Broken Soul

CHAPTER 11 Testicle Stretchers

I had tried calling Leo about Reach and the three who had tortured the research specialist, but the MOC wasn’t taking calls—or it might be more likely to say that he wasn’t taking calls from me. He had surely been notified about Protocol Aardvark, and had his freedom restricted by its stringent demands, but the chief fanghead had signed off on the policy himself, so he had no one to blame but himself and me.

On the way in to HQ, where we had to list our weapons and go through a thorough pat-down, I remembered the “small gala” Leo had planned, the one about which he’d thrown a wine tantrum. I hoped he’d had to send out a couple dozen “change of plans” letters. It would serve the spoiled-brat-of-a-vamp right.

We took the fire stairs down to the gym, as the elevator had been turned off by the Otis people. I wondered how vamps liked taking the stairs—a plebeian occupation so far beneath them, or a delightful romp into the past? I made a note of the darkened stairs that wended on down, into levels I hadn’t visited yet, at least not on purpose. One level below the gym, I saw a dynamic camera, the make and model I had installed in the council house, but I hadn’t installed this one; nor was it part of the upgraded security system that Eli, Alex, and I had designed. Which meant that there was a second monitoring system somewhere based on my work too. This wasn’t the first time Leo had gone around me on security. I made a mental note to ask when I was getting paid for my design. I also made a mental note that if I went skulking below stairs, I’d surely be caught on tape somewhere.

In the girls’ locker room I was met by frowning female blood-servants, ones I hadn’t encountered before but whose names I recognized on the personnel list as being fonctionnaires des Duels Sang. Which I now understood as blood-servants who served at blood-duels. They were older, actually gray-haired, which is not common for blood-servants, and had severe expressions and stocky builds. They looked like weight lifters, broad and muscular Titans. They were also crotchety, harsh, unyielding, and dressed in matching outfits that looked like catcher uniforms at a baseball game. And though they tried to hide it, they were horrified at my total ignorance of their purpose.

As if I were a rag doll, the women stripped me. I nearly decked them until I realized that they were playing the role of lady’s maid or valet or squire. But it was a near thing. When I was down to the Lycra, they stuffed me into a pair of white knickers with built-in suspenders that they called braces. Socks that went to my thighs. Flat-soled shoes that were reinforced oddly, one shoe with extra padding in front and the other with the padding in back and were impossible to walk in without a slight duck waddle.

Over the stupid knickers and my T-shirt went a plastic chest protector. Think Roman gladiator chest protector, but of heavy-duty plastic with boob shapes. Over that went a white, long-sleeved shirt that sealed up the back, lightly padded with Dyneema, a new puncture-resistant material. It was reinforced with a heavier layer of plastic foam. I was informed that this was the Mithran blood-duel version of a plastron—the underarm protector used in fencing. To which I nodded as if that meant something to me. It didn’t. Titan One told me that in Olympic fencing, it would only cover the right side. Again I nodded, though that made no sense at all. Half a shirt?

All I knew was that the layers made fluid movement difficult. The shirt collar was a doubled length of Dyneema, secured with Velcro as a gorget. I looked like a too-tall, scrawny image of the Pillsbury Doughboy.

And then the two Titans held out another shirt with a strap at the bottom hem. They made me step through the strap and pulled the shirt up my body. The strap was a thong. Seriously. The female blood-servants dressing me called it a croissard, but it was a thong. It went on top of my knickers, attaching the front of the overshirt to the back. And the thong moved. Into the most uncomfortable places. I pulled at it, trying to find a comfortable spot for the thong, but there wasn’t one until Titan Two loosened it. I was pretty sure she thought I was hilarious.

The gloves were made of Dyneema, covered with suede, and had rubberized grips. They, like the outfit, were specialized for le Duel Sang, gloves the European vamps insisted upon, as their duels tended to be much bloodier than historical duels or Olympic fencing. The gloves I liked, the rest, not so much. My only peace of mind came from the addition of a few surprises I tucked into my sleeves when the Titans weren’t looking.

While one of the Titans braided my hair and tucked it up under my head shield, I studied myself in the mirror. I looked like an idiot. The Titans thought I looked great as they led me to the workout room.

If Eli laughed, I’d stab him.

