Dark Heir

by Faith Hunter

  Implacable as mountain stone, Sabina continued. “I am the Keeper. I am able to wield the sliver of the Blood Cross and thus will remain the Keeper. I will assist Jane Yellowrock in capturing Joses Bar-Judas.”

  Bethany laughed. “Capture? You will die at his fangs if you try to capture him.” She looked at me, her black skin seeming to absorb the lamplight. “You must call me when the time comes, if you can. There will be no way to capture our maker without me.” With a soft pop of displaced air, Bethany vanished and appeared at the door, which opened and closed behind her, leaving me with Sabina.

  Officially, the day sucked. If I kept a diary, that would have been the day’s sole entry.

  I risked a glance up at the most powerful vamp in the U.S. Well, maybe the second-most powerful now that Joses was free. She was serene, sipping her tea, the cup cradled in both pale, pale hands. “Two young Mithrans were attacked as they slept this day,” she said. “Liam and Vivian were drained by a nightmare. They were brought here, to my sister priestess and to me. They may survive. Their humans were attacked as well, and are all dead. The nightmare escaped into the daylight, smoking and gibbering.”

  My body tightened. Humans dead. By a nightmare. Joses had needed human and vamp blood to start his transformation, and he would need human and vamp blood to continue his healing. I wondered how much blood it would take to change him from the starving bag of bones that had hung in sub-five to anything that could pass among humans. There would be more humans killed and more vamps drained if he stayed free. I nodded my understanding. I had met the two young vamps, Liam and Vivian, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember what they looked like. I should have been able to remember people I was paid to protect, but there were hundreds of vamps in New Orleans.

  “You will find where Joses Bar-Judas lairs and call upon me, not my sister priestess. We will bring him back to the Master of the City.” It wasn’t a request, which officially placed me between several rocks and several hard places. “Witches have workings that can locate and follow many different forms of sentient beings. You have entrée to the witches of this city through your Trueblood friends. Witches who, if asked, will assist in tracking the Son of Darkness.”

  A cold shaft of fear went through me, as I realized that Sabina was talking about Molly and Evan, who had recently been in New Orleans and who would be back soon to put together the Witch Conclave, a national meeting of the covens to try to reach reconciliation with the vamps. I was supposed to be in the middle of it all. “You’re talking about me using my friends?” I said, putting emphasis on the words.

  “Yes. Your friends.” She smiled as if she had said something blissful. “You are friends with witches.” She settled vamped-out eyes, pupils blown with scarlet sclera, on me. They hadn’t looked like that a moment before. I managed not to flinch at the sight, but my breath caught and she breathed in, as if she scented my sudden apprehension. Carefully, I set the cup and saucer on the table, glad when they didn’t clink with shaking hands.

  “There are witches in this city,” Sabina said. “I am a worker of magic, much like the witches. It is possible that we all may work together in this task. Ask your friends to give you entrée to Lachish. She will have ways to follow the trail of Joses Bar-Judas. Perhaps she and I may blend our workings together and capture him.”

  “Why don’t you try to contact Lachish?”

  Sabina tilted her head, and she made a little hummm sound, totally human and disconcerting. “With the accords under way, I had not considered . . . Perhaps I shall.”

  My voice toneless and carefully not accusatory, I managed to ask the most important question. “How long have you known that Joses was a prisoner here?”

  Sabina didn’t reply right away, but poured more tea into her cup. She didn’t drink it with sugar or milk, but straight up. Finally she said, “I knew that he had been taken. I knew that he was raving. I watched as Bethany tasted his blood to determine the cause.” Sabina smiled slightly, but not in pleasure. “I stood aside as Bethany lost her sanity with that one sip. And I stood aside as Amaury, master of the city before Leo came to power, brought him here and secured him in place.” Her dark eyes pinned me to my chair. “I did nothing to intervene. It was my decision, when . . . events . . . led me by the nose like a horse in a twitch. I had no choice then, not with what I learned, not with what might have happened in his lair. I have no choice now.”

  I wasn’t sure about having a choice, or what choices she was talking about. I was totally confused, but I wasn’t going to argue with her. I had seen a horse in a twitch at the barn at the children’s home—the horse’s upper lip and lower nose twisted by a rope to hold the horse still for medical procedures. It wasn’t permanently debilitating, but it looked horribly painful. It was horribly painful. A horse would do anything—anything—for the one who held the twitch.

