by Faith Hunter
On the security cams recording from inside the Regal, I watched as my party walked away. And the SOD drank two humans down as if they were bottles of cheap wine and tore out the throats of two fangheads. No one died true-dead, as scions rushed in to save everyone. But the SOD was a bloody little bastard. I was going to enjoy putting the rabid dog down.
“Janie,” Alex said. “I got word about the Shookers, that witch family you mentioned. They answered their phone and seem to be fine. The circle you spotted was theirs. They said they’d put up stronger wards. They also checked in with the other witches in the area and all are okay. They’ll notify us if anything changes.”
* * *
* * *
The rest of the morning dragged by. Molly and Shaddock’s human Enforcer—who went by the nickname Bunny, for reasons no one thought to share with me—and Gee DiMercy were discussing options and plans without including me. When I requested, politely, I thought, to be part of the discussions, Gee made a little fluttering motion with his hands, like a bird fluffing his wings. “My mistress, your primo was torn from your mind and from your binding. Has that state been remedied?”
I scowled at them, which was a fearsome sight; I’d seen my half-form scowl. But Bunny laughed, a silly little titter. She stood all of five feet and maybe a hundred pounds fully clothed. I could break her in two with my half-form fingers, but she wasn’t scared of me. Weird. “No,” I said. “Ed isn’t back inside my head.”
“Then we will discuss all our plans with you once they are finalized, my queen.”
I’d been dismissed. I had discovered that my half-form didn’t need much sleep. It was full of energy too, a constant low hum of the need to run, to fight, to do something. I was so tense my shoulders ached, nerves close to fraying. Anything. So I paced like a cat in a cage, my braid whipping around like a snake on a string. A Medusa cat. Which might have been funny under other circumstances.
Through the windows, I caught a glimpse of the two human Everhart sisters, Regan and Amelia, wandering around in the snow, heavily weaponed, chatting, heads together, pointing and gesturing as they walked all around the inn and cottages. I must have missed something while I slept. Last I’d heard, they were in Asheville. I asked and was told that they had been escorted in, by Lincoln Shaddock’s scions Holly and Gerald, at great personal danger, through the storm. I watched as the two human girls—young women—built a fort and started a snowball fight with Shaddock’s humans.
When I couldn’t take it anymore, I left word with Alex and raced into the icy world. Snow crunched under me, my back half-paws breaking through the top crusty layer. The cold felt wonderful, and inside me, Beast rose and stared through my eyes. Hunt and eat deer in half-Beast form?
Gack. No. No way. But a hard run, and checking out the grounds. Our nose is pretty good in this form. Let’s see if we can find where the spotted big-cat came onto the property.
Beast is not nose-to-ground hunter, she chuffed. Jane should hold on to tree.
Why? I asked as I gripped the narrow trunk of a young tree.
In an instant, she opened the ancient neurological pathway, the parts of my brain she had augmented with the stolen sensory ability of the bloodhound we had been several times. Its olfactory system was intense and shocking and I stumbled against the small tree.
Beast chuffed again, amused. Jane is silly puppy falling in snow. She sent me an image of a clumsy pup face-planting in fluffy powder.
Ha-ha. I don’t remember it being this intense, I thought at her. Slowly I caught my balance and breathed in through my open mouth, over the scent sacs that were all Beast’s, letting the myriad scent patterns settle inside me. Pine and oak and maple and rocks and ice and snow and intense smell of the inn, with vamps and humans and witches, each with his and her own individual pattern.
Vamps smelled of herbs, funeral flowers, green peppers, blood, sex, and barbeque.
My people smelled of . . . clan. Of home. Of littermates.
Big Evan scented of testosterone and ham and magic. EJ of urine and mischief, which I had no idea had a scent until now. Angie reeked of magic so strong it hid any scent of her own from this distance. Molly was the smell of milk and motherhood and anger and death. I/we parsed her scent, able to deduce by scent that she was fighting for control every moment that she lived. She was locked down so tight her scent aura practically squeaked with the nervousness and pressure.
