by Faith Hunter
She tilted her head and gave me a look so sly it could have come right out of the Garden of Eden. “No. I will not.”
I started to argue and then realized what I’d said. I’d already violated the agreement. Crap. “Did you drink from Joseph Santana the night he was taken?”
“Yes.”
“Did Santana drink of Immanuel, and Immanuel drink of Santana, before the rest of you got there that night?”
Bethany tilted her head in a way that no human could do, short of a broken neck. “I do not know. It is possible.”
When she didn’t elaborate, I tried to figure out a way to learn more. “Ummm. Were you there when the fight broke out?”
“Yesss,” she drew out the sibilants like the snake she looked, her locks fallen in her leap and now flared out like a hood, like a cobra. The candle flames flickered and her head seemed to swell and return to normal. A trick of the light. Her eyes, focused on me, seemed to have a dark glow.
I felt the rising of her vamp power in the air, tasted it on my tongue when I took a breath to speak. “Who was there when the fight broke out that night?”
“Joseph. Adrianna and her scion. I have long ago forgotten her name. She was always unimportant. Immanuel. Me.”
But there were only four teacups. Interesting. I asked, “Who got there first?”
“I do not know.”
“Speculate,” I spat.
Impassively, Wrassler said, “That violates the bargain.”
I let a bit of Beast into my eyes. “Who was there when you arrived?”
“All of them.”
“Who did you expect to be there?”
Her sly smile widened. “Now you begin to ask the important questions. I expected only Immanuel, Joseph, and me.”
“Why only the three of you?” And then I got it. “Oh.” To Eli, I said, “Immanuel’s modus operandi. He took power by drinking down vamps with more power than he had. He had gone away tasting like one thing and he came back tasting like something else. Like a skinwalker. I bet once he realized that he could be identified as a fraud by his blood, he quit letting people who had drunk from him in the past drink from him again.”
Bethany said nothing, her fingers stroking the bracelet like it was a cat. Like it was alive.
“Was there a coup d’état in the works against Leo’s uncle, the Master of the City at the time?”
“My little skinwalker is gaining in insight and wisdom and treachery,” Bethany said, which I took as a yes.
“Did Leo know of it?” Had he been involved in this? Did he have more knowledge than he had let on?
“No. My Leo was always loyal, if foolish and naive.”
“Was Immanuel, Leo’s son, behind the planning of the coup d’état?”
Bethany swiveled, leaned forward, and lay across the bed on her stomach, her bare butt arched up and bare feet in the air, her ankles crossed, her eyes avid on me. “The skinwalker is truly treacherous, like a cat with a mouse, its small screams piercing.” She licked her lips in what looked like anticipation as she answered more than I had asked. “Leo would never hear evil of his beloved son, his murderous and traitorous son, who tried to kill his uncle.”
Something cold and certain moved deep within me, and I asked, “You and Immanuel went to Joseph Santana to try to get him on your side?” Bethany nodded. I asked, “Maybe you offered to swear allegiance to Joseph if he’d help Immanuel?”
Bethany’s lips parted and she breathed out a soft sigh. “Old betrayals. Ancient strategies that came to naught. We had an agreement. We had bought property together. But that night when we went to share blood and join together, Adrianna was there with her little paramour.” Bethany’s face pulled down. “They ruined everything.”
I put it together in a rush. “Joseph had agreed to work against Amaury, but turned on you to work with them. They beat you to it. Did the Son of Darkness agree to work with Adrianna and the Barbie?”
“I do not know what barbie is.” She looked confused. “Santana refused us.”
“And while you were there, with Immanuel and Adrianna and her scion, a fight broke out.”
“Question,” Wrassler said, and I rephrased the sentence.
“Yesss.”
“And the necklace worn by Joseph Santana broke and the dragon went free? Biting the Son of Darkness on its way out? Biting Immanuel? And . . . Ohhh.” Understanding rose within me. “Biting you.”
“Yesss . . . ,” she hissed softly, a look of near joy on her face. “Though there was little poison left in the creature.”
