Blood Trade

I didn’t usually care for flower-flavored teas, but I picked the blooming tea, which said something about both Misha and me, but I wasn’t smart enough to figure out what. I opened the package and dropped the ball into a glass teacup, not sure if manners dictated that I wait until Misha served me. But the thought of her waiting on me was an uncomfortable one, so I poured the hot water into the cup, over the ball. Instantly the leaves started to open and flower as the hot water rehydrated and relaxed them. It was like watching high-speed photography of a flower blooming, and I could smell the jasmine. As the tea steeped, I unwrapped a chocolate, leaned against the wall, and popped the candy into my mouth. The taste of hazelnuts, mocha, and vanilla, perfectly balanced, melted on my tongue. I’m not normally a chocolate eater, but I nearly groaned, it was so good.



“I know,” Misha said, walking back to me, a grin on her face. “Best chocolate evah.”



“Yeah. It is,” I said around the chocolate. “Um, why am I here?”



Misha pointed to the comfy upholstered chair set catercornered to the tea table, and I took my seat as she served herself chocolate and coffee. As she mixed her coffee, she said, “What did Reach tell you?”



“That you had a book deal. Book about vamps.”



“Yes.” She looked up under her brows, the grin still in place. “You don’t have to look so ferocious about it.”



“I’m not looking ferocious.” What does ferocious even look like? “I look worried,” I said. “Vamps are dangerous.”



“Not the sane ones,” she countered.



I sat back in the chair. “You’re kidding, right?”



For a moment, Misha’s face altered with some inexplicable emotion, but before I could identify it, the emotion vanished, replaced with the professional Misha. No, the professional Camilla Hopkins, reporter for Torch News.



“According to all my sources, the Mithrans who live by the Vampira Carta live by the rule of law, protecting blood-servants and blood-slaves, providing them legal rights and opportunities and the freedom to leave service anytime they want.” It sounded like a promo quote from a vamp PR firm. Just what we needed, the media believing the vamp crap.



I picked up my tea and sipped, stalling, trying to figure out why Misha was here and why she wanted to talk to me. “The Vampira Carta also tells them how to divide up territory,” I said distinctly, “and the cattle that live in it. Cattle are humans. They eat humans.”



That odd look flashed across her face again and it left me feeling cornered somehow, as if I was way more involved with the project than I knew about. Shock raced down my spine, hot and then frigid. What was her book really about? Some kind of exposé?



“Mish, what’s your book about?” I asked carefully, not letting my reaction show. “And don’t fob me off.”



Misha passed me a sheaf of papers, and I set the weak tea down to go through the typed pages. There were twenty, the content in outline form. The first pages had HISTORY, broken down into CREATION, MITHRANS, NATURALEZA, THE DIASPORA, EUROPEAN COUNCIL, NEW WORLD MITHRANS, and MISCELLANEOUS, with even more subcategories and suggestions and explanations beneath. The next section had POLITICAL HIERARCHY, with MASTERS OF THE CITY, HEIRS, SCIONS, PRIMOS, SECONDOS, BLOOD-SERVANTS, and BLOOD-SLAVES. “This is your outline for the book?” I clarified.



Misha nodded, sipping her coffee, hiding her lower face behind the cup. I remembered her doing that when we were kids, only back then it was orange juice or iced tea she hid behind. I flipped through the pages. There was one labeled HOW TO KILL MITHRANS—HUNTER METHODOLOGY. Another was labeled WHAT SCIENCE HOPES, and beneath that was a list of researchers’ names and the higher-learning institutes that paid them to think. One read MITHRANS AND MAGIC, another was labeled MITHRAN BLOOD AND MODERN PRESERVATION. There was MITHRANS AND WITCHES, and I flipped on through, not liking this. The vamps I knew were not going to like this, either. Leo was going to have kittens. And maybe kill me for being part of it in any way.



And then I found it. Near the back there was a section on VAMP HUNTERS. My name was at the top. The chill I’d been holding down shocked its way through me.



I had never hidden what I did for a living—killing vamps was my main source of financial income. I had a Web site dedicated to advertising my skills, with a headshot of me in vamp-hunting gear, a bio (mostly candid), and a list of kills. I hadn’t updated it recently, but clients could reach me through the contact link. No, I didn’t hide who I was or what I did, but I didn’t put it out there for the whole world to see either, especially in what could become a best seller.



I closed the pages and set them on the table between us. The anger I had kept from my face vibrated through my voice when I said, “You’re making me a target. And you want me to help you?” I stood and pivoted on my heel, heading for the door. Somehow Misha reached it before me.



