Chapter Thirteen
As they got caught up in the usual Las Vegas traffic madness, Rowan’s phone buzzed with an incoming call.
Nadir. One of her father’s Five. His own personal special ops squad universally feared and respected in the world of Vampires. She was the Voice. The only one of them who ever spoke aloud in public. Theo’s official spokesperson. Sort of like the Pope and God to Catholics.
Rowan’s relationship with not only Vampires, but these very powerful Vampires who’d been a part of her upbringing—for all the good and ill that came with it—was a work in progress. Love was complicated.
That afternoon, Rowan figured she had enough goodwill built up with the Nation right at that moment, so she picked up.
“Well, hello.”
“It’s good to hear your voice so I can reassure your father. We just got news of a magic bomb in your city at the home of a witch,” Nadir said.
Aw, fuck. Damned Nation spies. Now they knew before Clive knew and that would be a whole thing. He’d be pouty and there’d be dominance displays until he felt more even again.
“You can pass along to him that my healing is going well. They removed the cast and I have a brace instead. Cane instead of crutches. My physician says I’m freakishly quick to recover.” She wanted to avoid talk of the explosion altogether and emphasize how well she was getting. If Theo learned she was involved in yet another attempt on her life there’d be no stopping him from poking his nose into the situation.
She had enough to manage without an ancient being with more power than sanity showing up in full paternal protection mode.
Rowan chose evasion. “I’m currently miles away from that explosion.”
“He will be relieved,” Nadir said of Theo.
While the Vampire was feeling grateful, Rowan said, “So hey, tell me about Sanguis Principatus .”
Nadir hissed. “I haven’t spoken to Clive about this yet.”
“That’s between you and the Scion who is still at daytime rest. This is the Hunter asking the Voice. This group is here in my city. They’re up to something and I need to figure it out. It’ll only hurt the Nation if it gets worse. You know that.”
“Jacques, that fool, was one of them. At that time, it was economic. A union of like-minded Vampires with a lot of money and power who enabled one another to make more money and thereby earn more power.”
“How would you compare them to the Blood Front?”
“I would say the Blood Front is the great uncle, yes? Older. In the world of Vampires, until now at least, more powerful. More populated by old families. The Sanguis Principatus are younger. New world. Same basic focus on the supremacy of Vampires. But...being American means they’re less evangelical about that supremacy and more interested in living lives motivated by profit.”
Rowan thought that sounded worse. People got up to all sorts of dire bullshit over a few dollars.
“What’s the news on the dinguses in your pain basement?” Rowan asked instead.
Two weeks prior, a group referring to themselves as Vampire Lords—complete with silly capitalization—had shown up on letterhead from the Vampire Nation. Hunter Corp. had made changes after a series of bloody betrayals had nearly destroyed them from the ground up. One of those changes was to create special teams that would include a Vampire or a witch to go out into the field with a Hunter.
Rowan knew the other parties would be pissy that she was hiring them. Fortunately, the Conclave was fine after a few tweaks. But the Vampire Nation sent a snippy little missive ignoring the declaration of these new teams and instead trying to time waste and involve her in endless negotiations, so nothing ever happened.
Rowan had ignored that letter and had gone about her business because she was never seeking permission anyway. She didn’t need it. Vampires were attention-seeking narcissists, so she’d expected theater.
Vampires being extra was one thing, but they’d crossed a line with a second letter, declaring any Vampire employees of Hunter Corp. would be executed on sight. And they’d done so very publicly. On Nation letterhead. Which had driven Theo to send out one of his Five, Andros, the one they called Silent Death. And now these shitlords were imprisoned in the dungeons beneath the Keep. At the mercy of whatever Theo decided to do to them.
What really bothered Rowan was how the attack from these Vampires had come at her out of the blue. She didn’t trust that. Very little Vampires did was random. They consistently had long game plans. It was their vibe. All plans, all the time.
Nadir coughed out a laugh. “The guests below have been marinating, as Andros puts it. Tomorrow, maybe the day after, we will begin to converse with them.”
Converse. Ha!
“I’ll be interested to hear what your conversation merits from them as to their motivations.”
“You are not alone in that.”
“You’re the one who let them into the process,” Rowan said, frustrated.
The entire situation with the Vampire lords escalated to the point it did because Nation leadership allowed them in. Otherwise they could have threatened all day and night and it wouldn’t have made a difference because no one took them seriously. But their names showed up on Nation letter head on official correspondence and that would not have happened without Nadir’s permission.
Nadir was quiet for some time. “When we are face-to-face and sharing gossip, we will discuss this.”
She wasn’t going to say anything over the phone or in writing. Which meant it would be the truth.
“All right.”