In that garb I stood in the doorway of the workout room and glared, but no one laughed or even appeared to think I was dressed oddly. The crowd in the underground gym was bigger than normal, whether because everyone hoped to see a rainbow dragon again or they wanted to see me get sliced to ribbons while wearing a padded, thonged monkey suit, I didn’t know.

Eli, similarly dressed, stepped to my side and muttered to me, “I’ve worn most every kind of military and paramilitary uniform currently in use anywhere. And not one has . . . um, testicle stretchers.”

I snorted in reaction and relaxed enough that the scents in the room filled my head, clamoring for attention. Blood, vamps, humans, and from somewhere the smell of fresh baking bread. I closed my eyes and let the odors take me over for a moment, only a few heartbeats, but those seconds were enough, and the perfume of the room and the beings in it brought me to the edge of an odd tranquility. The room went quiet, as I stood there, the silence of expectancy and potential violence. My shoulders dropped and I took deep breaths of the wealth of scent patterns. I opened my eyes, feeling comfortable in my own skin for the first time since the bomb.

A form dressed in black from head to toe gestured for me to join him on the fighting floor, and I was able to move as if the thong wasn’t cutting me in half. My instructor was slight, short, and graceful, his head hidden beneath a mask like mine, but his black garb was a much cooler color than my student whites. He looked good in the outfit, even the thong part, which had two straps that divided around an athletic cup of prodigious proportions. Mithrans must believe in hitting below the belt.

My partner might have been Gee DiMercy, but Gee had been bitten by the flying light-dragon, so I was betting on Grégoire, the best fighter the Americas boasted. Better than Gee DiMercy. Better than Leo. The best. Against me. And the weapons he held to his sides were not blunted practice weapons. They were sharp enough to make the air bleed.

They looked like a death threat in steel. Like my death. Beast glared out at him through my eyes, and I heard her snarl, Steel claws. Claws in hand of predator. In hand of hunter-killer.

I knew better than to let my reactions turn to fear. Vamps can smell fear. So I let Beast’s emotions roll over into anger and insult. Loudly, I said, “I’ve had too little sleep, too little food, my house has been targeted by a bomber, and this thong is miserable. You really think that oversized pig sticker is gonna scare me?”

“No, little kitten. I think it will cut you and make you bleed if you do not learn quickly enough.” Yeah. Grégoire. I wanted to ask him about his siblings, but not while he carried a sword. Later. I accepted my blunted practice weapons from Titan Two, who had followed me out onto the fighting floor. Maybe she was acting as my second now. Made sense. Eli usually had that job, but he was flat on his back on the mat beside me, put there by Wrassler. Wrassler was wearing practice blacks, with a sword at my partner’s throat. I wished I had a camera. Titan Two put the shorter sword, the one with the notch in the blade, in my left hand and adjusted my grip on both weapons.

“That,” Grégoire said, “and this”—he held up the longer weapon—“are flat swords.” Next he indicated our short swords. Our cajas cortas, loosely translated as short box or short trap. “You will not see the like of such weapons in the human world. They are made for le Duel Sang. They are made for killing Mithrans.”

Which meant I’d better get used to them. Killing Mithrans was how I made my money.

The mat where I had practiced last night was gone and the floor, damaged by my claws, had been sanded. Someone had taped a large fighting circle on the polished wood away from the scratched area. Grégoire stood inside the taped circle, waiting. Not impatiently. Calmly. But somehow there was a big evil grin about his whole stance, as if he was itching for the chance to hurt me. Oh goody.

“Let us see what you remember from your last session,” he said, stepping out of the fighting circle. He pointed with his long sword. “Begin with your feet.”

I placed my feet in the proper positions, straightened my back, bent my knees as if I were sitting on a tall stool, and held my weapons in the first form. With his sword tip, Grégoire lifted my long sword and moved it closer in front of my body, making my body angle sharper, bladed, so as to make a smaller target. His sword tapped my arm holding the short sword and altered the angle of my elbow.

“Better,” he said. “La Destreza, the Mithran version, is fluid, flowing like water over rounded stones, liquid and graceful.” He moved his sword in a full circle, from pointing at me to his left, across his body, up even with his head, down to his right, farther down, around again at knee level, up to his left again, and back to his starting point. If it had been a bare-handed move, it would have defended against two punches, a kick, and a third punch. His sword indicated that I should try.

As best I could, I mimicked his moves. “Again,” he said. And then, “Again, right elbow not locked, but loose”—he demonstrated—“thusly.” He watched me and said, “Better. Again. Faster.”

