Mercy Blade

CHAPTER 16 You Like the Boy Toy

I got a few hours of sleep after dawn and before my cell phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number and nearly didn’t answer, but at the last moment, I flipped the cell open. “Jane Yellowrock.”

“Sloan Rosen,” he said. I looked at the number and filed it to memory. “Jodi would have my balls if she knew I was calling you. But have you heard from Rick?”

“No. Not since . . . Tuesday? Wednesday? The day he went back undercover, if I’m guessing right, which also requires an underlying guess—that he was undercover with the were-cats in the first place. Not that I was informed.”

“You didn’t hear that from me. And you didn’t hear this either. He was supposed to check in twice a day and it’s been well over twenty-four hours. If you hear from him, make sure he checks in. I’m starting to worry.”

I sat up in bed and pushed hair back from my face. “I will.” “No connection” appeared on the screen and I stared at the phone for a moment, dread growing in my chest. Sloan Rosen had no reason to call me. We weren’t buddies. And his excuse, “If you hear from him, make sure he checks in,” was specious. For a cop to step out of the established cop fraternity and talk to an outsider, even a wife or parent, about a cop who was undercover, was really odd.

And then I knew. Sloan wanted me to look for Rick. Rick was in trouble, Sloan knew it, and he couldn’t help him, not without blowing Rick’s cover or making things worse for him. So, obliquely, he asked the gun-toting vamp-killer to do it—which meant Rick was under the control of a supernat, and they needed someone involved who was capable of handling a supe outside the law. Cops are sneaky. And Rick was in trouble.

I pulled out the sheet of paper and unfolded the printed photos of Rick and Safia. I studied them without letting emotions rise and interfere with reason and observation, looking for details, hints as to where and when the shots were taken. The trellis shot was the Soniat Hotel in the Quarter. The other hotel looked run-down, cheap; the slice of New Orleans cityscape seen through the breezeway might be a way to locate it. With my cell phone, I took several pics of the photo sheet to compare with the New Orleans skyline.

I geared up for a hunt, which meant carrying all the weapons I legally could, and as many as I could carry that weren’t strictly legal. And I dressed in silk long johns and leathers, despite the wet and hellacious Louisiana heat.

I was outside in the street, straddling Bitsa, when the cell rang again. I looked at the display and thought about tossing the cell into the bushes. I took a breath to keep from cussing and picked up. “What do you want?”

“Is that any way for a servant to reply to her master’s call?” Leo asked.

Servant? Master? “I’m a contract employee,” I ground out, my molars tight, “not your servant. And you are, no way, no how, my master.”

Leo decided to ignore my emancipation proclamation, and said, “Your Department of State has elected not to require that a postmortem autopsy be performed upon the body of the deceased were-cat, this in keeping with the demands of the Party of African Weres. Their investigative arm is at a standstill, stymied by the demands of Kemnebi. Your Jodi Richoux—”

“She isn’t mine.”

“—is unable to take control and unwilling to follow my orders.”

“Go figure.”

“You will discover who killed Safia. And you will bring him to me.” The phone clicked off. I noted that the sun was well above the horizon. Leo’s lair had to be so deeply underground that no sunlight could penetrate in order for him to be active during the day. I’d seen vamps active by day once before, in a cave deep underground. And I’d seen a very old vamp, stinking of sunscreen, strolling the city streets once, just at sunset, when the last rays of the sun still cast a soft gray light. Could all old vamps day-walk? Was the ability to day-walk something only some bloodlines had? I remembered Evangelina’s comment about some vamp blood being poisonous and some not. I was getting the feeling that not all vamps were equal, and lack of knowledge was biting me in the butt again.

And Rick was in trouble. Maybe big trouble.

From memory, I dialed a number in Boone, North Carolina. Maybe I’d say my cell phone bill was a business expense and try to get Leo to pay it. Before now, I’d only e-mailed Reach with personal status and professional kill info; I’d never called him. Reach ran several independent Web sites for PIs and others in the specialized community of security professionals. One site was dedicated to vamp-hunts and hunters, a free, public site where he posted stats, kills, and hunters’ professional information. But if one needed his other skills, they came at a price.

