Death's Rival Read Free

smile—“started in Asheville with a frontal attack, and had to abandon
     his plans there when Leo’s people kicked his butt, and he left the disease as a punishment,
     a calling card, a warning, and a threat. The evidence you obtain in Sedona and Seattle
     will either confirm or deny that theory.”
    “Ahhh,” I said. “That makes sense, which is why I pay you the big bucks.” The jet
     bumped up as if slapped high by a giant hand; then the bottom fell out. The small
     craft dropped what had to be a thousand feet before catching itself. On air.
“Crap,”
I whispered.
    My things in an overhead compartment thumped around as gravity was again defeated.
     I wrenched my seat belt so tight it nearly cut me in two.
    Inside me, my Beast huffed with amusement.
    Beast is the soul of a mountain lion that I absorbed when I was a child and fighting
     for my life. It had been accidental, as much as black magic can ever be an accident.
     When I shifted, Beast’s was the form I most often took, and her thoughts and opinions
     counted nearly as much as my own.
Fun,
she thought
. Like chasing rabbits in hills.
    I slapped my brain back on, swallowed my dinner yet again, and focused. “Agreed,”
     I said, wishing I’d turned down this job. “But that theory still leaves questions.
     Why did the attacking master choose vamp strongholds so far apart on the map? Running
     three cities at a distance has to be a pain. Why not announce to the world who he
     is and what he’s doing? Every vamp I know is a megalomaniac and would publicize his
     conquest. This guy hasn’t.” And the newly subdued master vamps weren’t talking about
     what had happened on their turf or who their new master was—at all—which was another
     reason for this flight.
    “The attacker is cheating, not challenging, according to the Vampira Carta,” Reach
     said.
    I grunted again. The Vampira Carta and its codicils were the rule of law for the vamps—or
     Mithrans, as they liked to be called—and it contained laws and rules for proper behavior
     between vampires, their scions, blood-servants, blood-slaves, and cattle—meaning the
     humans they hunted. It provided proper protocols for everything, including challenging
     and killing each other in a duel called the Blood Challenge. The new vamp had challenged
     his conquests, but there had been no fights. None at all. And Boston, attacked a week
     ago, had gone off the grid. There had been no communication from that MOC in days.
     He was presumed to be true-dead.
    Reach said, “If an unknown vamp is making a major power play, one that involves vamps
     getting sick, and Leonard Pellissier, Master of the City of New Orleans, is attacked,
     and then Leo’s scions get sick, it’s the same dude.”
    “That isn’t quite ipso facto. It’s still more than half speculation.”
    “Ipso facto? Janie knows her Latin. I’m sending you a folder on the vamp you’re visiting—the
     ex-master of Sedona. It’s put together from the files you loaned me to collate and
     organize.”
    Back when I had a working relationship with the head of NOPD’s
weird cases
(not that the New Orleans Police Department used those words to describe the official
     department. Local cops called it lots of things, none of them very flattering), I’d
     had access to NOPD’s supernatural crime’s hard-copy files. It was kept in the woo-woo
     room, and I copied copious amounts of info directly into my own electronic files.
     I was paying Reach an arm and a leg to organize the info.
    Reach said, “The ex-MOC’s name is Rosanne Romanello. Check your e-mail.”
    Peeling my fingers off the armrest again, I pulled the Lear’s laptop across the table
     to me and logged on, checking e-mail. The Lear had all the office and party bells
     and whistles and its electronic gear was easier to use at jet speeds than my own.
     “Yeah. Got it. Thanks.”
    “Your business is my pleasure and profit.”
    “You oughta get that trademarked.” I hung up