by Faith Hunter
The music changed. He didn’t listen to the music, though it was one of his favorite LPs; he adjusted the rhythm of the dance, slowing, and pulled her even closer, releasing her hand and sliding both arms around her, one hand flat on her back, between her shoulder blades, the other rising to rest against the back of her neck, under her braid. He could feel her breathing against his chest, her ribs moving slowly, her breasts pressing against him. She was hard and muscular, all angles and solid planes, but she was also all woman. He dropped his head to her neck and breathed in, controlling his arousal for fear of frightening her away. He’d lived many years with Mithrans, and had learned how to control his body, his reactions to fear and desire and delight and hunger. Jane brought out all of these in him. He wanted her.
And then the record ended, far too soon.
Jane slid a hand from his waist and up, between their bodies, and pressed him away.
George almost complied but . . . he could not. He stilled his steps, sliding his hand around to cup her jaw, his thumb on her chin, and tilted her head up. Her eyes came open and she met his. So close. Dropped his mouth. Closer. Her lips opened. Her irises grew wide and black. He breathed her breath and gave it back to her. Lips nearly touching. So close.
She tilted her head, bringing her mouth to his. Lips to his. And she laughed softly, a sound that was pure desire, a purr of need and want, vibrating through him.
He felt it to his core. An electric flame sped through him, hot as a flash fire. He pulled her to him, and kissed her as she laughed, rising on her toes, pressing hard to him. Her laughter softened as his tongue touched hers. Standing in the silent, empty bar, he danced a different kind of dance, pouring everything he knew about love and need and desire into the kiss. His body responded, growing hard. Demanding.
He dropped his hand and cupped her bottom, lifting her closer, pressing himself into the heat of her.
And her cell phone rang. It was a simple chime but insistent. She sighed into his mouth, a soft moan of longing and frustration. Without breaking the kiss, she pressed his chest away while reaching back and removing the cell from her back pocket. And she broke the kiss. Her eyes held his as the cell chimed, and she smiled, her lips full and slightly bruised. She answered the call.
“Jane Yellowrock.” And she turned away, moving to the front door of the Royal Mojo Blues Company and out into the sunlight.
Yes. He’d have her. Of her own free will and her own need and her own trust. And this one he would share with no one. No one at all.
Chronology of Books and Stories
“WeSa and the Lumber King” (in the compilation Have Stakes Will Travel)
“The Early Years” (in the compilation Cat Tales)
“Cat Tats” (in the compilation Cat Tales)
“Kits” (in the compilation Cat Tales)
“Haints” (in the compilation Have Stakes will Travel)
“Signatures of the Dead” (in the anthology Strange Brew and the compilation Have Stakes Will Travel)
Skinwalker
“First Sight” (in The Jane Yellowrock World Companion)
Blood Cross
Mercy Blade
“Easy Pickings” (crossover, alternative universe novella with C. E. Murphy)
“Blood, Fangs and Going Furry” (in the compilation Cat Tales)
“Dance Master” (in The Jane Yellowrock World Companion)
Raven Cursed
“Cajun With Fangs” (in the compilation Have Stakes will Travel)
“Golden Delicious” (in the anthology An Apple for the Teacher)
Death’s Rival
Blood Trade
“The Devil’s Left Boot” (in the anthology Kicking It)
“Beneath a Bloody Moon” (in the The Jane Yellowrock World Companion)
Jane Yellowrock Companion Guide Timeline
Faith’s Note: I’ve been asked by fans for a comprehensive timeline of the events in the Jane Yellowrock series for ages. Well, thanks to Carol, you finally get one. I adore it!
Carol’s note: The books and short stories are listed in order, with a short synopsis of each.
Stories:
WeSa and the Lumber King (in Have Stakes Will Travel): Beast, with Jane (or WeSa, as Beast thinks of her) in the background of her mind, observes the camp of white men. Beast feels as though the white men are responsible for the loss of hunting grounds and the destruction of the environment, and decides to kill one man out of this hunting party as retribution, as well as to take the meat he has. WeSa cautions Beast to not eat the flesh of or drink the blood of the white man. Beast kills the man and, after eating the meat he was carrying, walks off into the woods satisfied.
