by Faith Hunter
***
The rest of the night was chaos. Nadine and a sheriff from the parish to the north vied for jurisdictional control of the scene, and the FBI showed, kicking them both out because of the human trafficking. Eli and I were allowed to leave at ten the next morning, free to go after long interrogations. Sarge met us at the shore in his airboat. Together we went back to Chauvin. The media circus onshore was unimaginable, but they ignored us, looking like locals with nothing to say, the reporters too busy trying to hire, bribe, or buy a way to the island in the middle of the black water.
***
A month later, I got a package in the mail. It was my vamp-killer, smelling of cleansers and oil, the blade freshly honed. There was no note. No explanation. I didn’t need one. The blade was explanation enough.
Snafu
Author’s Note: Fans are always asking me about Jane’s early life and training, about how she went from the children’s home to rogue-vamp hunter. Well, here’s a small insight into how.
I unstrapped my helmet and sat, straddling the beat-up Yamaha and taking in the storefront. It didn’t look like much. The dirty display windows were covered on the outside by steel bars, and on the inside by cheap, bent, bowed metal blinds. In the creases of the blinds I could make out wood studs and wallboard on the other side, as if the business wanted to make sure no one could see in. ENDERS SECURITY AND PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS, INC. was stenciled on the door. My place of internship and on-the-job training for the next six months. I was eighteen and on my own, after spending the last six years in Bethel Nondenominational Children’s Home. I couldn’t decide if I was excited at the thought of finally being here, or dismayed at the dingy storefront.
Using a steel chain and keyed lock, I attached the Yamaha to the pitted and scored aluminum bike post that was situated near the storm drain. It wasn’t my dream bike, but it would do until I could afford the one I really wanted. And there was no point in making it easy for my only transportation to be bike-jacked. This neighborhood looked anything but safe and secure. Lucky me. Not knowing anything about Asheville, I’d picked Enders out of a list of possible PI and security businesses to take my paid internship for my private investigator’s license. From the broken-down look of things, I’d picked wrong. Closed businesses, run-down buildings, little traffic, and what traffic there was consisted of pimp-mobiles and rusted, dented, kidnapper-style paneled vans.
Eyes on the guys watching me from the street corner, I patted my saddlebags, checking the latches. The teal compartments were secure, held in place with leather straps and small locks. Everything I owned was in the compartments, my toothbrush, shampoo, and a few changes of clothes—jeans and T-shirts. Boots I hadn’t been able to pass up in the “gently used clothing” consignment store.
The August heat had laid a slick of sweat down my back and I unzipped my vintage leather riding jacket, freeing my hip-length braid. I touched the gold necklace that I still wore like a talisman and headed for the door.
The guys on the corner started toward me, both with street swaggers meant to intimidate. Hands lose at their sides. One had a bulge at his navel. Gun, I was guessing. The other slid a hand in his pocket and back out. A short length of rope. Metal on his other fingers. Brass knuckles. Really? I thought. Really? Two armed teenaged boys, younger than me, tattooed, Gun Boy with blondish dreadlocks and Brass Knucks Boy with an Afro, like from the seventies.
I reached the door and twisted the knob. Locked. Some small part of me wasn’t surprised. A slightly bigger part was delighted. Funnnnn, it whispered. I ignored it, as always.
Using the storefront windows, I checked behind me. No one watching. No one approaching from behind. Just me and two gangbangers on the street, in view of the security camera of my new place of business. Which was locked. Yeah, really. Was this a test of some kind? An unlucky accident of timing? I retucked my braid, shrugged my shoulders to relax, and came to a stop, my back to the door. The guys separated, coming between me and my bike, a pincer move that cut off my retreat.
Fun, the crazy part of me murmured again. The crazy part of me that I had just discovered turned into an animal. Like my own personal werelion, except not. The crazy part that had been penned in for years in the children’s home, and wanted out now, to play with the humans, play being in the eyes of the beholder, like a cat playing—with a couple of stupid rats. Yeah. The crazy part of me, the part that the Christian children’s home had worked so hard to knock out of me. It rose and glared at them through my eyes, and I chuffed with laughter, showing my teeth. Wanting them to try something. I couldn’t help it.
