sumptuous. We checked the placement of eyes and muscle: one across the street watching the small crowd of protestors and the front door; two in the lobby where they could see the door, elevators, stairs, restaurant, and front desk; Wrassler was in the hall outside the suite. At ten to midnight, Grégoire left his bedroom and came into the common room. He looked relaxed, languid, and so beautiful he would melt the heart of a demon. No wonder Leo and he had gotten friendly. Grégoire was dressed down tonight, in pants and vest the color of port wine and a white silk shirt. He sat on the couch and crossed his legs. Okay, I got it. The formal parts of the parley were over. Now they were into the brass-tacks part.
The twins took position at the window and door where they wouldn’t hit each other with crossfire, but unless they were good shots, they might hit Wrassler through the door. I tapped my mike and told him to reposition.
Minutes passed. At twelve thirty, Lincoln Shaddock was half an hour late, a pretty dang big insult to Leo’s representative unless there was a bigger problem than I knew. I caught Derek’s eye and gave a minuscule head jerk, excused myself and stepped into the hallway, Derek on my heels. Into the mike I asked, “Who’s on tracking and traffic update?”
“That’d be me,” a voice answered. It was Angel Tit, a nickname based on a Vodka Angel’s Delight. Until recently, I hadn’t been trusted enough to be given the guys’ real names, but security on this gig required deep background checks, so I knew them all now. But the monikers we’d used in the past had stuck with us. “No problems, Legs. Traffic is clear. The rain has made some creeks rise, but not enough to be a danger.”
Rain? Right. It had been raining this morning when I left the Sassy Sisters. The hurricane had arrived in all its wet glory, another indication that New Orleans and its problems had found me again. I pulled my phone and punched through contacts for Adelaide’s number; I had input it during computer homework. When she answered, I said, “Where’s your boss?”
“With yours, I would hope.”
“He’s a no-show.” A shocked silence settled between us, sharp and electric.
“I’ll make some calls.” She clicked off.
I looked at Derek and Wrassler. “Any chance the wolves attacked him en route?”
“Anything’s possible,” Wrassler said. “But that one’s not likely to have caused Shaddock anything but a mild discomfort. Not a half hour.” Before I could continue a list of possible attackers, he said, “The protestors are all accounted for.” At my questioning look he said, “We got trackers on the vehicles and they’re all at home, out front, or at work, according to Angel.”
I nodded. Ten long minutes later, my phone vibrated and I answered Adelaide. “Tell me something good.”
“I can’t do that, I’m afraid,” she said, her words stiff. Embarrassed. She told me where Shaddock was, what he was doing, and added, “Shall I meet you there?”
I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at the screen, eyes unfocused, thinking. And then it all started to come together. “Crap,” I whispered. When I put the cell back to my head, I said, “Twenty minutes,” and hung up.
I looked down at my dress and then at my men. “Call for two vehicles to be waiting around front in five minutes. Derek you’re with me. Wrassler, pick a guy and follow.” I stuck my head back inside Grégoire’s room. “The parley talks are off for tonight.” Grégoire’s eyebrows went up slightly. Before anyone could ask, I said, “I’m not quite sure why, but I have an idea. It’s possible that Shaddock was attacked. I’ll call back when I know more. I suggest you stay within the confines of the hotel until you hear from me.”
Without waiting for a reply, I backed out and closed the door. “I’ve gotta change. You guys need to be in jeans and well armed.”
“Vests?” Derek asked, meaning flak jackets. Combat clothes.
“No. But weapon up. We’re going to Shaddock’s barbeque joint for dinner and dancing.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
You’ll Be True-Dead.
A bump-and-grind Country Western number could be heard out in the street, even over the steady patter of rain, an oldie goldie about a funeral in a bar, the singer propped up by the jukebox, dead. Which fit a few of the people inside, some of whom weren’t breathing and had no heartbeat to speak of. When we walked in the door, the place was mostly deserted of normal human customers, but there was still a crowd composed of vamps and the hangers-on of the vamp community, blood-slaves and junkies. Oddly, there were no blood-servants. If I didn’t already have alarms going off in my head, that alone would have spelled trouble. The place smelled of cooked meat and the dry, herblike scent of dead meat. Vamps. I tucked my three silver crosses into my shirt as Beast rose in me and peeked out, curious.
Only one couple was dancing; it was a version of the two-step, but with way more pelvis action than the song or dance style warranted. Lincoln Shaddock and Evangelina Everhart had their legs entwined and their faces close together, whispering, laughing. I smelled vamp and witch blood and sex on them, heated from the dance. And the pink spell covered them both.
I already knew that Lincoln Shaddock had bitten her, leaving two constricted pinprick spots on her neck, but I didn’t know why. They had lived in the same area for years. Nothing in my research suggested they had been together before. So why now? Why was Evangelina spelling the region’s most powerful vamp? What exactly did the pink rosy spell do? As I watched from the shadows, I saw a red mote of spell-light flash out of Evil Evie and zip around the room like a bat out of a hellhole. It whipped around and disappeared into Shaddock’s chest. “Crap,” I whispered. I’d seen that before. To my muscle, I said, “Do you see a pink glow on them?”
“No, but they need to get a room or turn around so I can get a better view,” Derek said.
Before the witch noticed us, I pulled my men into a shadowed corner table. I’d had my share of booths with their restricted sight design and problematic body realignment options. We sat, my jeans stuffed into Lucchese boots with ash wood stakes exposed at the tops, each of us loaded with enough concealed guns, knives, and silver to bring true-death to every fanghead and human in the joint. I spotted Chen, standing at the end of the bar, his face like a slab of granite and eyes black as midnight. He inclined his head slowly, and moved toward the back, disappearing into the shadows. I figured that was tacit permission to do whatever I needed to his boss.
When a perky waitress came we gave cola orders so we could keep sitting at the table. “Drink nothing, eat nothing,” I said, thinking of knockout drinks to disable us, or poison to finish us off.
“Copy that,” Derek said.
I studied the scene. The vamps were all sitting, lounging actually, on long booth seats, one or two to a booth, their human blood-meals gathered at their sides. Blood-drunk slaves were smiling vacuously while being dinner or were working as security, cooks, waitstaff, bartenders, and busboys. Once they looked us over, they returned their attention to the dancers, a security lapse no blood-
The connection opened, and I heard R&B/island music in the background, the signature sound of the new house band at the Royal Mojos Blues Club, a bar and dance joint owned by the vamp master of New Orleans. “Good evening, Jane. How are you?”
I pulled in a slow, calming breath. “Hiya, Bruiser. I’m good. You?”
“Do you need me?”
I thought about that for a moment and decided to go with pretending there weren’t a dozen innuendoes in that one question. “I need you to run an errand for me.” I ignored his “Pity” and went on. “I need you to go to my bedroom and into the closet. I need you to pick or smash open the weapons cabinet in it, and look for a black velvet bag. If it’s there, I need you to open it and pour the contents out on a table. Don’t touch it. And call me. Will you do that?”
“Why?”
“I need to know if Evangelina stole something from me.”
