Death's Rival

as her adrenaline pumped into my body. His blue eyes widened. Beast-fast, I swerved right, forcing him to move cross-hand. And back left, into his personal space. I body-slammed him. Hard. Hooked his ankle as he shifted and shoved.

The gun went off. Wild shot. Toward the ceiling. I caught his gun hand, flipped him, and landed one knee in the middle of his spine with all my weight. Took his gun away while he tried to remember how to breathe. Banged his head on the floor so hard he had to see stars.

Fun, Beast thought. More!

The shadow over me shifted. I lifted my eyes. Nikki-Babe was standing over me, still vamped out, blocking the light. Fangs latched down, claws out, waiting. If I really tried to hurt the stranger, he’d kill me, and I didn’t know why. Ignoring the looming shadow, I leaned in and sniffed. Blue Eyes smelled of witchy-power, not his own, but something he had obtained from a powerful witch or coven—probably an amulet of some sort. The witchy stench nearly overrode the blood-signature scent of his master, but not quite. It was a vamp-scent I recognized. The undertang made me hesitate, but only for a moment. For now the amulet was more important. Whatever spell he had was underneath him, inactivated, and I had better keep it that way. I pulled his arms back and secured them with a zip strip. Then added three more strips. He was a blood-servant to someone very powerful, with a witchy charm on his person. I wasn’t taking chances.

I flipped him over, slamming his head against the marble floor. He grunted.

“Have a care with our guest,” Nikki said, his mouth near my ear. The last word was nearly spitting, as if he would have used another, less kind and less hospitable term. Curiouser and curiouser.

“I’m taking care,” I said, my voice flat. I fished in Blue Eyes’ pocket and pulled out a pocket watch. It was neither old nor new, cheap nor expensive. It was something no one would ever notice twice, but it was charmed. I sniffed the amulet, and the magics smelled like blood. Like meat. Weird. I tucked it into my lead-lined pocket with the silver cross while Blue Eyes was still disoriented, and patted him down. I searched for wallet, ID, or a cell, but he was clean. Figures.

I leaned in again. Now he smelled only of his master. A close perusal of the blood-signature proved that the master wasn’t someone I knew, not someone I had ever met, but I had killed a blood-servant belonging to the vamp recently. In Asheville, when I’d been attacked in my hotel room. Once again, everything went back to Asheville and I didn’t know why. Beast didn’t have the olfactory memory of a bloodhound, but she was no slouch either. She remembered this scent, though it was much stronger than the last time she had scented it. It was peaty and spicy and, oddly, a little beery. The servant also had a funky chemical top-note, acrid and clear as a desert sky, in Beast’s synesthesia. A nonguest in the house of a deposed master . . .

I put it all together and looked over at Rosanne. She was leaning her weight on her elbows on her desk, as if it took all her strength to hold herself upright. “This is your treatment, isn’t it? You suck on him and his blood fights the disease in you. Kill him and you die.” When no one disputed my claim, I looked up. “Back off, Nikki-Babe. I’m not gonna kill your mistress’ antibiotic.”

Nik took a single step back but didn’t let his eyes bleed back to human. I grabbed Blue Eyes’ head and banged it against the floor again. Leaped to my feet before Nik could react. Shrugged. “Didn’t say I wasn’t gonna hurt him a little. I want him out until I’m ready to go. Is he the only one for Ro to feed on?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “And he is not enough.”

“And he’s to call his master at prearranged times,” I said, “to let his boss know everything is okay here, right?” When she nodded again, moving as if her neck and head hurt, I asked, “Are you going to be able to handle this—my being here and knocking your new boy around—or do you need backup?”

“We will be fine,” she whispered. She sounded certain, unwavering, and maybe it was just her trying to get rid of me, but I nodded.

“Okay. I’m gone. If you change your mind and need help—”

“We need nothing from you,” Nik said through his fangs.

