by Faith Hunter
After shifting back and getting Rinaldo, her regular cabbie, to come pick her up, Jane goes home to get ready for her breakfast date with Rick. However, when she arrives at the restaurant, Jane discovers that Rick was already there earlier—with another woman. Since the description does not fit any of his relatives or work associates, Jane is confused, but thinks it may have something to do with his undercover work.
A Lot of Hooey: As she walks back to her house, Jane thinks about all of the recent events and how they may be related: the unveiling of weres, the return of werewolves to New Orleans, the connection between Leo and Girrard, and wolves and cats showing up in Beast’s hunting grounds. When she gets to the house, Jane calls Derek Lee to arrange for a team for that evening, and then does some research on both weres and wolves. In order to take her mind off Rick, instilled guilt, and the confusion she feels, Jane goes to the dojo for a sparring workout. After stopping by Katie’s briefly, Jane falls asleep, unfortunately assailed by a memory of her mother being raped and her father being killed. When she awakens, Jane gets sick and takes a long shower. Afterward, Evangelina gets Jane dancing to some music, and she eats the tasty dinner her witch housemate cooked, and discovers she feels better.
Die Young Then, Sonny: At the designated time, Bruiser arrives with the limo to pick Jane up for the vamp gathering. Feeling kind of jumpy and not quite herself, Jane realizes that Evangelina worked some kind of magic on her, which Beast helps her fight. Arriving at vamp HQ, Jane is taken to the room where her crew awaits, and as she is chastising them for making too much noise and not paying attention, she spots Derek up in the ceiling, pointing guns at both her and Wrassler. Derek’s demonstration points out some of the flaws and weak spots in the system, and Jane gets a look on the security monitors at the unusual being the guys saw earlier—a greenish, reptilian-like creature who was placing cameras at various places around the building. Shortly thereafter the representatives from the vampire clans begin arriving—the former eight now condensed into four: Pellissier, Laurent, Bouvier, and Arceneau. Everything becomes eerily still while waiting for Leo to appear, which he does so suddenly that no one sees him arrive.
He Got a Whiff of Me: Leo declares the Mithrans “gathered” (which carries extra meaning for the vamps), the purpose of which is to devise a treaty with the Cursed of Artemis (the weres). Leo also states that the Sons of Darkness sanction this meeting, and that humans have grown so numerous that a treaty is necessary. Kemnebi, the African wereleopard and a woman (introduced as Safia) arrive, and Beast, after scenting them, wonders if they are like Jane. Bruiser tells Jane that Leo wants her to go through the receiving line behind the vampire clans. Jane is pleased when Bethany does not seem to remember her, but Sabina asks her if she still has the piece of the Blood Cross she was loaned. When Leo introduces her to Kemnebi, the man responds by shaking her hand but then immediately asking what she is, scenting at her throat. When Leo more or less offers her up as a bedmate, with a little help from Beast Jane pulls away and somehow manages to leave claw marks on Kemnebi’s arm.
Getting back to her job as security, Jane checks in with her guys regarding the green being, and learns that he is still in his room. After a brief but unsettling run-in with Sabina, who tells Jane of an incident that occurred one hundred years earlier, when some type of cat killed a visiting Son of Darkness, Sabina warns that if such a thing happens again, it will be Jane’s fault. Shortly thereafter, three werewolves in human form drop from the floor above, including Roul Molyneux.
You Want Me to Shoot Him, Boss? Suddenly Jane and her team find themselves in the midst of vamped-out hosts, werewolves in both human and wolf forms, and upset werecats. Kemnebi declares that he will not negotiate with werewolves, as they are inferior, and were kicked out of Europe long ago. Raol, playing up to the cameras, which love him, takes issue with Kemnebi’s characterization of his species, and once again states his intention of taking Leo to court. Leo responds that the Mithrans at present are not bound by the laws of the United States, but by the Vampira Carta, which, Jane acknowledges to herself, fits the fact that currently vamps do not have status as citizens in the same way humans do. Jane gets notified that a bloody female vamp has appeared in the building, heading down to the ballroom. When she appears, Jane realizes it is Katie, who had been buried in the blood of all eight clans in order to heal during the events of Skinwalker, risen too soon and likely not quite sane. Katie draws power from all of the vamps and weres in the room, and Leo approaches her. Recognizing Leo, Katie allows him to embrace her, at which point he bites her neck. This action provides the impetus for more chaos, with vamps fighting each other, but Jane manages to calm a couple of them down and asks them to go and help Leo, which they do by feeding him. Unfortunately Jane learns that they also have a dead body in Leo’s office—the werecat, Safia, Kemnebi’s assistant. About that same time, the police have arrived, having seen the carnage begin on the live video feed. Puzzled as to who would have killed Safia, given that vampires wouldn’t want her blood, Jane meets with Jodi Richoux, head of the division dealing with supernatural crime, and Jodi passes on the information to the Bureau of Diplomatic Services in Washington, D.C.
