Mercy Blade

CHAPTER 10 You Want Me to Shoot Him, Boss?

Holding aim on Roul, I turned so the werewolves faced my vamp-killer, which protected my side. An additional three weres showed in the open doorway across from me, the door the vamps had come through at the start of the party. And behind them was the little green guy. Had he let them in? It was the only thing that made any sense. I gave a fast update into the mike, location of the bogies and their numbers. I ended with, “The head were-cat grew front paws and claws.” Like Roul had done when I met him. But I didn’t say that part. The wolves to my side had stopped. Muzzles down, snarling, snouts wrinkled, ears pinned, they closed on me, steps careful and slow. They had fought me once before or they would have attacked without a second thought. With a sliding snick of sound, I chambered a round and took careful aim on the closest wolf. A human woman stood behind him, a hand to her mouth. My guns were loaded with silver, but if I missed, a human or a vamp would die just as easily. There were too many of both in the ballroom and collateral damage was unacceptable.

Hard breathing, running footsteps, and Derek issuing commands filled my earpiece. He and a Vodka boy appeared on either side of the weres behind me, boxing them in. At the sight of them, the wolves stopped. They sat in the hallway, tongues lolling, looking proud and happy; they’d gotten into vamp HQ. “The dog learned a new trick,” I muttered. One growled at me, ears going flat, looking less doggy and more wolfish. Before I could decide how to respond, Derek’s other soldiers raced up, covering the doorways and the ballroom. And Tyler stalked into the room, a compact selective-firing shoulder weapon—a submachine gun—held in both hands, supported high on his chest. With it, he took aim at the were-cat envoy, Kemnebi. “You want me to shoot him, boss?” In less than eight seconds. Everything had gone FUBAR.

Behind me, Derek and Vodka Hi-Fi had weapons on the weres. Knowing my flank was covered, I stepped into the room, moving my gun hand from target to target, catching a quick look at Bruiser. He was standing much like me, but holding two sidearms, his body poised to cover two segments of the room, presenting a smaller target to two different adversaries. His feet were spread and knees slightly bent, ready for either shot. His jacket was shoved back, one pant cuff was hitched up, showing sock and a bit of leather. His face was white, mouth a thin line.

Dominique stood to his left, her cheeks bright red in a paper-white face. Fangs out and holding a wicked-looking knife. Leo had been shoved behind her, the sclera of his eyes bloodred, pupils fully dilated. Ten razor-sharp claws and more than two inches of bone-hard canines ready to fight. Vamped-out and pissed. Crap. This was gonna get messy.

“We were not told that wolves were to attend,” Kemmy said, disdain in every syllable. “We do not treat with wolves.”

“Yeah? Well, I got a feeling that your little green guy didn’t stop them,” I said. “Maybe when he ran around the backyard, wolves were coming over the walls and up to the roof without ever touching the ground.” I didn’t add that it was a rookie mistake. I didn’t even have a camera pointed up. Could werewolves jump twenty feet in a single bound? Mentally castigating myself, I repositioned myself and my weapons between Leo and the were-cats. Cat. The female was gone. My panic-o-meter shot back into the stratosphere. I took in the entire room. Placed every vamp and were. No girl were-cat. When had she disappeared?

Leo shot a look at me, vamped but in control. Relief slammed through me with my blood. At least one thing was okay, then. He turned to the were-cat. “The wolves are not here at your command?” Leo asked, his words only slightly distorted by his state.

“My kind killed the last werewolf in Europe during Charlemagne’s reign. They are the lesser were. Their females do not survive. They cannot breed true. We do not treat with dogs.”

Charlemagne’s reign was in the eight hundreds. During the time that vamps lived in Rome as Mithrans. Had that been part of what caused the vamps to disperse? Some kind of supernatural war?

“We are no’ dogs. We are wolves, predators like you.” Roul turned to the nearest camera. Crap, crap, crap! I forgot about the media. His natural charisma hitched up a notch, and his accent practically made love to the cameras. “Leo Pellissier is murderer and thief. And I have proof, I do.” Roul looked like a GQ fashion plate, strawberry blond-streaked hair fanning out in a mane, wearing pants, boots, and a white shirt rolled up at the arms, the neck open. He stepped away from his two cohorts, head back, striking a pose, rakish and theatrical. The cameras were all trained on him, loving him.