He was a shadow in the world of PIs. If you needed something hacked or tracked, and if you were independently wealthy—like oil-sheikh rich—and if you had even a smidgen of digital info to give him, you could hire his services. But there was no guarantee of success, and he had ways to make sure you paid, success or failure. I took a breath and my financial future in my hands as Reach answered.

“If it was anybody but you,” Reach said, his voice hoarse and granular with sleep, “I’d send a virus to fry your cell, laptop, and brain, in that order. What are you doing up so freaking early, Jane Yellowrock?”

I felt like I’d been slapped. So I got mouthy, which always seemed to work when I was playing with the big dogs. “Late, Reach, not early. No rest for the wicked. I need some help.”

“Not wicked. You’re one of those God-lovers. What do you want? And it’ll cost you double for getting me up so early. You’re with Bank of America, right?” He read me my account number and named his fee. My heart dropped at the amount, but I didn’t dicker. Reach could reach anywhere and do anything, and with Rick in trouble, that was what I needed. “I’ll start a money transfer, if you approve.”

“Yeah, whatever. I need a location of a cell phone, a GPS tracking of its whereabouts for the last seventy-two hours, incoming and outgoing numbers and triangulation of any cells he contacted, the addresses and info on any landlines that he communicated with, and any texts that were sent to and from the number in that time period. If the cell is off, then I need everything until it went off. And if you can reach out like the hand of God and turn it on, I need you to do that too.” Reach started to interrupt. “Yeah, I know it’s gonna cost me big. Take it from the account. And I need a photo location.” With my thumb, I sent the photos to Reach. “Check your e-mail.”

Keys clacked in the background. “I see the number and a sucky-quality photo. The number is registered to Rick LaFleur, who happens to be . . . well, well, well. An NOPD cop.”

“You got a problem with that?”

“Not me. Who’s the babe?”

“I don’t know.”

“You say that like she’s on your shit list. You like the boy toy, right?”

I took a breath to keep from telling him to mind his own business. Once you contract with Reach, you and everything in your life is his business. “The cityscape is New Orleans. Using it, you ought to be able to give me a search grid for the hotel; even better if you save me time and just tell me the address.”

“What. You want me to do all your work for you? I’m not psychic.”

I was beginning to wonder. “See if you can estimate if any of the incoming or outgoing cell calls triangulate with the grid of the hotel address.”

“Dayum girl, you are loaded. What you been dealing in—drugs or sex slaves?” I figured he had just seen my savings account balance. He answered himself, “Never mind. I don’t want to know. This job sounds like fun.” I heard sounds in the background as Reach finished pulling up his arsenal of hacking and tracking systems. “Maybe I’ll only charge you the usual fee instead of double.”

“You sweet-talking devil, you.” I closed the cell and tucked it into a pocket, kicked Bitsa on, and roared off.

I made it to vamp HQ in time for breakfast—human blood-servant breakfast, not vamp breakfast, which probably took place at dusk, involved fangs, and did not require cooking. The headquarters’ chef put on quite a spread, with a dozen meats, eggs, pancakes, beignets dusted with powdered sugar, biscuits, waffles, pastries, crepes filled with whipped confections, and chicory coffee with cream. I wasn’t much of a coffee drinker but I poured a mug and filled a plate and sat with Wrassler, who looked at my plate, looked at my stomach, and chuckled.

I ate in silence for a while, pausing with a forkful of bacon and egg casserole halfway to my mouth when Wrassler said, “You know what I like about you, Legs?”

I grunted and took the bite. I had a feeling that the moniker, Legs, was gonna stick to me.

“You eat like a man, fight like a man, and think like a man. But you still manage to have woman stamped across your chest. Figuratively speaking. I love the leather look.”

