Blood Trade: A Jane Yellowrock Novel by Faith Hunter Page A

head. There was no such clan, not among Natchez’s established houses. Misha turned her head away, letting that blond hair cover her face for a moment before lifting her eyes. “Bobby said you would help. He said to tell you that I need you.”
    Bobby looked up at the sound of his name and I met his eyes across the room. The words I need you triggered a memory from our mutual pasts. Bobby Bates lying on a playground, beaten and bloody, the bullies having run off, one eye already blackening, his red hair mussed and filled with playground dirt. “I needed you, Jane,” he had whimpered. “And you came.”
    Unlike when I had trailed Ann Shelton and her pals down to the gym, finding Bobby on the playground, being attacked by a small group of vicious boys, had been luck. If I hadn’t . . .
    Bobby looked from me to Misha and back. And smiled.
    “Okay.” I hadn’t expected to speak—I certainly hadn’t expected to agree to help Misha write a book—so I clarified, “I’ll tell you what I can that isn’t covered by the employee/employer relationship.” I walked back to my chair and picked up my teacup. “You do know I work for Leo, right?” She nodded, and I sipped. The tea was light and flavorful, delicate like the “flower” that had bloomed in the cup. And from out of nowhere I got an idea. Go me. “I’ll share, but I want it both ways. I’d like what info you already have on the local vamps.”
    “Quid pro quo,” Misha said, her eyes dancing. “Fine. As long as you agree to not write a book on the subject.”
    “Write a— Yeah, sure. Fine. Done. I’ll try to arrange intros. But if the vamps you want to talk to say no, then I have no control over that.”
    “No ambushing them in alleyways and making them talk by threatening to break their fingers one by one?” She smiled, her blue eyes sparkling.
    “No. None of that. They’d break me in two with one hand tied behind their backs. I want all this in writing.”
    “I’ll have my lawyer send you something to protect your interests and privacy and give you the right to read the book before it goes to the editor. So let’s start there, with the Mithrans’ physical strengths. My sources tell me that the Naturaleza are harder to kill than regular vampires. Yes or no? And Jane. Thank you again.”
    I didn’t try to stifle my sigh this time, remembering the feel of Lucas Vazquez de Allyon’s flesh trying to reknit and heal, even as my blade severed his head. “Yes.” I drank my delicate, flowery tea, feeling like an idiot. I had been played. I knew that. I just wasn’t sure how it had happened. “Definitely yes.”
    •   •   •
    My appointment with Misha and my trip down memory lane concluded, I was back in the SUV cab with Eli, the Kid on speaker phone while I instructed him to research Bryson Ryder. If the human wasn’t a primo of a known clan, then I wanted to know what he really was. It was dumb, but I felt responsible for Misha. “While you’re at it,” I suggested, “create us a listing of any properties owned by Big H’s clans.”
    “Yeah, I’ll just snap my fingers and they’ll appear, collated in a file,” the Kid said, his tone full of snark. “I’m not Superman. You have no idea how impossible that last request is, do you?”
    “Nope,” I said. “Don’t know, don’t care. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll buy you a cape and matching tights.” I hit END on the call.
    Eli looked at me out of the corner of his eyes, a faint grin present in the crinkles of his eyes. “Cape and matching tights?”
    “He’d be cute. We can call him Captain Nerdman.”
    Eli actually chuckled, an evil little sound.
    Back at Esmee’s, I changed into blue jeans and an old jacket over a T, weaponed up with nine mils, one in a spine sheath for left hand draw and its twin in a shoulder holster that put the weapon beside my left breast and under my left arm for right-hand draw, extra mags easy to hand, and blades in boot sheaths.