Legacy of the Shadow’s Blood

by E G Bateman

  “Well no, that’s true, but who do you complain to—Congress?”

  The woman barked a laugh and began to cough again. She yanked the handkerchief out.

  “I think, in this instance, your concerns might be unfounded. I know what’s been going on across the country and Kindred weren’t even aware of it until it had mostly all blown over.”

  “Well, I’ve been wrong before. Time will tell.” Geraldine walked forward and touched her family tomb. “So, do you plan to spend your final moments reminiscing in front of my father’s tomb?”

  “My final? Oh!” In his melancholy mood, he’d failed to consider the sun’s imminent rise.

  Her brow furrowed. “You don’t have family here, do you?”

  “No. No, I don’t.” He knew what she was asking—"Do you have a family tomb to hop into?” Happily, the answer was no, but he didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t want anyone to know he could walk in the sun and hoped Betsy wouldn’t say anything. A little disconcerted, he looked around. While he could reach cover at vamp speed, he wouldn’t leave his friend there alone.

  “I’m sure my father wouldn’t forgive me if I allowed you to fry in front of him.” Geraldine unscrewed a bolt and removed the front stone from her family tomb. It would have been heavy but even at sixty, her shifter strength made it appear as though it were no heavier than cardboard.

  Dick looked inside the tomb with horror. His gaze darted about, looking for a reason to not have to climb in there wearing a designer suit.

  “Come along dear, hop in. We can’t have you flaming up, can we?” Betsy appeared to be enjoying it.

  He glowered at her. “Yes, of course. Right.” Reluctantly, he slid feet first onto the top shelf.

  “There’s a good man. I’ll pop back for you at sunset, shall I?” His so-called friend could barely contain her glee.

  Geraldine prepared to replace the stone. “You’re lucky. They took the bricks from the front and pushed Dad down the back a few months ago when I got my diagnosis. I’ve had a reprieve of sorts so I won’t be joining him quite yet, but it’ll be soon enough.”

  “Geraldine, I’m sorry to hear that. Thank you so much for this. You’re exactly like your father.” He looked at Betsy, who still grinned unashamedly. “Betsy dear. Without the bricks on the face, the light will come in along the edges. I’ll need you here to block the sun.”

  Her jaw dropped.

  “In you hop.” He patted the stone ledge.

  With the shifter safely behind her, she gave him a withering look. She sighed and rolled her eyes to acknowledge that she knew she’d been caught by her smart mouth and climbed up.

  Geraldine replaced the front stone. “Don’t do anything in there to disgrace my father’s memory.”

  “Geraldine!” Dick was horrified.

  They listened to her laugh and cough as she walked away.

  Betsy wriggled in an effort to get comfortable. Finally, she rested her head on his chest. “We won’t be here until sunset, will we?”

  “No. We’ll give it half an hour or so, then make good our escape.”

  She stretched to touch the wall. “I think this would be the hardest part for me.”

  He looked down and spoke to the top of her head. “We don’t usually sleep in tombs.”

  “Not that, silly.” She slapped his shoulder, then sighed. “Everyone dying. Friends, family, loved ones. Making friends knowing you’ll lose them. Falling in love, knowing—”

  The vampire kissed the top of her head. “You’ve always had an incredible knack for getting to the heart of things.”

  She was silent for a moment before she asked, “What happened? In Europe.”

  “Oh, the usual story. Boy meets boy. Boy takes part in inadvisable practices and dies. Boy comes back.”

  “When you came back as your grandson, Harv and I used to talk about all the ways you were so similar to our William. But we’d talk about the differences too.”

  “I think people see what they want to see.”

  “No. I think in many ways, you are different. You were quite the hot-head, exuberant and excitable. When you returned as your grandson…” Betsy straightened suddenly and hit her head. “Ouch. What was that? Your heartbeat?”

  Dick chuckled and rubbed her head. “It does now and then. I like to think that vampirism isn’t a true death. It’s merely…very close.”

  She settled again. “What will happen to you, when you die?”

