Left for Undead (10 page)

He briefly closed his eyes and then nodded. “I already
knew the answer, but I had to at least try.” Glancing around, he motioned with
his chin toward a long shadow by the door. “Take cover there. I’ll try to raise
a human from the interior and hopefully we’ll get one to deliver a message.”

Grudgingly she agreed and stood near the shadow while
Hunter banged on the door.

“We come in peace!” Hunter called out. “The North
American Shadow Clan needs to speak to your leadership.”

Within seconds the sound of a click made her and
Hunter dive for the long shadow. Just as Hunter pulled his legs into it a pump
shotgun blast shattered a small side window. Moving swiftly, they came out of
the shadow inside the club’s foyer. Hunter had the human shooter in a headlock
as Sasha stripped him of his weapon. She spun on a rustle behind her and
pointed dead aim at a shadow.

“Drop it. We came in peace,” she said, quickly cocking
the pump for another blast. “We’ve got an important message for your bosses.”

“Tell the man to walk out slowly with his weapon above
his head or he’ll be wolf carrion when the Vampires find his body tonight,”
Hunter growled, allowing the security guard he held to see his canines
beginning to extend in his peripheral vision.

“Come out, man!” the security guard finally yelled.
“They said they came in peace. Just wanna deliver a message, all right.”

After a few tense minutes three guards came out. Each
held his weapon at an angle away from Sasha and Hunter but had not disarmed.

“Listen,” Sasha said, training the shotgun on the
guard who seemed to be their leader. “We heard through the grapevine that some
Vampire graves got opened to daylight. We had nothing to do with it. We also
heard that your bosses think the Fae were involved—the Unseelie, to be exact.
We don’t know the full story yet, but our main concern is that war doesn’t
break out in the streets of New Orleans in a way that could cause a lot of human
casualties.”

“If you know who we work for, then you know that
retaliation is gonna happen,” the burly lead guard said, flexing his muscles
beneath his black T-shirt. “If you’re not involved, then we suggest that you
lay low until it’s all over.”

“Bad move under a bad moon,” Hunter said, thrusting
the guard he held away from him. He waited until the frightened guard ran over
to the others and took cover. “If the Vampires attack the Fae and find out they
were wrong, there will be a hundred-year war. You know that; they know it.
Therefore, we need you to get a message to your bosses the moment they wake
up.”

The lead guard cracked a cynical smile. “It doesn’t
matter what I know or think. I just follow orders. That’s how I stay alive.”

“Tell them that the wolves are in a rare position to
be neutral third parties—that we will be their noses to the ground by day and
we’ll try to find whatever evidence we can, because the Fae swear they haven’t
done this.” Sasha lowered her weapon and stared at the lead man. “If you don’t
deliver the message and it’s later found out that the leadership from the North
American Shadow Wolf Federation came to you to offer a potential negotiation,
how long do you think you’ll live?”

Hunter smiled. “I may be wrong, but the way I have always
heard it, Vampires hate anyone jacking with their negotiations. We are putting
a firm offer on the table. We’d like to hear their counteroffer.” He backed
away holding up both hands in front of his chest. “That is all we came for, no
more, no less.”

A slow hiss made both Sasha and Hunter turn toward the
sound. It was coming from a darkened alcove deep within the club. Two red
glowing eyes blinked slowly and then were gone.

“They heard you,” the lead guard said. “Now get the
fuck outta here!”

“That so did not go well,” Sasha said, trudging along
the sidewalk. “Now what?”

Hunter stopped and looked off into the distance.
“There’s got to be some place to start. What are we missing, Sasha?”

“The graveyards and desecrated mausoleums maybe?”

Hunter shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt, but what’ll be left
after the Vampires just did their search and, according to Doc, Woods, Fisher,
and Winters, had nothing to report?”

Sasha landed a hand on Hunter’s broad back as they
continued walking. “I don’t know, but I’m hoping the human factor will kick
in.”

