by Faith Hunter
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 o’ de church first, o’ 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 o’ blood, and many month o’ 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 mebbe 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 pouf 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 undead life.” There wasn’t a dry eye in the churchyard.
To finish the night off properly, Leo Pellissier, Master of the City of 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 was 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 and 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.
The Devil’s Left Boot
Liz tossed the rag into the dishpan and lifted it to take the dirty dishes to the kitchen. Seven Sassy Sisters’ Herb Shop and Café used heavy country china and good-quality stainless flatware instead of the cheaper stuff. The customers liked the quality and the homey atmosphere, but being busboy—or -girl—was tough on her back.
“I’ve got it,” Cia said, and scooped the heavy pan out of her arms. “Share and share alike,” she added. Liz’s once reticent and introverted twin had been doing a lot of that since Liz’s injury. And it wasn’t necessary. So, okay, Liz got short of breath. And her ribs hurt sometimes. She was still healing, and no one could expect complete and instantaneous recuperation after having a huge rock land on her chest in the middle of a magical attack. By their own coven leader . . . and elder sister.
Grief welled up again, and Liz blinked furiously against the tears. Evangelina’s death had hit all the sisters hard, but the four witch sisters had felt her death most deeply because they had also lost a coven leader, and by the foulest means—addiction to demons. Although the actual cause of death had been a knife blade to the torso, the Evangelina they had grown up with and practiced their craft with for their whole lives had been dead for months before that.
Liz sighed, feeling the weakness in her ribs, a slow, low-level pain, and p
ulled out a clean rag to wipe down the next table. She was polishing the final booth, standing by the front door, when the flashy red Thunderbird wheeled up and parked. It wasn’t a practical car for Asheville, but it was memorable, and that was what the driver wanted—to be known as an icon in her hometown. Liz huffed out a breath and called, “Cia! Company. And not the good kind.”
Her twin was by her side in a heartbeat. “Is that Layla? Too bad we don’t have access to Evie’s demon. It could eat her.”
“Not funny,” Liz said. The demon had eaten a few humans before it was sent back into the dark. “Maybe she’s changed since high school.”
“Once a bitch, always a bitch,” Cia said. “What’s that she’s carrying?”
“A baby goat? What the—”
The door opened, and their archenemy from their high school years stepped in, bringing with her a cold spring wind through the air lock doors. Layla’s face was as beautiful as ever, which made Liz stiffen and Cia narrow her eyes. Layla was black haired and pale skinned and skinny and graceful and delicate and feminine and damn near perfect. In high school she’d been the leader of a cadre of girls who had all been gorgeous and popular, most of them cheerleaders. Unlike the Everharts, all of Layla’s pals had been human. And most of them had been mean. Now, just like in high school, the twins stood side by side, facing their enemy.
The inner doors swished closed after Layla and she stopped, standing with the poise of a model, slender and lovely, wearing a Ralph Lauren leather jacket, tailored pants, and a pair of bling-studded Manolo Blahnik ankle boots that were drool-worthy. She stared at the twins across the small space and across the years. No one spoke. When the baby pygmy goat under Layla’s arm started to struggle, she soothed it with a gentle hand, and Liz felt Cia stiffen. Layla Shiffen should not be gentle.
“Boadacia Everhart and Elizabeth Everhart,” she said, the words sounding almost formulaic, her expression determined, “I require help.”
Cia crossed her arms and made a huffing sound. Liz dropped her rag and mimicked her sister.
The resolve on Layla’s face flickered. “I can pay. And I brought my own goat.”
Liz laughed, the sound slightly wheezing from her damaged lungs.
Cia said, “Help? For what.” It didn’t sound like a question—more like an accusation. Or a challenge. “And what does our help have to do with a goat?”
Layla shifted, her composure faltering again before her lips firmed in determination. “I need you to find my mother. The goat is for the sacrifice.”
“Sac—,” Liz started, then stopped.
“We don’t do blood magic,” Cia spat. She pointed at the door. “Get out.”
“But . . .” Layla’s eyes filled with tears. “But I need you. I said the words right. I researched how to say it.” She sobbed once. A real sob. Not like the fake sobs she’d used in the school play the year she had the lead in Romeo and Juliet. “I don’t have anyone else. The police can’t help. Or won’t. They say there’s no sign of foul play. They took a missing-persons report and that’s all they’ll do,” she said, her words running together. “My mom’s in trouble. I know it. And I don’t know where to turn.” Tears fell across her perfect cheeks and dripped onto the silk scarf around her neck. “P-please.”
Neither twin reacted. They still stood side by side, staring and silent. Liz could feel the power building up under her twin’s skin, prickly and cold, like winter moonlight. It was slow to rise, with the moon beneath the horizon, but it was powerful magic, especially when she was angry. Their human sisters must have felt it too. They stepped in through the archway opening from the herb shop, one with a shotgun held down by her leg. The other sister would be armed as well, nonmagical, but deadly in the face of danger. One robbery was all it had taken for their human sisters to find a way to protect themselves. Liz shook her head at them, a minuscule motion.
“Big whoop,” Cia said. “I don’t like you. I remember too much.”
Layla’s face went all blotchy and red under her porcelain makeup. Her nose started running, and she raised a wrist to wipe it, bringing the goat close to her. The goat butted her chin and made a soft bleating noise. She tucked the animal under her chin as if cuddling it and said, “Please. You have to help me.” She looked back and forth between them, her expression growing frantic. She clutched the baby goat to her chest. “You have to. It’s my mother.”
