Death's Rival (16 page)

“There’s another hidden space in a closet upstairs,” I said. “But it isn’t my house
and I wasn’t into vandalism. At the time.” I didn’t feel so bad about it now, however,
knowing that I’d shared my house with the MOC and/or his heir when it was convenient
for him.

“You need a safe room, you got a safe room,” Eli said, looking around, following the
geometry of the small space, “one supported by cypress timbers and lined with stone
and poured cement, in case of fire. All I have to do is repair the wall and hide the
opening with that steel door.” He pointed out into the main room, and I saw a steel
door in cardboard and shrink-wrap leaning against the wall. I hadn’t even noticed
it until he pointed it out—there was too much other destruction. “Then I cover it
with a hinged bookcase. It’ll do in a pinch, especially as it has an escape hatch.”
He peered into the hole in the floor. It was framed with wood and was wide enough
to admit a skinny person. Me. Or a vamp. They were always skinny.

I evaluated the Ranger. He would have a harder time fitting through unless he could
knock a shoulder out of joint. Some people could, but it hurt for a long time after.
His clothes were tighter today, revealing broad shoulders and a tapering waist, narrow
hips and sleek butt in jeans and army-beige tee. Likely six-pack abs if he took off
his shirt. I shook my head and then chuckled at the thought of Leo’s face if I barged
into his lair in the middle of the day. Or if I had survived his aborted attempt to
burn me out by hiding in his own lair. The MOC would not have been amused.

Eli asked, “Something funny?” I shook my head but let my grin stay in place as I moved
farther into the safe room to peer over his shoulder, licking egg off my fingers.
Below the opening in the floor was damp earth covered with water-beaded plastic. “The
passageway comes out in two places,” he said, “under the side porch, and at the back
of the house. I’ve already been to Katie’s to check out the hidden room under her
stairs and start renovating, but Tom suggested that I not work on it today. It might
be
inhabited
.”

I nodded.
Inhabited
.
Right
. Multiple vamps had been at Katie’s and they would need a safe place to sleep by
day.

“I’ll check it out tonight,” he said. “For now, I’ll finish off the wall repairs and
buy a hinged bookcase. We can store the ordnance here. You got any books to put on
the shelves?” I figured he meant something other than
Tactical Weapons Magazine
and
Gun Digest
, and shook my head again. “You don’t talk much, do you?” He was turned away, but
I could hear the laughter in his voice when he added, “I like that in a woman.” Before
I could think of a snarky reply he added, “I’ll pick up some books at a secondhand
bookstore today.”

Since I had been identified as a woman of few words, I just shrugged and went back
to the eggs. They were pretty good with salt. I put on tea, and was cracking and salting
my fourth when Stinky-Boy said, “I got something.” He looked up, and when I didn’t
look impressed, he grinned. “I got you a
history
, and I found it before Reach did.”

I dropped the shell into the garbage and leaned over his shoulder, reading the file
as I chewed and swallowed the egg. “What is Greyson Labs?”

The kid grinned up at me. “It’s the company that paid the salary of Ramondo Pitri,
the man you killed in Asheville.”

I stopped chewing, and said, “And you figured this out how?”

“I tracked down Pitri’s bank records and got a look at his pay stubs. Greyson designs
cancer-fighting drugs.” He was grinning ear to ear and it was an amazing piece of
detective work, but it wasn’t much on its own.

“So, is this laboratory tied in to the mob?” Pitri had known New York mob affiliations,
with one of the major families there. “Or into the vamps in some way? And how did
you . . . You didn’t hack into a bank, did you?”

Eli went nearly as still as a vamp. The kid just grinned, and I felt a rubbery dismay
waggle down my neck. When he saw our reactions, he laughed. “No. I didn’t hack a bank.
I could if I wanted to, but it was a lot easier than that.” Eli remembered to breathe
and I shook my head. “Pitri had a few contacts on social media,” Alex said, “and I
tracked him through them. I’m tracking Greyson on the international financial markets
now, but it’s a little slippery. If we can find the top shareholder or owner of the
company, we might have your big, bad disease-producing vamp.”