  So taking Joses Bar-Judas prisoner had been a decision forced on the vamps due to his loss of mental control? He had become a rogue vamp? Or forced on Sabina by Bethany’s going insane after drinking Joses’ blood? Forced on her by Amaury? And others?

  “He cannot be brought to true-death, Jane Yellowrock. He is all that we have to bargain with. He is all that we have to keep his brother, Shimon Bar-Judas, at bay. And Shimon has always been the more dangerous of the two.”

  I decided once again that not replying was the better part of valor and said, “Thank you for the tea, Sabina Delgado y Aguilera, outclan priestess of the Mithrans. I will”—I searched for a polite, nonbinding phrase—“carefully consider all that has been said here.”

  She replied to my cautious words. “You think to elude my command. The Master of the City must have the Son of Darkness back in his custody, alive, and soon, or many tribulations may befall. Consider carefully, before you refuse my order, the possibilities that may arise from your decision to obey or defy.” Sabina settled the cup into its saucer and lifted one taloned finger, the nail more than two inches long.

  I hadn’t seen the talons extrude from the small flaps of skin at the ends of her fingers, just as I hadn’t seen her eyes vamp out, which might mean she was pulling on her compulsive powers. I pressed my own nails into my palms, the pain keeping me alert and in my own mind, listening.

  “You are attempting to construct a Witch Conclave here, in New Orleans, yes?” she asked.

  I nodded, wary.

  “Witches will come from all over the States and Leo will play gracious host to them and to Lachish, searching for rapprochement.” She pronounced it in the French manner, the T silent, as all the vamps did.

  I nodded again and Sabina smiled at me, the predator that she was peering at me through vamped eyes, her one finger still uplifted. She said, “Shimon Bar-Judas will know soon about the witches who plan to conclave here. If his brother, Joses, remains free, and they join forces, all you have sought to accomplish may be destroyed. Joses and his brother will bide in the dark, and then they will destroy every witch they can find.”

  She raised a second finger. “The remaining witches may then attack the Mithrans, believing that Leo set upon them.” A third finger rose. “The Europeans, who watch us carefully, may choose that moment to attack the Mithrans of this city, claiming the desire to assist Joses, and if they win, they will take the hunting grounds and cattle.” That meant the land and the humans. Gotcha.

  “If we are overcome, the Europeans will kill the cattle and the witches and all that have magic and power. All these things are possible future results of your actions or inactions.”

  She lifted a final finger. “If you succeed in beheading Joses Bar-Judas and bringing him to true-death, as I know you desire, his brother will bring war upon us in vengeance. The Mithrans of Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia may well join him to ensure the death of Leo and the Pellissier clan. All that you do, every judgment you make, is weighted with outcomes in the future. The near future. All possibilities exist for you now, but every step you take to one end or another brings you and us closer to
one of these finalities. The safest course of action is to save Joses and bring him to me, an act that you cannot accomplish alone. You must have help. Mithran help. Witch help. And it must be soon.” She inclined her head and lowered her hand with the accusing fingers.

  I remembered a moment of folded time in my shower not so long ago. Each falling droplet of water had been arrested in time and space as my Beast warped reality and bent time to her—to our—will and need. Each droplet had contained one still shot of a possible future, the outcomes to each action on my part paused and waiting. When time returned, I had staked Leo and he had nearly died. It was possible that Joses’ getting free had been foretold in those droplets. It was also possible that my staking Leo had, in some way, contributed to the variety of futures that opened out before me, none of them good. Tiny fingers of fear skittered down my spine on icy hands. My fault? It could be. So much was my fault, the result of my actions or decisions.

  Sabina smiled, and there was nothing remotely human left in her expression. “You understand. Good. You are dismissed,” she said.

  That was another thing I hated about vamps, that whole royal attitude, telling me when I could come and go. “Thanks a heap,” I muttered, and forced my legs to push me up from the chair and to the door, my muscles quivering with reaction. I closed the door behind me.