I didn’t add, And everyone it bit went insane, but it was a near thing. Because it was true. Santana became a gibbering bag of bones hanging on a wall. Immanuel became u’tlun’ta. Liver-eater. Spear-finger. Bethany got less poison from the bite, but she later drank from Santana, getting more poison, enough to go insane, and she was still crazy. And Adrianna had probably been weirder than usual ever since too. Holy crap. It had to have been a long time after the SoD was hung on the walls of HQ before Leo and his pals drank from him, long enough to have muted the poison in his blood. But that poison, shared through blood from vamp to vamp . . .
I didn’t know what it might mean, but it couldn’t be good.
I said, “Who killed Barb—the scion of Adrianna?”
“Immanuel.”
“Why?”
“She staked him.” Bethany shrugged again. “He was defending himself.”
“Did you bring him to Leo as well as Joseph Santana when they were injured?”
“Yes. And Leo protected his son, while Amaury took the other prisoner. I thought to heal the Son of Darkness. I drank of him, though he was raving, and gave him of my blood. I do not remember aught else of that time.” She lifted her index finger. “I am done. There will be no more questions. No more answers. I am hungry and sleepy and”—she looked at Wrassler—“and I desire a partner. Find a human to spend time with me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And send these away.” Bethany curled into a fetal position, her face turned to the wall, one hand still stroking the gold bracelet.
We left her bizarre quarters and returned to the main entrance, not speaking, Eli letting me absorb the information that Bethany had provided. She had given me facts, but I understood a lot more than she had suggested. I understood what Immanuel was and why he had become a liver-eater. I understood what Santana had wanted, and how he, and his blood, combined with the bite of the arcenciel, and the taste of Immanuel’s blood, had poisoned all of the Mithrans of New Orleans so long ago. Probably making them less sane and more emotional and more reactive, more passionate and less rational as the blood of the bitten Son of Darkness and the bitten u’tlun’ta passed through them, one by one.
Santana had planned to take over as chief fanghead of the United States, starting with Amaury Pellissier. I was betting he still wanted that, and with his insanity decreasing with the ingestion of so much fresh, healthy blood, and so many years gone by to leech out the poisons, he was probably going to go for it again.
Layers upon layers, plot atop scheme atop conspiracy. The vamp way. My way of life now, until I settled things there, served out my contract, and left. And I would never, ever know enough to predict anything. I’d always be flying by the seat of my pants, because vamps’ hidden histories held all the informational treasure. That and Reach’s files. I pulled up the business number and punched CALL.
“Wise Ass,” Alex said. Yellowrock Securities. YS pronounced as only a teenaged boy would, but only when he saw our number on his screen. That had been made plain.
“Did Reach know anything about the night that Joseph Santana was taken? I ask because it goes back to what Satan’s Three knew and what they might have passed along to Adrianna. And Dominique. And combined with the info Leo gave us, it might tell us where Santana is now.” I thought for half a second and added, “I remember from the land deeds there was property in Barataria. That was where Immanuel had property before I killed him.�
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“That was pretty obvious, Janie,” he said, sounding sullen and cranky and more than a little snarky. “I’m working on it. But were-blood isn’t easy to clean away from drives, and so far, I haven’t found which drive that history’s on. I’m still looking for the index file so I can figure out what’s what. You’ll get it when I get it.” He ended the call.
“That’s my bro,” Eli said, amused.
“That’s sleeplessness,” I said.
“Yeah. It is.”
Being sleep deprived was a problem for us all. Mistakes happened when people were sleep deprived. Tempers flared. We needed either downtime to regroup, or to end things and then take off a week to snooze and recover. Just trying to keep all the vamp relationships in place was enough to drain me mentally.
“So,” Eli said as we started down the last flight of stairs to the main floor. “What did you learn in there?”
“I learned that the bite of an arcenciel makes vamps insane, maybe forever, or maybe just for a century or so. I learned that drinking from a vamp bitten by an arcenciel makes them unstable, if not insane. I learned that a vamp who had been drinking from a skinwalker and then was bitten ends up like the Son of Darkness, raving and chained to a wall.”