“I’ll need more than a possibility and a name to take to Leo, and way more than a
possibility to act,” I said.

“I’ll get more and put all current info into a report for you. It’ll be ready by lunch
and I’ll update it as I find new intel.” He looked at his brother. “There will be
lunch, right? Not just eggs?”

“Protein,” Eli grunted. When he did, the iron-hard six-pack abs flexed, visible behind
the sweaty tee. Wall dust filtered off him. I considered whether he’d end up with
a nickname. Most people of my acquaintance got nicknames, but nothing fit yet. Alex
was still in contention for Stinky-Boy, but Kid was slowly migrating to the top of
the list.

“I’ll pick up steak,” I said.

Eli grunted approval, and I figured that grunts made up about seventy percent of the
brothers’ communication skills. The Kid shook his head. “Pizza? Pasta? A can of Chef
Boyardee ravioli?” he asked. When neither of us bit, he sighed and went back to his
electronic search. Moments later the printer started. I left the house on my bastard
Harley, Bitsa, and picked up groceries. Steak, salad stuff, oatmeal, beer, milk, picked
out a national brand of coffee, and a couple of cans of ravioli for the Kid. If he
took a shower without me asking again, he got a treat. I figured it might be a lot
like training a dog, but I knew next to nothing about raising boys, and what scant
knowledge I did have was gleaned from children’s home kids who thrived on rebellion,
so maybe I was oversimplifying. I tucked the food into the saddlebags and bungee-corded
the beer to the seat for the ride back to the house.

Riding slowly, I rested my bones and my mind, feeling the stress of the last few days
in the tightness of my muscles and knowing the next few days might get worse. We had
a company name that might—
might
—be connected to the attacks.

Which made me think of Bruiser. No one had called to tell me how he was. Worried about
him, about his
humanity
, I dialed his number, and was shunted to voice mail. “Hey, uh, you know. Um. If you’re
alive, uh, call me.” I looked at the screen and said, “It’s Jane.” I closed the phone,
thinking,
Lame. I am so lame.

* * *

It was four p.m. when I got back to the house, and upper-eighties, but it’s always
hot in New Orleans. It was November and it still felt like summer. Though locals had
assured me that it gets cold in the winter, I’d yet to see any season but hot, so
I didn’t really believe it. Muggy, damp, and miserable, yes; cold, no. I kicked off
my shoes and unpacked the groceries, to the happy sound of shower water running upstairs.
When the water went off, I nuked a bowl of ravioli and met the Kid at the bottom of
the stairs with the food and an ice-cold Coke. His hair was dripping, he smelled like
fruity shampoo, and his clothes were clean. From the crushed-in wrinkles, I was sure
they had been balled up in the bottom of a rucksack, not folded. Not ever. He took
the bowl of tomatoey pasta with the kind of awe and half fear boys usually reserve
for the latest video game or smuggled-in porn. He held the warm bowl in both hands,
looking around for his brother, pure guilt on his face.

“Here’s the deal,” I said softly. “You take a shower every day, you get treats. I’ll
deal with your bother on the fallout. But if you stink, I’ll call you Stinky-Boy to
your face and let your brother feed you.”

“His welfare is my responsibility,” a voice said from upstairs.

I pulled a spoon from my pocket, shoved it into the ravioli, and jerked my head to
the kitchen. The Kid took off like he’d been spanked and I looked up the stairs to
the man at the top. Eli had showered too, and he was bare-chested. His scar went from
his jaw, down his neck, across his collarbone in a starburst pattern that looked like
it had shattered the bone, and down to his pec. He was wearing five-button jeans so
worn that I could see the sheen of skin through the faded cloth. No shirt. He was
ripped, arms like steel cables and a stomach I could have danced on. I managed to
swallow, hid my appreciation, and leaned a hip against the banister to watch him.
He watched back. But he didn’t like it that I didn’t talk much, so I let the silence
build. When his jaw gave a frustrated twitch I said, “He’s eighteen.”

“He’s on probation. Under my supervision.”

I thought about that for a moment while he watched me. “My sensei’s dojo is a few
streets over,” I said. “Let’s go. We’ll spar. Winner decides if the Kid gets ravioli
and other treats for keeping clean.”

