by Faith Hunter
* * *
I rode back to Seattle, taking in the sights as the clouds grew more ominous overhead and rain started to spit down in hard, widely spaced drops. The buildings were a charming mixture of new and old, towering and modest-height, nestled into the terrain as if they’d been tossed and landed where happenstance chose. The pace of life here, this late at night, was leisurely, with only moderate traffic and no sense of urgency.
The Space Needle was amazing, and Beast peeked out to get a good look, snarling, Too tall to use for watching prey. Stupid human buildings. After that, she disappeared from the forefront of my brain again. In spite of her disdain, part of me thought I’d like living here.
Underneath the usual white-man smells of modern life, Seattle smelled of fish, stone, raw wood, and green earth. It smelled of rain—lots of rain—tropical-forest quantities of rain—and freshwater lakes and the Pacific Ocean and a sense of freedom I hadn’t expected. Though part of that might be from getting out from under Leo’s and Bruiser’s and even Reach’s thumbs. Unless I gave them opportunity, like with the pay phone call, they couldn’t find me tonight without a lot of work and a lot of luck. I stopped for gas and washed more blood, now dry, off my boots. It ran in thin trails across the pavement.
Near the Fisherman’s Terminal, at the wharf, I found a coffee shop still open and wheeled the bike in. I got an extra-large chai latte and a big blueberry scone and pulled out the laptop I’d stolen from the vamp house. I went online and did some research into flights out of the city. There were plenty of commercial red-eyes leaving, heading east, but nothing direct to New Orleans until morning. I’d be getting in near ten. I needed to be there a lot sooner, but I had no choice. I booked a direct flight with one stop, but no flight change, which cost me over five hundred dollars, but I didn’t quibble, and—not able to use cash for a flight since 9/11—I used the one credit card I was pretty sure no one knew about. I borrowed the coffee shop’s phone and left a message at the shot-up airport where the borrowed bike would be, then rode the bike to Sea-Tac, Seattle Tacoma International Airport, and left it in short-term parking with a hundred-dollar bill in the saddlebag.
With two hours left until my six a.m. flight to New Orleans, I cleaned up in the ladies’ room and ate in a terminal restaurant that served overpriced, overcooked, undertasty food. I settled in for a long night. Having brooded myself into a total funk, I pulled out the fancy, heavy cotton envelope and turned it over. My name was on the front in a flowery, curlicue, old-fashioned script that looked like calligraphy. Old vamps had the best penmanship. They’d had centuries to perfect it. Whoever had written the two words had managed to imbue my name with elegance and menace, or maybe that was just me projecting. Or maybe it was the spot of bloodred wax sealed with the imprint of a bird with a human head, maybe an Anzu.
Sniffing the envelope, I detected a faint blood-scent: peaty, spicy, and a little beery—the now-familiar blood-scent of the vamp who drained the first mate. It was an odd scent for a vamp. Even without being in Beast form, I knew it was the same vamp who had sent my attacker in Asheville, and all the ones since.
Deflecting a spurt of apprehension, I slit open the envelope and pulled out the single sheet, unfolded and scrutinized it. The words were oddly capitalized, like the way old English words were capitalized in documents to indicate their importance. Again, it was written in the calligraphy of someone who had written in script back when that was a prized skill.
You killed my Enforcer, Ramondo Pitri.
You will Die with your Master,
in a massacre such as you have never seen.
This, at a time of my choosing.
Ramondo Pitri was the name of the blood-servant I’d killed in Asheville. He had come into my hotel room, carrying a gun with a silencer, and smelling of unknown vamp. I had shot him, killed him, before I ever knew that he was a made man out of New York, not the usual vamp fodder. He hadn’t smelled like any vamp I knew, or been formally attached to any of Leo’s clans. All that had caused us to assume he was a hired killer. But as an Enforcer, Ramondo should have been known to the general vamp population and should not have entered any other master’s territory without proper papers or an invitation. And he should have stunk of his master’s blood and been deeply under the blood-bond, rather than smelling of a distant and irregular feeding. Of course, I was an Enforcer—sort of—and I had no blood-bond at all.
