Broken Soul

by Faith Hunter

  Sabina said nothing, did nothing except to rock, and I cleared my throat, feeling way worse than I did when I’d been called to the principal’s office as a kid.

  “One Mithran and her blood-servant are dead. The dead are Batildis and the Devil.”

  I could have sworn that Sabina tried to smile, though her lips didn’t move. “This is good. They have long been a pox on this Earth.”

  “Okay. Ummm. Not so good. The lead Mithran, named Peregrinus, got away. With the arcenciel. And he’ll be back. Revenge and all. And unfinished business with Joses Bar-Judas.

  “A onetime friend told me also that Peregrinus was coming for me, for the icons I have in safety. For the things Leo has, or might have in the safe on sub-four.”

  Sabina gave a slow sigh that stank of old blood. Her breath, so seldom used, always had the scent of old death. I tried to ignore it. “L’arcenciel. Essendo luci. Titles I had thought never to hear again. Rainbow. Being of light or light-being in an archaic dialect of Latin,” she said. “With the arcenciel, Joses, and enough blood, Peregrinus will be strong enough to defeat all. This I understand.” Her brow wrinkled. “Knowledge and secrets are much harder to maintain, hidden, in this day and this age. Once, all one had to do to hide great secrets was to kill the humans who knew of it. No longer.”

  All you had to do was kill the humans. Right. But I didn’t say it.

  Sabina met my gaze. “What do you wish of me, she who walks in the skins of the beasts?”

  “I’d kinda like to use the sliver of the Blood Cross.”

  She rocked. And rocked. Beyond the windows, I could feel the sun starting to rise. The color of the windows was clearer, redder. The candles, oddly, seemed to cast less light, the shadows shrinking and becoming denser. It was nearly dawn. I knew Sabina was old, but I figured that she still needed to be out of the sunlight, probably sleeping in the huge stone sarcophagus in front of the chapel. The one with her likeness carved in the stone.

  “Do you believe?” she asked. Reading my confused expression and maybe my scent patterns, she went on. “Do you believe in the cross? In the crucifixion? In the resurrection? That the Christ was transcended, ascended to heaven? Do you believe?”

  I swallowed, buying the time to think, knowing that she would smell any dissembling, any lie. Knowing that my answer was important to her. History, if not religion, had always been important to this priestess. And, the more I learned about the origins of the vamps, maybe religion too. I took a shallow breath and held out my arms as if to display myself. I said, “I am human flesh, bone, and tendon. Yet I can change shape and form, like magic, and become an animal. I know that there is another place, maybe another universe of energy and matter, but in a different form. It may power my own . . . what we call magic.

  “I have a soul, that lives inside this body, but isn’t caged by it. Even in another form, I can still maintain my identity, the sanctity of my spirit, of my soul.

  “I live in a world with vampires and werewolves and Mercy Blades and les arcenciels,” I said, stumbling over the French, “who use a magic I can’t even begin to comprehend.” I frowned and dropped my arms. Her expression hadn’t changed, but she shook her head slowly, which didn’t seem like a good sign.

  “My best friend is a witch. I’ve seen her do what looks like magic with her gift. I’ve been healed with the magic of Bethany, the priestess, once, by Leo once, and by Edmund Hartley more than once. I’ve seen Leo raise his magic in such power that it burned on the skin of my arms. If I believe in magic, in power that I can’t understand, how can I not believe in more, in stuff that’s supernatural and holy and even bigger than the power I’ve seen myself?

  “I don’t think that we know everything that happened back then.” I pointed to the bier that held the Blood Cross. “I don’t think we understand everything that we think did happen or that we were told did happen. But there was power left in the cross and in the nails, the power of his blood. The Sons of Darkness just stole it and made it evil, as humans always make things evil. So . . . yes, ma’am. I believe.”

  “Even though you are Chelokay?”

  Chelokay was one of the ways that Cherokee had once been pronounced. “Even though,” I said. “The belief systems are not in opposition.”

