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I glanced at Menolly. She shrugged and headed for the kitchen. "Tell him," she said on her way out.
Chase waited till she was out of the room. "Touchy subject?" he asked.
"You might say that. Nobody's born a vampire. You have to be made one, and almost anybody can be changed. Menolly was a top-notch acrobat; she could climb anything. Most of the time. Shortly after we joined the OIA, they assigned her to spy on the Elwing Blood Clan, a group of rogue vampires who refuse to play by Otherworld's rules. They were sheltering a greater vampire who was due to be deported to the Subterranean Realms. The Elwing Group has always been trouble; they give a bad name to all vampires."
Chase raised his eyebrows. "Aren't all vampires bad?"
"They have their place in the scheme of things. You'd be surprised how many were already here Earthside when we came over. But, as I said, the Elwing Blood Clan won't play by the rules. Menolly was collecting information on them when her ability to climb walls short-circuited—that half-human problem again. She slipped off the wall, and the Clan caught her. When they found out who she worked for, they didn't go easy on her."
"Bad, huh?"
"Bad doesn't even cover it. The techniques they use can shatter the psyche as well as the body. After torturing her, they turned her into a vampire."
I closed my eyes, remembering the morning she'd come stumbling home, body shattered, her soul no longer her own. She started toward me, then raced into her room and locked the door, screaming for me to get help. That was the last sound she made for weeks. It took the OIA months to restore her sanity.
"Oh Jesus, that's nasty."
"Yeah, it was. The scars they left on her body will be there forever. I'm hoping to help ease the scars in her heart."
"And OIA let her stay on?"
"It's a long story," I said, sighing. "Someday, I'll tell you the rest. Right now, I'm trying to help her adjust. To have fun even though she's… well… dead."
"Don't you mean undead?" Chase asked.
I grinned. "Definitions are a slippery slope."
After another awkward pause, Menolly returned from the kitchen. She paced the length of the dining room, her boots clipping a staccato beat against the hardwood. "Here's the deal. I know that I reported everything that seemed out of place. If there's an inside man, then he's damned good at hiding. I can smell undead like you can smell pussy—"
Chase blinked.
She snorted. "Oh, don't give me that innocent look. You've been sniffing after Camille's ass ever since we arrived. I don't really care what you're thinking, as long as you don't touch. She doesn't want you, and the sooner you accept that, the better. My point is, I can ferret out undead. I can also pick up on some demons, though I'm on a learning curve there."
She leaned over his shoulder and tickled his neck with her hair. "I recognize the undead because I am one of them."
As her hand landed on his shoulder, nails digging in ever so softly, Chase paled. "Yeah, so I understand."
Menolly blew on his ear, tickling it with her tongue before flashing him a dark smile. Chase managed to look both terrified and turned on at the same time.
"Good." She sauntered back to her chair. "What I'm trying to tell you is that I'm the only member of the ooo-spooky set at the Wayfarer. There aren't any other undead there. And if the killer is a demon—whether from the Subterranean Realms or somewhere else—it has to be one of the races I haven't learned how to read. Most of those are Greater Demonkin."
Another awkward pause, and Delilah's purr stopped. She twitched her nose, her whiskers brushing my hand, and her fur started to ripple. Quickly, before we reenacted a mishap I didn't care to repeat, I plopped her on the floor next to my chair. The air shimmered and Delilah stood there, blinking.
"Sorry," she said, stretching her neck. With a quick lick of her hand, she said, "Didn't mean to do that."
"Don't apologize," I said. "Menolly knows better than to scare you."
Menolly grinned and stared at the ceiling.
I tapped my goblet with a spoon. "Attention—now that the excitement is over, can we get back to business?" I looked up to find Chase staring at Delilah, his eyes dark and unreadable. Pointing toward his notebook, I said, "What else have you got for us?"
He flipped open the binder. "There's one other thing. The person I was talking to at the OIA left his station for a moment, and somebody took his place. Guy with jet-black skin and silver hair—dangerous-looking dude. He gave me a message directed at you specifically, Camille." Chase swallowed. "He said he'd twist my balls off if you didn't get it."
The look on his face was priceless, but I couldn't even dredge up a smile. My pulse started to race, and a flurry of images flickered through my mind, dark and passionate. Shit. I knew exactly who Chase was talking about.
"Trillian is working for the OIA? That isn't possible. They wouldn't hire him." I glanced over at Menolly and Delilah, both of whom were frowning.
Chase stared at me, a scowl on his face. "You know who this guy is?" Without waiting for an answer, he continued. "He said, and I quote, 'Rumor has it something big is going down in the lower depths. There's a new ruler, and he's far more ambitious than the Beasttägger was. Don't count on help from home.'"
