by Faith Hunter
All those rocks and hard places started dancing in my brain: The rock as stated by Sabina. The rock of Leo wanting me to capture but not kill a murderer. And settling for me taking the murderer’s heart. The hard place of what I’d promised to Jodi, that I’d place the needs of the humans in front of Leo, no matter what it cost me. The safety and danger of working outside the job of Enforcer—the freedoms and the strictures both. Working for the mayor and the governor and Leo. Media meetings. Wondering what the European Mithrans would do to Leo in the face of these calamities. Wondering what life might be left in a Son of Darkness once I took his heart. And what the EuroVamps would do to the heart taker.
CHAPTER 7
You Wet Your Pants?
I stopped back at the house, parking the sexy Harley in the side alley leading to the small courtyard in back, and pulling the iron gate shut. The iron-on-iron clang felt like safety, like home. I leaned into the gate and closed my eyes, letting the weight of the last few hours blow out with my breath, letting it drip like water through me and down, off my fingertips and out the bottoms of my feet, the tension draining away in rivers of relief. Home . . .
When I opened my eyes, I saw a flash of light across the street, something white moving at speed. It was too fast for me to identify, but I could rule out lots of natural and supernatural creatures. I guessed it was Brute, the white werewolf who had bitten Joses— No. Joseph. From now on, it was Joseph. Joseph Santana.
I left the helmet on the bike. I missed my Harley, Bitsa, way more than I had expected to.
Eli met me on the back porch. Gallery. Whatever. He was wearing his new vamp-hunting gear. And he looked totally awesome. Matte black leather with sheathes, holsters, loops, military combat-style boots, and a utility belt that was built for the Hulk. He also carried a gobag big enough to hide a fully automatic something-something and a dozen fully loaded extended clips. With his brown skin and his close-cropped Army Ranger–style buzz cut, Eli Younger looked like a centerfold from a Guns & Ammo magazine.
My partner had once told me he would never wear leather, but the defensive benefits of the newest witch-spelled / Dyneema-threaded / Kevlar-enhanced / silver-plated–titanium–chain mail augmentations had changed his mind. I stopped on the low steps and asked, “Has Sylvia seen you in the new gear?”
The grin Eli gave me said, Yes, she has and We had fun taking it off. Sylvia Turpin, sheriff of Adams County, Mississippi, was Eli’s honeybun, and what they did in the sack was of no interest to me at all. “Never mind,” I said, waving away any attempt at an answer and looking longingly at the rock garden as I entered the house. It would be a long time before I got to check in on my Beast. I massaged my arm through my clothing, and the skin felt charged, as if I were standing on carpet in the winter and static electricity had coated my flesh. Prickles of pain radiated out from my fingertips. “Come on in,” I said to Eli. “We need to talk while I gear up.”
I waved to the Kid, who was still sipping energy drinks. He had made a pyramid tier of them up along the side of the table he used as a desk, and he looked like he was wired to the max, his entire focus on the integrated screen and the smaller screens that surrounded him. “Info when you want it,” he said to me, “but you gotta boogie. Press conference in twenty-seven minutes.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” I crossed the house to my room but left the door cracked so they could hear me. There wasn’t time for worrying about high school–variety boy-girl awkwardness, but there was the need to maintain lines of propriety. Or my prudish nature. Or both.
Eli said, “I put your clothing and leather gear on your bed and the weapons gear on the kitchen table. You’re missing a blade, a fourteen-inch vamp-killer.”
I flipped on the light switch and saw the gear on my bed. “Yeah, I remember. It needs replacement, blade and hilt both. They were damaged beyond repair in the fight at HQ. The spell the vamp used on me burned it to slivers.” I eased the shirt off and inspected my arm in the overhead light. The thick scar tissue was an odd, pale red tracery, as if someone had drawn lines and whorls on my golden Cherokee skin and filled the spaces between with pink marker. I hadn’t noticed the redness in the heat of the shower earlier. Weird.
“I’ll add a new vamp-killer to the list,” Alex said. “You do know those things are expensive, right?”
