“We’ll talk at our place. For now, we need to search the apartment and take everything we can find that will tell us everything she knew, wipe the security system, and get out of here.”
The air working had taken care of their tracks. There wasn’t a hint of dust anywhere.
Walter entered the gym and chose a chair by dumping Pretty Thang out of it. The man grumbled his annoyance, but Walter ignored it and sat. Legs extended, feet pushing, he swiveledslightly back and forth in the silent room. Every eye was on Walter, Shiloh, or EJ. The unit didn’t fear vampires—they worked with them all the time—but it was an instinctive, prey reaction to a bigger predator. EJ just had intel.
His elbows on the chair arms, fingers steepled in front of his mouth, Walter said, “Talk.”
EJ lifted a green smoothie and drank, getting a hit of blended raw seaweed and spinach, nuts, chia seeds, turmeric, and garlic. When it was down, he said, “In the Witch War she went by several names. I knew her as Gisselle Werner. She was a vampire who worked both sides, looking for intel and taking the biggest payout. Looked nothing like the pic of Gertrude, so her glamour was undetectable and silent.
“When she sold info that got some of our people killed, the allied command placed a bounty on her head and when no one could find her, they sent me after her. We fought. She got away. It’s possible she was after me. It’s possible she was after Angie. And it’s almost certain she was after Konstantin for the bounty. It’s possible she was after Nyoka, and also conceivable that Nyoka was her sire.” Evan Junior looked at Walter. “Accidental turnings are rare but still possible, yes?”
Reluctantly, Walter tilted his head in acknowledgment. “Bounty hunters have often killed the young and those abandoned in the devoveo.”
EJ transferred his gaze to Shiloh. “Like our cousin, Gisselle/Gertrude became a bounty hunter. It’s likely Gertrude’s plan was adaptable, with layered goals.”
“All that lovely bounty from various wars is, yes indeedy, still outstanding,” Shiloh said stretched out, belly down on the coffee table, her unicom in front of her face as she scrolled. “Still outstanding. Though not as lovely as the bounty on Konstantin. That one is delectable.”
EJ plugged Gertrude’s unicom intoOjos. The AI had sectioned off the data and now began to drill its way into encrypted information.
A moan of what might have been pleasure came from Shiloh.
The team kept eyes on her as she slapped her unicom onto her wrist. She sat up in partial lotus, gave Walter a cat’s grin, and gripped a mug of strong coffee. Her eyes slid to the head she had stuck on a fifty-inch sho-stick, taken from the weapons wall. Like a pike. Like the security unit putting heads on pikes.
EJ would have a hell of a time getting the blood off the sho-stick once the vampire finished playing games.
“Isn’t it pretty?” Shiloh asked for the third time, admiring. “I’ve never seen a glamour like that one.”
The glamour on the head came and went, Giselle one moment, Gertrude the next. But the time spent as Giselle was diminishing and Gertrude was taking over, now that the head had moved from undeath to true-death. One of the guards had placed an ice bucket beneath the head to catch the drips, but the burned head reeked and the stench had permeated the gym.
“When we break through the encryption on Gertrude’s unicom,” EJ said, keeping his first cousin in sight, “or we find the lair’s address another way, we’ll act immediately. They won’t expect an attack tonight, as late as it already is, with the ice refrozen and the city still shut down. The weather will warm tomorrow afternoon and the city will open back up, so they’ll expect an attack tomorrow night.”
“Unless they knew about Gertrude being here and knew she had their location, and also know she’s true-dead,” Angie said. His sister was sitting on a sofa, head back, eyes closed, armor loosed, still too pale. Raccoon was sitting beside her, wearing the tiara. EJ’s lips twitched.
“They know she’s dead,” Shiloh said. “I claimed the bounty. Your half has been deposited into your account, EJ.”
EJ turned in his chair to her. “What?” he demanded.
“Half of the bounty was deposited—”
“That is a clear invasion of privacy,” EJ snapped. “How do you even know my bank account information?”
“Oh,” she said, turning her eyes from her treasured head to him, counterfeit surprise on her features. “I asked the queen. She handled the bounty, and I told her you get half. She put the money into your account.” Her tone bitter, she added, “Surely you don’t think access to your monies is private. Nothing owned by the rest of us mere mortals is unknown to the Queen of Darkness.” Shiloh rolled off the coffee table without spilling a drop and placed the mug on the table. She stretched and opened the door to the stairs. “She lets me kill, however, so I’m good with it. I’m going hunting.” The door closed behind her.
“Great. We’re left to deal with a vamp head,” Grizz muttered. “Holy hell, that bloodsucker stinks.”
At two a.m., EJ pinged Walter’s unicom with the words,Ojosbroke Gertrude’s encryption.
Actually his program had broken and crushed the electronic-storm-walls on the unicom. The data was compartmentalized within his own system, so that if it had contained a Graboid—a mega virus named after a mutated worm in a very old film—it couldn’t take overOjosand replicate itself before he could separate it.
He’d never be an electronic wizard like the queen’s pet genius, but he had been taught by the best and his skills honed in the war efforts of the military’s Section Seven. SecSev had beentrying to combine electronics, virtual reality, and magic. EJ had been in the middle of some of that R&D.
Walter replied,The code-breaking has been reported to the queen’s HQ.
That pissed off EJ, but reporting to the queen’s people was Walter’s job, after all. Walter had a contract to fulfill.
On my way.Walter’s text ended.
EJ checked the security cams for Shiloh’s location.Ojoswas tracking her movements. Cousin Wacko was on the roof, her head lifted to the dark sky, her wildly patterned armor catching the few lights in patches of brilliant color. Despite the disco-era wardrobe, this looked like a moment of personal reflection.
