by Faith Hunter
“Evelyn Janice McMann,” Cia said, “taken by blood and darkness and death most foul, we seek you. A lorg.”
“A lorg,” Liz repeated. “We seek to know your place. Show us where you are.”
In the center circle the boot slid to the side, up against the slightly piled earth and the ring of energy. Liz opened her mouth in warning. Before she could get the single word out, the boot slid out of the powered circle. Which was not supposed to happen. Liz reached into the earth, pulled might from the buried, stony heart of the mountain, and sent more power into the inner circle, firming it.
Cia’s brows came together as she felt the imbalance and the resulting change of the power levels. “What’s happening?” she whispered.
There was a pop, like the sound of displaced air. And the inner circle was suddenly crowded, two people lying in the small space. Liz blinked. And the figures were still there. “Oh. Oh. Ummm, Cia?”
Cia opened her eyes and looked at the circle. She made a little breath of surprise. “Well. Would you look at that.”
That was a black-haired woman in a black nightgown, an older version of Layla—without a doubt her mother—and another woman, a copper-skinned woman wearing a dress from the previous century. Or maybe the one before that. They were curled up on a blanket like two puppies, asleep.
“She’s wearing a bustle,” Cia breathed.
“And the left boot we just called for.”
“And she has fangs. Big vampire fangs.”
The bustled vampire opened her eyes. Looked lost for a moment. And then she screamed. Cia lifted her hands to the moon and shouted, “Hedge of thorns!” The inner circle glowed red with silver motes of power. The warding sank into the earth, deep as the mountain’s heart, as Liz drew from the depths and pumped more power into it. The hedge drew in overhead, a long oval-shaped ellipse of power, as Cia wove it closed with moonlight.
The vamp dove at Liz, but struck the ward. She bounced off and screamed again, this time a high-pitched keening that hurt their ears. Then she saw the right boot—the Christian Louboutin, its five-inch spike heel angled away, its black suede toe not quite touching the hedge. She dropped to the ground, her hands pressing against the earth, and leaned forward until her nose nearly touched the hedge. “I want. Mine!” She tried to grab the boot and screamed when her hand came into contact with the hedge, its gray/silver sparks jumping out at her.
She looked at Cia and her fangs snicked back into the roof of her mouth. Her pupils stayed wide in scarlet sclera, however, and Liz thought she remembered that vamped-out eyes were a bad thing. Lack of control? A case of the crazies? A case of uncontrolled and unfulfilled hunger? Something bad, whatever it was.
“It bit me,” the vampire said, pointing to the hedge. “Make it stop. Make it go away.”
Cia moistened her dry lips with her tongue and swallowed. “Can’t,” she said softly.
The vampire pointed at the boot. “My shoe. Give it to me.”
“Can’t,” Cia said again.
The vampire cocked her head at a weird angle, like something a bird could do but not a human. She spotted the human in the ring with her, and pointed to the woman. “She was wearing them when she came to steal my land. I took them and I took her, but . . .” Bloody tears welled in her eyes. “But I lost one.” The vamp bent over Evelyn. Faster than Liz’s eyes could follow, the vamp yanked the woman into her arms, shoved her head back, and bit down on her neck. And started sucking. On the vamp’s feet were a pair of old, tattered, lace-up short boots from the nineteen hundreds. They had once been very fancy shoes. On the blanket beside her were other shoes, all expensive—made with lace, and woven with beads, satins, and tooled leathers.
Liz, still frozen in place, analyzed the vamp and their quarry. Evelyn was emaciated and paler than the moonlight, her skin a grayish hue. Black circles ringed her eyes. Her veins were dark blue in her pale skin, and her tendons stood out starkly in the dim light. She looked as if she’d had no food or drink in days, probably since she’d been abducted. Humans could live for forty-eight to seventy-two hours without fluid. That time period was based on their being healthy to start with, and not if they were being used as a juice box by a vamp. Evelyn moaned, a harsh sound full of desire and need. She was blood-drunk—the chemicals in vampire saliva and blood, and a vamp’s ability to mesmerize victims, were working like a drug on her mind. She had no idea where she was or what was happening. She wouldn’t be helping to save herself.
