I adjusted my weapons, chambering rounds but safety-ing everything. Popping Velcro loops, making sure the blades would slide free, and hearing Eli do the same on the other side of the vehicle. There would be a tug-of-war at the door, Hieronymus' goons trying to take weapons off me and me not letting them go. I had a statement to make and keeping my weapons was going to be part of that. I wasn't dressed in vamp-hunting armor, but I wasn't dressed like a little old lady for Sunday church either. I repositioned the ash and silver stakes in my bun, fanning them out like a deadly halo. I'd had to smash them into the hair on the ride because they kept hitting the top of the SUV.

This event should be a simple business meeting, but with vamps nothing is ever simple. They were always trying to see who was an alpha predator and who was prey. So this little conference was going to be a dance on a knife blade, poised and balanced, having to prove myself on one side but not going too far and getting myself sucked dry on the other. I was much better at getting myself in trouble than anything else, but no way was I coming across as prey.

Lastly, I pulled a dirty white handkerchief out of the glove box and tucked it into my decolletage. I saw Eli watching and I said, "Insurance."

It was a hanky with Leo's blood on it. The scent claimed me as his. Bruiser, Leo's primo, had marked me with it once to keep me safe. I'd been ticked off about it back then. Times had changed. Or maybe I had changed.

In theory, the MOCs of one city were supposed to respect the life and "property" of another MOC, but it didn't always work that way in real life. I had no idea if Leo had enemies in the crowd I was about to meet, enemies who would kill me to tick off the blood-sucking fiend I worked for. Come to think of it, Leo likely had enemies everywhere.

For safety reasons, I had to go in looking like the Enforcer I was, but, technically, I wasn't here in the capacity of Leo's Enforcer. I was here outside of that job description and the safeguards it provided, so a little scent reminder of the biggest bad among the Big Bad Vamps might be a good thing.

"Ready?" Eli asked. I nodded and headed toward the door; Eli fell into step a little behind me at my left. I could hear the roar of voices and the plink of music from inside and smell the vamp scent. It made my nose itch. Ahead of us, two male vamps walked arm in arm, heads together, either chatting or necking-which had a totally different meaning with vamps. The wind swirled and they both slowed, turning to look at us, catching our scents. I saw human-looking eyes widen before the vamps seemed to disappear. Even over the distance I could hear the pop of displaced air as the bloodsuckers achieved super vamp speed.

"Oops. Most vamps don't like my scent," I said as a warning to Eli. "They smell another predator."

We kept moving, and three steps later two armed blood-servants rushed out the front door, weapons at the ready. I took a slow breath and felt Eli do the same, though neither of us missed a step or seemed to tense visibly. The humans pointed small submachine guns at us, but we just kept walking. Along the street, the security types moved in, forming a loose half circle near the door. The music from inside went silent. So did the voices.

"Looks like our cozy couple spread the word that something dangerous is approaching." Eli said.

"Afraid so. And here I thought being an invited guest would make it easier." I could think of four ways to handle this: stop and chat and get strong-armed, shoot them all and likely die in the ensuing firefight, run like my pants were on fire and lose total face, or take them before a fight could even start.

I drew on Beast and felt her pawing, milking my mind, her claws bringing on a headache. Strength flooded my system with a burst of Beast-adrenaline. My pace didn't alter, but I smiled-a Beast-type smile, all teeth. I felt her looking out at the world and knew my eyes were doing that weird glow thing they do when she's close to the surface.

We reached the door. I acted like the thugs weren't there and put one foot on the single step. The two guys from inside moved quickly in front of me, close enough to make a wall of their chests and guns. I didn't slow. I hit out fast, striking one in the side of the neck with my right fist. Pivoted hard. Kicked the other in the left knee. It was so fast and balanced, it worked like a single move. I heard a gag, a pop, and an agonized scream as I pushed between them and they started to fall. I walked into the warehouse-turned-party-room as if I owned it, trusting Eli to make sure I really did. Behind me, the sounds indicated that Eli further incapacitated the men I had taken down, and then started in on the rest of the security. Good thing vamp blood heals their servants' injuries so well. My booted feet rang on the old wooden floors in the silent room as I left my backup behind.

