A Perfect Blood

he doing still there? “I was kind of hoping they were with you,” I said. “I’m down by the stadiums. Nina was supposed to call you. I’m sorry.” I looked up as we slowed, idling into a circular drop-off at the front of the building. “We’re at the Underground Railroad Museum. Huh. I didn’t know this was here.” Pierce would like it, I thought, then squashed it. I doubted Pierce was still alive. He’d taken responsibility for my “death” so Al would take him into the ever-after instead of Trent. Pierce hated Trent, but Trent had been the only one who knew how to move my soul back into my body. There was no doubt that Pierce had loved me, but ultimately I hadn’t trusted him, his loose morals, or his questionable black magic. It bothered me, and a flash of guilt rose and died.
    I was so messed up.
    Glenn hadn’t said anything, and I pressed the phone closer. “Glenn?”
    “I’m here,” he said, and my foot went down when Wayde stopped the bike at the museum. “I’ll be there in five minutes. Don’t let Nina go in there without me, okay?”
    I could hear the tension in his voice, his anger. “You got it,” I said, turning where I sat to glare at Nina, now pulling up behind us. I’d be willing to bet she hadn’t called Glenn. The Turn take it, what was it with them? The important thing was that we stopped these wackos, not who got the credit for the tag. Besides, there probably wasn’t going to be anything here that Nina hadn’t seen before. Unless this was a cover-up? They hadn’t wanted the FIB involved at all until I forced the issue. What was a high-ranking I.S. vampire doing on a run anyway?
    “Stop it, Rachel,” I muttered as I swung myself off the bike. Nina was here because I’d jerked primary jurisdiction away from her, not because they were covering up anything.
    Wayde tugged his shirt back down where it belonged, a strange look in his eyes when he took his helmet off and set it on the back of the bike. “You okay?” he asked, surprising me.
    “Nina didn’t call Glenn,” I said, handing him the goggles.
    “And you’re surprised because . . .”
    I gathered my hair in a thick, tangled ponytail, then let it go in dismay. I’d never get through the tangles. My front was cold from where I’d been pressed up against Wayde, and we watched Nina get out of her fancy borrowed car, shutting the door carefully, using two hands, actually polishing her fingerprints off with the cuff of her long coat. Clearly it was hers only for right now.
    She’d taken the time to go shopping since I’d last seen her, and was now in a tailored pantsuit, purchased, I was sure, with the dead vampire’s funds. Her hair, too, had been styled, falling in professional, attractive waves. New, very expensive shoes finished the look, stylish yet comfortable enough to run in. They matched her handbag and new watch. Nice that he is making her descent into hell so pleasant.
    Holding her hair against the wind, she talked for a moment with one of the officers from another car. A family came up from the nearby underground garage, the parents giving us a wide berth as they went inside with their kids protectively close.
    My back stiffened when the officer talking to Nina turned, crossed the road, and went up the wide stairs to the big glass doors. “Hey, wait a minute!” I called, and Nina waved him on.
    Jaw clenched, I strode up to Nina. “The FIB has jurisdiction,” I said, pointing at the officer vanishing inside. “We wait for Glenn. Get your man back out here. And why didn’t you call Glenn? I just got off the phone and he had no idea where we were.” Eye to eye with the woman, I glared at her. “Think he’s better than you? Worried you need the advantage to look good? You should be. The FIB is better than you want to admit.”
    Nina reached for my hand, and I took a quick step back, sobering fast as her undead companion slipped in behind the woman’s eyes. I could tell, not only because they flashed pupil black, but because her entire posture now had the relaxed tension of the undead, sort of a satiated-lion look. “Afraid? I am nothing of the kind,” she said, her voice smooth and confident. Still very womanly, she now exuded a feeling of control and power, an intoxicating mix of masculine and feminine, yin and yang. She gave Wayde a long up-and-down look, taking in his army boots and thin T, then dismissed him. “My message surely got lost in his voice mail. When did you have the