"But, Governor, what about the two civilians founda""
"We cannot comment further on an ongoing investigation." The governor turned to Colonel Madison. "Thank you for your time today, Colonel. The people of the great state of Louisiana appreciate your service to our country."
Russell pushed back from the table with disgust. It was the worst cover-up he"d ever seen, and he"d seen plenty. He fingered the Blood Oasis membership card in his khaki pocket. Vampires were as good as bloodhounds. They hated Werewolves probably as much as he did, and could lead him to their dens.
Sasha nodded and turned away from the bar television mounted at The Fair Lady. "d.a.m.n, he"s good." She was surprised when Hunter quietly agreed with her.
"Is that the colonel who was giving you a ration of dung?" Sir Rodney asked frowning.
"One and the same," Hunter muttered.
"Well, either the man is blind or he"s a quick study," Shogun said carefully, glancing between Sasha and Hunter. "Which is it?"
"He"s a quick study," Sasha said, oddly feeling protective of the colonel now that she knew him a little better. "He"s a good man .. . just got screwed up by the fear. But he"s cool now."
Hunter cleared his throat. Shogun just sat back.
" "Fraid you"re selling to a tough crowd. I take it that wolves don"t get a bad scent out of their noses easily, especially if their noses have been put out of joint."
"So I"ve noticed," Sasha said with a hard sigh and then quirked a half smile. "But gotta love "em anyway, Sir Rod."
"Ah ... the forgiving heart of a lady," he said with a small bow from where he sat.
Sasha laughed. "Chauvinist to the end."
"Too old to change my ways," Sir Rodney said with a casual shrug. "But I"m not generalizing about the female species. Remember, I was married to one who had held a grudge for at least two hundred years with no end in sight. So, la.s.sie, you are speciala"one of the good ones."
Sir Rodney"s wry comment finally made Shogun laugh and brought a smile out on Hunter"s face. The more he fought it, the wider it got, until he stopped being so morose and just gave in and laughed.
"See, I could be like her," Sasha said, raising an eyebrow.
"Okay, okay," Hunter said, waving her off. "I can live with you forgiving Madison."
"Thank you," she said, "Sheesh, you guys are rough." Then she looked at Sir Rodney. "Thanks so much for having Garth make sure Clarissa was all right."
"Aye, now how could I allow an innocent who is like family to you remain bewitched by an Unseelie spell? That would be unfair."
Sasha leaned over and hugged Sir Rodney. "I won"t ever complain about public displays of chivalry again."
Bodies relaxed, smiles merged with Fae ale and more burgers, and sudden peace came over Sasha, Even though she knew there was a tough few weeks ahead of her, the camaraderie that permeated the small table of leaders soaked into her bones. For just this moment in time, there was no conflict between her dual roles as a military person and a wolf. There was no conflict between rival brothers, and Shogun looked good ... his eyes were merry and his color was good; he didn"t seem like a man wallowing in what could have been. Hunter had eased up at the table and wasn"t on guard, tensing at his brother"s presence and listening too hard to every inflection in every comment Shogun threw her way. And Sir Rodney was Sir Rodneya"funny, droll, an Old World trip.
Stuffed and sated, she pushed her clean burger basket away from her and then stretched. "All right, so we"re all good on the plan? We"ve got like three hours until it gets dark, when you two head back to the sidhe."
Shogun nodded. "I"m good with that. It also makes sense that I cover ground in the Asian community ... it"s very closed to outsiders, in general, and I think I can break through faster if they think I"m a Korean American cop or FBI guy that can speak the various languages in that community. My father, before he died, insisted that his children learn as many regional languages as possiblea"Mandarin being one of them. If I know my aunt, she probably s.n.a.t.c.hed a young Chinese girl. . . and if she"s coed-age with all that"s going on, they haven"t even taken a missing persons report on her yet."
"This is where a little Fae glamour can help." Sir Rodney discreetly summoned several books of matches from the bar to their table with a wide smile, folded them into his hand, and began distributing FBI badges.
"Where were you when I was in high school?" Sasha said, laughing.
Sir Rodney bowed and then wagged his finger at her with a broad grin. "I would not have been party to corrupting the morals of a minor, even if it was just to get her a fake ID."
"What can ya do?" Sasha said, marveling at her badge. "This is really pretty cool."