And she was caught in a magical trap with an insane vampire with a shoe fetish. In the circle, the vamp withdrew her fangs, curled around her prey, and closed her eyes.
Cia whispered softly, “If Evelyn dies, will she rise as an unwilling, insane vampire?” Liz didn’t reply, and Cia said, “We have to do something.”
Without thinking, Liz said, “Think she’d trade Evelyn for the other boot?”
Cia giggled, a slightly hysterical sound, cut off quickly. She pressed her hands to her mouth, as if to shut down the inappropriate laughter.
Liz shook her head, pushing away the horror and the realization that there was an important truth she had kept from her twin. Earlier it hadn’t mattered. Now it did, and Cia would be pissed. Her mouth dry, Liz took the plunge, saying, “We could . . . call Jane.”
“She’s in New Orleans. She’s too far away. We need to figure out who the vamp is and who to call to take care of this. Unwilling feeding, kidnap. It’s got to be against vampire law.”
“No. Jane’s in town. She’s here.”
Cia’s eyes found her across the circles, the feeding vampire, and her victim. “What did you say?”
“I said, Jane’s in town. For the inquiry into Evangelina’s death.”
Cia’s hair rose in an unseen wind. At the sight of it, chills ran down Liz’s arms and into the ground through her icy fingertips. “And you didn’t think I needed to know this?” Cia asked, her words low, full of threat.
“Do you remember taking the heavy dishpan out of my arms this morning?”
“What? What does that have to do with anything? I took it because you’re still weak.”
“And right now the moon is full. And you’re more powerful but less stable. So, just like you took the dishpan, I kept the news off and you busy so you wouldn’t have to deal with it right now. I was trying to help.” Cia didn’t reply. Liz said, “We’ve got two problems here. One—a blood witch who helped to kidnap a human female. Two—a vampire snacking on that human female. It’s our responsibility to take care of the witch. Jane takes care of vampires. It’s her job, and as the Enforcer for the master of the southeastern USA, it’s her responsibility.”
The power wind lifting Cia’s hair settled slowly, the dark red strands falling around her shoulders, which slumped. Her eyes filled with tears as she came back to herself, found her center, and put it all together. “Ohhh . . . damn,” she muttered. She took a ragged breath. “Evangelina was our responsibility, but we let Jane handle it. We were cowards. It was our job and we . . . let Jane . . .” Cia took a slow breath, Liz mirroring the action. Liz could almost see the moon power waver across the circle between them. “We let her kill our sister for us.”
Cia lifted a hand and pointed at the hedge of thorns ward, saying, “Ní mór fós i bhfeidhm,” which was Irish Gaelic for “Must remain in place.”
Liz felt the power of the mountain shoot up through the ground and the moon power smash into the earth, securing the hedge of thorns ward in place. Her sister’s casual use of power when working beneath the moon was a wonderful and frightening thing. But this time it felt wrong. Too potent.
“Something about this place,” Cia said, rubbing her upper arms against the chill.
“Yeah. This was too easy.”
“We actually transported a vampire and her victim out of her lair and into our circle with a simple find spell. I’m good and all,” Cia said, looking
up at the black sky, “but I’m not this good.”
“Me neither.” They had until sunrise to figure out what to do. At sunrise the vamp would burn to death. And from the look of her, by sunrise, Evelyn would be long dead.
Thoughtfully, Cia closed the outer circle, and the twins walked to the car.
—
Back at the Subaru, they had a good signal and Liz dialed Jane on her cell. Cia went to work on her tablet, researching the property they were on to see if she could discover why the power levels were so strong.
“Yellowrock,” she answered.
“It’s Liz.” Jane didn’t say anything. Jane didn’t say much of anything at the best of times, and this couldn’t be one of them. “I know we need to talk about Evie, and about family and about . . . stuff, and all, but, well, Cia and I were hired to do a finding spell for a missing woman, who turned out to have been kidnapped in the middle of a blood magic spell, and now we have a psychotic vampire and her kidnapped dinner—that missing human woman—stuck in a hedge of thorns spell on the side of a mountain.”
