Cold Reign (Jane Yellowrock #11)(42)
“We stopped them,” Brian said. “I assume Alex will have acquired the security footage.”
Which I couldn’t wait to see. “Okay. Keep us informed,” I said.
I wandered through the ground floor of the house, and on the way out, I passed the mural on the wall, the one I had seen before, that attracted my attention on so many levels. I stopped to study it. Closely. More intently than ever. I realized that one of the vamps in the mural had dog fangs. Which Bruiser had to know. “Onorios,” I said, using my Enforcer tone. “This blood-family with dog fangs. Details.”
Bruiser stepped up on my left, one twin on my right, the other behind me. Onorio scents and heat enveloped me. “Bouvier,” the twin from behind said. His tone suggested that I should know and remember this already. Things were ticking in the back of my brain but not fast enough.
“Remind me,” I said.
Brandon, to my side, pointed. “Rousseau and his favorites, Elena and Isabel.” Rousseau was the formal way to refer to a clan head, though Rousseau Clan had been disbanded during the vamp war not long after I got here. His fingers moved. “Desmarais with his Joseph, Louis, and Alene.” The first names indicated a blood-servant or much lesser scion; the vamps were obvious by the fangy display.
Brian leaned over me, his body touching my spine. “Laurent with her favorites, Elizabeth and Freeman.” Freeman was black and gorgeous and I had little doubt why he was both free and a favorite. “Renee with his master, St. Martin.” He went quiet. St. Martin was associated with the Damours blood-family, the family of witch-vampires I had helped to kill. They had been powerful and evil and dangerous. And their red motes of power were still trapped inside me.
“Bouvier with Ka Nvista.”
The vamp master and Bouvier clan head at the time had dog fangs, which I hadn’t noted before. His blood-servant was Cherokee, her name meaning dogwood. She had yellow eyes like mine and she was likely a skinwalker, though no one who was alive both then and now had ever remarked on any similarity in our scents. She was beautiful, with long, braided black hair and lost eyes. Her master would have savaged her beautiful throat with the double fangs. “Bouvier and the Damours. Did they hang together back in the day?”
“Yes,” Brian said. “They did. As did other masters and scions from time to time. The Damours were a sensual and sybaritic family. They attracted many of the restless young, the dissolute elder, and the bored.” He didn’t sound particularly approving, which relieved me in ways I didn’t take time to look at too closely.
I pulled my cell and texted the Kid to go through the old records databases to look for all witch/vamps who used to hang with the Damours and see how common the dog-fanged vamps were among the group. But Alex had beat me to it, texting back, I started that research the moment the first dog-fanged revenant appeared.
Why? I typed back.
Because everything else bad in this fuc—messed-up city traces back to the Damours, so why not this too?”
He typed that so I could see his near-cussing. But he was right, and maybe he was more clearheaded than I was right now. Vamps were long-lived and had different views of future plans, potential goals, and multiple methodologies. They could harbor vengeance in their hearts for centuries before they enacted it against an enemy. It was called the long view.
Do any of Leo’s current scions have dog fangs? I typed back.
Checking. A moment later he typed back, No.
I pocketed the cell beneath my now mostly dry poncho and said to the three Onorios, “Thanks. I have things to think about.” They all stepped back, in synchrony, which felt weird, and created a passage out the front door. Just before I reached the door, I turned, retrieved the cell, and stepped back to take a couple of dozen photos, using several different filters, just in case I needed to reference it later. I sent them to Alex’s and my own e-mail addy and text number. Then I pocketed the cell again and left the house. Bruiser waited for me at the limo, holding the door open against the fine, misty rain, but when I slid in, he didn’t follow.
“Shemmy will take you home,” he said. “I need to be here at dusk with the twins and that’s only two hours away. You haven’t eaten sufficiently. I smell your hunger. Stop for something to eat. Cochon’s maybe.”
“Shemmy?”
“His father was Jimmy and his mother was Sheba. Not the queen.” His lips curled up slightly at beating me to the question.
“Shemmy it is. Does Shemmy have any special gifts, training, or abilities?”
“Of course. Your second insisted.”
My second was Eli. “Good to know. Later, then.”
“Later, love.” He closed the door, leaving me in a state of bemusement. He was British, so calling me love was like Eli calling me Babe. Inconsequential. But it felt like more, as if he was getting closer and closer to the three little words. No one had ever said them to me. No one. Unless I counted the claiming by my werecat ex. But not love. Not ever. I wondered how I’d feel when it happened. If it happened.
“Howdy, Shemmy.”
“Miz Yellowrock,” Shemmy said, politely.
“No need to be fancy.” I swiveled my body around and put my booted feet on the seat. I leaned back my head and blew out a breath that spoke of exhaustion. “Jane is fine.”
“Jane it is. I hear you give nicknames. What’s mine?” I looked up at Shemmy, who fit the general physical parameters of Derek Lee’s security team—the shaved head, big, muscled, physique of the former military. “You can’t beat Shemmy. It’s perfect.”