by Faith Hunter
Crap. Spelling people without their knowledge was against witch-law, but the dang witch had spelled me again, using the same freaking rosy glow spell she had used before, the time I had nearly ended up having wild, crazy, hot, out-of-control sex with Bruiser in my shower. This time, instead of sex, I felt hunger, flavor, and the intense joy of family. I looked around, chewing. The girls were all watching Evil Evie, over my shoulder, behind the booth, laughing, hanging on her every word. Evangelina was telling about the cookie baking class she was planning. Spelling us.
Little Evan, who had been passed from sister to sister during my meal, crawled across the table to me. No one stopped him. They were all too entranced by Evangelina, who was listing the cookies she wanted to teach the locals how to bake: sugar, lemon-lavender, snickerdoodle. Evan Jr. pushed my dishes out of the way and crawled into my lap. Moving with the clumsy, belly-and-diaper-in-the-way motor skills of a child, he stood on my thighs and stared into my eyes, forcing me to sit upright. I had never noticed that his were bluer than a Carolina sky after rain. I had never noticed his hair was more fiery than either of his parents’. I had, in fact, never noticed Little Evan except as a funny little kid. And if it was possible for a toddler to be worried, he was.
“Aun’ Jane,” he whispered, putting his cheek against mine. Though Little Evan had been talking for months, I had heard him say less than ten words. And he had never said my name before. Never. “Aun’ Jane!” He grabbed my braid and yanked, insistent. The last of the rosy glow dissipated from my mind. “Aun’ Jane! He’p!” I put my arms around the kid and he wound his around my neck holding on for dear life. Choking me. He wasn’t spelled. And he knew I wasn’t spelled. And he knew his mother and aunts were. “Heee-yup! Pwease.”
This was bad. Evangelina had ensorcelled her sisters. She was putting out some kind of whacky energy that spelled nearly everyone she met. She was spelling herself. Beast’s claws pushed into me, painful. I tightened my arms around Little Evan and whispered in his ear, “I know. It’s okay. I’ll fix it.” Somehow. He nodded fiercely; his cheek was wet against mine. Little Evan was crying. Oh crap. I hugged him hard and passed him to Molly. She took him absently, never looking at him. Little Evan looked over his shoulder at me, straining against Mol’s hold. Beast settled her claws into my psyche, painful, sharp. I saw a vision of a doe, tall grass between us. And the feeling of sudden, violent movement. The taste of hot blood. Yeah. Gotcha, I thought. Ambush.
Slowly, I lifted my knee and put my right foot onto the burgundy seat. Beast poured strength and hot speed into me. I pulled in a breath, swiveled around, rising, grabbing the high back of the booth seat. Time slowed, heavy as wet sand. Evangelina stopped midsentence, eyes wide, and still I kept rising, bending over her. Fastfastfast. She started, shocked, one hand lifting, slowly. I leaned in, gripped her scarf, twisting, pulling her to me. The heat from her spell slid over my hands and away. Her face lifted, her hair falling back. And everything I thought I knew about witches, and this witch in particular, went up in smoke. There were pinprick spots on her neck.
“Who bit you?” I demanded.
Her lips parted. And I smelled another scent on her, like the bottom note on a cheap perfume, overloaded by the fresher ones, dying fast. I bent over her, twisting my other hand into her red hair. It felt like silk, like something from a dream. Beast growled deep inside me and I heard it spill from my mouth. “Who? Bit? You?” I demanded, not expecting her to answer.
“Lincoln Shaddock,” she whispered.
“Blood-whore,” I whispered back.
Evangelina’s hands came together and up, separating as they passed through my arms. Slammed outward. Ripping her scarf over her head and her hair from my grip. Suddenly she was on the other side of the booth. I turned, following her, still holding the purple scarf and strands of silky hair. She hunched her shoulders, her hands like claws, her nails blunt and painted pink. “I am none of your business!” she shouted. “Leave me alone!” Her hands formed a bowl and pink sparkling energy flashed from them. It washed over me, a heated wave of scented light, smelling like funeral flowers and old blood. Trying to spell me. Trying to make me accept and forget.
When I spoke, it was an octave lower and full of threat. “Stop. Now,” I growled.
