Page 20

I had forgotten all about the five vampire hunters we apprehended. I even forgot about the three Losuc had rescued. Star had not. When we arrived, he was in the front room of the vex house, speaking with Losuc even though it was only a little after 6 AM in Thailand. They stopped their conversation to update Killian and me.

“Losuc just received a text ordering him to rescue the vampire hunters,” Star said.

“The vampire hunters.” I glanced at the room that they'd put the last bunch in. “Right. Did you track the phone?”

“Burner,” Extinguisher Gavin Sloane said from the couch, where he sat with a laptop and the other extinguishers, all of them with mugs of steaming coffee. “But I got the closest cell phone tower. She was in Bangkok when she made the call.”

“Good work,” Kill said. “And what's with the names out here? It's as if the Thai people wanted the rest of the world to have a giggle.”

“The rest of the world does not solely speak English,” Star drawled. “In Thai, the word 'bang' means 'body of water' and kok—that's kok, you cretin—means 'olive tree.' And so Bangkok is a village near the water and olive trees.”

“You're loads of fun at parties, aren't you?”

Sallales snickered.

Undeterred as usual when it involved bringing the levity, Killian went on, “And you know what I mean. Don't act as if you don't. There's even a town called Krabi.” He deliberately mispronounced the name, making it sound like Crabby. “Isn't that Spongebob's friend?”

“You're either thinking of Mr. Krabs or the Krabby Patty,” I said in the tone of a college professor.

Everyone looked at me.

“I have children.”

They accepted that answer with nods of understanding and a few sympathetic looks.

“Okay, let me do my thing, then Losuc can 'rescue' the vampire hunters,” I said.

“Do you want us to separate them, Ambassador?” Team Leader Sullivan asked.

“Yes, thank you.” I looked at Trez, the Tider Vex. “Is there an open room I can use to interrogate them one at a time?”

“Of course.” Trez waved me toward the left of the kitchen.

I followed him into a room with Killian and Star while some extinguishers and vexes went to grab a prisoner.

A few minutes later, they brought a gagged and bound human man into the room. He was handsome, tall, muscular, and had a dark complexion with brown eyes. I star-crossed him as I had Losuc, sprinkling lavender dust in his eyes. The man immediately went still, staring only at me.

“Kill, can you remove the gag?” I asked.

“Sure, babe.” Killian untied the man's gag, then tossed it on a dresser.

“What's your full name?” I asked the man.

“Please say Blade.” Killian clasped his hands together and shook them. “Or even Wesley Snipes would be acceptable.”

Extinguisher Tanya Murdock, who had helped to bring in the prisoner, stopped at the door to gape at my husband. “That's so racist!”

“What? Why?” Kill scrunched up his face at her.

Meanwhile, the vampire hunter said, “Clifford White.”

“What?!” Killian asked again, this time directing it at the vampire hunter. “That's the whitest name I've ever heard! It is literally White. You are so disappointing!”

“That's even more racist!” Murdock said.

“How is any of that racist?” Killian waved at the vampire hunter. “He's a black man hunting vampires—fact. There was a movie starring Wesley Snipes in which he played a daywalking, half-vampire hunter—fact. And this man's last name is White—fact. So, how can pointing out facts be racist?”

“The way you said it was racist.”

“You're about as white as a woman can get.” He pointed at her. “You're being racist.”

“How am I being racist?”

“By existing! Get a fucking tan, Ms. Spiced Pumpkin Latte! And mind your business. You don't have the right to get offended on behalf of another race.”

People outside the room burst into laughter. Even Star, standing to my right, chuckled.

“That's rather a case of the pot calling the kettle white,” Star drawled, looking pointedly at Killian's pale skin.

I giggled at that.

“Hey, I've tried to get a tan.” Kill grimaced. “I just burn.”

Murdock started again, “I was just—”

“Shut up while you're ahead, Murdock,” Team Leader Sullivan said. “That shit you're spouting is ridiculous, and it's holding up the interrogation.”

“Yes, Sir!” Murdock immediately left the room.

“You see?” Killian pointed after her. “ That's how a real soldier acts.”

Murdock paused to look back at Kill in surprise.

“Never mind that, Extinguisher. It concerns a private conversation I had with my wife. Not you. Gods, you're nosy!”

“Oh. Yes, Ambassador. But thank you all the same.” She nodded at him, then left.

Killian smirked after her, then looked at me. “Still, how cool would it have been if this guy's name was—”

“Kill!” I snapped.

“Sorry, Twilight. Go on. Do your thing.”

“Thank you. Besides, if we're going to make jokes, the obvious nickname for this man is Clifford the Big Black Vampire Hunter.”

“Oh, damn!” Killian high-fived me. “I wish I'd thought of that.”

“Racist!” Murdock called from the other room. “All of you are racists!”

“Fuck off and go on a Starbucks run, white girl!” Killian shouted back.

“Should I be offended by that?” I asked.

“Why?” Star asked.

“Cause I'm a white girl too.”

“Babe, you're every race.” Then Kill sang, “You're every woman.”

“Thank you, Whitney,” I drawled.

Then I remembered what I'd said to Losuc—that they were all my people. And that included humans. I had to remember that these hunters believed they were the good guys. They thought they were hunting real vampires.

