To Alex, I said, “I know Del is in charge, but notify Bruiser that something’s transpiring at HQ. Just in case.”

“Copy,” Alex said, his voice toneless enough to make my skin itch.

Bruiser was my . . . something. Boyfriend was too high school, lover was too sex-specific, significant other seemed more long-term and stable than what we might be starting to have. So my something was the best I could do. But he was also the former primo of the Master of the City of New Orleans, and Del, while capable, might need some backup. Informing him was not the same thing as calling for Bruiser’s help like said high schooler. Or at least I didn’t think it was. Having a “my something” wasn’t exactly common for me.

We rounded the corner, approaching vamp central from an oblique angle, not one I took often. I needed to walk the area more. Next winter maybe. During a hard, cold rain.

The high brick fence that surrounded HQ was topped with coils of razor wire, and the heavy iron gate—replaced after it was damaged, not so long ago—looked fine, the central, circular drive empty of cars. Peaceful. Calm. But when I pulled on my Beast-hearing, I heard muted screams and the sound of gunfire. I sped up, moving from a jog to a sprint. “Gunfire,” I reported.

“Roger that,” Eli said, sounding calm, his breathing steady as he increased his speed to match mine. The former active-duty Ranger always sounded calm, though, so that wasn’t such a big deal. “Alex?” he said. “Update.”

“They broke the camera. Sorry, bro. Working now to integrate your new headsets into the system. Get ready to switch out.”

“That might be the intent of the weird-looking fight,” I said. “Taking us off-line and out of the intel so someone can do something they shouldn’t.”

“‘Something they shouldn’t’ covers a lot of possibilities,” Eli said.

“Is everything localized on sub-four?” I asked.

“Negative,” Alex said. “As of right now, per the cameras, it’s subsiding at the ballroom but spreading to sub-three and farther into sub-four.”

“Crap on crackers,” I said. But at least the violence wasn’t on sub-five.

Chained in the lowest basement at vamp headquarters was one of the Sons of Darkness, one of the oldest vamps on earth, one of the founding fathers, as it was. His existence there had been a secret. Not so much now. Joses Bar-Judas was trouble of the worst vamp kind—a nearly immortal blood-drinker, but this one had the powers of a superhero and the morals of Torquemada and his merry band of torturers. If Joses ever got his sanity back and his body rehabbed, he’d be capable of doing anything a vamp could do but better and faster, and he would also be able to do witch magic—no telling what kind of witch magic, but I was betting on powerful and bloody.

During the decades that his presence as a prisoner was secret, Joses had been a useful captive for Clan Pellissier, his blood giving the Master of the City, Leo Pellissier, and his cronies special power and abilities. But with his status known, he made a formidable, dangerous pawn on the chessboard of vamp politics, especially with the European vamps wanting his return. And if Joses ever truly recovered, he’d be a deadly, psycho enemy. If this fight had been about him—somebody wanting to kidnap him or kill him or drink his potent blood—we would have been in trouble. The Son of Darkness was a power I had no way to gauge, evaluate, or fight against.

We rounded the corner and raced out of the blaring sun and under the porte cochere. Baby powder, the stink of our sweat, and the smell of vamp blood filled my nostrils. “Coms system is a go,” Alex said.

Eli and I secured our official cells, slipped on the high-tech ear-protector headsets. They had been created for variable noise reduction during tactical ops, where situational awareness and interunit communication were equally important. In combat, soldiers wore helmets. We hadn’t gotten that far along in personal protection yet. The new headsets had only recently replaced the earbuds we used to use and were tied into the coms system at vamp HQ and to Alex, so we could hear what we needed to hear and yet be protected from the worst of the ear damage of weapons fire. Over the new headset, I heard Derek Lee, Leo’s other Enforcer, say, “. . . standard ammo. Continue to take the vampires down. Three-burst, midcenter shots. They’ll heal. Do not—repeat, do not—target humans. If humans are involved, use any of the nonlethal compliance methods at your disposal. Repeat, nonlethal measures for humans.”

“We’re in,” I said to Alex, who was still back at the house. Then, to the security people at HQ, I said, “This is Jane Yellowrock, We’re under the porte cochere. Protocol Cowbird.”

“Legs,” Derek replied. “Protocol Cowbird affirmed.”

Cowbirds left their eggs in other birds’ nests instead of building ones of their own. The protocol named after them had been designed not for fighting off vamps from outside, but for dealing with problems already on the inside, for instance, like a nestling that wanted to take over from the rightful owners. “Update us.”

“We’ve got fighting in the subbasements,” Derek said. “Hostilities are under control at ballroom and on sub-three, but sub-four is still hostile. Elevator is stopped on top floor, on override, at my order. But conflict has spread through basement stairs. I have men there, but they’re cut off from reinforcements. And this fight’s not according to previous methodology. They’re not moving at vamp speed.”

“Copy.” That was what I’d noted on the cameras earlier, the stumbling, zombie-dance motions, still faster than human, but not the smooth, gliding, faster-than-sight speed vamps can use. Not normal.

There was no one at the back entrance, and Eli stepped out, motioning me to trail him and take the left wall. He’d take the right. I nodded. He moved ahead, pressed his palm over the biometric reader, and dashed into the cool dark of the windowless, air-conditioned entrance. I followed. The doors whooshed shut behind us and I took cover behind the half wall I’d had built there for just this purpose; I blinked, waiting for my eyes to adjust. As soon as I could, I did a quick look-see and popped back behind the wall.

With the exception of Eli, standing behind a decorative fluted column, the back entrance was empty of people. The white marble flooring, with its new black and gray marble fleur-de-lis inlay, and the pristine white walls were empty of blood-and-gore spatter. Art from some of New Orleans’ best painters over the last three centuries hung on the walls, hiding things Eli and I might need someday, in handy-dandy caches built into the walls. The stairs to the ballroom were just ahead, the door open and a light angling in. I raced from behind the wall to an angle where I could see up and down at the stairs landing.