by Faith Hunter
* * *
It took two hours to heal all the injured, and while I waited I drank the tea Clermont had promised. It was a delicious, stylish, pungent black from China, described on the package as a Super Fancy Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe. Having discovered that we were fellow tea-lovers, he and I talked teas while he dug the slug out of his son. It was bizarre conversation, talking about attractive, chunky, golden-tipped, first-flushes from various provinces in China, India, Sri Lanka, Ceylon, and other places. To a non-tea-lover it was silly talk, and I caught Derek rolling his eyes once as he drank coffee passed out by a beautiful, mixed-tribe, American Indian blood-slave, one who was over a hundred years old and not above teasing the much, much, much younger man with sly looks and come-hither stares. Not that Derek understood that she was a slave-by-choice and old enough to be his great great grandmother. Vamps and their humans are sneaky.
Derek called Auguste and Benoît in. The brothers had been waiting in the dark to remove us in retreat or victory, either one. And then Derek, Auguste, and a vamp went to get Margaud, who didn’t want to abandon her position to sit with the enemy suckheads. She put up a good verbal resistance and fired off three warning shots before I pulled out my earbud. Eventually, someone took her off the air. I didn’t know how Derek finally convinced Margaud into the airboat, but Derek was good-looking and persuasive, or maybe the former military angle worked. Or maybe her brother just picked her up and tossed her on board. Don’t ask, don’t tell.
Near two a.m., I judged that everyone was healed and calm enough for discussion and called all the participants to the front porch. There weren’t enough chairs, so Clermont made everyone but the main participants sit on the floor, equaling out one and all. There were vamps and humans and witches sitting side-by-side, close together, sharing floor space without bloodshed. It would have been inspiring had Clermont and I not promised utmost retribution to anyone who caused trouble.
I opened the meeting with a few vampire terms and their meanings, including the devoveo and the doloro, the insanity of freshly turned vamps and the insanity of vamps who suffered the loss of a close loved one. I explained that witches were seldom successfully turned vamp, remaining in the devoveo forever, and ended with a plea for both sides to find a way to end the rift between the races and find a way for the lovers to be together. It was a lot of words for me, with even more mmms and hmms and uhs, and ahs. I’m not a public speaker. Not at all. It’s easier to shoot first and divide up the dead later, but maybe I was growing up.
When I was done, Clermont stood and spoke to Lucky Landry. Lucky was tied to a chair and to the porch railing, just in case, but he listened far better than I expected, maybe because Clermont opened with the words, “I tired a this war between coonass and coonass.”
Despite himself, Lucky chuckled and looked down. He took a deep breath and said, “I tired a it too.” He looked at his daughter, sitting on the floor, hand-in-hand with Gabe, love and determination in her eyes. “You want dis suck— You want dis vampire? You love him for real?”
“I do,” Shauna said. Her chin came up defiantly. “And I’m carrying his baby.”
Lucky pulled in a breath and the flames danced along his bound arms.
“I love him, Daddy. If you hurt him, I’ll never forgive you. Not. Ever. And I’ll spend the rest of my life keeping your grandchild away from you.”
Lucky looked at me. “Suc— Vampires can have babies like human and witch do? Despite we different races? Dem babies not be mule?”
“So far as I know, vamps can have babies, though it’s very, very rare. Whether the children are sterile I don’t know.”
Clermont said, “Dem babies not easy to have in de human way. Vampires treasure dem few. Dey can have babies of dere own, and dey special to us. Special power dey all has. Dis be first vampire-and-witch baby we have. Make him better and more special, I’m thinking.”
Lucky studied his daughter. “He say he. You carrying my first grandson, for real?”
Shauna placed a hand on her belly. “I don’t know how I know, but I know. All you other children has girls, so yes, dis boy be your first. And we already named him.” She looked at Gabe and he lifted their fisted hands to his mouth and kissed her fingers gently. Everyone on the porch said, or had to restrain a soft, “Awwww,” of delight.
“We name our baby by family name and alphabet,” Gabe said, which confused me until they went on.
“Hem be Clermont Jérôme Landry Doucette,” Shauna said, “and we call him Clerjer.” It came out “Clarshar,” and it sounded pretty on her tongue.
