by Faith Hunter
We were still on the east side of the river when Shiloh’s cell warbled a punk rock tune from the ’nineties. She looked at the screen, but rather than answer, she held out her phone to me. It was purple and studded with bling. A teenage vamp from the ’nineties. Go figure. I looked at the number on the screen. It was Reach’s number. I didn’t let my face change. I couldn’t. If I did, Evan would rip the phone out of my hand and crash the SUV.
“Hello?”
“Jane?” Molly. The connection was awful, but her tone came through anyway, sounding disbelieving, as if she didn’t really believe it was me. Sounding guarded as if she was expecting me to lash out at her. “How . . . ? Really you?”
“Yeah. It’s me.”
Molly laughed softly, sounding broken, even over the static. “Your voice is coming out of the intercom. I’m either crazy or . . . dreaming.”
“Neither. I have a tech genius who made it work.” I blinked back tears. “We don’t have long, so just listen and let me recap. I have the diamond,” I said. “Everyone wants it, including Jack Shoffru, who used to hang out with the diamond’s owners, the Damours. He scammed you, thinking you had it, and got you here. Then, when you didn’t come straight to me for help, he kidnapped you, found you didn’t have it, so then he took Shiloh, one of the Damours’ scions, thinking she could tell him where it was now that she was sane.” Or maybe vice versa. Whatever.
Big Evan’s face went tight as he realized I was talking to Molly. But he didn’t backhand me or accidentally drive off the bridge into the Mississippi, so that was good. Molly said softly, “How could he know I was in town? I didn’t call anyone. I thought I had time to put my head on a pillow for just a short rest before coming to you. And he was there before I even closed my eyes. I’m so stupid.”
“No. Not stupid. Someone was tailing your cell’s GPS, overriding it. And that same someone is letting you talk to me now.” I went on, outlining Shoffru’s actions. “Jack sent some of his people to look for the diamond at Leo’s the night of the gather.”
“I don’t know,” Molly said. “I’m handcuffed in a room in a house with steel shutters on the walls. And he keeps me . . . he keeps me blood-drunk,” she finished, and I understood. It felt good, so good, when a vamp drank, the lure of seduction, the chemicals in a vamp’s blood making it seem right and good to give everything he wanted. I didn’t know how far the seduction had gone, but I could hear the shame in her voice as she said, “Every time I try to get away, he comes in and he . . . he drinks from me.”
Another burner cell rang and Bliss opened it. “We have an address,” she said softly. “A house on that golf course. And according to Alex, the car with Shoffru is still en route.”
“He isn’t there now, Molly,” I said. “He’s in a car and he’s close. Can you get away?”
“I can’t.” Suddenly she sobbed, speaking through the tears. “I can’t break through the shackles without draining someone. I can’t. I can’t . . .” She stopped, her breath ragged. “I can’t kill—” Her voice stopped and I knew she was about to finish with “anyone else.” I figured it was the first time Molly had admitted to anyone, except Bliss, that her magic had gone bad, and she didn’t want to be talking to me now. She was drunk and ashamed and wanted to hide away until things miraculously fixed themselves or she found a way out of her troubles. Bad thing about that was, troubles didn’t just go away or get all better. They took work and effort and maybe some danger. And unfortunately she didn’t have some sweet, kind, gentle person on the line. She had me. And I didn’t have time to be figure out how to be nice.
I considered what I was about to do, and stared at Evan, telling him with my eyes to keep driving and stay back. “I know about the dead plants and the danger to your family,” I said. She took a harsh breath over the connection. It was a sound one might make while peeling back a bandage to see the wound beneath. “I have a feeling that Jack Shoffru has convinced you that the blood magic contained in the diamond might be strong enough to help you control your own magic. Might keep you from killing your husband and your children.”
I saw comprehension and horror settle into Evan’s eyes. He hadn’t known. Softer, I said, “Tell me, Mol. Are you aware that you killed two vamps true-dead this week with your death magic?”
