I wanted to gut him where he sat.
In the place of violence, I pulled out my cell and stabbed Alex’s number. “Video capture,” I said, when he answered.
“Got it. Coming up now to Leo’s screen,” the Kid said.
I jerked my head toward the big screen that now hung above Leo’s elaborate desk, where the big chifforobe full of papers, computer supplies, and the printer used to stand. It was gone now, in favor of the new device. The MOC lifted a remote and turned the TV on to the security channel. The video Alex had captured from the evidence tent at the kill bar started instantly. I stood where I was, not watching it again, but watching Leo. He was wearing thin, knit yoga pants and a fitted T-shirt, probably handmade to his measurements, sheathing him like a glove, all in a shade of blue so dark they might have been knitted from the midnight sky itself. Vampire pajamas.
There was so little movement to him—no breath, no heartbeat—that the vamp might have been a wax fake of himself. Not even his hair, hanging to his shoulders, moved. But as he watched the video of the vampire killing humans, something changed, some infinitesimal something that I had no name for. It wasn’t scent, or blood-flush, or anything remotely human. Whatever it was, it was something that Beast might have understood, might have felt, while watching another predator feed. Despite Leo being a mostly sane vamp, he was still a predator, and on some level, he liked what he was seeing.
CHAPTER 6
Can Anything Survive Without a Heart?
I stood where I was as Leo viewed the footage all the way through twice, stopping, reversing, and forwarding through it, to give particular attention to details. When he had seen enough, he set the remote to the side.
He stood. Staring into space, thinking, his eyes unfocused, moving with his thoughts. I got tired of waiting.
“‘I have miscalculated,’” I quoted him. “‘Badly. And my people are in grave danger.’ Not just your people, Leo. Humans are in grave danger from vampires. From that vampire. I haven’t had time to pull the files or go through the basements to see if we have photos or paintings from before he turned into a bag of bones hanging on your wall, so confirm it for me. That was Joses Bar-Judas. Yes?”
“Le Créateur des morts.”
“Creator of the dead? Cute. I have to kill him.”
Leo’s eyes moved to me, only his eyes, yet there was threat in the very immobility of his body. “If you kill the Son of Darkness, there will be war with the old ones. War as you have never imagined.”
“If I don’t kill him, I’m afraid that mobs of humans will break in here and drag every vampire into the sun. I promised to give the cops his heart.”
For some reason that made Leo blink, a tell that would have lost him a bundle at poker. When he didn’t seem inclined to enlighten me as to his reaction, however, I went on. “Sabina and Bethany have informed me that there will be unintended consequences to killing Joses. And maybe worse consequences to keeping him alive.”
“Yes,” Leo said softly. “My uncle’s miscalculation may prove to be costly. Mine perhaps more so.”
“The miscalculation in taking and keeping Joses Bar-Judas prisoner?” I accused.
“My miscalculation about how far lost Joses’ mind still was,” he corrected quietly, “and what quantity of blood it might take to bring him to sanity. And my miscalculation about Adrianna’s intent.”
Leo looked down at the rug between his feet while I thought about Adrianna, the red-haired vamp he had carried away from sub-five dripping brains all over the carpet. Leo had miscalculated about her from day one. He had been playing her, and it seemed she had been playing him right back, one step ahead of Leo, two steps behind Joses Bar-Judas. Only now their little game had mushroomed into something much worse than Leo or she had expected: freed prisoner, brain-damaged vamp, and dead humans in a city ready to riot. “What can you tell me about the night Joses ‘disappeared’?”
Leo looked up at me, a wrinkle appearing between his brows as he thought back. “There is little to tell. I spent the evening with Adrianna. She wanted something—I no longer remember what—and I refused. We argued and parted. Later, I was contacted by my uncle, who had received word about a disturbance at Acton House. He came by horse and buggy into the Quarter. It was near dawn and he was rushing; the horse was lathered. We arrived at Acton House at nearly the same time. We found the room as you will find it still, except that that night, Joses—the Son of Darkness—was on the floor, raving, insane. Bethany appeared with us as we were deciding what to do. Sabina was there as well.” He shook his head, as if trying to recall events from so long ago and the timeline wasn’t making sense. “There were few witnesses to the injury suffered by the Son of Darkness, no one to tell us what had happened.
“There was not time before dawn to take him to Pellissier Clan Home. Amaury decided to take Joses to the new Council House, fearing that if he was found in his current condition there would be war. If discovered at the Council Chambers, Amaury could claim he had no idea that a prisoner had been taken.”
Few witnesses and no one to tell us didn’t add up, but I didn’t point out the discrepancy. Not yet. I wanted to see what else he’d volunteer.
Leo said, “Bethany lifted him and carried him to our carriage.”
“So you just took him prisoner and locked him away.”
“It was not my decision,” he said stiffly.
“It’s been your decision since the early nineteen hundreds, when Amaury died of silver poisoning and you took over.”
Leo’s eyes flashed scarlet and I thought for a moment he might jump me. Instead, he said, “Yes. My decision. Do you contend against it?”
“And it was your decision to drink the blood of your prisoner, thereby increasing your power and cementing your control of your territories.”
“I have always done what seemed best for Clan Pellissier and the Mithrans of the Louisiana Territories.” Leo bit out the words in hard syllables.
And now it comes back and bites you in the butt. But I didn’t say that, settling on, “Ah.” Thoughtfully, I said, “I quit my job not so long ago.”
“A resignation I refused. And a renegotiation that was quite profitable to you.”
A half mil profitable. “Yeah. Well, if you refuse to let me protect you and fulfill my word to the police, I will quit. Right now. For good.” I paused and gathered myself to negotiate with the MOC. Hard to do when all I wanted was to smash that pretty face. “And I know you need me.”