I touched one of the red lines and felt a faint shock quiver through my skin. “I’ve noticed,” I answered wryly. “Leo gets the bill for that one, though. Send an invoice to Raisin, and make sure you get an acknowledgment. As of dusk, I’m no longer the Enforcer and things will change.”
“Say what?” Eli said.
I felt their interest practically zing through the crack in the door. They moved closer to hear better, shuffling on the wood floor while I pulled on my best leathers, debriefing them on everything Leo had told me and everything I had deduced about Joses/Joseph. I finished with, “So if Jodi comes through on a contract with the governor and/or the mayor, I’ll have the unenviable job of removing the heart from Joseph Santana and taking it to Jodi Richoux.”
“We’ll,” Eli said.
“We’ll what?” I asked, hooking the reinforced leather jacket over my silk knit T. Oddly, my arm felt better with the jacket over it, the slight pressure of the thick materials giving me ease. I really needed the healing T-shirt given to me by some witch friends, but no way was I appearing on TV in a fuzzy purple T with a red dragon on the front.
“We’ll have the unenviable job,” he said.
“Musketeer crap,” the Kid said.
I smiled and opened the door, my fingers busy rebraiding my hip-length hair, my injured right fingers not working properly, making my movements awkward. “All for one?”
The guys didn’t answer, but I guess they didn’t have to. In the kitchen, I strapped on the tactical thigh rig and adjusted its holsters for weapons at thigh and shoulder, and this time, for maximum effect, I strung the M4’s harness on too. I accepted the weapons as Eli handed them to me, checking the loads on the semiautomatic handguns, making sure there were no rounds in the chambers as they went into holsters. Then I slid the blades and the stakes into the specially made sheathes in the thigh rig and in the leathers. And the boots. And my braided hair that I had wrapped into a big bun.
“How about this one?” Eli asked. He was holding a gift from Bruiser, an antique Mughal Empire blade Bruiser had given me when he declared his intentions to take our relationship to the next level.
“A little too fancy?” I asked.
“Good PR for the media should someone notice it and ask,” Eli said, which could have been unusual thinking for the shooter, except that he’d been teasing me off and on about dating Bruiser.
“The MOC’s hot-chick Enforcer has a boooyfriend,” Alex said.
Eli chuckled, the sound evil. They knew I’d turned down multiple requests from the media—local and regional—for interviews about my relationship with the vamps and their humans. But this time, I might need the media to help keep the public hysteria down. I remembered the scent-feeling-taste of riot-worthy fear hanging in the air outside the kill bar.
“Fine. Give it here.” I ignored their surprise as I figured out how to strap it through the stake loops, but high, near my hip and groin. The silk velvet sheath looked like rubies against my black leathers. “Okay. Eli, you’re right.” I held in a sigh, knowing if I let it free, I’d sound like I was whining. “We need to make an appearance.” I made little bunny-ear quotation marks in the air. “I suggest I ride in on Herbert’s Harley and you follow in the SUV.”
“Helmet off,” he said, “silver stakes in your hair.”
Louisiana had no motorcycle helmet law, so that was feasible, but it suddenly struck me as funny that Eli was thinking about media impact. “You going into the personal image business, Eli? PR with a gun? Big bad Army Ranger in makeup and eyeliner?”
He scowled—twitch of lips, harder eyes. “Wasteful and inefficient.”
“I’ll take that as a no.” I adj
usted the silver stakes in my hair so they formed a crown out around my head. “Okay, Kid. Text Jodi. Tell her we’re on the way. Make sure we can get through from the park. And remind her that she wanted regalia,” I added sourly. “I don’t want a video of a cop patting me down on the morning news. When we’re done with the media dog and pony show we need a plan of attack. I want Joseph Santana’s heart in my hands.”
* * *
Most of the streets in the area were one-way streets, and despite the early hour, the crowd and the media had made them all impassable. But by the time we got close, the cops had opened a narrow corridor starting at Washington Square Park. I pulled in front of the SUV, slowing, letting the media and the crowd get an eyeful and an earful. The Harley announced us with that signature rumble, the pistons firing at uneven intervals due to the V arrangement of the cylinders, that specific Harley engine design that made me miss my bike more than ever.
