by Faith Hunter
In the SUV, the AC running full out, I laid back my head and let my thoughts have free rein. It occurred to me that the children who had been sacrificed to power the gem in my gobag had been innocent. Only the Damours’ intent had been evil. The intent of the vampire-witches had destroyed the children and then twisted the power of their innocent souls to evil. That intent was a kind of . . . faith. A faith in death and evil. Troubled, I opened my eyes to stare out the window as Eli drove us toward home, passing lawyers’ offices, homes, apartments, dental clinics, and storefronts, all in old houses that carried the spirit of New Orleans’ décor and architecture. And I saw one in particular.
“Stop!” I said. “Pull in there!”
Eli hit the brakes and whipped the wheel, slinging his passengers against the doors. Alex cussed as his tablet flew from his hands and clattered to the floor. “Sorry,” I said to them both, as I popped the seat belt, opened the door, and dropped into a trot to keep up with the still-moving vehicle.
“Damn it, Jane!” Eli said, by way of reprimand.
“Sorry,” I said again, deciding not to say anything about the cursing, under the circumstances. I slammed the door and trotted on to the building. The storefront took up a wide lot with parking in front under a tree and on the street. One half of the storefront was empty. I felt a small space open up inside of me and fall through, like a sinkhole into the deeps of the earth, pulling in things after it.
The small church I had been attending had been in the storefront. It was gone now. A FOR RENT sign rested in the front window. I stepped slowly closer and pressed my forehead and my damaged hand against the glass. It was empty from wall to wall, the concrete floor swept clean. I had to wonder how long it had been since I had attended a service, how long since I had prayed. Since I had communed with nature. Since I had done anything spiritual. How long since I had called out for peace and help and . . . Too long. I was exhausted, broken, wounded, and still feeling the weight of the deaths in the bar. My fault. All my fault. I should have killed Joses Bar-Judas the first time I set eyes on him.
And how was it possible that killing another sentient being would have been better than letting him live? How was it possible that my committing murder was better than letting a prisoner go free? In hindsight, I knew I should have killed the Son of Darkness. But if I had killed the vamp hanging on the wall, as my instincts had wanted, just guessing that he would get free and kill humans, it would have been murder. Could I have lived with myself? Could I live with myself now? I dropped my forehead to the window glass.
I heard the SUV doors open and closed my eyes. Not wanting to see the guys whom I was putting in danger on this hunt. My fault.
I banged my head once on the window glass, caught in the emotional and philosophical and theological cesspool of my life. The window didn’t offer any suggestions, but it did rattle nicely. I laughed, but it sounded more like a sob.
“Jane?” Alex asked. When I didn’t answer, he said, “Your hand still looks weird.” When I still didn’t answer, he finished with, “You’re acting kinda weird too. Like, almost, you know, drunk.”
Without looking at him, I took a step away from the storefront, held out my hand, and pulled up my purple sleeve. The red-tattoo-looking veins were less bright under the shirt’s healing energies, but they were still there. “Well, crap. Drunk makes sense. I’m blood-drunk. From a spell thrown by a vamp who was starving to death, contaminated with silver, and then suddenly got a lot of blood and some magical mojo.” I pulled my sleeve down and stared into the empty building through the dirty glass. “I’m blood-drunk and still have a blood-magic spell working in me.” And I haven’t yet told you about the blood diamond. That too. “I need a cure. I dunno. I was thinking the church might have an idea how to heal my hand.”
The Kid nodded, his reflection in the window glass. “That makes sense. The church didn’t close down. It moved to a bigger building. I’ve pulled up the address.”
I whirled away from the window and looked down at the Kid. Only, not so far down as before. He was taller than he had been, standing at five feet ten or so now, and the nascent muscles I had seen before had gained definition. How odd . . . I reached up and patted his head. “Thanks, Kid. You’ve grown. Can you take me there?”
The sentences held one non sequitur after another, but nothing threw Alex. “I know. I’m grown up now. And yes. But why do you think a church can help you?” His tone suggested that churches, in fact, any kind of spirituality, were hokum.