Her only answer was a sob so heart-wrenching that tears filled my eyes, and I couldn’t say anything for several heartbeats. I blinked away my misery, waiting for her to find some control. Molly exhaled, and it sounded as if she was being tortured. Evan took the exit off the bridge and onto the west side of the Mississippi. We didn’t have long, but I needed Molly, if the stupid plan I had in the back of my idiotic brain had a snowball’s chance in Hades of succeeding. I shoved down my nerves and fear and talked.
“You put a protection around your magic and around your niece and it probably protected her blood-servants through her blood,” I said, “but your magic is too strong for it. I’m thinking that it leaked out and attached itself to other vamps in the city, the youngest and weakest vamps. Your magic likes vamps because it’s death magic and they’re undead. But it’s spreading to humans too. Humans are getting sick.”
That made no sense at first, but then I got it. Somewhere in his plan, Shoffru found Adrianna, and learned about me, but Adrianna already had plans in place to kill me. Plans she couldn’t call off. It was the only reason that made sense for Hawk Head to attack me once Adrianna was with Shoffru. Molly’s magic going wild and Adrianna joining up with Jack made everything that didn’t match up, come together.
Molly was half sobbing, half choking. Her voice was muffled as if she had stuffed something against her mouth, but I heard “Yes. And I can’t live with this.”
“Shoffru’s getting close to the house,” Bliss whispered.
To Evan, I asked, “Can you break Molly’s shackles? Over a cell phone?” And the connection from electronic hell.
As answer, Evan yanked the car off the road, braked to a hard stop, and pulled out his flute. And I realized he had tears running down his face. “Molly, love. Get out. Now!” He placed his lips to the flute and blew.
The note was high pitched. Piercing. My eardrums vibrated. A headache stabbed through me. The girls in back screamed. I dropped the cell. Fell out of the SUV, I unbuckled and opened the door so fast. Landed with a rolling thud on my bad shoulder. And lay there sobbing, cursing, covering my ears against the horrible spearing notes that sounded from the vehicle. Beast screamed and disappeared from my mind. When the notes ended, I heard muffled words, Evan’s voice. And then the big guy had me in his arms, shoving me back into the SUV. He gunned the motor as I buckled in and wiped my face. “Well, that sucked,” I managed.
Evan grinned at me, and I saw the face of some ancient Viking warrior, all teeth and fury. “She’s free,” he growled, me mostly lip-reading around his beard. “Heading out a window that appears to be on the side of the house. But she sees headlights in the front.”
“Run, Molly,” I shouted. And I thumbed off the cell. Molly was free. Not safe yet. But free. I closed my eyes, feeling the tears gather and forcing them back. No time for girly crap, I told myself. Not now.
“You’re going to use her, aren’t you?” Evan asked when I could hear again.
“Molly needs direction,” I said. “She needs to accept that she killed someone. And she needs to use the gifts God and genetics and bad luck gave her to do some good, so she can get her self-worth back. She doesn’t need to be coddled or pampered or indulged. She needs to get up off her ass and use what she is and fix this situation.” And I knew, somehow, that without Molly I couldn’t do what needed to be done. I massaged my injured shoulder through the healing purple tee. I felt blood, and now that I felt it, I could smell it. I’d broken the skin again when I landed on the ground. Gravel, I thought, but the kind Louisiana uses, mostly shells, brittle and sharp. Pretty sure that was what I landed on.
“And you know that how?” he growled.
Well. This was the last sec
ret. Once I spoke in this car, it was out there for good. But maybe secrets are evil things. And maybe once the secrets were revealed, I’d be free of their weight and their remembered pain. Maybe. Still rubbing my shoulder, I said, “I know that because when I was five years old, my grandmother put a knife in my hand and made me help her kill a man.”
Big Evan blinked. Bliss drew back into the shadows of the backseat. Rachael leaned forward with interest. Shiloh just stared, her eyes bleeding red. Or maybe she just smelled my blood. Whatever. I kept an eye on her as I continued and Evan drove.
“I’ve spent all the years since full of guilt and misery, even though I didn’t remember it. I’ve let it run my thoughts, my plans, my whole life. But the experience doesn’t own me. I own it. What I do with it is up to me, just like what Molly does with her death magic is up to her.”