Jane chuckled. She actually laughed. “Why is this funny?” Liz demanded.
“You Everharts are . . . interesting.” Which was marginally better than other things Jane might have said.
“Fine. You have any advice?”
“Yeah. Send your GPS to my cell. Stay put. Asheville’s heir and I’ll be there as fast as we can.”
“Liz? Don’t hang up,” Cia said, holding her hand out for the phone. Liz passed it to her, and Cia said, “Jane, we’re on a site that used to be called Mayhew Downs, about a hundred twenty years ago. That didn’t seem important until our magic was a lot more powerful than it should have been. So I went back online to the history site and discovered that there was this big mystery about the town in the 1890s. The town was fine one day. By the next week, all the inhabitants had disappeared. Which is weird, right?”
Liz heard Jane grunt an affirmative.
“So I looked through all the daguerreotypes on the site and one shows the mayor and his wife—who is a dead ringer—pardon the pun—for the vampire trapped in our circle.”
“Hold.” The cell muted. When it came back on, the background noise had changed and they were clearly on speakerphone. Jane asked, “How did you get directed to that mountain?”
“By a Christian Louboutin boot, a five-inch spike-heeled black suede with fringe down the back seam. Size six and a half. It’s a right boot, and it was left in the middle of the missing woman’s apartment,” Liz said.
“Huh. And how do you know the spell that took her was a blood ceremony?”
“Blood magic charms in her bedroom.”
“Hold,” she said again. A moment later Jane came back on and practically snarled, “Do not get out of the car. Do not go back to the circle. Send me the coordinates. We’ll be there as fast as we can.”
The connection ended, and Liz sent the directions before putting her phone away. Outside, the black of night was filled with shifting shadows and a pale gray fog. “Did the vamp empty the town?” Liz asked, as much to hold off the night as to communicate with her twin. “Where did all the people go? And why?”
“I don’t know, but I have a feeling it has something to do with why our magic was so strong tonight.” Cia reached over and took her sister’s hand.
—
A little over ninety minutes later, Cia nudged her and Liz came awake with a start. “Lights.” Three, no, four sets of headlights were winding up the mountain, a line of cars that—even in the dark—looked heavy and powerful. “Is that what I think it is?” Liz asked.
Cia said nothing, but her grip on Liz’s hand tightened.
The cars pulled in and parked in a half circle around them; the engines went off and the headlights went dark. There was nothing sinister in the positioning of the vehicles, but Liz’s palms grew itchy. Sitting in the Subaru felt vaguely like being at the end of a net that was about to close. Forms emerged from the cars, gliding forms that moved with a predatory grace. “Vampires,” Cia whispered.
“And Jane.”
The security specialist was dressed in black jeans, a black vest with a white shirt that gleamed in the moonlight, and a silver gray designer jacket. Black high-heeled boots made her even taller than her usual six feet, and her shoulders looked more powerful than Liz remembered. Jane had always been painfully slender, but she had packed on muscle. She looked good. And then Liz saw the holster on her chest and the knives on her thighs. And the silver stakes twisted in her long black hair, braided, upswept, shining in the moonlight.
She tapped on the window and Liz opened the door, letting in the chill night. The twins stepped out and closed the doors. The mountain was silent, except for the sough of the rising wind. The vampires were spread out around them, and Liz once again had the feeling of being prey.
“You Everharts discovered something the vamps want hushed up,” Jane said without prelude. “They’re willing to bargain for your silence.”
The sisters shared a glance across the car. Cia looked frightened and Liz held out her hand. Cia fairly flew around the car to her and slid an arm around her. Instantly Liz felt better. They were witches. They were wearing their necklaces, and the stones were full of stored power. Together they were stronger than this line of vampires. “We’ll bargain, but only if they can save the human woman.”
Jane looked at the vampires, at two in particular. Liz clenched inside. She had lived in Asheville all her life, and she had never been in the presence of the blood master or his heir. Now, the two stood together, staring at them—Lincoln Shaddock, tall and spare, and his heir, Dacy Mooney, short and round and blond, both of them as old as the missing mountain town . . .
