by Faith Hunter
“So what’ll you be doing until night?” a reporter shouted.
“Why do you need three contracts?” another shouted.
“Yeah,” a slurred voice agreed from the edge of the crowd. “Sittin’ on your ass all day?”
“Was it a young rogue, escaped from the MOC’s lair?” another reporter shouted, others on the edge of her words.
“Pellissier let one go?”
“Yeah! None of us are safe, not with fangheads in this town!”
I raised my voice and leaned into the mic. “Until dusk, my partners and I will be using the resources of the police department and the Master of the City’s libraries to research the Mithran database for any intelligence we can find about the rogue vamp. For now, I will tell you that it was not a young rogue vampire. And we already have a name, courtesy of the Master of the City.”
I smelled Jodi’s and the state cop’s shock and paid it no heed. The crowd shouted, words and questions overlapping, anger and curiosity like a toxic haze on the already scent-laden air. I softened my voice and the crowd quieted to hear, as I said, “Just prior to this news conference, I shared the name that the rogue vampire last used with NOPD. Yellowrock Securities will work directly with Jodi Richoux, under contract with the Mithrans, and under direct orders of the governor of the great state of Louisiana, to find and dispatch this rogue-Naturaleza vampire, who is a danger even to the Mithrans in this city.”
“Wait! You’re telling us that the killer will kill vampires too?” a woman in front shouted.
“Yeah.” I remembered the sub-five basement at vamp HQ. My voice dropped even more, to a bare murmur that made them quieten and shush one another. “He already has, striking at the Council Chambers, killing Mithrans before he killed here, among the city’s humans. He got away, leaving bodies behind. Leo Pellissier wants him stopped too.”
“That’s a bunch of bunkum,” a reporter shouted into his own open mic. A gold cross caught the light on his work shirt. “All vampires are killers! They need to be staked!”
“Judge not lest you be judged,” I paraphrased mildly, before his anger could spread into the crowd again, turning the gathering into a mob. “‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.’ ‘This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you.’ You wear a cross. Be careful which scriptures you pick and choose from to give you a reason to hate. My understanding is that the Almighty gets kinda riled at hate of any kind.”
The world whirled around me and I stepped back from the mic, ignoring questions shouted from the reporters and the human observers. Taking the water bottle from Eli, I drained it. “Got another?” I asked him. He pulled a second bottle from his gobag. “Mr. Prepared.”
“Always. Nice speech. You pee in your pants?”
I spluttered with laughter and the tension that had clamped down on my body eased, the world only wobbly now, not spinning. “No. Thankfully.”
“Good. Let’s get outta here before things turn ugly.” I followed him to the SUV and climbed in, rolling up the windows. They were tinted for vamps, so no one could see in. I ripped off the weapons and the sweaty jacket and threw them into the backseat, massaging my arm. Eli concentrated on getting us out of the mob.
* * *
As we rode through the sunrise, a pinking of the gray clouds, Eli asked, “So. About your career in politics.”
“Shut up or I’ll hurt you,” I said, knowing I sounded pouty, rather than like any kind of a threat.
He slanted a look my way. “You did good.”
I looked out the window, surprised and embarrassed by the kindness and pride in his tone and not knowing what to say. I wasn’t sure anyone had ever been proud of me before. It felt weird.
As if he knew that, Eli changed the subject. “How do we track the Son of Darkness? How do we kill the Big Bad Pure Ancient Evil that made the suckheads? Because, while I’m going to enjoy that immensely, it sounds . . . difficult,” he said, the pause suggesting that he had come up with and discarded other terms, like unmanageable, unachievable, even impossible.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know if killing him will make things worse, like Leo said, or better, like my gut tells me. Our contract with Leo says we can take his heart, but I don’t know if that will kill him or not.”
“You mean we could cut out his heart and he might not die?”
I shrugged in answer.
“That would ruin a perfectly good day.”
I smiled, my fingers working the skin of my injured arm, pressing deep into the muscles.
The silence in the SUV cab grew deeper as the sky brightened and Eli processed my statements. I rubbed my arm harder, wishing for the dragon T-shirt. The world spun and halted, spun and halted, a sickening motion that made me want to toss my cookies. Or toss the water I’d just drunk.
