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“Blame him.” I grinned at Desmond, enjoying the obvious approval from his brother. Dominick had long felt like a brother to me. More than my own brother Ben ever had. And now he really would be.
“I hate to interrupt.” Lucas stood at the top of the stairs, not looking at all sorry for interrupting. “But we’re in the living room making a final plan, if you don’t mind joining.”
Dominick, Lucas’s personal bodyguard, obediently bounded up the steps, but Desmond and I took our time. Time was of the essence, but I wasn’t going to say how high just because Lucas had told me to jump. I’d never been inclined to bow to his commands, and things weren’t going to change now.
The rest of the wolves were gathered around the coffee table in the big living room, the walls lit up orange from the fire outside. How long would we be safe here before the fire came to claim Rain Hotel too? What about the other places I cared about? Were MoMA and the Met still in one piece, or were their treasure troves of art now piles of rubble and ash?
What would be left of this city once we were done?
I sat next to Genie and looked at the maps and blueprints spread out before us on the low square table. Desmond stuck to my side, and the rest of the wolves all seemed in a hurry to present their plans. Each one drew a map from the pile and explained why the place they’d selected met the requirements of hiding an enclave of necromancers. All told there were about thirty-five potential locations for the necros to be hiding, not counting the bar.
Between the wolves and the vampires I’d brought to the party, we had enough bodies to send two-person teams out to each place. Since I didn’t like the safety of those numbers—we’d already lost one person and that was with a team of ten—I wanted the initial sweep to be strictly a fact-finding mission. We’d send out the first wave, find out which of the locations was being used, then regroup.
If the four necros I’d met at the bar continued to use it as their base of operations, that left seventeen more to find. Once we’d narrowed their locations down, we’d be able to send out teams of at least four, or more if we strategized carefully. I felt better about people’s survival chances with bigger groups.
“I’m going to give you guys the same speech I gave the vampires.” I sighed, preparing myself for more arguments and attitude. “No fighting, no insults. You don’t have to like each other, but you do need to work together. At least for tonight. I’m not expecting you to make lifelong friends here, or become pen pals or whatever. But I do expect you to be respectful and not to create unnecessary conflict. I’ve asked them to be on their best behavior, but I’m expecting you to set a high standard here, am I understood? You can go back to hating them however much you want tomorrow.”
A few of the wolves I didn’t know well exchanged uneasy glances, then one brave soul raised his hand.
“This isn’t elementary school, Chuck. Go ahead.”
“I don’t mean to sound rude, but I’m probably not the only one who’s curious, so, uh. Well, fuck it. Are they going to try to eat us?”
I wish Holden had been there for me to see his reaction. Or that I’d recorded Arturo’s hate speech about how werewolves were all filth and I was tainted by my lupine blood.
“No. I can assure you the last thing any of these vampires are interested in doing is feeding from you.”
“How can you be sure?” Bradley asked. Evidently this was a rather serious concern among the pack.
“You guys like steak, right?” A couple of them nodded while the others stared at me in anticipation of whatever this analogy would become. “If you had the option of a rare Kobe flank, or a can of Alpo steak-flavored dog food, which would you pick?”
When they realized how insulting this comparison was, a few of them gave me disgusted looks.
“Hey. You wanted to know. I didn’t say it was my opinion, but I guarantee you it’s theirs. So your arteries are perfectly safe.”
“Sorry I asked,” Chuck grumbled, then added, “Like my damn blood isn’t good enough for a damned bloodsucker.”
“If you’
re really offended, I’m sure I could convince one of them to make an exception.”
All complaints came to an end, though the sullen faces remained firmly in place. Fine. They could pout all they wanted as long as werewolves and vampires weren’t coming to blows in the streets.
I’d win this thing one tiny victory at a time.
“All right. You all know where you’re going?” I had my own list of coordinates to assign the vampires downstairs. Though some teams would consist of a vampire-werewolf pairing, some would be strictly vampire. We needed a vamp on each team to take advantage of their ability to sense the necros, and we had three times as many vampires as werewolves. “Any questions?”
O’Brian stuck his hand up, but Mercedes grabbed it and pulled it down, shaking her head. The poor detective sergeant probably had a million different questions, but Cedes was right to nip them in the bud. I hoped she would be able to give him a crash course in the paranormal world, but regardless of what he knew, he was about to partner up with a vampire. He’d have to learn fast.
“I don’t have werewolf blood,” I heard him mutter. “Are we the Kobe steak in this metaphor?”
“You’ll be fine,” Cedes soothed. “The vampires aren’t what you should be worried about tonight.”
“Your bedside manner leaves something to be desired, Castilla.”
“Good thing I’m not a doctor then.”
As everyone got to their feet and headed to the elevator to go down in shifts, Lucas stopped me. “We need to talk about this plan of yours.”
