Death's Rival (24 page)

I reached up a hand to touch my neck, finding the gold nugget necklace I never took
off. Unfortunately, the go-bag was gone. My clothes, my shoes, and my throwaway cell
phone were no longer attached to me. The fight with the boar had ripped the go-bag
off my neck. It was lost in the brush somewhere. I was a long way from Bitsa and my
clothes, which meant I needed to find the gear.

I spent nearly an hour looking for the go-bag, and when I finally found it, it was
covered in boar blood. I rinsed the flip-flops off in a nearby bayou, hoping that
the morning was too cool to attract alligators, wiped off the throwaway cell, and
tossed the rest of clothes into the water. Naked and cold, I walked back to the bike,
dressed, and kick-started Bitsa, riding into the city. I stopped at a tiny French
Quarter restaurant and had a huge breakfast starting with a stack of pancakes, six
eggs over easy, and a rasher of bacon. I’d eaten here before and the waiters knew
I was a big eater. I’d overheard them making bets on me. It might be bets about when
I’d balloon up with the pounds, or bets about whether I’d order blueberry pancakes
or harvest grain. Whatever they were betting on, I always got great service, my teacup
was always full, and my syrup was always warm. I tossed three tens on the table when
I was done and went home. I needed sleep.

Just before I dozed off, my other throwaway rang. I reached off the mattress and opened
my cell. It was Reach. I pursed my lips and said, “How did you get this number?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

I sighed and said, “Yeah, I guess that was a stupid question. What do you want?”

“The Kid is okay. He’s good and he’s capable, and in about two hours, he’s gonna knock
on your door and tell you who your mole is.”

“You want to tell me now?”

“Nah. Why spoil the Kid’s fun?” The phone call ended.

“Well, crap.” So much for sleep.

* * *

But I did sleep, a hard, deep nap. Two hours after the phone call from Reach, I heard
a knock at my door. “Coming.” I got up and shook out a pair of sweats that had been
lying in the bottom of the closet. They didn’t smell too bad, so I pulled them on
and padded to the door. Opened it. Stinky, who smelled of herbal shampoo, was on the
other side, his knee doing that shaking thing he did when he had too much nervous
energy. He was holding a cup of very strong tea. “Yeah?” I said. I’m not my best on
little sleep.

He handed me the tea, which was a nice surprise. I could get used to this. “I know
who the traitor is. You are looking for a traitor, right? That’s why the deep background
on people you already work with? So I found him. I think. I’m pretty sure. I’ve checked
it about a dozen times. So, yeah, I’m sure.”

The Kid was smart. Way too smart for my own good. I sipped the tea, which was so strong
it was bitter, the sharp taste only slightly masked by a lot of sugar. I’d have to
teach him how to brew tea. I crossed my arms, sipped again, and waited.

“It’s the intel guy. Corporal Joran Stevens. The ex-marine.”

He was talking about Angel Tit. All the pleasure drained out of me, leaving my limbs
feeling heavy as lead. “Former. Former marine,” I murmured, thinking, trying to take
it in. “There are no ex-marines.” I’d had that “no ex-marines” thing made clear to
me early on. Except this former marine had turned against his unit. Stupid, disconnected
thoughts. Shock.

Angel Tit?
I’d thought it would be one of the vamps. I’d hoped it would be a vamp. “Crap,” I
whispered. “Let me see what you have.”

Alex had hacked Angel’s e-mail and the evidence was clear, if cryptic. A few months
back, Angel Tit had been approached in a Special Forces chat room. Angel had needed
money fast. One of his sisters was in trouble with the law and he needed to hire a
better lawyer for her than the wet-behind-the-ears public defender the court had assigned.
In return for some much-needed cash, he had been asked to provide a bit of seemingly
innocuous information about the blood-servants in Leo Pellissier’s household. The
information hadn’t been secret, so he had complied. Later, the anonymous person from
the chat room needed something else. Then something else. And suddenly Angel Tit was
in so deep he couldn’t get out.