  “The white man’s Christ and his priests declared the skinwalkers to be the evil ones, the devils. Before Batildis’ Chelokay blood-servant was called the Devil, the skinwalker was the devil.” She cocked her head, sniffing, reading my face, my body language, my scent patterns. “And yet, you believe. Why?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. The hope of things unseen,” I paraphrased, “faith, that is. That kind of hope. I want there to be something bigger, something better than the rest of us.”

  “And if there are many things bigger and better than humans?”

  “Not my problem,” I said, suddenly tired. “I don’t care. There are bad guys, and demons, and horrible things that go bump in the night. Other things that are good, the kindness of strangers, angels on wings, messengers from above. Even a priestess in a vampire graveyard.”

  “I am not good. I am not kind. I am a far worse devil than the human so named and now dead.”

  “Maybe so. I still need the sliver of the Blood Cross. I still have to kill Peregrinus.”

  “To save Leo Pellissier and his wanton lovers Katherine and Grégoire?”

  “I’m between the devil and the deep blue sea. So to speak.”

  Sabina’s chair stopped rocking. And it was empty. I didn’t even hear the pop of displaced air as she moved. She was standing by the stone sarcophagus. The lid weighed, like, four hundred pounds and she lifted it, opened it with one hand, casually, the way I might lift the lid of a jewelry box. A moment later she closed the lid, softly, gently, as if it were made of cardboard. Her back to me, she said, “You would use the cross made evil by Ioudas Issachar?”

  “With your permission.”

  When she turned to me, she was holding a small drawstring bag. “You know its worth. That this artifact is invaluable, irreplaceable. It has left my hands only twice before, in all the long years it has been in my safekeeping, the second time to you. Now you will take it from me yet again.

  “Remember my warning. To prick the skin of a vampire with even a sliver of the Blood Cross will cause him to burn, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, unto true-death. This shard of the Blood Cross will destroy the descendants of the Sons of Darkness. All others of the dark will sicken and likely die, possibly including one who walks in the skins of beasts.”

  I nodded. I had heard her warning before. And who knew what effect a black-arts, blood-magic device, one created to bring a dead human man back to life, would have on anyone, human or supernatural.

  “You will return this to me when the Mithran Peregrinus is true-dead.” Sabina held out the small drawstring bag, silk velvet outside, padded within.

  I took it and felt something inside it, long and slender, like a small stake. The sliver of the Blood Cross. Yeah. Priceless. I tucked it into my shirtfront, careful to place it so it wouldn’t pierce the bag and my skin and maybe kill me, and also so that I wouldn’t bend wrong and break it. That seemed like a bad idea.

  “Thank you, Sabina. Oh. One more thing. Tonight, a white werewolf stuck in wolf form, one who met the angel Hayyel, ran up and bit the foot of Joses Bar-Judas. Should I be worried?”

  Sabina burst out laughing. It sounded like a dying seal honking combined with a set of ancient gears scraping, unused and dried out and so very not human. Vamps weren’t supposed to be able to stay vamped out and laugh at the same time, but I had to wonder about Sabina, because the sound was nothing a human throat could make. It gave me the willies.

  I realized she wasn’t going to answer me, so I nodded and backed to the door and out onto the porch. Her cackle followed me all the way.

  Eli was waiting on the porch, a weapon in ea
ch hand. “What’s that noise?”

  “The priestess, finding joy in my tale about Brute biting the Son of Darkness.”

  “Yeah?” He leaped off the short rise to the path below and led the way back to the SUV. He took the driver’s side this time and I let him. As he cranked the vehicle, we could still hear her laughter. Eli said, “I can’t say why, but that laughter doesn’t inspire confidence.”

  “Our situation could be pretty grim. Either Brute will turn into a vamp-werewolf or Sabina likes the idea of the Son being bitten. Or something much, much worse. I’m betting it’s the one behind door number three.”

  “Not taking that bet,” he said as he drove out of the vamp graveyard. The gate closed behind us. It didn’t creak or groan. Sometimes vamps lose the perfect opportunity for scary ambience.

  “One question,” I said as we drove into the sunrise. “The other priestess, Bethany, told me that, ‘Together we can ride the arcenciel.’ What do you think that means?”

  “Rodeo?”