The light washed past, feeling oily and flat-sharp, faceted. I could have sworn I heard it hit the brick behind me and shatter. Realizing her spell hadn’t worked, Evangelina shouted, “What the hell are you?” She raised her hands high, screamed with rage, and stormed out the door.
The silence in the café was acute. Every person was staring at me. I was frozen in place, standing in the booth seat, Beast so close to the surface, I could feel her breath pant in my lungs. I felt a tug on my jeans. Harder. “Aun’ Jane. Aun’ Jane.” I looked down to see Little Evan holding on to a belt loop, his pudgy fingers yanking. I let him pull me to the seat. My arms went around him when he crawled into my lap. I was gasping, panting, desperate for air. The pinkish glow was fading, evaporating like the odor of strong perfume when the wearer is gone.
Liz muttered, “Big sis is her usual charming self.” The others laughed.
Pulling on Beast-sight, letting my heart rate slow and steady, I studied the witch sisters. Their eyes weren’t blank, but they also weren’t reacting with sufficient shock at seeing me pull Evil Evie’s hair, and their coven leader and elder sister storm off. Clinging to the sisters was the faintest tinge of shell-pink, the spell still active. And if I managed to figure out how to stop the spell—like punching Evangelina in the mouth—would that make things better or worse? Would it break the spell or make it unstable, dangerous? Disrupted spells sometimes caused a magical backlash that would physically or psychically harm the witches.
“Molly, did you know Evangelina was spelling you all?” I asked.
Molly’s lips lifted with unconcern. “Would you like more tea?”
I shook my head no, my neck muscles so tight they nearly squeaked with the motion. Little Evan pulled my arms around him. “Hug, Aun’ Jane.” I tightened my arm, cradling him and sipped my cooling tea. The girls’ chatter surrounded me. They had already forgotten Evil Evie’s outburst, all the sisters, the customers, everyone except Little Evan and me. What should I do?
Spelling herself to become younger and prettier was only against witch-etiquette. Letting a vamp drink from her was against witch-history but not illegal. She had been around another supernatural being, not something I recognized, not anzu, not grindylow, not the sick, infected werewolf taint. The creature smelled like woodland and rock and empty places. It screamed of danger. Demon? But that wasn’t illegal according to witch-law either, only stupid. The spell-over-her-sisters might be an infraction. If I handled the situation with Evangelina wrong, I would make things worse. I pulled the strands of rich red hair caught in my fingers, twisted them into a tight spiral, and folded them in the purple scarf. One-handed I tucked it into my shirt, not sure why, but it seemed important. I had some thinking to do.
The door opened. The morning air flooded into the room, tinged with exhaust and the scent of fresh hay. A voice said, “Morning ladies. Can anyone here feed a hungry man?” Rick? Here? Why would he be here, without me?
I lifted my head from the baby’s and met Rick’s startled gaze. “Hiya, Ricky Bo,” I said, letting a hint of threat into my voice. “I think we need to talk.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Tag Team Sex? That’s the Best You Could Come Up With?
Rick sat across from me looking caught and guilty and happy, which was a weird combo of emotions even from a were-cat who couldn’t shift yet. We had moved to a corner table for privacy, and the sisters who were off duty had broken up, going about their own business, including Mol.
“Talk,” I said, sounding a lot less mean than I intended. Maybe because he was just so pretty. Black hair fell over his forehead and ducked into his collar, waves catching the overhead lights. His eyes, Frenchy-black in New Orleans, looked Cherokee black here. And his ch
eeks were glowing with that “please touch me” look men had when freshly shaved. I curled my fingers under to keep them beneath the table and tried to look stern.
The two witch sisters brought Rick’s breakfast when it took only one, and I didn’t have to grow up with them to know they wanted to get close enough to touch, as well as hoping to overhear something juicy. Rick turned his hundred-watt smile up at them, the one he uses when he’s trying to woo his way into a girl’s pants. They both melted under the look, and I kicked him under the table. He laughed, slanting a teasing look at me. The girls giggled and departed with dual requests. “You need anything, you just holler.” And, “Any. Thing. At all.”
I shook my head. He grinned, sipped his coffee, took up knife and fork, and ate four bites before he complied with my request. Order. Whatever. And the pauses, gestures, and small torments were so familiar that they brought an ache to my throat.