  “Do you mean heaven or hell?”

  “No, you goose. I mean your body.”

  “Well, I recall you once told me you and Harv held a lovely memorial service for me. So that’s already done. I suppose I’ll simply blow away in the wind one day.”

  “I don’t think so. I’ll leave instructions with Lexi and Dolores that when you go, you’re to be buried with us in the family plot. I think Harv would like that.”

  Dick was choked up. He knew, if Betsy could see in this dark place, she’d see tears welling in his eyes and cleared his throat. “Come on, she’s gone. Let’s get out of here. God knows what this has done to my suit.”

  “And my dress.” Betsy shuffled out of the way to allow him access to the front.

  “I suppose, but I care less about that.” He unscrewed the bolt and peered through the brickwork at the top.

  Satisfied that they were unobserved, he climbed out and lifted her to the ground.

  She was laughing. “Dick, you really know how to show a girl a good time.”

  He smiled. “In my defense, showing girls a good time has never been my forté.”

  “Do you not mind being called Dick?”

  “I’ll tell you a secret but you must never tell Lexi.” He paused until she nodded. “I rather like it. It’s like being a secret agent with a new identity. Dolores will make me a new passport and driving license for my Dick identity when I’ve decided on a surname.”

  They dusted their clothes off as best they could and wandered toward the exit. Betsy read names out from the tombs as they went. “What about Trudeau. Dick Trudeau.”

  He tried it. “Dick Trudeau. No, too many hard consonants.”

  “Dick Nicholas?”

  “Dick Nick?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, good point. Ooh, here’s a good one. Grayson. Dick Grayson. That sounds—”

  “Familiar? Dick Grayson is the Boy Wonder. I am no one’s Robin.”

  “You’re kind of Lexi’s Robin.” She smiled.

  “That’s Scott. He is Lexi’s Robin. I’m more like—”

  “Batgirl?” Betsy laughed.

  “Betsy!”

  The vampire stopped at a tomb covered in writing with beads and other paraphernalia scattered at its base. “This is Marie Laveau’s tomb.”

  She put a finger out and touched a marking of XXX. “Lipstick?” She frowned at her fingertip, which was now red.

  “The three Xs are voodoo prayers to Marie. This is how people usually get her attention rather than stealing her jewelry. Do you have any requests while we’re here?”

  The woman patted the tomb. “I think I have everything I’ll ever want and more than I could ask for.” She turned to him. “Let’s go to the apartment. It looks like we’ll both sleep through the day.”

  As they walked through the Quarter, he mulled over Betsy’s last response.

  Women really are a mystery.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Three hours later, the morning was overcast and hot as the street cleaners made their way through the Quarter. They moved down sidewalks and swept disposable cocktail cups into the street to be gathered by street cleaning vehicles that moved slowly and loudly behind them.

  Lexi and Scott entered Jackson Square.

  “I heard it raining in the night. It belted down for all of ten minutes. Why is there no difference to the humidity? This can’t be normal.” She tried to adjust her leather vest as they walked.

  A man in a business suit stared as he passed. She gave him her warning lo
ok and he averted his eyes.

  They stopped roughly halfway across the width of the square and stood before the doors of the cathedral. She retrieved the photograph, looked from it to their current position, and estimated that they were roughly in the same place now as she had been all those years before.

  In silence, she turned in a circle and scanned the area.

  Scott looked from her to the cathedral doors and back again. “Anything?”

  She turned the corners of her mouth down in an exaggerated frown and shook her head. “Not a thing.” Irritated, she shoved the picture into her pocket.

  They continued to wander around the square. She turned to her companion and pretended not to notice the hostile looks she received from the fortune-tellers seated at tables, where they prepared their little street businesses for the day ahead. “Did Dolores get back to you about her contact here?”

  “She’s setting up a meeting and she’ll call later this morning,” he replied absently. He wasn’t looking at faces and instead, stared at the tabletops as they passed.

  “What are you looking at?” Lexi focused on the tables too.