* * *
The Early Years (in Cat Tales): On her eighteenth birthday, Jane Yellowrock (so named because when she first walked out of the woods at the age of twelve, the Cherokee word that basically translates as “yellow rock” was the only word she said) is packing up her motorcycle, leaving the Bethel Nondenominational Christian Home to take a trainee job at a security firm in Asheville. Bobby, a year younger than Jane in years but very childlike, does not want her to leave. She has been his protector and his friend. Jane tells Bobby that it is time for her to leave, but she will come back to visit him. In addition to Bobby, Jane also hears the ever-present voice in the back of her mind—the one she tells no one about for fear of being thought crazy, the presence she continually forces to the background.
Jane had decided to take a detour on the way to her new job—to look for the horseshoe-shaped mountain and a nearby quartz boulder with gold running through it that are her only memories. Jane knew where the mountain was, thanks to the Internet, and after a night in a hotel along the way, she found the spot the next morning. Jane immediately feels as though she is home, but she also feels as though fur is rubbing against her insides. Exploring the area in the rain, Jane finds the quartz rock, with gold veins like the nugget in her necklace. After being bombarded with memories she has no idea how she could have experienced, Jane lies down on the rock and falls asleep. When Jane awakens, she is no longer Jane, but a Puma concolor, a mountain lion.
* * *
Cat Tats (in Cat Tales): For two years, undercover agent Rick LaFleur has been working on gaining access to Leo Pellissier, Master of the City of New Orleans, by taking jobs with lower-level vamps. One thing in his favor is that his uncle is security chief and primo for Katie, Leo’s heir. However, none of those things are of much help when he wakes up naked and bound in an old barn. Trying to make sense of where he is, Rick remembers the vampire Isleen that he had decided he could handle in order to have a little fun, but things did not go his way. As soon as it gets dark, Isleen comes in, soon followed by a woman—apparently a blood-servant, who tells Isleen that if she drinks from her again, she will be too weak to finish the spell in time.
After Isleen leaves to go hunting, Rick learns that the young woman/blood-servant, Loriann, is a witch whose younger brother Isleen is holding captive until Loriann completes a binding blood-spell on Rick. After going through a tarot deck with Rick cutting the cards a few times, Loriann asks him to choose what his tattoo will be: canines, equines, or felines. To his surprise, Rick chooses felines. He asks the witch why he is being used for this spell of revenge against the vampire Katie, and learns that she is a several-times great-grandmother to his mother, which explains where some of the money came from for big expenses over the years.
After the first night of tattooing, Rick begins to devise a plan to get away, gathering tools with which he makes stakes. When Loriann manages to get Isleen to agree to bring her brother along to the ceremony the next night, she tells Rick she will help him, even leaving him a knife. When Loriann arrives the next day, she tells Rick that she called Katie’s and told them what was going on, and that as soon as she sees that her brother is still alive, she will text them the address. Though Rick fails to stake Isleen in the spot he needs to, Leo and Katie arrive in time to kill the crazed vampire. Loriann and her brother
are safe.
Thankfully, Rick learns the next day that the binding was not activated, but he has a feeling that there is something special about the bobcat and mountain lion tattoos he now wears.
* * *
Kits (in Cat Tales): On her way out of town to track down a rogue vamp on the loose in the North Carolina countryside, Jane needs to stop by the restaurant owned and operated by a family of sisters—some witch, some human—to pick up the tracking charm she had commissioned from one of them, Molly Trueblood. When she arrives at Seven Sassy Sisters Herb Shop and Café, Jane learns that Molly did not come in that morning, or even call. Sensing that something is very wrong, Jane proves herself as a friend to one of Molly’s sisters, first by mentioning that she stood up to some witch-haters on Molly’s behalf a while back, then by answering a few questions. Jane heads over to Molly’s home, a double-wide trailer on two acres, but as she approaches she notices what appears to be a storm cloud centered right over the house.