I held out my hand and took a slow breath, facing the truth of what had happened. I was hurt, and until I figured out something to fix it, I was sidelined. Just like a human. “Vampire blood magic did this. I think only something the opposite of vampire blood magic can undo it. I tried Cherokee fire and cleansing smoke and it helped but it didn’t totally heal. Apparently I tried to shift but didn’t make it.” I thought about Beast, who was still and silent in my soul home, wounded, just like me. “And I honestly don’t think I can shift on my own. So, maybe, holy ground?”
The Kid gave me a one-shoulder shrug and we climbed back into the SUV. The guys talked a bit, then we drove a while, crossing under I-10 on Governor Nicholls Street, heading nearly opposite from the house and the nice comfy bed I needed so badly.
There were parts of Governor Nicholls that looked safe, like a pleasant place to live, with blooming plants on the galleries and well-kept homes, businesses, and yards. And then there were the other parts, with busted chain-link fences, busted windows, boarded-up doorways, and walls that were covered in urban street art and gang signs. The little church was in that part of the hood. It had taken over a small one-story house with the traditional double-shotgun front—a door on the left and a door on the right. The house had freshly painted yellow siding and dark green window shutters that were closed against the heat of the day. A new steeple perched on top of the roof ridge, and the sign in the small yard read, THE CHURCH, which seemed information enough for me. We parked, and I got out into the heat and humidity, which instantly tried to smother me, as if Mother Nature had shoved a hot sponge over my face. I carried the gobag containing the blood diamond and the iron spike discs in my good hand, and my feet dragged me from the vehicle in exhaustion.
I opened the gate, walked to the gallery and under the porch roof, and tried the door. It was unlocked, which, in this part of the city, was just weird. I pulled the iron discs and the black velvet bag containing the blood diamond and gripped them in my damaged hand. Tossing the gobag over my shoulder into the small yard, I knocked and opened the door. I took a step inside.
The things in my hand caught fire.
Well, not really, but they started smoking, so I whipped back my hand and flung them into the day. They landed together in the sparse grass of the yard. I poked at my hand, which seemed fine, though maybe a little tender. Eli got out of the SUV and stood over the things I’d tossed, staring and thinking. Then he picked them all up and put the things back in the gobag. “You need to tell us something, Janie?”
“Yes. In a bit.”
He zipped up the gobag. “We’ll hold ’em.”
I blinked back tears. They trusted me even when it looked like I was sick. And maybe dangerous. “Don’t go to sleep,” I said. “You’ll wake up with the SUV on blocks, the wheels gone, the engine pilfered, and your pockets picked of the maniacal, magical, mystery toys.”
Eli gave me a look that I interpreted as polite interest but was really only a slight twitch I might have imagined. “They could try. But then, I never sleep. Don’t get yourself hurt again. Yell if you need us.”
I nodded and went into the church, closing the door behind me. My right hand instantly started to ache, but I tried to pretend I was fine and called out, “Anyone here? Preacher? Pastor?” I couldn’t remember his name, and any scent was hidden beneath the reek of fresh paint. Massaging my hand, I walked through the dark foyer into the sanctuary. The daylight in the long, narrow building was shuttered away, but the air-condi
tioning wasn’t up to the job of the heat wave. The air in the old building was close and humid, smelling of New Orleans’ pervasive mold and the overriding paint stink, outgassing from the white, sun-heated walls. The floor was new hardwood, my flip-flops slapping. The white pews were old, looking as if they had been repurposed numerous times, sporting multilayers of paint at every scratch and nick. The rostrum on the uncarpeted dais was ancient, a scarred, fancy cross carved on the front. Celtic cross? No, the upright was longer than the arms. I didn’t know. Couldn’t remember, the effects of being blood-drunk from a witch spell thrown by a master vampire. The back wall showed no place for a choir but did have a half wall directly behind the rostrum and a door to either side. The smell of chlorinated water came from the half-wall opening, indicating a baptismal pool.