The money he had earned hadn’t been that great, but any money gathered by a traitor
was enough to get him . . . what? Killed? Kicked out of Derek’s unit? “Print it out,”
I said softly.

I turned away and called Derek on my official phone. “Whatchu want, Injun Princess?”

“We need to talk,” I said. “Privately. Can you come to my place?”

“Sure. I’m at Katie’s, watching your boy work on her safe room. Not bad skills for
the army. I’ll be there in ten.”

“Fine.” I closed the cell and turned back to Alex. “You did good work. Can you find
out the ID of the person who contacted the corporal?”

Alex looked at the screen, pouching out his lips, and back to me. “Maybe. I’ll try.
You want everything on him?”

“Yes. I want to know name, banking, family, habits, hobbies, who his pals are, and
where he eats breakfast.” Which meant a very deep search indeed. “But for now, go
upstairs and shut your door. I need some privacy.” I went to my room and dressed in
cleaner clothes. Put on some lipstick. Strapped on a Walther PK380 shoulder harness
on top of my T-shirt. The weapon was snug under my arm, but not hidden. I didn’t want
Derek to think I was unarmed. I French-braided my hair and tied it with a scrunchy,
which was so much better than a string torn from a pocket. I met Derek at the door
and held out a hand. “Phone.”

“Why?”

I didn’t answer, my hand outstretched. He put his cell in my hand and I tossed it
into my room onto the bed, next to mine, and shut the bedroom door. “We’ve been compromised,”
I said. “I want to make sure no one can listen in.”

* * *

Derek stood at my table studying the printouts. His face was expressionless, his eyes
scanning page after page. At one point, he leaned over the table, bracing himself
on one hand. His breathing didn’t alter, but his heart rate went up, the pulse in
his neck starting to jump. When he reached the last page, he swiveled his head on
his neck and looked at me. Took in the Walther and my stance, which was far too relaxed.
“You thought I’d need to be shot, Legs?” I didn’t reply. “I’ve seen you fight Grégoire’s
half-human goons. I know what you can do.”

I still didn’t reply, and Derek stood upright, his body at an angle to mine, perfect
for drawing a weapon if he was wearing a shoulder holster. But he was wearing a low
back holster. He’d have to reach behind and pull forward. I’d noticed his weapon was
snapped in. Mine wasn’t. I’d have plenty of time if needed. Beast rose in me, staring
out through my eyes.

“You can take a lot of abuse,” Derek said. His cheek started a tic and his pulse increased
again. He looked at the gun under my arm, taking in the unsnapped safety strap. “You
think you can take me?”

“Are you asking me to hurt you because your boy is a spy?”

“Angel’s no boy. He’s a man. He’s faced combat. He’s—” Derek stopped, his breath fast.
Betrayal hurt. This betrayal more than most, because Angel had been in Iraq with him.
They had been together for a long time.

“He’s your friend,” I said. “He’s in trouble. He should have come to you for help.
He didn’t. He’s not happy to be in the position he’s in. He’s hurting.” That was me
being compassionate. The next bit was me being me. “And he also has an in with the
enemy.”

Derek thought about that. “You want me to use my friend to get to the enemy vamp.”

“If he’s willing.”

“And if he’s not?”

“Then he gets put on ice until this is over with,” I said. “And his sister’s fancy
new lawyer drops her case for nonpayment. He’ll deal. He has amends to make and trust
to rebuild.”

“You think I’ll keep him around after this?”

I smiled, but it wasn’t a pretty smile. “I hope you kick his ass and turn him over
to the cops. People died on your watch, because of him. But I’ll agree that it’s your
call.”

Derek dropped his head, then looked up at me under his brows. “I was hoping you’d
say something stupid so I could hit you.”

I chuckled. “Sorry to disoblige. But I need you healthy and not laid up in the hospital.”

An unwilling smiled pulled at his mouth. “Someday we’re gonna fight, Princess. For
real.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big words from the tough guy. So, how do you want to play this?”