From there, we moved into another movement. And I started to sweat.

Grégoire slapped my butt with the flat of his blade as I turned in the second movement, and at the same moment, as if he had three hands, Grégoire tossed his mask to the side. His golden hair flowed out, long and loose and glistening in the too-bright overhead lights. “Elbow out,” he demanded, blue eyes dancing in what looked like delight. “Feet move thusly. No, no, no. Thusly.” A perpetually fifteen-year-old, utterly beautiful, sword master and sadist. “Yes, now faster. Turn and turn and sweep and cut and lunge and lunge and lunge . . .”

Until I was so tired I could barely lift my arms, even with Beast adding speed and strength to my human limbs. Finally, when my breath was fast and painful and loud in the room and the audience had dwindled at the lack of blood spilled, Grégoire yawned.

Bored.

Sleepy.

In the middle of his yawn I dropped the short sword and pulled the throwing knife in my sleeve. Flipped it at Grégoire. While it was still in the air, I spun another at him. And the third. With his sword he batted each away with a ting-ting-ting. And finished the yawn with a grin that let me see why this vampire was the best fighter in the entire U.S. He had been nothing like bored. The yawn was to tempt me, to lure me in. Grégoire was having fun. Vicious, venomous, nasty fun.

Inside me, Beast growled, the sound coming from my mouth. She rose in me fast, staring out at him. In a single heartbeat, the orbs of his eyes went scarlet, centered with wide, black pupils. He attacked. Lunging, lunging, lunging, his sword circling like the blades of a fan, razor-sharp, cutting at me. His fangs dropped down; his talons pierced through the fingertips of his gloves. He was totally vamped out. Lunging, cutting, lunging, his long sword a spinning blade of death.

I had only the long sword, the short sword still at my feet. I danced back from him fastfastfast, my blade circling through his, my feet finding balance only after my padded white uniform had three scarlet, bloody rents in them. I felt no pain, not yet. But the stink of my blood and anger filled the air. I growled again. And I lunged back. Again and again, faster, drawing on Beast’s power and speed. Circling my blade, my dull club of a blade.

The words of my very first sensei came back to me. “Everything is a weapon, Jane. Your fingers, your forehead, a pencil behind your ear, a paper clip. Everything can be used to defend and attack.”

I drew on Beast’s power and let my body slide into the fluid motions of the Spanish Circle. As if I had all the time in the world, I reversed my motions, taking the second movement to a backhand, both of my hands finding the hilt. Whirling. I slammed the dull edge of the sword against Grégoire’s shoulder with everything I had in me. Stepped back and lunged again, while he staggered. I swung the weapon like a baseball bat, letting the weight of the dull sword pull itself around. And smashed it against Grégoire’s knee. The joint buckled. Up, over, I let the momentum of the non-weapon carry itself around and against his neck, deliberately above the gorget. I heard the thump of the weapon hitting and a snapping crack. Grégoire’s head knocked to the side at a sharp angle and he followed it, flying across the floor to the side and crumpling.

I stood over him, watching him on the floor, my breath heaving. “Like that?”

“Yes, my Enforcer.” Leo’s liquid tones came from behind me. “Exactly like that.”

I had actually hurt Grégoire. Hadn’t killed him, not with the battering of a dull blade. But I had broken something. Something important. With a terrible sinking feeling, I realized that I had, maybe, broken Grégoire’s cervical spine with my practice blade. Beast’s power drained out of me and out of my eyes, leaving me weak. I stepped back, away from the fighting circle, and tossed the head shield to the floor.

Leo had gathered him up, and now Grégoire’s head was resting on Leo’s lap, his golden hair spread over Leo’s legs and across the wood floor. His limbs were unmoving and limp, his black shirt ripped open to reveal his pale chest. Grégoire was gasping like a human, his eyes filled with bloody tears, yet his eyes had bled back to human blue irises. Leo was bending over his friend, his black hair hanging down over Grégoire’s golden blond, the strands mixing. Leo looked pale, his skin with a slightly bluish tinge, and I remembered that he had been bitten by the light-creature. Leo hadn’t healed as quickly as Gee DiMercy. And Grégoire didn’t appear to be healing at all.