"Fades at midnight, as most quickie Faery charms do . . . but on the morrow, I can make more."
One day she"d have to ask Sir Rodney if Cinderella was truth or legend, but she needed to stay focused.
"I"ve got Tulane," Sasha said. "It"d probably be better if a female cop or FBI type went in there and checked around the dorms looking for any students who"ve gone missing. One of the victims was a student, so it"s likely Shogun"s aunt got a body and then fed from the same hunting sourcea"the university."
"Sounds like a plan," Sir Rodney said, polishing off the last of his Fae ale. "But I won"t be needing a badge for where I"m going. Visiting the local ladies of witchery by definition requires that one be anythin" but a human cop."
"No argument there," Hunter said, glancing around the establishment. "While you charm the ladies, Rodney, I"ll just hug the shadows out by the baron"s old burned-out manor house. If she attacked out in the bayou and the military went in there full-force, she"ll find a safe fallback position . . . one heavily guarded by Vampires, if that"s who she"s allied with now. Their human helpers by day are no problem to evade. I"ll be out of there before any Vamps wake up and take issue with me snooping around on the premises."
"I"m not so much worried about Vampires as I am worried about her," Sasha admitted, now staring at Hunter without a smile. "We"re still within that couple-of-days window where the moon is full enough for a Were transformation, and if Lady Jung Suk is trailing sulfur, then that means she"s demon-infected. So, just be careful."
"Demon-infected?" Shogun leaned forward and gave Hunter a glance. "When we went to the location of the second victim in the bayou, there was no sulfur trail."
"That"s true," Hunter said, dropping his voice even lower as he sat forward at the table, leaning on his forearms.
"Yeah, but we picked it up out there in the bayou," Sasha said, sending her gaze around the group. "It was thick inside the old Bayou House, as well as out by the kill locations."
"But it definitely wasn"t at the site of the second victim or even near where the first one was thrown in the alley in the French Quarter," Hunter insisted.
"Maybe the sulfur you guys picked up at the Bayou House was from the past and not fresh. There was all sorts of insanity going on at that housea"and you said yourselves that humans had mucked up the scent trail." Sir Rodney glanced around the table to see if his theory had any takers, then pressed on. "What if an infected Were came out of the demon doors through that house during all the hullaballoo that took place out there before or something?"
"It could have been old scents that lingered from a time past," Hunter said. "The scent was so mild, so dissipated, I couldn"t tell."
"Neither could I," Sasha admitted. "If it was a brand-new Were who"d just come through the demon doors, I"d still be tasting sulfur at the back of my throat."
Shogun nodded. "It takes days to get that pungent sickness out of our sinuses, Rodney. If my aunt was recently infected, she would have left a reeking trail, not a faint one. That had to be old."
"All right," Sir Rodney conceded. "But we do know for a fact that, based on what you guys sniffed, Lady Jung Suk killed those first two humans. My curiosity is that she actually ate her victimsa"two females and four men." He glanced at Shogun and held his gaze. "I thought Weres of any kind abhorred human flesh unless they were infected?"
Shogun nodded and let out a long breath before pushing back from the table. "Normally, we do. But my aunt is Old World and enjoys forbidden things ... to her human flesh is probably a delicacya"not to mention that she"s one really twisted b.i.t.c.h."
"Aw, come on Esmeralda, have a heart." Sir Rodney leaned against the living room arch and smiled at the distraught woman before him.
Esmeralda was gorgeous, and it was hard to separate his mission to get information from her voluptuous form and Creole face. Her hair was a natural, stunning auburn: a lush thicket of deep red tresses that seemed so satiny, men yearned to touch it. She"d formed her kissable pink mouth into a defiant pout and had folded her graceful arms over her ample b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Not giving an inch, her hazel eyes stared at him directly as she spoke in a hushed, sensual southern drawl.
"I am so not about to get in between anything going on with the Vampires, Rodney, you know that. Why would you even try to put me in a position like that?"
"Because you"re my favorite girl," he said smiling, pushing off the wall of her antebellum town house. "And because you are the best at what you do."
"With friends like you, who needs enemies?" she fussed as his hands lightly rested on her shoulders.
"I"m not asking you to get involved, I"m asking for informationa"basic information."
She turned her face away. "Yeah, right. Don"t even try to glamour me, I"m immune."