I glanced at his companions. The man with him was dressed similarly but in dark brown, and the woman was swathed in silk styled like the were-cat’s dress, but hers was pale blue; she was dressed so much like the missing female were-cat that the skirt, top, and head scarf outfit had to be required dress. Blond hair fanned out from her veiled face; only her eyes showed, heavily shadowed, and her lids sparkled with something that looked like gold dust. Her skin glowed, darkly tanned. The smell of rut filled the air, wolf in heat, and vamps and weres alike stared at her. The were-bitch walked without a limp, proof that her kind healed from nonmortal wounds as fast as I did, because I remembered hamstringing her. But I’d used a silvered blade, so she probably had an ugly scar, not that I’d noticed one when she displayed her legs on the way down.

The reporters were eating it up with a spoon. Careers would get made tonight.

“The Lupus Clan have file legal writ against Mithrans, yes,” Roul said. “We will see justice in court of human law.” The werewolf bitch placed a hand on Roul’s shoulder, but she was looking at Bruiser and Leo. Mostly at Leo, I thought, but I couldn’t be sure.

Leo’s fangs clicked back into the roof of his mouth and he closed his eyes. When he opened them a moment later, he looked like the Leo the media loved, urbane and debonair, a sophisticated Frenchman in contrast to the rougher, action-adventure character presented by Roul. But what Leo said wasn’t going to help put a good spin on anything that had happened so far tonight. “We will not treat with the wolves that we drove away, wolves who broke were-law, who have returned against our will and against our proclamation. Any charges they bring are specious and without merit and not binding unto us.

“We are not bound unto the system of law of these United States of America ...”—he hesitated, then added—“at this time. We are Mithrans, a separate nation, bound only by the Vampira Carta. We treat and parley as separate peoples.” He sounded suspiciously above the law in his comments, which wasn’t going to go over well in the court of public opinion, but when looked at from a legal perspective, it might have been dang near perfect.

Jodi Richoux was gonna hate that. So was the U.S. justice system—which was already having kittens over the thought of having to confine a vamp—in total darkness during daylight hours, bars far stronger than those needed to detain a human, not to mention the whole “must drink human blood” dietary requirements problem. And I had to wonder if this was the decision of all the international vamps, or if Leo was swimming in dangerous waters. The little disclaimer “at this time” might not be enough to save him if the vamps at large took umbrage with his high-handedness.

I looked from Leo to Bruiser, who was watching me. When he caught my eye he looked around the room as if telling me to do the same. The wolves had padded into the center of the room, surrounding their human-form buddies. The security types were all in the room with us, except for Vodka Angel’s Tit, the only security type guarding the perimeter. Not good. I had to wonder if the weres planned it this way, and if so, was it a cover for something else?

Before I could key my mike to speak to Angel, I heard him say, “Bloody female vamp just appeared in the building, second floor, moving downstairs fast. Approaching ballroom.”

Murphy’s Law was working overtime.

The smell of blood hit me just as she appeared in the reception room, lots of blood, with mixed scent signatures. Like the top-note in a really bad perfume, was cat blood. Below it, overriding the cat smell, was vamp blood—the reek old and rotted. That was the only clue who had come visiting, and it identified the unrecognizable female better than a calling card. Katie of Katie’s Ladies. Risen from the vamp grave that had healed her from a mortal wound. But cat blood, fresh and potent, said something else had gone seriously wrong tonight. Kemnebi turned to her and hissed.

Katie was caked in dried blood; it fell from her in flakes and granules, shifting down from her stiff dress with little shushing sounds, like reeds in a slow breeze. Hair, skin, clothes all were coated with the blood and it stank with a rotted meat smell. Back hunched, arms bent and out to her sides, her feet bare and slender, she turned slowly, taking in the room. Her magics snapped and sparked like carnelian flames, visible to Beast-vision. Powerful. Eerily potent.

She growled and Beast slammed into me at the sound, filling my limbs with strength. My lips peeled back from human teeth, and the blade felt good, like a steel claw in my hand.

Katie pivoted slowly, and as she turned, she took in a deep breath. And pulled power from every vamp in the place, feeding from them. With Beast so close to the surface, I could see the power drain shifting in the air, a bloody-reddish wind, and when she turned to me, her fangs were three inches long and stained bloody red. Her eyes were vamped out so big the entire orbs were black, leaving no trace of the grayish hazel of her irises, and only a tinge of bloody sclera.