I had wanted to prove something. I didn’t like what I’d proven. The bruise on Grégoire’s neck was spectacular, totally unlike any bruise I had ever seen on anyone, human or vamp. It was purple in the center, a long, narrow, deep purple indentation just below where the skull and neck came together, in the shape of my weapon’s blunt edge. The bruise around it was swelling, spreading, blooming like a scarlet flower, the blood beneath his skin flooding like petals. Like a fuchsia flower beneath the white, white skin.

Soft words filled the air in the gym. I didn’t understand a single one, but I knew Grégoire was cursing fluently under his breath, the syllables French-sounding, and Leo was whispering back in the same language. I heard a faint snicking sound and the Master of the City lifted his wrist, biting the flesh on the inside of his own lower arm. Blood rolled out and Leo placed the wound to Grégoire’s lips, cradling his friend’s head with his palm. Grégoire sealed his lips around the bite and sucked.

Bethany appeared with a small pop of air and settled to the floor with them. The priestess extended her fangs and bit into Grégoire’s arm near the brachial artery. Her hair, as always, was knotted and twisted into locks, worked with hundreds of gold and stone beads, the mass pulled to the nape of her neck, hiding her ears, but showing the many hoops and studs that hung there. Bethany Salazar y Medina was African. Unlike most vamps, whose skin paled after long years without the sun, her flesh had remained blue black, her lips like storm clouds at night. Her sclera were brownish, her irises blacker than that dark, stormy night. As she sucked, she lifted her head to me and stared.

Bethany was crazy, and not in a fun, party-girl kinda way. Bethany was scary. I took a step back as her power began to rise and tingle across my skin like needles. She poured her magic into Grégoire, healing magic that the others didn’t seem to feel, dancing on their skin, nearly as much as I did.

A small crowd had begun to gather, standing apart from me, except for Eli, and no one was looking at us. Eli murmured, “How badly are you hurt?” I turned from Bethany to him and then looked down, where his eyes rested on my bloody clothes.

“I don’t know.” I looked back to my opponent and Leo and the priestess. It occurred to me that she was around an awful lot lately. Or, rather, that she lived here and I was the one who was around a lot lately. I wondered who she was feeding off of to keep her relatively sane. I was pretty sure it used to be Bruiser. I shook my head to clear it of the effects of her magics, and took yet another step away. “How bad is Grégoire hurt?”

“He’s undead. How bad can it be?”

I spluttered with laughter that I turned into a cough as Eli took my elbow and led me from the room, to a small windowless space just off the women’s locker room. It was about ten by twelve, with two small sofas, two small chairs, and tiny tables covered with magazines. I had never been in it. Eli had been exploring, which was good. We needed to know this place much better than we now did. The room looked like a waiting area off a surgery suite, or off a courtroom, with dull brown and blue plaid stain-resistant furniture and industrial carpet. Eli quickly loosened his own white gear and then started helping me to remove mine.

I was hurt quite a bit worse than I had thought, with the skin sliced deeply into the muscle beneath, and the clotting blood sealing itself to the fabric over the wounds. There had been no pain until I saw gashes, and then they started throbbing, a steady, pounding misery. I sat down fast, onto the unyielding surface of the hard sofa. Eli slipped out of the room, and with him gone, I pushed on the cut along the bottom of my ribs. Lightning pain flashed along my nerves and the breath I took sounded like a string of S’s. Blood flooded out across my side and belly, under my ruined undershirt.

From the hallway, I heard Eli say to someone, “Ask him to come now.” Closing the door softly behind him, Eli reentered, carrying a basket of rolled towels. He pressed one to the newly opened wound. Quietly, he asked, “Do you need to shift? Do you have time?”

“No. I don’t want to do that again. Not here. Not ever. Not near—” I stopped.

“Not near fangheads. Especially not near Leo. Who wants to own you enough anyway, without making him more covetous of you.”

My eyes found his face and I shuddered with a tiny laugh. He understood. Without my telling him, Eli understood. “Yeah. That.”

“I’ve asked Edmund to help. Okay?”

I nodded. Edmund Hartley had healed me before, and the unassuming but powerful vamp had been good. And helpful. And hadn’t tried to roll me with compulsion. I heard a knock and Edmund entered. He was five foot seven or eight, brown haired, hazel eyed, and he seemed kind, nonthreatening. Mild-mannered was a good term for him, until he turned up the vamp-o-meter.

