That was it.
That was all.
The spiteful old bat had known I would need guidance, and she had taken pains to snap the olive branch before I could extend it.
“You might as well come back in,” I called. “I’m done.”
Linus rejoined me, pocketing his phone. “As bad as you feared?”
“Worse.” Unable to read them aloud, I passed her final wishes for me to him. “I can’t believe she hated me so much.”
As he read, he drifted closer. By the time he finished, he sat next to me, the note pinched between two fingers like touching it offended him.
“This has nothing to do with you.” He set the paper on the coffee table and wiped his hand on his pants. “I hope you can see this is the resolution of the feud she started with Evangeline. Severine lost her chance to get in the last word before her daughter died, so she vented her anger on her granddaughter instead. It was petty and mean-spirited. You gave her no cause to be so cruel.”
The fate that befell Heloise gave her license to hate me. How freeing it must have been to be absolved of any pesky qualms about how she ought to feel about her other granddaughter.
“Do you think she wanted to tell me to my face?”
The promise of me getting my comeuppance would explain why she deigned to extend the invitation.
“After your display at the ball, she wouldn’t have had to think hard to come up with a reason for your sudden interest in mending fences. Yet she still offered us a weekend pass to visit her at the Marchand family home. She had her reasons, and we’ll never know them.”
“I can’t believe I wasted money on all this crap to impress her when she planned on kicking me in the teeth when I arrived.”
“Grier.” His lips hooked to one side. “You’re a wealthy woman.”
“Live on ramen and ketchup packets for a few months, and then we’ll talk.” I sighed when his smile grew more lopsided. “I forget you don’t eat. You really could live on ketchup packets for weeks on end.”
“You make yourself forget that quirk in my biology because fasting is anathema to you.”
“Do you know the best thing about having money?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. “I never have to go hungry. I can buy all the food I want, any time I want. I don’t have to count pennies, I don’t have to cross my fingers and pray when I swipe my debit card. I see it, I want it, I buy it, and I eat it.”
“I’ve never had to make do, but I am sorry for the months you scraped by on minimum wage.”
“There we’ll have to disagree.” I traced his elegant knuckles. “After Atramentous, I was grateful to have those problems. They taught me respect for things I had always taken for granted.”
The muscles in his hand flexed, his fingers curling into a fist, but I soothed them each smooth again.
“Our schedule just got cleared.” Eager to wipe Atramentous from our thoughts, I leaned closer. “Looks like we’ll be heading home after our meeting with Tisdale, but we have a few hours to ourselves.”
The pulse at his throat quickened. “You have something in mind?”
Hand on his thigh, I walked my fingers higher. “I was thinking—”
The windows I had admired upon our arrival exploded in a glittering rain of glass.
Blood ran hot down my cheek, and I dipped my finger in the trickle. I reinforced Linus’s sigil before painting one on my arm. That’s all the time I had before spotlights swept through the room, blinding us.
A familiar shiver danced up my spine as four vampires dressed in black from head to toe swung through the opening armed with crossbows.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I really, really hated Atlanta. “Please tell me they’re filming a new Mission: Impossible movie and hit the wrong floor.”
“No proof, no payday,” the shortest one barked, zeroing in on me. “Take her head.”
“My head?” Sinking into a ready stance, I shot a frown toward Linus, but his expression was covered by the thick folds of his black cowl. Around him, his tattered wraith’s cloak fluttered, and when he lifted his hand, the lights caught the wicked curve of his scythe. “My freaking head?”
Decapitation was next level compared to simply shooting me in the head with an arrow.
The vampire really should have kept his directives to himself. Shouting his orders gave Linus permission to dispatch him without a shred of guilt. And that went double for me. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but I had strong objections to getting beheaded.
The door burst open behind us, and Clem moved into position, covering my exposed left side.
“I lost the damn bet,” he grumped. “Seven whole hours before someone tried to kidnap, murder, or otherwise manhandle your person. That’s all I needed to win. Seven is supposed to be a lucky number.”
“Next time, I’ll have my kidnappers/murderers/manhandlers touch base with you first.”
“I would appreciate that,” he said, too primly to pass for a guy.