We don’t have KitKit, I thought. She can’t possibly control her death magics for long, not as upset as she is.
Beast can care for Molly, she thought at me. Hayyel made Beast better cat than little mouser KitKit. Beast is better everything than KitKit.
She sounded certain, almost offhand, as if she really could help to control Molly’s magics. And if the angel who haunted my life had given her something, some power . . . You want to explain?
Beast ignored me.
Fine. Though it wasn’t. I hated it when Beast hid secrets from me. I drew in air and located the spotted-cat scent. Racing through the cold, Beast and I hunted the big-cat. We trailed him for two miles, through the snow, until his scent disappeared at a plowed road. And we lost him. I knew who it was, who it had to be, by the time I lost the scent. And I was all kinds of stupid for not knowing who it was the first time Beast smelled the cat scent. I was an idiot.
It was a long jaunt back to the inn, and I did a lot of thinking on the way.
* * *
* * *
By noon, my nerves settled by the hours outdoors, we were joined by the two witch sisters, Cia, a moon witch, and Liz, a stone witch, riding on yet more brightly painted snowmobiles through the newly falling snow. Carmen wasn’t with them, nor was Bedelia, the two witches not willing to take Carmen’s child into the weather—which was unpredictable at best—but this was more Everhart sisters than I’d seen in one place since I killed their older sister Evangelina. Shaddock had arranged the transport for them and for our people still stranded in the city, a dozen snowmobiles roaring up and depositing riders and passengers.
I felt the weight of worry fall off my shoulders as Eli trudged into the house, taking in the new inhabitants. He mumbled something about Janie’s bizarro battalions and needing a shower and a power nap. He lifted a thumb to me in passing and went to his suite.
My honeybunch dismounted, followed Eli in, and slid in behind me at the window, wrapping me in his arms. He kissed the top of my head, his Onorio scent heated and his hands steady, no longer shaking with weakness. At his touch, all my tormenting energies melted away and I realized I had been worried, edgy, until all my people were back. “You get some vampire blood?” I asked, sighing, resting back against him.
“Those sips from Shaddock last night, love, had a delayed reaction. I began to feel better within an hour and I’m well enough for now. We found inflatable mattresses in the church and slept quite well until we were rescued.” He nuzzled my hair. “I’ve been offered the blood of Thema or Kojo when they rise at dusk. I’ll be fine until I can drink from them. What are they doing?” he asked of the people in the snow.
“I have no idea. Apparently I am not to be told war plans until after the fact.”
“Ah.” His lips smiled against my hair. “The onerous job of the queen. Waiting.”
I grunted.
The Everhart sisters and some of Shaddock’s humans had finally started work with a set of trenching shovels and snowmobiles, racing around the inn and the cottages, tracing and digging a narrow trench around the property, the engines loud enough to wake the undead, and their voices complaining loudly that the humans always got the hard-labor jobs while the witches and vamps always got the sexy jobs. By listening silently, standing in the shadows, we learned that the trench was part of the Everhart-Trueblood defense of the inn. It was going to be the biggest hedge of thorns they had ever made. Bigger than I had ever heard was even possible. In spite of their grumbles, the worke
rs were energetic and laughing.
“I rested well for a few hours, but I think I’ll take a nap,” Bruiser said. “Tonight may be long and miserable.”
“Or the snow might get worse and nothing might happen.”
He kissed the top of my head again. “We can always hope.” Bruiser left me at the window and trudged up the stairs, like Eli, looking for a power nap before nightfall.
CHAPTER 12
Something with Fins. Or Wings.
“Are you sure about this, Janie?” Eli asked through the windshield.