I accepted a coffee refill from the waiter, topped the cup off with cream, and drank down half a mug. It was smoother than I had anticipated. “Thanks. I want to see the security video of the outside grounds the night of the party.”

Wrassler pushed back his chair. “Bring your plate.”

I started to stand and caught a faint whiff of pine to my left. Still rising, knees bent, I whirled. Caught the waiter with my left forearm against his throat. Slammed my right fist into his middle. He flew five feet and hit the wall. Before he finished his oof of pain, I was on him, yanking him to the floor and dropping onto him, a vamp-killer at his throat. Shock flashed through me when I focused on the man I had just assaulted. He was blond and green-eyed. Then I caught a second whiff of pine, this time suffused with jasmine, and I shook off the fear that I had grabbed a real waiter. “Howdy, Gee. Thought I smelled you.”

He sucked a breath and I saw a flash of blue at the edges of my vision. I pressed the vamp-killer against his throat and a thin line of blood welled. “If I get even a hint you might be spelling me, I’ll cut your throat.” The blue faded and I instantly felt clearer headed. “Drop the glamour.”

“Jane? What’s with you and Gerald?” Wrassler asked, his voice behind me.

“He’s hiding behind a glamour. His name is Girrard DiMercy, and he used to be Leo’s Mercy Blade. He’s been hanging around the place for a few days now, glamoured.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Wrassler said. “Some of the older ones talk about him. And not in a good way.”

Older ones . . . Older blood-servants. Got it. I shook the waiter, letting the blade mark him a bit. Blood trailed around his neck, looking thin in the light. “I said, ‘drop the glamour.’”

“All of them?”

That sounded scary. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what was really underneath his charming façades. “How about leaving the one of you as a wolf-killer in place. But keep your magics to yourself while you alter your appearance. Any trace of it on my skin is gonna hurt you.” I twisted my fist in his clothes to secure him. His eyes laughed at me, as if he found the hold amusing.

His skin blued for a moment and his features seemed to flatten out. I felt the electric discharge of magic under the flesh of my hands, and something seemed to coil beneath my knee on his stomach. I bared my human teeth at him, just in case he was getting ready to try something. The face I knew as Girrard DiMercy appeared, still laughing at me.

I didn’t know if the old tales of supernatural creatures being unable to break their word was true or not. The myth was likely European and I wasn’t part of that tradition—I could lie, though not well. I took a chance. “Your word that you will not change or alter shape during our conversation, will not attempt to harm or spell me or any others here, that you will not attempt to change your glamour, and that you will not attempt to escape. Repeat it.”

Girrard smiled, a guileless, winsome smile that made me want to release him. So I tightened my fist in his clothes. He sighed and repeated my promise, which was as lieproof as I could make it. Then he added, “For the next ten minutes.”

“Thirty,” I bargained.

“Thirty,” he agreed. “Now please get off my torse.” It was close enough to torso and I stood, bringing him to his feet with me.

Wrassler was standing to the side of my field of view, frowning, menacing in his bulk. “What is he and how did he get in here?”

I looked at Gee, who upturned a palm, as if to say that the question was foolish and not deserving of an answer. I should have forced a promise from him to answer all questions. “I don’t know what kind of supernat he is, but I can guess.” Gee looked at me in surprise. “Elf.”

Gee brushed his hand along his clothes as if to smooth out any wrinkles. “Such a plebian, mundane name for a being such as I.” Which could mean he was an elf, or not.

“He spells people to not see him, and he can change his face to look like others. Even when he’s caught on film.”

“Shape-shifter?” Wrassler asked.

“No. Spells. And not witch magic. I don’t know what he is, but I have a feeling that he’s been playing with my memory, and that I’ve seen him or smelled him a few times already.” At Wrassler’s confused look, I said, “He smells like pine and flowers. Like toilet bowl cleaner and cheap perfume.”

Gee wrenched against my hold, insult on his face. And I laughed, baiting him, hoping ire might show me what was going on inside his head. But Gee calmed immediately. “You play games. Beware playing games with one such as I.”