Liz felt Cia shudder faintly at the last word and knew that Layla had won, just like in high school. Nothing had changed since they were teens. “Son of a witch on a switch,” Cia cursed.
Liz sighed and waved their sisters off. Regan and Amelia both frowned, recognizing the woman and knowing her history with the witch twins. But they went back to the herb shop side of Seven Sassy Sisters’, moving reluctantly and keeping an eye on the café. Both crises averted—magical and weapons fire—Liz dropped into a booth at the front window and pointed to the bench seat across the newly cleaned table. Liz had good reason to keep Cia busy and off the TV and Internet. Maybe this would do that. “Sit,” she said to Layla. “What’s your mother’s name and why do you think she’s in trouble?”
Layla sat and settled the baby goat on her lap before reaching into her Bruno Magli Maddalena suede bag for a tissue and patting her face. Liz could almost feel Cia’s covetousness as her twin slid onto the bench seat, reestablishing the arm-to-arm, skin-to-skin contact. Of course, even if an Everhart could afford a bag that went for more than two thousand dollars new, none of the sisters would buy it. Maybe a vintage one in need of TLC and a little magical cleanup. Everharts were notoriously cheap. Covetous but cheap. Liz nearly smiled.
“My mother is Evelyn Janice McMann. She called me the day before yesterday on her way home from work. We ended the call when she locked the door behind her, just like always. It’s this”—Layla waved one hand in the air, as if searching for a word—“safety thing we do when Mom works late. She works for a developer, and late-night business meetings are common, as you might imagine.”
Liz had no idea what hours developers kept, but she nodded, understanding security measures.
“Her boss called the house the next morning. Mom had missed an important meeting. Which she never does. Never.”
Liz had to wonder if that had been a problem for Layla growing up. Maybe growing up second to the job.
“So I went by there. Mom’s house looked perfect, as always. Except her clothes, the ones she wore when we had lunch the day before, were scattered everywhere, like they’d been thrown. Carelessly. There is nothing careless about my mother. So I went to the police.” She wiped her face again. “And they made me wait until this morning to file a missing-persons report. They think she was having a fling and took off with some man,” Layla said, her tone bitter. “My mother doesn’t have time for a man in her life. Trust me. She works fourteen hours a day. Every day. Always has.”
Cia nudged her, and Liz knew her twin was thinking along the same lines. Abandonment issues, much? It might explain a lot about Layla, growing up. Not that her having issues made them forgive her. Not gonna happen.
“Her keys? Purse? Cell?” Liz asked.
“All on the floor with her clothes.” Fresh tears gathered in Layla’s eyes and she bent over the goat. It nudged her jaw and licked her chin. “I don’t know what to do. Can you help me? Can you find her?”
Cia and Liz shared looks that said, No. Yes. No. Maybe. No.
Layla eased the goat back into the crook of her arm, placed the expensive pocketbook on the table, and opened the flap. “I can pay.” She pulled out a stack of hundred-dollar bills and pushed it across the table toward them. Neither twin looked at the money, but they both saw it. More money than they made in tips in a month. Maybe two.
Cia’s magic rose again, like a wave at high tide, hard and powerful and angry. She leaned forward and said, “We can try. Trying is a flat fee of a thousand. Success is
another two thousand. Nonnegotiable.” When Liz started to debate the amount, Cia said, “That’s Jane Yellowrock’s fee for a PI job. And she doesn’t have magic. And”—she looked hard at Layla—“if we get your mom back, the fee is required, no matter what shape your mom is in.”
Liz sucked in a slow, painful breath. Layla gasped, her face paling. The comment was blunt enough to be worthy of Jane Yellowrock herself, and the rogue-vampire hunter was honest to the point of being brusque. Cia meant that Layla’s mom could be dead. She was the gentler twin. Usually. Suddenly Liz remembered what it had felt like to bear the brunt of Layla’s cruelty—the goading, the taunting. And that one time . . . In that single indrawn breath, the memory descended, full, complete, and awful.
“Boadecia,” Layla had hissed. “Stupid name for a stupid girl. Some people think the twins have some kind of power. I just think they’re ugly.” A shove, hidden from the teachers by the group of girls surrounding them. “Stupid and ugly. Ugly red hair and ugly freckles. When Mother Nature messes up, she messes up bad. She made two of them.” Another shove. A yank of hair.
The moon had been full that day, making Cia less stable, more reckless, like stormy waves on an icy ocean, pushed by a full-moon tide. Fear had grown up inside Liz, like frozen rocks hanging on a cliff face, ready to fall.
Not fear of the taunting girls, but fear of themselves, fear of losing control. Fear that one of them would erupt and pull the other into her magical reaction through the twin bond. Fear that they would misuse their gifts and pay the price. Then the bell had sounded. They had gotten away, barely, before one of them lost control and they hurt the girls.
Liz blew out her breath. Yeah. Okay. Cia was right. That girl who hurt them back in high school was the woman facing them. To an enemy, their services shouldn’t be offered as a gift freely given, the way they were supposed to be for one in need. “What she said. That’s our price.”
“No matter what,” Layla said. Her hands trembling, she counted out thirty hundred-dollar bills. “I pay up front. You do your best.” She stood, tucking the goat into the crook of her arm and soothing it with an absentminded caress.