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The two compartments on the bottom were actually drawers, and one contained a heavy, expandable paper file holding passports, the land deeds Leo had proe, bearer bonds, stock certificates, and various paper money stuff I set the deeds aside for study later The other drawer contained a single gold bracelet It looked Celtic in design, heavy, siant, a snake meant to be worn on an upper arm, so that it appeared to crawl up or down It was a old arm bracelet I already had, the one Adrianna had once worn all the tiued, the spell held within the gold in need of recharging This bracelet, however, was strongly charged and full of power I had no idea what it did, but it reht about taking it, but it wasn’t erous artifact fro to do that unless there was evidence of misuse I hoped the moral imperative of "thou shalt not steal," didn’t come back and bite me in the butt

We closed up the safe and spent a fewaround before the last of the caffeine wore off, and then we gathered up the deeds and went hoot four hours of uninterrupted sleep, which was enough to h to be fully mentally functional I woke spooned in Bruiser’s ar the skin off my shoulder It was my favorite way to wake up, and I rolled over slowly, to keep fro him He was traditionally handsome in a lot ways, brown hair and eyes, with a fir and sort of bony, a little Ro about noses, and Bruiser’s was perfect He had a long, tall physique, ht places When I h not to bulging excess, but I’d never seen hihts in his hands He was toned and fit Pretty much perfect He opened his eyes and smiled, a slow and easy s up with you," I said "You look a at all"

He asked, "Finished looking?"

"Not yet, but I can take a breather"

"Good" He slid me closer and up under him and his mouth landed on htened s around his The next fewAnd I promptly fell back asleep

This time, it wasn’t someone else okecaffeine-enhanced drea to drink down a human while his mouth was on fire Totally unsuccessful in a horror-style comic-book manner

Bruiser was gone, his side of the bed cold If not for the scents of ht I’d i there--well, that and the present he had left on the pillow A single scentless lily in a deep scarlet color with hints of purple in it There was a little green thingy ater in it, on the cut steht , I crawled out of bed, pulled on raggedy gray sweats, and stu, transferring, downloading, and organizing data fro lets, his body twitchy, and e an odor of stress phero, taurine, and vitae pyray drink e marathon World of Warcraft, but this seeroithout taking his eyes fro to sound like Eli, and maybe a little like me, when he was irritated Tone y drinks?"

"Yes And I know I’ll crash in a bit, but I need to stay on this until I understand it So again What Do You Want?"

I cut off an inch of the stem and put the lily in a tall vase ater "Have there been any reports of huht Brute?"

"No"

"Hm from the inside I nicked him with the sliver of the Blood Cross, and fire usually moves upward Like into his throat and head He needs enormous amounts of human and vamp blood to heal, but if his throat’s on fire, then he can’t drink, and if he can’t drink" My words trailed off

The Kid chortled "He can’t heal Making the city inally safer than before All we need to do is find him If we can"

I pulled y when he answered "I will not offer est it Go away"

"Goodstill alive?"

"He is Sleeping at ious rate He stinks like wet as He runs in his sleep Heany rest, which little has now been interrupted by you"

"You sound a little like Leo when you’re ticked off I’ll need to talk to Brute soon I need to know if the SoD was on fire when they fought"

"Your needs are always e But I will ask him" The call ended I went back to my bed and to sleep

When I woke next,more sleep, so I threw off the sheets and dressed in jeans and a T, checking a nineit into a spine holster beneath my T-shirt The Kid’s desk had been abandoned, and I could s upstairs too, the sound of two hu the otherwise silent house I didn’t hear Molly and assumed she had awakened and ay on witchy business, mostly because KitKit was stretched out on the back of the couch staring at ed around in the Kid’s papers and found a cityit and the land deeds to the kitchen table and starting a pot of tea, a good Asian black with lots of vanilla and star anise

While it brewed, I paged through the land deeds, scanning the ancient and not-so-ancient legalese, and setting the ones owned by Joses Santana and his aliases in a neat pile Once I had them separated, I h over the past hundred years, soether,odd bells, one in Barataria, where I had once tracked Leo’s son, Immanuel, before I killed him, and another down in the Warehouse District