by Faith Hunter
So what did the heirs who were causing problems want with time travel? Replacing vamps took only a decade, but replacing old vamps was impossible. Once ancient vamps were dead, they were dead dead. A strange thought reoccurred to me, one I’d had before, but it hadn’t solidified, not so concrete. What if the vamp causing problems wanted to go back and change the original black magic working at the moment their kind was created? What if they wanted a way that would allow them to keep their souls and regain an afterlife? To daywalk and live like humans? Maybe to not have to drink human blood to live?
It was that same moment, that act of black magic, that arcenciels wanted to go back to also, but their goal was to destroy the Sons of Darkness before vamps could be made. War could be on the horizon as the two paranormal groups considered timewalking back to the beginning of vamps.
My mind circled back to the scene of Sabina watching as Bethany and Adan killed Ka. They had been standing in an iron witch circle. I flipped the current page of the timeline over and drew a sketch of the black square in a concrete floor and set it with the iron witch circle. To show dimensions, I added stick figures.
When I was done, I slid it to Bruiser. “Have you ever seen an iron witch circle like this? In a black square?”
His face pulled down in thought. “No. Maybe?” He rested his chin in his palm, elbow on the table. His sleeves were pushed up, and the fine hairs on his arm made Beast perk up.
Mate . . . she thought at me.
Bruiser said, “I vaguely remember seeing a section of a black marble square tile with a line of iron in it. Somewhere. But it was just the one tile. Not a whole circle. Is it important?”
“It might be,” I said.
His face pulled down more. “Let me think.”
* * *
* * *
I was feeling antsy. And bruised. And I needed something without knowing what it might be. Outside, the rain had let up. It was daylight, which was an impossible time to change into human shape, at least for me. But Beast had secrets and skills I didn’t have. She had changed shape in the daylight in the past.
I adjusted the gold nugget on my necklace and removed the cat tooth that hung there, just in case she wanted to get frisky and be a cat all day. Not that she usually needed it, but with my funky shape-shifting these days, I would remove any advantage she might have.
Inside me, Beast snarled and blew hard through her nose, a cat snort of disgust.
Suck it up, I thought at her.
Not caring if I got my clothes wet, I went out through one of the new narrow doors to the side porch. Bitsa, my bastard Harley, was on the porch leaning against the house. Beside it was Bruiser’s Indian. One of the boys had clearly seen that the bikes were delivered, because the last time I saw them was when Bruiser and I had taken a three-day, midsummer trip through the mountains, staying in cheap hotels, seeing my world. It had been wonderful.
I touched my bike. Freedom surged through me, the need for it, the desire for it. The certainty that someday I’d be free again, not have to be the DQ, but just a Master of a Clan, able to put my own people first. Maybe have a little fun.
I pulled my hand away. That day wasn’t today.
Walking into the yard, I studied the changes carried out at Bruiser’s orders. The gate in the brick fence into Katie’s backyard, the paved space to park a small car or turn one around. Katie’s fountain had been cleaned, and the bowl was full of rainwater. There were flowers planted everywhere along the fence walls in pots of all sizes. Fall greenery had been tucked into crevices of what was left of the boulders Katie had put here when I first came to New Orleans. Most of the boulders were shattered or broken, used for mass changes when I needed them, but one was still mostly intact. Bare-pawed, I maneuvered across the rain-slippery rock, avoiding the plants someone had put so much care into, and sat on top.
I closed my eyes and went back to my earliest meditation exercises—a candle in a dark place. I took and released several breaths, each breath slower and deeper than the one before. I kept the candle before me, the only light in the darkness.
Beast? I want to be Jane.
Why? Jane is weak.
I will never be weak as long as Beast is with me. I/we are Beast.
Out of the darkness, Beast padded into the light of the candle. Her golden eyes met mine, her mouth partly open, her killing teeth showing. We are more and not-more than we were before, she thought.
We have a lot of things to do. Sometimes I’ll need one form or the other. And right now, I need to go to HQ and check on things there.