Laundry looked at Clermont and said, “Why not JerCler?”
“Dat not alphabet,” the vampire said, deadpan.
Both men laughed softly, measuring one another.
“What we can do to stop killin and killin?” Lucky asked.
“Baptize dis baby in church,” Clermont said. And everyone, even the vamps, took a deep, shocked breath. “Marry dem two in front a de church first, a course.”
Lucky nodded slowly. “Vampire can go in de church?”
“Not so much. But in de yard, yeah, we can do dat. You talk to de priest first, make hem see reason.”
“If he don’ see reason, den dey can marry in my church,” a voice said from the far reaches of the porch. “I marry dem. No need for no priest.”
“Who dat is?” Lucky asked.
A skinny man stood at the back, his face resolute, if pale.
“Preacher Michael? You a blood-slave to dese suckheads?” Lucky said, horror in his voice.
“Dey heal me a cancer wid dey blood. It take a lot a blood, and many month a time,” Preacher Michael said. “I give back to dem when dey need.”
Lucky made a Gaelic-sounding snort. “Well I be dam—uh, I be a monkey’s uncle.”
“And a grandfather,” Shauna said.
A goofy smile lit Lucky’s face. He looked at his erstwhile enemy again and pursed his lips to make the smile less obvious. “But how you keep my girl not crazy?”
Clermont said, “Blood-kin, we call dem. Gabe make her blood-kin. She live mebe two hundred years. She have good long life, here wid my son and wid us, and in town wid you and yours.” He held out his hand and said, “Dat a good enough start for me. Dat good start for you?”
Lucky Landry slapped his hand into Clermont’s and the men shook. “Dat a start. But first ting is, dem two been living in sin. Dey gets marry tonight.”
“Done, my brother. How about now and here? Brother Michael can marry dem in eyes of de church and God and dem get license later what for de state.”
Lucky started to speak and stopped, his mouth open. After a long pause he said, “My wife kill me she not here. . Shauna’s sisters too. No. Dem two gets marry tomorrow night, in town at church. Yes?”
“I say yes,” Clermont said, the men’s hands still clasped.
“Don’t I get a say?” Shauna demanded.
“No!” both men stated. And everyone on the porch laughed.
* * *
Twenty-four hours later, the first vampire-witch marriage in Bayou Oiseau took place in the yard of the Catholic church. A second ceremony followed in the churchyard of the Pentecostal Holiness, One God, King James Church. In both ceremonies, Shauna was wearing her mother’s wedding dress, a creamy satin, full-skirted, hooped gown with puffy sleeves. With it she wore a hat shaped a bit like a satin cowboy hat with a poof of veil on top. She looked stunning, glowing with happiness. Gabe wore a black tuxedo, his long hair in braids and love in his eyes. Just before the start of the first ceremony, he met his bride in the back of church with two dozen roses to carry down the aisle. As he gave them to her he said, “Dese here roses are twelve red and twelve white. Together dem symbol of union between vampire and witch. Every single rose I done clip off its thorn, to symbolize the way I protect you from all harm. Dis for my whole un-dead life.” There wasn’t a dry eye in the church yard.
To finish the night off properly, Leo Pellissier, Master of the City o
f New Orleans and most of the Southeast, gave his blessing over my cell phone, in the yard of the Pentecostal church. Everyone in Bayou Oiseau heard it, and heard his invitation to Clermont to come to New Orleans and parley as equals once the baby was born.
Clermont looked at me when the phone call was done and said, “You do dis thing? Set up dis parley?”
I shrugged, smiled, and walked away. What I’d done is tell Leo he was an idiot and to get off his butt and fix this stupid situation with Clermont and the Doucette Clan or I would. What the heck. It seemed to work.
* * *
Once all the official stuff was done, the entire town turned out to eat, drink, and dance the night away. Not that it was perfect. There was a fistfight between a small group of humans and witches against an even smaller group of vampires, but the clan leaders broke it up and made an example of them to the rest. It wasn’t deadly but it wasn’t pretty either. There was another moment of tension when a vampire asked a human woman to dance, but that too got smoothed over, and I didn’t ask how. Most vamps can dance like nobody’s business, and once the human women saw that vamps were willing partners, there wasn’t an empty dance floor for the rest of the party.