  In the hallway, my back to the nearest camera, I leaned against the wall to keep my knees from giving way and I gasped, catching up on the oxygen I had depleted in fear. When I could stand without the help of the wall, I texted Alex to tell me where Adrianna and Del were. I got back that the vamp was still with Leo, still in his office, so far as camera footage allowed us to tell, and Del was in her rooms.

  I rubbed my arm through the T-shirt, feeling the healing energies press into my flesh, giving me ease before I texted back, Pull up prev. research how Adrianna knew Joses. Check to see if Joses owns property for lairs. Collate with any of Adrianna’s known lairs. Educated guess how Leo plans to use Adrianna re Joses.

  Adrianna was, hopefully, brain-dead, but that didn’t make her valueless. If she had planned to pull Joses off the wall, then she had planned where to stash him. If they had a history, then I might be able to use that history to track him.

  I stared at his instant reply of agreement. How had I ever lived without texts? How had anyone ever lived without instantaneous communication? How long before we had little chips inserted into our skin or directly into our nervous systems and brains so we could be with people all the time and never have to be alone? How long before the hive mind, integrated with AI computers, was a reality? How long before I screwed up and got everyone I loved killed?

  Cell still in hand, I thought about contacting Del to see how she was, have a little girl time before I headed home, but I was too tired to do the whole “He doesn’t love me” scene. Del was a big girl and I had already told one person to pull up his panties tonight. I had the feeling that Del needed something more kind. After careful consideration, I texted Amy Lynn Brown, who had known Del in Asheville. Amy was a fast-healing wonder, a vamp scion who had gone through the entire devoveo in two years, finding sanity in record time. Brown-haired, slender, and unremarkable at first glance, she had a good head on her shoulders, was calm under fire, smart, and once had been able to help a panicked fanghead at a party that went sour. Amy sent word that she was honored to pay the primo a visit.

  Communication and good deeds were done, which took some loads off my shoulders and had given my body a chance to get over the shakes—and when did I become the vamps’ therapist? That left only Jodi Richoux, the vamps’ liaison with NOPD, and that could wait until I had some rest. I texted Eli to meet me at the porte cochere where the SUV had been delivered from the dojo, got back a text that simply said K, and I headed down.

  Though HQ was now quiet and inactive in reaction to the events of the daytime, I left Protocol Aardvark, Procedure B in place as I left the back of the building. Night had fallen hours past. The air was humid and hot, a storm brewing to the south, over the gulf, and heading our way. Lightning flashed from cloud to cloud, brightening the sky, illuminating the thunderheads.

  In the distance, uptown from vamp HQ, blue and red lights lit up the horizon; sirens carried on the wind said it was an accident of some sort. A big one. And not my problem. Thank God.

  * * *

  As soon as we got home, I put the inert iron discs on my bedside table, showered, and pulled on clean sleep clothes before I climbed up onto the broken rocks in the back garden to commune with my inner Beast. Just as I got settled, the official phone rang from inside the house, the standard ringtone of Latin dance music. Looking abashed, Alex came out the side door and handed up the cell to reveal Jodi Richoux’s name. Jodi was cute, with a blond bob and enough attitude to take down a vamp in a rage. And a badge to back it all up. She’s not in a good mood, he mouthed.

  I frowned but took the call. That late, it had to be business, and not the good kind. “Jodi?” I asked.

  “I need you at Pauger and Burgundy in Marigny. Now. Park down the street and follow the lights.”

  “Okay.” I unfolded my legs and slid across the boulders to the ground, grit scraping my thighs through the pj bottoms. Lights on the horizon uptown. The sound of distant sirens could have been in Marigny, I thought. But no accident. “What do I need to bring?” I pointed Alex to the house and he fell in behind me.

  My unquestioning willingness seemed to disarm her, and Jodi said, more quietly, “I’ve got vamp killings, fifty-two humans, all dead where they stood.”

  A frisson of fear and shock raced through me like electricity, burning and sharp. I pressed a hand to my middle, thinking I’d misheard. “What?” I whispered. Jodi repeated her words even more softly, but the consonants were cutting and quick with suppressed emotion.

  Oh crap. The Son of Darkness . . . Mouth as dry as paper, I asked, “Am I coming as the Enforcer or as a consultant?”

  “I’m not sure.” Which didn’t sound like Jodi. She was always sure of my roles in things, even if I wasn’t. “Maybe a little of both.”

