“Now all of them are unshackled,” Pickersgill said, returning us to the current feed, “and one is the blood relation of a Mithran who is here to help.” Translation—the vamp would resist if I had to kill his kin. Lucky me. More vamp politics, which I sucked at.

“I want to see the vamp who let them loose.”

Pickersgill frowned, but led the way down the stairs into the windowed room, our reflections moving like underwater undulations, the way they might look in bullet resistant glass. Last time I was here, I hadn’t realized they were bulletproof. Which translated to freaking expensive.

The place smelled of vamp and barbeque smoke, heavy on the sage. Someone had come straight from the restaurant. We reached the lower level and I looked over the vamps and blood-servants clustered in a sitting area. They were all dressed in jeans and leather. The servants were wearing silver chain mail armored vests with high collars, leather and silver cuffs over each wrist. Not bad, and totally unexpected in a vamp’s household.

At a gesture from Pickersgill, they parted, revealing a vamp curled in a fetal position on the floor. He had wood stakes in his belly, immobilized and bleeding onto a plastic sheet, which struck me as neat and tidy, or way too prepared. He had silver shackles on his wrists. And a pink glow all over him. Crap. Evangelina had spelled him to set the chained ones free. What was the witch doing? Trying to get herself killed? “Keep him shackled, but take out the stakes. I have a feeling he was spelled to set them free.”

“Evangelina,” Pickersgill said. It sounded like a curse. “My master has placed her under his protection. We cannot harm her.”

I sighed and lifted a shoulder. “Don’t worry,” I said. “Grégoire has ordered me to bring her to him.” A truly vicious smile grew on Pickersgill’s face. Grégoire outranked Shaddock. He could do anything he wanted to the witch. “Let’s get to work,” I said.

“They ain’t gonna be injured,” one of the vamps said. It still surprised me to hear a vamp speak with any accent other than European, and the country drawl was jarring, not that I let on. I acknowledged the heir and her daughter and looked at the speaker, an emaciated woman with collar bones sharp as plow blades. She looked stubborn. Angry. Desperate. I asked, “Is your true child one of the escapees?” Meaning born from her body in the traditional human manner.

Her head tilted, that birdlike or snakelike motion they do when they forget to act human. “Her name’s Roseanne,” she said, her expression full of resolve, eyes narrowing at me. I was pretty sure that determination was her intent to kill me if I tried to stake her child. I addressed Pickersgill. “Is there any chance the victim can be turned?”

“If there’s a spark of life left in Sarah, yes. But it doesn’t appear likely.”

I stared them down, sliding one hand into my surprise supplies. “If she can be turned, then it isn’t murder. If she’s dead, I don’t care what you want.”

The vamps swiveled to me almost as one, like pack hunters sighting prey. Grizzard took a slow breath as fear pheromones laced into the air from his skin. Scrawny’s eyes bled black in an instant. A young vamp touched her arm in warning. “Mom. Don’t.”

Without taking my eyes from Scrawny, I took in the young female. It was Amy Lynn Brown, the miracle vamp who came out of devoveo in two years time. I inclined my head at her and went on. “Any of the chained who get away from this house get staked when I catch them, even if the human woman can be turned, so it’s in your best interests to keep them contained. I won’t risk letting them kill a human. Another human,” I corrected.

Scrawny’s fangs snapped down. I stared down at her. “You have a problem with my methods, call Leo Pellissier.” I held out my cell. “Speed dial seven.” Scrawny breathed deeply, which she didn’t need to do, but it seemed to calm her, that and her daughter’s hand on her arm. She closed her eyes and stepped back from me, her pupils shrinking when she opened them again. Maybe it was the thought of talking to Leo. Or maybe at the thought that I talked to Leo. Or called the MOC by his first name. Or Amy Lynn’s insistence. Whatever. It worked.

I looked at the sheriffs. “Unless y’all want to take them in for murder?”

Scoggins said, “Hell no.”

Grizzard said, “What am I gonna do with crazy-ass vamps, begging your pardon, Constantine, Dacy, ma’am. If they signed the papers, then they’re treated accordingly. That’s the law as it reads right now. Of course that may change if the Supreme Court decides to look at the Vampira Carta before the Congress gets around to making a decision on citizenship.”

“Yeah, yeah. But all they do is talk,” I reminded him. He chuckled and gave me that hale-fellow-well-met political grin. I turned back to the vamps and told them how the situation was going to be handled, drew out a map of the scion lair, and walked them through it twice. I finished with, “Adelaide, grab a fire extinguisher.” She looked puzzled but went to the corner of the room, returning with a red extinguisher.