“Straight up,” Derek said. “Him and me. We’ll talk. Then I’ll kick the crap outta
him. And then we’ll use his contacts to draw out our fanghead.”

“Works for me. Do all the talking where there isn’t any electronic surveillance that
could be compromised. Let me know when you want me.”

* * *

Later that afternoon, Derek called. “We’re coming over, Injun Princess.”

I was waiting in the kitchen when their car pulled up and they knocked on the front
door. “Come in,” I called. Angel and Derek walked in, Angel in front. He had a puffy
lip and the beginnings of a black eye. Angel stood in front of me, not meeting my
eyes. “Teeth?” I asked.

Angel touched his lip. “A few a little loose.”

“You deserve that and more. People died because of you. But now you’ve got something
we want. A connection. If you work with us, I’m happy to tell no one, even Leo, even
your buddies, about your little indiscretion. You want to start on the road to recovery
or be locked up?”

Angel glanced back at Derek, who looked none the worse for wear. Apparently Angel
hadn’t put up much of a fight. “Recovery.” He shook his head, but not in disagreement,
more like resignation, and drew to attention. “Hi. I’m Joran Stevens and I’m a fuckup.”

Kid yelled from upstairs, “Watch your language. There’s a lady present.” Derek and
Angel both laughed, whether at the timing or idea that I might be called a lady, I
didn’t know.

* * *

Alex and Angel were working out the basics of a scheme to draw out the unknown subject
who had turned him. The condition of his face was the ace in the hole of the plan.
Angel typed in a text on his phone, showed the text to us, and hit
SEND
. I took his cell back to my bedroom. There was no way to detect if someone was listening
in through the phones, so we had to keep the cells we were known to use in one room
together. Derek had purchased a dozen throwaways and some other low-tech electronics
for us to use until this was all over. Luckily, I had five thousand in cash on hand—my
runaway money, I hadn’t used, so if someone was keeping tabs on credit usage, they
couldn’t see what we had bought or done.

“Now what?” Angel asked.

“Now we wait,” Alex said.

“And eat,” I said. “I’ve ordered pizza.” Alex grinned like the teenaged boy he was.

Halfway through the pizza, we heard the tone Angel had assigned for the mystery man.
The tone came over the baby monitor we had set up on the phones in my bedroom.

Derek raced in and grabbed the cell, showing Angel’s text to the small group. The
text said “Moonwalk bench 2pm.”

Which made no sense to me whatsoever, but the others seemed to understand.

When he came back to the kitchen, after putting the phone back in my room, Derek said,
“We’re on.” At my obvious confusion, he said, “The Moonwalk is the scenic boardwalk
along the Mississippi.” When my confusion didn’t abate, he said, “It’s called that
after Moon Landrieu, a former mayor.”

It was perhaps telling that my first thought was the Moonwalk was the place where
I’d taken Rick down on our first sort-of date. “Ducky,” I said. I hadn’t been in New
Orleans long, but it already had its share of painful memories. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Landed on a Limo Floor

Angel asked his handler to meet him to pass along some hard copies of the location
of the New Orleans vamps’ lairs that Angel claimed he had stolen from me. He asked
for five thousand dollars for the pages, not such a high number that the anonymous
person might have to go to a higher-up for approval, and not so low that the handler
would think the pages could wait. The handler took the bait, which told us something
about him. He had some autonomy, he had ready access to funds, and, because it was
still daylight, he wasn’t a vamp, which made our plan much less dangerous and much
more feasible. If he showed.

Minutes before we left the house, I dialed a number I hadn’t called recently. “NOPD,
Jodi Richoux,” she answered.

Jodi was my contact with the New Orleans Police Department’s supernatural crimes unit,
in charge of all things paranormal and woo-woo. We were friends of a sort, but like
most of my pals, we were going through a tough patch. My job was hard on friends.
Or I was. “I might have a package for you soon.”

“Jane Yellowrock. Why should I accept anything you throw my way?”