“I got an idea,” Eli said, his voice far too casual, the inflection off somehow. “What about using the blood diamond to track him? All we’d need are some witches we trust.”
I flinched. The blood diamond was a black-magic, blood-magic artifact that had been empowered by the sacrifice of hundreds of witch children. And I just happened to have possession of it. My arm ached more and I pulled up my sleeve to discover that the lines traced on it were darker, or brighter. Redder anyway. I hid them beneath the silk T-shirt sleeve. Someone I trusted once accused that I’d find a reason to use the blood diamond. That I’d justify using the blood-magic power to do good, and that using blood-magic power for any reason was a long road to hell. I said, “So, no.”
“No, what?” I forced my eyes open and looked at Eli. And realized he hadn’t spoken, he hadn’t suggested the blood diamond. Eli’s eyes were on the road, hands at two and ten. The SUV was stuck behind a cement truck, trying to navigate the narrow, one-way streets. Eli hadn’t spoken at all. I had been dreaming. Hallucinating. A chill started between my shoulder blades as a single huge raindrop landed on the windshield, a splatted star reaching out from the puddled center. With no more warning, rain pelted from the cloudy sky and grayed the city around us into a misty, watery film, a return to the darkness of predawn. Eli slowed and turned on the windshield wipers, his motions efficient and smooth as always. Around us, the typical New Orleans deluge isolated the interior of the car from the rest of the world, making it familiar and cozy, despite the rising humidity brought by the storm. Crap on crackers. Eli hadn’t spoken. “Nothing,” I said.
I didn’t think I should close my eyes again. Not just now. I studied my hand in the dim light of the rainstorm. It looked like I’d been beaten by two-by-fours. Bruised and broken looking.
My cell buzzed and I pulled it to see that I had a file from the Kid. I opened it and read his latest bit of research. Raising my voice to be heard above the water pounding on the vehicle, I said, “We need to talk about witches we can trust. Sabina said to get the Truebloods to introduce us to the witch coven leader here, but I’m not planning on taking that route if I can help it.” Molly had problems that she needed to deal with, without helping me again. I’d been hard on our friendship—for a good cause, to save lives, but still. If I could avoid using Molly, I would.
“Good. Molly has family. Kids.”
I nodded. He understood. I blinked, yawned, and forced myself to concentrate on the file open on my cell. “I took a minute, earlier tonight, to get Alex to look her up, and Lachish Dutillet is the leader of the New Orleans coven, a person of color of Creole descent.” I skimmed the file. “And crap. Her daughter disappeared under the rule of the Damours, so she has no reason to talk to me or to help the fangheads.”
“So we’ll just hop on over there and change her mind?”
I didn’t know if he was serious or not, but it didn’t matter. “I have no idea how to convince her to help us,” I admitted as I examined her photo. She was maybe mid-fifties, salt-and-pepper hair, Creole skin and eyes. Pretty. A bit stout. I showed the poor-quality photo that Alex had captured from somewhere online to Eli. “She has to hat
e vamps.”
“You could tell her you killed the vamps who were killing the witches.”
“Eh,” I grunted. I didn’t think that would help. But Jodi might, with her familial witch connections. If I hadn’t run away from the press conference like a cat with her tail on fire, I could have asked her in person. I texted Jodi, Intro to NOLA coven leader? Today?
Instantly I got back from her, Yes. Have made calls. Lachish willing. Things in works now.
“Well. How about that,” I said. “Jodi already contacted her.” Eli grunted in acknowledgment. I flipped back through my info on the coven leader and said, “Lachish means ‘she who walks, or exists, of herself.’ It’s biblical.” Eli said nothing. “Names are important. They mean things. For instance, Younger could mean your ancestor was a younger son. Eli means ‘uplifted’ or ‘ascended.’”
Eli snorted. “I do belong on a pedestal sometimes.” Before I could roll my eyes he went on, “And what does Jane Yellowrock mean?”
“‘Gift from God, gold.’ But my Cherokee name, Dalonige‘i Digadoli, means ‘yellow-eyes, yellow-rock.’ Yellow-eyes because I’m a skinwalker and, hey, the eyes.” I pointed at my face. “Yellowrock for the gold the white man found in the Appalachians that eventually caused the Trail of Tears, so the yunega—white man—could take our land.”
