to be cameras. The place might look empty, but I knew it wasn't. There was always someone on duty in case of emergency, a contact vamp, with access to all the clan masters.
Parking for the servants and hired help was hidden in back, but I pulled to the front door and cut the engine, lowered the kickstand, and unhelmeted. I was wearing bloody, muddy jeans and boots, was carrying weapons, crosses, and stakes, and I knew I'd have to ditch them all when I was searched, not that I'd even necessarily see a vamp tonight.
I'd probably be reporting to a blood-servant flunky.What fun.
Though vamp citizenship was being considered in Congress, at the moment they were treated as aliens, and carrying a weapon beyond the foyer of the council house was tantamount to taking a weapon into a foreign embassy or a federal courtroom, a good way to get jumped on and locked away. I climbed the stairs; the door opened before I knocked. A blood-servant I didn't recognize let me in - male, tall, well muscled, and bald, he looked like an escapee from the World Wrestling Federation. The guy was seriously big.
He didn't speak. He didn't have to. He pointed to a table, where I set down my head bag and removed my weapons. This was my third visit to council headquarters, so I knew the score. When I was done, he motioned me aside and opened the bag. His brows rose when he looked in, but he made no other reaction, just resealed the bag. He patted me down thoroughly, not wasting any effort on being gentle. Handing me the bag, he pointed me to the small waiting room. The big silent type.
I'd been stuck here before on my previous visits, and knew there was food. I opened the refrigerator, taking a can of Coke back to the couch. The TV, set high on the wall, was displaying the weather with Ada's northward progress mapped out in livid reds, greens, and yellows. I plopped down, popped the Coke, and drank. There were no windows. But at least this time no blood-servant stood guard at the door. Maybe they were starting to trust me. Or maybe there was just no one on duty important enough to guard, what with Ada just passing. Or maybe I was locked in. Whatever. I was too tired to care.
I waited an hour, which was no surprise. I'd waited longer on a previous visit. I drank two more Cokes and raided the kitchen for food, putting a hurting on a plastic container filled with cookies and crackers. It was near two a.m. when the door opened. The WWF-looking security guy nodded me out and took off down a hallway. I figured he wanted me to follow, and grinned at the mental picture of his expression should I start opening doors and peeking inside instead. He glanced back and frowned as if he could read my mind and didn't like what he saw. Meekly, I caught up, my head bag on a strap over my shoulder.
WWF Guy took me to the second floor, knocked, and opened a door; the herbal scent of vamp wafted out. WWF stood back for me to enter. Inside was a library, books on shelves and piled all around, and leather chairs with small side tables. Because it was a vamp room, there were no windows. A fire burned in the fireplace with the snap and scent of real wood. An air-conditioned breeze cooled the room. Ambience achieved at the cost of the vamp carbon footprint. Vamps weren't into being green.
In a chair near the fire, a book open on her lap, sat a vamp I knew, the second in command at Clan Arceneau, Dominique - blond, pale-eyed, and at least two hundred years old. The last time I saw her, Dominique was chained, tortured, and suffering from excessive bloodletting and silver poisoning. I had threatened her and then saved the life of her clan blood-master. I had no idea if she would want to thank me or suck me dry in revenge. After all, Ihad left her chained. In silver. But she just looked me over as if I were a horse she might buy, or a slave. Dominique's family had owned a plantation before the Civil War - I had done my homework and knew a lot about the most important and powerful New Orleans vamps.
Her nostrils widened, and I knew she smelled blood. And dead vamp. She went