Safia. And Rick LaFleur.

Gee hummed a soft note. Wrassler said, “Maybe we just found catwoman’s killer.”

I stood and left the room. I said nothing on the way out. My mind was in some strange sort of stasis, not really aware of what I was doing, but moving by rote. I left the compound, strode into the sunlight, and found my bike. There was an envelope on the seat and I tucked it into the saddlebag unopened, uninspected, which was stupid but I didn’t care. I kicked on the bike, and roared out of vamp HQ.

I rode by instinct, the scorching, wet wind in my face. All I could think was, Rick is missing. I smelled his scent on Safia’s face and mouth when I bent over her in the morgue. As of now, he was the last person known to be with Safia, which makes him a person of interest in her death. And I have no idea what is going on.I drove back to my house, found it silent and empty, went inside, and stripped; dressed in capris and a tee. And stopped. My fingers were tingling, my breath coming short and shallowly. Feeling strange and lost in my freebie house. I had dropped my lease on my mountain apartment. Packed up my stuff. Brought it to New Orleans with me. Not just because I had extended my contract with Leo. No. But because I was sleeping with a guy I really liked and I hoped, deep down, that there was something special between us. I had chosen him over Bruiser because he was human, and because he might put me first, while George Dumas was, now and always, Leo’s creature.

Rick, however, was undercover, sent to watch the weres, at the beck and call of the NOPD. And if he had to sleep with a girl or two to keep his cover, he would. He had before. I’d once listened in on pillow talk from a hotel balcony, heard and smelled and imagined the scene in the room beside me.

Rick hadn’t bothered to warn me. Much like Leo owned Bruiser, NOPD owned Ricky Bo. Who had disappeared off the radar, and might now be in trouble with his own people. The cops had a copy of this footage. They would see it eventually and would recognize Rick—who was missing and in trouble.

I had to find him. No matter what happened later with us.

I went to the kitchen, stakes in my hair, a vamp-killer strapped to my thigh over my capris, and a 9 mil over the tee in a shoulder holster that was starting to chafe at the unaccustomed hours of wear. I set the gun on the table. I always feel better with weapons close at hand.

I had brought in the envelope that had been propped on my bike. While water heated for tea, I sniffed the paper, found nothing fresh on the envelope except a faint smell of chemical, like latex or nitrile gloves, and opened it. Inside were more photos and papers. Usually I had to drag clues out of people, and now someone was just itching to give them to me, which made everything they gave me suspect. Evidence handed to me would surely point only in one direction, when there were multiple sides to this investigation.

I spread out the pages on the kitchen table. On top was a shot of Roul Molyneux, dressed in jungle hunting gear, khakis and boots and a jacket with lots of pockets, a high-powered rifle in his hands. He was standing over the body of an African were-lion. What was it about the supernats and hunting one another?

Next was a photocopy of what looked like a legal writ. It was signed by Leonard Eugène Zacharie Pellissier, Master of the City, and was dated March 17, 1916. It was an edict stating that all werewolves who remained in the city after April first would be hunted down and killed. I didn’t think it was a gruesome April Fools’ joke. Leo hated the weres, and I had to wonder how much that hatred extended to the big-cats. Could Leo have orchestrated this whole thing, the death of Safia, the discord between the wolves and the cats? Maybe even the return of the wolves just at this time. Could he be that Machiavellian? Yeah. He could. He was a master vamp, a bloodsucking monster, with centuries of plotting under his belt. But if so, why? To what end?

There were other photos, none dated, and every one of them contained some image of a were, most of them dead and not of natural causes. Near the bottom was the image of Safia bending over a big basket of spotted kittens, maybe a day old, followed by a photo of a child in a bassinet, followed by a still shot of a black leopard in the basket with the kittens and the human baby. Beast reared up in my eyes and stared at the photograph. Kits, she murmured to me, longing in her thoughts like a deep pond, still and cold.

Yeah, I thought back. But I didn’t know if Safia’s offspring were were-cats. The cop info from the woo-woo room had suggested that the human baby would be able to change into cat form, and the kittens would grow up able to change into human form. But if so, would they really be human in any way, or cats with no . . . soul wasn’t the right word. Humanity, maybe. The were-kits were orphans now, whatever they might grow up to be.

I set the photos aside and poured near-boiling water over the tea leaves and left them to steep. I had to focus on the death of Safia and finding Rick. Nothing else was important right now. I took a breath. And smelled pine and jasmine.

I looked up from the papers to find Gee in the room with me. A naked sword in his hand.