I went to stand before the human and got serious. “Okay, Cliff—can I call you Cliff?”

“Yes,” the vampire hunter said.

“Thank you. Now, who are you working for?”

“Her name is Anita Summers.”

We gaped at him, all of us shocked that he actually gave us a name.

“On it,” someone said from the hallway.

“Hold on,” I said. “That sounds familiar. Why does that name sound familiar?”

“Summers is Buffy's last name,” Killian said.

I groaned. “And Anita Blake is a vampire hunter character from a book series.”

“Anita Summers,” Killian said. “I guess Buffy Summers was too obvious.”

“We can still look into an alias,” Sullivan said. “If she uses it for more than deceiving humans.”

I nodded and refocused on Cliff. “How did you meet Anita Summers?”

“There was an ad online that I responded to.”

I glanced at Sullivan, and he nodded. One more thing to investigate.

“And where did you meet with her?”

“In Bangkok.”

“Are you from here?”

“No, I'm from Michigan.”

“You flew to Thailand just to meet with someone who posted an ad online?”

“I spoke with her first. On Skype. She hired me after a few interviews and paid for my trip.”

“She paid for his trip?” Killian asked.

“We know this isn't just one woman,” I reminded him. “She's only a representative for a company.” I blinked, then asked Cliff, “What company does Anita work for?”

“She doesn't work. As far as I know, she's independently wealthy.”

I grimaced. “This guy thinks he's working for Batman.”

“Or Batgirl,” Killian said. Then he saw my expression. “Batwoman?”

“Better.”

“I don't think Batman would hunt vampires. It goes against the whole bat thing,” Sal drawled.

“It could be ironic,” Kill argued.

“You know what would be ironic?” Star drawled. “If a bunch of human vampire hunters outwitted us because you lot were too busy talking about fictional vampire hunters to even get through a single fucking interrogation! ”

“Yeah, Sal!” Killian scowled at her. “We're trying to work here.”

Sal rolled her eyes and waved at her king. “Sorry, Your Majesty.”

Star straightened his suit and then smoothed back his glossy hair. “Seren, could you ask Mr. White what happened after he arrived in Thailand and met with Ms. Summers?”

“Cliff, what happened after you met with Anita Summers?” I asked.

“She introduced me to the team.”

“Where?”

“At the house in Pataya.”

“And then?”

“Anita went over the evidence she had collected on vampires and what we should be looking for on a hunt.”

“Such as?”

“Extreme attractiveness. To the point where they were impossible to ignore. They'd frequent places where they could seduce humans—bars, nightclubs, and the like. They'd attract a crowd.”

“Is that all?”

“We were to find people that fit this description and follow them. Once we confirmed they drank blood and were indeed the undead, we would apprehend the vampires.”

“Apprehend?” I glanced at Killian and Star. “Not kill?”

“No. We would bring them to Anita's employee, and he would take them to her.”

“Who is this employee?”

“His name is Louie.”

“Louie?” I looked over at Killian.

“Gotta be Losuc, right?” Kill asked.

“Is Louie special in any way?” I asked Cliff.

“Louie is an Angel.”

Killian burst out laughing.

Star shot him a sardonic look. “May I remind you that all humans believe all supernatural people are Angels?”

“It's still funny.”

“What it is, is smart. She shows them a Demon, calls him an Angel, and they're even more certain that they're fighting for the side of good.”

“God's soldiers,” Kill muttered.

“Precisely.”

I ignored them and asked Cliff, “What does Anita do with the vampires once she has them?”

“She imprisons them.”

“Why are you only imprisoning them?”

“Because Anita is studying them. She wants to discover their weaknesses. She says you must know your enemy before you can truly defeat them.”

I looked at the men again. “Do we believe she's studying them?”

“It's possible,” Star said. “Even likely. But I don't believe she's studying them to learn their weaknesses.”

“What I don't understand is why she's involving humans in this,” I said. “She's got a Demon. Why not send him after her targets? A Demon could lalek up to a Witch, grab them, and lalek directly into a cell with them. Instead, she's got him in middle management like a chump.”

“One moment.” Star left the room.

I could have kept questioning Cliff, but I wanted Star's input. So, I waited for him to return, using the time to ponder who Anita Summers really was and why she wanted Bite Witches.

A few minutes later, Star appeared in the doorway. He waved me outside. Killian and I went into the hallway with him, not bothering to close the door behind us. Yes, Cliff would probably remember what he saw and heard while he was star-crossed, but we'd wipe those memories from his mind before sending him off to Anita Summers.

“Losuc said that Anita sent him after the Bite Witches at first,” Star said. “But they sensed he was a Demon and stayed away from him. After the third try, she started hiring humans.”

“And Biters target humans anyway. They make the perfect hunters because they're also bait,” Killian concluded. “Yeah, that tracks.”

“All right. Let's finish with Cliff so I can question the others,” I said. “Kill, can you do a partial memory erase?”

“Sure. We want to erase the interrogation?”

“Yeah, and the capture. I don't want this woman to know how many people we have or what we look like.”

“She already has the other three who Losuc took.”

“Yeah, but they didn't see everyone. Let's keep their knowledge to a minimum.”

“Gotcha.”

I went back into the room and finished the interrogation.