Rosanne made a very Italian gesture, a slow throwing of her fingers, as if the subject was unimportant. “I was offered a Blood Challenge. I did not contest it. I have a master now.” She shook her head, and with the movements, her sick scent floated into the room. “It has been long since I was . . . mastered. It was difficult at first. But he has left me in control of my own hunting grounds. He has made me his heir of this land.”
This part was the tricky part. To mention her diseased state might be considered insulting. I’d been warned that if I was attacked after entering and being welcomed, it would be when I brought up the obvious. But she had mentioned Leo’s illness, so maybe I had some leeway there too. “Leo is concerned that his old friend is not recovering as quickly as she should.”
The tendrils of tension wrapped around me like the prickly webs of a spider, close and sticking. “I have been sent a treatment by my new master. However, there is only one, and I may not drink as often as I need.”
I thought about that for a moment until I found the translation. The new master had sent her blood-servant or – slave who had the “treatment” in his blood, but if she drank too much he’d die. She had a human drug, a human antibiotic factory to feed on. She was getting enough to keep her alive, but not enough to heal totally. Talk about a way to control your subordinates. Her new master had probably been the one to make her sick and now only he had the power to heal, or at least to keep her alive. No way was she going to thwart him. “And his name?” I asked. When Rosanne didn’t respond, I clarified, “The name of your new master?”
“I may not answer.”
Without turning my head, I glanced at Nikki. His face was closed, as unyielding as a marble statue. No answer there either.
Ro chuckled, almost as if she had heard my thoughts. Vamps are as adept as any predator at reading body language and interpreting vocal tones as cues, so maybe in a way she had. “Do you know how you were infected?” I asked. “Is the disease associated with your new boss?”
Ro said nothing, but Nikki laughed, and the tone was not happy. “This illness is a scourge upon all of us.”
Which I took as a yes, but that didn’t really help me much. From my memory, I pulled up the formal words for my next request—which was the primary reason for my visit, and the biggest reason I might not walk out of here under my own power. “The Master of the City of New Orleans,” which was Leo’s less formal title, “has dependable and confidential physicians in his employ who might assist with finding a cure. He requests . . .” I took a steadying breath. This was the most dangerous part. “. . . that you allow me to draw a sample of your blood for testing.”
Nikki stepped toward me, vamp fast. I stepped back, toward the door.
On reflex, I ducked right, backed into the corner of the room, pulled the nine-mil and a vamp-killer, the one I’d killed the blood-slave with. I knew the vamps would smell the fresh blood, even after the thorough cleaning I’d given the blade in the ladies’ room.
Nikki-Babe followed so fast I didn’t see him move. He was so close I could smell who he’d had for dinner. I heard the distinctive click of fangs snicking down on the little hinged mechanism in the roof of his mouth. In a single heartbeat, his eyes vamped out. “Pellissier must still be caught in the dolore of grief to ask such a thing,” he said, black pupils the size of quarters spreading into bloodred sclera. “He is insane still, from the loss of his son.” No trace of white or iris remained in Nikki’s eyes, and no trace of humanity. This was going to hell in a handbasket fast.
I shoved the gun up under Nikki’s chin. “Silver shot,” I warned, on a whisper. He stilled, his eyes twisting back to Rosanne. “Look, lady,” I said to her, “I don’t want trouble. Leo just wants to help. Girrard DiMercy is back with him, and Leo is sane again.”
Ro lifted a hand. The pressure in the room died. “Girrard has returned to him?”
“Yes, and Leo thinks his private lab can find a cure to the sickness.”
She thought about that for a moment. “You know how to do this taking of blood?” I nodded. “You may.” Nikki-Babe started in with a barrage of oddly accented Italian, clearly disagreeing with her decision, but I ignored him. According to the Vampira Carta, she was in charge. I slid away from Nik, keeping him in my side vision, and stepped to the desk. Ro rolled up her sleeve. Oh, goody. I wasn’t gonna get sucked to death.
I holstered the weapons and opened the small tote, taking out the blood drawing kit. I wasn’t skilled at taking blood, but I knew how to do it. I pulled on gloves and tied the tourniquet around Rosanne’s arm. The pustules were here as well, and the smell of the sickness was gag-inducingly strong this close to her. There was a vein right in the middle of her arm, slightly plumped by the tourniquet. I cleaned the bottles and tubes, each with different-colored tops and containing different anticoagulants, with alcohol, and then the sticking site with foamy brown soap and Betadine. I pulled the cap from the needle and stuck the sharp needle under her skin. She didn’t flinch, though I wasn’t experienced with the procedure. If it had been a stake, maybe then . . .
I stifled the thought and pushed the first bottle on, then the next, then four more tubes in succession. When I was done, I popped the tourniquet. Put a square of gauze above the insertion site and removed the needle. Flipped the safety cap closed.
I met Ro’s calm eyes, and she smiled slowly, tilting her head the barest fraction. The expression on her face suggested that she had accomplished a goal, and I was reminded of the photo that arrived at Leo’s from an anonymous source. Yeah. Ro had sent the photo and had known that Leo would send help. She might have preferred an armed rescue, but she trusted Leo or she wouldn’t have allowed me to draw the blood. Vamps were sneaky. I liked that about them. I nodded back slightly to show I understood.
I held the site while I dropped the torn packages, the bottles, and tubes into a zip-lock baggie and sealed it up. I was supposed to label the tubes with name, date, and time, but that could wait. I was ready to get out of here and so was Beast. I could feel her unease padding through my mind like a lion in a cage, back and forth, back and forth.
Chilled moisture soaked my thumb and I glanced at the puncture site to see blood oozing up from beneath my grip. I grabbed more gauze, applied it, and held harder, but the blood welled faster. Vamps don’t bleed. Not like this. “Crap,” I whispered.
Nik pushed me aside and took Rosanne’s arm. And he did something I’d never seen a vamp do before. Instead of licking it clean, he wiped the puncture site, tossing the bloody gauze into the garbage. A vamp ignored blood. Didn’t lick it. And then he spat onto the wound. I almost said
Vampire saliva closes wounds, causing the veins and skin to contract and constrict. It’s usually applied with a tongue laving. This was weird. Okay. This gig was making me rethink everything I thought I knew about vamps, and I had been on a steep learning curve ever since I hit New Orleans.
The tiny wound stopped bleeding. Nikki-Babe looked at me and I nodded my thanks. “I’ll be going now,” I said.
“I don’t think so,” a voice said behind me. I turned and saw a man, human—or as human as the fangheads’ dinners ever are. I knew this guy wasn’t one of Ro’s usual blood-servants; even if I hadn’t been able to smell the new master on him, he wasn’t in the dossier. He was maybe seventy years old, looked twenty-five, and was powerful—meaning that he had fed on the blood of a master for a very long time. Bald, six feet and a smidge, blue eyes, reddish beard needing a trim, casual clothes, shirt half-tucked, as if he’d dressed and gotten here in a hurry. He was a righty.
And he had a gun pointed at my chest.
CHAPTER THREE
I Started to Squeeze the Trigger
Holding his eyes, I slid the tote strap around my shoulders, shoved it back out of the way, and walked straight toward him. Keeping loose. Letting Beast bleed into my bloodstream and into my eyes. My heart rate sped