“I miss you,” Rick said. My heart did a rollover-skip that I kept off my face with difficulty. “I miss human female company.” Of course he did. So much for the heart gymnastics. “I miss any company that’s sober, not grieving, and not vanishing some nights to hunt, coming back to the tent site smelling of blood. A scent that makes my stomach rumble. But mostly, I miss you.”
My heart went back to happy Pilates. “And?”
He sipped and ate some more, keeping me waiting. After he swallowed he sat back and gestured with his knife. “And I’ve had some very interesting phone calls in the last twenty-four hours, all of which I can respond to by spending time with you and the witches.”
“What calls? Who?”
“First, no one had my new cell number. Except you.”
I went still. “Crap.” Leo gave me the new cell a few weeks ago. I knew he could track me with the cell’s GPS. I hadn’t thought about him being able to read my cell phone history. That was a rookie mistake. “Leo,” I said. I explained about the cell and Rick nodded. “I’ll get a new throwaway phone,” I promised.
“Yeah. Let me know the number. But that doesn’t explain how everyone else got my number. That has to be my host.” The way he said host was like smearing the syllable into a toilet. Rick and Kemnebi were a strange pairing, no matter how I looked at it, and the fact that it had been my idea didn’t help. “It started yesterday. Jodi—who did not have this number—called to check on me, and told me this guy would be contacting me. No name. Just ‘this guy.’ Which sounded like The Man.”
“You’re The Man,” I said, putting it into caps as he had done. Jodi was his up-line boss at the New Orleans Police Department. If she told him to do something, like watch me, or sleep with a witch, he would. He always had in the past.
“Not anymore,” he said. I started before I realized he was responding to The Man comment, not my thoughts. “Even if I don’t shift at the full moon, I’ll never be human again. I’ll be a supe in hiding. Like you. Law enforcement work is going to be nearly impossible.” He stuffed a forkful of egg into his mouth and I went still, thinking back over his words, listening for anger or grief. I picked up only resigned acceptance and a kind of wry self-condemnation. But then, cats don’t grieve like humans or dogs do. It’s different with cats. Beast called it blood-grief, or hunt-grief, and it was violence incarnate. Or they get drunk for a month, like Kem. I nodded for him to continue and picked up my tea, sipping, keeping the cup in front of my mouth, my fingers wrapped around it for warmth. Rick went on, “Today, I get this call from a Mr. Smith Jones, who offered me a permanent job, of sorts, with an agency yet to be named.”
I sat back, thinking. It wasn’t NOPD—totally out of their jurisdiction. That left FBI and The Psychometry Law Enforcement Division of Homeland Security. The agency had fingers in every paranormal pie in the country except for the witches, most of whom grew up together, related by blood and heritage. Witches were a hard nut to crack even for PsyLed.
“I accused him of being PsyLed,” Rick said, letting me know that we were thinking alike. “When he said no, I could hear the lie. Seems I have cat ears now, to go along with the improved sense of smell and vision.” Rick sipped his coffee and bit into a homemade biscuit.
“Even if I don’t shift at the next full moon my life is going to suck three days a month for the rest of my unnatural life. It won’t be like I can hide it. No agency or department would have me except undercover with African black were-cats, none of which will exist in the U.S. when Kem sobers up enough to go home. Even if there were were-cats here, I’d have a hard time infiltrating. Their sense of smell is too acute. They’d pick up on any hidden agenda and tear me apart. So my life as a cop is gone unless I admit I’ve got the were-taint and join PsyLed as an outted supe. Half supe. Like that.” Rick shrugged, eyes on the coffee in his cup. “Anyway, that’s a decision for another day. Smith Jones had a job for me. He asked me to make contact with you, see if you could get me close to the vamps. He wants me to join your security team.”
My heart went cold as a stone. Deep inside, Beast chuffed with laughter, which made no sense, as anger shot through me like frozen lightning. “You son of a bitch,” I murmured, without inflection, setting down my cup. “You want to use me to get close to Leo.”
