Free Black Water: A Jane Yellowrock Collection by Faith Hunter

detection devices, there are many places we dare not enter. We are not allowed to protect our own.” Ming’s eyes bled slowly black, her sclera going scarlet, but her fangs remained up in her mouth on their little bone hinges. It was a demonstration of intent and control. “Heyda must be returned to us. Or avenged. If they have made her true-dead, I will drink them all down. Humans go too far in this modern time.”
    Aw righty, then.
“Did Heyda’s team video the meet? Do you have an idea where she might have been taken?”
    “Yes,” Cai said. “We have gathered all video and intelligence related to this situation. The compound’s security is tight, using cameras, guards, and patrolling dogs. And we smell silver in their weapons. We could raid the compound, but my people smell explosives in addition to the other weapons and measures. My master is disturbed.”
    I focused on the word making the most impact. “Compound?”
    “That human male has land,” Ming said. “It has been in his family for longer than I have been blood-master. He calls his holdings a church, but it is not. It is something else.”
    I looked my question at the primo. Cai was standing with his hands loose at his sides, and he shrugged slightly. “They claim the right of religious freedom, but their women are not free to choose.”
    “Ah. A cult,” I said, cold starting to seep into my bones as I began putting this together. It had FUBAR written all over it.
    “Yes,” Cai said.
    A powerful vamp in the hands of a cult likely meant they’d drain her, starve her, torture her, and eventually stake her. And until they finished her off, they would have access to her blood to make them stronger, healthier, and longer-lived, blood that would heal any of their sick. They also would become addicted to the effect of vamp blood on their systems, but people are inherently stupid about addictive substances. The kidnappers—if that was what they were—had to know that the vamps would come after her. So someone in the compound had a reason to drink vamp blood—an important human was sick or dying. Or it was a trap. Either one was a problem.
Oh, goody.
    “I’ll need everything you have on the cult, the grounds, any legal problems, legal names and aka’s, everything. All electronic info. Anything in paper form needs to be scanned and sent.” I handed Cai a card. “This is my electronic specialist’s contact info. He’ll be collaborating with us on intel. For now, I’ll let him work with you and anyone else we need to talk to. And I’d like to see Heyda’s rooms.”
    “Of course,” Ming said. “When will you attack? It must be before dawn.”
    “Not tonight.”
    “Tonight!”
Ming shouted, her fangs dropping down with little snicks of sound, her hands clenched on the chair arms, her talons shining in the lamplight and piercing the expensive leather. She was completely vamped out, that fast. Ming looked fragile, but vamps are freaky strong. I didn’t want to have to stake her to save my life only to have Cai kill me later. And probably a lot slower. So I sat still, unmoving, my eyes on Cai, not running like prey, or fighting like a contender for territory. Not focusing on Ming; keeping my eyes averted. But the hand by my thigh was holding a silver stake. I’m not stupid.
    Moving slowly, as if he were reaching out to a wild animal, Cai placed a hand on Ming’s shoulder again, the gesture a soothing caress. He said something in Chinese. Mandarin was their first language, according to Ming’s dossier. Ming turned away, hunching in on herself. It looked as though she fought for control.
    Her primo said, softly, “Heyda has been in their hands for four days and four nights. We fear for her.”
    “I understand. But I have to know where to place troops, where all the entrances are, and where they might be hiding explosives. The situation was never expressed to me as urgent or an imminent danger, and I don’t have my tactics guy here. Alex is