by Faith Hunter
We have a lot of things to do. Sometimes I’ll need one form or the other. And right now, I need to go to HQ and check on things there.
Jane spirit is still broken. Jane needs holy water. Go to place of holy water, and Beast will shift.
Okay. Deal. But I want the shift now.
Beast reached a paw and placed it on my hand. I began to shift. Pain slithered up from her paw, up my arm, into my shoulder, and down my spine.
* * *
* * *
I woke stretched out on the boulder, human shaped, in a freezing, drumming rainstorm. Dang cat, I thought. But it was affectionate, not irritated. My clothes, however, were shredded, and I had really liked my alligator tee.
I got my icy hands under me and shoved up into a sitting position to see Eli standing on the porch with a blanket and towel. I squelched to him on my muddy bare human feet and let him wrap me in the blanket and my hair in the towel. “Wipe your feet on the mat. Go get a hot shower. I’ll have oatmeal ready when you get out.”
I nodded, pulled off my ruined jeans while wrapped in the blanket, and handed them to him so I wouldn’t mess up the floors. I went inside, leaving him to wring out my pants. It felt good to hear him chuckling as I followed orders.
Bruiser and Wrassler had gone to HQ to handle some problem, and when I was dry and mostly presentable, I weaponed up over a thin T-shirt and pulled a sweatshirt over that. Beast said I needed holy water, and there were only a couple of places in NOLA where I knew I could get baptismal water. One no longer allowed me in the doors because I had befouled the pool, and the other was a new church I had never really worshiped in. I emptied my out-of-date holy water vials and tucked them into a gobag before I told the boys where I was going.
“Not alone,” Eli said. “I’ll drive.”
“I need to do this alone,” I said. “Please.”
He hesitated and Alex muttered, “Bro. She’s going to church, which she hasn’t done in months. She doesn’t even make us pray over meals anymore. Give her some privacy. Sheesh.”
Surprised that Alex had noticed that, I took a set of keys from one of the hooks by the door. Out front I beeped the fob, raced through the sprinkles to the SUV, and climbed in. I waved to the security detail as I drove off. And pretended not to see Eli racing to another SUV to be my backup. He was an overprotective idiot, but he was my overprotective idiot.
The church I once attended had been in a storefront before it moved to a better location. A new church had taken over the site, and I pulled into a parking spot down the street. I stared at the church front, thinking, or maybe just sitting in a fog and not thinking, watching people in a line go in and come back out. I realized they were homeless, entering with backpacks and bedrolls and exiting with the same but also with paper bags of food. I left the SUV, locking it as I neared the storefront and the new little church that now inhabited it. I joined the slow-moving line of homeless people of all races and ages, and some families with kids. I nodded to the man in front of me and the old woman in a soaked winter coat who came in behind me, waiting patiently with them as we shuffled forward.
Inside, it was bustling. Where there used to be two rows of chairs with a central aisle, the chairs were folded against one wall, making a wide area where tables were set up and five people behind them were making sandwiches and putting lunches together. At a different table, someone was going through neatly folded stacks of clothing and passing out shirts and jeans and occasionally a rain slicker. At the last table was a man with a three-ring binder and an ancient laptop going through and looking up essential services and addresses that offered showers, health testing, and dentists who helped the needy. In front was the preacher couple, praying with anyone who wanted to join, teaching scripture to a small group. Few of the homeless joined that group, but it looked like the place I needed to be.
I took a chair in the second row and laced my fingers together, bowing my head. The male preacher was talking about the nature of redemption. I didn’t know if that was cosmic coincidence, God talking to me, or just the man’s usual spiel. Either way, the universe had a weird sense of humor.
“Redemption takes both faith and action, and is denied to no one,” the preacher man said. But I remembered the bright and blinding moment when Sabina lost her soul, and I had to wonder. After the short message and bible reading, the meeting ended and the couple stood around chatting with the participants. When their backs were turned, I hoofed it behind the curtain to the baptismal pool.
