Left for Undead by L. A. Banks

North
American Shadow Wolf Federation came to you to offer a potential negotiation,
how long do you think you’ll live?”
    Hunter smiled. “I may be wrong, but the way I have always
heard it, Vampires hate anyone jacking with their negotiations. We are putting
a firm offer on the table. We’d like to hear their counteroffer.” He backed
away holding up both hands in front of his chest. “That is all we came for, no
more, no less.”
    A slow hiss made both Sasha and Hunter turn toward the
sound. It was coming from a darkened alcove deep within the club. Two red
glowing eyes blinked slowly and then were gone.
    “They heard you,” the lead guard said. “Now get the
fuck outta here!”

CHAPTER 8
    “That so did not go well,” Sasha said, trudging along
the sidewalk. “Now what?”
    Hunter stopped and looked off into the distance.
“There’s got to be some place to start. What are we missing, Sasha?”
    “The graveyards and desecrated mausoleums maybe?”
    Hunter shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt, but what’ll be left
after the Vampires just did their search and, according to Doc, Woods, Fisher,
and Winters, had nothing to report?”
    Sasha landed a hand on Hunter’s broad back as they
continued walking. “I don’t know, but I’m hoping the human factor will kick
in.”
    He gave her a puzzled glance and she motioned with her
chin toward the homeless milling the streets.
    “Humans are creatures of habit. Somebody saw
something. Graveyards are a great place to rest and hide when you have nowhere
else to go. We just have to hope that any eyewitnesses got out of Dodge with
their lives when this all went down during the daylight hours and we can find
at least one person with some info.”
    If it wasn’t for Winters’s genius on the computer, it
could have taken days to find Monroe Bonaventure’s grave. New Orleans was a
complex series of elaborate aboveground cemeteries. There were just some
things, like narrowing down options, that technology easily solved.
    “This doesn’t look like a place that a homeless person
might wander in and sleep during the day without a hassle, Sasha.” Hunter
glanced around at the well-manicured rolling lawns and detailed landscaping.
    “Yeah, I know,” Sasha said in a dejected tone. “But a
place like this would have groundskeepers and some kind of security to shoo out
any vagrants, though.” She glanced up, noting the pitch of the sun, and then
began jogging. “The administration house should still be open.”
    As they ran side by side along the paths, she tried to
memorize every detail of the cemetery that housed a seriously old Vampire, one
strong enough to become a sixth viceroy. What would have made Monroe fear his
own mansion and come back to his actual grave? He should have had a
well-protected lair and not been forced to go to ground. The older ones rarely
did that, only keeping dirt from their original burial site to give them extra
power. None of it made sense. But one thing she was sure of, someone at the
administration house had to be clued in. Monroe Bonaventure would not have come
here without human daytime security. Who was not on the job today would be as
important as who was.
    Sasha stopped in front of the building and glanced at
Hunter. “I want to know who was on shift when the mausoleum was desecrated, and
who called out sick today.”
    “We are thinking as one,” he said, loping up the large
white steps of what looked like an old plantation house.
    She rang the patron’s bell and then slowly opened one
side of the huge white double doors. Although sunshine brightly lit the interior
and the entire place gleamed with lemon-scented furniture polish, an eerie
feeling settled into Sasha’s bones.
    “May I help you?” a heavyset older woman wearing a
floral print dress asked. “I am Mrs. Vance, administrator for Golden Estates.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Sasha replied, using her most polite
voice. “We are here to find out what happened to our late