The draw of her magic punched through the room like fangs into an artery, sucking at magic, at the life force itself. Vamps began to fall to the floor where they lay writhing, gagging. The magic pressed against the weres. Drawing on their power, draining off their control like the moon at her fullest. The wolfman with Roul grunted and fell to the floor, his back arching, starting to change against his will. The wolf-bitch sank to the floor shivering, resisting, hiding beneath her robes. Roul bared his teeth, revealing fangs, no longer fully human. Kemnebi lifted clawed paws and growled low, cat-anger. The humans were having trouble getting breaths, some fell like the vamps, and lay as if dead. One cameraman hit the floor, camera first, shattering the expensive gadget.

I felt the bite of Katie’s power, siphoning at my own, nips of electric teeth. It hurt. Beast resisted, claws digging deep in my psyche. Katie moved around the room. Fresh blood coated her lower jaw. A single drip landed on her crusted breast, glowing like a ruby on her dried-blood flesh. She had fed. She smelled like she-cat blood. I looked around. Safia was still missing.

Katie found Leo in the throng. Everyone in the ballroom felt the moment their eyes met. Sparks flew and danced on the air. It was Fourth of July and Mardi Gras and New Year’s all at once and even the humans in the room could see it, feel it, erotic and sexual and primal, like battle and sex all at once. I felt the tug deep in my belly. Instantly, I remembered a photo I had once seen of Leo and Katie, her skirts tossed high, him servicing her with his mouth, her head thrown back in ecstasy.

“Katherine, do you challenge me?” Leo asked. Bruiser tried to stop him, but Leo stepped away, out onto the center of the ballroom floor. Behind him, Kemnebi watched, his black eyes full of anger and disdain for the wolf changing and for the vamps and blood-servants who had no resistance to vamp power. His claws and paws began to reform into human. It was clear ol’ Kemmy was no longer having trouble fending off the power grab.

“Leo?” Katie whispered. Her voice was rough and coarse, not the liquid velvet it once had been. “My Leo?”

Leo reached Katie, one hand following the length of her crusted hair, blond beneath the dark stain of old blood. He cupped her face, a look of joy in his eyes. He encircled her waist with an arm and pulled her gently to him, embracing her. Leo breathed out, his breath like a caress. Katie relaxed, resting against him. The dance of power in the room slowed. And Leo’s fangs pierced her throat so fast even I didn’t see the strike.

Katie screamed and hit him in a scissor motion, bringing both arms up and back down. The blow drove them to the floor. But Leo kept his fangs buried. His arms imprisoned her, his legs wrapped around her as they rolled across the floor. Everyone still standing scattered. Fights broke out as they moved.

Bruiser reached my side, holstering his weapons. “Katie has the blood of eight clans,” he said. “She isn’t sane just now, but she’s powerful as hell. Leo can’t let her take over.” He was gone and I was left putting sense to the words.

Katie was back, unexpectedly, from the grave that healed her. An unexpected rising meant she was likely not sane yet, as vamps had a tenuous hold on that particular mental state. She’d been buried with the blood of eight clans mixed into her coffin, absorbed into her very flesh. She was like a fully charged battery, designed to draw even more. At the moment, she was power incarnate, insane and hungry, unless Leo could defeat her and drink down her power. Thanks to the recent mini war, there were fewer total vamps and only four clans in the city, for the Master of the City to draw on to seal his power base. Leo’s four to Katie’s eight.

He’d asked her if she challenged him. Crap. He’d made it a legal duel. She hadn’t replied, too nutso to make a rational response, but she hadn’t stopped stealing power that was his by right either, making it a legal challenge for the position of Master of the City. I couldn’t think of a better way for Leo to keep his people safe—all the alternatives meant another war. If an insane master vamp as powerful as Katie divided the clans or took them over, things were gonna get really bad, really fast. So Leo threw himself onto the pyre as sacrifice like a good leader—who wanted to stay in power—would. I wasn’t gonna be happy having to admire Leo for that.

My thoughts took an eyeblink of time, but in that moment, the power draw stopped. Carnage began. Across the room, vamps shook themselves awake and stood. Wolves attacked. Fights broke out between species. Blood-servants raced to their masters, offering throats so the vamps could function again and maybe get them all out alive.

Roul shook like a dog and looked around, his humanity restored but not his temper. He was a mad dog. No. Don’t say it. I swallowed back a crazy laugh. Roul put his head down and bulled into a pack of fighting wolves and vamps just as the group rammed into a table of meats, sending food flying. The place reeked of blood—vamp, were, and human. In a corner, two vamps from clans no longer in existence, and always hated enemies, tore into one another. Other fights broke out and blood-servants joined in. It was a free-for-all. And I wasn’t dressed for it, as usual. Kem stood all alone, observing, his mouth in a snarl. Looking around the room. Looking for Safia.

