by Faith Hunter
“I don’t know which statement is weirder. You getting hit with a spell and having your skinwalker energies all out of kilter or you having a housecleaning service.” Molly said. “You were hit with a spell?” she prodded.
I rubbed my arm where she had gripped me and lifted my cat-weighted shoulder in what would have been an offhand shrug if she hadn’t looked so worried. “Yeah. A bad one. I guess we need to talk.”
“Yes. We do.” Molly turned and went up the stairs, leaving the cat purring into my ear.
* * *
Dinner was more than just steaks and raw green stuff, and from Molly’s perspective it must have seemed perfect. Eli had made a broccoli casserole with cheese, baked fresh rolls, and a blackberry cobbler, which was a more family-style meal than the fat free, low-carb, raw veggies and protein, or pizza, that we usually ate. I had to push the cat away twice while I devoured my bloody rare steak. No wonder the cat clung to me. I was the only one who knew how to eat meat. Even Eli ate his steak less bloody than mine.
While we ate, the boys caught Molly up to date on the supernatural happenings in New Orleans, especially the parts that pertained to me, the vamps, Joses/Joseph, the kill bar, and the spell I’d been hit with. I listened with half an ear, using the opportunity to let the current events settle into some sort of order in my mind. And wished I had an order for the events in the vamp boardinghouse.
I sliced steak and ate, sopped bloody meat juices with rolls, chewed, swallowed, and drank iced tea, listening until they reached the part about the spell and what it did to me.
Molly watched me carefully as Eli described everything that had happened. When he was done with his monologue, Molly set down her knife and fork and said, softly, “I want to know the exact sequence of events the night you saved my children from blood-sacrifice at the hands of the Damours. Not the fighting parts, but the part where your blood came into contact with the blood diamond.”
“Are you sure you can listen to this without getting upset? Your magic . . . ?” It had been a long time since we talked about the night when her children were in a witch circle about to be sacrificed.
“Yes,” Molly said, irritation lacing her voice. “I’m fine.”
I pushed the last bite of steak across my plate with my fork, no longer hungry. I put down the fork and rubbed my right hand with my left. Odd. It was my right hand that night too.
“I was with Derek and some of his men, in the woods of the park. By the time we found the vampire-witches, they had started passing the gem—the blood diamond—from person to person. Each one of them cut themselves with a glass athame, obsidian, I think, which I later found out meant it was chemically inert.”
Molly nodded in agreement, her dinner forgotten. KitKit jumped into her lap and Molly absently stroked the cat.
“Anyway, they each dripped blood onto the diamond. It got brighter and redder each time, as if it took power from each of them or was activated by the power in the blood of each of them.” I closed my eyes, as much to keep from seeing Molly’s face as to help me remember. The scene of the black-arts ceremony opened before me, as if imprinted on the backs of my eyelids. I started sweating; my breathing sped.
Beast rose in me, padding to the forefront of my memory. Stopped them, she rumbled at me. Killers of kits. All dead except the female with hair like blood.
She was talking about Adrianna, and though cats don’t see color the same way humans do, Beast had learned to use my eyes, much as I had learned to use hers. She understood the concept of red.
I nodded to her and went on. “We had to see how they set up the circle to stop the ceremony and take the diamond, but we also had to interrupt it before the circle was solidly set, or we’d be locked out of it and too late to act. After all five of the participants had sacrificed their blood to the gem, the leader, the bald-headed vamp, took up a solid-silver athame, which meant he was about to start the children’s sacrifice.” Remembered fear shivered through me and the words caught in my throat. My voice was tight when I went on.
“I made sure the sliver of the Blood Cross was easy to hand but still in its bag. I had been warned that it could damage me if I got pricked with it.” I shook a hand as if waving away that thought. “Anyway. It was my job to get to the leader and prick him with the wood. We attacked. Derek’s men opened fire with silver shot. The leader—Baldy—took some hits. They all did. But even with silver, the vamps weren’t falling. We ran into the clearing. I cut my face on a branch.” I touched my cheek, remembering.