I took in the place and the occupants. One big room on the lower level; lots of small tables and chairs. The seating was from various time periods and cultures: long couches in the Roman style; pillows, rugs, and hookahs in the Persian style; some odd seating that must have been African or maybe South American, the chairs low to the ground and carved from dark wood, dished like dough bowls. Weird.

Vamps in black tie and evening gowns were everywhere. Humans half-frozen in position looked to their masters for orders. From the loft overhead I smelled humans and blood. They had set the blood bar upstairs, with matching spiral wrought-iron staircases on either side and exotic, scantily dressed human blood-slaves at the bottom, like advertis.e.m.e.nts. The place reeked of vamps and blood and s.e.x and sickness, but the sick stench was elusive, so I figured only a few vamps here had it. The vamps themselves couldn't smell the disease, which was how it raced through them with such speed. Vamps shared a sick blood meal, and the partakers all became infected.

As the security detail tried to rush through the front doors and Eli reacted, I spotted Hieronymus against a wall on the lower level, sitting in a big peac.o.c.k-style chair made of wood inlaid with green and blue mother-of-pearl and paua sh.e.l.ls, delicate and beautiful.

I turned on Beast-speed and darted to him. Stopped fast, my boots sliding for the last few inches on the wood. "I'm Jane." I flicked a business card into his lap. Behind me were grunts and thumps as thugs and their weapons. .h.i.t the floor.

Big H stared at me with eyes that were bleeding slowly vampy. "You profane my presence with weapons and attacks upon my people?"

"You block the door and meet guests with guns?"

Hieronymus looked past me at the doorway while I studied him. He was paler than most vamps I'd met, and though his face was unlined, he had probably been older when he was turned than most-maybe forty human years. He wasn't cla.s.sically pretty, which was rare in a vamp, and, like in his photographs, his head was totally bald. The only hair I could see was a thin fringe of eyelashes, which hadn't been present in the pictures I'd studied. He wore a tux, tie, c.u.mmerbund, and shirt all in black, and had an ancient copper chain around his neck, over the fancy clothes. Dangling from it, in the middle of his chest, was a sliver of corroded metal shaped vaguely like a toothpick, wrapped with copper wire. It was a peculiar fashion accessory-b.u.t.t-ugly. It hadn't been around his neck in any of the photos I'd seen of him.

The front door slammed shut and I heard something heavy fall. Keeping my host in sight, I risked a glance in that direction and saw Eli standing with his back to the closed and barricaded door, nunchacku in one fist, bra.s.s knuckles on the other, and blood on his face and thigh. "Any trouble?" I asked him, letting the words drawl.

"Negative." He slammed his weapons into their hidey-holes and drew two handguns, holding them at his sides. He wasn't even breathing hard. And only because I knew him fairly well could I tell he was having fun. Uncle Sam trained its killers well.

At his feet, five humans lay, all out cold, and I chuckled at the sight. Their weapons were in a pile in one corner. I shifted my attention back to Hieronymus. Big H sniffed the air once, taking in my scent. He c.o.c.ked his head as if processing the signature and stared at me for a time that I could measure in my own heartbeats and that lasted way too long. He was doing that dead-as-a-marble-statue thing they do, where they don't blink or breathe and you just know that in a fractured second they can be on you and drinking dinner. My chest started getting tight, my breath wanting to come too fast. Tension spread into the room like a wave of polluted water. I did not want to have to fight all the vamps in this building, but I could feel their bodies aligning toward me and their eyes boring into me as if picking which pulse points would be the most tasty.

I didn't see his heir, Lotus, in the crowd behind him, but it looked like enough of his people had shown up that they could drain and kill us before I could fire off a single shot. Tension skittered up and down my spine like an army of fire ants, and I broke into a hot sweat that the vamps had to be able to smell. I worked at keeping my breathing slow and measured, but much more of this and my knees would be knocking. I decided to go with bravado. "Let's start over. I'm-"

"Jane Yellowrock," he said, reading my card as if he had never heard of me. "Have Stakes, Will Travel. Amusing. This is your motto?" He had an elusive European accent, the kind that likely started a thousand years ago and had undergone dozens of changes as languages transformed and evolved through the following centuries.