“Because you want to avert a vamp war in your town and I don’t have a place to store
a high-ranking enemy blood-sucker.”

“War?”
she said, half question, half demand.

“Yeah.”

I filled her in, and when I was done, Jodi said, “I wish I’d never laid eyes on you,
Yellowrock,” and hung up the phone.

We left the house at different times, took three separate vehicles, and arrived at
the rendezvous site from different directions. I was the most conspicuous of us—six-foot-tall
Cherokee women are not common even in a city where racial and ethnic markers were
all over the place—so I stayed in the van that Derek and his crew used for security
gigs. I didn’t like being out of the action, but I knew the others could handle a
human.

Only, the handler didn’t show. A woman did. And Angel didn’t know her. As she approached,
his spine straightened and his fingers curled under, the telltale actions of a trained
fighter facing the unknown. I watched through the smoked windows as she approached
Angel Tit, who was sitting on a bench, away from the tourists, on the Moonwalk. She
was tiny, efficient, and brisk: all of five feet, business suit, rapid walk, and when
Derek and Eli—both wearing ball caps with the brims pulled down low—raced in to take
her, she put up a serviceable fight, though her defensive measures were no match for
two guys trained by Uncle Sam. They picked her up, whisked her to the van, dumped
her inside, secured her limbs with zip strips, taped her mouth shut with clear surgical
tape, and flipped her over, all in the seconds it took us to pull sedately away from
the curb. The woman, who was maybe forty-five and matronly, inspected the blade held
under her nose, which was sucking breath so hard it whistled.

“Any lookouts, any witnesses?” I asked into the mic.

The three lookouts responded, “Clear Alpha.” “Clear Beta.” “Clear Delta.”

I opened the woman’s pocketbook to find a .22 with an illegal suppressor. The end
of the barrel was attached to the end of the purse with a swiveling coupler like nothing
I’d ever seen before. I maneuvered the gun. It didn’t come lose. The .22 was hooked
in, but attached in such a way that she couldn’t have gotten her hand around the grip.
Which was just plain weird. The only other things in the bottom of the purse were
an extra magazine, a pair of reading glasses, and a tube of L’Oréal lipstick. I twirled
the lipstick up. “Coral. An interesting shade. Sedate, maybe just a little bit saucy.
A good choice for a woman who’s looking less and less like Angel Tit’s best pal.”

I held the purse up, inspecting it closer, and accidentally slid my fingers through
the side panel. I pushed on the panel and held it up to her. “Nice. Very nice. I like.
You can be walking along, an office clerk on her lunch hour, maybe getting close to
a guy on a park bench, shove your hand into the purse through here”—I showed the guys
the panel, which was hinged with tiny brass jewelry hinges—“aim this little gun, swiveling
it in the coupler, give a two-tap through this small hole on the other end”—I tapped
my finger on the barrel—“and walk on.”

I looked at Derek and Angel. “The handler sent someone to take Angel out. Seems he’s
become a problem, somehow. Let’s drive.” I handed Derek the purse, turned off the
radio system, and took off the headpiece.

“You know who I am?” I asked the woman. She nodded once, jerkily, angry eyes above
the tape. “You know what we’ll do to you if you don’t volunteer the info we want?”
Her pupils dilated and her sweat smelled of fear, but she didn’t look away or shrink
back. She had moxie, I’d give her that.

To Derek I asked, “Who is she?”

He was going through her bag now and held up a respiratory rescue inhaler. “That’s
it. Except for—” He snapped open a side pocket on the purse and pulled out a set of
keys. One was an electronic key with a remote engine start. Derek grinned. It was
a rookie mistake. “Circle the block,” he instructed the driver. “Then if we don’t
find what we’re looking for, we’ll widen the search perimeter.” We circled back and
drove around for ten minutes, Derek pressing the key, looking for lights blinking
on parked cars. We found the woman’s car in a small private lot on a side street up
from Decatur.