Knucks Boy hesitated at my grin, just a slight hitch in his get-along, as Brenda, one of my housemothers, would have said. A tell, as my sensei would have said.
I set my bike-booted feet on the cracked sidewalk, the worn treads giving me good traction, much better than the fancy new boots in the saddlebags. Stupid thoughts for a skinny teenage girl facing two armed men. I should run, bang on the security office door, and scream a little. But I didn’t want to. I wanted this. I pulled in air through my nose and out through my mouth, relaxing further. Fun, the crazy voice panted. Fun . . . fun . . . fun.
“Hey, baby,” Brass Knucks said, coming to a stop about five feet away. “Nice bike. How ’bout we go for a ride on that nice lil’ bike?”
“No,” I said, sounding bored.
“How ’bout we go for a ride on this?” Gun Boy asked, grabbing his crotch.
“Now, why would I want some scuzzy, flea-infested dude with BO and probably STDs?” I asked.
Gun Boy pulled his gun from his pants with a move that was all elbow and lifted shoulder. Nothing economical about it, nothing graceful. As the gun came free, I stepped up, blading my body, and kicked out. A single fluid kick that shoved his gun back into his gut, but with enough force to hurt. Hurt bad. His air whuffed out with a pained grunt and his body bent in two. My leg bent and I clocked him with a knee to the face and a quick, follow-up one-two to his nose. Messy.
I backed away as he fell, kicking the gun under the closest van. I gave Knucks Boy a little four-fingered, come-and-get-it wave and he rushed in with a roundhouse. I ducked and tripped him. Head-butted him with the loose helmet. He landed on the other guy and I followed him down to drop a knee in his back. He made a little squeal as I landed. I caught the loose helmet, and I bopped him in the back of head with it. Kinda hard.
I stole the rope and the brass knuckles from his nerveless fingers and tossed them down the storm drain near the bike. Behind me the lock clicked and the door opened. A laconic voice asked, “You want me to call the police? You know. So you can make a police report?”
I stepped away from my would-be-attackers and considered. “How long do you think they’d be in jail?” I asked. “How much time would they do?”
“Hours and they’ll be back out on the streets,” the voice said. “Then they’ll tie you up in court for weeks, and plea-bargain down to zip.”
“You got it all on camera?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“I want a copy.” I shoved the guys over, out of their pile, and patted them down, removing their ID. I checked the pictures to the IDs and handed them to the man behind me. I said, “Anton Jevers and Wayne Roles Jr.” I met the eyes of the one who was still mostly conscious. “There’s this new thing called YouTube. You can upload video onto it for the whole world to see. I ever see your faces on this street again, I’ll upload the video and everyone who knows you will be able to see you get beat up by a skinny girl in a bike helmet.”
I went for the gun and picked it up with two fingers. I handed it too to the guy at the door, taking him in with quick glance. Younger than he sounded. Blondish. Jeans and tee. Shoulder holster with a nine-millimeter. Scruffy beard. He smelled of coffee and Irish Spring soap.
“What do you want me to do with this?” the guy asked.
“Whatever PIs do with guns they accide
ntly find on their doorsteps, dropped by inefficient muggers, unsuccessful rapists, and dumb-nuts.”
He laughed. It was a nice laugh. “Anton, Wayne, you get on outta here or I’ll call the po-lice on you. And I bet you both got a little something-something on you that the local law would like to confiscate. You,” he said to me, “come on in. I got Cokes on ice and sandwiches in the microwave. I’d have been here sooner, but I was heating lunch and didn’t realize you were in trouble until after the ding.”
It sounded satisfactory to me and I followed him inside. Closed and locked the door behind me. “My intern, I assume,” he said as he popped the tops on Coke cans and shoved a foot-long club sandwich with bacon toward me over the desk. I nodded and took it and bit in, the taste so good and the bacon so hot that I almost groaned. I ate two more bites, taking the edge off my hunger, watching him, studying the office. He was prettier than I’d expected from the half glance I’d taken outside. The office was less dingy on the inside than it looked on the outside too. Three small desks, three desk chairs, folding chairs in the corner. One of those blue plastic watercoolers. Coffeemaker. Small brown refrigerator with a microwave on top. Unisex bathroom. Lockers. Gun safe bolted onto the floor in the corner. Closet. Iron-bound back door. Not bad. It smelled of mice and bacon and gunpowder, a combo that smelled unexpectedly great.
