The high-pitched chatter of pixy wings drew my attention as Jenks flew in, a contented gold dust falling from him like an early sunbeam. Edden was right behind him, and my shoulders slumped. I was honestly glad to see the man, even if he probably had a cease and desist habitation order in his pocket.
“Hi, Edden,” I said, and Trent swallowed a spoonful of chili and stood.
“Rachel, Trent.” The somewhat squat, older man hesitated as he took in Pike. “Mr. Welroe. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Pike dabbed a napkin against his lips. “Captain.”
Beaming, Edden stopped before me. “Rachel, next time you leave your purse next to five dead vampires, please call me.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I gave him a hug, and his hand awkwardly patting my back felt like home. “Thank you for keeping it out of evidence. Did the I.S. give you any trouble about it?”
He shook his head, shifting to make room for Trent. “No, and that was what had me worried. Trent. It’s good to see you. Nice trip?”
Trent smiled as he took his hand. “No, not really. I’m glad to be back in Cincinnati.”
Edden cocked his head, a question in the slant of his eyebrows. “Al-l-lcatraz?” he drawled, and I felt myself warm.
“It’s not a long story,” I said as I glanced at Pike. “But it’s embarrassing.”
The last of the wallboard was being moved out, and I suddenly realized that though it was noisy outside, we had the sanctuary to ourselves. Thank you, everyone.
“Assassins are off the grounds.” Jenks lit upon my shoulder with the scent of oiled steel and daffodils. “They won’t be using their hands for anything other than scratching their asses for a while,” he added, laughing.
“I don’t want to know, do I,” Edden said with a sigh.
“Thanks, Jenks,” I said, and together Jenks and I stared at Pike. “Who were they?”
“What part of ‘I don’t want to know’ didn’t you get?” Edden said.
“Vamps.” Jenks’s wings shifted to tickle my neck. “Out of state.”
Pike leaned to grab a handful of crackers from the big bowl. “And you’d know that by looking,” he said, his smile pained as the new stitches on his chest pulled.
Jenks left me in a burst of sparkles. “I’m on a first-name basis with all the assassins in a fifty-mile radius, moss wipe,” he said, hands on his hips and dust falling into Pike’s chili bowl. “Yours are not only not from around here, but they’re not that bright.” He flew closer until Pike squinted and leaned away. “And if you get Rachel killed, I’m going to cut every tendon you have, and leave you for the neighborhood Were pups to play with. Got it?”
Pike clearly wasn’t impressed, dramatically slow clapping in a mocking insult.
“Are you sure you need him to arrange a meeting with Constance?” Trent said sourly.
“’Fraid so.”
Edden scrubbed a hand over his chin, frowning. “I know you just got back, but I could really use your help on something.”
Worry unrolled in me like a fog, made worse when Pike snickered, seeming to know what it was already. “What?” I said, and Jenks came to hover between Trent and myself.
Edden glanced at Trent, clearly worried. “You know the planes aren’t running, right? And the trains have been stopped?”
Trent reached for his phone. “That’s not cleaned up yet?”
“No. Delay after delay.” Edden frowned, making his mustache bunch. “This is way out of my jurisdiction,” he said, eyes lifting from Pike. “But if I don’t do something, I’m going to be up to my eyebrows in misery in three days, and frankly, we don’t have the morgue space.”
“What did she do now?” I said. It had to be Constance.
Attention on his phone, Trent pressed his lips together and shifted his weight to one foot. “She stopped the incoming Brimstone.”
Edden winced. “She stopped the incoming Brimstone. And where I normally wouldn’t worry if the families of the recently undead are having difficulty keeping their blood production adequate to supply their elders, the I.S. is turning a blind eye to it.”
Okay. This was bad, but I failed to see why it was Edden’s problem. Brimstone was basically a metabolism upper, enabling one or two people—instead of a dozen—to safely produce enough blood for their deceased undead. Trent was a major supplier, taking great pains to make the drug safe as well as remove the psychedelic side effects that kept it technically an illicit drug instead of the maintenance medication it really was. “And you’re concerned, why?”
Edden’s expression shifted to a deep disgust as he looked at Pike. The vampire was grinning broadly, reclining in the couch as if whatever trouble we were in was his doing.
Trent closed his phone and tucked it away. “If the undead can’t find enough blood within their kin, they will go looking for it elsewhere.”
“Humans are easy prey,” Edden muttered.
Horror parted my lips, and I turned from them to Pike, and back again. “She can’t do that! Do you have any idea what that might lead to? Not just in Cincy, but everywhere?”
Edden looked pained. “I do. That’s why I’m asking you to help.”
But this didn’t make sense. Constance wanted to rule Cincinnati. Why was she breaking it? “You mean to tell me that the I.S. is going to let Constance hold the entire city’s, no, our entire society’s state of peace hostage? For what?”
Pike stretched to lace his hands behind his head. “She doesn’t like you. You drove her out of her first real home in over a hundred years.” He grinned. “She is so pissed at you for that. You have no idea.”
My little joke curse is making big waves, I thought. Brow furrowed, I spun, hand on my hip. “You think she’s pissed? We were all fine until she showed up.” How am I going to work with someone who puts her own people at risk because she doesn’t like me?
Edden looked nervously resolute. He must have an idea, or he wouldn’t be here.
“Too much of a local celebrity to be ignored,” Pike was saying, clearly enjoying himself. “And not enough real clout to be an effective leader. Rather egotistical of you, isn’t it? Risking an entire society so you can stay thirty miles from where you were born. You should leave.”
A memory of Nash burst in my thoughts, and I quashed a flash of anger. Save Cincinnati by walking away and giving a blood-crazy bully of a master vampire control? Not happening. Turning, I grabbed a handful of cheese curls from Kisten’s pool table buffet. So I was a stress eater. That’s when you need the calories.