  “I’m curious to see which tarot decks and other forms of divination they use.” He glanced at her before he returned to his curious study. “Professional curiosity.”

  Lexi pulled him out of the way of an oncoming bicycle. “Professional curiosity? Since when have you ever used props like cards or tea leaves? I didn’t think that was the way of a mage and his sorcery.”

  “It’s not really. They take magic from the earth and I take it from the air. We use it differently too, but it’s essentially the same magic.”

  Scott turned away from the tables after receiving many suspicious looks. “I’ll be happy to get out of here. God knows how the local Kindreds cope. These people are so hostile it makes me uncomfortable.”

  “Same here.” Lexi adjusted her vest again. In so many ways. “Kindred are probably the ones to blame. I don’t know how they run this town but I can guess.”

  As they turned onto Decatur, two men approached. The large one smiled at her to reveal a gold tooth and the other held a bottle and a rag. She glanced at the bottle and wondered if it was chloroform. The men moved directly toward them.

  “Good morning, my friend.” The large man addressed Scott. “I bet I can tell you where you got your shoes.”

  “I’m sorry?” He frowned in confusion.

  “I can tell you the city, the state, and the exact name of the place.” He smiled at the sorcerer in a friendly way that put Lexi’s guard up.

  He looked at his low-tops. They were regular Converse.

  The man continued. “I can tell you where you got them. If I’m wrong, I’m gone.”

  She was about to tell the guy to take a hike when Scott grinned. “Okay.”

  “My name is Tyrone and this here is Julian. What’s your name, my man?”

  “Scott.”

  “Well, Scott. If I’m right, you’ll tell me the truth, okay? Shake my hand.” The man held his hand out and he shook it.

  While they were shaking hands, the other man crouched and squibbed a creamy substance from the bottle onto the front of Scott’s Converse.

  “Hey!” The young man was surprised.

  The man leaned toward Lexi’s boots and she stepped back quickly. He glanced into her eyes and returned his attention to Scott’s feet, took the rag, and polished his trainers.

  Tyrone continued to talk. “I said I’d tell you where you got your shoes—the city, the state, and the exact place. Well, I can tell you, my friend, you got those shoes on your feet, in the city of New Orleans, in the state of Louisiana, and the exact place is right here on Decatur. That’ll be forty dollars—twenty dollars each for the shoeshine.” He flashed the gold tooth again.

  “I didn’t do the lady,” Julian told his friend. The large man glanced at her and she simply inclined her head with her brow raised. He looked at Scott with a smile. “Twenty dollars.”

  The sorcerer’s jaw dropped. He looked at Lexi and she smirked in response. As he focused on the man again, his cheeks colored. Then, to her surprise, he grinned. “You totally got me.”

  “Yes, sir, we did.” Tyrone smiled.

  Scott withdrew a twenty from his pocket and passed it to the guy. “I’ve paid more for a valuable lesson. Thank you, guys.” He shook both their hands and they continued.

  “Considering you basically got mugged, you look remarkably happy.” Lexi’s eyes narrowed.

  He pointed across the street to the Café Du Mondé, “Beignets! I’ve been dying to try them.”

  As they crossed the street, a scream made her glance over her shoulder. Tyrone’s pants were on fire. He yanked a pile of burning dollars from his pocket and dropped them wildly. While he patted the flames on his pants out, his friend stamped on the burning money, but the blaze didn’t extinguish until all the money had turned to ash.

  Scott skipped ahead of her and opened the café door. She raised an eyebrow at him as he smiled and looked at the overcast sky. “It looks like a beautiful day for learning, all round.”

  They ordered at the counter and waited until the coffee arrived alongside beignets, barely visible under a mountain of powdered sugar. Scott took one but made the rookie error of breathing in as he went to stuff it into his mouth. The result was the inhalation of a sizable portion of sugar and a coughing fit that drew the attention of everyone in the cafe.

  “Good work, slugger.” Lexi grinned.

  He took a long sip of his coffee, then wiped his wet eyes.

