“Sabina has been studying. According to what she has discovered, you must take out the discs that were smelted from the spike,” he said, a safe door shutting with finality. “Shape them into any device with an edge or point. She believes that cutting or pricking one of us with the iron will place a Mithran into some form of suspended animation. Perhaps even Joses Bar-Judas. Or perhaps it will kill him. Or perhaps it will do nothing. It is only a theory. It has never been tested.”

I remembered Sabina and Bethany in the library, drinking tea. Researching? “Why are you giving me this?”

“I give it to you because you once told me that the citizens of New Orleans would attack this Council House and drag us into the light of day. My Enfor— My Jane was shot at upon entering the heart of my domain. I believe you now.” His back still to me, Leo finished closing up the safe. His head was bowed as he spoke, one knee on the floor, his hair falling over his face. There was something regal about his position, and something broken as well. “I was advised to not give it to you, because no matter your loyalty to me, I know that one day you may try to bring me to the sun. Giving you weapons that would help you in that task may be foolish, even with the Son of Darkness insane and drinking down the populace of my city.” Leo breathed a soft sound of laughter. “Again, you being shot at changes many things.”

He twisted his body and looked at me over his shoulder, his eyes fathomless black, like a moonless night over a restless sea. “The horde at my gates changes many things. It is as though I live through the revolution all over again, and I fear for my head upon my shoulders. I fear for my people.

“I do not know if the weapon you will devise will work, my Jane. I do not know what it will do at all. But according to Sabina, the outclan priestess, without the full iron spike of the Place of the Skull, it is our last chance to stop the Son of Darkness, yet keep him alive for our use. Or at least in some semblance of undeath, a hostage that might avert a war. And no. She did not tell me of this possible use until after the Sun of Darkness escaped or I would have tried it on him myself.”

I figured the SoD in suspended animation would have been way easier to control than the SoD just crucified and hanging on a wall. Wisely, I didn’t say it aloud. Instead I said softly, “Thank you.”

Leo rewarded that with a regal tilt of his head.

* * *

I was halfway down the stairs from Leo’s office when I heard my name called. I turned and stopped, mostly in surprise. It was Raisin, though I called her that only under my breath, and never where she might hear. Her real name was Ernestine, the human blood-servant CPA who handled the Mithrans’ corporate finances, wrote all the checks, and upon occasion reamed me a new one for costing the fangheads money. And I had never, not once, seen her outside her nook of an office with its huge black safe.

I wondered if she knew about the deeds, financial certificates, gold, and gems in Leo’s safes and decided instantly that she couldn’t possibly know, because if she did, they’d be in her safe, where she could keep an eye on the fortune. “Can I help you?” I asked.

“Yes, Miss Yellowrock, you may,” she said, tottering toward me, using a cane to support her right leg. Raisin had gotten her secret name because she looked like dried fruit, wrinkled, shriveled, and ancient, but well preserved—made that way on vamp blood for who knew how many decades. “I wonder if you would do me the honor of a favor?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I fidgeted as she caught up with me. I had things to do, vamps to track.

“Would you please be so kind as to look in on Acton House for me? I received the most bizarre telephone call from Pinkie this morning, and now she doesn’t answer. And she never goes out. Agoraphobia, don’t you know.”

I didn’t know, but I didn’t like the sound of Pinkie not answering. “What did she say?”

“She said, ‘It is lovely to have the old ways back.’ Just that. And then she disconnected.”

A frisson of premonition raced through me. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll check on her.”

The crowd out front had been sent packing, but I still took the back way out of vamp HQ, bringing with me the deeds to land in all the names that Santana had used to buy property, not that I thought we were going to find Santana at any of the houses, but who knew? They might come in handy.

On my way over to Acton House, I called Bruiser and then dialed the house. Eli answered on the first ring. “You left without notifying us. Someone shot at you.” His voice was toneless, totally without inflection, the way he sounded when he was mad.

“Yeah. I suck. Get weapons and meet me at the boardinghouse. Bring whatever’s left of the holy water. We might have found Santana.”

“And are we going to bring him in to Leo?”

“Or kill his ass. Whichever works.”

“Hooah.” The connection ended.

CHAPTER 23

Ashes and Shattered Bones

We reached Acton House, the old vamp boardinghouse, at about the same time, Bruiser, Eli, and I, Eli driving his old SUV. I got out, scanning the place, opening the two passenger doors for partial protection.

Bruiser emerged from the icy interior of the armored car, decked out in military-style pants, body armor, weapons, and a face harder than stone. His expression said, I will kick your butt. Come on. Make my day, without the need for words of any kind. Dirty Harry, times two.

Eli slammed his SUV door and tossed me a body-armor vest. To Bruiser he said, “Your driver is taking my vehicle back to HQ. No one drives an unarmored car until this is settled.”

“Not even then,” Bruiser said. “Change in protocol per Leo.”

Eli nodded to the house and spoke to us both. “You think he’s inside?”

“It would be too easy,” I said. “Find him asleep, stake him, and cut out his heart? All because he went back to lair at his old haunting grounds? Nah. Too easy.”

We gathered in the semiprotection of my open doors, the house only feet away, the breeze wet and swirling, as if rain was on the way. I shrugged into the vest and slapped the Velcro closed, pulled the nine mil, checked the weapon, holstered it in the shoulder rig, and let Eli help me into it. I opened my mouth to speak and caught the scent of death. The words died in my mouth and I inhaled in a soft scree of sound. Eli pulled weapons, offering me cover. “Something dead. Someone,” I said.