I keyed my mike. “Angel, give me some good news.”

“Got none, Legs,” he said into my ear. “The little green guy got out, the cops have showed up at the front gate, decked out in paramilitary gear. They have ladders and they’re coming over the walls. They’ve got every unit in the city headed your way. Oh. And the wolves are loose. Who! Who let the dogs out?”

“Not funny, Angel,” Derek said, reaching my side.

“Sorry, Sarge.” He didn’t sound sorry, but he instantly started giving updates on the location of the wolves loose in vamp HQ. Not all of them had stayed in the ballroom.

Derek and I met eyes. I said, “We need to find the female were-cat. Katie fed off her.”

He gave me a chin-jut of understanding. “You take care of the MOC. I’ll get the premises locked down and the wolves contained.”

“How?”

“Trank guns. All my guys got ’em.”

I should have thought of that. But who would have expected werewolves to attack? And if not wolves, then who had he been planning to tranquilize? Q and A for later. Job now.

We spun in opposite directions, Derek trotting through the doors issuing orders, me wading through the vamps after Leo and Katie, caught in a mortal embrace.

I was stopped by Dominique, heir to Arceneau, and Bettina, master of Laurent. They were facing off, the energies between them cracking with fury. Both had blood-splattered clothes and bloody mouths; both had flushed skin and smelled warm-blooded. They had fed. Fully.

I grabbed an arm on each and shook them hard. “You can challenge each other tomorrow night. Get your vamps and servants together and follow me.” I was as surprised as anyone when they looked from each other to me and nodded.

Dominique called aloud to Grégoire. Bettina closed her eyes. Shaun Mac Lochlainn, her heir, and her other two vamps raced through the melee to her side, all three with torn clothes and bloodied bodies. The summoning was impressive, and so were the men who responded to her call. It made me wonder if she had mind-joined with Shaun. More to think about later. More slowly, Dominique and her clan gathered. The human blood-servants followed, surrounding their masters. The clan leaders had gone from mortal enemies to allies in a human heartbeat.

“Wall off Leo and Katie from the rest of the room,” I said to the vamps, “and then give Leo what support you can. If Katie wins, this night will be a bloodbath.”

“I like bloodbaths,” Dominique said. I didn’t want to inspect that line too closely, especially as her eyes were alight and she looked so cheerful all of a sudden. They all did. The smell of blood and fighting was like drugs to vamps.

Mac Lochlainn and his pals moved in front of us and started clearing a path between the fighting vamps and humans, some by asking, others, those too belligerent or out cold, by simply tossing. We moved forward with an awful efficiency. I heard bones break as the vamp warriors cleared the way. A lot of people were gonna be sore tomorrow. If they lived through the night.

Kabisa and Karimu, Arceneau’s soldier twins, worked to the side, holding off four wolves, using blades with ruthless efficiency. Sending the wolves yelping, bleeding, limping away, where “my guys” tranked them. They fell so fast that they maintained wolf form. Ooh rah.

I spotted Leo and Katie in a corner of the room, bodies wrapped around each other seemingly melded together. Fangs and claws were embedded in flesh and they held each other still, like two wrestlers, evenly matched. But Katie had her fangs in Leo’s throat and Leo had his buried just below Katie’s right collarbone. Not a good site for draining a victim.

Katie lifted a hand and smoothed Leo’s hair, like she might soothe a pet, her hand steady and controlling. I didn’t like that one bit. Leo was splashed with blood, his clothes ripped and showing pale skin. Very pale skin. Katie was harder to judge under the garish blood-based body makeup, but I was thinking she had a well-fed, rosy hue.

“Dominique, how do we separate them when we get there?”

The blond woman turned to me, blood on her chin. Surprised, she said, “We feed him.”

“Ah. Right.”

Moments later, we reached Leo and Katie. Dominique held out her hand and Karimu, eyes fierce and intent, placed a clean blade in it. Dominique sliced her own wrist and held it near Leo’s face. He opened his eyes and slid his fangs from Katie’s chest. He sank them into Dominique and sucked hard. She hissed. Fell to her knees beside Leo. A moment later, Leo released her; Dominique fell over and was carried away by her blood-servants as Grégoire knelt in her place, rolling up his sleeve. The two men held glances a moment, Leo’s vamped-out, Grégoire’s calm and still.

Grégoire said, “My pledge to you. My pledge to Pellissier. My pledge to the Master of the City.”