"My mission statement and company slogan. The weapons and the motto are for rogue vamps, Naturaleza vamps, and vamps targeted by the local ruling council as dangerous to their way of life and continued undead health. I'm not a vigilante. Much. I'm a licensed hunter. And as for the little display at the door, why hire me and my team if a few poorly trained human security toughs could take our weapons away? You want to hire the best? You've met us."

Big H breathed out and leaned back, letting his body lounge against the pretty chair. I remembered to inhale. "You are impertinent," he said. It wasn't a question, and it was the truth, so I didn't reply. I'd been called worse. "You are here with Leonard Pellissier's acquiescence?"

"Not exactly. I work on retainer, under contract, like we're proposing to do."

"His Enforcer works on retainer?" It wasn't exactly a question, more like a stunned recap.

"The Blood Master of New Orleans, Sedona, Boston, and Seattle, and all of the Southeast except Florida, needs more than one Enforcer. I'm his . . . part-timer."

"It is not possible to bind more than one Enforcer," he said.

Which was news to me. So I just raised my eyebrows, stared him down, let one corner of my mouth relax in what might charitably be called amus.e.m.e.nt, and waited. Never admit you're wrong when silence lies that you're right. Not that long ago, I'd have felt guilty about letting a falsehood persist. Now I just let it hang. And let my partner beat up humans. And didn't even think about it. I was so going to h.e.l.l.

"Leo released you to work for me."

I let my smile rise. "Not only that. His laboratory in Texas came up with a cure for the vamp plague, so you won't have to keep drinking down humans carrying the antibodies." Big H sat up slowly, his hands resting on the inlaid chair arms. "I brought a supply with me," I continued, "and will be giving out the cure to anyone who needs it. If we can come to an accommodation." Which didn't exactly say that I had permission to cure someone Leo was ticked off with, but I was going to h.e.l.l already, so in for a penny, in for a gallon of blood.

Hieronymus' eyes bled back to fully human. He lifted his fingers to his neck and stopped, then dropped the hand. As he did, I caught a whiff of the sick scent of the vamp plague. Big H had the disease. "You have this cure with you?"

"Not on my person, but it's available to me. Leo is powerful enough to be . . ." I searched for a word and settled on "magnanimous." Which didn't actually make him magnanimous, but I didn't say that. Skirting the truth with a vamp was scary business, because they could often smell a lie and they could always smell nervousness.

"I will validate our proposed contract, including the changes your legal advisor, Alex Younger, has suggested."

I nearly dropped my jaw at the thought of the Kid as a legal advisor. And he had done what with my contract? "Ummm," I said.

"You will destroy the Naturaleza who run rampant and wild through my countryside, and I will pay you the agreed-upon price-"

"Couple questions," I interrupted. Big H frowned. Master vamps don't get interrupted often. "How many are there, what steps have you taken to correct the problem, and where do you think they're hiding?"

"My Enforcer was killed trying to track them down. Witnesses said he was attacked on all sides by the Naturaleza and torn to shreds. He is mourned and will not be forgotten. My primo, Clark, has all other details." He waved a negligent hand at a nondescript human man to his left. Clark was a medium guy. Brown and brown, maybe five feet seven, slender, wearing-yes-brown.

Clark stepped forward, bowed slightly, and handed me a leather folder. "Estimates on numbers are imprecise," he said. "Originally we thought less than twenty, but before he was killed, our Enforcer staked four who were later seen on the streets."

"Naturaleza are hard to kill," I said. "Locations?"

"They have been spotted all over the county and in Vidalia as well. We do not know where they lair." Lairs were jealously guarded daytime resting places for vamps, so I wasn't surprised, but it did make my job a lot harder. "If we knew where they were, they would be dead now," he said, sounding just a bit snippy.