"And I am hurt, shocked, and appalled that you would think I"d do something like that to you, love."
She smirked. "Uh-huh ... I can tell the time of the month by youa"isn"t it every three weeks you want to come by and talk, and that winds up being the last thing we do?"
"Ah, now I am truly wounded," he said, smiling broadly and covering his heart with a palm. He theatrically hung his head. "It"s just that every so many weeks, just at the new moon, I am captured anew by your spell, milady."
She laughed and then entered his embrace. "Go away, you h.o.r.n.y man."
"I just want a little information that could keep me in my glamour."
"Okay, what?" she said with an exasperated sigh.
"If there was, say, a disembodied spirit that wanted to enter a body . .. who around here has the expertise to allow that to happen? Could the Vampires do that alone?"
"No."
"Oh, come on, love. Please relent from the one-word answers. You"ve now cleared the Vampires of being able to do this deed and I trust you. My own advisors said as much, too."
"Then why are you asking me?"
Sir Rodney clucked his tongue. "Woman, thou art as fickle as the wind, and now my crime against this is consulting my advisors . .. Oh, the shame of it all."
Esmeralda laughed and looked up into Sir Rodney"s multihued gaze, giving in to his attempt to glamour her. "They can"t do it without help because they don"t have souls, and they need one stronger spirit to be able to overtake the victim"s and essentially duke it out inside the new body, just as that body"s life force and will are weakest."
"Sounds diabolical," he murmured, sobering as he listened.
"It is, and a lot of people can"t do it because you"ve got to be willing to play with your own soul, to roll the dice, so to speak. If there"s a moment of hesitation, the victim"s spirit can fight off the taker"s spirit and leave it in limbo while the body dies . . . but then the two that have been joined, when the taker was trying to pattern over the new spirit, start heading toward the Light where all innocents go. Problem is, a taker isn"t going in that directiona"so they scorch on impact with the Light. That"s why a lot of witches don"t do those types of spells. It"s very advanced, very risky, and just isn"t worth it."
"So n.o.body around here is actually qualified or predisposed, even for a grand amount of money, to take that risk?"
"h.e.l.l no, sugah. In all honesty, what you"re talking about is a very old and complicated spell. It needs a victima"but that"s the easy part... the delicate part is making the transfer at the exact moment the victim expires." She shook her head. "I don"t know anybody locally with that know-how. You might have to travel up to Salem, Ma.s.sachusetts, or head to London to some of the older covens. That"s the best advice I can give you."
It was the last thing he"d expected to see when he came out of the shadows at the baron"s old manor house. Rather than it being eerily abandoned and burned out, and the perimeter surrounded by armed human henchmen, there were construction bulldozers and normal work crews going about the business of razing the old house with the obvious intent of rebuilding. This was not the quiet lair of a demon-infected Were Leopard in hiding. Hunter sniffed the air. Not even the mildest hint of sulfur came to him.
Finding the Chens had been a stroke of dumb luck, but he"d gladly take leads from any source he could get. Shogun entered the small convenience store that had a pretty young girl"s picture in the window with an urgent parental message written above it in neat Chinese calligraphy. The request for help to find their missing daughter was heartrending; other locals had pointed him toward the herbal apothecary, who"d sent him on a zigzag mission through the fish market, whose proprietors pointed him to a boutique owner, who remembered seeing a small sign about a lost girl at a convenience store next to a take-out joint.
It would have been so much easier and would have saved time if there were signs posted all over. But Shogun censored himself and let go of the frustration, knowing that was not the Chinese way. The law-abiding citizenry believed in following the rules. If the police said to wait several days before a true missing persons report could be filed, they would accept that fate. They were also very private, and so it was only logical that their pleas for help would be a small cry done in a dignified way. But that did not diminish their pain.
Shogun stood outside for a moment, looking at the young woman"s face, her smile, a.s.sessing her delicate features. He steeled himself before he entered the store, knowing that her parents" pain would carve a hole in his soul. If he had a child, losing her like this would be unbearable. The many losses he"d already endured began to awaken within him as he pushed on the door and heard the light chime.
A weary-looking man peered at him from behind a counter that was surrounded with bulletproof gla.s.s. His tired wife shuffled out to stand at the register, waiting on his purchase decision.