Don’t Beat Yourself Up Over It: After moving the human reporters to safety and the werewolves to another room, Jane takes a few moments for herself and grabs some food before heading over to where the coroner, Peter Richoux, Jodi’s witch cousin, is examining Safia’s mauled body. Once approximate time of death has been determined, Jane tells one of her men to focus on security footage for a specific time frame. When Jodi states that they will be placing Katie under arrest while they investigate, Leo asks if they will be able to effectively and safely restrain her, which results in an agreement for Katie to remain where she is, but with law enforcement present. When one of Jane’s guys spots the green guy in the pool with bloody clothes, Kemnebi shares that the creature is a grindylow, a type of pet to the weres, but Jane knows there is more he is not saying. Going over video footage determines that Katie did not kill Safia, but also shows one of Leo’s men, Tyler, in conversation with two werewolves in human form.
Katie Ate Dead Meat: Peter, the coroner, says he needs to do an autopsy on Safia to definitely rule on cause of death (though Kemnebi steadfastly refuses), but was able to ascertain some facts through his exam. Safia was shot, but there is no exit wound, meaning the bullet is still inside her. Peter believes that what actually killed her was bleeding to death from her neck being torn up. One of the techs tells the group that a hidden entrance into the room has been found—a fact Leo had neglected to share. She also mentions that a shell casing was found that may have bearing on another case. In a private conversation with Jodi, Jane learns that Jodi’s unit received a tip a few weeks earlier, which resulted in them reexamining a cold case from the ’sixties. Two of the suspects in those deaths are Leo and Bruiser, news that does not please Jane. Calling her cabbie, Rinaldo, to come pick her up and take her home, Jane mulls over the complete silence from Rick, feeling both anger and frustration. Woken from a deep sleep, Jane finds Bruiser at her door. It seems that his fingerprints have been found on the shell casing in the room with Safia’s body, and he asks Jane if he can lie low at her house for a couple of days. Reluctantly agreeing, but not believing Bruiser guilty of Safia’s murder, Jane tries to sleep. When she cannot relax, she picks up Girrard’s business card and catches a scent that she knows she also smelled during the gathering. When she talks to Girrard on the phone, he is less than helpful.
I Intend to Make You Regret That Decision: When Jane arrives back at the house, Bruiser greets her, striking her as despondent. They discuss dinner, and decide to grill some steaks. Jane asks Bruiser if he knew that Leo was going to offer her up to Kemnebi, and Bruiser says he did not. At that point, Bruiser suggests that he and Jane occupy themselves in her room, which she declines. Beast, however, really likes Bruiser, and comes to the fore, allowing Bruiser to get closer than Jane feels is safe, since she does feel an undeniable attraction
to him. After a short time Jane does get Beast to retreat. While the two are grilling the meat, Bruiser asks Jane about the boulders in the yard—the ones she needs for shifts that require extra mass, ones that she included in her contract. Jane gives an answer that has some of the truth, but not all. Jane then asks how old Bruiser was when he first sampled vamp blood, and learns he was seventeen. The price Bruiser has exacted for his answer is a dance, which is getting too hot and heavy when Evangelina thankfully arrives, with Tyler, Leo’s second, in tow. After an exchange in which it becomes clear that the two men do not like each other at all, and Bruiser learns that Leo still has a few tasks for him, Jane retires, only to be woken by a noise.