“Power of observation is important in this business,” he said.
I grunted and kept eating. It had been hours since my last meal, and I’d been eating light since I spent my last twenty on the boots. Stupid move, that. Girly move. But they were killer boots. I grinned at the memory.
“My powers of observation told me that you should have run instead of taking on the neighborhood bullies,” he said.
“Thought you said you were busy at the microwave,” I said around a mouthful of bacon and lettuce leaves.
He shrugged. “Whatever. What did your powers of observation tell you?”
“That you set me up. Most likely,” I hedged.
His brow wrinkled up in long horizontal lines that weren’t visible until he looked puzzled. Or maybe mad? I wasn’t sure. I still wasn’t real good at reading people’s emotions, but he smelled angry. Which was a really weirded-out thought. “Do I look stupid?” he asked. “Or like the kind of guy who would let a little girl get hurt? I was coming in through the back with sandwiches, and sticking them in to heat, when I saw it going down on the camera.”
“Fine,” I said. “From outside, I could see the light on through the cracks in the Sheetrock over the windows. The entry door is steel, set in a reinforced steel door casing. Over the door is a camera, the kind that moves. What looks like a water pipe runs up the outside wall in the corner and into the building through a tiny hole bored in the brick. Maybe for a retrofitted sprinkler system.
“Not that I’ve had much training yet, but the place looks like it was set up to survive attack by small-arms fire, Molotov cocktail fire, and maybe even attack by a rolling dump truck. The people inside might get smoked or crushed, but the files might survive, and the attack would be caught on camera to identify the perpetrators.”
I stopped and ate some more. The bacon was really good. The other meat was beef and turkey. Even the lettuce tasted good. I was starving. I licked mayo off my thumb, slurped some Coke, and went on.
“The neighborhood is on the way down, except for the building on the corner, which is undergoing a remodeling, probably because of the way-cool windows on the second and third story.” I set down the sandwich and held my hands out to the sides at angles. “Like this, with the whaddya call it, the cornerstone? Capstone? Like this.” I reshaped my hands.
“Art deco. Yeah. The upgrade is the beginning of the end of crime on this street. I’ll miss Anton and Wayne.”
I spluttered with laughter and held out my hand. “Jane Yellowrock. But I guess you know that, what with your mad powers of observation.”
“Charles Davidson, but call me Nomad,” he said. “Your boss and teacher for the next few months. You got a place to stay until your next paycheck?”
“Nope.”
“Money for a hotel? A furnished room?”
“Nope.”
Nomad sighed. “There’s an inflatable mattress in the closet. Towels. Sheets. Don’t let the cops figure it out—I’m not licensed for renters—but you keep your head down and you can bunk here until you make enough money to get a place. Soon as you get a stash, I know a few people who rent places. You can have cheap and dangerous in a few weeks, or more expensive and safer in a few months. We’ll do a drive-by and you can evaluate how much you want privacy. But that’s for later. Now we got a case.” Nomad stood and wiped his face, gathered up all the papers, and tossed them into a trash can. “Keep the trash emptied. Dumpster out back. Place has roaches. Mice. But you don’t look like the kind of woman who runs from either.”
I shook my head. “What kind of case?”
“Cheating husband.”
“You like domestic cases?”
“Hate ’em. But they make up about seventy percent of a PI’s business. Bring your bike inside and we’ll keep it locked up. Safer. Anton and Wayne are aggressive and stupid and they might think about revenge. You pass your CC yet?”
I nodded. I had passed the Concealed Carry permit the week before I passed my classroom training for my PI license. “No gun. No money. Do I get the internship?”
“Despite the little snafu on the street, yeah. And you won’t need a gun on this trip.” He pointed to the restroom. “Pee while you can. Female anatomy isn’t particularly well suited to long-term stakeouts.”