Big H was clearly done with question time. "I will accept the largesse of my sworn master," he said, "and the cure he can provide my people. If you also negotiate a parley that repairs the rift between my master and me, I will provide you a generous bonus. The business details you may discuss with Clark at a later time. You will attend me before dawn with this cure."

Before I could reply to that order, Big H stood, lifted his arms, and raised his voice. "My people. We have a guest. Meet and speak with Jane Yellowrock, the Enforcer of Leo Pellissier. She brings good tidings from my master and a cure for the plague that infects some few of us. Rejoice and enjoy the festivities." Some of his people applauded and a number of others moved forward with unseemly haste. Scuttled like bugs was more like it, but I was feeling generous. I figured they were sick vamps needing the cure.

Hieronymus extended his hand, palm out, holding them back, and pa.s.sed me a business card. "This is Clark's contact information. Whatever you need, all a.s.sistance we can provide, is yours. And"-he gave me a fangy smile-"we are very generous."

"Good to know." I pocketed the card, in case my electronic genius didn't have all the contact info already.

He handed me a microdrive shaped like a shark's tooth, which was way snazzy. "The dossiers of the Mithrans you have permission to deliver true death to, and descriptions of the ones who were never mine and who are unknown to us, the ones brought by Lucas Vazquez de Allyon, may his soul rot in h.e.l.l." Big H dropped his hand, I pocketed the shark's tooth microdrive, and was surrounded by vamps. Sick vamps. Desperate vamps.

I do not like being surrounded by vamps, especially plague-ridden ones who wanted to shake my hand, kiss me on both cheeks like some Old World mafia family, and tell me all their symptoms. I didn't know if they were trying to thank me or infect me. But I survived the glad-handing and, promising to bring the cure to the MOC's Clan home before dawn, slid out the front door as fast as I could. Eli covered my rear.

There was no security committee waiting on us this time, and though I didn't race back to the SUV, I didn't saunter either. Eli gunned the engine and had us two blocks over before my heart stopped stuttering and the rhythm evened out. "c.r.a.p," I said as we curved up the hill and into the old downtown.

Eli gave a twitch of his lips, which could have been indigestion, but I chose to interpret it as mirth. I called Alex. When he answered, I said, "What did you do with our contract? Without telling me. Are you insane?"

"No way. I showed it to Eli. He agreed."

I narrowed my eyes at my driver, who was chuckling, and wondered if I could take over the driving and shove him out into the street. And then maybe run over him a few times. "n.o.body screws with my contracts."

"We just added two tiny clauses," Eli said. "One that lets us take the head of any vamp who attacks us unprovoked, and one that lets us take the head of any vamp not on the list who has gone over to the Naturaleza."

I thought about that for a while as the tires sang on the pavement. I wanted to find fault with the clauses but they were good ones, ones I should have included myself, and would have to add to my standard boilerplate. "Let's say I decide not to kill you both for changing my contract. And you both agree to discuss stuff like this with me and let me handle it."

Eli scratched his chin and said, "We're supposed to be partners of a sort. How about we buy in to Yellowrock Security. Alex and I have a little money from our parents' estate." He named a figure that made me blink. And then mouth it, trying to blend that six-figure number into my lifestyle. You coulda picked me up with a spatula. I had no idea what to say, so I said nothing. Taking my silence as a positive response, Eli went on. "If you agree, we could actually organize this company legally instead of flying by the seat of our pants, Jane style. Get tax stuff and insurance stuff handled, Liability insurance."

Which I had never thought to need, but if I was going to have partners and hire humans to work with me, I guess I needed it. All of it. c.r.a.p. I never intended to be a part of big business.

So I thought about that a while too. About not being in charge, not making all the decisions, not having my way all the time. And about having backup all the time. And having the boys stick around.

"I'm not saying yes." But my mouth went on as if part of my brain had been thinking about this for a long time. "But if I was, I'd be thinking that I get sixty percent," I said. "You two split forty. I handle all legal matters, with your input. Salaries to be decided, commensurate with company earnings, and expenses to be discussed at a later date. And you can stay with me as long as you like."