  She had been looking forward to trying the square sugar-laden donuts. While she’d seen them elsewhere, she’d always felt you had to try them for the first time in New Orleans. Now, she wondered if this was the first time. She could have been in this cafe, even in this seat, and still have no recollection of it.

  It wasn’t a pleasant thought and she took a breath—well out of range of the powdered sugar—and drew the tasty-looking morsel toward her mouth. She halted her hand a few inches away, suddenly aware of a small face very close to hers. Her gaze slid to the right. It was the young girl who’d found her the night before.

  Lexi sighed and turned her face fully to the girl. “Is there some kind of tracking device on me that I have yet to find?”

  The youngster put her hand on her jacket. “You have to come.”

  She looked at her beignet and then the girl. “I’m kind of having a moment here.”

  In response, she tugged at her sleeve. “They said you have to come.”

  “Listen.” She replaced the beignet and turned in her seat. “We’ve looked at the crime scene. We’re on the case, totally all over it—”

  “It’s not the museum.” Scott stared intently at the youngster. “Someone’s died, haven’t they?”

  The messenger nodded.

  Shit!

  “Can we get these to go, please?” Lexi asked the server. She grasped Scott’s hand for a quick boost of magical energy.

  The two friends left the café and followed their young guide. They neared the crime scene and she was aware of Scott staring as she slid a finger down the front of her vest, then sucked powdered sugar from it. “What? I missed it.”

  He raised an eyebrow and shook his head. “Nothing. Are we going up?”

  “I’ll go first. You check the gawkers.” She looked at the crowd of locals who had gathered. Once again, she met the gaze of the man in the cowl and turned to her friend. “Make sure you speak to Dreadlock Gandalf over there.”

  Scott looked up. “Who?”

  When she turned to point at the man, there was no sign of him. “This town is so creepy.” She shook her head, dusted sugar from her vest, and passed the beignet bag to him. “They were so good. I left you one.” With one last swipe of her mouth, Lexi headed into the building and up to the second-floor apartment. She stared at the corpse and examined it from every angle as she tried to work out what was supposed to go where. Hands down, she would swear she’d
never seen a corpse as fucked up as this one, and given the condition she’d left some creatures in, that was saying something. When someone entered the room, she ignored them.

  A man spoke from behind her. “It amazes me how you people always get here before—whoa!”

  She glanced at the newcomer. The tall, handsome, African American man gazed slack-jawed at the body. He pulled a Dictaphone from an inside pocket, which revealed a glimpse of his police badge. She kicked herself mentally for not preparing for this. He would ask for her name and ID. Things were about to get awkward. She allowed her thumb to stray to the scar in case she needed to send him to sleep.

  He stepped beside her. In her peripheral vision, she could see him tilt his head in the same way she’d done. When he lifted the Dictaphone, he merely opened and closed his mouth as though unsure where to start. Finally, he began to speak into the device. “Male victim, late teens or early twenties, African American—”

  Lexi passed him two wallets hanging side by side from the blade of her stiletto knife and he stopped speaking. He took them in a gloved hand, flipped one open, then the other.

  Clicking the recorder back on, he continued “Jamal Simpson, nineteen. Torso has been completely splayed. Front and back of the body are both visible. We might be looking for a butcher.”

  She turned to face him. “A butcher?”

  The cop nodded as he switched his recorder off. “You can’t tell from this angle, but I’m willing to bet his spine’s missing.”

  “It’s not missing,” she protested.

  He rolled his eyes. “You know you’re not supposed to disturb the scene.”

  “I haven’t touched him. It’s over there.” She pointed a thumb behind her.

  The man turned and grimaced at the gory display of a spine hung from a floor lamp.

  “Well, I assume it’s his.” Lexi shrugged. “You said a butcher.”

  The cop turned to the body again. “Someone big and very strong, given the strength required to rip out a human spine. He’s been spatchcocked, also known as butterflying. It’s usually done to chickens. In fact, I do it to chickens when I’m barbecuing, but I don’t think I’ll do that for a while. The backbone is removed, the back ribs pulled apart, and the breastplate flattened.”