“I’ll go with the ET guy.”

I looked at the grunt who was speaking. He had been with Derek and me on two other jobs and survived both, but I’d never been privileged to know his name. This time he was wearing military ID stenciled on his chest pocket that said V. Angel’s Tit. My brows rose, and the guy, who was probably a mixed-race kid, with café au lait skin and green eyes, grinned at me. It seemed I was still not worthy of knowing their names. A quick glance around showed me the names, V. Martini, V. Lime Rickey, V. Chi Chi, V. Hi-Fi and V. Sunrise. “V as a first initial with a drink name after. This job’s code name is Vodka?”

“Vodka Ball Buster,” Derek said.

I assumed a ball buster was another drink. Derek’s name was officially V. Lee’s Surrender. I didn’t know what drink it was, but the Civil War note was cute. “Get ’em their weapons,” I said to Wrassler, “assign them each one of your security guys or gals, and let them get to work. If they got in over the wall, we have to assume that someone else could have too.”

Wrassler nodded and touched his headset, speaking softly into the mike. “What about you?” he said to me when he was done.

“I want to see the security console again and check out the camera placement updates I recommended. I want to look over the press entrance again. And I’m hungry.”

“The greenroom is on the third floor, off the ballroom. Snacks and sandwiches, water, colas, and coffee are available. Beer and drinks after, with a real meal, if anyone wants,” Wrassler said.

“That’s mighty white of you,” Vodka Chi Chi said, baiting the bigger man.

Wrassler said, “You want to say thanks, offer a little sip to one of the Mithrans.” He grinned and it wasn’t intended to convey humor. “They like fresh meat.”

Chi Chi sneered. “I’m not a blood whore, white boy. None of us are, except to heal combat wounds suffered in the employ of Mr. Pellissier.”

Wrassler laughed again. “Die young then, sonny. I’m sixty-four years old.” The two men looked one another up and down, while surprise blinked its way through the soldier’s dark eyes.

“If y’all are finished sniffing each other,” I said, “we have work to do.” Men.

We split up, me with Wrassler and Derek in the electronic monitoring room, where I got my first glimpse of the green-skinned security guy. He was no Lucky Charms Leprechaun, all stovepipe hat and chin whiskers. He was a little golem of a fellow, Yoda with fangs, about five-two, slender as a reed, with joints that seemed to bend the wrong way, bones that seemed too slender and too knobby. His head was too big for his body, his ears were set too far back on his skull, and when he ran, he seemed to be on his toes, like a dog or cat. His clothes were loose and baggy, hiding a full view of how he was put together, which might have been vaguely froglike.

Beast sat up and peered at him on the monitor, holding me down with a paw. She didn’t send me any images or comments, but I got the distinct impression that she wanted to kill the little green guy—yeah, he was pale green, like olive serpentine or some bread molds—and leave him for the buzzards.

I had no idea what he was, but Wrassler got word quickly that Green Moldy Guy had planted a dozen spy-eyes in the parking area and on the grounds, his actions all undetected by the monitors until the footage was viewed slow-mo and the time stamps compared to Derek’s visual of the grounds. The envoys weren’t playing fair, and clearly had an unannounced, undisclosed goal in New Orleans. It took us the better part of an hour for Derek’s IT guy to find and remove the minicameras in the parking area. We got it done just in time for the clans to start arriving.

Two months ago there had been eight clans, divided into two groups according to clan affiliation, and a stable power structure. Then a few vamps wanted more of the pie for themselves and there had been a mini war—short, bloody, and decisive. Now there were four clans: Pellissier, Laurent, Bouvier, and Arceneau. The other vamps had either merged under a surviving clan or they were dead. Or in hiding and plotting a coup, if you believed the gossips, which I did. Only Clan Pellissier had any real power, the others were under Leo’s thumb. Or his fang. Pick an analogy.

Wrassler touched his earpiece and handed one to me. “We have guests.” The vamps had started to arrive. Without seeming to hurry, but with a lot of speed just the same, Wrassler and I left the electronic security monitoring system in the hands of V. Angel’s Tit and one of Wrassler’s ladies, a whip-thin, older woman built like a stiletto and with a tongue just as sharp. I placed my earpiece in and dropped the mike to my chin, hiding the receiver under the little cape next to the handgun as we reached the ballroom.

Neither Bruiser nor Leo was in sight. Right. In vamp politics Leo would be last to arrive, before the were-guests. I checked the ballroom one last time. It was ornate in a style all its own, a sort of colonial Moorish mix, with pointed arches and domed ceilings high overhead, held up with fluted columns painted with gilt. There were stained-glass insets in many of the domes, illuminated by artificial lights. No sunlight had ever been in this room, or in any of the council house rooms used by the vamps themselves.

