Blood Cross jy-2

by Faith Hunter

  Lonely wasn’t something I ever felt—not ever—but the black hole inside me was so empty, so deep, it was a caving in of my soul, imploding like a mountain falling in on itself. A separateness that might be loneliness. As I worked, tears fell from my eyes and wet the bare floor.

  When the floor was clean, the paper towels bagged on the side porch, the blood scent hidden under the chemical reek, I wiped my face and answered Evan’s call from Brazil, and then another from Molly’s elder sister Evangeline near Asheville.

  Evan had already booked a flight to the States. I’d have to find a safe place to put him. Not at my house. It wasn’t safe for anyone anymore. The master of the city was gunning for me. Witches had gotten in, along with something Beast had described as a vamp-witch. I thought I’d never heard of such a thing before, but then I remembered what Bethany had said at the hospital—that she was a witch and one of the cursed, aka a vampire. They should have been hated enemies.

  Evangeline was coming as well, her tone hard and biting. She blamed me. I couldn’t disagree. She was right. It was my fault. I called the hospital and found that Molly had gone to a private room. The charge nurse said she was sleeping; her vital signs were normal. Relief fluttered through me like butterfly wings, gossamer and diaphanous in the dark core of my twinned souls.

  Filthy, I stood under a scalding shower and let the blood drench off me. I was getting used to seeing scarlet-tinted water swirl around my feet.

  I was standing naked, damp, and chilled in my bedroom, staring at my new leathers, when the remaining wards on the house shuddered and spat. An electric banshee wail sounded, Molly’s alarm when something magical attacked.

  My front door vibrated with a massive thump I could feel through the floor. Then I smelled vamp.

  CHAPTER 15

  Hedge of thorns

  In one move, I pulled the shotgun and a vamp-killer, blade back for in-close street fighting, and advanced to the front door, planting my feet with care, balanced and ready. My heart sped, my breath went deep and fast. Beast’s claws tore into my belly, ready to fight. But the front door was closed. No one had broken through Molly’s ward.

  Barely heard over the howl of the alarm, the side door creaked. Where the ward was broken. I whirled.

  Leo stood inside, fully vamped out, eyes bled black in scarlet sclera, fingernails like talons. His shoulders were hunched, his clothes windblown, shirt open to the waist. Like most vamps, he was slender to the point of emaciation, his chest thinly haired, ribs stark and muscles like cords, no fat on him at all. He was staring at the place where Molly nearly died. His nostrils flared as he scented her blood.

  I remembered Bruiser saying that he’d been at Immanuel’s grave. He was probably deep in Dolore, on the edge of madness again. Bruiser had told me to keep crosses nearby. I had a moment to wonder which of my many sins Leo was here to kill me for. I adjusted my grip on the Benelli.

  Leo sniffed, short, quick inhalations, animal-like. Cocked his head to the side, the motion not mammalian, but snakelike. It made my flesh crawl. My fingers tightened on the vamp-killer. He sniffed again and closed his eyes, holding the breath in. He let it out with a quick plosive breath and snarled. Beast reacted with a shot of adrenaline to my system and a soft growl from my own lips.

  Leo’s eyes flew to me, to the Benelli M4 Super 90 in my right hand. His gaze traveled from the shotgun, up my arm, and down my naked body. It wasn’t the leisurely perusal of a lover, but the calculated evaluation of a predator. Of a killer studying prey.

  I shouted over the wail of the alarm. “I’m assuming you’re here to finish what you started when you came to burn me out.”

  The wail of the witch alarm went silent and I started, the thirty-second siren preset into the ward by Molly leaving a deaf hole in the fabric of the universe. If we don’t have them immobilized or dead by then, it’s too late, she’d said, with a sweet grin. My heart squeezed tight with pain. Someone had the children. Someone had stolen them. I flipped the vamp-killer, the silver catching the light.

  “Someone has taken the children,” I told him, though I couldn’t say, for sure, why I bothered.

  A hint of emotion flickered in the back of Leo’s eyes, chased like leaves in a winter wind. He blinked slowly. Took a short, shallow breath. The corner of his mouth lifted, almost unwillingly. He chuckled.