CHAPTER 17

You Belong to Me

Beast roared up through me. My breath came hot. My heart thumped a hard, painful beat. Slammed adrenaline into me. I pushed off the floor. Leaped. Up, over the table edge. Midair, I slid my hands over the weapons and closed my grips. Time slid sideways and stuttered. I landed on the table, crouched. Leaped again. Slid the safety off in midair. Aimed. Gee was gone.

I landed, knees absorbing the energy of the jump. Whirled. To find Gee sitting in my chair, his sword resting across the table. “Impressive,” he said. “Inhuman.” He breathed deeply and smiled, holding my gaze. “You smell wonderful. Like animal, but not like were. You smell like . . . like the old tales of Lolandes. She too smelled of predator and the hunt.”I swallowed down my fight-or-flight response, forced my breathing to slow. Stood straight. But I didn’t put the weapons away. Lolandes? A shape-shifter, like me? “Pot, Kettle.”

“Too true. I should like to spar with you. With naked blades,” he added almost as an afterthought. “But I have no time. What do you make of my photographs?” he indicated the pages. “Good, yes?”

Spar? With naked blades? No freaking way. “If they’re not manufactured,” I said.

“And why would I do such a thing?” Gee looked honestly curious, as if he wanted to hear my thought processes and conclusions. When I didn’t answer, he sat back in my chair, crossed his arms over his chest in a posture that left him looking harmless and small, and waited.

Annoyed, I said, “I don’t know. But it’s mighty convenient for the wolves to come back to New Orleans just now. Convenient that you just happen to be here at the same time. It’s also convenient that you have photographs and put them together for me. Call me paranoid, but I stopped believing in true coincidence a long time ago.”

“Mercy Blades are fine thieves. I am a fine Mercy Blade.” He cocked his head, the motion weirdly birdlike. “There was no Mercy Blade after I left.”

I frowned at his right angle topic turn. “Repetition is boring.”

“Every Master of the City has a Mercy Blade to do what he cannot. There is a reason for us. A”—he seemed to think a moment, staring up at the ceiling—“a symbiotic relationship. They need us, we need them.”

Us. As if he meant more than it might appear. I kept my face impassive, slightly bored. “You kill their children for them. I got that.”

“We take the blood and the life force of the rogues for our sustenance. In turn, our blood keeps the Mithrans sane through dolore after a scion dies. It is our blood that mends their minds and bodies when they are sent to earth for healing. The relationship was parleyed by the Sons of Darkness, when they realized their scions were ravening and could not be made sane. You have seen Katherine. She is an example of what happens when Mercy Blades are not part of a healing gather.”

I had seen Katie put to earth to heal from a mortal wound, her body in a coffin filled with vamp blood offered by almost every member of the New Orleans vampires—a healing gather. And I had seen her after, loony tunes, raving, nutso. She had drunk from the dead were-cat, Safia. Not normal or healthy vamp behavior. She had attacked Leo. Not smart vamp behavior. I dipped my chin to show I was listening.

“I have visited little Katherine. A single sip of our blood gives assurance of sanity and good health, and one sip can last them decades. The weakest of us can provide emotional well-being for several clans; the strongest of us for an entire region of Mithrans.” He said it with pride, and I knew where he fit in. Gee was strong enough to satisfy bunches of vamps.

“Besides a good meal when you kill the rogues, what do you get out of the relationship?”

“Being in their presence allows us to easily open a passageway from this world into our own. They enrich us. They fulfill us. They bring us joy.”

That was what I’d been waiting to hear. All Mercy Blades were . . . whatever Gee was. Not human. Not vamp. They were other. “How many of you are there?”

“Four in this hemisphere at this time.” He closed his mouth firmly, and I knew that was all I’d get about his kind.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Gee took a slow breath and closed his eyes as if to keep me from seeing what was in them, but his scent increased, the jasmine growing stronger. He opened his eyes and watched me as he spoke. “George Dumas did not kill Safia.”

That was what I had been thinking too. Bruiser had been set up.

“I believe that the were-cat’s clandestine lover witnessed her murder, when she allowed him into Leo’s private office in the council chamber, through the outer wall.”

My heart stuttered. He meant that Rick had seen her killed. I didn’t react, though my heart squeezed down painfully on the probability.

“If I am correct, then he saw her die, and escaped from the killer by great luck. If I am right, then he would know why she was killed. He would know who used the gun and who tore through her throat. He and he alone would know.”

I answered, my voice calm and reasoned. “It’s a possibility. But the lov—the guy is missing at the moment.”