Jane spirit is still broken. Jane needs holy water. Go to place of holy water, and Beast will shift.
Okay. Deal. But I want the shift now.
Beast reached a paw and placed it on my hand. I began to shift. Pain slithered up from her paw, up my arm, into my shoulder, and down my spine.
* * *
* * *
I woke stretched out on the boulder, human shaped, in a freezing, drumming rainstorm. Dang cat, I thought. But it was affectionate, not irritated. My clothes, however, were shredded, and I had really liked my alligator tee.
I got my icy hands under me and shoved up into a sitting position to see Eli standing on the porch with a blanket and towel. I squelched to him on my muddy bare human feet and let him wrap me in the blanket and my hair in the towel. “Wipe your feet on the mat. Go get a hot shower. I’ll have oatmeal ready when you get out.”
I nodded, pulled off my ruined jeans while wrapped in the blanket, and handed them to him so I wouldn’t mess up the floors. I went inside, leaving him to wring out my pants. It felt good to hear him chuckling as I followed orders.
Bruiser and Wrassler had gone to HQ to handle some problem, and when I was dry and mostly presentable, I weaponed up over a thin T-shirt and pulled a sweatshirt over that. Beast said I needed holy water, and there were only a couple of places in NOLA where I knew I could get baptismal water. One no longer allowed me in the doors because I had befouled the pool, and the other was a new church I had never really worshiped in. I emptied my out-of-date holy water vials and tucked them into a gobag before I told the boys where I was going.
“Not alone,” Eli said. “I’ll drive.”
“I need to do this alone,” I said. “Please.”
He hesitated and Alex muttered, “Bro. She’s going to church, which she hasn’t done in months. She doesn’t even make us pray over meals anymore. Give her some privacy. Sheesh.”
Surprised that Alex had noticed that, I took a set of keys from one of the hooks by the door. Out front I beeped the fob, raced through the sprinkles to the SUV, and climbed in. I waved to the security detail as I drove off. And pretended not to see Eli racing to another SUV to be my backup. He was an overprotective idiot, but he was my overprotective idiot.
The church I once attended had been in a storefront before it moved to a better location. A new church had taken over the site, and I pulled into a parking spot down the street. I stared at the church front, thinking, or maybe just sitting in a fog and not thinking, watching people in a line go in and come back out. I realized they were homeless, entering with backpacks and bedrolls and exiting with the same but also with paper bags of food. I left the SUV, locking it as I neared the storefront and the new little church that now inhabited it. I joined the slow-moving line of homeless people of all races and ages, and some families with kids. I nodded to the man in front of me and the old woman in a soaked winter coat who came in behind me, waiting patiently with them as we shuffled forward.
Inside, it was bustling. Where there used to be two rows of chairs with a central aisle, the chairs were folded against one wall, making a wide area where tables were set up and five people behind them were making sandwiches and putting lunches together. At a different table, someone was going through neatly folded stacks of clothing and passing out shirts and jeans and occasionally a rain
slicker. At the last table was a man with a three-ring binder and an ancient laptop going through and looking up essential services and addresses that offered showers, health testing, and dentists who helped the needy. In front was the preacher couple, praying with anyone who wanted to join, teaching scripture to a small group. Few of the homeless joined that group, but it looked like the place I needed to be.
I took a chair in the second row and laced my fingers together, bowing my head. The male preacher was talking about the nature of redemption. I didn’t know if that was cosmic coincidence, God talking to me, or just the man’s usual spiel. Either way, the universe had a weird sense of humor.
“Redemption takes both faith and action, and is denied to no one,” the preacher man said. But I remembered the bright and blinding moment when Sabina lost her soul, and I had to wonder. After the short message and bible reading, the meeting ended and the couple stood around chatting with the participants. When their backs were turned, I hoofed it behind the curtain to the baptismal pool.
