“Right.” Rody snorted. “The only person who can prove what you’re saying is an untouchable diplomat vampire. Spare me.”

  “Please!” She tried to move her chair away from the vampire again, but Anselm caught the side of her seat and forced her down. “I swear, that’s all I know. I say that knowing you probably won’t get anything out of the fang without putting him in a similar conversational setting.”

  The worrying thing was that she spoke the truth. He caught a few small lies, mostly through her defensive body language, but the core of the message rang true.

  He wouldn’t take her word for it. She could be a better liar than she appeared, but he doubted it.

  “A word,” Anselm interrupted before the vampire could antagonize the embed any further. He hadn’t bothered to ask for her name. If he did, she would have given him a fake one.

  Rody followed him to where Clare sat, the confused expression still on her face.

  Anselm wished he felt better. His gut twisted in a way it hadn’t for years. Not since he’d been promoted to full adjudicator.

  “If what she says is true, I can’t help you.” Rody shook his head firmly. “Me helping you act against a CS diplomat would cause a war. Things are already as tenuous as they can be without war breaking out. Aldonado wanted me to help you, but inciting a war that profits neither vampire community isn’t acceptable.”

  Anselm frowned. “What can you do?”

  “I can take the embed and keep her secure with my master’s people. Until we decide what to do with her.” Rody was doing his best, although it wasn’t much.

  “That’d probably be best,” Anselm replied. “I’m most concerned about the implications. What the hell were Maneaters doing watching a vamp operative posing as an NAC embed who’s supposedly in bed with the CS?”

  He shouldn’t have said it aloud. Internalizing information was how an adjudicator processed and brought about the results they needed. He couldn’t make sense of it, though. Vamps wouldn’t deal with the likes of the Maneaters. Not from what he’d heard in the intelligence reports, anyway.

  Then again, he didn’t understand many things in the world. It was an interesting way to learn the lesson, but he’d come to doubt his assumptions about the world. A painful process with plenty of backward steps, but he was getting there.

  “Can you take her now?” Anselm asked. “We can’t make plans where she might hear them.”

  “No. I’ve called retainers to transport her back. We can keep her in the trailer for now.”

  “She won’t be able to move farther than three feet and can’t call for help.” Clare would have had more to say about what was happening, but she looked like she wasn’t processing everything too well. He needed to work on that.

  “Do it,” Anselm told the vampire.

  Rody growled. “Why me?”

  “She hates you the most. I need her as uncomfortable as I can get her. Make it happen.”

  “All right.” Rody sighed and considered the embed for a few seconds. When he looked back, he had an envelope in his hands. “I don’t know where you got this information, and if my father knew you had it, he would strongly discourage you from using it irresponsibly. Are we at an understanding?”

  Anselm nodded when the envelope was pushed into his hands. The vamp was gone a second later, and so was the embed. The retainers would be here in minutes to clear them out.

  “What’s in it?”

  “Directions and a layout of wherever the CS ambassador lives. Maybe a layout of his security system too.” Anselm handed the envelope to Clare to confirm.

  She frowned and withdrew the contents of the envelope. It was a small flash drive, and she plugged it into her comm.

  “Okay. The ambassador lives in a villa outside New Houston. Nice neighborhood, too. Got us guard patterns, schedules, all the details about when deliveries are made to the place, and the contents of those deliveries.”

  Anselm nodded. “Details that will get us in or out, too. Which begs the question of where our friend got this intelligence and how he happened to have it on him.”

  “Is this another conspiracy theory about vamps?”

  Anselm scowled. “No. Well, maybe. I think Aldonado might have had an attack on the ambassador in the works. We gave him someone to dole the job out to without any connection to him. The worst part is we have no option but to go through with it.”

  Clare smirked. “Nobody schemes like a vampire. How much do you want to bet he already knew our embed worked with the Corpus Sanguine and wanted us to figure it out for ourselves?”

  “Probably.” Anselm rubbed his aching temples. “We’ll use this information as irresponsibly as we can and hope Tall, Dark, and Scary doesn’t mind.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “Laundry?”

  Anselm pulled his cap tighter over his head and checked himself in the mirror. “What’s wrong with laundry?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s a delivery they make during the day, so the vamps inside will be in hiber. Bundles to hide our equipment, so we don’t need to wear it under these overalls. It also gives us an easy way in by hiding in the piles of laundry lugged in and out of the place. It’s the best option.”

  “Sure. It’s just not what I pictured life with an adjudicator would be like.” Clare shrugged. “Sneaking in and doing laundry when we’re breaking into an ambassador’s house seems cheap, somehow.”

  “You go with what works. That’s what being an adjudicator is. Or do you think I actually read minds?”

  She glowered at him. “If you did, you’d know what I’m thinking.”

  “That I suck, the plan sucks, and you’d rather walk in and blow the place up like Crasher McKenzie?”

  Clare’s eyebrows shot up. “Interestingly close. Although I was thinking something closer to Uma Frazier. Hacker who’s there to chew bubblegum and shoot dumbasses.”

