Cold Reign (Jane Yellowrock #11)(52)

Beast pressed a paw on my mind and extended her claws, pressing down. Clearing my mind. I had always known that Leo had total access to my official cell, the very reason I carried a throwaway, a burner phone, for private convos. So why my anger? The storm was affecting me too. “Just ducky,” I muttered.

“What, mistress?” Edmund asked.

“Stop calling me that.”

“Yes, mistress.” I could have sworn he was smirking, but there was nothing of that on his face.

I sighed and followed Edmund’s lead, drying myself off with the big fluffy towels. Fangheads have the best stuff. Top quality all the way. The stink of wet leather and gun oil and New Orleans wet was potent in the car. I also smelled fresh tea and followed my nose to a paper cup of coffeehouse chai latte in a cup holder. I thought I loved Shemmy. I took it and drank. Heaven in a cup.

Eli, however, just sat, his face scrunched into lines, his hands gripping his weapons, too tight, skin white. I pressed the towel over my head, squeezing the water from my queued hair. From behind the towel I asked Ed, “So you’re my primo?”

“Yes, m— Yes.”

“So if you know something, and I need to know it, you’ll tell me.” Edmund didn’t reply and I dropped the towel to settle a mean little smile on him. “Yes or no, primo?”

“If I can answer, I shall,” he said carefully. Which meant that he might know stuff he had sworn to keep secret.

Vamps always had secrets. But this should be common vamp knowledge. “Are vamps always beheaded after they die a second time?”

“If their master is not able to revive them, yes. No Mithran wants to return as a revenant.”

“And then their heads are reattached for the grave.”

“Yes. For the services.” I saw enlightenment dawn in his eyes. “But their spines and tendons are not reattached. It’s cosmetic only.”

“So properly interred vamps shouldn’t be able to rise from the grave, heads in place. Their heads should loll over and bounce as they walk.”

“No. They should not be able to rise at all.” Edmund looked troubled. He oughta.

“But the dog-fanged vamps are rising, walking, seeing, eating, and drinking. Making either the vamps themselves different or the method in which they were prepared for the grave different. Who are the vamp morticians?”

“Mateo and Laurie Caruso,” Edmund said, “of Caruso Family Funeral Services. For the last two hundred years and more.” He sounded unhappy about it. I had to wonder why.

“Vamps?”

“Yes.”

I thought about his tone and the unhappy look on his face. “Mateo and Laurie Caruso. Do they have dog fangs?”

“Yes.” He looked utterly saddened at speaking the word. The kind of sad that spoke of a personal history, one filled with heartbreak.

“You and Laurie. You used to have a thing, didn’t you.”

“If by ‘have a thing,’ you mean did we have a romantic relationship once upon a time, yes. We were . . . close.”

Bruiser got in the limo and began to wipe off on the fluffy towels. The storm had lessened again, and beyond the patting sounds of Bruiser’s towel, I heard nothing. “Shemmy,” I said, “take us to Caruso Family Funeral Services.”

Bruiser stopped patting and looked at me, then at Ed. Comprehension dawned in his eyes. “Oh. Bouvier clan.”

Just in case he wasn’t on our page, I said, “Dog fangs. All the risen revs had them. Heads, mouths, eyes, ears, legs, arms, everything works and nothing should work at all.”

“Yes.” The limo pulled away as Bruiser retrieved a small cell from a pocket of the limo and punched in a number. When Scrappy answered, he said, “Tell the Master of the City that his faithful Enforcer and his faithful Onorio are en route to Caruso Family Funeral Services.” He listened a moment, said, “Thank you,” and disconnected.

“Faithful?” I asked.

“There is only one funeral home in the city for Mithrans. If we have to kill the Carusos, I wanted to remind Leo that we do so while still being loyal to him.”

“Why?”

“Mithran funerals and burials are very circumscribed, sacred, and private affairs,” Bruiser said. “Almost holy. Without the Caruso family, there will be no one to provide the correct interment procedures for the city’s undead. Things will become difficult.”

“Uh-huh. Okay. I’ll keep them alive if possible. But if they’re raising the revenants or helping the people who are, then they go down. Unless I can use them.”

“Understood,” Bruiser said. Then he did a strange thing. He turned off his cell before gesturing that we all do likewise. We all did and then held the cells tightly beneath an armpit to muffle any remaining mic. “One thing you should know,” he said. “Leo’s eyes among the Europeans has not always been reliable.”

Leo’s eyes refereed to Leo’s Madam Spy. That she had not always been reliable suggested that she was either easily confused or a turncoat, a double agent, spying for Leo and giving intel to both sides. That sucked. And that was possibly deadly. I nodded and we all turned on our cells. I quickly texted Alex to find and turn off the security system at the funeral home. This was Enforcer business, not cop business. And if the morticians were EV spies, planted here a couple of centuries ago, then we needed to keep the Eurotrash from discovering that we were onto them.