He might look like a pushover, but Edmund was old and powerful. As he closed the door behind him, I could feel his power as he pulled it up and around himself, icy prickles, like spikes of frozen air. Yet, despite his dazzling magics, now lifting the hairs along the back of my neck, he’d lost blood-master status of Clan Laurent—a story I thought had a lot more going on than had been reported—to a vamp named Bettina and ended up as a slave to Leo for the next twenty years. When vamps lost, they lost big.

“I smell your blood. Again,” he said. Eli stepped aside and Edmund knelt near me. He breathed in and held the scent of my blood the way a wine connoisseur might inhale the perfume of a really good vintage. When he exhaled he said, “I heard about the sparring match. No one mentioned that you had been injured as well.”

“Isn’t that just like the fangheads?”

Edmund smiled at the insult and leaned close to my side. I felt his cold breath against my skin. “Your clothing must come away,” he said, sadly. “Fast or slow?”

“Do it.”

Edmund didn’t give me a chance to change my mind. He gripped the hem of my undershirt in both hands and yanked. It ripped up the middle and out of the wounds. I hissed with pain and said something I didn’t usually. Eli chuckled and I speared him with a look just as Edmund put his mouth onto my side and his chill tongue slicked the blood away. Heat followed in its wake, heat that danced along my nerves and then dove deep inside as his tongue delved into the cut.

I closed my eyes and steeled my face to show nothing. Absolutely nothing. I worked to keep my breathing steady and slow, and managed to keep my heart rate slower than a speeding bullet. Maybe. For about half a minute. And then the heat ricocheted out of the slice and right to my core. I knew it was bad when Eli left the room. “Coward,” I hissed to his retreating back. And then moaned as the healing energies bent my head back and arched up my spine. Healing and desire, two halves of vamp magic.

Edmund laughed gently against my flesh; the vibrations of his laughter rebounded through me, and his arms circled my waist, pulling me against his body. I felt another moan rising and swallowed it down. No way was I gonna moan again. Not. Gonna. Happen.

He could have had me right there, on the small couch in the small room. But Edmund was a gentleman. Either that or Leo’s proscription against any vamp seducing me made him refrain. I was betting on the latter, and couldn’t decide whether I should thank Leo or stake him when, much later, Edmund rose from the floor beside the couch and pulled a knitted afghan from somewhere and covered me with it.

“You are well.”

I swallowed and said, “Thanks, Ed. And thanks for not, um, you know.”

“I like my head where it is,” he said, confirming my guess. “But the moment you no longer work for my master, I will come to you. If you are willing, then I will give you all the pleasure that I am able.” He leaned in, close to my face. “And I am very, very able.”

“Oh,” I said, keeping my eyes closed like the fraidy-cat that I was. I waved a hand in what might have been agreement or might have been waving him away from me. “I’ll keep that in mind. And, ummm . . . thanks.” I dropped the hand over my face. “And, yeah. Thanks.” The door opened and closed behind him. I smelled Eli and I said, “If you say anything, even one single word, I’ll cut you and feed your lifeless body to the dogs.”

“We don’t have dogs.” That didn’t stop him from laughing, however, and somehow, the wordless laughter, low and mocking, was even worse than anything he might have said. Without looking at him, I gathered my torn clothes and the afghan and went to the ladies’ locker room, where I rinsed off Edmund’s healing-induced desire beneath a stream of cool water. And cursed the fact that New Orleans never had really cold water.

The meeting was held in the downstairs conference room, necessitating only a short walk through the corridors. I had put on a pair of slim pants, my thigh rig, and a short-sleeved, dark copper sweater I found in my locker, which looked pretty good against my lighter copper skin tone. Black slippers. With my slicked-back hair and red lipstick, I looked striking. Not beautiful—I’d never be beautiful—but striking I could do. Striking was easy for tall, slender women.

When I entered the room, the chatter, heard through the door, stopped instantly. I moved to my place, Eli to my left, this time, and looked around the room, searching faces. Leo, Gee, and Grégoire were all missing. My heart stuttered painfully. The rest of the gathered were seated and wore remarkable expressions: a third of them looked expectant; the others looked either furious or gloomy, or a combo of the two.

I pushed my rolling chair away and stayed standing, leaning forward to balance some of my weight on my balled fists, a little like Leo had stood not so long ago. My gold double chain swung forward, the gold nugget and the wired lion tooth focals catching the light as they swung. I looked at Wrassler. “Update on Leo, Gee, and Grégoire.”