Derek pulled off his T-shirt to reveal another one underneath and jumped out. I watched
as he tossed the stoner watching the lot a twenty, climbed into the running car, and
drove it away. We followed. The stoner went back to sleep.

Derek wove slowly through the Quarter, through traffic, and pulled into a hotel on
St. Charles Avenue. He tossed the keys to the valet and went into the hotel. Moments
later he jogged around from the back and jumped into the van. He pulled on the original
T-shirt and hat and grinned, handing me the contents of the car and its glove box
in a grocery store plastic bag. Derek was having fun. The woman we had kidnapped,
however, was not, and I could see why. There were three different .22 handguns in
the bag—two pistols and one semiautomatic. Twenty-twos were the weapons of choice
for made men and contract killers. I was betting on contract killer for our tiny,
not-so-efficient hostage. Our enemy liked hit men. If he had sent a hit man to take
out Angel, then we could no longer use the former marine to draw him out. Checkmate.
Dang it. I’d never gone up against someone who was always one step ahead of me.

I gave the driver an address on South Broad Street, suggesting that he ride around
some more and get there in fifteen minutes. He looked at me funny, but I ignored it
and pulled on nitrile gloves to open the bag. “So. Sophia,” I said, paging through
the papers Derek had lifted from her car. “Sophia Gallaud.”

“Guh-lode,” Derek said, correcting my pronunciation.

“Gallaud. Sorry,” I said. Seemed like Derek was going to be good cop to my bad. “Local
address on a Louisiana driver’s license, local dry cleaning stub.” I held it up. “Local
shooting range membership. I’ve been to that one. I like the black-painted floors.
It’s easy to police your brass. Goodness, congrats on the nephew’s Catholic thingamajiggy.”
I passed the invitation to Derek.

“Confirmation,” he said. “It’s a Roman Catholic rite of passage. Like laying on of
hands.”

“Like a special Mass or something?” I asked.

“Seems so.” To Sophia he said, “I was raised Baptist, myself. None of that Latin stuff
or rolling in the aisles either. Now, Yellowrock, here, she’s Cherokee. They practice
blood rites. The Injuns ever use human sacrifice? Scalping or stuff?”

“We didn’t scalp. That was a white man thing. And no sacrifice in religious practices.
Cherokees were known to use knives to great effect in other ways, however, like killing
enemies. Yeah, we were real good at that.” If I sounded bitter, no one called me on
it. I handed him my biggest vamp-killer, a new knife to replace the eighteen-inch
blade destroyed in Asheville. “Like this one.”

He took it gingerly. “You ever killed anyone with it?”

“Not yet.” The words brought me up short. They said awful things about my job, but
it was the truth. “But the blade that one replaced . . .” I looked away, unable to
hide my reaction to the memory of the silvered blade sliding into Evangelina’s belly.
The feel of the hotter than human blood pulsing out. “That was a bad one,” I said
more softly.

“Anything else in there?” Derek passed the knife back.

I sheathed it. “Cell phone. Let’s see.” I paged through the text messages, and then
through the received calls, jotting down numbers, names, times and frequency of calls
onto a paper tablet with a regular pen. “Our Sophia has been a bad girl, as well as
a stupid one,” I said a moment later. “She took a gig from someone. They put five
K into an account for her just two hours ago. She gets another five K when the gig
is finished. Our Sophia is a hired killer. Which means she knows nothing. Now that
we have the phone, we can dispose of her.”

Sophia started to hyperventilate in earnest, her nostrils whistling high and fast.
I smiled. I bent forward and peeled off the tape over her mouth. “You want to talk
to us? Give us a reason to keep you alive?”

“You’ll let me go? You’ll leave my family alone?”

“Your family is safe. I won’t kill you,” I said. “Talk.”

Sophia knew little except that she was between a very jagged rock and a very sharp
blade. She told us everything. Sophia—if that was her real name—had been contacted
two days ago to be available at a moment’s notice to take care of three problems,
two high-ticket problems—George Dumas and Jane Yellowrock—and one floater, fees to
be discussed later. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t have my freebie house address,
and the address she had for George was now a lump of soggy charcoal briquettes. What
she did have was Katie’s address.