"Lottery?" she asked in a flat tone, observing that he hadn"t brought any grocery items to the counter. "We close soon. Curfew."
Shogun hesitated, almost hating to use the phony badge as a ruse now, because he knew it would only inspire hope in the distraught couple. "I have a few questions about your daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Chen. I am so sorry for your loss." Shogun produced the badge, and immediately the owners ran to the side door beside the gla.s.s and unlatched it.
"Come in, come in," Mr. Chen said eagerly and then ran to the front door, bolted it, and flipped over the closed sign. "You have news?"
His wife clutched her hands to her chest as though in prayer, and then squeezed her eyes shut. Two big tears rolled down her weathered cheeks and she spoke quickly in broken English. "My daughter is good girla" she no out at parties! She no have boyfriend! She study hard, work hard!"
Mrs. Chen"s sob drew Shogun to her as he tried to comfort her and usher her to the back room with her husband. "I know, ma"am, I know," he said, and then lapsed into Mandarin to ease communications.
"Have you found her?" Mr. Chen asked, his voice hesitant and unsure. "Alive .. . please, say alive."
Mrs. Chen released a bloodcurdling wail, her pain like claws against Shogun"s conscience. "I keep the incense lit for her soul," she wailed, pounding her chest with her clasped fists. "My only child, I will call the ancestors, I will make medicine. I will call the ghosts ... I will beg the Dragons, but my only child cannot be taken away from me like this!"
"We thank G.o.d that the authorities sent youa" someone from our people," Mr. Chen said, beginning to tear. "Someone who knows our community, who cares about one missing girl and knows that she matters to us, even if she does not matter to others."
Shogun covered Mrs. Chen"s hands with his own, almost unable to look into the poor woman"s face as he spoke to the couple. "I care, sir. I... my heart goes out to you both. We have not found her yet, but we will look for her until we do. Please, if I can ask you questions about the last time you saw her, about where she was and who she was with . . . what her normal patterns were . . . then we will start from there."
CHAPTER 14.
She hated dead ends worse than she hated demon doors. Sasha clicked off the cell phone call with Hunter and stashed it in her back jeans pocket. This was so not what she"d wanted to hear. Sir Rodney"s message wasn"t much better. Two d.a.m.ned bars left and she needed to find a charger, or else by the time Shogun tried her, her phone would be dead.
Mentally crossing another name off her list, she glanced at the sky. In less than an hour it would be dark. Shogun would have to be headed into the sidhe with Sir Rodney. She wanted to kick herself for all the precious time that had been squandered today. The news had finally released the names of the two victims, a young blond co-ed and her Goth boyfriend . . . couldn"t have been more than twenty years old. Sasha shook her head. What a waste. Somebody"s parents were probably laid out prostrate with grief over this and couldn"t even tell their child good-byea"this was a definite closed-casket scenario.
But at least a diligent journalist had given her a name trail. With the sun going down, any student who lived on campus or in the surrounding apartment areas would be home. The curfew was a blessing, in that regard. Wouldn"t be too hard to find the friends who had commented on the news. Walking across the rolling expanse of the campus, Sasha whipped out her cell phone and called Winters. He picked up on the second ring.
"Hey, dudea"can you go on Facebook and tell me the names of all the people who sent in RIP stuff for the two kids from Tulane who got killed?"
Sasha had to pull the phone away from her ear as Winters"s excited voice a.s.saulted her sensitive hearing.
"When are you gonna let me strap you with a Crack-Berry or like an iPhone, Captain? Or I could get you a Palm Pre, if you wanted to go light... Do you know how many apps are out there these daysa"stuff that can solve almost every issue you have in the fielda"but nooo. Oh, my G.o.d, tell me you did not call me to do an FB searcha"like, that is soa""
"Winters, my phone is dying. I left my charger because I didn"t expect to be gone all day. The stores are all pulling down their grates because of the curfew, anda""
"So do your shadow thing and go get a new charger from Radio Shack, c"mon."
His comment annoyed her, but she had to smile. She hadn"t thought of that. Somehow stealing stuff was always a remote thought.. . Now, blowing stuff up, that she was good at. "Okay," she finally said in a huff.
"You sure you don"t want us to investigate something s.e.xier than that for youa"like I could hack into the Pentagona""
"Noooo," Sasha said, shaking her head. "Just a nice, clean, legal search, thank you very much."