“Molly, ma’am,” Eli said, his voice at her left shoulder, his familiar scent grounding me. “You gonna be okay, ma’am? I’d hate to have to knock you flat like Jane did. But I will, if you get magically violent.”

Molly’s eyes went wide and she stepped back, past Eli, fast. Her cat familiar stopped purring.

At least he had only offered to deck her, not fill her with lead. I sighed, the breath sounding weary and irritated in the uncomfortable silence of my front door.

“Great, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal,” I said. “You just threatened a powerful witch with bodily harm. That is the definition of stupid, just in case you were interested.”

Molly touched her jaw. “Is that why I’m sore?”

“Yeah,” I said flatly. “You don’t remember?” Molly shook her head and I said, “I socked you. Lachish healed you. Mostly. But you look like crap.”

A slight smile settled on Molly’s face. “You never have babied me. Thank you for that.”

“You’re welcome? I think?”

I eased inside, past Molly, and shut the door. Eli backed up to the bottom of the stairs. The cat had started purring again, which had to be a good sign. “Why did you have to knock me out?”

“Because you went for the blood diamond.”

Molly closed her eyes. With an effort, she kept her breathing steady. “And you have it with you still. I feel it. Okay. I think I’ll put on my music.” Molly left us to listen to the music her husband had recorded—music that was spelled to help her resist the urge to use her death magics. Her trembling increased as she climbed the stairs to the room she was using, the one directly over mine. In hindsight, it might have been smart to move the workout gear to that room and put Molly in the room at the back of the house. If she became the least bit avaricious again, I’d do that. Or send her to a hotel. Yeah. Better. With that course of action laid out, I went to my room and stripped out of my vamp-fighting gear.

The leathers had more blood on them than I’d expected, and it took a while to get them clean, especially the knees of the pants and the sleeve that had been burned on the snare of thorns. I had left my leathers dirty before and I had learned my lesson. The stink of vamp and human blood didn’t always come clean later. Living with Eli had made me more attentive to the details of my equipment. I used to just rinse them with water and clean them with saddle soap or leather-conditioning paste, or maybe vinegar or olive oil, depending on the type of filth. But I was short on vamp-hunting clothing, and cleaning these leathers the right way was a three-step process starting with baby wipes, followed by careful drying with a nonscratch cloth, and last by use of a proprietary bloodstain-removal spray that had come with the leathers. The spray was a nonstinky, non-water-based leather cleaner designed especially to remove blood but not harm the finish, and it dried odor-free. I rubbed the spray in with a soft, clean cloth. No stinting on the process this time. I didn’t want Santana to smell me coming, splattered with the blood of his dead ladyloves and the werewolf and me. By the time my leathers were clean, I was feeling a little less cantankerous, and I showered off the sweat of a New Orleans night, dressing in sturdy undies, slim pants, and a tank top, all in black. And my newest boots, the ones Leo had given me. My doubled gold chain and gold nugget necklace, with the mountain lion fetish wired on, made a bright counterpoint on the dark colors and made my yellowish eyes look more amber, darker and shadowed. My only makeup was bloodred lipstick.

I studied myself in the long mirror in my bedroom, thinking about my hair, whether to yank it back in a bun like Molly’s, plait it into a long tail, or put it up into a fighting queue. Giving up on knowing what looked best, I parted it in a zigzag and let it hang, which I seldom did. Long hair made a perfect handle for a bad guy or evil vamp to grab to try to control me. But today it might be another kind of tool.

Bait, my Beast thought, to bring Leo closer. To make him foolish.

I smiled grimly and weaponed up, taking only a single nine mil and wood stakes. I was running low with all my silver stakes in a dead vamp. Remembering that made me dial Sloan Rosen. When he answered, I said, “You do know to behead the vamps, yes?”

“Your boy Edmund Hartley did that. Without permission, and against the ME’s wishes. He also removed your stakes, wrapped them in a cloth, and took ’em when he left. That was a serious breach of crime scene methods and I’m sure there will be repercussions.”

“Good,” I said, and closed the Kevlar cover of the cell. “One less thing to worry about.” Then I had an idea and dialed Edmund’s cell number.

“Jane Yellowrock,” he said into the phone, the tone sounding seductive.

Beast perked up and I thought at her, No. No way. Don’t even think about it.

“Edmund Hartley,” I replied. “Do you have my silver stakes?”

“Eight of them, which will be delivered to your residence once Housekeeping has cleaned off the blood and polished the silver to a nice, bright, deadly shine.”

“Ducky. Do you get a fee for beheading Leo’s enemies?”

“Though my position in Clan Pellissier is markedly higher after feeding a werewolf than it was prior to that, no Mithran in my lowly position may receive remuneration for servicing his master.”

Which just sounded icky, the way he said that. I said, “If you’re low on liquid funds, feel free to post the beheadings under my name and orders. I’ll forward my fee to you.”

Edmund hesitated. “That would place me under the commands of, and under the authority of, the vampire hunter, who is currently under contract to the Master of the City. Not under the authority of the Enforcer, where I have been hitherto.”

“Is that a problem?” I asked.

“Not to me, no. But it lessens the power that the Pellissier Clan blood-master may wield over me and makes me more bound to the vampire hunter.”

“Is that likely to make Leo mad?”

“At you? Yes. At me? No. I have no authority and therefore no responsibility.”

I chuckled, and the sound was wicked. “Make it so,” I said, “and be sure to tell him all that, uh”—I paused and tried to think of a term an old vamp might appreciate—“posthaste. Yeah. Tell him all that posthaste.”

“You are too kind,” Edmund murmured. “For this charity, I am at your service, and I owe you a boon.”