Because of her research, Misha had known vamps could maybe offer a cure. Misha was a single mother with a daughter who meant everything to her. Misha was desperate.
“I have a feeling that Misha’s not just planning to interview vamps for her book,” the Kid said, sounding worried. “She’s also trying to find a vamp who will give Charly blood.”
Which, if I’d had half a brain, I would have realized from the moment I saw the child. I am such a dweeb about humans. Asking a vamp for blood was offensive, and humans who were so importunate or stupid as to ask had been known to vanish without a trace. Mish hadn’t replied to my voice mail or text about her dead contact, Ryder. I frowned and checked my cell. Nothing.
“Another thing,” the Kid said, sounding uneasy. “It might be nothing.” I gave a little finger curl to continue. “Misha has a concealed-carry permit for the state. And I found a receipt on her bank card for a load of silver shot. So maybe if the vamp she was going to interview wasn’t willing—”
“She might be planning to shoot him, kidnap him—or her—and force him to feed Charly,” I said. “Crap.” I scrubbed my hand across my head, mussing my braid. “I’ll go see her after dawn. Talk her back down from this stupid plan.”
“That might be a good idea. Assuming we’re reading it right. But maybe we’re not. Bright side and all that.” The Kid picked up his laptop and backtracked through the room, turning off the lamp. “Get some sleep,” he murmured, and closed my door. Like that was gonna happen.
CHAPTER 8
Makes It Easier to Stomp ’Em to Death
But I did, somehow, get two hours of catnap before my phone alarm sounded just after four a.m. I dressed in jeans and weaponed up, the movements so automatic I seldom even thought about the process anymore, and slung the medical kit with Leo’s vamp-plague cure across my shoulders. I met Eli in the hallway, catching a whiff of aftershave and man.
“You think our captive is alive again?” he asked as we quietly descended to the main floor. “And sane?”
“We should check,” I said, yawning.
“He’ll be hungry.”
I chuckled. “Kinda counting on that.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you have a cruel streak?”
My step faltered, a slight hitch that I caught, hopefully before Eli noticed it.
“Not that I think that’s a bad thing,” he added. “Too many people are fu— freaking bleeding hearts without the guts to survive when the sh— uh, malodorous refuse hits the fan.”
Cruel? Me? Beast purred, happy, while I felt . . . what? Not much of anything. Not even guilt, which was odder than I wanted to admit. I lifted a shoulder and turned through the house to the kitchen, where I opened the fridge and lifted out a raw, chilled steak. Watery blood was pooled in the corner of the zip-lock plastic, and so I grabbed a roll of paper towels and some hand sanitizer on the way out back. Cruel. I didn’t have time to deal with the accusation, and filed it away in my hind brain for later consideration. Hopefully, I had a starved Naturaleza vamp to interrogate. I could deal with the truth later. I said, “Thank you for not cursing in front of me.”
“I can kill in front of you, but not curse?” He sounded amused.
I shrugged again. “We all have boundaries.”
Eli pulled his shotgun around front, from where it rested like a sling on his back, opened the door to the garage, turned on the light, and stepped through, the motion gallant, the big man willing to take the hit for the little lady. Gallant but kinda stupid. I could heal from most anything with my skinwalker metabolism. Eli was human. He couldn’t. Still, I appreciated the gesture.
Inside, the vamp shielded his eyes with an arm and moved through the small space where he was trapped, his body flowing weirdly, like one of those vamps in the woods. And the vision of what he looked like was suddenly there, blinking on my eyelids. He moved like one of those feathery centipedes, all long legs and bizarre body mechanics and aggression. He hissed. It was a primal sound, and Beast rose in my mind and stared out through my eyes.
I gave her control and dropped the plastic baggie to the floor. Squatting in front of the vamp’s silver cage, I chuffed softly and pulled my vamp-killer. I twirled it in my hand so the silvered blade caught the light. I smelled the peculiar scent of silver-poisoned vamp, his blood on the spikes of the cage. It was sickly and slightly burned, like the studio scent of a metalworker, pickling solution and fire and heated silver, topped off by the old blood like a rancid top note on a really bad perfume. Ugly, but fascinating to Beast. She growled low in my throat, a sound no human can make.
I smiled when the vamp’s eyes widened. He was Caucasian with the pale, pinkish skin of the Irish, dark hair and green eyes, handsome, as most vamps are. He was also vamped out, sclera bloodred, pupils so dilated his eyes were black, and I could smell the hunger on him. Dangerous. I widened my smile, showing blunt, human teeth and a predator’s confidence.
“You should know,” I said, conversationally, “that the Master of the City, Hieronymus, has put a bounty on your head. I make around forty thousand dollars if I take it to him. Separated from your body, of course.” The vamp snarled. It was really effective with the fangs and all, but Beast’s fangs were longer. I didn’t flinch; I smiled wider, twirling the vamp-killer. The blade was fourteen inches long, the flat plated with polished sterling silver, the steel edge so sharp it could cut flesh before the human eye could even see it.
“I am hungry,” he said, his fangs making it hard to understand. His ability to speak meant that he had at least one lung functioning in the hollow of his chest.
“Tough. But we can make a deal. Dinner for answers. I have questions.”
He hissed at me. I shrugged. And opened the raw steak. His eyes darted to the baggie and stuck there like a fly on flypaper. “Give,” he demanded, thrusting his open hand at me. “Feed me.”
“Nope.”
His eyes flashed back to mine, compelling. “I’m hungry, little nonhuman.” It was a Southern accent, a well-bred one, with a hint of old in it.
“Don’t care, little fanghead. If you want to drink anything, or even suck on the juices of this steak, you have to tell me what I want to know.”
“Animal blood and meat will not nourish me.”
“It’s better than nothing, fanghead.”
His eyes went back to the steak and his fangs clicked shut on the little hinges in his mouth. “And what is it you wish to know?”
“For starters, your name.”
“Francis Adrundel, at your service.”
Yep. Only one of the old ones would say at your service. And poor Francis was on the bounty list, good for nothing but a good beheading. He’d been eating humans, a Naturaleza, transported in by the now-true-dead vamp who had started this whole mess, Lucas Vazquez de Allyon. But at least I had Francis talking, which, as everyone in the interrogation business knows, is a necessary first step to getting your subject to tell you anything. “Age?”
“I was born in the seventh month, on the twelfth day, in the year 1820.”
He was older than I expected, by nearly a hundred years. Interesting. “How did you get here to Natchez? Did de Allyon fly you in?”
He closed his eyes and took a slow breath through his nose, scenting, smelling the blood in the bag. And maybe my blood. I’d forgotten that my scalp had taken a scratch or two. And Eli, who had shaved very recently and likely drawn blood to the surface of his skin even if he hadn’t nicked himself. It was like a vamp buffet in the garage. “Answer the question,” I said.
“Yes. Flight,” he said, with his eyes still closed. “And the lovely place in town. And all the slaves and servants I could drink. I liked being sworn to Lucas. I like being Naturaleza here, in this town, where the humans are such easy prey.” His eyes popped open and he vamped out, fastfastfast. Eyes bled wide, sclera went pale pink, and fangs dropped down on their hinges again, with a snick of sound. “The Naturaleza here have much power, all the power that Lucas ever dreamed of having, and more. Here we are finally free. Feed me,” he commanded, his compulsion wrapping around me like a silken veil.