Villetti sat slowly in a wing-back chair at the end of the coffee table, placed his hands on the arms of the chair, and crossed his legs. It was not an American-style manly posture, legs wide, space-claiming, but was totally Italian—graceful and elegant—and somehow, with it, he claimed a higher social superiority than a wider stance would have given.
Villetti didn’t put a recording device on the table. He didn’t take out a pad and pencil.
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but before I could figure it all out, Walter appeared at the kitchen doorway.
“Chattanooga CSI has arrived, Detective,” Walter said, his Jamaican and British accent intermingled in liquid warmth.“Just behind, are PsyLED CSI. Unit eighteen of the Psychometry Law Enforcement Division out of Knoxville has an ETA of ten minutes.”
That told me a great deal. First, that whatever banner Walter had used, had created an advantage for himself and us while I was out. He was being allowed to stay on a crime scene when he should have been treated as a witness, a person of interest, detained in a police car. He had likely used the queen’s standard. Which sucked. That meant that Mama and Daddy knew. Which sucked worse. Two calls from Walter in one night, stating “your children are in trouble,” was unprecedented. The attack at Kegs and Boots made three. We were so screwed.
Through the back door, a stout form wearing a light blue PPE uni entered the house. Stopped. Surveyed the scene. Sighed heavily. The light brown–skinned tech was female and built like a powerlifter.
The region’s paranormal crime scene team would collect evidence from everything and every person involved in this crime and this house and us. Unit eighteen of PsyLED would investigate everything and confiscate what they wanted. PsyLED had more power in a political situation than Villetti did. Of course, we did have friends and family, of a sort, in Psychometry Law Enforcement Division, unit eighteen specifically.
I reached out and touched the labradorite in the head of my staff. It flashed for a moment and went dark.
“What did you just do?” Villetti demanded.
“If anyone tries to take the staff more than ten feet from her,” Walter said calmly, “it will now explode.”
Walter just lied. My eyes didn’t bulge out of my head, but when his lips quivered faintly, I knew the vamp had caught the surprise in my scent.
He leaned against the doorjamb, his mouth now in a fake smile, staring at the cop.
Villetti said something in Italian. It wasn’t a curse. He was too smart for that. But accompanied by the hand gesture it might as well have been the vileness of the highest order.
“And if your CSI tries to take the cloak,” Walter added in an offhand manner, “the queen will be most unhappy that her godchild has been left defenseless when she is currently under threat of further attack.”
I relaxed, knowing he had made all the necessary decisions and calls to protect us while we were out of commission. Even if I wanted to change or refute anything Walter had done, it was too late now.
His words particularly Jamaican, Walter ended with, “And should the cloak be taken from her, I believe that the queen would place a call to your chief of police to complain, when Angelina has just saved a number of lives, including multiple police officers and yourself, Detective.”
“The castanets?” Villetti asked.
“Don’t touch,” EJ cautioned. “There’s still some dynamism in them.”
Villetti muttered something else in Italian, and Walter laughed. Walter had lived in Europe for a hundred years. He spoke a smattering of many languages, and some fluently.
“Tell me about the staff,” Villetti demanded.
Before I could reply, Walter said, “Angelina, Evan Junior. Would you care for a Coca-Cola? There are some bottled ones in the refrigerator.”
“You will not take anything from the scene,” Villetti said.
Walter’s fangs lowered with a click. “Stop me,” he invited, the words not quite a challenge.
“I’d like a Coke,” I said, my mouth moving, but feeling vaguely numb. “It’ll settle my stomach.”
Walter left the doorway, moving like the predator he was, all liquid killing grace. Avoiding every drop and smear of blood on the kitchen floor. Sidestepping the techs who were already working.
“You two are a pain in my butt,” Villetti said, the Italian now hidden under his oddly accented Southern drawl. From what little I had picked up, he had been a very good secret agent in the war in Europe, acquiring personalities and accents as he went along. But he still couldn’t manage the Southern native Appalachian hillbilly without making everyone within hearing laugh.
Walter took just a hint too long to return with the Cokes and handed one to EJ and one to me, his face turned away from the cop, his eyes telling me he had found something, something not to be brought up in front of the cop. The fizz helped on the first sip.
“Tell me about the staff,” Villetti repeated.
“I’m a witch. It’s a staff. It’s a null staff,” I said.
“And it sucks demons,” Villetti stated.