“Not outing you,” she stated. “Not going to say anything you don’t want said.”



I let a small smile pull up one side of my mouth. “Oh yeah? You gonna let me have the right to edit out anything I don’t like?” Misha’s face fell. “I figured not.” I reached around her for the doorknob.



“Okay,” she said. I stopped. “I’ll let you read over anything I write about you, and if it’s wrong or untruthful I’ll take it out.”



Which wasn’t a huge help. The truth was bad enough, and I wanted to keep the few secrets I had left to myself. But if I left the hotel room, even the right to take out the lies would be off the table. I was smart enough to know that much. Reach would tell her anything she wanted if the price was right. If I stayed, I might be able to bargain for my privacy and secrets. My fists clenched and opened as I hesitated. “What do you want from me?”



“I need an intro to Hieronymus here in Natchez and to Leo Pellissier in New Orleans. I’ve tried but they won’t talk to me. I need someone to give me that extra edge.”



I stepped back and stared at her, waiting, giving Misha a chance to make her case.



“My book deal is structured so I get the biggest payout on delivery of the manuscript. I need the money.”



“We all need something.”



She ignored my derision. “So far, all I have is a contact with a primo blood-servant of a minor clan here in Natchez, a human I talked to ten days ago named Bryson Ryder.” She was watching my face, and hers fell. “You’ve never heard of him?”



I shook my head. I didn’t remember that name from my quick perusal of the Natchez files, and the first thing I had looked at was clan names, their blood-master’s heirs, and primos to get a handle on Natchez’s organizational structure. “Clan name?” I asked.



“Clan Petitpas.”



I shook my head. There was no such clan, not among Natchez’s established houses. Misha turned her head away, letting that blond hair cover her face for a moment before lifting her eyes. “Bobby said you would help. He said to tell you that I need you.”



Bobby looked up at the sound of his name and I met his eyes across the room. The words I need you triggered a memory from our mutual pasts. Bobby Bates lying on a playground, beaten and bloody, the bullies having run off, one eye already blackening, his red hair mussed and filled with playground dirt. “I needed you, Jane,” he had whimpered. “And you came.”



Unlike when I had trailed Ann Shelton and her pals down to the gym, finding Bobby on the playground, being attacked by a small group of vicious boys, had been luck. If I hadn’t . . .



Bobby looked from me to Misha and back. And smiled.



“Okay.” I hadn’t expected to speak—I certainly hadn’t expected to agree to help Misha write a book—so I clarified, “I’ll tell you what I can that isn’t covered by the employee/employer relationship.” I walked back to my chair and picked up my teacup. “You do know I work for Leo, right?” She nodded, and I sipped. The tea was light and flavorful, delicate like the “flower” that had bloomed in the cup. And from out of nowhere I got an idea. Go me. “I’ll share, but I want it both ways. I’d like what info you already have on the local vamps.”



“Quid pro quo,” Misha said, her eyes dancing. “Fine. As long as you agree to not write a book on the subject.”



“Write a— Yeah, sure. Fine. Done. I’ll try to arrange intros. But if the vamps you want to talk to say no, then I have no control over that.”



“No ambushing them in alleyways and making them talk by threatening to break their fingers one by one?” She smiled, her blue eyes sparkling.



“No. None of that. They’d break me in two with one hand tied behind their backs. I want all this in writing.”



“I’ll have my lawyer send you something to protect your interests and privacy and give you the right to read the book before it goes to the editor. So let’s start there, with the Mithrans’ physical strengths. My sources tell me that the Naturaleza are harder to kill than regular vampires. Yes or no? And Jane. Thank you again.”



I didn’t try to stifle my sigh this time, remembering the feel of Lucas Vazquez de Allyon’s flesh trying to reknit and heal, even as my blade severed his head. “Yes.” I drank my delicate, flowery tea, feeling like an idiot. I had been played. I knew that. I just wasn’t sure how it had happened. “Definitely yes.”



My appointment with Misha and my trip down memory lane concluded, I was back in the SUV cab with Eli, the Kid on speaker phone while I instructed him to research Bryson Ryder. If the human wasn’t a primo of a known clan, then I wanted to know what he really was. It was dumb, but I felt responsible for Misha. “While you’re at it,” I suggested, “create us a listing of any properties owned by Big H’s clans.”



“Yeah, I’ll just snap my fingers and they’ll appear, collated in a file,” the Kid said, his tone full of snark. “I’m not Superman. You have no idea how impossible that last request is, do you?”