I turned the paper over as if looking for clues that simply were not there. I had killed another master’s Enforcer and now I had to die? And Leo had to die? And the blood-slave at the Sedona Airport had to die? And the pilot stuck to the wall of a jet had to die, as did the drained corpse of the first mate? All because I . . . what? Shot first and asked questions later?
The grief I had given into on the harrowing bike ride receded a pace, leaving a small blank slate of uncertainty on my soul. Grief, like guilt, may not always be warranted.
I folded the letter back into the envelope. I needed a cup of strong tea, but there was nothing in the airport except teabags, so I walked to a bar and ordered a pint of Guinness Draught, not because I could get a rush out of the alcohol—skinwalker metabolism is too fast for that—but because I wanted something in my hands to help me think. Holding the big glass, I sipped.
The taste brought Beast to the forefront of my mind again. Smells like vampire, she thought, and she was right, which might, subconsciously, account for me ordering the beer in the first place. Peaty and beery. Yeah. Like the vamp. I drank long, killing half the beer, feeling tension begin to drain away. I was tired and sleepy, but I pulled the letter from my pocket again and studied it. Midnight had come and gone. This read like some kind of vamp-challenge, the fanged Hatfields meet the vamped-out McCoys. If a challenge had been issued to Leo, I hadn’t been notified. I looked at a clock and discovered it was now after five a.m., Pacific time. Maybe the letter meant midnight tomorrow. Or next week. The new moon was days away.
Smells like vampire, Beast thought again. Is important.
It was the first time she had taken such an interest in my life in weeks, and I couldn’t help my internal smile. Okay, I thought back at her. But why? She didn’t answer. Big help you are.
I debated calling Bruiser and asking, and I decided it could wait. This vamp threat would be contained in the Vampira Carta or its codicils, which I had on file on my own laptop back in New Orleans and could access soon enough.
Old vampires are patient hunters, Beast thought. Like snakes, lying on rocks all day in the sun. Not moving until a rabbit—or a puma—comes by. Then striking, fastfastfast with killing teeth. Even if snake is too small to eat its prey.
Sooo. The vamp attacks me, I thought back, in the cities he’s conquered. Like a snake. Sneaky. That’s part of his war on Leo?
Again, Beast didn’t answer. Dang cat. I didn’t want to use Reach for this. Maybe it was nothing, but he’d known about each of my stops on this little excursion. Maybe my best research help was also my new worst enemy.
I pulled out a throwaway cell and considered calling Derek Lee. I thought about how he had been Leo’s ally first, then mine through a process I wasn’t sure I understood, except for the money. I had made sure he was paid for his kills of rogue-crazy-nutso-vamps, and he had backed me up on several gigs. Money created either honorable bedfellows or cheating partners, one or the other. And then there were his new guys—who might be safer and more trustworthy than his older, dependable guys. Or not. There were too many new faces to keep track of.
“Derek Lee,” he answered, succinct.
I smiled into my beer. Took a long slurp, so he could hear it, and said, “I need some intel.”
“Legs,” he said, using the nickname he and his men had given me. “And I should help you, why?”
“Because I keep life interesting,” I said. He snorted. “And because I have money and something else you want, although you haven’t figured out what, yet. No questions asked.” Derek Lee went quiet at that. I had just offered a
future favor, whatever he needed, whenever he needed it. “I need intel on Ramondo Pitri, a made man, of Corsican descent, if I remember right, out of New York.”
“That’s the guy you shot in your hotel room,” he said, his interest sharpening.
“Yeah. Turns out he was the Enforcer of an unknown vamp, who intends to challenge Leo soon. He thinks I need to die along with Leo.”
“Damn suckheads. Uh. Sorry.”
The men knew I didn’t curse and that often made them uncomfortable, as if they had mistakenly said a bad word in front of their grandma, in church. I laughed, the sound curt and bitter. “My sentiments exactly. One of your guys, Angel Tit, if I remember right, is from New York. Maybe he has contacts there he can use to dig up some history that isn’t on record.” Angel Tit was the nickname of Derek’s electronics guy, a hacker as good as Reach. Well, nearly as good as Reach.
“What? A black guy from New York should know the mob?”