  So . . . someone important was listening. And this was partly a warning. “I’ll come as Enforcer and if you need me as something else, I can downgrade.”

  “Make it fast.”

  The call ended and I entered the house to see Eli standing in the foyer, waiting. “Gear up,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Fifty-two humans dead by vamp.”

  Eli swore and took the stairs up two at a time. Maybe three. To Alex, just before I closed the door to my room, I said, “Notify HQ. Tell them to notify Leo. Tell him to stay away. Please,” I added. “Tell him to please stay away. And if you still have a backdoor into NOPD, I want to see what they have. But only if you can do it safely.”

  Alex nodded, popped the top on a can of energy drink, and went to work, an all-nighter staring him in the face.

  I braced my body off the toilet with both arms as I dry heaved. Fifty-two dead humans. It had to be Joses. It had to be. I should have found a way to stop him from leaving HQ. I should have tackled him and stabbed him and staked him and killed him. Some way. Somehow. He was the hand grenade and I should have thrown myself on it.

  I had let him get away because I was hurt. Dumb, stupid excuse.

  I stood upright, one hand pressed to my middle and the burning there. I should go to Jodi, right this second. I should eat. I should . . . I stopped and tried to order my thoughts. I needed to dress and get to Jodi.

  And the fifty-two dead humans.

  I threw off my tacky T and the ratty pj’s. There was a time when I’d worn only jeans and boots and attitude, but respect for the dead suggested something more . . . formal, maybe. Like funeral clothes.

  Moving on instinct, I pulled on all black—slim pants, tank, lightweight jacket, and black Lucchese boots with hand-stitched cougars on them. As an afterthought, I added the working gorget, one of several Leo had provided for me, this one sterling over titanium chain mail, and tucked my gold nugge
t and wired cougar tooth necklace into my jog bra, out of sight. Back before Beast and I merged so deeply, the nugget had tied me to her in some mystical way. The tooth held the DNA and RNA of the largest female mountain lion I could find. Between the two, I could find my Beast form even when I was deeply damaged. Now I didn’t seem to need them, but I also couldn’t let them go. Habit. A security blanket. Whatever. I almost never took them off.

  As I dressed, I got a good look at my damaged arm. The scars dappled my skin like rain on the surface of a pond, if it was viewed through a spiderweb. Bands and rings of interlaced and interconnected tissue formed a network across my flesh, the white and red of scar tissue. It was pretty awful. More important, the muscles beneath looked atrophied. I stretched and the muscles didn’t give. I eased into the jacket. The sleeve brushed my arm with a sensation akin to fiberglass dipped in acid. I needed to shift and see what was wrong with Beast. And shift back to complete the healing of us both.

  Fifty-two humans called to me. My healing would have to wait. Ninety seconds it had taken me to dress.

  I double-checked that all my papers were in my wallet. PI license, business license, concealed-carry permit, Yellowrock Security business cards, and my new business cards Leo had provided, the ones that read:

  JANE YELLOWROCK

  ENFORCER to LEO PELLISSIER

  MASTER of the CITY of NEW ORLEANS and the GREATER SOUTHEAST UNITED STATES

  It was dignified and offered me protection I might sorely need.

  Though it might be smart to show up with every weapon I owned, I elected to go without, except stakes in my hair. Which made me feel naked and weird and caused the space between my shoulder blades to itch. Made the nausea rise in my throat, the world swimming with vertigo as I moved, ignored. I tucked the wallet into my back pocket, smeared on bloodred lipstick, and smoothed the loose hair back into the fighting queue with some gel gook.

  I was using the time, the precious seconds, to steady myself. I had been in a battle. I had been wounded and was hurting. I had been socked in the face with the results of my own actions and the future results of actions not yet taken. Not so far in the past, I had let Joses Bar-Judas live, if hanging on a wall in a dungeon can be considered living, and had killed a vamp named Peregrinus instead. I should have taken Joses’ head then. I had known he was evil, as in damned and filthy evil. I had known it on some level I hadn’t understood. He should have been separated from his head the first time I saw him; I hadn’t done the job. I had acted like an Enforcer rather than a rogue-vamp hunter. The fact that I had been injured and lying in my own blood back then didn’t matter. I had not killed him when I had the chance and now fifty-two humans had paid the price.