CHAPTER 22
The First Day I Woke Up Dead
Molly was nowhere in sight when we got to the address we thought Jack Shroffru was using as a lair, but I knew we had the right place as I walked around the house, looking it over from a distance. The foliage was dead and shriveled and wisping in the wind. There were no bird sounds, no stealthy motions of mice or rabbits or feral cats. There was no smell of anything live anywhere except the far-off stink of skunk.
As Beast and I reconnoitered, the Kid stole in to the security system and disabled the important parts—like the part that sounded an alarm. And the part that called the police. Everything still worked. Everything still showed little green lights on the monitoring system. It just wasn’t going to do the occupants of the house any good for a while. Go, geek—electronic hero in SpongeBob SquarePants flannel pj’s. I really was gonna buy him a cape and tights.
And the best part came in three pieces. First, Molly was no longer inside—her scent and footprints running off out of sight, downwind. Second, the place reeked of vamp and magic and lizard. And third, it was poorly defended. Shoffru believed the numbers of vamps he had brought with him kept him safe. He was about to learn a painful lesson.
The house was two stories of stucco and tile on a tiny lot that barely qualified for the designation. I could smell water from everywhere, pools, bayous, and the scent of rain on the air. Fertilizer stink came from the golf course, adding to the pong of vamps, human blood, and the prevalent skunk smell. I realized it was mating time for skunks and wondered if it was possible to lure skunks into a house. With their superduper noses, vamps would likely asphyxiate. Except for the fact that they didn’t need to breathe. Yeah. That.
The house was equipped with electric vamp shutters that worked as well for hurricanes and security as they did for keeping the sunlight out of a lair while vamps slept. It also had a three-car, pull-through garage, pool, gated yard, and golf course access. I imagined a foursome of vamps in plaid knickers and those white shoes with frilly collars golfing at night by the light of a full moon. Tams on their heads. A mental picture that made me inappropriately giggly.
I smothered my reaction and went back to work. The first-floor shutters of Shoffru’s rental house were closed, leaving the best access on the second floor, where the shutters were open and doors leading out onto the balcony were open as well. I didn’t have a ladder, but I had Beast strength and I was betting on her lending me enough power to jump, grab the railing on the second floor, and pull myself up. Well, except for the shoulder. Which was nowhere near a hundred percent.
I had perched Rachael behind the house on the golf course side, in a short tree, within whip length of the back door. Bliss, terrified and uncertain, but determined to stay, was with her. I didn’t want them so close to any potential action, but it was give them a real job or have them pick a job for themselves, probably one that included them going into the vamp lair. Rachael was strangely eager for that, and it would surely result in injury or death for them.
Big Evan was positioned on the golf course, upwind, so that when he played, even the air itself would assist his spell. Unfortunately the skunk smell was coming from that general direction, and I wondered how well he was dealing with the stink. And the amorous skunks for that matter.
With everyone in place, I headed back where Shiloh waited. It was across the road and down the block from Shoffru’s house, about a hundred feet away, in a vacant house that was being remodeled from the first floor up, including the windows and doors. Shiloh was sitting at an open space where a door would eventually go, on the second-floor porch, Eli’s gun on a tripod that she had assembled like a pro. Southern country girls are no pushovers even before they acquire fangs.
I chuckled under my breath and nodded at the rifle and scope in Shiloh’s hands. “Keep an eye on the house. Once the action starts, any vamps who try to escape, you shoot. Humans you can let go.” I paused. “You can tell the difference from this distance, can’t you?”
Shiloh gave a ladylike snort of derision and repositioned her rifle. “I could do that the first day I woke up dead. Prey don’t just smell different, they look different.” I wanted to shudder at her casual use of the word prey, but she added, “They look beautiful and desirable and tasty.” Her voice went dreamy and dropped into a lower register. “They look like something you want to protect and love and savor as you drink them down. It’s just a matter of deciding how to blend all the desires into one, and then take control of that desire.”
There didn’t seem to be much left to say to that one. “Ick” seemed counterproductive to keeping her balanced and useful to the plan. I settled on “All righty, then.” I didn’t know her well yet, but already Molly’s niece gave me the willies.