I/we nodded. Eli had put chains on the tires of an SUV, loaded in enough weapons to take over Asheville, and gassed up at one of the few places that had electricity this soon after the snow and sleet, and this far out of town. We had headed west, toward the area where Beast and I had seen the bright lights, not talking, but listening to Cia’s boyfriend on his latest album. Cia was dating country singer Ray Conyers, who had a voice so smooth and perfect and full of sexual passion that it had to come from the devil. Seductive and able to slide into roughness that felt sexual and intense. Made me want to cry in my beer with him, except for the whole “doesn’t have a beer” thing.
When we ran out of scraped roads and new songs and only fresh snow lay before us, piled up in drifts on what might still be a road (but there were doubts), Eli pulled over. I said, “I’m not sure what I’m looking for.”
Eli gave a soft hmmm of sound and checked over one of his new toys. It was a high-tech bow that was all angles and strings and round doohickeys.
“I’m not sure what I’ll do when I find it, whatever it is.” Eli gave that soft sound again, unconcerned, letting me talk. “I had to get out of the house or I’d end up fighting Brute to control my anxiety and hyper state. And my people are making plans behind my back.”
“Which is their job, Janie,” he said, setting aside the bow and picking up something that looked like an oversized target pistol. “Let ’em do it.”
“I hate it when you’re so calm, when I’m so not.”
Eli made a small hint of a mocking smile. “Sucks to be you sometimes . . .”
“Not helpful.”
Which only made his taunting grin spread.
I climbed out of the vehicle and crunched across the snow to hunch behind a boulder heaped with snow and ice. I stripped, folded my clothes, shivering and miserable, and shifted to Beast.
* * *
* * *
Slinking slowly from drift to drift, Beast carried Jane folded clothes back to SUV. Dropped clothes at tire. Crouched. Gathered body tight. Leaped. Landed on warm hood. Shoved our face at windshield. Showing teeth. Snarling. Eli didn’t look up. He just gave tiny lip quirk that passed for human smile. Began speed-loading magazines for white-man gun. Beast dropped belly to top of warm SUV engine, thinking. Was still thinking when Jane woke in Beast mind.
What are we doing?
There is no prey to chase at inn, Beast thought. Want to chase wild turkey.
You know they can fly, right?
Chase bison in Edmund car.
Not happening.
Window came down. “Com’ere,” Eli said.
We leaped to ground and raised up, putting front paws on SUV, shoving head inside where warm air scented of Eli and home. He reached out and secured gobag around our neck. “I got food, a gallon thermos of coffee, new reading material, and a few new weapons. I’ll put out laser monitors and cameras on the bumpers once you’re out of the area. I have a signal”—he waggled his cell at me—“and if you start wavering in and out of range, I’ll send you a ping on your cell.”
I/we lifted a paw to gobag next to gold-nugget-and-cougar-tooth necklace we never took off, and peered at seat beside him. Fanned out on it were slippery papers called magazines.
Jane read: Guns & Ammo, Handguns, RifleShooter, and one titled Garden & Gun. That’s for the highbrow, überwealthy, übersnooty, übershooty types.
On top of papers was Eli newest toy, called tech bow.
I/we chuffed at it and Eli said, “PSE Archery Carbon Air ECS 32 Compound Bow, in black. Fifteen hundred dollars. Modified to fire handmade arrows constructed of carbon fiber reinforced with ash wood and plastic with silver tips.” He patted deadly toy. “I’ll be here. Take as long as you need.”
I/we leaned in and swiped at his neck and ear with tongue. He tasted of Eli. We snorted into his ear.
“Stop that,” he said, laughter hidden in tone. “Go do whatever it is you need to do.”
I/we dropped to ground and trotted into snow, leaping and dodging rocks and fallen trees. It was midafternoon.
Jane thought, I’ll give us three hours or until the snow starts again, whichever comes first. The storm front isn’t stuck over us, but it’s a narrow band, several thousand miles long, and it originated in the north pole. It’s riding along the ridges of the Appalachians. We’ll have more snow or sleet or freezing rain soon.
Hate sleet.