Wrassler leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands over his muscle-bound midsection. His face took an expression I didn’t know how to read, and his body was too far away from me to read his pheromones. “You broke Grégoire’s neck.”

I didn’t blink. I didn’t move. I didn’t even breathe. To my side, Eli still stood as well, and I could hear his breath tighten, but he didn’t move either.

“He’s never had his neck broken before,” Wrassler said, “and he’s unhappy.”

I still didn’t react.

“He’s also impressed. He says, and I translate his quote, ‘Our Jane fights well. She will not be killed in an Enforcer blood duel.’” Wrassler smiled, and now I could smell his satisfaction. “Word went out on Mithran social media that you brought down our best fighter. Now almost all the European Mithrans who had queued to fight you have backed down.”

A little zing of surprise shot through me. “Vamps wanted to fight me?” I asked.

“Ernestine was keeping a list of interested parties—blood-servants, and Mithrans—to be allowed to challenge you when the Europeans arrived. Ten of our own swordsmen wanted to test themselves against you in nonlethal matches. Five of our expected guests in Blood Challenge. Only the European Enforcers’ names remain on the list.”

“Rais—” I stopped in time. Raisin was my nickname for her, but might be interpreted as lacking in respect. “Ernestine was keeping a list of people who wanted to fight me?”

“Ernestine keeps all the lists,” Wrassler said. “And the pools.”

I shook my head in confusion. Beside me Eli asked, “So how many of you lost money when Janie kicked Grégoire’s butt just now?”

“About ninety percent of the people gathered here and about ninety-five percent of the city’s blood-servants and Mithrans.” There was a lot of satisfaction in Wrassler’s tone.

Eli said, “I’m guessing you were one of the few who were betting on Jane.”

Betting on me? Holy crap. These crazy people were betting on who would get hurt? A hot flush that had nothing to do with vamp healing went through me like a brush fire in a high wind. Trying to sound mild and not angry, I said, “How long before Grégoire’s spine is a hundred percent?”

Wrassler shrugged, evaluated my expression, and apparently found something there he hadn’t expected. He sat up in his chair and laced his fingers together on the large table. The springs in his chair squeaked. “Couple of days. Between them, Leo and Bethany can heal most anything. And if they can’t, then Katie can.”

I never thought much about Katie and healing. She had special blood since she’d been buried in a coffin full of mixed vamp blood. “Huh.” The sound was full of challenge. “And Leo? How long before he’s fully back to himself after the bite by the light-dragon thing? Just asking because he looked a little pale tonight.”

Wrassler, his tone now all business, sat straight and dropped his arms to the chair arms. The pheromones in the room changed too, all jocularity vanishing under the weight of my expression—whatever that was. “The priestess Sabina spent the last day with him,” Wrassler said. “He was pretty close to ninety percent until he fed Grégoire.”

“And Gee? He seemed fine on the gym floor beating my partner’s butt. Is the Mercy Blade the only one in a position of authority who’s up and at his best?”

“Gee’s fine,” Wrassler said shortly. Beside him, Derek sat straighter too, his face thoughtful. Across the table Adelaide Mooney shifted position as well.

“Del, are Leo and Grégoire up to speed on Satan’s Three? That they may be in town?”

“Yes,” she said simply. “They have not presented themselves to Leo, according to the Vampira Carta; therefore they are interlopers in his hunting territory,” she said formally, as if handing down a sentence against a lawbreaker. “You have carte blanche in any dealings with them.”

“Good. As part of Protocol Aardvark, I want Katie here on-site until Leo is fully recuperated. Once everyone is on-site, all travel is to be curtailed, and any travel that the vamps insist upon is to be by armored vehicle with standard three-vehicle precautions, a definite itinerary, and no deviation. And if you can distract them from travel, all the better.” We all knew that distract meant blood or sex. It didn’t have to be said. “Bethany is with Grégoire. I want blood-meals—the strongest blood we have in the city—for Leo and Grégoire until they’re fully healed and a hundred and ten percent. And whatever they need to be made totally well. If that means dragging the clan blood-masters to help, then that’s want I want to happen. I want this city’s vamps at full power in two days, without giving up the protection of Protocol Aardvark. I also need a private audience with Grégoire. ASAP. You have an hour before dawn to see that my orders—the orders of the Enforcer,” I corrected, “are carried out. Take whoever you need to get the people in place. Then get back in here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Wrassler said, standing and motioning to three others at the table.