I glanced at Eli and he nodded once, his eyes hard. We had to move the vamps, and
safe houses were getting few and far between. I looked out the window, saw we were
on South Broad Street, pulled my new throwaway cell, and hit
REDIAL
.

“NOPD, Jodi Richoux,” she answered.

“That package I told you I might have for you?” I said. “It’s a little different and
it eats its dinner cooked, but it’s still interesting. We’ll be out front in a sec.”

“This better be good.”

“All I can do is deliver. It’s up to you boys in blue to make good on the package.”
I ended the call.

Sophia closed her eyes. “Bitch,” she said around the tape that dangled from her cheek.

I showed the hit woman my teeth. It wasn’t a smile. “I promised to let you live and
to leave your family alone. Free her hands and feet, Derek.” To the driver, I said,
“See that woman running out of NOPD up ahead? Pull over to her.” I emptied the guns
and as much info as I thought would help Jodi into a zip-lock baggie and sealed it.

When the van slowed enough, I slid open the side door and pushed the contract killer
out into the street. She bounced twice and rolled a bit, probably scuffing her knees
and elbows. I dropped the plastic baggie containing her little toy guns into the street
next. They bounced too, but I had removed the magazines. Protecting the surfaces from
my fingerprints, of course. We pulled away. My last sight was Jodi Richoux picking
up the tiny woman and directing a uniformed guy to watch the guns. Oddly enough, Jodi
looked irritated.

* * *

When we got back to the house, Alex was waiting, shaking like he had been mainlining
espresso, like a bunny in the sights of a pit bull. “I think I found him. The fanghead
you’re looking for.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me into the kitchen. A map was open
on the laptop. “The problem is that we’ve been looking in all the wrong places. In
Louisiana. But he’s in Mississippi, in the territory of Hieronymus.”

Big H was the vamp we had expected to be targeted next. Seems we were too late; he’d
already been hit, long before our enemy targeted us. The upside? De Allyon had a power
base only an hour away, and it was more than likely that he was making his forays
from there. I nodded for Alex to continue.

“There’s a business in Natchez, in the old downtown, near the main street, three stories,
built in the eighteen thirties. The building changed hands two months ago, and has
been under renovation, and it just passed a building code check and is ready for occupancy.

“The county requires all renovations of historic buildings to submit a floor plan,
and this one fits what vamps are looking for. The building was originally a bank,
and the vault is still there. The new owner ordered a safe room built, adjacent to
and in front of the vault. No windows, no doors. All the internal rooms are no-window,
no-door rooms too. Three stories’ worth. And the reason the building was so hard to
find? It was purchased by Ramondo Pitri a week before you shot him in your hotel room.
It was listed under the name of a dead man. And it just went into probate—to the new
owner, de Allyon.”

Finally
. We had the tie-in between Ramondo Pitri and Lucas Vazquez de Allyon. I took a breath
and it filled my lungs with a fresh, blissful delight. “You, Kid, are good,” I said.
And then it hit me. We had to go after de Allyon, had to beard the lion in his den
in a preemptive attack, which would be either the smartest thing we’d ever done or
the dumbest.

The history of the Natureleza vamp suggested he didn’t have both oars in the water,
and the whacked-out old vamps were always the worst. Any vamp taking out masters of
cities, infecting humans and vamps with a disease, and targeting Leo had to be crazy,
meaning I’d need a plan that allowed me to take the attack to our antagonist before
he got his forces realigned after the battle in Leo’s fields. And I’d need lots of
backup. And maybe a tank. And air support. De
rek was put in charge of vamp security by day and ordered to move the blood-suckers
somewhere safer before dawn. Katie’s had been compromised. Eli was put to work gathering
supplies, and I added my own gear to the equipment that would be delivered to Natchez
via separate vehicle.