It wasn’t the same baptismal pool as last time. This was a new, oval, redwood, Japanese hot tub, with the benches around the sides removed. I leaned over the edge and refilled my vials of holy water, tucking them away safely in the gobag. Where I found a fifty dollar bill. I always travelled with cash and a change of clothing in case I shifted and ended up naked and alone somewhere, but I didn’t remember the fifty.
“Can I help you, sister?” a voice said from behind me. I swiveled and saw the woman preacher.
“Maybe,” I said, surprising myself. “Your husband said that redemption is denied to no one. But it’s been said that the fallen angels couldn’t be redeemed.” My brain went sideways with possibilities. “So can vampires? And are other paras cursed? What about were-creatures who were turned against their will? And what about witches?” What about me?
“Redemption is . . . complicated,” she said gently. “Angels who fell knew beyond doubt that they were fighting a war against the one true God. Redemption isn’t offered to humans who believe yet sin anyway, only to those who repent and change. Witches can be or do whatever they wish. If they desire redemption, then it is theirs. Vampires live long lives, as do were-creatures, some choosing to trade humanity for a form of eternal youth.” She shrugged the tiniest bit. “The survival of them is in the hands of the Elohim.”
Elohim. It was one of the earliest Hebrew names of God, the plural term for God, meaning gods. It was interesting that she used it. I asked, “And vampires and were-creatures who are turned against their wills? Abused against their wills?” Like Rick? The thought rang in my head like a gong, though I didn’t say it. For all his flaws, Rick had a deep and abiding need to protect the innocent. After a slight hesitation, I finished. “Do they get a chance for heaven?”
She sighed sadly. “I’ve talked with vampires. Some of them suffer horribly, not knowing. And I’ll tell you like I tell them: I don’t know. That’s in God’s hands. But they can hope. They can always hope.”
I didn’t say it, but Sabina had been hoping to find her soul for two thousand years. At some point, that hope had to fade. It might already have. I looked back at the soaking tub. The water in it had been warm to the touch. Like blood. Which made sense in a macabre way, because it was supposed to take the place of blood. I wondered if a vampire had ever tried to be baptized and burned up in the water. I frowned, remembering the pool I had fouled.
“You’re Jane Yellowrock, aren’t you?” she said, her voice low. “I’ve seen you on TV.” I nodded and she went on. “You’ve killed vampires. Are you worried that you sent them to hell?”
“If they don’t have souls anymore, can they go to hell?”
“Interesting theological question. But a debate on theology is not really why you’re here, I think.”
She was right. That was a wild-goose chase and obscured what I was really here for. “My faith has been . . . lacking,” I said. “It isn’t that I’m antiredemption, anti-God, antianything. It’s just that . . .” I trailed my fingers through the water, and it didn’t smoke or spark or start smelling like brimstone. That was a good start. “I’ve walked away from God . . .”
“Because he wasn’t big enough or powerful enough to save you and those you love?” she asked.
“No. But because he didn’t bother. And because I’ve done the same thing vamps have done. I’ve killed because I thought my way was the right way, the only way, and it turns out that sometimes there’s another way. I’m not sure if I’m . . . redeemable. Not sure
if God would even want me, because like the fallen angels, I kept doing what I was doing even after I found out there was another way. I kept killing.”
The woman patted my shoulder and said, “And you also did great things for this city. Reined in the feral vampires that once preyed on the homeless. Forced them to do better by their own blood-servants. Forbade the creation of new blood-slaves. Don’t think, Jane Yellowrock, that your contributions have gone unnoticed by the Almighty. They haven’t gone unnoticed by us either.”
Totally unexpected tears filled my eyes. I had no idea what to say. Or how to say it. I turned my face away to hide my reaction.
“You sit here as long as you want.” She patted my shoulder again, and this time it felt like a benediction or a blessing. “It’s my turn to make sandwiches.”
“How much does all this cost?” I asked, my voice rough with the emotional reaction I hadn’t expected. I met her eyes and realized she was younger than I had somehow thought, considering her quiet, calm wisdom, and was maybe only in her late twenties, a dark-skinned woman with reddish hair. I waved at the interior of the small church. “Making sandwiches, cleaning and storing the clothing. Electricity. Rent. Salaries.”