I stopped and put a hand out to stop my partner so I could finish while still out of earshot of anyone else. We were still several feet above the main floor, looking down on everyone there. I tilted my head so no one could later read my lips on security camera footage.
“All this, all this mess, is because a skinwalker, someone like me, took DNA from a vamp’s body and blood, probably planned to kill him and eat him, so he could live longer, forever, in one immortal form, at the top of the vamp food chain. All this death and problems and vamp insanity is because a skinwalker—Immanuel—practiced black magic, blood magic, and then was bitten by an arcenciel. And those who had shared his blood at some point, and/or who were bitten by the arcenciel, they were affected too. So that means that . . .” I went silent.
It meant so much—it meant everything, or it meant nothing. Hope welled up in me. “There were no u’tlun’ta until the white man came. So that means that maybe . . .” I stopped again, unable to voice that rare unexpected hope.
Eli did it for me. “That means that becoming a flesh-eating monster is a communicable disease, the result of a bite from an arcenciel that then can be passed to others. And that disease condition affects different species in different ways. Vamps one way. Maybe witches another. Maybe skinwalkers another. So becoming u’tlun’ta isn’t a final, unavoidable, horrible way to die.”
I nodded. I might not become u’tlun’ta. I might be free.
“Fine. How’s that gonna help us locate Joseph Santana before he gets hungry again?”
That was the big question. And I had no idea.
CHAPTER 25
We Could Play . . . Strip Poker
As it turned out, I learned nothing from either address. Santana wasn’t there, hadn’t been there. No stink of burned vamp, no dead humans, no Dominique. I was fresh out of ideas until Bruiser called and Eli and I went to meet him.
* * *
“Remind me to never let you set the venue for a meeting again. There is zero shelter in the event of a firefight and zero security,” Eli said at his first glimpse of the vamp graveyard.
“The location wasn’t my choice. This is where she said to come,” Bruiser said. “One does not say no to the outclan priestess Sabina. Besides, we’re much more likely to be decimated by Molly’s death magics than by a hail of weapons fire.”
I wasn’t sure, but Eli might have shivered. Just a little. Bruiser parked the SUV and we got out, stretching our legs. I adjusted my weapons, my hand finding the hilt of Bruiser’s gift, the curved knife he had given me. The blade itself wasn’t as functional or as sharp or as strong as one of my modern vamp-killers, but it carried a prophecy of sorts that might save my life if it came to that. I was taking no chances and was carrying everything that might give me an edge, no matter how bizarre.
It was just after dusk, and we were the first to arrive at the vamp cemetery. The moon was not yet up and the sky was a vibrant red in the west, fading to purple overhead, and to twilight black in the east. The sun’s last rays glinted on storm clouds moving in. Far-off lightning flickered through the clouds. The mausoleums glowed white in the dim light, throwing black shadows, making broken patterns where they intersected the white shell pathways. The vampires carved to look like angels on top of the mausoleums looked almost real, as if they would lift wings and fly, swords raised in battle.
As per instructions, we moved to the center of the cemetery, where there was a small grassy area about thirty feet wide and vaguely oval shaped. Eli caught my attention and twirled his index finger. He melted into the shadows to check our perimeter. In the distance a night bird called. Nothing answered. Silence settled on the cemetery, the resting place for dead vamps. And we waited.
Lachish and Molly were late, traveling together, still going over the possible pronunciations of the wyrds of power, which was harder than it sounded. They had to sound out each part of the wyrds separately, giving each syllable its own space and not overlapping the vocal reverberations, which might activate the spell. Wyrd spells could be dangerous.
In the papers I had given him, Bruiser had found half a dozen of the ancient spells, all in Latin, none with proper directions, and all with dire consequences if not performed properly. The witches had narrowed the useful possibilities to three, one a summoning and two that created traps, like jails made of power. Snare of thorns was like Molly’s hedge of thorns, a spell that had saved my life on more than one occasion. Since the snare had failed to hold the SoD last time, the one the witches were using tonight was different. And probably a lot more dangerous. It was certainly more powerful.
