Mercy Blade

Gee’s eyes stared into mine. I wondered what he saw in the instant before he leaned close and breathed in my scent. His lips were open, his tongue touching the roof of his mouth. I froze, holding still. His tongue was pointed like a hawk’s, deep red in color. Not human. “You are goddess born,” he whispered. “Ask one of the old ones what this means.” Without another word, he left the house, the door opening and closing behind him as it hadn’t when he entered. The ward, which shouldn’t have admitted him in the first place, didn’t buzz.



I closed my eyes with the sudden release of tension. And with pain. Rick had been sleeping with Safia, according to Gee, who had no obvious reason to lie to me. I looked at the photos Gee had provided and wondered what else I’d need to bring this case to a close. Finding the guilty parties was worth what I was spending minute-by-minute for Reach to find Rick—who knew more than anyone alive what had happened in Leo’s office.



I stared down at the photos as I dialed Bruiser’s cell. When he answered, I asked, “Of the cold case files, how many of the victims were Leo’s enemies?”



“All of them. Hello, Jane. How are you today?”



I didn’t answer his pleasantry. “Had they been his enemies for a long time?”



“Likely. The humans were all blood-slaves of his uncle Amaury, and they became Leo’s enemies after his uncle’s demise. The Mithrans were Amaury’s scions as well.”



“So anyone who had been part of the clan back before 1915 would know who had needed to be killed to make it look like Leo was cleaning house. That’s a lot of blood-servants, -slaves, and vamps.”



“Yes.” His voice deepened. “Have lunch with me.”



“No.” I clicked off the phone, but not before I heard him laugh.



I couldn’t do anything for Rick, and nothing else came to mind, so I made a call to the Pellissier clan home to set the stage, then dressed in jeans and a denim jacket, packed a small bag, and left the house. I was about to play a hunch, go with my gut, and unlike in TV-land, guts were notoriously unreliable. But . . . someone was trying to prove that Bruiser had been Leo’s hired gun. Which he had been. And someone was trying to prove Leo was guilty of murder. Which surely he was. Bloodsucking fangheads didn’t live centuries without killing somebody. I didn’t mind if the guilty went to jail for crimes they committed, but I did mind that someone might be planting and manipulating evidence to force the issue.



Tyler was the only player in the game who had tried to tick me off. Tyler was trying to take Bruiser’s position, which gave him motive to help whoever was trying to frame the big guy. Or at least turn a blind eye. Tyler lived in the clan home, with access to info and all the older vamps and vamp-blood-enhanced humans. I had a feeling that Tyler could tell me something. Or his belongings could.



Leo’s house stood at the end of a well-paved but little-used road, no other houses within sight, and farm and fallow land lining the road for miles. It was on a bend of the Mississippi River, the levee visible in the distance in the daylight, a tug boat hooting, sounding lonely. The clan home was built on high ground, the artificial hillock rounded and smooth, some twenty feet above sea level, higher than the levees. Curlinglimbed live oaks arched over the long drive, standing like sentinels on the rising ground.



The white-painted, two-story brick house was a mixed architectural style, half plantation home, half something vaguely European, with dormers in the tall slate roof and gables at each corner, and with turret rooms on the second floor.



Porches wrapped around both stories, interrupted by and incorporating the turrets. It was originally built in the nineteenth century, and to me had always screamed construction by slave labor. Slave labor currently kept Leo’s clan home painted and pristine, but by willing blood-slaves, not by humans bought and transported wearing chains.



Slinging the strap of the bag I had packed around my shoulders, I climbed the front stairs and knocked on the door. The woman who opened it was pretty, wearing a conservative, gray housemaid’s dress and apron. She smiled at me with recognition, and her eyes twinkled; she had once served me breakfast on the house porch. A lot of breakfast. I handed her my card anyway, and said, “Nettie, I called ahead and spoke with the . . . butler, I guess? I need access to Tyler Sullivan’s rooms. And any of Magnolia Sweets’ belongings she left behind.”



“Miss Yellowrock, Grayson told me that the vampire hunter was due. Come in.” She opened the door wider and stepped back. “Grayson told me to assist you in any way I can. Mr. Sullivan is still not here, and is not expected back until nightfall.”



My phone call had assured me that Tyler did indeed have a room on the estate, and had paved the way for me to root around in other people’s stuff. Sometimes my job was just too cool.



Inside, the AC was turned up to max and the house was freezing. The sweat on my skin chilled fast and goose bumps rose, but I had learned early on that most New Orleans homes, businesses, and offices were kept icy, as much to lower the humidity as the temperature.