And He Ripped Off My Shirt: On the floor by the front door is an envelope that someone sent through the mail slot. Jane sees someone running down the street and gives chase. Ending up on Jackson Square, Jane knows she has lost the person she was chasing, but just as she scents him, Leo attacks her. Jane smells old blood on him—Katie’s—which seems to have affected him, and though he injures Jane, Leo suddenly takes off. When she gets home, Evangelina tells Jane to go wash off all of the vamp blood with hot water. Bruiser carries her up to the shower, and after he douses her really well, the two end up in a compromising position, once again interrupted by Evangelina. Once she gets downstairs and determines that the delivered envelope does not contain explosives (but does smell like Girrard), Jane takes it outside to open it. Inside Jane finds three photos: an old one of Leo and Bruiser standing over a dying, partially shifted werewolf, one of Magnolia Sweets, and the third a sheet of four shots—all of them of Rick with another woman in very intimate poses—Safia. While fighting back her pain at Rick’s betrayal, which she feels regardless if it is for work or not, Jane shows the photo taken of him and Leo to Bruiser. Since no one else was there at the time, Bruiser wonders who took the picture, and Jane responds that it has to be someone who wants her to help them figure out the rest of the puzzle they are trying to solve.
Good Nose on Ugly Dog: Determined to distance herself from both Bruiser and Evangelina, and needing to shift to heal from the wounds inflicted by Leo, Jane heads out on Bitsa to find a good location, stopping for a bucket of chicken on the way. Since she wants an extraordinary sense of smell to examine Safia’s body in the morgue, Jane takes along her fetish bone necklace and shifts into a bloodhound. Beast, never pleased when Jane shifts into any other form besides hers, nonetheless grudgingly admits that the dog does indeed have a good nose. Managing to sneak into the morgue, Jane-as-a-bloodhound finds the room where Safia’s body is kept, and opens the drawer with her paws. Jane scents a number of people and creatures on the body: Kemnebi, the female werewolf, Girrard, Katie, and Rick. After narrowly escaping detection and subsequently returning to human form, Jane goes home to look over the files from the woo-woo room at NOPD, discovering one she had never seen before discussing speculations as to the history of weres. She also finds what appears to be a page from a journal, mentioning Magnolia’s disappearance and Leo’s state afterward, but there is no indication as to whose journal the section came from, though they describe themselves as “once Christian.” When she goes online to learn more about the Cursed of Artemis, Jane reads that skinwalkers may be extinct—something that hits home to her, since she may have killed the only other one. One theory also states that the weres and skinwalkers (the weres’ forebears) may have been in conflict. This leads Jane to suspect that Leo knows more about her than she would like.
You Like the Boy Toy: Jane wakes to a call from Sloan Rosen, one of the other cops working in Rick’s section. He asks Jane if she has seen or heard from Rick, as he hasn’t checked in for over twenty-four hours, though he is supposed to twice a day. Jane realizes that the call is Sloan’s way of telling her to look for Rick, as he must be in trouble. Jane then receives a call from Leo, telling her that Kemnebi’s request that no autopsy be performed on Safia has been granted, and Leo wants Jane to find the killer. Realizing she needs help tracking down Rick, Jane calls Reach, an excellent but very expensive hacker, to locate Rick’s cell, as well as to try to determine where the photos of him were taken. Jane arrives at vamp HQ, and at breakfast gets a whiff of the waiter, sure it is Girrard, glamoured, and takes him down. She demands he take back the face she is used to, guesses that he is an elf, and wants his word he will answer questions. Girrard says he does not know who killed Safia, but that it wasn’t Leo or Bruiser. Jane, Girrard, and Wrassler watch the security feed from the night of Safia’s murder, and by slowing down the feed they see Safia come and go through a hidden place in the brick wall outside. The three then see the face of the man she was with—Rick.
When she leaves HQ, Jane finds an envelope on Bitsa’s seat, which she sticks in her bag without opening. Thinking over her relationship with Rick, Jane realizes that just as Leo owns Bruiser, the NOPD owns Rick. The envelope contains photos—of Roul standing over a dead werelion, and others with a human baby and Safia with kittens, and also a copy of Leo’s edict in 1916 banishing the werewolves from New Orleans. Suddenly Girrard appears in Jane’s room with a sword.
You Belong to Me: With Beast’s aid, Jane takes a few flying leaps, but Girrard (or Gee, as Jane thinks of him) is by that time sitting in the chair in her room, and tells her he is impressed. He asks if she likes the photos he sent, and Jane asks if they are fake, stating that his presence and that of the werewolves at the same time is too coincidental to be real coincidence. Gee explains the role of the Mercy Blade: to bring death to the rogues or scions who cannot move beyond devoveo, and their blood (that of the Blades) aids in bringing the suffering parents out of dolore. This arrangement began with the Sons of Darkness. Gee says he has gone to see Katie. When Jane asks what the reward for the Mercy Blade is, Gee responds that being around the vampires allows his kind to open a passage between worlds—a gateway to their own. Gee says Safia’s lover (he means Rick) likely saw her killed, and that Bruiser didn’t do it. Before he disappears, Gee tells Jane that she is goddess-born.
