Blood Trade

“Yes. And they won’t be taking her anywhere anytime soon.”

Gordon, a fair-haired, blue-eyed man wearing a dress shirt and dress pants under a tailored wool jacket, lifted his chin. “And why might that be?”

“Because by his symptoms,” Eli said, coming up behind me, “one lost about half his blood supply, and he won’t feel up to hunting anytime soon. Their transportation is still parked Under the Hill. And we have the boys’ weapons.” Instead of going to the hatch, which would have exposed the bloody pink shower curtain to the world, he opened the back passenger’s door and reached behind the seat to lift three shotguns, broken open so they wouldn’t fire, and four handguns, all of their magazines missing. “From the quality, I assume that these are your mother’s?” He handed over a shotgun, a rifle, and two handguns to Esmee’s son.

“Good lord. She’s gone bonkers.”

“No,” I said. “She’s just bored. When’s the last time you took her shooting or fishing or shopping?” I made it more of an accusation than a question, and followed it up with a left hook. “Big, fancy lawyer hands off his mother to the help and then wonders why she acts out? Spend some time with her other than holidays, and maybe she’ll stop.” I grabbed the vamp med kit that had somehow survived the hellish night and set it inside the house door.

“I’m not a practicing lawyer,” Gordon said. “I’m a judge.”

“That’s what you heard out of what I just said?”

Behind me, I could hear Eli’s soft laughter. “Still,” he said. “The lady has a point.”

“Humph,” I said, and thought, Lady? Me? I went back outside and met the vamps just getting out of the car that had followed us. I waved them back into their older-model Caddy, saying, “In back, in the garage. Eli, will you bring the car around?” Gordon stood on the front porch, looking nonplussed. I had the feeling he wasn’t used to being ignored in his mother’s home. I also had the feeling that he would have a lot to say about a vamp being kept caged in the garage, so I wasn’t going to tell him.

In minutes we were in the garage, the delivery vamps standing back, watching, as we worked to assemble the silver cage, which was bigger than the ones I’d seen in Leo’s city, bigger and woven with silver-tipped barbed wire. Ingenious and horrific, and the pointy bits had traces of dried blood on them that I could smell. I removed the silver chains in which I’d bound the injured vamp, and Eli tossed him inside. I locked the cage shut.

“He true-dead, he is,” one vamp said, sounding very Cajun. He was wearing a searing-bright lime green shirt, bright enough to reflect the moon. Big H’s vamps were nothing like Leo’s, style-wise. “Why you cage him?”

“No one wit’stand dat much silver,” the other one said, tucking his long blond hair back behind both ears. “Him come back rev’nat, two, tree day from now, you don’ take his head.”

“That’s the usual way,” I agreed. “But this fanghe— vamp is coming back alive. Or undead. Whatever. He’s healing.” I pointed to the fresh flesh on his ribs. “Half an hour ago, he didn’t have ribs. Now he has skin over a rib cage and organs inside it.”

The vamps leaned in and studied the prisoner. “Him smell wrong, he do,” Blondie said.

“Stink, he do,” Limey said. “Like smell of poison and rot in ground and blood magic. Like dem new vamps brought by dat de Allyon, what come and try to take over Hieronymus’ territory.”

“Different kind vamps, dey was,” Blondie said.

“Yeah,” I said. “About those different kinds of vamp. Did de Allyon actually come to Natchez himself, or did he send an intermediary?”

“Hem come,” Limey said, sounding disgusted.

Blondie snorted. “Hieronymus be sick wit dat vamp plague, or de Allyon not take over.”

“Hem and he humans go first to Hieronymus, invade his sleeping lair, place what should be secret but he know it,” Limey said, making sure I understood that it had been an inside job. “De Allyon come out in charge, big man, act like king wit he queens on he arms.”

“Den dey tell us Fame Vexatum is ended and humans is prey again, to take and drain and kill. Our priest say no, and de Allyon kill him.”

My ears perked up. Priest? But before I could ask, they went on, and because they were so chatty, I didn’t want to derail them with my curiosity.

“We call Leo Pellissier in New Orleans for help, we did,” Limey said. “And we wait.”

I opened my mouth and closed it fast. More hinky. Either the disloyal vamps in Leo’s camp hid the call for help or . . . or Leo refused it.

“De Allyon, hem bring twenty Naturaleza wit him,” Blondie said. “Twenty is like forty of us. Maybe sixty. Dey kill . . . Dey kill seventeen of us dat first day, true-dead.”

“And when Leo not answer, we go into hiding.” Limey spat to the side to show his disgust. It landed on the garage floor with a soft splat of loathing. “Politics is what dat was. Hem put politics before us.”

“How soon after de Allyon got here did you start noticing the difference in vamps?”

Blondie made a little chuffing sound, much like Beast might make, part laughter, part loathing. “Dem Naturaleza is faster, stronger than us. But they start to crawling like bugs, only later, after she join him.”

“She?”

Limey elbowed him. “Enough. I hear when Hieronymus tell her to call Clark. He tell her what she need to know.”

“Mmmm. You ask Clark,” Blondie said to me, “about dese vamps what scuttle like bugs and stink of dead earth.”

I had gotten a lot more from the vamps than I had expected, so I didn’t protest. Bumping the silvered cage with a toe, I said, “Smell or not, I’m hoping he’ll tell me what I need to know.” I frowned grimly and gestured the vamps out of Esmee’s garage. As they drove off, Eli and I headed to the kitchen, following the smell of steak. I wanted to sink my teeth into a thick juicy, bloody, rare one. I spotted Jameson in the back entry and heard him murmur as I passed, “Thank you, Miss Jane, for bringing her back.”

“Welcome, Jammie. Do I smell steak?”

“I have just now removed it from the grill, rare and cold in the center. And I promise not to spoil it with sauteed mushrooms or salad.”

“You’re a good man.”

Jameson held out robes, one to Eli, one to me, thick white, soft ones. “If you’ll give me your bloody leathers, I’ll see to it that they are properly cleaned.”

My brows went up. “Yeah? Cool.” I could get used to this. “No chemicals,” I warned, sliding out of the crusty jacket. “Not even mink oil. Vamps can smell it. I usually just rinse it off and wipe it down. The blood residue confuses future vamps and gives me an edge.” Eli looked at me curiously. “What?” I said.

He shook his head, dropped his jacket, and pulled down his pants zipper. I quickly faced away and pulled the robe over my shoulders before dropping my own leather pants. “The things you say,” Eli said, “and the things you think about. That’s all.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but I didn’t really care either. I smelled steak and my stomach rumbled. Beast purred. Food.

After I finished a hunk of beef worthy of a king, I showered off, pulled on warm clothes, and dialed Clark. He answered with a “Miss Yellowrock?”

“Got it in one. Is it true that you called Leo when de Allyon got here and he didn’t come?” The silence was long and chilled, and I realized it must have sounded like a verbal ambush with a damned-if-you-do and damned-if- you-don’t reply option, so I added, “Because if you called Leo, I’ll be looking into that for you.”

Clark expelled a breath. “Thank you. It would be—” He stopped and rephrased. “I would be happier if I knew that my master was safe and not still in great danger from politics.” He said the last word as if it was something vile, and it wasn’t like I could argue.

And then it hit me. “You’re wondering if I’m here to help or to harm Big H. Aren’t you?” His silence was my answer and was almost enough to make me cuss. I echoed his tone and said, “I hate politics. You understand, Clark? I’m here to fulfill my contract with your master. And keep him alive. And restore peace to this territory. That is all. On my honor.”

He breathed out again and said, softly, “Thank you.”