* * *
* * *
Beast jumped into the nearest tree and clawed her way up. We paused there and she sniffed for male big-cat. She got no hint of cat, but did smell bear and squirrel and owl and maybe a hint of magic, though it vanished as fast as it came. She leaped to the next tree. And then the next. Covering ground fast. I let her run, chasing whatever she wanted, while I thought.
Molly and I once had a conversation about my soul home. The gist was that Molly wanted to know if it was a real place. I was pretty sure it was. At the time I had believed the limestone cave was located near the white quartz boulder where I found my Beast shape, near Horseshoe Mountain. But now I had other thoughts. Now I thought it might be located near the Nantahala River gorge, near the spot where my father had told me I was expected to care for my baby brother. In the memory, I had looked down at my feet, and they had been small next to my father’s. My mother had been pregnant. I must have been just past my first shift. The gorge was a sacred place for The People. So all that made sense. But I was more than a hundred miles from the Nante—the Nantahala River—and nearly that from Horseshoe Mountain, via rough terrain on foot. I had to make time to go search for the cave, in case Moll had been right about the importance of the physical cave itself to my well-being. Soon. As soon as I killed some more fangheads.
Beast came to a stop. We were perched over a narrow cleft of gorge. From deep below came the shushing of fast-moving water, falling through boulders. Beast remembers cave, she thought at me. Door? Opening to cave?
The entrance? I thought back. Like a dark place in the face of the earth?
Tsalagi covered it, like Puma concolor covers kits to keep them safe? She sent me a vision of a tiny black space at the base of a small ravine. Water plunged down not far away. The woods smelled deep and green and alive in her memory, so it was before the hunger times. Or long after. Was good hunting. But door was too small for Beast to enter. Beast will take Jane there when Jane kills enemies and kit killers and bloodsucker vampires.
Holy crap. You know where my soul home is.
Beast did not leave scat at cave. Did not mark territory.
That’s not what holy cr—Never mind. Can you find it again?
Beast does not know if opening was cave of Jane’s memories. But sound of faraway falling water was like this. Smell of forest in winter was like this. Sun was over ridge from place of setting. Tall mountain was to place of sun rising.
Beast brought up the smell/sound/taste/look/directional sense of the memory. The all-in-one sensation made me vaguely nauseous.
Jane in We-sa form hunted with Edoda. There was much small prey there, rabbits, fun to chase. Beast looked up at the cloudy sky, found the sun in the west. Was not here. But Beast can find place of small door into blackness.
Soon, I thought at my other half.
Soon. Will hunt rabbits near cave where Edoda taught We-sa to hunt?
Yeah. I’d like that. Next time we go searching new stuff. Meantime, I have no idea where we are. Are we heading in the general direction of the lights you saw when you landed in the stream?
Beast snorted, insulted. Jane likes to play at being cat. Beast always knows where Beast is. Jane is human. Jane is always lost.
No argument. The sun’s setting soon. Let’s get on it.
* * *
* * *
The sun nestled on the tree line when I/we saw a sliver of bright magic. If we had been in my human form we might have missed it, but in Beast sight, the magic was a coruscating, scintillating prism of power. We had trotted many miles and ended up over a narrow, very deep crevice.
You sure about this? I asked my Beast, staring down into the rock-strewn, tree-clogged dark rent. It looked as if the earth had cracked open eons ago, and a mad, dark fae had taken over. Snow clung to the rock faces for the first twenty feet down; then it stopped, where the temps changed. There, the snow down the sides of the cliffs had melted, refreezing in a glistening crystalline shell. And below that, the stone faces had held the temps above freezing. Bracken grew from cracks in the rock face. Moss draped the stones, swathed the trunks of trees that clung to the smallest fracture, and carpeted every inch of exposed stone and earth as the rocks fell away into the earth. At the bottom was green, green, green, every shade of green life. Moist air, a mist like a thin fog, rose in the chasm, wet and warmer, to freeze on the glistening surfaces or hit the cold and drip back as rain. The chasm had its own microclimate, an amazing little place in the deeps, and I wanted to explore.