“It happened really fast. Hicklin, one of Derek’s men, died, his death blood hitting the circle, powering it. Derek stopped Baldy’s blade with his own, saving Little Evan. The magic had already started to rise. The spell of the circle attacked us as if it was alive, as if it had a mind of its own. Motes of power burrowing under our skin.”
“Like the magic that attacked Leo when he was fighting the blood duel,” Eli said softly.
I nodded but didn’t open my eyes. “The men were still shooting and the weaker vamps started the death keening. It was awful. We killed Rafael Torres, who was Leo’s enemy and was mind joined to Adrianna. Derek and two other men staked her.
“I dove for Baldy, but he seemed to know I was coming, what I had planned. He reached out and shoved the blood diamond into my wound. And he said a wyrd. I had never felt pain like that, cold and searing hot all at once.” The memory flooded through me, as if it had been only waiting for the right moment to attack me again.
The gem had been icy, cold and flame. Just like the spell I was only recently rid of. Colder than the dark of space, colder than a night spent in hell, as the life force was ripped out of me. “I went limp. The gem was tearing all the warmth from my body, and I could see it happen, could see the life force move out of me and into the gem in a single heartbeat.”
My mouth was dry as memory brought it all back. The pain had seared every nerve, twisted every muscle. “I was dying. I knew that,” I whispered, more a rasp than human speech. I swallowed against the pain but it gave me no real relief. “The wyrd was a spell,” I said, explaining it to Eli and Alex, “but not like the wyrd that Santana said. This was a three-time spell, meaning you had to say it three times to invoke the power. The first utterance froze me, paralyzed me. I couldn’t even take a breath. I fell, leaving Baldy standing over me. I was dying, but . . . I had to save the children.”
The silence around the table was intense. I didn’t open my eyes. I had finally told Molly and Big Evan that their daughter, my goddaughter, Angelina, had gathered raw power and thrown it at Baldy, an offensive weapon of concentrated energies, guided solely by her need and intent. But the Youngers didn’t need to know that. At the same instant Angie Baby had released her power, however, the leader had spoken his spell again. So many things I couldn’t say aloud to protect my godchildren.
I opened my eyes and looked at Molly, but was talking to the Youngers. “Baldy said the wyrd the second time, and this time the wyrd power went up and out to do something. I don’t know what.”
Baldy had been hit with Angie’s power and he hadn’t spoken the third wyrd. He hadn’t bent to kill the children or spoken again. And then Angie Baby touched me and sent her energy into me, but this time with the intent to heal me. Both nascent workings had worked. Her raw, guided magic had saved my life. And Molly knew what I was leaving out and why.
“I pulled the sliver of wood from its bag. It burned some, but not much. Baldy was wearing the blood diamond, still coated with my blood, around his neck on its chain. And I launched up at him.” I reached out with my right hand, fingers and thumb miming the grip from that night, as if I still held the wood from the Blood Cross. “It pierced him, in his chest, just below the gem. His blood pulsed out. Up and over the gem, mixing with my blood, and then over the wood of the cross.”
“Mixing,” Molly said, her voice soft.
I nodded, realizing now that something had happened that night, something unexpected and unknown. “The spell broke.
Baldy caught fire at the point where the Blood Cross touched him. He almost exploded with a white heat and flame. It consumed him from the wound out. My fingers flamed. My hair caught on fire. I remember the smell. All the vamps were dead. All the humans were either dead or dying, the motes of power from the wyrd spell still attacking them. But he hadn’t finished the spell. He never said it the third time to invoke it. But I didn’t know how to save the other humans.”
Angie Baby had told me to use the blood diamond to stop the magic. I’d had no idea how to do that, but I had no better ideas. My voice dropped as I recalled the last of that terrible night. “I pulled a silver vamp-killer and dug the necklace out of Baldy’s burned rib cage and held it up. And nothing happened. And I started this . . . this death laughter. The kind crazy people do when the world is ending,” I whispered, remembering the sound, remembering that Angie Baby had saved me and that I couldn’t say that aloud where others might hear. “The power of the dark spell stopped. And it flew back into the diamond. And all the children lived. And all the humans lived except Hicklin. I liked Hicklin. He was good people.”