Underfoot, the carpets were so rich my feet sank into them with each step, and where the carpets stopped was pink marble flooring, smooth as the inside of a pearl. Linen-draped tables and side chairs circled the walls, furniture that belonged in museums. Curio cabinets filled with exquisite objets d’art, interesting historical and archeological items donated by vamps, and the macabre, like the shrunken heads and human-skull drinking cups, handmade items of tribal life: flutes, stone hammers, small pieces of pottery that had been shaped without a potter’s wheel and fired in open fires, the unglazed sides charred with smoke in unusual patterns. Bouquets were everywhere, and the smell of roses and aromatic lilies and jasmine pervaded the air.

There was gold-plated serving ware and utensils, nothing silver to harm the vamps or weres. Tables laden with cheeses, fish, a dozen meats, and a boatload of tropical fruit sliced into bouquets were set up for the human servants, with an alcohol bar and a cute bartender blood-servant dressed in a red tux. The food smelled wonderful and my stomach growled. Evangelina’s steak was long gone, but I had a lot of work to do before I could get that sandwich waiting for me in the greenroom.

All the servers brought in by the caterer had been vetted and body-searched, and armed blood-servants loyal to Leo were stationed everywhere throughout the building. The media types were in place, cameras in three strategic places in the ballroom. The color girl—a reporter who would gather sound bites from the guests—and the on-air reporter were in place. The makeup guy—I had expected a girl and it felt odd to recognize my sexist tendencies—had commandeered a corner in the greenroom.

There was no blood bar with willing blood-slaves set up behind a curtain to provide the vamp partygoers their dinners, not with press present. Leo had made the proclamation: feed before you show. There were a thousand things that could go wrong tonight, but the smell of blood in the presence of two predator species wasn’t going to be one of them. The place was as safe and secure as I could make it. Still, the blood thrummed through my veins when the doors opened and the first vamps walked in.

Clan Laurent was this first arrival, meaning they got the best places for their scions and blood-servants, but this also put them at the bottom of the pecking order among the clans. That vamp one-upmanship stuff wasn’t my department. Bettina, clan master, entered alone, the petite woman standing in the doorway like a runway model. Bettina had once been clan master of Rousseau, but was taken down by rivals within her clan, not according to vamp law, in personal sanctioned combat, but outside proper channels. Gossip claimed that when her clan was disbanded, Bettina survived and called the sire of Clan Laurent to personal combat. She won, and Clan Laurent survived.

Bettina was an exquisite woman with mixed-race heritage, mostly African and European, and once she had been so sensual that lust wafted off her like steam above a volcano. Now, she was colder, more introverted, and when her eyes flashed fire, it was the fire of anger, not sex. Her heir and two other master vamps stepped to her from either side in choreographed pacing. They moved into the room, their blood-servants behind them, two blood-servants per vamp, the number allowed by Leo. The stink of vamp was swept up by the air conditioner and filled the room, smelling like dried herbs and fresh blood, the way an old-fashioned herb shop might smell if someone slit a human’s throat in it. The first twelve visitors had arrived.

Next in the pecking order was Arceneau, with four master vampires: Grégoire with his heir Dominique on his arm, both blond with chiseled faces, and two African masters to either side, Kabisa and Karimu, twins, both female, tall and regal, like walking Egyptian statues wearing flowing creations unmistakably made by Madame Melisende, Modiste des Mithrans, my dressmaker. Both women were soldiers. I recognized the gait, surefooted and assertive, though nothing in their dossiers suggested battle training. Arceneau’s scions and blood-servants fanned out around them and moved into the ballroom. I smelled fresh mint from them, overlaid by a hint of rosemary. It wasn’t a scent I’d have associated with a vamp, but vamp pheromones were mutable, like a human’s.

I looked at the clock to see 11:27. Two clans to go, then my first look at were-cats up close and personal. My Beast was prowling inside, slow sinuous steps like a lion in a cage. Which she was, in a way, caged inside me.

The third clan was Bouvier, its new co-masters Innara and Jena, who were mind-joined Anamchara, and who had been loyal to Leo during the recent unpleasantness, stood in the entry to the ballroom. They were little things, the tallest standing five-four in heels. Their master had been killed true-dead by the opposing camp and the girls had swept up his power base in their cute but deadly little hands. They were going for the gay twenties look tonight in contrasting teal and aqua silk sheaths embroidered with beads, crystals dangling and catching the light. The silk hems ended at their shins, but the crystals formed pointed Vs that hung lower, accenting the crystal shoes each wore. Which looked really uncomfortable. The outfits were perfect with their bobbed hair, one dark blond and one darker brown. Their clan heir, Roland, who was a big guy by vamp standards, stood behind them, arms crossed, showing muscle through the cloth of his long tunic, which was vaguely Arabian in style. Behind him, another master and all eight blood-servants filled the open doorway. They looked charming and implacable as they moved into the room, blood-servants spreading out and posturing for position. The air took on a vamp stink so strong that my nose itched and stung. I needed to sneeze out the reek, but the next breath would only be worse.