Tara gave Gabrielle a gentle hug and held her hand for a bit, but kept glancing at the goblet and the red stain on Gabrielle's mouth. "Gabby, are there many weres in the house tonight? I know your girls are strictly business, but the client guys from Level Five..."
"Oh," Gabrielle scoffed and took a dip sip for her goblet. "All in caged rooms for the night with their female selection from the house. No worries. We haven't seen any senators for a long while now, and those in here aren't going to be of too much concern. Our bars and chains will hold. I reassure you, our bouncers all have silver bullets, should any of them get a little too rowdy."
"Good," Yonnie said, nodding, and picking up Tara's concern as he watched Gabrielle practically guzzle blood. "Like I said when I called, baby, there's been some strange shit going on subterranean. I felt a power surge; so did Tara. Our main man is missing, and yet instinct was telling me he was nearby, but I couldn't spot him."
Gabrielle had changed her hair, he noted. It had once been dyed black. Now she was heavier, thicker, more voluptuous. All of it was disconcerting.
For the first time since they'd been in Gabrielle's house, Tara drew close to Yonnie without having to be asked to do so. Gabrielle tightened the belt on her long, floor-length, black silk robe and flipped her auburn tresses over her shoulder. As she walked deeper into the parlor, feathers from her spiked ostrich-plumed mules gently shifted with the disturbance of air that her hem caused.
Reaching up into the Louis XIV breakfront, she lifted down a large crystal ball and beckoned with a gentle sweep of her hand for Yonnie and Tara to join her at the small round Chippendale table in the private back room.
"Baby," Yonnie said carefully. "What's with the blood? How you feelin' lately?"
"Oh, this," Gabrielle replied in a distracted tone. "I don't know. About a month ago, I started picking up some of my clients' bad habits." She chuckled and placed her hands flat on the table, staring into the crystal ball. "Nothing to worry about."
"Have you been having any bouts of rage... yearnings to eat human flesh?" Tara sat slowly and placed a gentle hand on Gabrielle's shoulder.
The two women stared at each other, and then Gabrielle glanced up at Yonnie.
"I only have one body in the refrigerator," Gabrielle said, not answering the question and becoming defensive. "He was a serial killer. We took him out of the general population before he hurt any more innocents, and his soul was damned anyway... We keep food supplies on hand for our werewolves. It's just business. Child molesters, murderers, I think we do a better job at ridding the planet than the human prison system. Don't tell me you've gone - "
"Gabby," Yonnie said quietly, as he stood behind her, held her shoulders, and kissed her temple. "I want you to try to lay off the human food. There's a really bad virus, or contagion, spreading up from the portals. That's why we're here." He stroked her hair, took up one of her hands, and sat beside her. "No judgment, and I know you all just clean up the human scum as a public service... but, honey, one night you might cross the line and start going after normal civilians. Then Carlos and Damali, or even your sister, Marjorie, won't be able to petition for you in any kinda way. Feel me? And, you do not want to close your eyes to this life and wake up in the realms where you've got a lot of enemies. All right? I can't go subterranean to help you, if that happens... and I can't bring you into my family by a turn to give you a way out."
Her eyes shone with quiet desperation. "You think I'm infected?"
"Given the line of work you're in, baby..." Yonnie squeezed her hand. "That's why we've gotta find our boy, so we can close this shit up."
Gabrielle's nervous gaze shot to Tara, and then she dropped Yonnie's hand and stared into the crystal ball. "We all knew that since Lilith fled, things had been different. But we assumed after she and her husband patched up their rift, everything would go back to normal."
"So did we," Tara said quietly, her gaze intent as she stared at Yonnie. "We thought the Chairman might even work his way back into his old position, so that things could... stabilize."
"He's still not on his throne?" Gabrielle covered her heart with a flat palm. "He still exists, though?"
Yonnie nodded. "I can't locate my boy; Carlos, but I felt a power surge that gave me ridiculous wood," Yonnie muttered. He glanced at Tara and then sent his gaze into the crystal globe. "It happened so hard and so fast... I haven't felt like this since I got made. So, I'm hoping that this is a positive development. Like maybe the energy leaks are sealing up and the portals are closing, that's why the power felt like it had concentrated."
Gabrielle nodded and caressed the crystal ball as her eyes slid shut. "My sight has been a little... off. But let me see what I can do."
Yonnie and Tara waited, their breathing becoming so shallow it was practically nonexistent. The ball filled with charcoal smoke as Gabrielle coaxed her divination tool to respond. Tara watched Yonnie as his gaze went out the window, the muscle in his jaw working hard.
Every so often, he'd run his tongue over his teeth, and little by little his eyelids lowered by a fraction.
"You got anything yet?" He finally said, standing abruptly to pace to the window.
He stood with his hand at either side of the window frame, his back to the table, taking in slow breaths and releasing them with effort. His desire was palpable even from across the room.
"The portals are wide open," Gabrielle whispered, her gaze riveted to the ball. "I can't see any activity below... It's like everything's vacated."
"Can you pick up Carlos's essence?" Tara's voice had become strident.
"No," Gabrielle murmured, a frown of confusion crossing her face. "There's no trace of him there. I felt it for a fleeting moment, but if he'd transported through Hell, I know his signature well enough to have felt it, even if he went in as a Neteru. Especially that, because I would have immediately seen silver tracer and human aura where it shouldn't have been." Gabrielle looked at Tara. "He would have stood out like a sore thumb."
"Go deeper," Tara said, her breaths becoming stilted as she spoke. "Go into the Chairman's Chambers and see if you can get a glimpse of his throne. If he's been reinstated, it should be intact, blood from the table flowing. Maybe that's why, as vampires, we felt the surge... and its effects. Check his torture wall, any place that Carlos might have been dragged to and held hostage."
"If you go that deep," Yonnie said in a low rumble without turning around, "then I'ma need a room for the night."
Tara and Gabrielle glanced up from the crystal ball and stared at his back.
"I can arrange that," Gabrielle said quietly, almost standing to go to him.