It wasn’t the same baptismal pool as last time. This was a new, oval, redwood, Japanese hot tub, with the benches around the sides removed. I leaned over the edge and refilled my vials of holy water, tucking them away safely in the gobag. Where I found a fifty dollar bill. I always travelled with cash and a change of clothing in case I shifted and ended up naked and alone somewhere, but I didn’t remember the fifty.
“Can I help you, sister?” a voice said from behind me. I swiveled and saw the woman preacher.
“Maybe,” I said, surprising myself. “Your husband said that redemption is denied to no one. But it’s been said that the fallen angels couldn’t be redeemed.” My brain went sideways with possibilities. “So can vampires? And are other paras cursed? What about were-creatures who were turned against their will? And what about witches?” What about me?
“Redemption is . . . complicated,” she said gently. “Angels who fell knew beyond doubt that they were fighting a war against the one true God. Redemption isn’t offered to humans who believe yet sin anyway, only to those who repent and change. Witches can be or do whatever they wish. If they desire redemption, then it is theirs. Vampires live long lives, as do were-creatures, some choosing to trade humanity for a form of eternal youth.” She shrugged the tiniest bit. “The survival of them is in the hands of the Elohim.”
Elohim. It was one of the earliest Hebrew names of God, the plural term for God, meaning gods. It was interesting that she used it. I asked, “And vampires and were-creatures who are turned against their wills? Abused against their wills?” Like Rick? The thought rang in my head like a gong, though I didn’t say it. For all his flaws, Rick had a deep and abiding need to protect the innocent. After a slight hesitation, I finished. “Do they get a chance for heaven?”
She sighed sadly. “I’ve talked with vampires. Some of them suffer horribly, not knowing. And I’ll tell you like I tell them: I don’t know. That’s in God’s hands. But they can hope. They can always hope.”
I didn’t say it, but Sabina had been hoping to find her soul for two thousand years. At some point, that hope had to fade. It might already have. I looked back at the soaking tub. The water in it had been warm to the touch. Like blood. Which made sense in a macabre way, because it was supposed to take the place of blood. I wondered if a vampire had ever tried to be baptized and burned up in the water. I frowned, remembering the pool I had fouled.
“You’re Jane Yellowrock, aren’t you?” she said, her voice low. “I’ve seen you on TV.” I nodded and she went on. “You’ve killed vampires. Are you worried that you sent them to hell?”
“If they don’t have souls anymore, can they go to hell?”
“Interesting theological question. But a debate on theology is not really why you’re here, I think.”
She was right. That was a wild-goose chase and obscured what I was really here for. “My faith has been . . . lacking,” I said. “It isn’t that I’m antiredemption, anti-God, antianything. It’s just that . . .” I trailed my fingers through the water, and it didn’t smoke or spark or start smelling like brimstone. That was a good start. “I’ve walked away from God . . .”
“Because he wasn’t big enough or powerful enough to save you and those you love?” she asked.
“No. But because he didn’t bother. And because I’ve done the same thing vamps have done. I’ve killed because I thought my way was the right way, the only way, and it turns out that sometimes there’s another way. I’m not sure if I’m . . . redeemable. Not sure if God would even want me, because like the fallen angels, I kept doing what I was doing even after I found out there was another way. I kept killing.”
The woman patted my shoulder and said, “And you also did great things for this city. Reined in the feral vampires that once preyed on the homeless. Forced them to do better by their own blood-servants. Forbade the creation of new blood-slaves. Don’t think, Jane Yellowrock, that your contributions have gone unnoticed by the Almighty. They haven’t gone unnoticed by us either.”
Totally unexpected tears filled my eyes. I had no idea what to say. Or how to say it. I turned my face away to hide my reaction.
“You sit here as long as you want.” She patted my shoulder again, and this time it felt like a benediction or a blessing. “It’s my turn to make sandwiches.”
