“Nyoka will never obtain her revenge while possessed.”
“Unless there were vials…” EJ’s words slowed to a stop. “If the liquid in the vial was what I saw used in the war, it’s effective for only minutes. Then the host gets killed and the demon is re-collected for reuse. If the Rus perfected the elixir, that changes everything, for everyone.” It meant the war was here, for real, without the possibility of peace or safety. “Maybe Nyoka took a vial from Londyn’s and drank it before she showed up at Karson’s. I can’t guess at what happened next, but she wasunder their thumb before we arrived at the clan home. And then I staked her.”
“I stabbed her heart,” Walter said. “Everyone else got away. They took Nyoka, possessed, with them.”
“We have to assume that someone has more of the elixir, and they intend to use the succubus that now rides Nyoka’s body,” EJ said, flashing through more and more video, fast speed, watching for the woman, what she did, how she acted. “They’ll add her possession and her relationship with you into their plans. Once we remove her, get her to safety, maybe we can reverse engineer the elixir and use it to create adispossessionworking. Maybe. We can try.”
“You would try to save one who tried to kill us? One who works against the queen and you children?”
“If you’d wanted her dead, you’d have beheaded her when you had the chance. We have lots of questions now that she’s under their control, but the most important one might be, Do they have control of the working in your brand?”
Walter touched his face, his fingertips exploring as if he’d just now discovered it. “If Nyoka placed workings within the brand, then yes. Hergeaswill end when she dies.” His words ended on a note of regret.
EJ wasn’t so sure about ageasending with the death of the magic worker, or even if Nyoka was the only person who placed a compulsion in the brand. Ninety percent of what they had was deductions and wild guesses. “They’re not just coming after us,” EJ said. “They’re coming after you.”
“Ravensport, Terenzio Marrazzo, Willim, Konstantin, Karson, and a demon-possessed Nyoka all currently allied? With Gertrude Lothringen tossed willy-nilly into the mix?” Walter asked. “All those against the Everhart-Trueblood witch children and me, together, with a six-person human security team? In asnowbound city with no potential backup? Whatever their original plan, this is an opportunity they could not pass up. They will not stop. The storm has given them the perfect moment to step up their timetable.”
With one hand, EJ shut off the video feed and massaged his temple and forehead, his eyes closing against a growing headache. “You could have led with that. You could have told me all thatyesterday. Last night.Anytime.”
“Now is part ofanytime, boy. And now we have wine and cheese and a splendid fire. Now ismyanytime. But no time is a good time to speak of what happened to Nyoka at the hands of a witch hunter named Gertrude Lothringen.”
This was the longest conversation he’d ever had with Walter. If he combined all the previous conversations together and compared the total with this one, tonight’s would beat those hands down.
Walter ate another crispbread smeared with the very expensive cheese. Sipped. A vampire’s silent equanimity.
EJ re-hit start, his eyes following multiple screens. He tried to relax and wait to receive more information from the queen’s people, and the search byOjosfor the location of Gertrude Lothringen.
Walter chuckled. “It’s far easier to wait when your life is not on the line,” he said, “when it is not so very personal. And with Angie being deeply involved with Karson for so long, and you having sexual relations with Londyn, this is very personal. Perhaps we should also consider which other vampire planned for all this, foresaw all this, and set layers of protective relationships in place from the beginning.”
Eyes on the screens, EJ poured them another glass of wine and asked, “Which vampire? Sure as hell wasn’t Karson. His IQ is closer to eighty than a hundred.”
“The person who had her own plans interrupted by the Witch War and the appearance of the demons. All her layered relationships had been woven into a Machiavellian tapestry, warp and weft, dyes and knots, intricate and perfect. Until a line of vampire-witches thought extinct reappeared and toppled her plans.”
“The queen,” EJ ground out, picking up his wineglass.
EJ scowled so hard his face hurt.
Walter chuckled. The vampire stood and walked toward the door. Silently, he left EJ’s apartment. The door closed softly behind him.
“Gertrude Lothringen. Where are you?” EJ asked the empty air. “Who are you now?Ojos. As part of the search for Gertrude Lothringen, search for possible name changes among any long-lived blood servants or Onorios from Europe who might have immigrated to the States at any time since the end of World War Two. Access sealed military sleeve of Evan Everhart-Trueblood Junior. File number is in system.” He gave a fifteen-digit access code. “Search for any connection during the Witch War between Section Seven, myself, and any of the above-named particulars. Earmark for further study and notify me. If you find any mention of such relationships at all, coordinate with Alex Younger.”
“Searching. This search may take some time. Records from World War Two, the Vampire War, and the Witch War, while well researched, are, by the nature of war, incomplete,”Ojossaid, sounding as if the idea of a protracted search was a delightful contemplation.
“Noted,” EJ said. He left the conversation area and opened the invisi-windows, stepping into the snowstorm, closing the door behind him. Standing in the frigid air, huge flakes the size of dessert plates fell toward him, twirling like a ballerina’s skirt.They drifted down, landing, splatting onto his head and face, shoulders and chest, wetting him to the skin. While he mulled over everything Walter had told him, EJ pulled energy from the air currents and the clouds overhead into the building’s backup power system, a mega-battery on the roof, powered by magic, created by his Aunt Liz and perfected by his family coven. And while he worked, he dropped into Theta and thought.
Chapter Eighteen
Angie
“I don’t need the help. I don’t need a babysitter. I need you to go ’way.”
“You do need us, sweet pea,” Grizz said. “And we’re staying. You want to have hot hetero monkey sex—which is gross, by the way—with the cop, you’ll do it sober. Right now, you’re blood-drunk, and no way are you getting your blood-drunk hands on him.”
I gave Grizz my best scowl. “Hetero sex is not gross. It’s messy, but not gross.”
“All sex is messy, kiddo.”
“I want Villetti.”