  With the sound, his eyes bled back to human, laughter always forcing a vamp back from the killing edge. They can’t laugh and be vampy at the same time; it’s two distinct parts of them, one part still human, one part predator. The red bled out of his sclera and he stood straight, instantly regaining a human aspect. He took a deep breath, the motions bizarre after the inhuman posturing.

  “Why are you here?” I asked, my voice soft in the odd hush. “Is it because I co-opted Bethany to heal Molly?”

  “I . . . I don’t know. . . .”

  “Is it the Dolore?”

  Something faint crossed his face, so fast the flesh seemed to ripple, as if a fragile sanity was torn like rotten silk. Almost as quickly, reason and control reentered his eyes. I kept the Benelli trained on him, the vamp-killer ready. He blinked slowly; black eyes looked me over, this time with a cool perusal. He brushed a strand of silky black hair from his olive-skinned face, flesh paled from centuries away from the sun, and when he spoke his voice was coolly wry. “I can’t be killed with shotguns.”

  “You can if they fire rounds hand-packed with silver fléchettes.”

  Leo tilted his head and let his smile widen, looking me over now like an entirely different kind of predator, making me acutely aware that I wasn’t dressed for company. Wasn’t, in fact, dressed at all. I flipped the knife so it was point forward. “And the knife is a silver-lined vamp-killer. Neither will kill you dead instantly, but you may not wake the morning after either.”

  Leo had a really good smile, charming, disarming, his lips mobile and full as he met my eyes. The hard, deep, full-on vamp power rolled over me. I could feel the desire to lower my weapons. Resisted. Hanging on to Beast-induced fight-or-flight response.

  “I am master of this city. Silver will not kill me easily. You have had a Rousseau as guest?”

  It took me a moment to realize he had changed the subject. “No.”

  “Rousseau scions who stink of witch blood attacked your home, in the company of two female witches, Rousseaus I do not recognize. One is a powerful master. Intriguing. I should know every Rousseau. I have been among them in their clan home. These do not live among the Rousseaus.”

  My heart raced. The Rousseau Clan. Recently allied with Mearkanis and St. Martin, I remembered. Against Leo. I knew Bettina Rousseau, the clan’s blood-master. I would have recognized her scent.

  He shook back his hair, which brushed his shoulders. “Bethany is fragile and such energy exchange is draining to her. You will accept that no one except me asks her for healing.” He said it like a command. My brows went up. With complete disregard for the gun and knife—and me—Leo turned and went back through the dark kitchen. Closed the outer door. I could see the glitter of his eyes through the shadows. “Unless you wish me to join you in your bed, get dressed. We have much to discuss. I’ll make tea.” And with that, Leo, the master of the city of New Orleans, turned his back on me and went to my stove.

  Feeling idiotic and not sure why, worried about this new, less stable Leo and the effects of the Dolore, I closed the door to my bedroom and set the weapons on the bed. I pulled on undies, jeans, and a long-sleeved T. Fuzzy socks. I twisted my hair back and tied the long wet length of it into a knot, remembering something I hadn’t recalled until now, a sharp clicking as I shifted into Beast. I’d had beads in my hair. Now they were lying in the dust and broken rocks of my garden. Inconsequential. The brain latching on to foolishness to avoid a horror.

  Uncertain of the state of Leo’s mental health, I slid four stakes against my scalp like my usual hair sticks, reloaded my derringer with silver shot, and tucked it into my waistband. It wasn’t much aga
inst the speed and killing power of a master vamp, but it made me feel better.

  I had no idea what to do next to find the children. So I was going to have tea with a possibly whacked-out vamp? Social calls while the kits were in danger? But Leo had already given me some good info: Rousseaus, or vamps of their bloodline, had the kits and they had never lived at the Rousseau clan home. And there were more than one, which was why I’d had so much trouble analyzing the braided, woven scent signature. They all had to be related. Yeah. It all made sense.

  Bettina was the Rousseau clan master. Her hands had smelled of the killers at the party. She knew something. Part of me wanted to storm the Rousseau stronghold immediately, bare my teeth, break down the gates, and beat them all for info. But when dealing with kidnappings, you had to be careful. One wrong move and . . . I breathed deeply, trying to get my thoughts under control. Not succeeding much. Beast rumbled disgust deep in my mind. Flexed her claws and cut into me. Pain cleared my head.

