought competition was for sissies and martial arts were for fighting and killing. His style was perfect for me, because I studied mixed disciplines and had never gone for any belt. I trained to stay alive, an aggressive amalgam of styles, geared to the fast and total annihilation of an