Jane calls Bruiser, asking questions, and surmises that clan members who had been with Leo since before 1915 would have knowledge of who needed to be killed so it would look as though Leo was trying to remove everyone loyal to his uncle. Jane decides that Tyler may be a good candidate for setting up Bruiser, so she goes to the clan home to search his room when he is not there. Jane hits the jackpot, finding spent shell casings and a gun hidden in a guitar case. Taking photos of the evidence, Jane e-mails them to Jodi, and then learns from Nettie, the housekeeper, that Tyler used to be head of security for Clan Rochefort, coming over from France with Leo’s son’s fiancee, Amitee. When leaving, Jane calls Sloan, who has not yet heard from Rick, but he lets her know that Jodi received her message and has a plan.
Hoping to spot Tyler out on the town, Jane heads over to the Royal MoJo Blues Company. Though she doesn’t see Tyler, she does see Katie, who appears sane. When they talk, Katie tries to hire Jane to kill Leo, for having deprived her of all of the power she gained from the blood of the vamps she was healing in, and when Jane refuses, she also suggests to Katie that she ask Leo to name her his heir.
Woad: After one more dance, Jane leaves the club, feeling clearheaded and slightly relaxed, though disappointed that she didn’t catch sight or scent of Rick or Tyler. Jane thinks about the spell that Gee put on her, and decides that he and Tyler are at the heart of whatever is going on. When she arrives back at the house, she walks in on Bruiser and Evangelina playing what appears to be a very cozy game of Parcheesi—so much so that the pink of the woman’s shirt casts a glow over the two of them. Jane tells Evangelina she needs her help in finding and removing the spell Gee put on her. Evangelina agrees, gathering her tools needed for the ritual, sending Jane into a type of trance. Taking Jane into her soul home, Evangelina tries to get Jane to tell her what she is, especially after Jane says there are always two of them together, but Jane refuses. After discovering the type of spell Gee used, a woad, at the same time as trying to disperse
it, Evangelina attempts to attach her own to Jane, which results in Jane destroying both spells with fire.
When she awakens, Jane sees that Evangelina was physically burned on her arms, and she hears the woman tell Bruiser that Jane will be fine, but that she still doesn’t know what Jane is, just what she isn’t. Pretending that she is still asleep, Jane sees the pinkish glow still surrounding Bruiser, and realizes that Evangelina has put a love spell on him. When the two leave the room, Jane does so too, going outside and calling Molly. Jane explains to her friend everything that has happened, and what occurred during the spell-removal session. Molly warns Jane that soon people may discover what she is. The two women discuss the image of an eye that Jane now can see on her palm, part of Gee’s spell, which Molly says should allow Jane to track him. On the phone, Angie tells Jane that the blue man is still watching her, and that she needs to watch out for Bruiser, Rick, and the “Man-Cat” too. Jane spots Gee outside in the spot people always choose to spy on her house from, and discovers that she can now see the layers of his glamours. Jane walks over to Gee, him unaware of her presence.
A Fashionista’s Closet Full of Falling Stilettos: Sneaking up on Gee, Jane notes that he appears to be sleeping, thinking himself invisible. Using one of her blades, Jane slices into the misty sphere surrounding Gee, draws blood, and realizes that she has inadvertently cut into his actual body. The mist closes back up, and Jane gets a look at the form within—some type of creature with wings, one she has seen before in the emblem in the foyer of Leo’s clan home. Back at the house, Jane confronts Bruiser, who seems to know nothing about what Gee really is, but identifies the animal in the design as an Anzu, a mythical beast with an attachment to humans. Jane weapons up and heads over to the vamp cemetery to have a chat with Sabina, figuring that the ancient vampire will have the answers she seeks. Calling Leo to make sure she can get into the property without a problem, Jane is practically speechless with surprise when Leo apologizes for his attack on her earlier, when he was under the influence of Katie’s blood. When she arrives at the cemetery, Jane notices that the angel on top of one of the mausoleums bears a striking resemblance to Gee.