“Yeah, but what would happen if he hardens the jinn, if they’re really made of air?”
“Good question, I’ll think on it. When they get here, we’ll head your way.”
“Do that, and Anita…”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, Edward.”
“See you there.”
“Save some for me,” I said.
“I read the reports from St. Louis. At least one female vamp and a human servant male.”
“Yeah.”
“Gotta run.”
“Bye,” but I was listening to nothing. He’d hung up, but he’d apologized. It might be a first.
I decided to check on my bodyguards next door. I actually called Haven’s number. He answered, “Anita, thought you’d be busy all day. If you wanted a party, we have enough men over here.” He sounded disgusted.
“Some bodyguards you are, I spent the morning being mind-fucked by Vittorio.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you think it was weird, all the weretigers going into my room?”
“You came to the door and told me that it was fine. You invited them all.”
“Didn’t you notice I looked weird?”
“No, you looked fine, normal. I swear.”
“I would not have agreed to everyone that came in here.”
“You mean the teenager,” he said, and so matter-of-fact, it pissed me off.
“Yeah, the illegal one.”
“Hey, first, sixteen is legal in Vegas, and second, as long as it’s legal, what’s wrong with young?”
“Ah.” I handed the phone to Victor. “Tell him the bad news about your family.”
I went to Sebastian, who was still nude. “Does anyone have clothes left?”
“It looks like someone ripped me out of my clothes,” he said.
“Then get a robe.” He turned obediently toward one of the bathrooms. “Wait, is there any other plan, or something you should tell me about Vittorio?”
“The policemen in the hospital who are asleep. Vittorio could see through my eyes when they attacked, and he ordered me to kill the witch, but he said to only incapacitate the others. It gave me enough room to put them to sleep.”
“Is there a way to bring them out of it?”
“Yes, love’s kiss.”
“What?”
“They just need a kiss by someone who loves them.”
“You mean like Sleeping Beauty?”
He nodded. “Yes, it’s the original power that started Belle Morte’s line: a vampire power that was powered by love.” He frowned. “I really thought that someone’s wife would have kissed them by now, just by accident.”
“Does it have to be on the lips?”
“Yes.”
“Does it have to be a thorough kiss?”
“More than a peck, and some emotion to it.”
“Like think of how much you love them, or lust them?”
“Yes.”
Every time I thought I’d heard the weirdest vampire power, I was wrong. I started to reach for my cell phone so I could call SWAT and tell someone, but the door sounded.
I went for it, but Crispin got there first. “Let me check, Anita.”
He was right. So I let him. He turned from the peephole, smiling. “It’s SWAT. Do you want us to hide?”
“Yes.”
They hid. I told them to get dressed and not to leave Sebastian on his own. I opened the door to Rocco and Davey. “We have a daytime lair address for them.”
“Shit, did you call it in?”
“Yes, and we’ll meet them there, but I got other news.” I locked the door behind me, checked to see it closed, and walked off with the two operators listening to me fill them in. I got a glimspe of Haven’s Cookie Monster-blue hair around the cracked door. I nodded at him, and that was the best I could do. Haven had a police record and had been until lately a mob enforcer. You couldn’t play with him and the cops. We’d try legal first; then if that failed us, there was always going outside the law. I kept that thought to myself as I filled in Rocco and Davey on the morning news.
Davey grinned. “For bullets, it’s not a hundred percent reliable yet.”
“What’s your percentage?”
“Eighty.”
“Seventy,” Rocco said.
“Still, in a pinch, nifty.”
He grinned, making that lovely mouth into just a happy smile. It made him look younger, fresher, somehow. “But a monster that is made of air, that I think I can mess with.”
I was happy for him, and seventy percent success was good for some of the rarer talents, but frankly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go up against a giant that could rip apart someone in body armor, or cut someone to pieces with a whirlwind of blades. Seventy percent sounded like good odds until it was your life on the line; then not so good. But frankly, what else did we have? Then I realized I was being stupid. I knew that the practitioner who had died had had a spell that Vittorio had feared.