I swallowed against rising gorge. “Yes.” I flipped the vamp-killer to him, hilt first. Extended my empty hand for his sword. Gingerly, hesitantly, Grégoire placed his weapon into my hand. The hilt was colder than the frigid air. He accepted the vamp-killer. Stared at his hand on the unfamiliar, warm hilt. I stepped back.

“Your reign is ended,” I said to Bâtard.

Grégoire pulled his small frame upright and said, “All you possess is forfeit. All you owned is mine. I claim all you are and all you have, your titles, your position, your power, your people, your land and holdings.” With a single massive swing, he took the head from his sire.

It flew toward Sabina and hit the floor and she picked it up by the hair—now confirmed to me as the official way to carry a severed head—and walked to us, the head dangling and dripping. The body of Grégoire’s enemy and sire slumped flat to the concrete floor.

Grégoire knelt before the body of his maker and lifted the vamp’s left little finger. From it he pulled a ring, gold beneath the blood that was drying on it. He slid the ring onto his own finger and even beneath the gore, it was a ring I recognized, a crest ring he often wore.

Le Bâtard’s men had taken Grégoire to Arceneau Clan Home. Had this been what they were looking for? What they had retrieved? Was this the official seal of Clan Valois?

Grégoire spread his hand as he studied the ring, and his fangs retracted. His eyes bled back to human. “It is mine in truth. I am now Le Valois. Le Orleans.”

“So witnessed,” Sabina said. “Do you still honor your vow to Leonard Pellissier, Master of the City of New Orleans and surrounding territories?”

Grégoire raised his eyes to hers. “I do so swear, surrendering any claim to the lands of the Louisiana territory, as purchased by the United States of America.”

“I bow to Le Valois.” Sabina inclined her head. “Long live the undead ruler of the court of Charles the Wise.”

I looked around and said, “I don’t think there’s room in the cooler for all the heads.”

From a cell phone beneath the awning of the food truck, I heard Alex’s voice. “I think we need a bigger cooler.”

Eli laughed.

CHAPTER 21

The Shooter Fired a Last Shot

From out of the sleet storm and the darkness, I heard footsteps. Ricky-Bo LaFleur walked through the opened gate. His walk was all tracking cat, slinky and loose and intent. Beast perked up. I batted her down.

Rick was wearing postshift clothes, loose and cheap and thin, too thin for the weather except that he was were, and were-creatures could stand the cold better than humans. He said, “Dead bodies in the food truck, stacked up like cordwood. Car parked down the road pulled away, toward the Quarter and the river. We going after?”

I walked from Grégoire, who stood, sword down, blank eyes on the body at his feet, to the awning. I glanced at Bruiser and he shrugged slightly. “Not with you,” I said to Rick. “I don’t know where you were during the battle.”

Rick didn’t flinch, but his scent went hot and angry at the implication that he stayed away from fear and cowardice.

“The battle lasted a grand total of twenty minutes.”

It was much longer in my subjective time.

He said, “I take twenty minutes to shift forms, forty minutes combined.” He stopped beneath the awning and held me with hunting eyes, Frenchy-black and glowing green still, from his cat. “You shift fast. Faster than any werecat I know. Show me?”

“No. I’m not a were. We won’t shift alike.” I almost stopped there, but despite myself, I added, “Ask Paka.”

“Hooah,” Eli said softly, in a tone that meant gotcha.

“Paka’s gone,” Rick said. “Permanently.” He looked away from whatever he saw on my face, taking in the dead bodies and the cage. He walked away from our small group and inside the garage door. For reasons I didn’t understand I followed, though I stayed well back. Over his shoulder, Rick said, “This is now a PsyLED crime scene. I’ve called in PsyCSI and the local LEOs. Legally I should keep you here. But for old times’ sake, your people and you need to get out.”

I laughed and it was part growl. If I were a cussing woman I’d have started about now, because this “crime scene” existed only because we had found it and taken over and saved the hostages. And killed the bad guys. Our people had done this. Not Rick’s. Instead, I laughed harder, took Le Bâtard’s head from Sabina. and nodded to Bruiser, who had attained his feet and was leaning against the truck. “Let’s go. We’re needed at HQ.” To Derek I said, “Gather up the heads and buy that bigger cooler. Take Amy Lynn Brown, Grégoire, the Robere twins, and Adan Bouvier and the others to safety.” He nodded and I walked away.

Back in the SUV, Le Bâtard’s disfigured head shoved into my cooler, Eli pulled away from the curb. Bruiser was riding shotgun; Edmund was in the backseat, passing my gear over to me. I was all the way in back with Louis, who still had a silver stake in his head and was bound in silver chains. He stank of poison and death, though he was marginally still undead.

With my feet, I shoved him against the over-full cooler to make room so I could strip and dress in my leathers, the formal ones Leo’d had made for my official presentation to the EuroVamps. I figured I had killed all the EVs I’d met except Louis and he wasn’t long for this world, but looking spiffy couldn’t hurt for the next meeting. Me in half-form and fancy leathers. I’d scare the devil himself. Go me.

I was more limber in this form and dressing wasn’t as difficult as it would be otherwise. I left off my boots in favor of paws and claws, and shrugged into my weapons rigs. I tightened some straps and loosened others—to better fit the rigs to my new shape—and I could feel water thudding onto the undercarriage as I worked. We rolled down St. Louis Street; the flooding was much worse, water up under the houses on raised foundations and stilts, inside others. We passed the green house with bathroom planters and the antique iron feet of the tub were underwater. The rainwater was rising.

We might have ended the curse that was keeping the storm systems in place, but they hadn’t dispersed on their own yet, though the air temps had risen. Rain had begun to fall again, melting the icy slush. I reinserted my earbud and mic, clipped the coms unit to my pants, and braided my hair, tying it off with a bit of string I found on the floor.

Over the vehicle’s coms, Alex said, “Patching Wrassler through.”

“Wrassler to the Enforcer,” a raspy voice said. “Do you copy?”

Dread filled me and I remembered the sound of splintering wood. “Wrassler? Copy. Go ahead.”

“Katie and Bethany are gone. They fought us. They took Leo.”

The scent of shock and fear filled the SUV. “Casualties?” Eli asked.

“Four . . . four wounded.” Wrassler cleared his throat and I realized he had to be injured. “We have them with masters. Two might make it.”

Gently, in a New Orleans’ cant, Eli said, “Are you one who will survive, my brother?”

“It was touch and go. But I should survive.”

“We’ll find them,” Eli said. “We’ll bring Leo back.” He was promising what he couldn’t. Until I realized he hadn’t said Leo would still have his head when we brought him back.

“Thank you,” Wrassler said. “Out.” The connection ended.

Over coms, Alex said, “I haven’t found the group of EVs or Leo, but I have a visual of Brute staring at a surveillance camera outside Pat O’Brien’s near the corner of St. Peter and Bourbon Streets.”

“Staring at the camera?” I asked as I climbed over the seat and shoved Edmund across the center, behind Eli, stealing his position behind Bruiser. Ed gave a long-suffering sigh that also sounded amused. I just grinned, my oversized canines pulling at my lips.

“Directly at it,” Alex said. “Wait. He moved. Okay, I got him again on a traffic cam, trotting down toward Royal Street, toward the river. Now staring at a camera near an antique shop. Water’s up to his ankles. The river is over its banks, flooding over the railroad tracks. The storm is stalled north of us, dropping more rain, and temps are rising, melting all the sleet, which means runoff is higher. The drainage system is diverting it, but not fast enough.”