The second vampire identified Clem as the bigger threat—which stung my pride—and got a boot heel to his hairline for his trouble. Clem’s aim wasn’t as good as usual, but his legs were longer, his reach greater. I wasn’t too worried, though. Already he was compensating for his wider frame and larger mass by stomping the attacker into the carpet.
The third vampire had gone straight for Linus, and he no longer had his head.
The fourth darted furtive glances between his boss and Linus and me, his chest pumping like he’d run a marathon. Panic. He was scared of Linus. And who wouldn’t be terrified after watching him manifest and behead a team member?
Seizing the opportunity, I charged him. Once he realized what I meant to do, he flung his crossbow onto the carpet and threw up his hands like he was warding off the plague.
The force of my ward smashing into the loyalty-torn vampire flung him against the far wall where he cracked his skull and slid to the floor in a heap.
“Three down.” Clem rubbed his hands together. “One to go. Who wants the honors?”
The pool of darkness that was Linus eased forward, and blood dripped in his wake.
“Fuck it,” their not-so-fearless leader snarled. “No reward is worth this.”
He leapt out the smashed window, his harness catching him, and rappelled out of sight.
“I got this.” Clem walked over, palmed a hefty pocket knife, and cut the rope. “Wait for it.”
The dull thud of a body hitting pavement wasn’t music to my ears, but it was a relief. The threat had been dealt with, we were all still alive, and we had one vampire left to question.
Face to the night, Linus murmured, “This shouldn’t be your life.”
“This path brought me to you.” I reached beneath his cowl, dipping my hands in icy midnight to rest my palms on his cool cheeks. “I can walk it, as long as you’re beside me.”
Light fractured around him, illuminating his face. “You shouldn’t have to—”
Bringing him down to me, I silenced him with a kiss.
“Ah.” Clem sidestepped us. “I see you’ve learned how to win arguments.”
“Shhh.” I released Linus to slant him a look. “It only works if they don’t realize they’re being handled.”
“Oh, we realize.” Linus brushed his lips over mine. “We just don’t care.”
Snorting out a laugh, I shoved him away. “What do we do with our new friend?”
The moment’s amusement lost, his features hardened into the potentate’s. “We bring him with us.”
“Where?” I glanced around the ruined suite. “The Faraday?”
“No, we can’t risk the exposure. Too many people know me there.”
And some would be happy to spread the gossip about the potentate bringing his fiancée home, meaning Savannah’s tender underbelly, already vulnerable, would be even more exposed to circling predators.
“Mary Alice is not going to be happy about this.” I sighed at the night sky that loomed so much closer, brighter as we moved toward dawn. “I didn’t think this type of glass could be broken. It’s tempered, right? There’s some kind of laminating process between panes? They must have…” I crunched over the debris, kicking it aside in search of clues. “But that’s not possible.”
“You were thinking they must have cased this building prior to our arrival.” Linus watched a moment before crouching near me and examining a blackened clay shard. “They used charms that self-terminate.” He lifted it, and it glittered. “They embedded crushed tempered glass as foci. They likely planned this attack based on the Faraday, or under the assumption we would stay in a hotel in downtown. Any window made of the same material would work as a trigger for the charm to detonate on cue.”
“How is it we’re so popular tonight?” We might as well have hung up flashing neon lights to match the parlor downstairs. “A visit from Johan and one from the vampire assassins. That can’t be a coincidence.”
I only told a select few about coming to Atlanta, and they were all staying under Woolly’s roof except for Boaz. He had expanded that to include his partner and their backup, but they had no details. I hadn’t known where we were staying to tell any of them, and whoever was behind this had us pegged down to the address.
Linus’s team knew our whereabouts, I was certain, but he trusted them with his life on a daily basis when he was on the job and had for years. They could have taken him out at any time, so it didn’t jive for me that they would choose now to switch teams.
As much as I wanted to check Mary Alice off our suspect list, I had to remember—for the both of us—that she was an information broker. She was the one who had originally told me about the price on my head. While she might be fond of Linus, she had proven earlier she was no fan of mine.
For the right price, a quick call to her could have given the Marchands our location.