Rick laughed and a tension I hadn’t consciously recognized left his limbs. He sat back in the booth and met my eyes. “I told him no.” My mouth opened and closed with a snap. “I’ll always want to be a cop,” he said, “but my life is different. Forever. So, no cozying up to friends and lovers to find out info. Except for one thing that might be important.”
“And that is?”
“Why did Evangelina leave talks that were progressing so well between the vamps and witches and come back to Asheville? The vamp and witch parley has stalled. Jodi told me no new meetings have taken place since she left. Why did Leo finally agree to an MOC parley? Two questions that ended up here, together.” Rick leaned back to his plate and ate several more bites. One of the girls refilled our cups, lingering, as if for an opening in the intense silence to chat with pretty boy Ricky Bo. When she wandered away, her disappointment was an odor on the air. Softly, Rick said, “A small group of New Orleans vampires kidnapped and killed witch children for decades. Centuries. And Evangelina Everhart walks out on restitution talks? Not in a manufactured huff she could use to get concessions from vamps who want to settle. But just wanders away.” His fingers walked through the air as if floating.
PsyLed was worried about the same things I was, which was just weird. Of course, I knew about Amy Lynn Brown’s miraculous recovery, and they didn’t. But weirder was Evil Evie’s display of spell casting, which Rick didn’t know about. She had an agenda. I sipped. Rick ate. I offered my thoughts as far as I could. “She knew about the parley for MOC status.” Rick nodded as if that was obvious. And it was. There were only just so many people she might be here for. I was pretty sure she hadn’t followed the twins or Derek and the security types. That left Rick and Kemnebi, but she wasn’t hanging around the Tennessee side of the mountains. And so that left Grégoire and me, here in Asheville, though as far as I could tell, she had gotten here before either of us. “Do you, or Jodi, or PsyLed have any idea why Leo chose Grégoire, specifically, to handle this parley, over his own heir?”
“Initially, Leo was supposed to come himself.” When I raised my brows, Rick shrugged. “It’s scuttlebutt. Leo trusts Grégoire. They were lovers in France before they emigrated here. Maybe for a century.” He laughed at my expression. “Leo swings all ways—human, vampire, bi. I just heard about it. That info just got added to the woo-woo files yesterday when a photocopy of Magnolia Sweets’ diary was delivered to NOPD, no fingerprints, no return address, so it could be fake, but it makes sense.”
I wanted to bang my head on the table. Magnolia Sweets had been Leo’s primo once upon a time, his prime blood-servant, before she was bitten by a werewolf and went all furry. Maggie Sweets was the bitch who had tortured Rick, and she was dead now. Her death could be laid partly at my door. Her death was also the reason t
he two lone wolves were chasing me and trying to rebuild a pack by biting humans and witches. It made sense, except for the part about who had found and sent the diary. That was a puzzle.
As to the Leo-and-Grégoire-lover part, Grégoire had supported Leo when the master of the city’s back was against the wall, when he was being challenged by the vamp who was now the MOC’s heir, and had stuck around when Leo was in the dolore—the whacked-out grief suffered by vamps when people they love die. And Evil Evie, who was not acting like herself, had left restitution talks and come home to Asheville. For Grégoire? For me? Or Leo? Had she heard he was considering coming here himself? I blew out a breath. Okay. She found out about the parley and could further some sneaky, evil end better if she was here, drawing on her coven. “And Jodi doesn’t know why Leo agreed to Lincoln’s parley, after denying his petition for so long?”
Rick scraped his plate and sopped up the greasy egg remains with a hunk of biscuit. “Nope.” But he didn’t meet my eyes and I was guessing that he had ideas even if no facts.
I said, “To answer your question, I don’t know why Evangelina left New Orleans.” I didn’t tell him about the spell or the vamp bites or the werewolf scent she carried. I couldn’t. Rick was being courted by PsyLed. If he took the job, he’d be my enemy. The Everharts’ enemy. And now that I knew he could smell truth and lies, I couldn’t tell him a bald-faced one, maybe not even fudged-truth-lies. Things to think about. I fished in my pocket for my keys.
“Don’t you want to know about the other calls?”
I stopped, pulled my hand free from the denim. Rick smiled slightly, his eyes crinkling at the corners. I’d kissed him there several times, his eyelashes tickling my lips. Pain moved through me like snakes of fire.