“The Europeans’ greatest desire,” Leo went on, reading my every twitch and heartbeat, “is for the remaining iron from the spike of Golgotha.”

“I don’t have it,” I said. “I never saw it.” I knew he would smell the truth on me. The spike could still be in Natchez. Or in Baton Rouge. Or in any of a hundred small towns or cities that had been settled by the white man for hundreds of years. It was too dangerous to leave in the wrong hands, and I’d had my own tech guy running searches for it. And then it hit me. “But they don’t know that, do they? The EuroVamps think I have the spike.”

I was sure that the EVs had paid good money for research on me, which made it likely that they had used the services of Reach. Which meant that they had everything. I closed my eyes.

On some level, I had—once upon a time—stupidly thought that Reach was a friend of sorts. Even knowing that he’d sell his mother to make a buck. It was a stupidity that might cost me.

Leo let his fangs click down on the little hinges in the roof of his mouth and spoke around them. “Soon, little kitten, you will have to find the spike. Or there will be nothing I can do to protect you. Nothing at all.”

I remembered the ferocity of the fight I’d witnessed in the gym, and my mouth went dry—my shoulders wanted to tense. Beast wanted to slash Leo across his perfect, beautiful face. But none of this was actually Leo’s fault. I had drawn the attention of the most powerful fangheads to me by my own actions, and by not finding a way to cut Reach out of my life and out of Leo’s. And mostly by killing a demon-calling witch on national TV. Go, me.

She had been using the blood diamond, one of the most powerful black arts devices in the witchy world. But the spike . . . it had been made by vamps, the very earliest vamps, smelted of the spikes from Golgotha, the spikes melted, welded, or forged into one single spike, covered with the blood of a murderer, a thief, and a holy man who rose from the dead. And according to the snatches of stories I had heard, it had been turned to evil from its first use.

I didn’t know whether the spike still existed or what it did, exactly, except it was believed to allow the handler to control vamps. So far as I knew, the spike had been carved up or melted down. Whatever form it now had, it was rumored to be here, in the States somewhere. Discs made from it had been used in black-magic ceremonies that slowly stole the life from witches who had been forced to fuel a huge working circle in Natchez. It had been ugly. Yeah. The vamps would hold me down and drink me dry if they had even a hint that I knew where the spike was.

Leo nodded once as he saw that I understood. “If you bring all the objets de magie to me, I will try to shield you and the witches you seek to protect.”

Yeah. I just bet you would, I thought.

Leo went on. “Before the Europeans arrive, there are several things that must be accomplished.” He inclined his head, as if to make a point. “Things that pertain directly to you, my Enforcer.

“In the following months, you will continue the work on this New Orleans Mithran Council building, bringing it to the highest level of security that can be achieved. You and Derek Lee will continue to oversee the security arrangements of the Pellissier Clan Home, as construction nears the end. And you will discover the location of the iron spike that you claim you do not have. You may also be called upon to assist in rapprochement with the witches in the Americas, but we shall discuss that another time.”

CHAPTER 3

Boo Stuff

I left Leo’s office a half mil richer but filled with a gnawing worry. Following Wrassler, Derek behind me, I called the house—my house, which was so cool—on my cell, dialing the new business line, one that rotated over to a business cell when we were out. Working for the fangheads had been good for my bank account—not so good for my conscience, but good for my bank account.

“Yellowrock Securities. Alex Younger speaking.”

I grinned, because the Kid could see who was calling. Like the “Wise Ass” greeting of earlier, he was yanking my chain, but, this time, I could hear the enthusiasm in his voice, which meant he had something for me. I pressed the cell to my ear so we could talk without the humans hearing. “Elevator?”

“Is still malfunctioning. The floor buttons being pushed by passengers aren’t being correctly routed, and instead are sending out incorrect pulses and taking the car to the wrong floors. By the way, I can’t tell if the errors are all electrical, digital, or mechanical. The elevator company is doing an online diagnostic before they send out a repairman. They’ll call me with an update on the time, but I’d like to test it once more, with someone on board I can talk to. Can you use the elevator while I watch what happens digitally?”

“Ummm.” I was trying to figure out how to get the Kid to remember that I had no way to test the elevator, because he wasn’t supposed to have a way to test the elevator. And then I remembered my bargain with Leo. “I’m hoping to get some written material from the basement of vamp HQ. So I’ll be a while getting back.”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah. Whatever. I’ll watch.”

He ended the call and I turned to Wrassler. “So can I see the storage basement again?”

Wrassler shrugged his massive shoulders, ushered Derek and me into the elevator, placed his palm on the openmouthed display, and punched a button. We started down. And kept on going.

After a too-long descent, that odd smell of panic came again from Wrassler and he pulled his big-ass weapon. Derek pulled a gun too, a snub-nosed .32. I had an image of Mini Me from some old movie. Smothering a totally inappropriate titter-giggle, and only an instant behind them, I pulled my stake and the tiny knife. Micro Mini Me.

The lights flickered in the enclosed space. My breath caught, laughter mutating into something darker.

The elevator car came to a stop. The doors opened. And everything went black. Derek whispered a curse, soft, fierce, and emphatic.

The space around us and before us was blacker than the mouth to hell. Wrassler clicked on a small penlight, holding it to the side of the laser sight, which did nothing to penetrate the darkness of the room/hallway/cellar/dungeon/whatever-the-heck-it-was in front of us. The narrow bands of light were swallowed.

The stench that hit my nose nearly buckled my knees. It was a combination of old blood, rotten herbs, vinegar, sour urine, and sickly sweat. And then I heard breathing, a slow inhale. Slower exhale. Above us, the lights came back on, blinding after the dark. The space beyond remained black even as the elevator closed with a soft whoosh of sound.