Eli laughed, an amused-at-the-little-woman, self-satisfied huff that said volumes.
I let a smile lift one corner of my lips. He disappeared and was back in half a breath,
pulling on a T-shirt and flip-flops. My clothes were loose enough, so I just grabbed
sandals and led the way out into the heat while braiding my hair fighting tight, twisting
it into a queue that would be hard to grab. Eli watched my motions from the corner
of his eye as I removed a handle he might have levered to bring me down.

My sensei was a hapkido black belt, second dan, with a black belt in tae kwon do and
a third black belt in combat tai chi, though he hadn’t competed in years. He thought
competition was for sissies and martial arts were for fighting and killing. His style
was perfect for me, because I studied mixed disciplines and had never gone for any
belt. I trained to stay alive, an aggressive amalgam of styles, geared to the fast
and total annihilation of an attacker, and my style had best been described as dirty.

The dojo was in the back room of a jewelry store on St. Louis, open to the public
only after store hours, but I was one of a select few students Daniel would see during
the day. I had my own key. The dojo wasn’t far and the jog got us both warmed up.
I could smell the clean sweat on Eli as we turned down a narrow service alley, thirty
inches wide, damp, and dim.

I keyed us in through the small door of the dojo and locked it, watching Eli check
the place out. He scanned it like a combat veteran with close-quarters, urban training.
The long room had hardwood floors, two white-painted walls, one mirrored wall, and
one wall of French doors that looked out over a lush, enclosed garden planted with
tropical and semitropical plants. Eli moved to the doors and scoped out the garden.
The cats who usually sunned themselves there were gone today, their bowls empty, the
large fountain shaped like a mountain stream splashing in one corner, the small pool
at the bottom filled with plants. The garden was surrounded by two – and three-storied
buildings and was overlooked by porches dripping with vines and flowering potted plants.
Sensei lived upstairs in one of the apartments.

I punched the button that told Sensei he had a student, unrolled the practice mats,
and started stretching. Five minutes later, he showed up, dropping into the garden
from his apartment above. Most of his students weren’t able to tell when the man literally
dropped in, but with Beast’s acute hearing and sense of smell, I always knew. The
smell of Korean cabbage he loved so much was a dead giveaway. Eli knew too, which
was impressive.

Daniel walked in, limbs loose and ready. He often leaped through the open doors and
engaged me instantly, but today he seemed to sense something different. Silent, he
walked around the room, bare feet solid, body balanced as a walking tree, looking
Eli and me over, considering. Daniel was average height, had muscles like rolls of
barbed wire, and a face no one would remember for two seconds. Mr. Average Man. To
irritate him, I called him Danny Boy, but not today. Not taking my eyes off him, I
gave a half bow. “Daniel, this man is a guest in my house. We have a disagreement
and have agreed to settle it on the mats.”

“And you want me to referee?”

“No, Sensei.” I studied their reactions as I finished with “I want you to keep me
from hurting him too much.” Daniel laughed, surprised. Eli’s brows went up. Even with
Daniel, and all his training and speed, I held back a lot. If I let go with Beast-strength
and speed, I could do some damage. But even I knew that the sparring over ravioli
was just an excuse to prove who was the big dog in Eli’s and my relationship. He was . . .
aware, maybe. Aware that I was something other than a tall, skinny girl with guns.
When I didn’t laugh with my sensei, the room went silent. I could hear the fountain
tinkling in the enclosed courtyard. I could hear the air through the air-conditioner
vents. And I heard the slight hitch when Eli took a preparatory breath.

CHAPTER TEN

Worthy Prey. Will Not Hurt Him Too Bad

Eli’s right foot shot out, heel first, leg going level and straight, balance shifting
as he moved, weight sliding. Faster than human, I stepped aside. With an almost uncanny
awareness, he seemed to expect my body shift and followed the kick with a sweep of
his leg. His heel impacted my side, but I was moving as fast as the kick. With an
elbow, I clamped his foot against me and ducked under his leg, twisting, forcing him
to follow or wrench his knee. In midair, he spun with me. Yanked his foot free and
landed, cat-footed and sure. Eli bounced back from me.