The foyer was as big as my living room, floored in white marble with a black, white, gray, and maroon marble mosaic heraldic emblem in front of the door, depicting a griffin with drops of blood spraying from his claws, a battle-axe, shield, and banner. A stone fountain splashed near the crest, and a round table stood in the center of the foyer with a huge aromatic bouquet in its center.



There were two sets of stairs, one on each side of the foyer, curving up and around to a small space at the top, like a stage, with another hallway extending back. I wondered if they had gotten all the blood out of the carpet where Immanuel and two witches died, but it was only a passing thought. I wasn’t interested in the suites of the house’s occupants. I was more interested in the rooms of the blood-servants. The maid led me through the foyer, down to a formal reception room beneath the upper floor. The furniture was done in shades of charcoal, gray, and soft whites with color in the paintings lining the walls and the pillows on the couches. Rich rugs were scattered all over the marble floors, looking freshly vacuumed.



She led me through a connecting doorway, past the two-storied library, and to a wing of the house not visible from the front. It was a single, beige-painted hallway with doors to either side, bland and boring, and vaguely like a hotel corridor. The maid stopped in front of one, pulled a batch of keys on a retractable cord, and unlocked the door.



I said, “This is not to be discussed with Tyler.”



Nettie pursed her lips and lifted her nose in disapproval. “No ma’am. Rest assured, Mr. Sullivan and I do not see eye to eye on anything, including the way that women in this house are to be treated,” she said. “With respect, I hope you find something to fry his . . . his behind.”



“I’ll do my best,” I said.



“In that case, be sure to look into his musical preferences.”



“Yeah. Thanks.” Note to self: Never tick off the help. Inside, it was colder than the rest of the house, the air conditioner turned down to freezing, I was sure. I closed the door and tugged on a pair of nitrile gloves. I went through the closet, which was neat, almost OC in its order, clothing and shoes lined up by color and season. Expensive European-style suits in black, gray, and charcoal, dress shirts in matching shades and starched white, a few casual button-down shirts, workout clothes, two tuxedoes, and jeans all were on hangers. Nothing was in any of the pockets or hidden in the hems. He had a shoe fetish as bad as Molly’s younger sisters. I counted fifteen pairs of boots as I checked the shaft of each for hidden contraband, three pairs of running shoes, two pairs of sandals, well-worn hiking boots, four pairs of dress shoes, three pairs of loafers, and three sets of slippers.



Why did anyone need so many shoes? He couldn’t wear but one pair at a time anyway. Personally, I owned three pairs of boots, my dancing shoes, running shoes, three pairs of sandals, and flip-flops, half bought here in the city.



T-shirts were neatly stacked on shelves, his tighty whities were actually all dove gray, as were his socks and under-shirts. There were several hats on the shelf above the hanging clothes, and a portable gun case that contained three handguns, nothing older than twenty years, and nothing that would fire .385 rounds, like the ones that killed the cold case corpses and Safia. I returned everything to its proper place, glad that the room was dust free. It was much harder to rifle a dusty place and not leave evidence behind.



In the shelving unit were novels in French and German, very few in English, and none familiar to me. One shelf held gun manuals and books on paramilitary and police procedures. Two on forensic practices were interesting, but why would he need them? A drop-down desk was dropped flat against the shelving unit, a laptop to one side. I turned it on and found it was password protected. Tyler wasn’t dumb. I turned it back off and hoped he couldn’t tell it had been touched. I’m not a computer whiz and today’s units could do stuff that seemed nearly impossible.



A big-screen TV and sound system faced the bed. I turned on the sound and heard a left-wing radio personality who sounded as if he threw spittle with each word. I touched the remote once and Rush Limbaugh’s bombastic tones reverberated in the room. I returned it to the leftie politico and shut it off. Tyler was a well-rounded political junkie.



An MP3 player was beside the TV, and I set the earpieces in my ears and hit play. After a minute of rifling through his playlist, I turned it off. His musical preferences, the maid had said. The guy liked German and French stuff, but there was nothing incriminating there.



The bed had military-precise sheets, nothing under the mattress or the pillows. Both bedside tables were vacant, no photographs, no little plate with change and gum wrappers, only the remote device, a landline phone, a pad, and two pens lined up perfectly. Nothing was written on the pad, and I couldn’t tell that it had ever been used. A sitting area with two comfy-looking upholstered chairs and a small round table were in front of the windows.



I checked the bathroom. Dull, dull, dull, our boy was dull. But sexually active, if the half-empty packet of condoms indicated correctly.