As they left the room, I went on. “The next person who wants to bet on me in a fight gets to fight me him- or herself. Personally.” I looked around the room. “In case you didn’t get it, a foreign creature got in to va—Mithran HQ and bit Leo. It messed with our minds and our memories. We have a parley with European Mithrans to plan for. The electrical system isn’t working properly. The elevator’s screwy. And we have someone in town targeting me, who I think is a rogue EuroVamp named Peregrinus.” That made them sit up and take notice. I could have added, And there’s something scary on the bottom basement level. But I didn’t say that, not until I asked some questions of the powers that be. There was a time for everything, and the thing in the basement wasn’t for now. “Peregrinus is Grégoire’s brother and we don’t have much data on him yet. I’ll be talking to Grégoire and others in HQ and will update those who need to know as I obtain info.

“For the record, I screwed up when I hurt Grégoire. Not because it was wrong to do my best, not because I should have let him win to be nice, but because timing is everything and this is not the time. We have a lot of crap going down, and while I don’t give a rat’s fuzzy behind what you bet on in downtimes, this is not that time.”

Del said softly, “Betting is expected among the Europeans.”

“Fine. When we get everything and everyone back into top shape, when the Europeans arrive on American soil, I’ll rescind my orders. Until then, I want you all to turn that excitement and energy to figuring out why we’re having brownouts and why the elevator is wonky. And if you have enough energy left after that, I want you feeding the Mithrans. Got it?”

Heads nodded. To my side, Wrassler reentered and gave me a thumbs-up. “Grégoire will see you at any point before dawn this morning.”

I nodded back, a tiny inclination of my head that would have done Eli proud. “Wrassler, update me on the European parley. What’s new?”

“Our ambassadorial team has been negotiating under the direction of Grégoire and Adelaide Mooney.” He paused, as if just realizing what it might mean to have Grégoire out of commission for even a day. And my own guilt, which I had done a good job of hiding, shot deeply into my core. I’d screwed up when I hurt Grégoire. Pride goeth before a fall and all that. Crap.

Wrassler said, “The agreements to this point are: Three European Mithrans will arrive, on a date yet to be determined, with twelve human blood-servants, three of them primos, and two aligned Onorios, for a total of seventeen guests. All will be housed here, in the council house. By then, Leo will be back in his clan home, which will be ready for a certificate of occupancy in about ten weeks.” He looked at me and I did that little head tilt again.

He continued. “Grégoire asked me to tell Jane that he came into possession of certain historical papers pertaining to the witches and Mithrans in the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas, and the history of animosity between them.” Which sounded like a direct quote from Grégoire. “He and Leo have agreed that Jane needs previously proscribed information to understand what she’s dealing with in regard to issues with the witches’ magical artifacts.” Wrassler glanced down the table and pointed from one of Derek’s men, to the corner where a metal box sat on the floor, and to me. “Grégoire wanted to give you the documents himself.” Wrassler’s lips twitched as he restrained a smile. “However, since he’s indisposed, he asked me to present them.”

One of Derek’s men from Team Tequila, who went by the moniker Jolly Green Giant, stood and carried the metal box to me. With a heavy thud, he set it on the table in front of me, and I opened the lid. It was full of documents, some so old they were crumbling. I lifted one out only to see it was written in some kind of fancy old script, in a language I couldn’t read. “Thanks. This means a lot.” I pulled on the manners pounded into me by the housemothers in the children’s home and said to Wrassler, “I’ll, uh, convey my thanks to Grégoire for his generosity. And I’ll take good care of the documents.”

I sat down and Eli placed the box in an empty chair, then took the seat next to me. His timing suggested that he sat only after I did. That when I stood, he stood. That he was my, what? My right arm? Whatever the psychology of it, it worked. There was something different in the room tonight, and it had to do with what I was. Who I was. It gave me strength and authority I hadn’t known or used before. It terrified me.

But I could run screaming into the day later. I dropped my shoulders, lifted my head, and sat easy in my chair as if I had it all under control. Liar me. “I want any and all info about the EuroVamps known as Peregrinus, Batildis, and a human known as the Devil. Anyone?”