I looked him over, thinking, You let your mistress get defeated in a Blood Challenge. And now someone else has to fix your screwup. Seems to me you needed something, Nikki-Babe. But I didn’t say it. If I had given in to temptation, I’d have had another fight on my hands and I’d done enough for one night.

I walked between the score of blood-servants and clan-vamps and out the front door. The night smelled wonderful here. Huge and free and heated. Beast wanted to hunt, but even she wanted to get down off this cliff first. I got in the car and fished out the key, drove down the drive and out through the soundless gate. Following the GPS directions, I made it back to Sedona proper without incident and pulled in next to a FedEx drop box. I labeled the blood tubes and bottles, wrapped them in bubble wrap, taped them up, boxed them, added more tape, and affixed Leo’s mailing label to the front. There were laws about putting biohazardous materials through the mail, and I was breaking all of them, which is why I used Leo’s address as both return and sender. If my plane crashed, at least the blood wouldn’t go down with me. I dropped the blood into the drop box and heard it hit other packages with a soft, slithering thump.

I texted my ETA to the pilot, with the question “Can we use current plane?” at the bottom. With the police involved, Leo’s personal jet might be grounded. Unless Leo pulled strings, I might be getting on a charter. Satisfied, I whirled the steering wheel and pulled back onto the road. Following the directions of the GPS voice, I headed back to the airport. The pilot texted back a succinct “Yes,” which I read before tossing the phone into the passenger seat.

My primary mission was accomplished, which meant a nice fee would be electronically deposited into my account as soon as Leo got the package. Mentally, I calculated my payment for the travel part of this gig. I was getting a base fee for each visit, travel pay, hazard pay, and I was getting a bonus for each sick vamp who let me bleed him or her. A very nice bonus, because vamps didn’t give up their blood to anyone who wasn’t family, scion, servant, master, or slave. Never. Now if it was just as easy to get a sample from the Seattle MOC, I’d be set.

Behind me down the road, headlights pulled onto my street. I took note of their shape and the outline of the car they were attached to. GMC sedan. Another car moved parallel to mine one street over, which could be a standard tailing procedure, but when I turned right at the next intersection, the cars didn’t follow. They pulled on past and disappeared. I didn’t know Sedona at all, but maybe they were just leaving a club. Or getting off work somewhere on the night shift.

It was long after midnight when I dialed Leo’s number, but it’s never too late to call a vamp. Bruiser answered, his voice like a long, low caress. “Jane.”

I couldn’t help my smile. Or Beast’s inner purr. Beast likes Bruiser—George Dumas—and though my cat had been oddly quiescent, she always paid attention to Bruiser. He was Leo Pellissier’s right-hand blood-meal, and arguably the most powerful nonvamp in New Orleans. He probably had more political clout than the governor and he definitely had better looks and charisma than any purely human politician.

I opened my mouth to say, “I have a report.” What came out was “Hi.” And a soft, sexy-sounding “Hi,” at that. I clamped my mouth shut. Bruiser chuckled at my tone, that secure, masculine laugh men get when they know a woman is interested. Which ticked me off.

Two months ago, I had lost my first boyfriend since my early twenties and I was not in the market for another. Especially one who was bound to a vamp for his very existence. Blood-servants like Bruiser must have drops and sips of vamp blood on a regular basis to keep their vamp-blood-induced extended-youth thing going. I was not taking second place behind Leo. So even though Bruiser was sex on a stick, he was not going to be mine.

Mine, Beast murmured.

I firmed my tone and said, “I have a report.”

I could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “Go ahead.”

I talked for twenty minutes as I drove out of the city, toward the stark country of red hills, cliffs, bluffs, and buttes, detailing everything that had happened. The sky was black overhead as I drove, too big, too dark, with too many stars. Beast liked it. Sedona was a pale glow, like a halo on the horizon. I finished with “Ro wouldn’t name her new master. She looks and smells sick. She’s covered in pustules. She’s bleeding from her nose, and when I took her blood—”

“You obtained her blood?”