  “I never saw those.” Anselm shrugged and started the van. “Sounds like they’d be more your type.”

  Of course he hadn’t. No, the vids that seemed like his type were those framed as thoughtful and impactful, with emotional moments for the heroes who eventually realize the way to solve all the world’s problems was to punch someone hard in the face.

  The fact that his mind went to Crasher was interesting. Clare shook her head and adjusted her coveralls. They were made to fit anyone, but she was short, and they looked like they’d been draped over her.

  Not enough to turn heads, though. It would only look like the people in charge couldn’t bother coming up with something better fitting. Clare shifted under the coveralls. Another upside was that it let her fit her weapons beneath so she wasn’t parted from them.

  Anselm was another story. His shoulders were too broad for the coveralls he’d picked. Once again, not a situation that would turn heads. Not in suspicion, at least.

  Clare frowned at herself. It was the beard. It was also not the time.

  The villa was a small fortress designed for the comfort of the people inside more than for their security. They didn’t intend to keep people out. The guards at the gate, humans from the looks of them, scanned their ID cards without looking deeper for inconsistencies. Didn’t check the cards to notice they belonged to someone else.

  She suspected they would update their security after this, but at the moment, it was too lax. Too easy. Clare didn’t like it.

  Despite it being a vamp residence, swarms of people moved around. The Corpus folks liked an entourage following them around.

  Knowing the guards’ schedule helped. They looked more prepared to challenge two people in coveralls walking through their domain, and they would sense her nerves. A bead of sweat trickled down her spine as she realized anyone who saw her would notice she was up to something.

  “Do you have any romantic partners?”

  Clare blinked and turned to Anselm at the out-of-the-blue question. “What?”

  “You don’t seem like a prude. If you find someone you want to be with, you wouldn’t be coy about it. You’re a bold woman. You’d go for it, right?”

  “I… yes. Why do you ask?”

  “Prompting conversation. So, do you have any?”

  “I’ve had them. Nothing to write home about. I always go for the guys with issues.”

  Anselm nodded. “That makes sense.”

  “What about you? Oh, right.” She grinned. “Ms. Senior Adjudicator is as close as you ever came.”

  “I never said that. Did I?”

  “I’m sure you did. Or you implied it.” The past few days blurred together. “Are adjudicators allowed to get involved with people?”

  “There’s no real rule, but we don’t get much time outside work. Besides, not many women want to be with someone they think can read their minds. Makes them uncomfortable about their privacy.”

  “They have a point there.”

  “Yeah, I understand. Most of the romances are inside the Agency, and they don’t last long.”

  Clare nodded. “I can understand that too. And thanks.”

  He winked. “No problem.”

  Asshole. He’d spotted her nervousness and initiated a distracting conversation to draw her away from it. Clever, but she hated him for it.

  He nodded at the door they were approaching. “Service entrance. Five minutes until the next patrol reaches the ambassador.”

  No time to stop and chat. A conversation about her previous conquests had done the trick, even if it was embarrassing. There was nothing impressive in her past. She had higher standards than most of the pack, and the occasional man who made it past her screens didn’t last long.

  Not for lack of trying.

  Anselm proved better than her at committing maps to memory. Since they couldn’t use his visor or any other tech, she followed his lead through the maze of passages the staff used to traverse the compound without going into areas where proper people might see them.

  This was why she turned down work for places like this. The ones who paid through the nose for someone like her to install and run their security wanted her to be as invisible as possible. A slap to the face.

  It allowed them to move through the place without being spotted, though. A simple interference network kept any cameras, motion sensors, or other security measures from spotting them.

  A keen security guard would see the problems with their equipment and use that to follow them even without visuals. Yet so far, no alarms had sounded.

  Anselm was first through the door leading into where the ambassador was known to hiber for the day. They slipped in without any noise to announce their presence. Curtains hung around the room so that if someone entered, they wouldn’t disturb the thick darkness inside.

  They crept closer. Anselm pulled his coverall zipper down and withdrew the two pieces of his visor. He placed one over his eye and handed the other to Clare so they’d both have a working view of the darkness.

  The room was clearly designed to emulate what humans used to think vampires were like before the Curtain. Clare appreciated the attempt to replicate a gothic interior. They’d managed to construct a massive ornate canopy bed with curtains to further obscure the person sleeping inside.

  It looked like he was alone in there.

  “Time to say hello.” Anselm drew his weapon and approached the bed.

  “Don’t wake the neighbors.” The reminder wasn’t necessary, but Clare felt the need to warn him anyway.

  Anselm smirked before he moved to the bed, grabbed the person in it by the collar, and yanked them to the floor. The vampire was an odd one. While the physical manhandling woke the fucker, he was slow to realize he was being attacked.

  Fangs flashed and claws came out, but he stopped short of attacking when he noticed the pistol barrel against his head.

  “An old fucker like you must know what a deadwood round smells like,” Anselm growled and pressed the barrel harder. “You want to be very quiet right now. Understood?”