Over the engine roar, I heard a lot of chatter about me, half-flattering, half-unflattering, and a lot of it salacious, but at least no one took a potshot at me. Or if they did, they missed.
The cops had commandeered an empty lot at Burgundy and Elysian Fields Avenue, and Eli and I pulled in, parked, and made our way to the makeshift stage only a few minutes before six a.m. Jodi met us there. She had freshened her makeup and combed her hair, but she looked tired, the kind of tired that came with a life of stress, bad food, scorched coffee, and impossible hours. She gave me a modified nod and indicated that I was to join her at a tent near the stage, which was a flatbed trailer with temporary stairs at the back.
Behind her, in the shadows of an evidence van, stood Sloan Rosen. He was watching me with amused eyes, knowing my outfit and general badass getup were for the press, and probably critiquing my entire ensemble. I’d known Sloan almost as long as I’d known Jodi. Like her, he worked with the woo-woo squad as part of NOPD’s SCD—Special Crime Division. African American, inked with gang tats and prison tats from his time undercover, Sloan had had a hard time finding a comfortable place at cop central, a safe place, considering the price the Crips had put on his head. He was married and had kids, and so he needed the job and the benefits and the retirement package that preceded Hurricane Katrina and the city’s financial woes.
He nodded to the side and lifted a finger. I gave him a half nod and turned the bike over to Herbert, who pushed it into the shadows as I met Jodi at the tent. Thunder rumbled from far away, the low, rolling resonance that was as much echo as the sound of distant lightning.
Jodi ran her eyes from the toes of my Lucchese boots to the top of my silver stakes and laughed. It wasn’t a mean laugh, so I grinned back. “No one knows who our suspect is,” she said. “Facial recog has turned up zip so far. Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Like most older vamps, he’s gone through names. According to the chief fanghead, the one he entered this country under was Joseph Santana. Leo is calling the governor and the mayor to approve my appointment and contract as chief rogue-vampire hunter. At dusk I will be fired as Enforcer and given a contract by Leo to hunt Santana, which will provide him some protection against Santana’s pals when I cut out his heart. How about your end?”
“Not bad,” she said. “The governor’s contract is being faxed to your office now, the fee to be paid by a local man whose son is inside the bar, on the floor, the result of a hungry fanghead; one of the drained ones.” Her face fell, showing for a moment the despair of dealing with the grief and anger of the populace, while at the same time having to be professional, cool, calm, and able to protect and serve.
Carefully, so as not to rock the precarious emotional balance she was preserving, I said, “Just to clarify, Yellowrock Securities doesn’t take orders from the donor, or any state or federal law enforcement agency. I’ll be working under contract to the Mithran Council, but under the direct command of the governor.” Jodi’s lips tightened as if she was about to disagree and I rushed ahead. “But I will keep you, personally, in the loop. We provide each other intel and backup as needed. Agreed?”
Some of her strain eased. “You’re not going to make me pinkie swear in front of the press, are you?” she asked.
“No. You’re not gonna make me talk, are you?”
“Yes.” She grabbed my right arm and pulled me toward the stairs. “Come on. It’s time.” I managed not to hiss in pain and, with my good fingers, peeled her grip free as we walked. Jodi didn’t notice my discomfort. But . . . I’m gonna have to talk? My heart rate sped.
In a mild state of panic, I climbed the creaky stairs to stand to the side, behind Jodi and the new mayor, with Eli next to me. A suited man stood on the other side of the mayor, his demeanor practically shouting FBI or PsyLED, his expression suggesting that he was too good to rub shoulders with the locals. He didn’t even glance at Eli and me, and I felt my partner evaluating him. “Civilian,” Eli muttered, just loud enough for the guy to hear. The cop turned, finally deigning to look us over, taking in the weapons we carried. “Piss his pants if he met a fanghead in a dark alley,” Eli finished, louder.
I managed not to laugh, but it was a near thing. The suited cop flushed darkly.
“You are evil,” I whispered to Eli.
“You just figuring that out, babe?”
