He turned to Walter and said, “The people who usedRazryvayushchiy Kogotsin the war were the Rus, specifically Prince Oleg and his sons, all of whom are supposed to be dead in combat.”
Walter shrugged. “I am aware, though I never encountered such a wound. Perhaps the entire vampire witch coven begun by Prince Oleg were indeed killed true-dead. Perhaps not. Or perhaps someone wants us to think of them and ignore evidence of other things. A distraction.”
“Chase our tails like a dog. Yeah. That too,” EJ said.
Angie’s fingers fluttered as her precog tried to rise. “Killing a human means death at the hands of the queen’s assassins, and when you consider the attack at the club, Londyn’s longtime involvement, our dead client, and the missing Ivyanna, that’s a lot of risk for a distraction. Someone’s making a play against the queen, and at the same time showing her no one she protects is safe. Yeah. That feels right. Layers and layers and multiple goals. And possibly betrayal inside their own ranks.”
Angie’s eyes went from the false naïveté they usually woreto something much harder and colder, the expression she displayed when she thought of her ex-husband. “This should befun.” She tapped her handset and synced it to the car’s unicom. “Alex, old buddy, old pal,” she said. “Tell me about the shenanigans in Asshat’s bedroom. I’m assuming you brought in a lip reader.”
“Affirmative,” Alex said over the speaker system in the car. “From the vid alone, we’re getting some interesting alliances and some even more interesting betrayals. The lip reading will take a while, and we’ll only get partials, but you did good facing the medallion across the room from a mirror.”
“Has Asshat called the queen to whine about me videoing his bedroom antics yet?”
“No.” Alex laughed. “He called your grandfather.”
“Even better,” she said.
“You are cold,” Walter said to Angie, voice too flat to be anything but irritation. “Henceforth, you will dress warmer.”
Angie gave him the side-eye, almost as if she were saying,Make me.
EJ shook his head. His big sister wasn’tthatstupid.
Angie
I pulled off my soaked shirt and tossed it to the car’s floor before I pulled the T-shirt EJ gave me over my wet hair and the stupid tiara. My brain boomed inside my skull like a bass drum and I had a feeling the workings in the jeweled crown needed to be recharged.
Shivers racked me. I hadn’t expected to stand outside in a sleet storm when I raced out of the apartment. My brain had still been a little wonky when I ran into the night and hoppedinto a Chat-uber, no coat, no gloves, no warm hat. My aunts had gone through a crocheting stage, and I had a dozen crocheted toboggans with matching scarves in my closet.
The lack of protective clothing wasn’t the smartest thing I had ever done.
It was way smarter than marrying Asshat, but still.
The T-shirt was silk and warm from EJ’s body. It smelled lightly of his cologne. The change in temp sent a second shiver through me, this one of relief.
“Thanks,” I said, accepting a second T-shirt from EJ’s BOBB bag. The second one smelled as if it had been used for workouts for a week and then shoved under a car seat for the month of August, but it too was warm, so I wasn’t complaining. If nothing else, it hid the fact that I was braless in the middle of a winter storm.
I yanked on the five-button jeans—equally smelly—and buttoned them.
“Thanks. I’m decent,” I said. The other two in the car swiveled their seats into conference mode.
My unicom sounded again. “Alex,” I said, answering. “Talk to me.”
“How’d you like those Falcons?”
“The Falcons haven’t had a decent quarterback since Marham, and the coaching sucks,” I said. “Tell me about Asshat.”
“I’ve counted a hundred and twelve people in his bedroom so far, and I’m only up to three months. He really likes group sex.”
“So I discovered when I came home early one night,” I said, bitterness and old hurt in my tone. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“You know the former Master of the City of Knoxville? Ming?”
“Yeah. She and my grandfather had a thing, or maybe didn’thave a thing, it’s all kinda murky, when he wasn’t with Grandma. Ming had some kind of psychotic episode when her primo died and the current master of Knoxville defeated her and took her place.”
“That’s the one. She’s been banging your ex.”
“Eeew.”