  I laughed, the sound normal and human but tired. I was so tired. I yawned. And slumped in the seat. And fell asleep. Eli let me rest until we got back to New Orleans, waking me when we stopped at my house. I couldn’t remember when I’d last really slept, and I stumbled through the side window and to my bed, where I collapsed again into dreams.

  • • •

  I woke sometime later, still fully clothed, to see the weapons and the sliver of the Blood Cross on the bedside table—thank goodness not on me where I might have rolled over and shot myself in the butt. I had been dreaming of Bruiser. His image hung in my mind, an image remembered from his bedroom—shirtless, pantless, everything-less except the important bits. Beast purred in the back of my mind. “Stop that,” I said to her.

  Bruiser and I still hadn’t talked about that day. I pulled out my handy-dandy bulletproof cell phone. I had messages, but nothing from Bruiser. Even knowing that Peregrinus or a human techie could trace any call I might make, I sent Bruiser a message that said, succinctly, Call me, dang it, and rolled back over into sleep and into dreams that left me both agitated with longing and satisfied. Some dreams are better than others, and as dreams went, these were excellent.

  • • •

  It was midafternoon when I woke again and this time I stripped and showered, hoping the cool water might stand a chance of waking me up. It did clear my head, and it also allowed me time enough for my subconscious and dream-state mind to present me with a plan. It wasn’t a good plan, but any plan is better than no plan. It also gave me time to figure a few things out.

  Hair braided up on my head with sterling hair-stick stakes to hold the large bun in place, wearing jeans and socks and a sports bra and tee, the small bag containing the sliver of the Blood Cross hanging from my gold chain, I left my room. Eli, looking wide-awake, was cleaning his weapons at the kitchen table. Sitting cater-corner from him, Alex was working on his tablets. The Kid leaned back and switched on a fan that emitted a low-level hum of electronics. It wasn’t hot in the room, though the air conditioner was humming outside, which meant he was using the fan as a low-tech voice dampener.

  I poured tea that someone had obviously set to steep when they heard me get up, and I stood at the table near them. Added creamer and sugar. Cognizant of the fan’s noise level, I said softly, “When was someone going to tell me that Bruiser was one of the people that Bethany took with her when she went gadabout last night?”

  Alex’s head jerked and his heart rate sped, though his eyes never left his screens. Eli’s heart remained steady and his hands stable on the weapon he was laying out. “When we knew for sure,” Eli said. A hollow place opened up inside me. I had been guessing, but—“And then when you woke. No point in waking you to tell you something you can’t do anything about, now, is there?”

  “You do know that talking so reasonably is one surefire way to tick a woman off?”

  “The woman of my dreams has so informed me.” He said it with a grin, an odd one for him, showing teeth, and he added, “And Syl accompanied the information with a head slap, which led to the most amazing—”

  “Stop. Not interested,” I said.

  “I am,” the Kid said.

  “No,” Eli and I both said together. Family was so wonderful. But Eli still had that odd note about him. I watched him work as I sipped, worry for Bruiser worming through me, growing. He should have called by now. “So do we have video of Bruiser and the nutso priestess leaving vamp HQ together?”

  Eli tilted his head at his brother, who fiddled with a tablet before swiveling it toward me. I sat, straddling a chair, holding the warm tea mug/soup bowl in both hands propped on the chair back, to watch. Bethany was shown on three screens, dashing through darkened vamp hallways, some floors and walls streaked with blood. Brute was on her trail, racing close at her feet, his muzzle black from biting the thing on the wall, the thing called Joses Bar-Judas, and his crystalline eyes seemed to glow with light. Not good. Bethany had to know he was there.

  She passed one of Derek’s men. Hi-Fi, short for Vodka Hi-Fi, a mixed drink and his team name, spun from an all-out run as she touched him, to follow her. Hi-Fi and the werewolf raced after her to the front entrance, where the way was blocked by a group of men, scruffy guys in night camo—the cloth blacks and grays—and carrying guns. In front of the group was Bruiser and the two other Onorios. I hadn’t seen Brandon and Brian since the arcenciel attack. It looked like they had gone somewhere and returned with backup.