“How much does all this cost?” I asked, my voice rough with the emotional reaction I hadn’t expected. I met her eyes and realized she was younger than I had somehow thought, considering her quiet, calm wisdom, and was maybe only in her late twenties, a dark-skinned woman with reddish hair. I waved at the interior of the small church. “Making sandwiches, cleaning and storing the clothing. Electricity. Rent. Salaries.”
“Upwards of a hundred thousand a year. Lately more, because New Orleans’s homeless numbers are growing by leaps and bounds since the vampires stopped eating them.” She smiled. “I really have to go now. But if you want to come back, we have prayer meeting every day at six p.m.”
I handed her the fifty dollar bill and said, “Thank you.”
Her eyes lit up. “Thank you, sister.” She left me by the soaking tub.
I bowed my head and whispered, too quietly for any human to hear, “I’m sorry. I’ve doubted you were enough for me. Doubted you cared for anyone. But . . . you let me find the rift. Just buying that property so close to it was a coincidence. Or maybe the rift opened because of all the magic stuff I brought with me. Sooo. Maybe . . . you sent me there? You set all this up? If anyone could play a long game, you could. You know, since you have all that omniscient power and cra—ah, stuff.”
God didn’t answer, but then, he never had talked to me the way some people said he talked to them. “What am I supposed to do now?” I asked. And again, no one answered. I wondered if that meant it was okay with God if I made my own decisions.
I lifted a hand at the woman preacher on the way out the door and headed to my vehicle.
Eli was propped against my SUV door, his face unsmiling but not looking ticked off either, so that was good.
I said, “Hey, bro. You out here scaring the homeless?”
He tapped his earbud and slanted his eyes at me.
I said nothing. Didn’t react at all.
“You aren’t making a stink about me following you,” he said.
“No. Just doing your job. I get it.”
He gave an Eli smile. Sort of a twitch.
“How many others did you bring with you?”
“Only three. Two SUVs are situated at both ends of the block.”
I handed him my gobag. “Holy water. Make sure it’s shared where it’s needed. And tell Alex to send ten K from my personal account to the church. They’re doing good work on a shoestring.”
“You heading to HQ?” he asked.
“Yeah. How ’bout you drive, and we chat, and one of the security guys can drive the other vehicle
back home.”
I got more of a real smile this time. “Sounds good.”
* * *
* * *
We pulled up at the back of HQ and parked behind three box trucks, delivery guys unloading tables and folding chairs and linens and other assorted wedding paraphernalia. Between groups of sweaty men showing way too much butt crack, Eli let me out under the porte cochere, and Derek directed me to the side, where he put me through the security measures as if I was a guest or one of the delivery guys.
“Cute,” I said to him.
“Dark Queen’s orders,” he said, with a trace of a snarky grin. He was wearing black jeans and a T-shirt and that hint of snark on his face as he clipped a security band to my wrist so I could be tracked. I didn’t argue. I had, after all, helped create all the security protocols. Once I was trackable, Derek stepped back and said, “Morning, Legs.”
And that just warmed my heart strings. Legs. Not my queen or something else stupid.
He indicated the ballroom entrance and said, “Check out the preparations. Wrassler’s in there, nervous as a cat with nine tails. Maybe you can calm him down some more, though you were brilliant to send Deon to help. We had no idea he was a wedding planner as well as a chef.”
Deon was a wedding planner? I sent Deon? Nope. My Consort sent Deon. We trailed the delivery people to the ballroom, and I stopped in the open door. The stained glass in the overhead arches glittered, casting brilliant light across the piled up deliveries, the columns, and the ballroom floor. The stained glass wasn’t open to the sun. The “windows” were set into a dropped ceiling of arches, lights above them, to fake the appearance of sunlight in the vamp-safe room. There were rows of metal seats in two sections with a wide aisle down the middle. A woman in jeans and a tee was dressing the chairs in one-piece outfits and adding little blue bows. Another woman was directing the placement of the tables, ordering the men around like a drill sergeant. Wrassler was standing in the corner, arms hanging limply, a look of woe on his face.