A human form was moving slowly down the road behind the house we had appropriated. At this hour, it was either a dog walker, a sleepwalker, or Molly. “Gotta go,” I said. One-handed, I swung off the second-story porch and landed on the walkway below.
Pulling on Beast’s speed, I skirted through backyards, swung over low fences, and up to Molly. She stood for a moment, staring at me, lit by a security light from a house nearby.
She had cut her hair, and wild red curls danced in the night breeze. Her skin was pale in the dim illumination of security lights. She had lost weight. A lot of weight. She was wearing skinny jeans and a dirty T-shirt with a way-too-big sweater. She looked afraid—shaking, her hands trembling, her heart rate too fast and uneven. Molly stood there, waiting. And I pulled on Beast’s eyesight to see her magic. It was no longer vibrant and spangled with motes of power, like rainbows on steroids with diamonds. It was black and dense and pulled tightly to her, as if she wore a black cloud. Flashes appeared within the cloud, like lightning, but clutched close and well contained. For now.
“Jane?”
“I’m here,” I said.
She looked toward my voice and smiled, her face looking lined and more wrinkled than I remembered. “I’m glad I got to see you again.”
What? I analyzed that short statement and came to a conclusion I didn’t like. “Why!” I huffed out. “Because you intend to end things tonight?” I steeled myself against my next words. “As in jumping off a bridge or something? Because that’s just selfish, Molly.”
She turned her head to the aside, and I knew what she intended. No! Beast screamed, the fear echoing inside me.
Molly turned her head to me, wrapped her arms around her body as if from an inner chill. Quietly, she said, “If I . . . stay around.” She chuckled as if that was funny somehow. “I’ll keep killing people. And I will eventually kill my husband. My children. I have no choice, Jane. You know all about choices, about sacrifice. After all”—her voice went gruff and cold—“you sacrificed my sister. And my friendship when you killed her.”
The wind changed directions and I smelled Molly strongly. And Jack Shoffru, his scent on her, mixed with hers. And I realized she was trying to make me mad, trying to make me go away and let her do herself harm. I didn’t respond to her hurt, but to her intent. “Don’t be an idiot,” I spat. “Because I’m not dumb enough to get mad at you.”
Moll
y dipped her head and looked at her arms wrapped around herself. The smell of shame filled the air, overriding the stink of vamp and blood.
“I also know about running away,” I said, “when staying around is so much harder. And I know the happiness, the”—I searched for a word and had to settle on—“the joy when sticking around and fighting things means I get to keep the people I love near me.”
Molly seemed to hear that, her head lifting a fraction. “I’ll help you figure this out. We all will. But”—I took a deep breath that ached all over at what I was about to ask—“I need your magics, your death magics, now. I need you to drain most of the life out of a vampire for me. I need you to find a way to use the magic that you have right now. I need you to accept it, control it, and use it. For good. For the light.”
Molly made a choking sound. “No,” she whispered, strangling. “You can’t use death magics for the light. I have to end it tonight before I do something horrible.”
Claws scored my gut and I grabbed myself, holding my middle as I broke out into a hot sweat. How was I going to fix this? How? And how did death magic react to the death of the magic user? Would it even let her die? Or would it take her over? Stop her? Force her to drain others to sustain itself? Did witch magics even work that way?
Deep inside, Beast growled and leaped to the forefront of my brain. Crouched. Padded forward. I could feel her, pawpawpaw. She stopped and extended her front claws, pressing them into the place where she and I joined. Beast is not prey to Molly.
My breath hitched as I tried to figure out what she meant. You can protect us from death magic?
The I/we of Beast can do many things. Cannot change her magic. Cannot bring back earth magic. But can keep Molly alive for kits. Can protect the I/we of Beast.
I wasn’t exactly sure what Beast was talking about, but I had paused too long already. I’d have to fly by the seat of my pants. “Molly, Magic 101,” I said, making my tone demanding even though I was breaking inside at the thought of her taking final steps to protect others. “If you don’t use your magic, what happens to it?”