“Ladies and gentlemen, citizens of New Orleans,” the mayor started. I listened with only half an ear, more interested in the smells and sights of the crowd, and their mob-related body language, than what the mayor was saying. Yada yada, blah blah blah, a stream of political inanities, a lot of “keeping you safe,” more yada yada and blah blah.
Then the suited guy stepped up and promised that the state police and state government would be backing up the locals in any way they needed, the moment they were asked to participate. A newsy type shouted, “Why aren’t you helping now?”
The cop turned, looked directly at me, and said, “The city of New Orleans has decided it would rather put their trust in armed bounty hunters”—which made it sound as if we were so much dog poop on the sidewalk—“than in the resources of Troop B of the Office of State Police.”
“Jane Yellowrock?” a man with a camera yelled back. “What good is the lover of the Master of the City in a hunt for fangheads?” The crowd rumbled agreement and the state cop smiled at me, smoothed his lapels, and stepped aside.
Great. Just freaking ducky. I broke out in a hot sweat and, after a space of uncomfortable seconds, during which the crowd got louder and uglier, I figured out how to lift a foot and push it forward, walking slowly to the podium. Jodi shot me a glance of hidden amusement, and I realized that she had heard us baiting the cop. My partner and his big mouth.
I was taller than the suited cop, and I reached forward, adjusting the main mic higher so I wouldn’t have to bend over. Only as I worked with the mic did I sense that my height and the need to adjust the world to my size were playing a part in calming the crowd. Predators in the wild knew that size was no indicator of dominance or strength. I was bigger than Leo Pellissier and Joseph Santana, and they were way bigger predators than I was. But the humans quieted as I worked, waiting.
When I figured I had their attention, I cleared my throat and said, softly, into the mic, “I’m Jane Yellowrock. I came to this city to track and kill the vampire who took down an entire unit of cops where they stood. You’ve seen it on YouTube, uploaded by someone in the Pellissier household, the way I took that killer down. The look of his teeth—not a regular vampire at all.”
“Sabertooth vampire,” someone from the middle of the crowd yelled.
“That mutant, insane vampire, whatever he was, was not a Mithran. You’ve heard them call themselves that, right? Mithrans?” I caught some nods and felt the cameras on me. Sweat trickled beneath my leathers, tickling. My mouth went dry. “That thing I killed was something other, something unknown.
“And in Natchez, where I was sent by Leo Pellissier, I was able to bring down what the Mithrans call Naturaleza vampires, the ones that treat humans
like cattle, like possessions. The vampires here in New Orleans treat humans like . . .” I almost said equals, then almost said friends, and ended up with: “valued employees, with contracts, rights, and importance. It’s my job to take the Naturaleza kind of vampire out. The kind that kill humans. The crazy ones. Even the very rare, powerful ones, like the ones capable of holding armed and trained cops, families, and innocents immobile and seemingly . . .” Words failed me, and I floundered until I came up with: “tranquil, under the power of compulsion, the power of their minds, and drink them down at leisure. The police, especially state-level bureaucrats, don’t have the training, equipment, or expertise to accomplish the kinds of hunts that Yellowrock Securities has always done so well.”
“Hooah,” Eli murmured softly, using the syllables left over from his army days that meant lots of different things, all of them good. I had no idea what I’d said that made him so happy, but it didn’t really matter.
I stared out over the crowd, feeling the sunrise. My injured arm was aching. I wished I had some water. My mind was blank. Oh. Crap. Where was I?
As if sensing my budding panic and reading my empty mind, Eli opened a bottle of water and placed it in my hand. I drank and handed it back.
“Thanks. Sorry. I’m not used to public speaking. Anyway. Um. Right. Killing insane vamps, even powerful ones, is what I do. It’s what Yellowrock Securities does. As of this morning I have informed the Master of the City, Leo Pellissier, that come dusk I will no longer be under his employment. At dusk, I will accept a writ from the Mithran Council . . .” I paused and made sure to frame my words to the contract that Leo was offering. “. . . to track the killer and bring him down. At that time I will also accept a similar contract from the mayor and the governor. I need a contract from each, to cover any territories I might need to enter in the course of this hunt.”