Fun,
Beast thought at me.
Play with worthy prey.

I stood still, letting my little half smile and my silence work for me. I didn’t look
at Daniel, but I could smell his surprise. Now he knew I’d been holding back. I wondered
how that might affect our training and sparring sessions in the future. Eli stepped
in, closer, studying my body language, which was almost lazy. He rolled his head on
his shoulders, letting the action camouflage his next move. Just before he punched
out, my knees bent; I leaped. His fists were a fast one-two-three, into the space
where I had been. I was three feet back, my breathing slow and steady.

Something in his face shifted into a cool, neutral expression. The fighting man was
no longer playing. I let my half smile spread and gave a little
bring it on
gesture with my left fingers. Eli moved left, placing each foot with precision, letting
his balance shift and roll. I let him lead our little dance, following his movement.

Worthy prey. Will not hurt him
too
bad,
Beast thought. I felt her eagerness rush through me, hot and sweet.
Hunt,
she thought.

Eli swept out with his leg. I leaped, kicked with the heel of my foot, straight for
his solar plexus, holding back enough to keep it from a killing strike. Too fast for
his human reactions, my kick landed. He fell back, grunting with the aftershock. Reached
for my leg. But it wasn’t there anymore as I landed, cat-footed. I circled him. He
swiveled with me and punched with his right. And the fight was on.

Eli was faster than any human I’d ever fought. Had more muscle mass. Knew some dirty
moves I wanted to learn, even as they landed and bruised and the breath huffed and
hissed out of me. But I was faster and way stronger than I looked. Eli started to
sweat one minute into the fight. At two minutes he was breathing hard. I was grinning.
And Beast was landing some moves of her own, one a cat-clawing strike that I had seen
alley cats do, right claw going for the face, body shooting back, and back claw spinning
up and going for the abdominals. Nasty move.

I was no longer hiding that I wasn’t human, or at least not fully human, not pulling
my punches and kicks, and I was faster and stronger with Beast participating. At twelve
minutes, by the clock on the dojo wall, I had broken a sweat, but Eli was dripping,
stinky, breathing hard, and his cockiness had disappeared. He had a few scratches,
maybe a bruised rib or three.

I leaped back and let my hands drop slightly—only slightly—I wasn’t stupid. “Yield.”
The word was a growl, low and snarled, and I could feel that my eyes were glowing
faintly gold. Grudgingly, Eli nodded once, a downward jut of his chin. “Ravioli?”
I asked.

The combo of Italian food and an animal growl must have tickled Eli’s funny bone because
his mouth twitched down slightly and then up. He laughed, a soft huff. “One serving
of pasta or one
small
pizza. Per shower.”

There was too much wiggle room in the statement. I clarified, “One fourteen – or fifteen-ounce
can of Italian, pasta-based, prepackaged food, or one twelve-inch or smaller pizza
from the restaurant or frozen brand of Alex’s choice, or one fast-food meal of his
choice, not supersized, to be given for every shower he takes with soap and shampoo,
but limited to one food item per day. And for every day he skips a shower, he misses
two days’ worth of food.”

Eli thought about that, weighing fast food against his brother’s body odor. “Done.”

“Pizza? This was about
pizza
?” We both glanced to Daniel, standing with his arms loose and ready and an incredulous
look on his face.

In unison, we said, “Yeah.”

Daniel shook his head, but he had a speculative look on his face that boded poorly
for our next private sparring session. Daniel wanted to take on the fighter he had
seen on the mats today, not the girl he had been working with for several months.
Sensei might not want to compete, but that didn’t make him want to fight or win any
less.

* * *

We walked back to my house, Eli ruminating silently, me enjoying the feel of the late
afternoon sun beating down on my shoulders. I felt, more than heard, when he had his
questions all in order. “No. I’m not. And no. I won’t.”

He laughed again, that soft huffing breath that must have worked well in Ranger recon.
“Say what?”

“No, I’m not human. No, I won’t tell you what I am. And while I’m at it, yes.” I let
my half smile lift, feeling his eyes on me. “You were more fun than anyone I’ve sparred
with in a long time. Even if I
did
have to hold back some.”