“So your name is both a gift and a curse.”
And that was something I had never thought of before.
CHAPTER 8
Eye of Newt
It took forever to get home, with the rush-hour traffic and the rain affecting visibility. I closed the files, too tired to concentrate, and lay my head against the headrest while I massaged my injured arm. If I’d had my bike, I would have been soaked to the skin but home a lot faster. I had forgotten how much easier/faster/better it was to navigate city streets on a bike. I missed Bitsa. I had left a voice mail for Jacob, the Harley Zen-priest master motorcycle mechanic in Charlotte, North Carolina, who was trying to put her back together again, but he hadn’t returned my call. Jacob lived along the Catawba River and had originally built Bitsa from the rusted remains of two Harley panheads I had found in junkyard-graveyards. I knew Bitsa was in bad shape, but it was taking an awfully long time to get her back. And . . . he should have called. He just should have. I felt a tear trickle down my cheek, heated and burning. I missed Bitsa. Which was not stupid. It wasn’t. Fortunately, Eli didn’t notice in the dull lights.
We finally got to the house and Eli parked on the street, the rain still tapping down in a light shower. Oddly, I was sorry the ride was over. It had been nice. Stress-free. Vamp-free. Eli opened my door for me and stood there, in the pattering rain, waiting. I watched him. He looked kinda odd, and I asked, “What’s wrong, Eli?”
“I dunno. You’ve been rubbing your arm for the last few hours.” He leaned into the SUV. “You have tearstains on your face. You’ve been . . . crying?”
He said that like I never cried. I cried. I cried anytime I needed to. I pulled up my sleeve and extended my arm. “I think I’m hurt.”
Eli paled. I made a face, swung my legs over from the floorboard to the street, and started to stand. My knees buckled. Eli caught me, sliding his arms under my legs and around my back, lifting me from the SUV. The jolt drew out a gasp, and I cradled my hurt arm across my chest. Eli kicked the door shut with a foot. “Let’s get you inside and check you out. I have a feeling you need to change into your mountain lion form. Fast.” I didn’t reply, and Eli carried me into the house.
At his desk, Alex was rolling back and forth in his new desk chair, with the energy drink cans in a different formation at his feet. “You two get married?” he quipped.
“No. Something’s wrong with Janie. She needs to shape-change, and I don’t know how to get it done.”
“Ummm. You think I do, bro?”
“Yeah, bro, you nosy bastard, I think you do.”
“That’s a bad word,” I said, massaging my arm through my sleeve. I held up my hand. “Look. I’m turning colors.” My hand and arm were traced with red, like vines growing under my skin, and blooms of purple bruises flowered between the vines. It was pretty.
“Never mind,” Eli said. “She’s worse than I thought. Get in the SUV. We’re taking her to that Cherokee shaman she goes to. Move!”
I was suddenly tired. So tired. I lay my head against Eli’s shoulder, and then down on the backseat of the SUV. After that I was being jostled by the movement of the seat beneath me, jerked around, pulled this way and that. At some point I began to moan as darkness spread beneath my skin. “Hurts,” I murmured. “Hurts bad.”
“I know. We’re getting you to help. Hang on.”
I felt someone remove the rest of my weapons and harnesses. My boots. And then I was being carried again. And undressed, but it was okay because Aggie One Feather was doing that, not the Youngers. And then, dressed in something white that itched on my skin, I was carried outside again and into a dark, heated, smoky-smelling place.
I heard drums, soft and slow. I smelled stuff burning, green things, dried things. Coarse and acrid and cleansing, stronger than the wood of my soul home fire. Rosemary, juniper, mugwort, something lemony, something coarse, like camphor, and wormwood. White sage. I breathed the herbed smoke in, and Molly’s voice came to me from some long-ago visit in her herb garden behind her house. “Artemisia absinthium, Artemisia ludoviciana—white sage species. Nicotiana tabacum—wild tobacco. Each has a different scent and a different medicinal usage. Some are used in shamanism . . .”
“Aggie’s a shaman,” I said. But it came out all mumbled.
“Drink this, Jane Yellowrock. Drink, Dalonige‘i Digadoli.”
“Holy crap.” I spat and struggled against the taste, pulling away from the hands that held me. “That tastes like something you killed and let rot.”