  When I reached the kitchen, the kettle was starting a breathy whistle and Leo was measuring out tea leaves, his shirt buttoned and tucked into the black trousers, long sleeves rolled neatly to the elbows. He looked earthy and harmless, or as harmless as a gorgeous, no-longer-human, clinically deceased man can look in his shirtsleeves. Drop-dead gorgeous. If I hadn’t been so scared for Angelina and Evan and Bliss, I might have smiled at my whimsy.

  His feet, like mine, were bare. There was something unnerving about Leo’s bare feet, long and slender with a few black hairs on the upper knuckles of his big toes. He glanced up at me standing in the doorway and back, pouring steaming water over the leaves in the teapot. “I apologize for my bit of temper.”

  That what they’re calling it? A bit of temper? But I didn’t say it, settling on “Ooookay.”

  “Katie and I used this very pot for tea during the war.” With a quick smile he added, “That would be World War One.” He set the kettle on the metal rack and covered the leaves. I put cold fingers on the derringer.

  I itched to be hunting the kits but . . . where? I ground my molars and went for cups, choosing two aqua mugs. I put sugar on the counter and got Cool Whip and cream out of the fridge. “Yeah?”

  Leo put a tea cozy over the pot for it to steep. Making tea. The normality of it all was creepy so soon after the vamped-out demonstration at the foot of the stairs. Had he called a truce? Or had he forgotten about going all vampy on me? The last time he was here, he’d been intent on burning down my house and me in it. It had to be the Dolore. How close to the edge was Leo?

  “A third cup would be nice.” His tone was mild, backed by none of the power I knew he could put into his voice. “George is outside. I imagine he would like to come in.”

  Without comment, I got out another mug and went to the door. When I opened it, Bruiser was standing there, still wearing the casual open-neck shirt and jeans. He looked at my neck as if inspecting me for damage. I was pretty sure it was relief I saw before he blinked it away. “The ward is still in place here,” I said. “If you come around to the side, you can get in without the alarm going off again.”

  He nodded once and turned for the gate. No wasted words. I went back to the kitchen and got out cookies. My hands trembled when I opened them. Angie Baby had eaten two after lunch today. Now she was in the hands of a witch-vamp, and I had a bad feeling he wasn’t giving her cookies. I struggled with tears, the unfamiliar riptide of emotions pulling me under a swirl of fear and worry and grief. I sucked in a breath, fighting for control.

  Bruiser entered just as I put cookies on the plate and Leo poured the tea. One hand on his hip, Bruiser looked at the domestic scene; his brows beetled down in worry. I accepted a warm mug from Leo. After a hesitation, Bruiser did the same, holding it as if the tea were nitro. Leo sat and indicated we were to do the same, master in my house.

  No way. Not even if it kept him from whacking out. I leaned against the counter, one foot back in case I needed leverage to leap. George sat, sipping his tea, though I knew him for a coffee man. He added a teaspoon of sugar and stirred. Taking his cue, I added sugar and whipped cream to mine. When the spoons were set aside, Leo said. “George?”

  Succinct, a soldier reporting in, George said, “The Executive Vampire Council has agreed to meet with a witch delegation under diplomatic protection.” A shock zinged through me at his words. Vamps never had official dealings with witches. The last known discourse between the two races was over a hundred years ago. George slid a scrap of paper to me. “My master’s contact with the witch clans has assured me they are willing to address the council.”

  My brows went way up. I leaned in and took the small paper, tucked it into my pocket. Leo had arranged this? This took reason. I started to relax.

  “My master also understands that another member of the Everheart family coven, Evangeline, will soon arrive in New Orleans, as will Evan Trueblood, an unregistered sorcerer. Their arrival constitutes a new full coven in his city. Mr. Pellissier expects them to act as any tourist and return home when their visit is done.”