I pulled Derek onto the dance floor and kept him there for two numbers. That man can dance!
It was a good night, a better party, with fantastic food and energetic dancing. A great solution to a problem that had been simmering in the Louisiana backwaters for decades. As the locals might say, “Dem coonass clans Doucette and Landry? Dem family now, yeah dey is.” Heck of a lot better than any old Romeo and Juliet–style ending.
And best of all? I got paid.
Read on for a special preview of Death’s Rival,
the next Jane Yellowrock novel,
coming in October 2012 from Roc.
Chapter One
I’m Gonna Need Some Stitches
“Vamps don’t get sick,” I said. “They may go nuts at the least provocation, but they don’t get sick.” Air currents buffeted the small jet; I held on to the phone and the seat arm with white-knuckled grips. Inside me, Beast was purring, enjoying the ride entirely too much for a creature who used to be afraid of flying.
Static fuzzed the connection, but I made out the words “—two of these did. And maybe the third one, don’t know.” If Reach didn’t know something, it was better hidden than the identity of Kennedy’s killer—assuming that there really was a coven of blood-witches on the grassy knoll. Conspiracy theorists have a consensus on that, but there never was any evidence to back it up. “I’m still searching,” Reach said, “but it looks like the masters of the city of Sedona and Seattle are still showing signs of malaise. Boston’s MOC has vanished, and rumor has it the suckhead’s dead.”
Malaise, I thought, unamused, reading the description of their symptoms. It was a heck of a lot more than malaise. In spite of what I’d said, the vampires were sick—maybe dying. “Give me details.”
“According to my latest timeline, this vamp came out of nowhere two months ago and vamps started getting sick, which should be impossible, I know,” he agreed. “Once they were sick, they each got an ultimatum from an unknown vampire to swear him loyalty in a blood-ceremony, or face that master in a Blood Challenge, not something they could survive while sick. As soon as they swore allegiance to the new guy, the vamps got somewhat better. He didn’t kill them once he deposed them, but left them to run the cities as his loyal deputies. Each went from masters of independent strongholds to completely loyal subjects overnight. He’s successfully created a new power base and no one knows how he did it or who he is. Yet.”
“No vamp is loyal,” I said. “They’re all egocentric bloodsucking fiends.”
“True. But rich egocentric blood-sucking fiends, which is why we work for them.”
I grunted. I hated to think of myself that way, but he had a point. I’m Jane Yellowrock, and I used to kill vamps for a living. Until I started working for them. It wasn’t easy money, and I’d dumped the contract with Leo Pellissier, the chief fanghead of the Southeastern U.S., when the retainer ran out. But when Leo had requested my help yesterday, I’d re-upped to resolve this problem, because it was the right thing to do. Leo and his people had been attacked under my watch. Humans had been injured. Blood-servants had died. I’d killed some of them. No one knew who this new enemy was, and now vamps were sick, maybe dying, and a new, powerful vamp had entered the vampire political scene.
Which was why I was in a Learjet flying at way-too-dang-high. I didn’t like flying. Well, I didn’t like flying in planes. Wings are different.
Reach continued to update me on two months of data and to answer a lot of questions. I’d need it. We’d touch down in Sedona in minutes, and assuming I got out alive, I’d be off to Seattle almost immediately. Listening to Reach’s matter-of-fact tone helped to keep my mind occupied and my heart out of my throat. Sorta.
“Okay,” I said. “And you’re—” Leo’s Learjet dropped several feet before leveling out. My mind went blank and I swallowed my dinner—again. “And you’re sure the attack on Leo in Asheville was this same guy who took over Sedona, and Seattle?”
My question wasn’t argumentative. The attack on Leo had happened before any of the others, and had been purely weapon-based, a frontal attack, no disease, no ultimatum, no nothing. I didn’t know what to make of the discrepancy. “If it’s the same vamp,” I said, “his attack on Leo falls completely outside his subsequent M.O. Of course, he did try to kick sand in Leo’s face, and Leo’s people busted his chops. Maybe when that happened he tried this new tack.” I hated guesswork.