“He can ask his buddies and they can ask around. That’s all I’m asking.”
I heard Derek talking in the background, the sound muffled. “He says okay, but his guys are scattered. He doesn’t know what he can find out. It’s gonna cost you, Legs. Money to grease the way.”
“It always does, Derek. It always does. Before you hang up, I need some specialists. I want an intel guy and a security guy on retainer, to meet me at dusk, at my house. The security guy needs to be someone with Special Forces training, but doesn’t have to be a marine or SEAL. Army’s fine.” He snorted his opinion of the army. “I’ll give you a finder’s fee, but they’ll belong to me.” I put delicate emphasis on the word. “Not you.” A silence stretched out. I waited, knowing that I had insulted him by saying the men I wanted had to belong to me and not him, and knowing that most people would have said something—anything—to end the silence. I didn’t.
“Money talks,” he said at last, the words almost spitting. “I’ll send you some guys. I can’t vouch for them personally, but they have good records.”
“That’s all I can ask.”
“Legs, you ask everything of a man.”
The connection ended and I had no idea what he meant.
* * *
I arrived back at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport at ten a.m., exhausted, sleepless, and shaky from lack of food. Peanuts don’t go far when one is stuck on a plane for hours. I dragged into my freebie house and stared longingly at the stove. I wanted food, but I needed something else. I divested myself of anything that might be considered a weapon—including the two hair sticks and the magic amulet, the pocket watch I’d stolen off the blood-servant in Sedona. I tucked it into the Lucchese boot box I use for jewelry. The box wasn’t pretty, but it did the trick.
After a quick shower, I pulled on clean jeans and a tee and checked my e-mail. I had a succinct one from Reach. It read “Subjects on video at airport are not identified. Not in any database.”
“I can’t get a break here,” I muttered. Irritated, I took off on Bitsa. I had things I needed to know, things that might be stuck somewhere inside me, like grease and hair in a drain, or trees in a creek, backing things up. I was frustrated and tired and wanted to hit something. Not a good way to be when I needed to think clearly.
I made my way out of the city to Aggie One Feather’s house. Aggie was a Cherokee elder, and I thought her mother might be a Cherokee shaman—sha-woman?—of sorts, not that I knew enough of my own heritage to say for sure if that was even possible. But Aggie had been working with me to find my past, the memories that were stuck so far deep inside me that they had become part of the framework of who I was, rather than separate moments that helped to shape me. And while I didn’t like a lot of the things that had shaken loose inside me, I was learning stuff I needed, and, as she put it, freeing up my spirit to continue on its journey.
In the Lake Cataouatchie area—which is mostly mosquito-infested swamp—I pulled into the shell-asphalt street, smelling smoke, and onto Aggie’s white crushed-shell driveway. The house was small, a 1950s gray, asbestos-shingled house of maybe twelve hundred square feet, with a screened porch in back. The house was well kept, with charcoal trim and a garden that smelled of tomatoes and herbs in the morning warmth.
At the back of the property was a small building, a wood hut with a metal roof—a sweathouse—and smoke was leaking from it, smoke that carried the scents of my past, herbed smoke infused with distant memories, all clouded with fear and blood. Smoke that spoke of the power of The People. Tsalagiyi—Cherokee, to the white man.
I turned off the bike and set the kickstand. Propped the helmet on the seat and walked up the drive, shells crunching under my feet. Not much stone in the delta; they used what was handy, shells. I took the steps to the porch, and pushed the bell. It dinged inside. Almost instantly, a slender, black-haired woman in jeans and a silk tank opened the door. Her face was composed, her eyes were calm, but she didn’t speak. She just looked at me. Waiting. “Egini Agayvlge i,” I said in the speech of The People. “Will you take me to sweat?”
For a long moment, she said nothing, studying my face, reading my body language, which always gave away too much to her. “I have taken one to sweat today already. I am tired. Come back tomorrow.”
She started to close the door and I said, quickly, “Please.”
Her eyes narrowed, but the door stopped closing. “Dalonige i Digadoli, Golden Eyes Golden Rock,” she said with something like asperity, “you have hidden yourself away from the eyes of your own spirit, hidden yourself away from me, so that I cannot help you. What do you seek?”