“I’m just playing the game you already started. Do you know who killed Safia?”

“No. Boring question.”

“Do you know who didn’t kill her?”

Gee laughed, the sound carefree and childlike. “Much better question. Leo Pellissier did not. George Dumas did not.” When I didn’t reply, didn’t react outwardly, he said, “I know that Safia was shot before her throat was torn out. I know that a man was with her, before anyone else, even the unfortunate Katherine.”

“Did you put photos into my mail slot?”

“Why would I do such a thing?”

Not a no. Not a yes. “Because you want to see the vamps and weres be good buddies.” He didn’t reply. Frustrated, I said, “I want to see the security footage, Wrassler, and I want him close by. You got a secure room with one of the big multiscreen monitors?”

“Yeah. Tyler might not want you to know about it, but he can skewer me later.”

“May I watch this skewering?” Gee asked, making it sound lascivious.

I rolled my eyes and hauled Gee next to me. He was shorter than I was, slimmer than I was. And as well armed as I was; I could feel blades sheathed in his clothing. I figured I’d better add to his pledge. “One more guarantee, Gee. If you promise to raise no weapons against me, neither magical, physical, bladed, nor explosive-based, during the thirty-minute time frame already agreed upon, I’ll promise the same to you.”

“Done.”

“Let’s go to the movies,” I said to Wrassler.

We sat through forty minutes of digital security footage, twelve screens running simultaneously. The room we were in was near the kitchen, cramped, with poor ventilation; it would have caused panic attacks in a claustrophobe, but was suitable for our needs. It had three chairs in a space built for one, a small table, and the monitor. I got refills on my breakfast—a rasher of bacon and crepes filled with some vanilla-flavored whipped cream stuff that was to die for. Gee got some fancy French wine he wanted, and Wrassler had biscuits and sausage. Good breakfast. Better footage. Midway through, the footage from an outdoor camera caught my eye. I said, “Stop screen number eight. Back it up. Stop. Right there. Play.”

On the screen, a man in dark clothing had been filmed walking along the perimeter of the outer wall. When a woman appeared, as if by magic, he stopped. They chatted. Then they both disappeared. Neither of my companions said anything, but the room seemed to grow warmer and the air heavier. “Again,” I said. When it finished the replay, I said, “Again. Slower. Half time.” And on the fourth go round, I said, “Quarter time. And when the girl appears, I want you to back up frame-by-frame until we see her appear, then a frame-by-frame forward progression.” No one argued.

The digital footage progressed at quarter time. “Now,” I said, sitting forward in my seat, hands laced, food forgotten. The camera shot was of an outer wall, a side street running along vamp HQ. The man walked. The girl appeared. It was Safia. Frame by frame, we watched as the digital footage was backed up. She had seemed to appear out of thin air, but actually stepped from a doorway in the outer brick wall, a section of the wall that slid open and closed faster than a human eye could follow. Only a supe could have made it through the opening in the time it was ajar. Anyone else would have been chopped in two when it closed, or at least trapped in the crack and squeezed. Safia had exited a hidden entrance in the vamp council house’s outer wall, and when the couple disappeared, they went back through it, the man pulled along at warp speed. According to the time stamp on the footage, that man had been with Safia after she disappeared, but before she was killed. The progression was stopped on one frame that displayed both faces.

Safia. And Rick LaFleur.

Gee hummed a soft note. Wrassler said, “Maybe we just found catwoman’s killer.”

I stood and left the room. I said nothing on the way out. My mind was in some strange sort of stasis, not really aware of what I was doing, but moving by rote. I left the compound, strode into the sunlight, and found my bike. There was an envelope on the seat and I tucked it into the saddlebag unopened, uninspected, which was stupid but I didn’t care. I kicked on the bike, and roared out of vamp HQ.