The sound of leather squeaking reminded me to relax my grip on the seat arm. I took a breath, blew it out, and drank half a bottle of water to settle my stomach. Computer keys clacked in the cell’s background, sounding like a quartet of castanets as Reach—the best research and intel guy in the business—worked.
“I stopped believing in coincidence,” he said, “about ten seconds before I stopped believing in Santa Claus. It’s like this. Leo visits Asheville, is attacked in a hotel, and wins a gun battle. Within weeks of the attack on Pellissier, Lincoln Shaddock and three of his vamps in Asheville become ill with a brand-new vamp disease. Then Sedona gets sick, then Seattle, and now Boston. They got challenged, swore loyalty, and got better. Leo’s Asheville vamps are still sick, unlike in cities where the MOCs got sick, challenged and defeated, and then received treatment. Shaddock’s peeps are dying—as if it’s a punishment rather than a takeover tool.”
Which thought made me sit up in my chair. Vamps were big on sneak attacks and vengeance. This scenario made all kinds of sense. Shaddock was bound to Leo and an attack on Shaddock was, by extension, an attack on Leo.
Reach went on, “Yeah, it’s outside the attacking vamp’s modus operandi, but the symptoms of Lincoln’s peeps are exactly the same as those of the other masters of the city who fell through the looking glass.”
“Peeps,” I muttered. I knew those vamps. Among the sick ones was Dacy Mooney, Lincoln’s heir. The two were vicious killing machines. The fact that I sorta liked them may have said something not quite sane about me. “We only think the other vamps were treated. We don’t have empirical evidence,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the disease is circumstantial evidence I’m willing to bet on. I think our BBV”—big bad vamp, I thought with a smile—“started in Asheville with a frontal attack, and had to abandon his plans there when Leo’s people kicked his butt, and he left the disease as a punishment, a calling card, a warning, and a threat. The evidence you obtain in Sedona and Seattle will either confirm or deny that theory.”
“Ahhh,” I said. “That makes sense, which is why I pay you the big bucks.” The jet bumped up as if slapped high by a giant hand; then the bottom fell out. The small craft dropped what had to be a thousand feet before catching itself. On air. “Crap,” I whispered.
My things in an overhead compartment thumped around as gravity was again defeated. I wrenched my
seat belt so tight it nearly cut me in two.
Inside me, my Beast huffed with amusement.
Beast is the soul of a mountain lion that I absorbed when I was child and fighting for my life. It had been accidental, as much as black magic can ever be an accident. When I shifted, Beast’s was the form I most often took, and her thoughts and opinions counted nearly as much as my own. Fun, she thought. Like chasing rabbits in hills.
I slapped my brain back on, swallowed my dinner yet again, and focused. “Agreed,” I said, wishing I’d turned down this job. “But that theory still leaves questions. Why did the attacking master choose vamp strongholds so far apart on the map? Running three cities at a distance has to be a pain. Why not announce to the world who he is and what he’s doing? Every vamp I know is a megalomaniac and would publicize his conquest. This guy hasn’t.” And the newly subdued master vamps weren’t talking about what had happened on their turf or who their new master was—at all—which was another reason for this flight.
“The attacker is cheating, not challenging, according to the Vampira Carta,” Reach said.
I grunted again. The Vampira Carta and its codicils was the rule of law for the vamps—or Mithrans, as they liked to be called—and it contained laws and rules for proper behavior between vampires, their scions, blood-servants, blood-slaves, and cattle—meaning the humans they hunted. It provided proper protocols for everything, including challenging and killing each other in a duel called the Blood Challenge. The new vamp had challenged his conquests, but there had been no fights. None at all. And Boston, attacked a week ago, had gone off the grid. There had been no communication from that MOC in days. He was presumed to be true-dead.
Reach said, “If an unknown vamp is making a major power play, one that involves vamps getting sick, and Leonard Pellissier, Master of the City of New Orleans, is attacked, and then Leo’s scions get sick, it’s the same dude.”