Once again they start off after the intruder. Brute indicates that the person they are tracking had also been at the crime scene. Brute leads them to the office of Mariella Russo, and when they enter, they find one of the female recruits on the floor with her abdomen cut open, and what appears to be a demon feeding off her. Russo gets shot, with Soul making a very unusual move across her desk, and the demon is contained.
The next morning Rick gets called into the chief administrator’s office, and rather than getting fired, which is what he expects, he is told that he will be going out into the field on a job in New Orleans that involves Leo, and that Soul, much to her surprise, will be accompanying him. Rick gives Soul a gift—a gold apple on a chain.
Death’s Rival, Book Five
I’m Gonna Need Some Stitches: Not too thrilled to be on Leo’s Learjet on her way to Sedona, Arizona, Jane is also very puzzled by her new case: figure out how vamps are getting sick (which never happens) and who is behind the problem. Talking on the phone with Reach, Jane learns that two months ago vamp masters started getting ill, each receiving a message from another mysterious, unknown vamp: submit to him by swearing loyalty in a blood ceremony, or face him in a Blood Challenge. Since they knew they couldn’t win while sick, most of the masters had complied and then gotten better. Reach and Jane discuss the distinct possibility that the same vamp who attacked Leo at the hotel in Asheville is the very same one spreading the disease. Reach suggests that since the attack didn’t work, this vamp is using the disease as a way to get back at Leo, by infecting those connected to him. Lincoln Shaddock and the Asheville vamps are sick, and Jane’s current mission (which she agreed to just the day before), going to see MOC of Sedona, Roseanne, to get a sample of her blood so a cure may be developed and to learn what she can about this vamp villain.
When the plane thankfully lands at the airport, Beast makes it clear she wants to go hunting in the area, as there a couple of mountain lions on the loose, but Jane tells her no. Jane gears up with her various weapons, and after a brief exchange with the first mate, Tory, she starts to disembark when Beast warns of danger at the same time Jane scents vamp, blood, and guns. Two men come at Jane, and during the course of the fight, Tory gets involved and is injured. With one attacker dead and one unconscious, Jane checks on Tory, who definitely requires medical attention.
Oh, Goody, I Wasn’t Gonna Get Sucked to Death: The pilot tells Jane that he called the police and 911 for medical help, and he and Jane both work on stabilizing Tory. Jane calls Bruiser to let him know they were attacked by blood-slaves, and he’s not pleased about the involvement of law enforcement (the vamps typically prefer to police their own problems), instructing Jane to leave as soon as she can so as to avoid being taken in for questioning. Bruiser and Jane discuss how the leak could have occurred, and Jane insists that it must not be anyone new. Jane calls Reach to get him to erase the security camera footage. After making sure she’s done all she can for Tory, and when the paramedics arrive, Jane leaves, going to the restroom to clean up, and then meets her driver.
Arriving at Roseanne’s clan home, situated in a canyon, and well aware of the armed-to-the-teeth guards as well as the vamp greeting party after she made her formal introduction at the gate, Jane nonetheless repeats her statement to them all. Roseanne’s heir, Nicolas, notes that Jane smells like a predator, but one that he is unfamiliar with, and of fresh blood. Jane tells him that she was attacked at the airport, adding that she doesn’t think it was one of their people.
Nicolas shows Jane to the library, where she waits for half an hour, then is taken to see Roseanne. The vamp looks worse than in the picture Leo received, and despite what was done to her, she does not divulge the name of her new master, saying, “She may not answer.” When Jane says that Leo would like a sample of Roseanne’s blood so his lab can work on a cure, Nicolas vamps out and comes at Jane, and she puts a gun with silver shot under his chin. Roseanne says she will comply with the request, and Jane draws the blood. Unfortunately the blood continues to seep, but Nicolas is able to get the bleeding stopped. When Jane says she will be leaving, a voice behind her says she will not, and she turns to find a gun pointed at her chest by a human who smells like the new master.
I Started to Squeeze the Trigger: Jane stalks across the room and takes the man down. Nicolas tells Jane to take care of their “guest,” putting an unusual emphasis on the word. Jane realizes that this guy is actually Roseanne’s antidote—she feeds from him to keep from dying. Jane smells the same master on the man that she did on her attacker in the hotel in Asheville, making it pretty clear that the same vamp master is behind that attack and the vamp disease. The big guy she has just taken down also has an amulet (nonactive) on him, and she takes that away. After checking with Roseanne to make sure she’ll be all right after Jane beat up the guy, and being told yes, Jane leaves.
In the car, with the GPS directions for the airport set, Jane texts the pilot to ask if they can use the same plane, and receives the answer yes. After dropping the vials of Roseanne’s blood in a FedEx box, Jane gets on the road. At first Jane thinks she may be getting followed by a couple of other cars, but they turn off. Jane calls Bruiser to give him her report, and during their conversation she determines that she is being followed, by the same two cars she saw before. Jane tosses the phone and floors the car, but ends up driving off the road and down the side of a hill. The airbags deploy, and Jane then passes out. She comes to, hearing Bruiser’s voice calling her name on the cell, but also hearing footsteps coming her way. Jane gets to one of her guns, firing off three shots. Unfortunately her assailant gets off shots also, and one of them hits Jane. She shoots a few more times, and it seems the guy has left. Jane knows she is in trouble—bleeding out, and unable to get to her fetish tooth in her pocket. She thinks of Beast, and Beast comes.
Removing Jane’s clothes and boots from the car to hide them, Beast also tries to pick up the cell phone, out of which she can still hear Bruiser’s voice, but she is unable to wake Jane. After accidentally breaking the phone, Beast decides that may be a good thing, as Jane may not want Bruiser to find her clothes without her. After brushing away her tracks using the clothes, which she then hides, Beast goes hunting for food, grabbing an old goat. After eating and lying in the night air, Beast thinks about how the angel Hayyel had told her he could separate her from Jane and give her freedom, but Beast refused, not wanting to leave Jane. Beast decides to go for a walk, to see if she can find those two male mountain lions.
The Man Who Killed Me: Jane wakes on the pile of her clothes, with no memory at all of her time as Beast. She is pleased to realize that Beast wiped away her own tracks. Finding the blood trail of the man she shot, she puts some of the blood/dirt mixture in a test tube to take back with her. Jane catches a ride back to the airport from a trucker, and makes it to the plane, wondering if the pilot (not one of Leo’s regulars) may have been the source of the leak that led to both attacks. After showering and locking herself into the sleeping chamber, Jane gives Bruiser her report, then sleeps until they land in Seattle.
Jane gets to the clan house, which is eerily quiet. Immediately suspicious, Jane goes inside, gun drawn, and smells the sickness of the vamp disease. Going upstairs, Jane finds ten diseased blood-servants and a dead woman, who, upon closer examination, Jane figures out is a Mercy Blade. Jane takes blood from the sick, and finds out from one of them that the Mercy Blade had told them all to fight rather than submit to the vamp-master, and he killed some of the Mithrans, though some got away. Jane picks up a laptop and some cards for a place named Blood-Call.