With Beast pressing upon her mind to get to Molly’s “kit,” Angie Baby, Jane considers calling in some of the witch sisters to help with what is obviously some type of magical problem. Unfortunately her phone has no signal, and shortly thereafter her motorcycle dies as well. Taking off at a run, Jane heads to Molly’s, seeing part of the roof being peeled back. When she gets inside, unable to resist the magical pull, Jane shifts into Beast, who finds and comforts Angie—from whom the magic is coming—by wrapping herself around the little girl. Soon the maelstrom of magic dissipates, and when Molly comes over to look Beast in the face, she sees Jane in her eyes, as well as the necklace Jane always wears. Beast then leaves, and after dark Jane once again emerges, waking up on the ground next to her bike.
Missing her jacket and boots, Jane decides to go up near the house to see if Molly hears her outside. Molly comes on the porch, thanks Jane for everything (she and Evan had not expected Angie’s powers to manifest until puberty), and over tea Molly swears undying friendship to Jane, and Jane tells Molly she is a skinwalker—the first time she has ever told anyone that.
* * *
Haints (in Have Stakes Will Travel): Molly Trueblood, earth witch, has been called in by a local coven to check out what seems to be a haunting of an older house being renovated into an office. For support and assistance, Molly’s friend Jane Yellowrock has joined her to examine the place. Molly is reminded of Jane’s “secret” as she observes her friend’s catlike behavior while she goes through the rooms. Jane states that she smells both witch and vampire, but not anything dead as Molly feels there is. When prompted by Jane, Molly senses a very old ward and a keep-away spell, and also learns that Jane can now sense witch magic since being around Molly and Evan.
When Molly concentrates, she can see that the spell is protecting one corner of the room where there is a cloth covering other items. However, as soon as she says out loud that she needs to get through the spell in order to find out what talisman might be causing it, she is overcome with feelings of dread, which she realizes is due to the spell. Jane reports that a ladder started to move when Molly said she needed to go have a look at the corner, so Jane decides she will be the one to go exploring. Jane finds an old stethoscope, and Molly sees green tendrils of magic going up Jane’s arms until she drops the spelled item and then smacks it, neutralizing the spell. Molly now is able to more closely examine the stethoscope/amulet, but as she does so, Jane shouts to her as a headboard comes flying down the stairs and straight at Molly. Jane tells Molly to leave the house, which she does, dodging items as she goes. Jane informs Molly that a vampire owned the stethoscope.
Later that evening, Jane joins Molly and Evan at their house to share what she has learned about the house’s previous inhabitants. There was a doctor named Hainbridge in the town in 1870, 1910, and 1940, and from the hand-painted portraits she found, it was obviously the same man—the vampire she sensed. The doctor had a human son who contracted leukemia in 1845, and his father’s efforts to treat him resulted in madness. Since other approaches didn’t work, the doctor turned the son—a forbidden practice. The two disappeared from the area at the time of the Civil War, but returned in 1870, involving witches from a local coven.
Molly, Jane, and Evan know they need to figure out what type of spell is active in the house, and Jane insists that the two witches should get paid for their work. After Evan negotiates with the lawyer doing the renovations, with some prodding from a demonstration from the “poltergeist,” a satisfactory financial arrangement is reached. After spending the day researching past owners of the house, one a witch who had disappeared, Molly, Jane, and Evan head over to the place to try and ascertain what they are up against.
Through various preparations and workings, the three observe what Molly decides is a bubble or pocket universe, where actions get repeated over and over again. The group observes a woman being attacked by the vampire child, her stabbing the boy with knitting needles, and the vampire doctor attempting (unsuccessfully) to save his child while letting the woman die. Molly knows the vampire looked right at her, so it seems he must still be alive in there, and both Evan and Jane conclude that blood-magic got mixed in and has caused the spell to run in a loop. Jane decides that the vamp has to die when Molly breaks the spell, so the decision is made to call in a local cop to serve as witness.
