“So totally busted,” Angie agreed, going to the coffee bar. She made herself a cup of tea and EJ a cup of coffee, each on its dedicated appliance. “But he’s freshly fed so he’ll be less patronizing.”
“Is that what I am?” Walter asked, entering the first-floor workroom. “Patronizing, as in fatherly, doting, perhaps.” His voice was velvety, if velvet were made from silk and the hair of angels with an undertone of old pain, old violence. Walter’s vampire scent was the floral of funeral flowers and sweet peppers beneath the warmer scent of EJ’s coffee.
He took the armchair he usually sat in and crossed his legs, ankle over knee. He was wearing what passed for casual clothes in his life: tight-fitting black jeans, equally tight-fitting long-sleeved black T-shirt, and slippers that looked like ballerina slides but without the ankle ties. The coarse leather soles made them excellent sparring shoes. Elegant. Dangerous. The scar on his face hidden in the shadows.
“Patronizing as in looking down on us mere witches,” EJ said.
Walter didn’t reply to that. “I smell pizza with meat,” he said,“several hours old. The pizza was for Angelina, as you, Evan Junior, are far too health conscious to have ordered a bread-and-meat pizza for yourself. Pizza means something happened whilst I slept.”
“Yes. Would you care for coffee, Walter?” Angie asked, handing EJ his mug.
“No, thank you. My report first or yours?” Walter asked.
Walter wasn’t part of The Firm, in terms of having a specific job, but he had announced soon after moving in, that he was bored and would enjoy us bouncing things off him. He said it more elegantly than that, but that was the gist. Bored. Bounce. Only an idiot would refuse such an offer from an old, experienced, and brilliant vampire.
EJ took his seat behind the beat-up two-sided wooden desk. The workroom was not for clients, and was decorated with worn, comfortable, serviceable pieces they had bought from various junk shops. “Your report, please,” he said.
They were always so formal with each other. He and Angie hadn’t wanted Walter here, watching over them. Walter didn’t seem to like being anywhere. They had never broken the ice to something more than sparring partners and living under his protection as his assets. The lack of relationship was what they all wanted, yet it still rankled for reasons EJ couldn’t fathom.
Carrying her large mug of fresh tea, the mug marked with a pithy saying EJ didn’t bother to read, Angie returned to her well-worn, puffy chair.
Walter rested his elbows on the upholstered chair arms and steepled his fingers in front of his face, absently hiding the scars. Pedantically he said, “Iread-and-bledboth captives. Labaka is a beautiful idiot, who is madly in love with Angelina’s club persona, Baby.”
“Ick,” Angie said.
“Labaka was not part of the attack on you. He was heroically saving you, and expected you would fall upon him in thanksgiving, cover him with kisses, and tumble into his bed. His thoughts are wildly romantic and sexual.” Walter’s eyes glittered with amusement above his fingers. “Do you want particulars?”
“Gag,” Angie said.
“I thought not.”
EJ smothered a laugh. Angie’s expression was priceless.
“The other man, Tony Montgomery, was human. And he was not looking for you at all. He was paid muscle, and he wanted…me.”
Angie’s eyes attached to Walter’s face with such intensity that EJ went still and tight, magic ringing inside his head as clearly as if bells sounded in the room. His sister uncurled her legs and placed her feet on the floor. A strange tightness came over her, her head cocked ever so slightly to one side. “Ohhh. I see.”
At that moment, little strands of this web came together for EJ as well. Tony was the hired hand, working for someone who wanted Walter. Like, perhaps, Willim Yorath, Walter’s abuser, Walter’s onetimeowner, hisslave owner. Yorath had always wanted Walter back. Yorath had been at the queen’s reception a week past. Walter had not.
Ivyanna Holmes had disappeared from the party where Walter was supposed to be. Maybe their client, Chancy, and the missing subject, Ivyanna, were the lures. What if Willim Yorath was still in the area, looking for Walter?
“Tony was supposed to take you, in order to get to me, except he made a critical error and took Corry instead. Then you disrupted his car before he could get his hostage off premises.”
“And it turned out he had Corry,” Angie said, “by mistake. Where was he taking me?”
“He was to call a number for instructions. Unfortunately, thedisruptorworkings destroyed his unicom, and its data is gone. He is a dead end without the electronics.”
“What did you do with the men after you sucked them dry of blood and information?” EJ asked, still watching Angie.
Walter’s eyes were on his sister as well. It seemed EJ wasn’t the only one who recognized his sister’s tells. She was either being hit with precognition, or one wasn’t far behind.
Walter dropped his hands, revealing his face and the initials branded into it. “I returned Labaka to the club with a lovely memory of Baby’s undying thanks, and a hearty handshake from her nonexistent boyfriend.
“Tony,” he said, his tone merciless, flowing like molten steel, “is no longer a problem.”
Walter was in full-blown protective mode.
EJ sipped his coffee, watching their caretaker. Either Tony Montgomery had died during interrogation—unlikely—or had been picked up by the queen’s “investigative team.” No one outside that select team, led by a two-thousand-or-so-year-old bloodsucker named Koun, knew what they did to acquire information or achieve results, but they were the best. And likely the worst.