  Clare couldn’t see many details, but this vampire looked different. Less human and more like old literary vampires. Considering the décor, she assumed he’d undergone surgery to look this way. His head was shaved to the skin, and he sported long, pointed ears, a hooked nose, and fangs that didn’t recede when he calmed down. His claws remained, too.

  “Who are you?” His voice was a raspy hiss, and the fangs interfered with his ability to communicate.

  “We’re the people you tried to have killed, Humphrey.” Anselm pressed his gun harder. “You remember Ms. Voyhent?”

  “Sorry to wake you,” Clare whispered and smiled. “How about you tell us why you’re trying to get us killed?”

  “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

  Anselm snorted. “That was pathetic. You want to try again with more feeling?”

  “I truly… Please, you must understand. I am only a messenger. I pass on what my superiors tell me to.”

  Clare assumed that ambassadors for the various vamp factions would be strong and powerful. Aldonado fit the role rather well.

  This one did not. Despite his ugly and verminous appearance, when faced with the threat of death, Humphrey Dressel was a sniveling, cowardly creature at heart. He tried to pull away from Anselm and the weapon in his hand. When that didn’t work, he shook and pulled his knees up to his chest.

  Clare didn’t understand it. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to. Perhaps the prospect of death facing someone who’d lived for hundreds of years reminded him of how much he could lose.

  “Which superiors?” Anselm pushed the vampire onto the bed, where he had no room to retreat.

  “Messages! Couriers, people I’ve never met, making demands on me I can’t resist.”

  “You’re telling me you never met the people you’ve been working for?” Anselm settled in front of the vampire, never letting his weapon hand waver.

  If Clare knew him, the knife up his sleeve was ready, too.

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.” The vamp nodded hard enough to make his ears waggle. “I wish I could tell you who is trying to kill you. I do.”

  “I know you do. But here’s the thing, Humphrey. If you don’t know anything, that makes you worthless.”

  “Worse than worthless,” Clare added. “He’s seen our faces. Since he hasn’t shared anything worthwhile, nothing will stop him from telling the people we’re after that we reached this part of the trail. Best to leave them guessing about a trail of bodies.”

  “No, no.” Humphrey laughed nervously and peeked over his shoulder for the nearest door. Anselm’s pistol barrel shoved into his temple brought him back to the topic at hand. “All right! I may not know anything directly, but I know the person on whose behalf I am working is a human. I don’t know anything about matters in Summerland City. I do know the driving force came from Reaverpoint.”

  “It’s a big fucking city, Humphrey.” Anselm cocked his head. “You expect me to leave you alive and hope I can wander to Reaverpoint and look for a human who might want us dead?”

  “No. Of course not.” The vamp licked his fangs anxiously. “The more I’ve worked for them, the better the indications that I’m dealing with a leader of the militant city. Commander W.M. Pembroke. He’s the one ensuring any aid sent to Summerland is limited, hamstrung, or hindered. I have evidence he worked with Corpus Sanguine forces to raid the gravitium stores owned by the Dominio de la Noche. He wants to make it look like the sky cities are to blame so they can harden their stance against the NAC.”

  Anselm inspected his weapon as he pointed it at the chattering vamp. A casual move but one that made his target sweat bullets. Figuratively speaking.

  “Why would he make that push?” Anselm asked.

  “How can I know?” The vamp gulped and eyed the weapon once more before he spoke. “If I were to guess, I’d say when Summerland falls, it’ll be a mad grab for what salvage can be gained. If Pembroke can control the particulars of when and how it goes down and is ready to seize the opportunity before anyone else, it will massively shift the scales of power.

  “He could elevate Reaverpoint from an isolationist holdout in a marsh to a major player. Strong enough to annex weaker neutral cities and intimidate the larger ones to let him do what he wants. It doesn’t help that many militant human supremacists on the surface feel the sky cities abandoned their own to hide in the clouds.”

  Apparently, the vamp talked when he was afraid for his life. Clare didn’t think she could contest any of his assumptions. Especially the idea that humans had been abandoned by others of their species.

  Anselm patted his wrist, and Clare returned to the mission. The timeline they’d set up for themselves came up on her visor, telling her they’d run out of time for the interrogation.

  “You’ve been helpful, Humphrey, and we’ll be checking out what you told us.”

  “What’s that supposed to—”

  Clare stepped up and drove the spike she’d been priming through the side of his neck and into the base of his spine. She called it a stasis inducer, a device that would kill any human, and probably most weres too. With vamps, it introduced small electric impulses that interfered with their brain’s ability to send commands to their body.

  It would be an hour before Humphrey was back in his hiber state. Until then, he was paralyzed. He slumped over, and Anselm pushed the bedding around to make it look like he was still in there asleep before hauling the vampire over his shoulder.

  “Do we have time for that?” Clare hissed.

  “We don’t want anyone walking in and finding an empty bed. Or worse, discovering the obvious signs of a struggle. They’ll leave him sleeping until we’re far away.” He nudged her shoulder. “Five minutes until the guards drive out for a perimeter patrol. We’ll get on the back and use their vehicle to clear us out.”