  My heart stuttered. No one but Molly and her sisters knew about Evan. Crap. I sipped my tea, mind racing. Evangeline Everheart had been pulling strings, using her connections to set up talks. A full coven meant five, Evan, Molly, Evangeline, and the children. Mr. Pellissier expects . . . My first reaction was to tell Leo to stuff it where the sun didn’t shine, but I figured with a vamp that was pretty much anywhere. His words were tantamount to a command, and probably had import in the vamp/witch chats planned. So maybe I’d better not stick my big, clawed feet into the mix. “Okay. I’ll pass along his . . . request.” Okay, so I couldn’t let it go by without a small dig at his orders.

  Leo watched, nothing in his dark eyes, or nothing human, anyway. He put down his mug with a soft tap of stoneware on wood. I felt George tighten, smelled a sudden chemical change on his skin. Not fear, not exactly, but it was close. I gathered myself, preparing for whatever was about to happen. “You have been asking about the devoveo. Why?”

  Nerves that had been twined about me for hours tightened. I set my mug down to free my hands; Leo didn’t look quite . . . right. “I had hoped the word might be important but it isn’t. The sire of the young rogues is burying his progeny—their progeny.” I shrugged. “Whatever—in secret graveyards, in the middle of a pentagram with crosses all around. And the graves stink of witch magic.” Leo didn’t react at all, his face unreadable.

  “According to my sources he’s been stealing witch children off and on for decades and killing them, I think at the graves, witch blood sacrifices. My gut’s saying that it’s all tied in with the vamp curse, but the only way that fits, even a little bit, is one note I found about drinking witch blood being a temporary cure for the devoveo.

  “But it’s only a temporary cure. Unless someone’s trying to spell it permanen—” I stopped midword. It made sense. “They’re trying to avoid devoveo—the curse—altogether. The only ones I’ve heard about who did that were the Sons of Darkness. What are they? Could they be in New Orleans?”

  Leo went still, that weird shift from nearly human to dead immovability, a block of pale marble carved into human shape. Bruiser set down his mug, claiming my attention. He blinked slowly, his face going white, high spots of color on his cheeks; his eyes were full of warning and he gave an almost infinitesimal shake of his head. “Boss?” he said, his voice too gentle, too wary.

  What did I say? It couldn’t be a big secret about devoveo, or drinking witch blood. Crap! What else did I say?

  Everything, even the air, went still and silent, so sharp it was almost cutting, for one awful moment. “You dare speak of the Sons of Darkness,” he said, his voice the barest whisper of breath. Then Leo vanished. Phased into a blur. In the visible echo of the movement he reappeared, right in front of me, in a burst of vamp-scented air. Icy dead hands like steel bars embraced me, claws cutting into me. There wasn’t time to gasp. His fangs tore into my throat. Pain ripped through me, lightning agony. I
heard Bruiser shouting, “No! Leo, no!”

  Beast screamed, trying to shift, shift, shift now! Leo shook me as a dog shakes prey, shredding my throat. Teeth buried so deep I felt tendons snap and tear. My blood spurted across the room. Adrenaline shocked through me too late; I heard something heavy fall nearby, vibrating through the house. Beast screamed again. Her strength in my veins, I somehow got my hands up. Pulled two hair sticks, my motions slow as my own death. And buried them in Leo’s body. The angles were all wrong. Nowhere near his heart. He shook me so hard my teeth clacked together. I tasted blood, salty and sweet. The world tilted at an odd angle.

  I was falling. My blood fountained again. Landed in a bouncing heap, my blood a cascade. Drenching over a body on the floor. Spattering two legs at eye level. My carotids were severed. Again. My heart pumping out.

  Beast heaved a breath that coated my lungs with blood. Screamed and tried to shift. Got my legs up under me. Spurting blood, I/we ran toward the back of the house. Past a downed George. Crashed through the back window in a shower of antique glass and more modern storm window. Stumbled across the lawn. Beast in control.

  Darkness gathered at the edges of my vision. The world telescoped into a tiny spot of color and life. My pulse was fading. Cold clutched at me.

  I staggered toward the rocks. Something red and burning swooped up behind me.

  I sought for the snake buried in the cells of all life. I sought for Beast. But I was too injured. There was only that new emptiness at the heart of me. I managed a breath, sucking in blood mixed with the vital air. Choking. Drowning even as I bled out. I tried to cough. I fell. Landed. The rocks caught me, a cold, hard bed.

  I couldn’t remember how . . . how to shift. My hand fell on something hollow.