Rubbing my thrumming arm, I continued down the central aisle, making noise, picking up the scents of children, sweat, old cigarette smoke, and aftershave beneath the paint. From the back of the building I heard a toilet flush and smiled. Preachers had to pee too.
“Preacher?” I called again. I heard one of the front doors behind me open, and Eli’s scent swept through the old house turned church. So much for staying in the SUV in this heat. Nosy human.
“Yes?” From the door to the left of the rostrum a man came. Well, he was male and human, looking about twelve, no matter the scraggly mustache he sported. Yeah. Same church, same preacher. He held out his hand, walking closer. “I’m Charley—” He came to an abrupt stop about ten feet away, staring. His hand slowly fell. “You used to attend our congregation.”
I nodded.
“You stopped coming.”
I nodded.
“You’re Jane Yellowrock. The vampire hunter.”
I nodded again.
“What can I do for you, sister?”
I moved my massaging hand to my elbow, where the ache seemed to increase. “I don’t know. Not exactly.” I held out my damaged hand to show him the brightening red lines and felt my body listing to the side. I compensated by shuffling my flip-flops on the floor and caught my balance. “I was hit by a witch spell. One cast by a powerful vampire. I tried fire and light to drive it out, thinking, you know, vampire blood and the sun and all that. I don’t know what to try next. But I thought”—I gestured to the half wall behind the rostrum—“I thought maybe holy water.”
“We don’t believe in holy water, sister. But I can pray for you.”
“You don’t believe that the water recently used for baptism is touched by God? Because I can assure you”—I laughed, more a titter than a real laugh, sounding so very drunk—“vampires are scared silly of it.”
“Holy water is not the same . . . Never mind. Have you been drinking, sister?” he asked, earnest and kind—too kind—in his desire to help. Made me want to deck him. “If so, there are programs to help. I can assist you in finding them.”
“Preacher,” Eli said, striding toward me, his boots silent. “The lady hasn’t been drinking. She’s one of the few things standing between this city and another bloodbath, and she needs help. So, if you don’t mind, we’ll be taking advantage of the holy water in your baptismal thingy.” Without slowing his pace, Eli picked me up and carried me past the preacher.
“Sorry.” I waggled my fingers at the twelve-year-old human as Eli and I rounded the corner and the boy-preacher vanished from sight. “Sorry,” I called out, louder. “I’m saying I’m sorry a lot today,” I said to myself. Louder I added, “Sorry Eli’s so bossy.”
“Love you too, babe,” Eli said. And he threw me into the water.
I’d been baptized in a bend of a river when I was a teenager, the water in the swimming hole deep, cold, and still. I hadn’t thought about that in ages. But as I landed in the chlorinated water, eyes open and burning, seeing the blue tile and handrails beneath the water, the little rubber patches on the bottom of the pool to make it less slippery, loose strands of my black hair floating above me, I remembered. I remembered it all.
I remembered the feel of the preacher’s muscled arm beneath my hands. The wet chill of his hand on my nape, his other hand over my nose, closing it off. The sensation that jarred through me as he braced his feet on the rocky bottom and lowered me down. The way the brown water closed over my head. Chill. Remembering the sight of his face through the water, rippling.
The rush of water as he levered me back up, the sound of splashing. The sound of singing. The intense smell of river water. The feel of the river bottom beneath my bare feet. The knowledge that I was supposed to be a new person, and reborn. Again. I remember thinking that. Reborn. Again. As if I had been reborn before. And I had been reborn, every time I shifted. But this time, being reborn from the river water, it was supposed to bring me peace.
I wasn’t sure what peace really was—the English word hadn’t made a lot of sense to me at the time. I hadn’t known what it would mean for me, the rebel, the troublemaker at the children’s home, but I knew I wanted it. Wanted to throw myself into that sensation of tranquility, that new life that the preacher and his Bible had promised I would find. And as the chill water sluiced from me, there had been . . . something. Something—
I hit bottom.
Beast screamed deep inside, a devil-cat scream of territory claiming, of rage, of might. The gray place of the change pushed into the clear water, making it roil with bubbles and heat and cold. I felt Beast’s pelt pressing against my flesh, abrading underneath. My bones snapped and split and cracked as they reshaped, so fast, so much faster than not so long ago.