“You will be rewarded and recompensed.”

Grégoire chuckled, the tone dismissive. “Drink, my friend. And win.” Leo sank his fangs into Grégoire’s arm at the elbow.

Over my earpiece I heard, “Sarge, cops are at the door. And ... I’m seeing blood in a hallway on one of my monitors. No one’s been fighting there.”

“Location?”

“Outside Leo Pellissier’s office.”

Ruse. Opportunity. Battle and mayhem in the vamp-camp would be a great opportunity to accomplish a goal if one were prepared and willing to take a chance. I saw an image of a big-cat lying on a tree limb over a path to a watering hole. Waiting for the opportunity to attack the unwary. Or a great place to take a nap.

Both, Beast assured me. There was something smug in her tone.

“Let’s see about the blood. Meet you at Leo’s office,” I said into the mike. I raced for the stairs and was third to arrive. The door was open, the stink of blood searing my nose, overwhelming my senses. A Vodka Boy was scanning the nooks and crannies, weapon ready for firing. Derek stood over the body. Lying on blood-soaked rugs was the petite, diplomatic assistant. Safia. What was left of her. Derek was cursing fluently and nonstop under his breath.

Beast shoved her way to the forepart of my brain and studied the scene. Not a human kill. Claws and killing-teeth brought her down. But not for meat. Wasted meat, wasted blood. Beast drew in a breath over my nose and tongue. Gun fired here.

I processed and shared her comments but with a few sophistications of language tossed in. “No vamp would have wasted her blood. No wolf would have wasted her meat. Katie was seen on a security camera in this hallway. She had fresh blood on her face when she appeared in the ballroom.”

“Katie killed her?” Derek asked. “Old rogue?”

“Don’t know. We’re gonna need the cops, who happen to be at our door—lucky us.” I looked from the body to Derek and added, “I don’t believe in coincidences. Make copies of all the camera and TV footage. We need one for us. If any of your guys are wanted by law enforcement, get them out of here.”

“We’re clean. You let the cops in. They’ve brought in a ram to take down the front door. A white chick in an evening gown will settle the cops faster than a brother with guns.”

I’d have laughed except for the body at my feet. Instead, I said, “You get to the ballroom and tell them the cops are here. See if Leo has Katie under control. If not, stake her.”

His eyebrows went to his hairline. “You sure about that?”

“No, but what choice do we have? Katie may have killed the were-cat. Whatever she may be tomorrow, right now, Katie’s rogue. I’m the Rogue Hunter. My order.”

“Yes, ma’am. You are that.”

I didn’t take the time to inspect his comment. I raced for the front entrance, set my visible weapons on the glass table near the air-lock door, and checked over the foyer of vamp HQ. Empty. Silent. I entered the air lock. Taking a deep breath, I opened the front door.

There were cops at the entrance, Jodi Richoux at their head. Jodi in tactical gear was something to behold. Pert, a lot shorter than I am, blond hair tucked under a helmet, cinched into body armor never intended to mold to the body of a curvy woman. Ugly but efficient attire. Someone needs to talk to armor designers about female body shapes and style.

Beside her was Sloan Rosen, her second in command. He looked like a fashion plate in his armor. Just wasn’t fair. Behind them were more cops, two holding a battering ram. Jodi recognized me and said something coarse and vulgar, which I ignored. “We need you,” I said. “We have a dead body.”

It took a while to assure Jodi that the violence was contained. Based on the two species’ proximity, she had been expecting ongoing hostile behavior and vamp aggression problems. She and her team had been primed and ready, watching the live media coverage from the unmarked van just in case, and had gone into action when the first bodies hit the floor.

The cops spread out in vamp HQ, a few to prowl the hallways, a few to the ballroom, a few joined Angel’s Tit to look over camera footage, and Jodi came with me back to the body. Oh joy. Because the status of vamps had yet to be decided in terms of U.S. citizenry, and because Leo had formally declared vamps to be a separate nation, all on TV, recorded for history, Jodi passed the legal hot potato up the chain of command. Her bosses agreed to send her a CSI unit to work up the crime scene, and ordered her to seal off the building. They were sending for the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. The bureau, also known as DS, was the law enforcement and security arm of the U.S. Department of State. It would take them hours to get from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans. Dawn. Maybe later.

All I could do at the moment was play freaking-danghostess and hope Leo and Katie had been separated by the other vamps.

The mess was gonna get interesting—or harder, deeper, and stinkier—and fast.