They stopped, frozen in place like a bizarre tableau in a wax museum. Gee was holding his sword to the werewolf’s throat. Brute was snarling. My closet door was open. So was the side door, and a fine rain was blowing in, filling the house with icy, wet mist. Both doors had been closed when I fell asleep.

Beast’s night vision turned everything into bright silvers and greens and whites. More than enough to see that Gee was wearing all black, with a black kerchief over the lower part of his face. And a brimmed hat. And a black lace shirt with cuffs that hung dripping. He was dressed like a cat burglar/sword master from some Renaissance romance novel. Dramatic, as always. But the sword, that was real. And he knew how to use it.

“It’s loaded with standard ammo. Lead won’t kill you, Gee,” I said, my voice casual, “but it’ll hurt.”

Gee slowly turned his head to me and pulled down the kerchief to expose his face. Brute kept his predator’s stare on the small, pretty man and growled again, a deep, low vibration that I could feel through the floor and the soles of my bare feet. The wolf wasn’t sopping but wasn’t totally dry either. He’d been here a while. The soaked man was the interloper. “So here’s what I think happened,” I continued, taking in the condition of the house beyond my door. “An hour or so ago, Brute came in through the wolf-door panel Eli installed, because Brute belongs here. Sometimes. Gee does not, but you came by anyway. And then you cast a sleepy-time spell of some sort over the house and walked in. Brute, who for some were-taint reason didn’t succumb to the spell, caught you walking into my house and going through my closet.”

“You have that which belongs to me.” He was talking about a magical item I had confiscated from a big honking witch-versus-vampire fight in a little town west of New Orleans. It looked like a laurel-leafed crown, and it was a powerful amulet. That was about all I knew, but that was enough for me to keep it out of the hands of anyone who wanted it.

“Nope. It may belong to the Anzus as a group or to one or the other of you, but le breloque is mine until I discover its true and full provenance and powers. Put down your pin sticker and step away from the closet. I really don’t want more blood on my floors tonight. I intend to collect on that boon you owe me from way back and don’t want to fritter it away by accidentally killing you.”

“This storm,” he insisted. “It is fed by ancient magic. If you give le breloque to me I can end the storm. I can save your people.”

It could be a pathetic attempt to bargain for what he wanted. Except that the only times anyone wanted le breloque was when there was a storm overhead. Interesting. Did its power increase with storms? Give the wearer control over them? Allow the wearer to gain power from the storms? It was all conjecture; without answers, birdman was getting nothing. “Still no.”

Gee slashed the sword up, around, into the sheath in one single flourish. My finger, which had begun to compress the trigger with the movement, relaxed. Gee said, “I bring a message from Sabina, the outclan priestess of the Mithrans.”

“I’m listening.”

“You are not going to put away your weapon?”

“Nope. Talk.”

“Sabina has had a vision of the bubo bubo. She says, ‘Purify yourselves. Be ready. The time has come.’”

With the storm blowing in, it was chilly in the house, even with the warm, fuzzy nightclothes I had worn to bed. I shivered at the prophecy. Sabina had an in with the spiritual world that I didn’t understand at all. She knew things. She knew I was a shape-shifter. She associated some ancient vamp prophecy with the bubo bubo, the Eurasian Eagle Owl, which I had once turned into so I could pry into secret vamp ceremonies. Yeah. This was from Sabina.

Ancient people purified themselves before battle, or before some great life change, and Sabina wanted me pure. Not good. Not good at all. I wondered how much of this had to do with the girl earlier tonight, the one the vamps drank down and drained and left dead.

“Message delivered,” I said. “Get out of here. And next time you break into my house, I’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”

“As you said, it will not kill me. Rounds are lead.”

“As I said, it’ll hurt like a mama. Get out the way you came in. And shut the door behind you.”

Gee vanished, almost vamp-fast, and the door closed as he left. I slid the safety on and set the weapon on the bedside table, angled for quick access. “Thank you,” I said to the wolf.

Brute tilted his head to me and his tongue lolled out of his mouth, comical in the dark.

“Lemme guess. When you came in and found that the door to the gun safe was closed, you trotted your wet, dog-stinky-self upstairs to the Kid’s bed and made a nice damp nest.”

Brute grinned at me. It was a doggie grin, showing teeth.

“You ever do that to my bed and I’ll kick you out. For good.”

Brute looked at my bed. To a dog, the alpha’s bed was the very best place, the only place, to sleep. I had let him onto my bed on a very few occasions when I was ill or hurt and his werewolf warmth had helped me to heal, but he didn’t have permission to go there at will. I had caught him standing in my doorway more than once, staring at my bed, thinking about jumping up there and rolling his scent all over it, doggie-claiming the alpha bed. But this time Brute looked from the bed to the closed side door. And then to the closet, making a point that he had saved the day. Or the night.

“I mean it,” I warned.

Brute snuffled and sat, looking from the closet to the back door, and then growling, repeating in clear dog-speak that he had saved me. That he deserved a reward. I almost offered him a doggie treat but I knew that this was more than just a desire for a crunchy bone. He tilted his head again and whined, looking at my bed and then at me. This was a werewolf negotiation.

“Fine,” I said, though it wasn’t. “I recognize your service tonight. Therefore I promise to look for a dog bed—” Brute growled again. I blew out a breath that caught the loose black hairs around my face and made them fan out in the dark. “A memory foam mattress I can put in the hallway upstairs for your use—whenever the Everhart/Truebloods are not here, until such time that Evan Trueblood agrees you can stay in the house with Angelina and EJ. Until such time, and when they are here, you will sleep in the weapons room.” I thought over what I had said and figured I had covered most of the angles of a paranormal negotiation. “Agreed?”

Brute snuffled agreement and turned away, to trot back upstairs to his stolen nest. I went to the side door and cleaned up the rainwater. Then I placed a call to vamp HQ and got Del, the primo to Leo Pellissier, the Master of the City. It was the middle of the business day for a vamp household, and the primo sounded confident and in control. We chitchatted for a bit and then I said, “Is the priestess in Council Chambers tonight?” Council Chambers is a more polite way of saying suckhead HQ.

“No. Why?” Del dragged out the words because any proper verbiage from me was always a warning.

“The Enforcer has a formal request to make, of the primo of the Master of the City of New Orleans. May I speak?”

“The primo of the Master of the City of New Orleans is attentive to the Enforcer,” Del said, pure suspicion lacing her words. I was seldom so formal. I was seldom even faintly polite.

“The Enforcer would be honored to call upon, or to receive a phone call from, Sabina, the outclan priestess of the Mithrans.”

“Oh.” Del sounded nonplussed but continued with the proper, somewhat formulaic responses. “I will pass along the message. Is there a subject that should attend the request?”

“Yeah. Tell the priestess that I need to talk to her about Anzus—Anzii?” I queried midsentence, “and le breloque’s purpose—which may or may not have something to do with storms like the ones currently brewing over New Orleans. Please.”

Del repeated it back to me, I said that was perfect, and she went silent, though I could hear her tapping on her tablet. “The primo will happily pass along the request exactly as worded.”

“Thanks.”

“You still owe me a spa day.”

I always owed Del a spa day. “Find a spa with a steam room, massages, and facials, and we can go Saturday and take Jodi.”