“Ohhh,” Liz said. “The vampire in the circle. She’s an old rogue and she got free.”
Cia added, “And they’re responsible for what she’s done.”
“Yeah. Got it in one. Or two,” Jane said, making a twin joke. “Her name is Romona, and she’s deadly dangerous. She never came out of the devoveo, the insanity that vamps descend into after they’re changed, and she was supposed to be put down a century ago. Unfortunately, the mayor of Mayhew Downs, who was her husband and her maker, couldn’t do it.” Jane’s tone sounded tired, as if she had dealt with this before. “The last time she got free, she killed the entire town. The vamps hushed it up.”
The twins breathed in with shock.
As if she had shared their thoughts, Jane said, “But things are different now.” She nodded at the line of vamps, unmoving in the night. “They know they can’t let her go unpunished. They can’t let her maker go unpunished.” She nodded to another man standing silent and vamp-still beside Dacy Mooney.
It was the mayor from the daguerreotype. It was also the man who was trying to develop Mayhew Downs. Evelyn’s boss was a vampire. Everything fell into place with a little thump in Liz’s mind. It was all tied together. Mayhew had made his wife into a vamp. It hadn’t gone well, and he had kept her prisoner for over a hundred years. Mayhew was wearing silver chains at his wrists and neck. If the wind had been right, Liz was sure they would have smelled charring skin.
Jane finished with, “You need to know. Romona is a witch.”
Something clicked in Liz’s mind and she took a slow breath. Beside her, Cia put it all together as well. Her voice so low it was barely a caress on the night, Cia said, “Romona drained the whole town of Mayhew Downs. But she didn’t do it just as a vampire, she did it as a vampire witch. She put their blood and their death energies, the power of their souls, into the earth.”
“Yes,” Dacy said. “Then Mayhew decided to develop the land that she had made her own with the blood of the townspeople. When Romona learned about it, she got free.” Dacy shook the chain on Mayhew’s neck. “But he didn’t tell us. Romona couldn’t find him, but she did find Evelyn, his right-hand gal, and she took her.”
“The mountain is soaked with blood magic,” Jane acknowledged unhappily.
Cia squeezed Liz’s hand, communicating the message, That’s why our magic was so strong tonight. We mixed our magics in the working. We absorbed stored blood magic.
Liz squeezed back, thinking, It was like the mountain was . . . feeding us. And Jane knows.
Cia’s face went white, but her jaw hardened. “We’ll get purified. We’ll call a coven—” She stopped. They didn’t have a full coven anymore. Not with Evie gone. Not unless they brought in another witch on a permanent basis, someone they could trust with this knowledge. “We’ll find a way.”
Jane said, “The vamps have a request. By today’s laws, now that Romona has attacked a human, she’ll be brought to true death. By my hand. And they want you to agree not to talk about what you learned here tonight. They’re willing to pay for your silence. Vamps are always willing to pay,” she said, her tone grim and tired.
“Like we said,” Cia said, drawing on her power. “If they save Evelyn, we’ll agree to keep quiet. If they don’t . . . well, we’ll have to see.”
Liz smiled in the night. “And if they think they can make us, remember that blood magic doesn’t just go away. I’ve had my hands in the soil tonight.”
“And I’ve had my face in the moonlight,” Cia added.
As one, the line of vamps stepped back. Jane relaxed and laughed, her laughter flowing down the hillside, through the fog. “Good to hear.”
Liz realized that the tension she had felt in Jane was gone, replaced by something that was nearly jovial. “You’ve been worried,” Liz said, “that you were going to have to figure out a way to protect us if the vamps decided we might talk.” Liz looked at the blond vamp, standing beside her maker and master in the moonlight. “We’d have fried you to a crisp, lady.”
Both of the vampires looked nonplussed, and Jane laughed again. “Vamps and witches go back a long way. Vamps seem to have a . . . let’s call it a fascination with witches. Sometimes that makes ’em stupid.” Dacy frowned at that, but Jane indicated that the twins should lead the way. “Let’s get this show on the road.”