My skin heated, a searing, burning, scorching pain, the pain of dipping my entire body into a boiling pot, steam rising, blistering. Blood burst from the flesh of my right hand, up my right arm, into the clear water, a thin cloud of reddish mist, fading, dissipating into the pool, turning it murky. Pelt erupted from my skin. Deep inside me, Beast screamed again, the vicious sound of victory.
I crouched in the pinkish, brackish, dim water, at the bottom of the shallow pool, completely submerged. I was pelted all over, fingers, hands, legs, ankles, and lower paws stretching the stupid flip-flops. I pulled out my purple shirt and saw the pelt extended over my boobs, all the way down into my jeans. Crap. Buried beneath the water, I felt my face, finding the usual half-human, half-puma face with large, outthrust jaw and cat nose, human forehead and eye sockets, with pelt all over, forehead, whiskered cheeks, and chin. Instinctively, I kept my head down and nose flaps closed, so water didn’t get into my puma nose. Human hair still covered my scalp, a black cloud of it floating in the water. I opened my mouth, felt of my teeth, the taste of chlorine bitter, almost soapy, and oddly salty. Though I had mostly human teeth, my canines—top and bottom—were long, like tusks. And . . . I had puma ears, rounded, movable ears that were set cat-high on my head.
This was a different shape from my previous half-cat form. I was pretty sure I didn’t like it. But at least the burning, aching, of my injured hand felt better. I made a fist. Opened my tawny-haired hand with the too-big, knobby knuckles. My Beast had a beautiful golden color. Slowly I stood up in the pool, water rushing, subsiding from me in a wave, the chlorine already bleaching out the blood. I stood on the tiled bottom and met Eli’s eyes.
“Well. The hair’s new,” he said.
I grinned, and it must have been pretty scary, because he said, carefully, “Jane?”
“Yeah. Gimme a minute.” My voice was mostly mine, but lower, hoarser.
I ducked beneath the water again, feeling like a guy from the Old Testament, who had dunked himself beneath water seven times to be healed of a disease. Beneath the water, I thought about my Jane form. What I looked like when I was human shaped. For reasons I’d never understood, I couldn’t move from my pure Beast form to my pure human form in the daylight, but the half form had seemed more amenable to shifting in daylight. Gray mist blended into the water a second time, boiling energies, flashes of light and shadow.
I changed again. The pain was worse, far worse than moments before. To
o soon, I thought. And not soon enough. I crouched beneath the water and screamed, a gargling, cawing sound of misery, with no way to draw breath. My bones slid and crunched. Blood spiraled from my fingertips and into my mouth from my gums. I spat, the water churned by the gray energies.
The pain faded slowly, a burning, icy torture along my skin. The need for breath forced my feet underneath me, and I raised upright, sucking in air that was mostly hair and water, draining along my scalp. I coughed and took another, looking at my hands, touching my face. Human again. And only a fading tracery of red lines. “Yes!” I met Eli’s relieved eyes. He nodded and pulled his cell, saying, “Lock the doors, bring the gobag inside. Return to the SUV.”
From somewhere off to the side, the preacher said, “Sir, you have to leave. If you don’t—”
“Father, the lady needs some prayer time. You’re gonna give it to her.”
“Sir. I don’t want to have to call the authorities.”
“Bro!” Alex shouted, the word echoing in the long room.
Eli lifted his hands, and through the opening in the half wall flew a familiar tan gobag—Beast’s bag, which I carried with me when I changed shape. Eli caught it and gave me a chin jut that ordered me to get out of the water and go left. I stepped out of the pool and took the gobag, entered a room with a cutout female silhouette on the door, one from the fifties, wearing a long, wide skirt, maybe with a crinoline. It was painted Pepto pink. So was the austere little bathroom, where I rinsed my hair in the sink and dried off using coarse towels stacked on metal shelving. The clothing in the gobag was thin cotton everything, but at least was dry.