“Oh, Jane,” Molly breathed.
Baldy’s spell wasn’t the same spell spoken by Santana, but it had contained the same kind of concentrated, enormous power. Power that had been gathered and shaped but never released. Was that unspoken spell like a weapon, primed and aimed but never fired? Was all that power still in the gem, waiting to be used? I opened my eyes. “I used the gem myself, didn’t I? When I wanted the gem to call back its power, it did. My will made it happen.”
Molly looked down at her hands, holding the cat, which had fallen asleep in her lap. After long moments, she nodded, the motion jerky, as if unwilling.
“I’m tied to it, aren’t I? Not just able to be tracked by it, but tied to it. Joined. The blood diamond and the bracelet that the Son of Darkness was wearing. And because of that, I’m tied to him.”
She murmured, “You are likely tied to the Blood Cross, and the bracelet, and the diamond.”
“So . . . what do I do?”
Molly shook her head. “I don’t know what. But I have a bad feeling that we’ll find out soon. And worse, Lachish may be able to see that you are tied to a black-arts artifact. She’ll know just how dangerous you are and how dangerous Joseph Santana is. And she may want to kill you for it.”
“She can try,” Eli said.
“The biggest failure of that night was that no one went back and beheaded the vamps,” I said. “I should have. It was my job.”
“You were hurt,” Eli said. “You had to get the children back to their parents.”
“So I didn’t finish my job. Making all this my fault.”
“Leo knew. It was the MOC’s ultimate responsibility,” Eli said. “The buck stopped with him. And he played a different game.”
“Game,” I said. “Vamps have always played games with human and witch lives. I doubt it’s changed much now. I have to wonder if it ever will.”
CHAPTER 13
Manis and Pedis and Gossiping About Boys
When Eli and I pulled away from the curb in front of my house it was after dark and we still had no idea where the murderer had laired during the day. We had no idea where he would attack that night. We hadn’t killed him, hadn’t even tracked him. And Molly had no idea how to keep me from being tracked by the blood diamond—which was in my gobag, to keep it away from Molly. Not that I believed she would give in to temptation and use it. Unless she thought she had a reason. Kinda like me, but way worse. I might be able to use the stored energies in the diamond to power . . . something. But Molly could use it, direct its energies like a precision tool, her death magics melding with it. And forever changing who she was. Her death magics told her that she should use it.
I saw Mol’s witch energies flow over the house, warding it as we drove away, her once blue-tinted power now shot through with other colors, none of them pretty.
I slumped down in the seat, pressing Jodi’s cell number on speed dial. There was no answer and it went to voice mail. “Calling you at the woo-woo room,” I said, and pressed END before hitting her office number. When she answered, she should have sounded professional. Instead she sounded snarked out. “What the hell do you want?”
“Dang caller ID,” I muttered. “Update for law enforcement. We found an old lair today. No bad guy there.” A true-dead vamp lying on the floor, but there were a lot of reasons not to tell her just then: the jurisdiction was murky on dead vamps, Jodi didn’t have time to work up a cold case, and she wouldn’t care about dead vamps while humans and witches were in danger. “Alex is working through old property records for possible lairs for the suspect. Leo is searching for hard copies for the same and for human blood-servants who might still be alive. Eli and I are heading to vamp HQ. Did you have your little talk with Leo yet? And if so, did you play nice or did you haul him in to NOPD in the trunk of a car in broad daylight?”
“That interview has yet to take place.” Jodi’s voice rose into a snarl. “The governor nixed it. So you tell the MOC that the city’s in lockdown thanks to his fangheads. That means no tax money from restaurants, hotels, or other sources of tourist income. Meanwhile, every cop on payroll is on duty and riding the streets, two to a car. It’s costing overtime—lots of overtime. Law enforcement morale is at a post-Katrina low at the same time that the populace as a whole are getting itchy trigger fingers.” Her words sped up and I held the cell out for Eli to hear better, though I doubted that he had missed anything so far.