He gave her a puzzled glance and she motioned with her
chin toward the homeless milling the streets.

“Humans are creatures of habit. Somebody saw
something. Graveyards are a great place to rest and hide when you have nowhere
else to go. We just have to hope that any eyewitnesses got out of Dodge with
their lives when this all went down during the daylight hours and we can find
at least one person with some info.”

If it wasn’t for Winters’s genius on the computer, it
could have taken days to find Monroe Bonaventure’s grave. New Orleans was a
complex series of elaborate aboveground cemeteries. There were just some
things, like narrowing down options, that technology easily solved.

“This doesn’t look like a place that a homeless person
might wander in and sleep during the day without a hassle, Sasha.” Hunter
glanced around at the well-manicured rolling lawns and detailed landscaping.

“Yeah, I know,” Sasha said in a dejected tone. “But a
place like this would have groundskeepers and some kind of security to shoo out
any vagrants, though.” She glanced up, noting the pitch of the sun, and then
began jogging. “The administration house should still be open.”

As they ran side by side along the paths, she tried to
memorize every detail of the cemetery that housed a seriously old Vampire, one
strong enough to become a sixth viceroy. What would have made Monroe fear his
own mansion and come back to his actual grave? He should have had a
well-protected lair and not been forced to go to ground. The older ones rarely
did that, only keeping dirt from their original burial site to give them extra
power. None of it made sense. But one thing she was sure of, someone at the
administration house had to be clued in. Monroe Bonaventure would not have come
here without human daytime security. Who was not on the job today would be as
important as who was.

Sasha stopped in front of the building and glanced at
Hunter. “I want to know who was on shift when the mausoleum was desecrated, and
who called out sick today.”

“We are thinking as one,” he said, loping up the large
white steps of what looked like an old plantation house.

She rang the patron’s bell and then slowly opened one
side of the huge white double doors. Although sunshine brightly lit the interior
and the entire place gleamed with lemon-scented furniture polish, an eerie
feeling settled into Sasha’s bones.

“May I help you?” a heavyset older woman wearing a
floral print dress asked. “I am Mrs. Vance, administrator for Golden Estates.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sasha replied, using her most polite
voice. “We are here to find out what happened to our late relative’s grave..  
We understand from family sources that someone vandalized it yesterday and
we’ve arrived as soon as we could.”

The woman raised her eyebrows over the tops of her
half-glasses. “You are, uhm, Monroe Bonaventure’s relatives?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sasha said, trying not to smile. She
dropped her voice and whispered, leaning in. “A lot of family doesn’t want it
known and we respect that, but family is family and when we heard of what
happened here we just wanted to see what we could do to make it right.”

“We promise to leave quickly, ma’am,” Hunter said,
needling the distressed woman. “If we can find out a little more—enough to
report back to the family.”

Mrs. Vance cleared her throat and nodded, seeming
relieved. “Well, yes.   yes, of course. It was all such a nasty
business, but we’ve replaced the locks and have done what we can to repair any
disturbed masonry. Some people are just so sacrilegious and have no respect for
the dead.”

“Terrible,” Sasha said, dramatically placing a hand over
her heart. “But could we speak to the groundskeeper who was actually here when
the discovery was made?”

“He was so upset that he called out sick after the
incident. Poor Mr. Romero has been with us for years and he gave a brief
statement to the sheriff and then took ill.” The administrator lowered her
voice and looked around. “Some around here are very superstitious, and
desecrating a grave is considered bad luck. We may well have to go to lengths
to coax him back here to work after something like this. But if you’d like to
see the progress of the repairs, I can give you the plot coordinates so you can
look for yourselves. We can have someone take you out there, if you’d like?”

“Thank you so much,” Sasha said, eyeing the building
through the large picture window behind the administrator where groundskeepers
seemed to be gathered.

“Then please have a seat.”

Sasha and Hunter crossed the room and waited as Mrs.
Vance made the call. They kept their voices to a low murmur to be sure their
conversation couldn’t be overheard.