"Done," Eli said, as if the division of the company that had recently been mine alone was exactly what he had been considering before he made his offer. A glow moved out from my torso, making me feel light and kinda weird. I realized I was happy. Content. For all intents and purposes, I had just sold forty percent of my company. And my life. And I was happy about it. A small smile started and I let it take over my mouth all by itself.

We made it halfway back to Esmee's before Eli said, "So. All of your meetings go like that? The one with Hieronymus, not the one with me."

"Pretty much."

"How much of that was bullsh . . . malarkey?"

I laughed under my breath. "Not all of it."

"Good. Because that means it isn't a hidden lie that has us being tailed."

"c.r.a.p." I looked over my shoulder and saw three cars in the distance. "Which one?"

"All of them."

CHAPTER 5.

Four Dead Vamps Under His Tree I started pulling and checking weapons, and wished I had been paranoid enough to bring the M4. I didn't place the guns on the seat, but reholstered them. If Eli had to do any fancy driving, I didn't want them slinging around the interior. "What do you have with you?" I asked.

"A dozen flashbangs, which are essentially useless in open s.p.a.ce. Six frags, and in the back enough nine mil and .380 ammo to kill off a small tribe of werewolves or vamps."

"Silver, then."

"Yeah. If we're being followed by humans, that changes things. You want to call it in?"

"If we call in the cops and the people behind us are drunken rednecks out for a little fun at the vamp hunter's expense, we'll look stupid. Looking stupid is dangerous in a town full of vamps. It makes us look like prey." I repositioned all my spare magazines into my pockets and crawled over the seat back. There was a midsized tote bag full of boxes. Heavy boxes. Ammo. I stuck extra mags into my pockets and waistband, but I didn't take any boxes of bullets. Chances were, if we needed to reload the magazines we had on us, we'd already be drained.

"And if it's Naturaleza vamps out for a little blood at the vamp hunter's expense," Eli said after a moment's thought, "we'll look dead."

"True. You want me to call it in?" I asked.

"No. There's an open field a mile ahead with a shed full of hay. If we can make that, we can make a stand from the woods or the shed. Decide later how serious our tail is."

"Works for me." I said. I remembered the location he was talking about. The shed was at the back of the field, about a hundred yards off the road, near a stand of trees. A shed full of hay was moderately good at stopping bullets. So were trees. Options were nice to have.

My foot hit something on the floorboard. I bent and lifted it into the faint light. "Did you know there's a shotgun back here?"

"Huh. I wondered where that thing had got to."

"Yeah. Mine runs and hides too. What's it loaded with?"

"Your rounds. More in the ammo bag."

My rounds meant the weapon was loaded for vamp with silver flechette rounds. Vamp killers. Expensive vamp killers I hadn't known I had paid for, but under the circ.u.mstances, I wasn't about to protest.

"Hang on," he said. I gripped the leather handhold over the door as Eli whipped the wheel. The SUV crossed the shoulder of the road before leaving the paved surface, tilting down and back up. I felt the steel frame give, heard the suspension tw.a.n.g and the tires spit dirt and gravel. My head slammed against the SUV roof, grinding my hair-stick stakes into my skull. And then we were up and over and bouncing across the gra.s.sy field. I grabbed handholds and seat backs and glanced through the back window to see three trucks following, bouncing over the low ditch. Headlights pa.s.sed through truck windows, and I counted three or four heads in each. That meant more than nine, though less than twelve, opponents, which were not good odds. If they were all Naturaleza vamps, we might be screwed.

"Hang on!" Eli shouted again. The brakes slid and caught with an antiskid shudder. I slipped across the seat, tightening my grip on the overhead handhold at the last second, seeing the shed whip by. And then I was out the door, into the woods, Eli on my heels. He had left the engine running to cover the sound of our movement, the exhaust to hide our scent, and the SUV's bright lights on to damage the pursuers' eyes.

Beast was close in my mind, her claws a steady pain on my brain, her strength and speed flooding me. I raced into the night, her vision brightening the dark, turning the black into silvers and grays and shimmering greens. Where the moonlight filtered between the leafless trees it lit up the ground like daylight. Eli was slower than I was but fell into place behind me, trusting me to see in the dark until he got his low-light vision eyewear over his head. He moved to my side when he could see.