“Hold back?” His voice rose a hair in surprise.

I slanted my eyes at him. “You’re still alive.”

Eli cursed under his breath and put one hand to his solar plexus where my first kick
had landed. “Hold back, my as—my backside.”

I just grinned.

Inside my house, the kitchen was clean, the dishes—including the ravioli bowl—were
washed and left to dry on a towel by the sink, and Alex was hooking something up to
the back of the television in the living room. Only it wasn’t my TV, but a large,
flat screen that hadn’t been there before. It was perched on a drop-leaf table I vaguely
remembered seeing upstairs, and electronics were scattered across its top: black,
gray, and silver boxes, wires, an ergonomic keyboard, and squares of tightly folded
paper instructions, which the Kid hadn’t needed to read.

“How much?” Eli demanded.

The Kid glanced up, just now seeing us. He had no security consciousness about him
at all. We could have been two ninja attackers or even a couple of Angus steers, and
I didn’t think he’d have noticed us enter. “Less than two grand.”

Eli took a breath to yell, I took one to laugh, and the Kid forestalled us both by
adding, “I called George Dumas.” He went back to work, his attention on the spiderweb
of cables he was constructing.

My stomach took a rolling tumble and I managed to inhale. George was well enough to
be taking calls. “And?” I said, sounding almost normal.

“Mr. Dumas approved the preliminary estimate as a start-up to replacing the security
system lost by the Master of the City in the fire that took out his house. He gave
me all the necessary passwords and I’ll rebuild it from here, tie it in to the system
at the Vampire Council Building, the system at the heir’s home out back, and eventually
move the operating system to the Pellissier Clan Home when it’s reconstructed.” He
glanced up. “Oh. I e-mailed him the prelim estimate on your company’s letterhead.
You know, since we work for you now. Not trying to undercut you or anything.”

Eli and I had both stopped speaking, watching the brainiac work. I looked at Eli.
Several things to say flashed through my head and I settled on “I don’t have a letterhead.”
Which was stupid but better than some other options.

The Kid opened a new coil of cable, watching us from beneath his too-long bangs. “You
do now. Your business name’s not real catchy, but the blurb line is. Yellowrock Security.
Protecting and staking vamps—we do it all. Have Stakes, Will Travel.”

I laughed out loud. Eli did his soft chuckle. “I just
know
I’m going to regret this, but I like it. But I don’t think we’re exactly going into
business together.”

“Sure we are. The three of us.” He looked back and forth between us, suddenly confused
at our reactions. “We make a great team,” he insisted. He pointed at me. “You can’t
construct an extensive security system all by yourself. You’d have to hire help. Me.
You need someone to handle the recon and work with extra security personnel, someone
who can do everything from general construction to electrical work, to defusing a
bomb. There he is. You’ve got the cash and connections we need to get started, only
my brother’s too ethical to steal your business out from under you. You’re also more
than human and are reported to heal fast, move fast, and fight like a demon. Perfect
team.

“Oh. All that research on your security team and vamps is printed out, collated, and
stacked at your door, as well as e-mailed.” As if dismissing us, the kid bent over
and started moving the electronic thingamajig boxes around on the old table. Eli watched,
his lips pursed, mild confusion on his face.

Alex looked up at us again. “Hey. That company, Greyson Labs? I found a tie-in to
vamps. It’s not a huge tie-in, but it’s there.”

I couldn’t help my smile. The kid was good. Arguably better than Reach, and even paying
the outrageous fees Eli was charging me, he was cheaper than Reach. “Yeah?”

Alex stepped over and dropped to my feet, which I did not expect, and started talking.
“There’s this boutique pharmaceutical company called DeAli. It, in turn, is wholly
owned by a company called Allyon Enterprises, which is wholly owned by Vazquez International.
Vazquez Int. also owns Greyson Labs.” His grin grew. “Greyson is the company that
employed Ramondo Pitri. Greyson is also the owner of Blood-Call Inc. I traced the
money up in a line, then across, and down to find it.”