I nodded.
“Not very talkative, are you?” he observed, cocking his head.
“Nope.” I went into the restroom and closed the door. And smiled at myself in the polished metal mirror over the sink, my amber eyes glowing gold with excitement. “I’m in,” I whispered. “I did it. I got the job.”
It was in a little run-down storefront security and PI business. The pay sucked. And I loved it. I loved it all.
Off the Grid
This story takes place just before Broken Soul. In it, you’ll meet Nell, who will be getting her own series! The first book will be published in 2015.
I’d stayed in Charlotte for two days, overseeing the latest repairs on my bike, Bitsa. She was pretty well trashed, and she’d be a different bike when I got her back, very slightly chopped, with wider wheel fenders, and this time, no teal in the paint job. Jacob—the semiretired Harley restoration mechanic/Zen Harley priest living along the Catawba River, the guy who had created Bitsa in the first place using parts from two busted, rusted bikes I’d found in a junkyard—had shaken his head when I asked when the bike would be ready to ride to New Orleans. Bitsa had been crashed by a being made of light, and the damage was extensive. It sounded weird when I said it like that—a being of light—but my life had gotten pretty weird since I went to work for the Master of the City of New Orleans and the Greater Southeast, Leo Pellissier. Jacob had taken my money but refused to discuss the paint job, saying only that I’d love it. And then he plopped me on a loaner bike and shooed me out of his shop as if I were twelve.
I’d ridden the loaner before, a chopped bike named Fang, and though the balance on a chopper-style bike was different from the easy, familiar comfort of Bitsa, it hadn’t taken long to settle in for the ride to Asheville, where I’d hugged my godchildren, eaten at their mother’s café, and then hit the road for Knoxville, Tennessee. My visit north had been occasioned by a request from Knoxville’s top vamp, the Glass Clan blood-master, to try to solve some little problem she had reported to her up-line boss, Leo. Nothing urgent, but Leo was stroking his clan blood-masters’ egos a lot, now that the European Council vampires were planning a visit.
The ride had been great, the weather not too hot for spring, not rainy or cross-windy, but my cell phone battery hadn’t survived the
trip across the mountains, roaming the whole way. I had no communications when I hit the town, and no way to find out contact info.
Without my map app, I had to ask directions, which was kinda old school, and my badass motorcycle mama facade made the Starbucks clerk’s eyebrows rise in concern, but she knew her city and I made it to the Glass Clan Home just after dusk. Not at dusk, which might be construed as an offer to be a breakfast snack for the fangy Glass vamps, but just after dusk, which in early summer meant nine p.m. I was entering the clan home without backup and without coms, with no one in New Orleans knowing I had arrived safely. I was acting in the capacity of the Enforcer of the NOLA MOC, which meant I’d arrive at the Glass Clan Home fully weaponed out, and I wouldn’t be giving up my guns, blades, or stakes to security guards at the door. I wasn’t expecting trouble, but I try to always be prepared. It was kinda the modus operandi of a rogue-vamp hunter turned vamp Enforcer for said MOC.
The house was off U.S. 70, not far from the Confederate Memorial Hall, and overlooking the Tennessee River. I’d Googled the house and seen it from above; it was maybe ten thousand square feet, with a six-car attached garage, a slate roof, a swimming pool, a tennis court, and what might have been a putting green. There was an outbuilding, probably a barn, a deduction made from the jump rings set up on the sculpted lawn. Lots of spreading oak trees shaded the heavily landscaped grounds.
The entrance to the address was gated, and I pulled off my helmet, presented ID, and tried to look both unthreatening and as though I could kill without a thought—a difficult combo—to the camera, before the gate rolled back on small, squeaky wheels. It was the perfect ambience for a visit to a bloodsucker. But the midlevel-grade security gate quickly became wood fencing and trailed off into the night, turning into barbed wire only yards out. No cameras followed the fencing, no motion monitors, nada, nothing. The security sucked unless there were armed human guards patrolling, working with dogs. I’d started out in security and I knew an antiquated system when I saw it.