I rode by instinct, the scorching, wet wind in my face. All I could think was, Rick is missing. I smelled his scent on Safia’s face and mouth when I bent over her in the morgue. As of now, he was the last person known to be with Safia, which makes him a person of interest in her death. And I have no idea what is going on.

I drove back to my house, found it silent and empty, went inside, and stripped; dressed in capris and a tee. And stopped. My fingers were tingling, my breath coming short and shallowly. Feeling strange and lost in my freebie house. I had dropped my lease on my mountain apartment. Packed up my stuff. Brought it to New Orleans with me. Not just because I had extended my contract with Leo. No. But because I was sleeping with a guy I really liked and I hoped, deep down, that there was something special between us. I had chosen him over Bruiser because he was human, and because he might put me first, while George Dumas was, now and always, Leo’s creature.

Rick, however, was undercover, sent to watch the weres, at the beck and call of the NOPD. And if he had to sleep with a girl or two to keep his cover, he would. He had before. I’d once listened in on pillow talk from a hotel balcony, heard and smelled and imagined the scene in the room beside me.

Rick hadn’t bothered to warn me. Much like Leo owned Bruiser, NOPD owned Ricky Bo. Who had disappeared off the radar, and might now be in trouble with his own people. The cops had a copy of this footage. They would see it eventually and would recognize Rick—who was missing and in trouble.

I had to find him. No matter what happened later with us.

I went to the kitchen, stakes in my hair, a vamp-killer strapped to my thigh over my capris, and a 9 mil over the tee in a shoulder holster that was starting to chafe at the unaccustomed hours of wear. I set the gun on the table. I always feel better with weapons close at hand.

I had brought in the envelope that had been propped on my bike. While water heated for tea, I sniffed the paper, found nothing fresh on the envelope except a faint smell of chemical, like latex or nitrile gloves, and opened it. Inside were more photos and papers. Usually I had to drag clues out of people, and now someone was just itching to give them to me, which made everything they gave me suspect. Evidence handed to me would surely point only in one direction, when there were multiple sides to this investigation.

I spread out the pages on the kitchen table. On top was a shot of Roul Molyneux, dressed in jungle hunting gear, khakis and boots and a jacket with lots of pockets, a high-powered rifle in his hands. He was standing over the body of an African were-lion. What was it about the supernats and hunting one another?

Next was a photocopy of what looked like a legal writ. It was signed by Leonard Eugène Zacharie Pellissier, Master of the City, and was dated March 17, 1916. It was an edict stating that all werewolves who remained in the city after April first would be hunted down and killed. I didn’t think it was a gruesome April Fools’ joke. Leo hated the weres, and I had to wonder how much that hatred extended to the big-cats. Could Leo have orchestrated this whole thing, the death of Safia, the discord between the wolves and the cats? Maybe even the return of the wolves just at this time. Could he be that Machiavellian? Yeah. He could. He was a master vamp, a bloodsucking monster, with centuries of plotting under his belt. But if so, why? To what end?

There were other photos, none dated, and every one of them contained some image of a were, most of them dead and not of natural causes. Near the bottom was the image of Safia bending over a big basket of spotted kittens, maybe a day old, followed by a photo of a child in a bassinet, followed by a still shot of a black leopard in the basket with the kittens and the human baby. Beast reared up in my eyes and stared at the photograph. Kits, she murmured to me, longing in her thoughts like a deep pond, still and cold.

Yeah, I thought back. But I didn’t know if Safia’s offspring were were-cats. The cop info from the woo-woo room had suggested that the human baby would be able to change into cat form, and the kittens would grow up able to change into human form. But if so, would they really be human in any way, or cats with no . . . soul wasn’t the right word. Humanity, maybe. The were-kits were orphans now, whatever they might grow up to be.

I set the photos aside and poured near-boiling water over the tea leaves and left them to steep. I had to focus on the death of Safia and finding Rick. Nothing else was important right now. I took a breath. And smelled pine and jasmine.

I looked up from the papers to find Gee in the room with me. A naked sword in his hand.