  Bethany paused long enough to reach out and touch Bruiser, standing in the busted-out entry. He was dressed in Enforcer regalia, leather and weapons enough to finish his own little war, but when she touched him, he went still; then he whipped in behind her and raced away with the others. Brandon and Brian followed. Brute was still with her too, like a good dog following its master. Hi-Fi moved after them, stumbling at first, then moving with purpose and picking up speed.

  “She rolled Bruiser, Brandon, and Brian,” I said. “I thought Onorios couldn’t be rolled.”

  “Maybe not by an ordinary suckhead,” Alex said, “but it looks like a priestess might be different.” Slower, he said, “A priestess who was mostly responsible for George rising as an Onorio and not being turned into a scion chained to a wall. Or dead. Maybe she left a, you know, like a back door, into a firewalled system. She has the password.”

  I grimaced and tried to ignore the spike of reaction. I was not jealous. I was not. “And the twins?”

  “I got nothing there,” Alex said. “I don’t know when or how they were changed from blood-servants to Onorios. But if Bruiser’s method—essentially dead, then brought back by the priestess—is the only way, and it may be, for all we know, then maybe she brought back Brandon and Brian too.”

  “Bethany, Brandon, Brian, Bruiser, and Brute,” Eli murmured. “You got some good alliteration going on there, Janie.”

  “Ha-ha,” I said to Eli. “Fine,” I said to Alex, and pushed the tablet to him. I glowered at nothing and sipped my tea. “Any way to track where they went?”

  “No. Sorry. Power went out in the Quarter, remember? The only reason we have this much is the one generator that came back online.”

  “Is there any way to track them later?”

  “His cell is off. I can try to ping it. Or try to turn it back on. But if Peregrinus is in our systems, he’ll get the data and location, and know that we’re interested in it. In George.”

  I glanced at the fan, sipped my tea, and thought. Eli wasn’t talking much. He was too quiet. “I called his cell earlier,” I confessed. Neither guy said anything, but I knew they were thinking that it was a stupid move. “Do we know where Peregrinus is?”

  “No,” Alex said. “But we’re all in agreement that he’ll be back tonight.”

  “Without his backup, since they’re all dead.”

  “Except for the arcenciel,” Eli said, his
tone mild.

  No one answered. I sipped some more tea. Worried about Bruiser. Then I sighed. “I need to try something. Practice something.” I shrugged. “I need to enter the gray place of the change and see if I can see Soul or the hatchling. And maybe get a fix on Bruiser.”

  “You can do that?” Eli asked, his voice calm, sedate, nearly toneless, the tenor that told me he was preparing for battle. I should have picked up on it already.

  “I have no idea. But I think I need to try.”

  “You could just text her,” he suggested, sounding quietly rational.

  “This is about more than just information. If we have to fight the hatchling, and Soul shows up and takes the hatchling’s side, we might be toast. You know, since we have no idea what her powers are.”

  “And if she tries to eat you while you’re in the gray place?”

  “Hope she gets heartburn?”

  “Not overly funny,” Eli said. “Don’t quit your day job for the comedic stage.”

  “I’d need better writers. Better sidekicks too. Guys with wicked T-shirts, tights, capes, and way-cool masks.” They ignored me. I set the mug/bowl on the table and stood. “I’ll be outside for a bit.”

  “I’ll keep watch,” Eli said, still not looking up from the weapons. Hands moving as fast as Beast might, he began reassembling the nine-mil. I watched as it practically flew back together with fine, delicate little clicks. He slammed the magazine home and racked the slide to load a round, removed the mag, added a final round, and slammed it home again. He stood and gestured to the windows at the side of the house.

  I went through one, Eli behind me. I climbed up on the rocks at the back of the house in the rock garden that had been part of the requirements for me to come to New Orleans in the first place. I still didn’t know where Katie had gotten boulders or how much it had cost her to have them shipped in, but they were much the worse for wear, several chipped and ground down to a medium rock sand from the times I had needed mass to shift into an animal bigger than I was. Beast had stopped asking to be big so much recently, since I gained a few pounds.