Rowan knew it had been political. And that regardless of how it came about, it had happened. But now, she had some power because the Vampire Nation’s fuckups had ended with a giant mess that had caused harm to Rowan. Even if Theo had done it to get her attention—which was what Rowan believed—he hadn’t done it to hurt her. And that hurt occurred meant he’d be eager to punish people to make up for it. And thereby avoid his own culpability. That was his vibe, too.
The world Vampires inhabited wasn’t soft and sweet. It could land you in a torture suite in Theo’s dungeon. It got you conversations told in blood and bone. It used to be something she wanted to change.
By that point, she left it up to them. They invited this bullshit, so that’s what they got.
“I do hope we can find the time for a drink or a meal during the Joint Tribunal where we can catch up, Nadir to Rowan.”
The Joint Tribunal they’d had to push out several weeks from the original date after Rowan had been ambushed the first time would be held in Prague. A meeting of the various parties to the Treaty, Hunter Corp., the Vampire Nation, and the Conclave of Witches met in different configurations once every quarter or so. Rowan had been made the liaison a few years back and every damned time someone had tried to kill her.
“I hope so too. We can sneak off and gossip.” Sure, it was sarcastic, but it was true as well. She found herself building a real friendship with the ancient Vampire she’d grown up around. As an adult, Rowan could understand a lot more context for why Nadir acted the way she did.
Still, she had shit to do now that she had some answers.
“I will tell him you’re well and will contact him sometime this week. If you don’t, he’ll come looking for you,” Nadir said of Theo.
“Yes, all right. I’m recovered enough that I can try a video chat. I’ll coordinate with staff about it, so he’s got everything he needs set up in advance.” Otherwise, if he got frustrated he might take it out on everyone in the vicinity.
“Good.”
“I would like access to Nation files on Sanguis Principatus to aid in my investigation.” She gave a quick and loose update on Elmer and that fuckheaded guard.
“ Jacques. I am gratified you killed him true, but he remains a mess I must clean up. I can give you access to some of our information.”
“That will aid my work,” Rowan said, skirting around saying thank you outright.
They ended the call and Rowan moved on to the next item on her to-do list.
Soon enough they had turned onto the road where Konrad Aubert had set up shop there in town. And Rowan had no idea until that week.
She needed to get herself together and keep her eye on the ball.
Like she’d said it aloud, Marco replied, “Lots of magic and supernatural shit going on in Las Vegas,” as he pulled into the parking structure next to their destination.
He had that right. A lot more than she’d assumed before the last few weeks. Shady magic shit she had to deal with. It would be really nice if people just kept their untidy business to relatively harmless stuff. Then she could ignore it.
But nooooo , they had to be taking out hits and attacking in broad daylight in front of cameras and dozens of tourists.
The introduction of wolf shifters into this whole situation only made it messier than it had already been. They’d been one of those out of sight out of mind deals. Rowan knew they existed, but generally they stayed out of her line of sight. She’d had so much bullshit to handle coming from the Vampires she’d been focused elsewhere.
Marco gave her one last sigh that said he totally got how big a pain in her ass it all was, but that was the world they lived in, and they headed into the building.
“You know, I don’t get you,” Rowan said to Antonia Procella several minutes later.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do, actually. But let’s pretend you don’t. Your family is in a lot of trouble.”
The dark-haired witch across from Rowan widened her eyes and managed a sheen of emotion. The big-eyed thing was designed to tug at the heartstrings. But Rowan wasn’t a fool. Under that mask, Antonia was the type of person who poisoned her husband slowly all while pretending to be respectable.
None of it mattered to Rowan anyway. Not respectability. Not rich people doing rich people shit. That’s why she was sitting across from Antonia instead of Genevieve. Antonia couldn’t use those familiar and easy weapons against Rowan.
“I book different acts to appear in our properties and on our ships. I don’t know anything about whatever Hugo is up to. But if Hugo is involved, I fear it’s because of my grandfather.” Her voice—and Rowan really admired this—was modulated perfectly. A babyish octave but pitched to evoke a need to soothe and take care of rather than annoy. Oh look at me, I’m too pretty and helpless to be a threat.
At Rowan’s side, Konrad remained on high alert. It would take more than a cunning bitch wearing a helpless mask to fool either of them.
Rowan told her conversationally, “This sort of subtle play of agendas takes too long and you’re not worth my energy or time.”
“I’m sure if I could just speak with Genevieve, we might clear this up,” Antonia tried as she looked around Rowan and Konrad as if Gen was going to pop out and say boo.
Instead of addressing that, Rowan said, “I’ve spoken with the Shanks. The shifter crime family that does your wetwork. Wetwork is such a strange term, isn’t it? Gross. But what they do is gross, so I suppose it’s apt.”