“To know why nothing matters but finishing a job. To know why I’d compromise everything to see through to the end of a responsibility I accepted, even when it hurts me and the people I love. To see why I remember an image of a bearded man, tortured and hanging from antlers.”
“You killed a man in your hotel room,” she accused, her tone without heat. “You killed the sister of your friend. I saw it on TV.”
I closed my eyes, weariness making me sway on my feet. “Yes.”
“Go add wood to the coals. Make yourself ready. Clear your mind of useless thoughts and unnecessary pain. I will come.” The door closed in my face. Rudeness from an elder of The People was almost unheard of, but I had a way of pushing people’s buttons. Go, me.
In the back of the windowless hut, hidden from the street, I stripped and hung my clothes on a hook, ran cold water over me from the high spigot, dried off on a clean, coarsely woven length of cloth, and tied it around me. I ducked and entered the low sweathouse, stepping onto the clay floor.
I hadn’t told Aggie what I was, but she knew bits and pieces of my story and probably guessed a lot more. I had originally come here, hoping she could help me find the child that I once had been so very long ago, before Beast, before I lost my memories, before the hunger times, which I remembered only vaguely, and before I was found wandering in the Appalachian Mountains, scared, scarred, naked, and with almost no memory of human language. I kept coming back because she was doing much more than I asked. She was showing me also who I was now.
Finding an elder here in New Orleans shouldn’t have been a surprise—The People lived all over the States—but it still felt like a weird coincidence the universe tossed my way, like scraps to a dog. Like fate or kismet or whatever, though I didn’t believe in any of that stuff.
I stirred the coals and added cedar kindling. Flames rushed up and lit the twigs, sending shadows dancing over the wood walls. Aggie had done some work (or hired it out, but I was betting on her doing it herself) in the sweathouse. She had added some more river rocks to the fire ring, and I pushed them closer to the flames. They were already warm to my hands, but not warm enough for what Aggie wanted. She had replaced the seating. A six-foot-long log had been cut in half lengthwise, sanded smooth on the flat sides, and lacquered until the benches shone. Then they had been placed on low cradle-shaped stands so people could sit on them instead of on the clay floor. These low
benches were slightly higher than the old ones. I was guessing that old knees were more comfortable at that height. Maybe she was the president of the local elders, and they held elder meetings here. Assuming she wasn’t the only elder round about. And assuming they held meetings. . . .
I was clouding my mind with inanities. I had a feeling that Aggie would make me wait until she thought I had gotten past that part of the process to make an appearance. “Make yourself ready. Clear your mind of useless thoughts and unnecessary pain.” Yeah. She’d make me wait. I sighed and added more wood. Time passed. The wood crackled and hissed. I moved from the log to the floor, sitting as modestly one could in a sweathouse, and I sweated.
When the coals had burned down and the rocks had taken their heat, I dipped water over them with the hand-carved wooden ladle, from the Cherokee stoneware pitcher that I coveted. Steam rose, and I sweated some more. When the coals were a red glow below a coating of ash, I reached into a woven basket and pulled out a tied bundle of dried herbs, like a very fat cigar: twigs of rosemary, sage, tobacco, which was a new one, a hint of camphor, other things I couldn’t identify, lots of sweetgrass. I set it in the coals. The herbs smoked and the smell filled the sweathouse.
I closed my eyes and dropped into the dark of my own soul. Into the cavernlike place where memories of the Tsalagiyi resided. The firelit, smoky cave of my soul home. I had been here before, in this half-remembered cavern with its sloped ceilings and shifting midnight shadows, with the far-off plink of dripping water and the scent of burning herbs, of the steady beat of a tribal drum, hypnotic and slow.
I heard the door of the sweathouse open, a shaft of light across my lowered lids, quickly darkened as the door closed. Bare feet padded close. Aggie sat across from me in the cavern of my soul home. I couldn’t smell her scent, only sweetgrass and smoke and a single breath of the cool, damp air of the cave of my soul.
Warm, wet heat and darkness surrounded us, steam rising from red coals and heated rocks piled in the center of my spirit place. She started music—drums, steady, resonant. I think I slept. And dreamed.