Pits didn’t last long in a swamp. They filled up with mud and debris and water. Hungry vamps tended to go psycho fast, so the rescuers would need some kind of cage to secure the vamp. This was looking like a long process. I studied the sat map, tracing with a finger where Bruiser said the pit was. Mouth full, Alex nodded to show he agreed with the location.

Bruiser said, “The small patch of land centered with the pit had a dozen dead crows on it when I got there.”

I didn’t know what that meant, but if I was a witch, I’d be thinking about omens and such. Demons. Bad stuff. “Okay.”

“This will not be easy, love,” Bruiser said, his nearly forgotten British accent creeping in. “I’ll call when we get the pit drained and the Mithran out. It may take two nights.”

Two nights, because vamps catch on fire in the sunlight, so once they got the wooden doors open, they could work only at night, not by day. In the background I heard the unambiguous whine of a helicopter. Bruiser was being flown out, or the other two Onorios were being heloed in. I leaned in to the satellite map, looking for a landing site near the wildlife sanctuary. The most I saw was a muddy turnaround in the middle of the property where the two-rut dirt and mud road crossed it.

“Leo wants you at the Council Chambers to evaluate our photographs when we get the pit open. I’ll call when we get to within half an hour of opening the site so you don’t have to sit around waiting. Try not to irritate him too much. The possibility of finding Ming of Mearkanis has kept him up all day and put him in a mood. He might hurt you.”

I had a feeling that a mood was a big understatement. “He could try. Maybe a little bloodletting would be good for his soul.” If he had a soul. Thought not spoken. Go, me.

“Send the coordinates and photographs as you get them,” Eli added.

“Of course. Take care of her.” Bruiser ended the call.

Take care of her. I smiled and ate some of the Kid’s broccoli casserole. I was better suited to taking care of myself than Eli was, him being human and therefore easier to damage—usually—but it was sweet. And I was learning to like sweet. The casserole wasn’t bad and I said so. The nineteen-year-old grinned and served himself another portion.

Eli patted his lips delicately and said, “Adding an investigation on top of finishing the security arrangements for the Witch Conclave means our schedule will be full. Leo likes pushing you to the edge, keeping his Enforcer busy.” He didn’t have to add, And this time you’re injured.

“Yeah.” With Bruiser gone I might as well work. Not that I got paid extra for the longer hours. Months ago, I had negotiated a contract with Leo at a flat rate plus the Youngers’ salaries and equipment costs. Of course, that flat rate was fairly hefty. “If we need help, pick out somebody, preferably two of Derek’s people, one with law enforcement and one with crime scene experience, to assist at the pit,” I said. “And it looks like I’ll be able to join you at the Elms, after all.”

“Good,” Eli said.

“You both stink,” Alex said, his tone smug. “Go take showers or I’ll put you on veggies and meat for a week.” Alex had been having hygiene issues, and food was the easiest way to get him to comply. It clearly made him happy to accuse us of the same flaw.

“Showers and change,” Eli said. “We leave in thirty.”

CHAPTER 6

Uncle Sam–Mandated GPS

I closed the Kevlar cover on the cell and carried it into my bedroom to shower, dress, and gather gear. The jeans and T-shirt on the bed had been perfectly suitable for bowling later on tonight but had no place in vamp HQ when trouble was brewing and Leo was in a mood. They also had no business at our first stop.

To visit HQ, I’d rather be wearing leather vamp-fighting gear, the kind with silver chain-mail armor between the outer leather and inner silk lining, and plasticized armor at elbows and groin, but I’d ruined all mine and the replacements hadn’t arrived. Since I started changing into a midshift cat—one with a vaguely humanoid shape and proportions but the hind paws, claws, and pelt of a Puma concolor, the mountain lion form of my Beast—I’d gone through all my fighting leathers and a goodly number of boots. Fighting vamps was expensive, and today’s ruined clothes just added to my financial irritation.

Clean and smelling fresher, my skin again lightly oiled with a gift Bruiser had sent me, a mixture of jojoba and coconut oils, I strapped a vamp-killer on my right thigh, two silver stakes on my left, and slid into loose-fitting black pants, a tight camisole, and a gold-toned, long-sleeved T-shirt. The pants had slash pockets with holes in the bottoms so I could reach the weapons. Of course I couldn’t put the cell or lipstick in them, but there were pluses and minuses for everything in life. The long sleeves of the shirt were so the shoulder holster didn’t chafe my scarred skin. The TV shows and movies that show the female heroine wearing tank tops and shoulder rigs are stupid. Those things would blister a girl’s underarms and side boobs in a heartbeat, even without the injury I sported.

I added my gold nugget necklace on its doubled gold chain around my neck. It was the one that tied me metaphysically to the location where I had changed into my Puma concolor form for the first time in years, after I graduated from the Christian children’s home where I was raised. When I was having trouble shifting, it helped to wear the talisman, linking me back to the past and the power of that first shift.

I checked the .380s, making sure they held standard ammo, since I wasn’t planning to hunt vamps, but I put a box of silver ammo, a change of shoes, and my go bag in my leather satchel.