“Not far from the truth,” Aggie said. “Now, drink, or I’ll hold your nose and force it down your throat.”
I sat up and managed to open my eyes, holding her away from me with the hand that ached and thrummed with pain. A hand that felt both cold and feverish. “Last time someone tried to dose me against my will, I called her a bitch. I think I was fourteen.”
“And did she hold you down and force it into you?”
“Yes. Not fair.”
“Look at your hands, Jane.”
I looked. The fingers of my right hand were traced with red lines and massive purple bruises. The coldness and improbable heat I had sensed in it was aching and heavy, a cold that burned. My left hand was similarly damaged, but not quite so far along—just red lines so far. I looked at my feet and saw the red lines traced there too. “All over?”
“Yes. Now, drink. I may be able to help you. If not, Eli will take you to the hospital.”
“Yunega medicine won’t help me, lisi. They’ll put me in a cage to study.”
“Yes. That is a possibility.”
“This sucks.”
“Yes.”
Feeling wobbly, as if I’d fall over at the slightest brush of wind, I scrutinized Aggie, who sat next to me in the sweathouse, the firelight warming her coppery skin. She had a few more strands of silver in her black hair now than when I’d first met her, but her black eyes were bright and sharp and full of mischief. “Your hair’s getting long,” I said.
“You’re dithering.”
She was right. I held out my good left hand for the fired clay bowl Aggie One Feather held. She passed it to me and I cupped it to my mouth. Drank. It was like drinking something that had died last fall. Like mold and feathers and moss and clay and horrible, unnameable, vile . . . stuff.
“Drink,” Aggie demanded when I tried to lift the bowl from my lips.
I gagged twice, but I got it down. Immediately the world swirled around me, drunkenly, and the light in the dim room brightened, sharp and fierce and painful to my eyes. “Holy crapoly. What’s in that? Eye of newt?”
“Sleep,” Aggie said, taking my injured hand in both of hers.
Pain sparked through me like a brushfire, and I pulled away. My mouth went dry and the sweathouse spun again. “Cold. Hurts,” I said. Sickness spiraled up my throat in an acidic surge. “Need my Beast. Need . . .” Beast? I called.
Deep in my mind I heard panting, the pained gasp of my other self. Foolish kit. We are hurt.
“Aggie?”
“Listen,” Aggie whispered. “Listen to the drums. Let them show you the way to healing.”
The drums were slow, a beat-beat-beat-beat, beat-beat-beat-beat. Slower than my heartbeat. Slower than the soft dripping of water in my cave soul home. Slower than the panting of my Beast. Beat . . . beat . . . beat . . . beat . . .
“Oh . . . crap,” I murmured again on a soft sigh. Or I thought I murmured. Blackness and the smell of smoke overtook me.
Beast’s panting melded with my breathing. Her heartbeat synced with mine. And to the drum beating. The cold that had been wrapping around me eased. My fingers curled into her pelt, gripping the loose flesh beneath. Pulling it around me, rough and coarse and smooth and warm. So warm. I sighed, my breath brushing the longer hairs at my/our jaw, tickling. Warm.
Beat . . . beat . . . beat . . . beat, beat . . . beat . . . beat . . . beat. Slower. Beat . . . beat . . . beat . . . beat. Beat . . . beat . . . beat . . . beat.
And silence.
I/we opened our eyes. Our soul home was dark, silent. Not even the plink of distant water disturbed the depth of the stillness. We were lying before a fire; coals of red cedar glowed red beneath the ashes of herbs, their harsh stink still hanging in the air. Our belly was on the cool stone floor, muzzle resting on front paws, long, thick tail wrapped around and against us for warmth. We spread our fingers/toes and stretched, extending our claws and pressing them into the stone, kneading with a press, scritch, withdraw / press, scritch, withdraw rhythm. In the distance, the single boom of a drum sounded, the vibration filling the soul home, reverberating around and around and bouncing from the stalactites and stalagmites, a tone deep and sonorous, as if the cave itself were purring. After long minutes, the sound faded. We breathed the scented smoke. We listened to the silence. We are one, of one mind and one body, but still Beast and Jane, we thought. The drumbeat came again, with the building pressure and deep release, the reverberation lasting long, long, long, into silence.