“Romero has to have a locker or something in the
groundskeepers’ house, wouldn’t you think?”

Hunter nodded and spoke in a low, barely audible
rumble: “I also don’t think one very old man would be the security force for a
powerful Vamp. I’m getting weird vibes from this lady, and all the
groundskeepers walking toward the building seem like they could double for
Marines.”

“I feel you,” Sasha said, watching as groundskeepers
suddenly flanked the building. “Maybe I need to go to the ladies’ room and you
should walk me, huh?”

Hunter nodded. “Excuse me, ma’am. My wife is a little
overwrought by all of this. Would there be a ladies’ room where she can splash
water on her face?”

Mrs. Vance offered Hunter a tight smile. “Why, yes, of
course, poor thing. Just down the hall to your left.”

“Come on, honey,” Hunter said, lifting Sasha from her
chair by the elbow for dramatic effect. “Let’s put some water on your face and
then we can go see your late cousin’s grave, twice removed.”

The pair walked down the hall and calmly took the
corner and then bolted. Thankfully, the massive plantation-style home was
replete with shadows. They slipped into the nearest one cast by the ladies’
room entrance and came out inside the groundskeepers’ shed and then both stared
at each other.

The scent of day-old human blood assaulted their
noses. Quickly moving from locker to locker and trying to keep an eye on the
windows, Hunter yanked locks off the doors with a quick turn of the wrist while
Sasha rifled through the contents.

“Ten bucks says Romero is a dead man,” Sasha muttered
as she came upon his locker and Hunter yanked it open.

“I’ll raise you five,” Hunter said, showing her
sawed-off shotguns that he’d retrieved from several lockers, along with boxes
of silver shells. “If he was on shift when it all happened, either whoever did
it killed him or his fellow grave guards did for messing up.   or
maybe the Vamps did.”

Sasha held his olive green uniform shirt against her
nose for a moment and then looked up at Hunter. “Adrenaline is all in his
sweat. This man was freaked out.”

“We need to move,” Hunter said, his attention jerking
toward the door. “Like now!”

The shack door burst open; Sasha and Hunter were gone.

“They came in here!” a grave guard yelled. “We didn’t
leave all this shit out.”

Another grabbed a shotgun. “Comb the grounds; find
them. I’m not getting my heart ripped out for nobody. You saw what happened to
Romero.”

Hands reached for weapons and shells. Boots thudded
against the wooden floor. Sasha held the uniform in her grip tightly, invisibly
waiting in the shadows with Hunter until the shack cleared. She dug in the
pockets as something crackled within the fabric she clutched. A long rolled-up
partial snakeskin fell into her palm and she unfurled it, showing it to Hunter
with a puzzled gaze.

“What the hell.  ”

“You owe me fifteen bucks,” Hunter said, and then
stepped out of the shadow that hid them. “Romero is dead. But what he had in
his pocket isn’t from an ordinary snake. It smells of sulfur.”

“But why would his shirt and boots and work items
still be here with this in it?” Sasha continued peering at the strange,
translucent skin.

“He was human. If you are going to kill a human that
has a day job and pays taxes, you’ve gotta cover it up, right?”

“Right.” Sasha sniffed the skin. “So you’d undress the
victim and stash his gear and make it look like he just left work, upset, like
it was another day at the job, before you offed him.”

“And if you were working in a hurry, you might not
notice some evidence he’d collected at the scene.” Hunter paused. “Also, what
better place to stash a body but in the graveyard, where there are thousands of
graves?”

She looked at Hunter. “Yeah, especially if you were
trying to blame the breach all on one man to save your asses from the vamps.”
She spun around in a circle. “Damn. All we’ve got to go on is a snakeskin,
which might just be a talisman that has nothing to do with what Romero saw, and
a funky shirt. This sucks. But maybe it’s something we can take to the lab and
have Clarissa or Bradley do more research on.”