Detective Paul Braxton retired to the Asheville area, but got bored and wanted to go back to work. After meeting with Molly, Jane, and Evan the next morning, he agrees to their plan. That evening the group of four breaks the spell, which frees the vampire, and Jane kills him. Jane worries that Molly will feel differently about her after seeing her in killing mode, but Molly assures her that is not the case. A few weeks later, one evening at dinner Angie Baby announces that Molly is going to have a baby (which she didn’t even know herself yet), and Jane confirms this, saying she thinks it will be a boy.
* * *
Signatures of the Dead (in both Have Stakes Will Travel and the anthology Strange Brew): At the house of Molly Trueblood, earth witch and best friend of Jane Yellowrock, Detective Paul Braxton (Brax), Evan (Molly’s husband), Jane, and Molly have gathered to consult about a recent killing of the McCarley family in the area. The deaths are clearly vamp attacks, but owing to Molly’s special talent of sensing death, Brax is asking her to come to the scene to determine how many vamps were involved, where they are holing up during the day, and says he needs a protection spell for when he goes after them. Despite Evan’s protests, Molly agrees to go to the house, and she asks Jane to accompany them.
Jane and Molly meet Brax at the house. Before going inside, Molly calls upon her power, and closes her eyes so as not to experience the physical world through her heightened senses. Once they go in the house, with Molly’s hand on Jane’s arm, the barrage of horror hits Molly—she knows exactly what happened to each family member. Jane carries Molly out of the house, plopping her on the ground. Molly reports that there were seven vamps, all crazy except for the sire, also young for a vampire. Outside, Molly senses the path the rogues took on their way out, but also that they played around on the swing set before doing so. Molly distracts Brax with a few other details so that Jane is able to remove a piece of cloth snagged on a bush.
Molly knows Jane’s secret—that she is a skinwalker whose other persona is a Puma concolor, and that Beast can track the vamps using the cloth. That evening, Molly records Jane’s shift (at Jane’s request), and gives Beast a ride to the McCarley house so she can find and follow the vamp trail. At four a.m. Molly gets a call from Jane, telling her to meet her at the old Partman Place and reminding her to bring food. When Molly arrives, Jane tells her that the vamps have been living there in the mine for a while.
While Jane sleeps on a cot in a back room of the shop Molly runs with her sisters, Molly takes Brax out to the Partman Place so he can look it over. When he asks how she knows the vamps are there, she tells him she used a tracking spell. Brax relies that the NCIC database does not have information on any such thing, an
d Molly gets upset that her family is being exposed. Brax assures Molly that her name has not been used in any way, and that he shields her as much as he can. Once Molly calms down, Brax goes to check out the mine. When he returns, the two hatch a plan to seal the vamps up in the mine for the night, and to return in the daytime with more people.
Unfortunately the plan does not work, and results in a situation that hits close to home: Molly’s pregnant sister, Carmen, is missing and her husband dead. With the family in an uproar and trying to deal with the news, Jane tells Molly that if she gives her a ride to the mine, she will go in as Beast and ascertain where Carmen might be. Jane suggests that the vamps may be holding Carmen in order to possibly turn her later, given the power that witches possess. Molly agrees, and Jane reports back that Carmen is indeed alive, and so are two teenaged girls. After working on spells with her sisters and discussion with everyone, the decision is made that Molly, Jane, Brax, and Evan will all go to the mine, under the cover of an obfuscation spell.
The group of four arrives at the mine, fitted with weapons and charms. Early in the action, Evan gets wounded, but Molly uses a healing amulet and they get him outside where an ambulance is called. The trio finds Carmen and the two girls, moving them out of the room they are being held in and to the outside. Vamps attack both Jane and Brax, and despite Molly’s attempt to save Brax with one of the charms, he dies anyway. Jane is able to heal after shifting to Beast. Despite their sad loss of Brax, all of the vampires are destroyed.