Behind us I heard engines and doors slamming and then silence as all the vehicles were turned off, including ours. There were no voices, no sound of running feet, no flashlights. Vamps have excellent night vision; they didn't need flashlights. c.r.a.p.

The night was hushed, no bird sounds, no nearby car sounds. The air was still and cold, as if waiting for something to happen. Ahead I could smell standing water, stagnant with rotted vegetation, and a mixed bag of strong chemicals. Fertilizers. Herbicides. Bug spray. Over it all was the stench of drying cow manure. A stand of young live oaks, maybe fifty years old, stood in even lines, the only trees in sight that still had their leaves. We were in the back of a plantation home, in an area used as a nursery.

I stopped at the second tree and grabbed Eli, pulling him close, my mouth at his ear. "Get up in the tree. I'll take a tree a row over and down a few. Let them get between us, then shoot down on them. Pincer style."

He looked up and shook his head. I understood what he was thinking. He didn't have time to climb that high before they were on us, but he'd forgotten about my skinwalker strength, now augmented by all my new muscle. I laced my fingers and made a cradle of my hands. He put a booted foot into them and I tossed him up into the tree, holding my place until he was situated, his face just a little stunned. Then I raced across and down, choosing a tree about thirty feet away on the diagonal. I bent into a crouch and leaped, grabbing the lowest branch and hoisting myself up. All the months of exercise paid off as I muscled myself halfway up the tree and straddled a branch. On the rising breeze, I smelled vamp and sickness and a beery stench. And human blood. A lot of blood. These were Naturaleza. And they were here.

They poured into the wide s.p.a.ce between trees. Three in front; two behind. Others farther back in the trees were closing fast. The three in front dropped forward, feet and hands to the ground, and raced into the clearing between the rows of trees, noses low, sniffing. The hair along my body rose in alarm. The vamps moved like a cross between reptiles and spiders, with a soupcon of wild hog. Their spines seemed to be jointed at the waist and nape, allowing them to bend in strange places, their legs folding oddly. They were fast.

I tucked Eli's shotgun into my armpit, knowing that the recoil would tear at my shoulder joint, but there was no other way to fire downward without the recoil knocking me to the ground. I aimed at the base of the tree, aware that Eli had done the same with his handgun. There were five vamps in the clearing now, all racing around, all acting peculiar, and for vamps that was saying a lot. These were acting not-vampy. More like something else, though I couldn't say what, but the sight of them scampering through the moon shadows of the trees gave me a case of the w.i.l.l.i.e.s. They were something not meant to be on this world. Something wrong.

The hair on my arms tightened painfully. One of the vamps paused at the base of my tree, nose to the ground. I could hear the sniffing breaths as she took in my scent. She lifted her head straight up, at an impossible angle, as if her neck were made of rubber.

I fired. Into her face. It disappeared. So did her head. The rest of her fell like a rock to the ground. The blast ripped the night sounds away. My armpit took the recoil; I'd have a bruise and stretched tendons. Thoughts for later.

I shifted the weapon up against my shoulder and fired again, taking a vamp midback. He fell, his upper body writhing on the ground, his lower body unmoving, his mouth open.

I slammed the shotgun into a fork of trunk and branch and pulled a nine mil. I wouldn't have the luxury of the spread pattern now. I'd have to aim and hit-which meant waiting until they were still. A vamp paused in the center of the s.p.a.ce between rows of trees. Moonlight danced across his unnatural body. I squeezed off three rounds just before he took a step. He went down with a load of silver to the thigh and lower belly.

One leaped into the tree, landing beside me. I fired at point-blank range into his groin. He fell, and even with the concussive damage to my eardrums, I could hear his scream. I adjusted my aim in a modified two-handed grip and fired straight down, directly into a face. A female fell, her eyes fully vamped out, two-inch fangs white in the night. Something caught my eye. My last round hit a vamp in midair. He looked like he was flying. Right at me.