“Every guns-and-ammo business in the city and most of the parish has sold out of silver-lead-mixed ammo and handguns, and inventory of high-powered rifles is down to single digits. Liquor sales are at an all-time high, making the populace trigger-happy and mean. And we’ve already pulled a dozen drunk and armed good ol’ boys off the streets. They’re in lockup now, making a racket I can hear in my office.”
Which was in the basement. Right. I started to comment but Jodi rushed on. “The media is bitching about witches and vamps, and to make my day even better, the state senators, representatives, and the oh-so-not-helpful governor are heading down for photo ops in time for the evening news. Which I have to attend,” she barked.
“Ah,” I said, understanding. Jodi was an investigator first and foremost, not a pretty-faced spokesperson for the TV screen. “How about the Master of the City asks you and the government bigwigs to his headquarters for a little tête-à-tête about the ongoing investigation?”
“I have a better idea. Ask him to invite the PTBs over and do a press conference. Without me!”
I gave an uncertain huff of breath. Leo was a totally political animal, and on-screen, he practically glowed with elegant bonhomie, but informing him he needed to play kiss-up wasn’t what I had planned for tonight. The MOC didn’t like it when I got bossy. “Ummm . . .”
Jodi pushed. “I can get the politicians to vamp HQ in time for the ten o’clock news. Tonight.”
“I can ask.”
“Do that. Call me back.” The call ended.
“You need a girls’ day, you two, manis and pedis and gossiping about boys.”
“Bite me, Eli.”
My partner just chuckled.
* * *
The crowd of protestors and spectators was bigger than I had expected. Way bigger. They lined the sidewalk beneath the second-story gallery across from the Council Chambers six deep, and the smell of booze and weed was strong. So was the smell of aggression. I could hear them muttering through the body of the armored vehicle. Muttering and shouting the usual vamp hate slogans. Vamps go home. (Where was that?) Humans only. Kill the vamps. Stake the vamps. The usual. But there was an underlying energy to it this time. Aggression. Anger. Purpose. They got louder as we pulled into the circular drive in front of vamp HQ.
Cops, both on scooters and mounted—on horses—patrolled up and down the street itself, keeping the travel lanes open. There were two marked cars patrolling the side streets. When we emerged
from the vehicle, the shouting got louder. They knew who I was. The entire group took up the catcall. “Vamp whore! Vamp whore! Vamp whore!”
Wasn’t that sweet?
They got louder with the insults as we climbed the steps to the front entrance; the armored glass did little to mute the taunts. We were decked out in vamp-hunting gear, the new headsets, and weapons, which meant we had to go through the usual pat-down by HQ’s armed security guys. These were the new guys, who had come in from Atlanta after I beheaded the master of that city, and while I had worked with them, I didn’t know them as well as I did some of the older men. They weren’t good ol’ boys, but they were just as jumpy as the rest of the New Orleans populace, maybe more so, because the Son of Darkness had to have a grudge against anyone at his former prison, and he had mad powers. If he wanted back in here, he could make that happen, and that meant he’d likely come through them. No one would be safe. In fact, I seriously doubted that anyone would be left breathing. Or unbreathing.
At the elevator, Eli said, “I’ll be on sub-four.”
“I’ll meet you there when I’m done.”
Leo’s office door was open. I had never arrived there to find it open, and seeing it wide made me feel off-kilter. The MOC looked fine, however, and was sitting in his swivel chair to the side of his desk, where I could see him, staring at the large screen mounted behind his desk. One elbow rested on the desk, his head on that hand, his legs crossed. He looked like a human city boy, a metrosexual, dressed in slacks and a loose shirt, relaxed, and gorgeous enough to make women and most men drool.
The security monitor was synced to his TV screen, giving Leo a vision of both main and back entrances in continuous view, and a rotating series of screens from other cameras. There were too many cams for one person to monitor, and before the current troubles, I had been working to arrange it so that the less-used cameras were run by simple computer programs that would collect data, collate the changes—people passing, whatever—and show only the changes, when called upon. That job wasn’t finished yet. A lot of things weren’t finished yet. If I died, someone else would have that responsibility.