clan just from all the Armani.
Her heart sank. The last thing she needed right now was this haughty crew. And from the look of them, she was in trouble. Reluctantly, she opened the door.
“We need to speak with you,” said the tallest female, cool and Nordic, an Elven. The replacement for the former Beverly Hills Elven Keeper, Arthur Whitehead, who had been exiled for his insidious part in the recent series of Elven deaths by an ancient blood disease.
Barrie stared around at them. “How did you get in?” Maybe it was rude of her to ask, but she hadn’t heard the gate buzz, and if Sailor or Rhiannon had let anyone in, they would have called her.
“The gate was open,” the werewolf Keeper said. He had a Schwarzenegger body under his three-thousand-dollar suit.
Barrie frowned at him. I doubt that. True, Mick had left just a moment before, but the gate shut automatically after each exit; these Keepers must have manipulated it somehow.
She shook her head. “I just got home and—”
“We’re afraid this can’t wait,” the vampire Keeper said. Rhiannon was a vampire Keeper and she didn’t look anything like one, but this Keeper had the sallow skin and dark hair of a classic movie vampire, which he’d no doubt carefully cultivated. A real vampire in L.A. would be more likely to go the tanned route, as camouflage.
And what is this, the royal “we”? Barrie thought, with a twinge of annoyance under her nervousness. But she opened the door wider for the Keepers to come in.
She felt a little as if she were being called on by the Royal Court, and she had to force herself to stay calm. I haven’t done anything wrong, she reminded herself. This is politics, pure and simple.
She ushered the Keepers past the antique mirrors of the hall into the living room, and was at least glad that she hadn’t been home often enough in the past few days for the place to be a total wreck. And despite her irritation at the unannounced visit, her manners won out.
“May I get you some coffee? Or tea?” she offered.
The fourth Keeper, a shifter with the hooded look of a secret Valium addict, answered curtly, “We won’t be here that long.”
Good, Barrie thought, and indicated the chairs and sofas with her hand as she sat. The Keepers all took seats, facing her like a firing squad.
“It’s come to our attention that you are investigating the death of Saul Mayo,” the vampire Keeper said.
“I’m not actually in—” Barrie started.
The Elven Keeper interrupted. “You’ve been asking questions about him all over town.”
“Including visiting DJ, who is clearly not in your Keep,” the vampire Keeper added.
The Keepers spoke in one continuous sentence, as if they were robots running on the same software.
“You’re very new to all this, Ms. Gryffald. You clearly haven’t absorbed how things work in the hierarchy,” the werewolf Keeper said.
“DJ is not one of yours, and it is completely unacceptable for you to be harassing him,” the shifter Keeper said.
“Harassing?” Barrie repeated incredulously, but the Keepers rolled on as if she hadn’t spoken.
“Brentwood is far out of your territory, and it’s a complete breach of protocol to enter that district without going through proper channels.”
As he spoke, Barrie focused on the vampire Keeper, watching him closely. She was acutely aware that she had just been pursued and attacked by a vampire, and that Keepers often cultivated the characteristics of their charges, with varying degrees of skill. Rhiannon, for example, could fly short distances, and take on the strength—and fangs—of a vampire, although it took a great deal out of her to do it. Obviously this Keeper knew that Barrie had been at DJ’s estate, and depending on his skill, it was entirely possible that he’d decided to scare her a bit. But Barrie was pretty sure her would-be attacker was a real vampire, not a Keeper. It was the sense of paralyzing fear she had felt during the attack that made her think so. There was an uncanniness about an Other that was hard for a Keeper to emulate, and fairly or unfairly, she had always been especially wary of vampires.
Felt like a vampire to me, she thought. And Mick said so, too.
The Elven Keeper was speaking now. “Not only is Mayo not in your territory, he isn’t even Other. There is absolutely no call for you to be anywhere near that investigation.”
Barrie felt ire rising, and fast. This was exactly what Mick had been talking about, the