To the others I said, “When the door opens, close your eyes, turn away, and cover your ears. Understood?” I looked at Scrawny. “If you can immobilize your child, you can appeal a death sentence to Leo.” Her eyes filled with bloody tears. Crap. A weepy vamp. Which made me feel all kinds of guilty. Sometimes I forgot that they used to be human, and still have humanlike emotions. Amy Lynn patted her arm.

From my box of supplies I pulled two silver mesh nets and unfolded them. They were designed after a net I’d once seen used to immobilize a vamp. That one had been constructed of sterling, interlocking crosses, which burned and scarred most vamps on contact. Mine was made of silver-plated steel rings with tiny sterling barbs all over them. They weren’t sharp, and so wouldn’t hurt humans, but they were extremely painful, almost incapacitating, to vamps. I’d had the nets made, at Leo’s expense, when I discovered I was going to be security on this gig. They were for close-in work, useless at any range, but perfect for this job.

I gave one to Grizzard, and one to Scoggins, explaining how they worked. “Have you ever used a fishing net? Throw it out and pull it back in? This is just like that. When you throw, you hold the silver and this rope. When it lands on a vamp, or a vamp and a human, you release the silver and yank the rope. It pulls the silver mesh taut and encircles them. It’s painful but if the net is removed quickly, the wounds can be healed by a master’s blood.”

I pulled out a grenade, and saw every eye land on it with reactions from curiosity to fear to humor. Grizzard chuckled under his breath, teeth showing. “Now, why didn’t I think of that?”

“This is a stun grenade, called a flashbang,” I explained to the vamps. “Unlike grenades designed to maim and kill, these are nonlethal incapacitants, designed to temporarily neutralize enemies in combat. When detonated in a closed space, the concussive blast and bright light is enough to overwhelm the enemies’ ears and light-sensitive cells in their eyes, making them temporarily deaf and blind.” I stopped. Flashbangs had been designed for human combatants and there were no studies of them being used on vamps. Vamp eyes were different from human eyes, and while I didn’t think the devices posed a permanent danger to vamp vision, I didn’t know it for sure. It wasn’t like I’d been able to experiment. Until now.

Other than blindness, my biggest concern was that the flashbangs had been known to ignite accelerants, and the myths said that vamps burned fast and hot. One of Evangelina’s paintings depicted a master vamp with her arms on fire, and she had survived, so I didn’t know for certain if the myth was true or not. But I saw no reason to take chances, which was why I had Adelaide standing by with a fire extinguisher.

“Okay. Pickersgill, you and Scraw—the mother of the true child inside, yank open the door fast, I’ll toss in the stunner, and you slam it. They’ll likely throw themselves at the door, so be ready to muscle it closed. Once it detonates, with any luck, they’ll all be down, but I’m not betting that they stay down long. Yank the door back open. I’ll enter first, followed by Grizzard and Scoggins. Adelaide comes in next to put out anyone on fire.”

Scrawny blinked at the phrase as if deciding how to react to its coarseness. I shrugged. It was what it was. “The rest of you follow, but don’t expect to see much. There will be a lot of smoke that’s painful to breathe and hurts your eyes. Try to hold your breath.” Right. Tell vamps to hold their breath. “Humans, I mean.

“Dacy,” I located the heir’s blue eyes and delicate form. She was like a doll, but a powerful master. Her eyes were bleeding to black in a slow, controlled manner, the sclera brightening to red at the same cautious speed. “If the girl is still alive, you start her transformation. If she’s gone”—I looked around—“then we’ll need these.” I passed out wooden stakes. “A belly thrust will immobilize them. Then, if Lincoln Shaddock, Blood Master of the Shaddock Clan wants, an appeal can be made to Leo for mercy. Or old Linc can stake them. If they get off the property, I’ll handle it alone.”

Dacy looked away, her eyes brimming with tears. Great. Now I was making them all cry. “If Lincoln was master of the city,” she said, “we would have a Mercy Blade to help us. We wouldn’t have to—” She stopped, and drew in a breath thick with tears. “We wouldn’t have to hurt our scions, risk their deaths.” She dashed a hand across her cheeks, leaving blood smears.

“Dacy,” I said gently, still holding out the stakes, “Mercy Blades don’t chase down freed young rogues. They only”—I searched for a kind word—“help out with the long chained.” Help out. Right. Help out as in stake and behead them while they lay chained to a bed. But I didn’t say it. Go me. “If your chained ones killed a human, then they’re rogues. But I won’t kill them if I can help it.” She stared at me in surprise. As slowly as a human, she took the stakes and passed them to the scions, her motions reflected in the huge windows to my right. I handed more to the humans, reminding them to belly thrust.