I dropped slowly to the floor, bringing my face even with the Kid’s. “Blood-Call was
the name on the business cards in Seattle.”

“Bingo. And Blood-Call? It’s like a—” He shot a look at his brother and changed whatever
he was about to say into “Like, you know, an escort service for vamps.” At my expression,
he ducked his head to hide his gratified smile. He’d discovered something important
and he knew it.

“Escort service. Meaning blood-meals and dates,” I said. That seemed important, and
I tried to put it all together, but there was too much going on in my brain to isolate
it.

“Dates. Yeah. Riiight,” the Kid said.

“How did you figure all that out?” I asked.

“Financial market info is pretty easy to come by on publicly held companies. I’m doing
a search to see if any board members in any of the companies are suckheads.”

“Publicly held companies?” Eli barked. “Government companies?”

Kid rolled his eyes. “I’m not hacking. ‘Publicly held companies’ means the general
public invests in them and owns stock. They’re traded on the stock exchange and stuff.
Like that. A lot of info on publicly held companies has to be freely available, if
you know where and how to look.”

“And Ramondo Pitri is now tied in to Blood-Call, which caters to vamps,” I said, “and
to Greyson Labs, which has something to do with medicine. And disease.”

Yeah. That was it. It was tenuous, but it felt right, the way a puzzle piece feels
when you slide it into a hole shaped just for it. “If someone wanted to infect a vamp,
giving him a disease through sex and dinner would be a good way, but I don’t see how
a company that makes cancer drugs would also develop a disease.” I thought about that
for a moment, seeing if the puzzle piece still felt right, and oddly it did.

“There are Blood-Call businesses in Seattle and Sedona and Boston,” I guessed.

“Yes, ma’am, there are. Of course there are Blood-Calls in lots of cities in the U.S.,
and there haven’t been takeovers in them. Yet. So I haven’t proved a tie-in.”

“Huh. I don’t know how or if it ties in either, but as a pal of mine says, I stopped
believing in coincidences when I stopped believing in Santa. Not bad work, kid. Not
bad at all,” I said.

I went to my room, picking up the pages as I went.
Business partners? Not gonna happen.
But temporary contract employees
this
good, I could live with
.

I stepped into my room and stopped. Someone had been in here. I smelled a male and
a female, raw fish, tea, powdered sugar, and perfume, something expensive and light.
I sniffed, parsing the scent-signatures. Deon, Katie’s three-star chef, a friend of
sorts, and gayer than an entire line of chorus dancers,
had been in my bedroom?
Yeah, he had. With him was Christie, one of the girls who worked at Katie’s Ladies.
I did not want Christie, with her piercings and chains and tats and general air of
disdain, in
my
room. But—

The place had been dusted. The bed was made up. The cobwebs hanging from the ceiling
were gone. I walked in and lifted the coverlet. Clean sheets. I bent and sniffed.
The corners smelled of Deon and Christie—only the corners, which was a happy discovery.
It meant they had handled my sheets, not rolled around on them, which was a mental
image I really didn’t want to intrude in my psychological space. But there was a major
problem. My weapons were gone.

A slow boil started somewhere in my gut, and I dropped the collated pages on the bed,
walked out of bedroom, across the foyer, and into the living room. Before I could
open my mouth, the Kid said, “In the ordnance room,” and pointed at the hole in the
wall. I narrowed my eyes and ducked into the hollow space under the stairs. My weapons
and Eli’s were laid out on the striped mattress, hung on spikes in the mortar of the
rock walls, stretched out on trays on a battered bookshelf and on another table, both
from upstairs. There wasn’t much room to walk, but it was . . . organized. My blades
were on the new table in sheaths or laid out by blade length. The stakes were on one
end, the silver-tipped ones, then the ones made of ash wood. The vial of holy water
was hanging above the table surface. My guns were on the bed by size, from the M4
shotgun to the tiny derringer. Eli’s weapons and ordnance, including flashbangs and
what looked suspiciously like C4 explosives, were on the other side of the bed and
on the bookcase. And there was a lot of it. My hands itched to try out a garrote made
to look like a bracelet.
Niiice
.