But we three nonwitchy types weren’t depending on magic. We were decked out in our best leather vamp-fighting gear and were loaded to the nines with weapons. I even had my Benelli M4 Super 90 tactical shotgun.
The M4 was loaded for vamp with hand-packed silver-fléchette rounds made by a pal in the mountains. Fléchettes were like miniature knives, which, when fired, spread out in a widening, circular pattern, entering the target with slicing, lethal force. The fact that the fléchettes were composed of sterling silver decreased their penetrating power but made them poisonous to vamps, even without a direct hit. There was no way a vamp could cut all of them out of his body before he bled out or the silver spread through his system. And there had been nothing in my bargain with Leo about silver. Loopholes sometimes made me happy.
I opened the cock, inspected each round with eye and nose, and tested the weight distribution. I hadn’t taken the weapon into battle conditions since Eli had given me the shotgun-shell holder, which was mounted on the left side of the receiver, giving me quick access to an additional six shells, but changing how the weapon rested in my hands and how it drew from the recently modified spine rig. I slid the weapon into the sheath, feeling the slight catch on the shell holder. I always had to be careful how I drew it, but more ammo in a battle was always better than less.
I also had two nine-millimeter semiautomatic handguns, six extra mags, ten vamp-killers of various lengths and weights, three throwing knives—what Beast called her killing claws and her flying claws—and my sterling stakes, which had been returned via Edmund Hartley and a blood-servant. The blades and stakes were held in sheaths, loops, specially designed pockets, and the shafts of my boots. The modern, mundane gear was heavy. Not so much the arcane gear.
On a thong around my neck, underneath the silver-plated titanium gorget, I had the sliver of the Blood Cross in a velvet drawstring bag. The blood diamond, this time wrapped in a lead pouch, the kind I kept my crosses in when I wanted to not insult a vamp, was tucked beneath the edge of my vest, over my heart. Lead worked to damp vamp energy, so maybe it would work on witch energies and keep Molly from recognizing it. I could hope.
A second vehicl
e pulled into the cemetery lot and parked beside our SUV. It was a soccer mom’s sports van with seating for six—eight in a pinch, and it was packed with people right now. Molly and Lachish stepped out of the front doors. The back doors opened, and without consciously knowing why I pulled it, I was suddenly holding the M4. Eli appeared behind the van and said softly, “Halt. Raise your arms. And do. Not. Move.”
Eight women halted, but they didn’t raise their arms. My heart rate went into overdrive. There was too much cohesion here. Too much precision of action. They turned to face Lachish, and their witch power rose, a humming, raw beat of power that thrummed into the night. Eli was about to be a witch-fried Younger. Or the witches were about to become hamburger. “Molly!” I barked. “Are you in your right mind? And can you speak for the absence of compulsion on the witches with you?”
“Son of a witch on a switch,” she cursed, realizing what was happening. She stepped to the side and lifted her arms. Independent action. “Yes. We’re good. No vampire has been close to us.”
I swallowed my heart back out of my throat and said, “More.”
Molly hesitated a beat, tucking a strand of red hair behind her ear, and then chuckled. “Last time I was in this city, you made me prune a tree with my magic.”
What I had done was make her kill a sapling, but saying that would have let the witches know just how bad Molly’s little problem with her magic was. “They’re good, Eli,” I called out. My partner vanished again into the shadows and the hum of power emanating from the witches died away.
“What just happened?” Lachish demanded.
“You stepped out of the van like a dance troupe, organized and of one mind,” I said. “Like you might if you were all under compulsion of a vamp mind.”
“We’ve been practicing a working,” Lachish said, her tone severe and laced with sarcasm. “Of course we were attuned to one another.” Which made sense, and would have been nice to know ahead of time.
Before I could reply, I felt a tiny pop of displaced air and found Sabina standing at my elbow, her eyes black and flat and empty. I caught myself before I reacted, fighting to keep my adrenaline from spiking in surprise, a reaction that might be interpreted as fear—not a good reaction in the presence of an apex predator. “Sabina,” I said carefully.