Antonia’s body froze up a moment, panic in her eyes before she got herself under control once more. The deepest, darkest, most feral part of Rowan perked up.
“Wetwork?”
Rowan took a few moments to look Antonia over. “I’m sure that’s probably not what it says on the check memo line, though it doesn’t say kill Rowan Summerwaite either. But you paid a wolf shifter pack with bespelled paper to kill me in public. And as you can see right now, that didn’t work out. Patrick Shank wasn’t that thrilled either. About me surviving certainly, but mainly, he knows he wasn’t even paid for the way he’d just betrayed his pack. I bet you can only imagine how eager the remaining shifters you hired were to speak to us and answer our questions.”
Antonia shook her head, obviously anxious. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“See, that’s bullshit. Oh, you bat your eyes and pretend you’re just the innocent one in the family. But I’ve spent my entire life around scumbags and liars of all sorts. I know one when I see one.”
Antonia’s intake of air nearly made Rowan giggle. Instead, Brigid surged and showed herself to the witch across the table. It was the Goddess who said, “You think you can evade me. You won’t. Not forever.” Satisfied with her point, She dropped away and Rowan asserted herself again smoothly, tipping her head toward Konrad. “The whole Conclave is looking at you. Your family is involved in some serious fuckery. You are out of your league. Whoever you’ve made this fool’s bargain with won’t protect you forever. You’ve made them angry with this public foolishness. Whatever you’re doing can’t be something you want noticed. And yet here the Procellas are taking out hits and showing their ass to the point you’re all in the custody of the OG warlock here and me, the fucking bitch you’ve tried to kill multiple times. You’re going to talk. We only have to play the numbers. One of you will spill. You know what a stupid, reckless dick your brother is. Your grandfather is a greedy, bloviating, self-important ass. Your dad, well, he’s got a serial sexual predator as a son he and the rest of the family has enabled. And a liar for a daughter, so now that we’ve found him and brought your mother—she’s a piece of work, eh—back to the US, one of you, chances are more than one, will tell us either by a brag or by mistake. You are all so predictable. And you’re all incarcerated.” She shrugged her good shoulder.
“ I didn’t know where they were. ” Antonia’s voice rose. She was losing her control. “I never even thought about that house my grandfather keeps. My mother has been in the middle of the ocean for months. My father was just taking a little break at the spa because of the stress.”
Rowan chuckled. “You do realize you just admitted you knew where your father was, right? Anyway, back to my point. These people you’re working with will know that one way or another we’ll find our way back to them. Who knows what people like that would do to you when their shady business gets threatened? That’s a rhetorical question. The answer is they blow up houses.”
Antonia jerked back, unsure if Rowan was being serious or hyperbolic. “I don’t know about any of this,” she repeated, the tremble in her voice real this time.
Rowan just stared at her and then sighed. “I should write a textbook with people like you as examples.” She might, actually. Hunters needed new, updated training materials all the time. Why not do a lesson of some sort?
“Let me go home. I have nothing to do with any of this, whatever you think. I book lounge singers and magicians to work on cruises. You say you have Hugo and my father, so why am I in custody?” She grasped at control. Rowan had to admire the way she hadn’t given up entirely.
“As Ms. Summerwaite says, you’re in way over your head,” Konrad said in smooth tones. “You can’t go home. It’s a crime scene. Maybe you think you could go stay at your grandfather’s three-bedroom place where Hugo hid. The search has already been conducted so you’re clear to stay there.”
The blush climbing up Antonia’s neck was all Rowan needed to confirm the witch had known where Hugo was the whole time.
“Fortunately, before your house exploded, we were able to recover so much information from a cache underneath Lotte’s bed and it’s given us new insight on your situation. More by the moment, I imagine.”
Rowan stood, done with this woman.
“Wait!” Antonia called out.
“Go on, then,” Rowan allowed, but kept standing.
“Did the house really get bombed?”
“I hope for your staff’s sake, there was some sort of burial benefits in their salaries. And that your mansion was insured, because all you’ve got left there are the outer walls and lots of ash. They don’t know— yet —that you all weren’t at home. But eventually they will. And when they do, they’ll start searching for you to finish the job. Like I said, at least one of you will tell us what we need to know and the rest of you can fuck off. I don’t have any desire to protect you from the logical outcome of your actions.”
“I have a right to an attorney.”
“I’m done with this useless twit,” Rowan told Konrad and left the room before she gave in to her desire and hit Antonia with her cane.
Ignoring her protests, Konrad ordered the guards to take Antonia away and then he and Rowan went to the other room to speak to Genevieve and the others.