We watched the footage several more times before I said, “Okay. Stop. Is it just me or does anyone else get a different impression of the action from what we saw in the room at the time it happened?”

“I thought my eyes were going bad,” a voice said from the front of the room.

“Nothing I see now is what I saw at the time,” Bruiser agreed. His voice wasn’t worried, but it was far more bland than usual, which was telling in its own way.

“Me neither. That’s not what I saw,” another voice said. Others murmured what they had seen.

“I saw a buncha bats. Nearly crapped my pants.”

“I saw bees, dude. Killer bees. Heard ’em too. Scared the shi— Ooof. Whadju do that for?”

“No cussing around Janie,” Angel Tit said, making it sound like a law.

“I just got dizzy, like someone spiked my drink.”

“I started itching. I got outta there.” Others agreed. The spectators to the sparring had cleared the room fast. Few witnesses had been left to see my partial shift. “Interesting,” I said, feeling a weight lift off of me. “So it makes humans forget they ever saw it. Pretty good survival mechanism. Everyone write up a report and send it to my e-mail.”

There were groans from around the room, the soldier’s universal hatred of after-action reports. Beside me, Bruiser chuckled under his breath. I said, “We need to know if it’s messing with our minds, our eyesight, or our memories.” That shut them up. No one human liked to think their minds might be an open book to some supernat.

I said, “I want to know what everyone saw at the time, versus what we just saw on the footage. Keep the reports brief and get them to me by nightfall. Angel, see if you can sharpen the images or fix the interference or whatever you call the blocky white-out sections. Send it to me ASAP.”

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that. Nice work with the tech lingo, Legs,” he said with unrestrained sarcasm. The men laughed, and some of the tension that had been generated by the meeting dissipated. “Just kiddin’, Janie. I’ll let you know what I find and send the Kid a copy.”

“Good. Lights, please.” We all blinked as our eyes adjusted and someone passed around a mega-sized coffee carafe and a tray full of mugs. Boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts followed. I wasn’t interested in the coffee but took a vanilla-cream-filled doughnut and bit into it, the sugary, doughy goodness practically exploding in my mouth. Vanilla cream squished out the small hole and I caught it on a finger and licked it clean. I had to wonder whether the local witches had ever heard of light-dragons, and I pulled my cell to text my best friend, Molly, to ask for me. Eventually, I’d have to meet the local witches myself, but so far, I hadn’t had to add that to my supernatural plate.

Mouth still full, I went on. “Okay. Last thing. Everyone knows about the elevator problems. The Otis people did the online diagnostic and pretty much got what Alex did, so they’re sending out repair people, ones who have worked in a vamp’s household before. They’ll be here at eight in the morning, in”—I looked at the time stamp on the monitor—“just a few hours. There will be two of them, and Alex has done preliminary background and social media checks on both. Neither seem to have overt anti-vamp prejudice, but I don’t want our guests wandering around alone. Eli will oversee their activities if they need to go into the shaft itself. Derek, if you’ll coordinate with him and position a couple more people to keep them in sight at all times?” Leo’s new Enforcer nodded, and I was happy to see him looking more confident about his position. Maybe our little chat at the clan home construction site had helped.

I addressed my next question to Angel Tit at the security console. “Angel? Who has day shift on the cameras?”

“That would still be me. I’m on till noon. I’ll stay over until the repair people are done.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I want them in sight at all times.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What do we do if the rainbow-snake-thing comes back?” Derek asked. The room went dead silent at the disquiet in his voice. I leaned back in my chair as if thinking about his question. When I replied I kept my tone dry and amused. “Try to keep it from eating anyone.”

The laughter in the room was quick and a hair uncertain, but Derek smiled and shook his head. “Ask a dumb question.”

“If there are no undumb questions, meeting adjourned.”

CHAPTER 9

It Was a Girly Scream

Eli drove home slowly, watching behind us and up and down the streets we passed. “Problems?” I asked.

“We’re being followed. Three vehicles—two black or charcoal SUVs and one black four-door coupe. They’re playing ABC with cars.” ABC was a method of tailing a subject using a three-man team. In cars it meant each vehicle altered its position according to a prearranged system. The method was difficult to detect because the target subject was never given long enough to recognize any team member. It was hard enough to detect on foot. In cars, with traffic, it was near impossible. Eli was better than impossible. In the ABC system, the A vehicle followed the subject car. B followed A, and C paralleled either A or B. When the parade reached an intersection, C would speed up and cross or turn ahead of the target. This allowed the C vehicle to keep the subject vehicle in view in case it turned unexpectedly.

As C turned the corner, A would slow down, while B sped up to take A’s place. After a decent interval, A would pull out, find B’s back, and tail him. It could get complicated. “Cars?” I asked.

“A is behind us. B is the charcoal SUV a block back, and C is on Royal. You want me to lose them?”

I remembered the black SUV I had thought might be tailing me earlier and grinned. “Nah. Let’s play with them.”

Eli chuckled and made several fast turns, which had us going back the way we had come, the C car, which had tried to keep up with the turns, in front of us. I took down the tag number. Moments later, the C car pulled away and down a side street at speed. The two other cars veered off as well, knowing they had been made. Meanwhile, I texted the Kid with the license number and Eli turned back toward home.

Fun, Beast murmured deep inside, to hunt prey with metal bones and bad-tasting blood. Hunt prey now with blood and flesh to tear and eat?

“Yeah,” I said aloud. “Keep the engine running when we get home. I’m going hunting.”