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I laughed, but it sounded odd, too deep, my Beast close to the surface From overhead, in the second-floor hallway, I heard a thuun followed the sound, held close beneath his arh the floor

Since the AC was still on, that ht-switch panel containing eight switches and one of those round dioggles out of the way I flipped all the switches and stabbed the dihts came on everywhere My eyes watered Outside, I heard a pop of va pale showed in the now-illu va off Over the fence at speed

The cops were pulling up out front I wasn’t gonna get a chance to chase Santana down But I did li, like the way huot e that when he tore the sliver of the Blood Cross out of his neck, he didn’t get all the fire and noas being consumed by the flames of the Blood Cross I couldn’t think of a better way for hio, even if it meant ith the EVs

Fro crash "Window," Eli said Outside there was aa hasty exit

I holstered the weapons and dialed Alex Succinctly, I said, "Call the cops and Leo We’re at Rousseau Clan Hoot away Dead vamps and drained humans We need to be able to track Santana We need ht survive"

"Copy Eli?"

"We’re both good"

The connection ended and moments later, cops rammed the Rousseau front door and the first wave poured into the house We were standing with our weapons on the floor and with our hands high when the cops raced through the front of the house and into the long hallway They scooped the weapons into the corner, put us in handcuffs, and shoved us to the floor, where we stayed I got a good look at the front half of the L-shaped house; the back entrance to the hallway opened into a huge yellow kitchen with ranite cabinet tops with lots of quartz and hts Beyond, I caught a gli area with brown leather furniture, a luscious leather that screa beneath the furniture that probably went for forty thou, and crystal chandeliers overhead that were probably worth even more Thetreats and looked tacky to h to appreciate them The kitchen was spotless and the s that Leo had--literally--cleaned house to rens of the vamp war And then Santana had shown up

With a frisson of worry, I had to wonder if the nearly dead humans had been his cleanup crew

We sat on the floor, silent and still, not answering questions, until a fa a fancy suit with prison tats below his sleeves, an incongruousthe uniforms The detective walked up, stopped, and stared down at us, his face expressionless but still oozing ured that was a skill he’d learned undercover in prison aangs, and the powers that be at NOPD didn’t knohat to do with the hero cop, so they had dropped him into the basement with Jodi Richoux "Sloan Rosen, as I live and breathe," I said "You do that whole ‘badass in a suit’ look well"

Eli slanted lance He didn’t know Sloan well, because the detective worked opposite shifts with Jodi in the oo departlance said he’d sit silent unless called upon for e

"You the ones who called in the leahts

"Yeah," I said "Vaot away"

Sloan stepped to the vae of bullets Then he looked over at the façade of the back half of the house, which was peppered with a lot of bullet holes He toed the vamp "Bit of overkill, don’tcha think?" Out in the courtyard,them fro on"--there was a microhesitation before I finished--"Joseph Santana, the vamp who killed the fifty-two humans He’s the ave her extra healing abilities She didn’t go down and stay down My partner had to put her down"

Sloan stared at one unnoticed Nor had the unnecessary info I’d offered to cover it up "He one of the tho got away?"

"Yeah"

"And you didn’t chase the our way, aiet shot Is it okay to take off the cuffs? My fingers are falling asleep"

Sloan thought about that for a while, chewing a toothpick, which I thought was a totally noir finishing touch, ith the suit and the tats After estured to one of the three cops standing guard The cops uncuffed us and stepped back, weapons still at the ready Sloan gave us a "get up" gesture and we stood, shaking out our muscles I said, "I called Mr Pellissier to send over a vamp to feed the humans Maybe we can save them"

"They better not turn ’eood suckhead is a staked suckhead"

The other cop laughed "Yeah Like these two Good shooting, man," he said to Eli "Too bad you can’t take ’ee parts of the city, but the cops were usually better at keeping it hidden The death of fifty-two huht a lot of the latent hatred and fear out in the open I decided not to respond to the coestured to the two cops, stepping out into the courtyard The last cop looked no less friendly about vauy who had a hard-on for anything and everything that wasn’t like hied, out of shape, and unhappy