Cold Reign (Jane Yellowrock #11)(41)
I sat on the cushioned bench for the trip back and texted. Eli got a full description of the boat with a suggestion that he contact those people he had mentioned, the ones in Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the multiple branches of the U.S. military. If a ghost ship was coming ashore, we’d need all the help we could get. I queried the Kid for updates. There was nothing new except a small fistfight turned gun battle outside of Arceneau Clan Home. There was a magical storm and multiple riots at the same time. Riots in a storm. People didn’t riot in storms.
Grégoire, Leo’s boy toy and second in line to the Mastership title, was safe in HQ, but I had never believed in coincidence. Arceneau Clan Home would be my next stop.
? ? ?
Leo’s limo maneuvered the streets through the storm and the traffic that looked like a dozen kittens had attacked a ball of yarn, Bruiser and me tapping and swiping our electronic devices. The intimacy of the twenty-first century. Not. But we felt an expectation of Big Bad Uglies heading our way, and good coms made us safer.
Brandon and Brian were standing under the small porch roof at Arceneau Clan Home, decked out in the Enforcer version of riot gear. A moving van was out front and burly blood-servants and -slaves were loading up the house’s contents. “Grégoire’s moving?” I asked.
Bruiser’s lips twitched with satisfaction. “No. Leo decided a week ago that the accommodations at any of the five-star hotels in the city were”—his voice took on a French accent similar to Leo’s for the next few words—“‘simply not up to Mithran standards.’ In his position as host, he decided to garrison half of the Europeans here and the rest of our visitors in the Council Chambers. Scrappy drafted the letter on parchment with all proper calligraphy, Leo signed it, and it went on its way, airmail. Leo found the entire ploy entirely too amusing.”
I didn’t comment on his use of the nickname Scrappy. Leo’s secretary’s real name was Lee, but I had been calling her Scrappy because of her red hair and fiery temperament. It had caught on. Maybe even with Scrappy. “But the purpose was to divide and conquer?”
“Exactly. The soldiers will be billeted here.”
“I like.” Pulling our ponchos over us, we stepped into the downpour. Water ran in the streets and had been running long enough that the filth had been deposited into the city’s drainage system, leaving the surface of the earth nice and clean. The city even smelled fresh, an uncommon occurrence. Walking in the rain, I stomped once in a puddle. And stopped. I hadn’t intended to do that, not consciously, but the splashing water was kinda nice. I stomped again, the water spraying up over my boots. Bruiser was watching me, a look of . . . something . . . on his face. He held out his hand, I took it, and together we wove through the workers who were carrying out priceless antiques covered with plastic. We were met in the entrance of the Clan Home by the Robere twins.
“Howdy, boys,” I said. “So tell me about the security upgrades. Alex has all the deets but I’ve left it to him. Oh. And the hidden cameras Leo authorized and had Derek install without my oversight? I totally get it now, with the plan to park some of EVs here.”
“You knew about those?” Brandon said.
“Of course I knew. Derek and Pauline Easter are good, but they’re amateurs. The Kid is a felon with employment offers from the DOD. He’s better than good.”
The twins exchanged looks, one of those multilayered communication things twins can do. “We see,” they said together. I just narrowed my eyes at them and walked into the three-story house. It was larger and deeper than it looked from the outside, forty-six feet across the front, and twice that deep on its small lot. The central hallway led past a wide staircase in the foyer, the floors and stairs carpeted with Oriental rugs in shades of blue and gray and black. The dining room was off the foyer, with a hand-carved cherrywood table and chairs and loads of china showing through glass doors of the built-in cabinetry. Across the hallway from it was a parlor filled with antique upholstered furniture, statues, and objets d’art. Gilt-framed paintings hung on the right wall in the wide hall, and a mural graced the left.
The scent of coffee and tea lingered on the air from a butler’s pantry that separated the dining room from the expanded kitchen added on in back. There was also an old-fashioned music room behind the parlor and a library behind that. Staff quarters were on the left at the back of the house, for the servants, including security. Arceneau Clan Home was überfancy and überexpensive, tasteful in ways I had yet to become comfortable with. The cameras were set into the light fixtures, complicated things with sensors and on-off switches. When the place was swept for electronics, Alex or someone at HQ could deactivate them and then reactivate them once the EuroVamps felt secure. The cameras were everywhere. And even with my experience, I couldn’t spot them.
“Tell me about the gunfire,” I said when I was done with my inspection.
Brandon said, “In the middle of the lightning storm from one of Dante’s circles of hell, a car pulled up and six unknowns, male, jumped out and attacked the movers. Fists. Then blades. Before we could intervene, it escalated into gunfire. We got the movers under cover, but a neighbor had already called NOPD. Since it involved gunfire and was in an upscale part of the city, law enforcement showed up quickly. At which point it appeared that the gunmen would turn on the officers.”