“Upwards of a hundred thousand a year. Lately more, because New Orleans’s homeless numbers are growing by leaps and bounds since the vampires stopped eating them.” She smiled. “I really have to go now. But if you want to come back, we have prayer meeting every day at six p.m.”
I handed her the fifty dollar bill and said, “Thank you.”
Her eyes lit up. “Thank you, sister.” She left me by the soaking tub.
I bowed my head and whispered, too quietly for any human to hear, “I’m sorry. I’ve doubted you were enough for me. Doubted you cared for anyone. But . . . you let me find the rift. Just buying that property so close to it was a coincidence. Or maybe the rift opened because of all the magic stuff I brought with me. Sooo. Maybe . . . you sent me there? You set all this up? If anyone could play a long game, you could. You know, since you have all that omniscient power and cra—ah, stuff.”
God didn’t answer, but then, he never had talked to me the way some people said he talked to them. “What am I supposed to do now?” I asked. And again, no one answered. I wondered if that meant it was okay with God if I made my own decisions.
I lifted a hand at the woman preacher on the way out the door and headed to my vehicle.
Eli was propped against my SUV door, his face unsmiling but not looking ticked off either, so that was good.
I said, “Hey, bro. You out here scaring the homeless?”
He tapped his earbud and slanted his eyes at me.
I said nothing. Didn’t react at all.
“You aren’t making a stink about me following you,” he said.
“No. Just doing your job. I get it.”
He gave an Eli smile. Sort of a twitch.
“How many others did you bring with you?”
“Only three. Two SUVs are situated at both ends of the block.”
I handed him my gobag. “Holy water. Make sure it’s shared where it’s needed. And tell Alex to send ten K from my personal account to the church. They’re doing good work on a shoestring.”
“You heading to HQ?” he asked.
“Yeah. How ’bout you drive, and we chat, and one of the security guys can drive the other vehicle back home.”
I got more of a real smile this time. “Sounds good.”
* * *
* * *
We pulled up at the back of HQ and parked behind three box trucks, delivery guys unloading tables and folding chairs and linens and other assorted wedding paraphernalia. Between groups of sweaty men showing way too much butt crack, Eli let me out under the porte cochere, and Derek directed me to the side, where he put me through the security measures as if I was a guest or one of the delivery guys.
“Cute,” I said to him.
“Dark Queen’s orders,” he said, with a trace of a snarky grin. He was wearing black jeans and a T-shirt and that hint of snark on his face as he clipped a security band to my wrist so I could be tracked. I didn’t argue. I had, after all, helped create all the security protocols. Once I was trackable, Derek stepped back and said, “Morning, Legs.”
And that just warmed my heart strings. Legs. Not my queen or something else stupid.
He indicated the ballroom entrance and said, “Check out the preparations. Wrassler’s in there, nervous as a cat with nine tails. Maybe you can calm him down some more, though you were brilliant to send Deon to help. We had no idea he was a wedding planner as well as a chef.”
Deon was a wedding planner? I sent Deon? Nope. My Consort sent Deon. We trailed the delivery people to the ballroom, and I stopped in the open door. The stained glass in the overhead arches glittered, casting brilliant light across the piled up deliveries, the columns, and the ballroom floor. The stained glass wasn’t open to the sun. The “windows” were set into a dropped ceiling of arches, lights above them, to fake the appearance of sunlight in the vamp-safe room. There were rows of metal seats in two sections with a wide aisle down the middle. A woman in jeans and a tee was dressing the chairs in one-piece outfits and adding little blue bows. Another woman was directing the placement of the tables, ordering the men around like a drill sergeant. Wrassler was standing in the corner, arms hanging limply, a look of woe on his face.
I stopped next to him. “Prewedding jitters, Wrassler?”
“Huh. I got local and foreign fangheads in town for this. A passel of witches. And every cop in town wants to be here too. The liquor bar I’m good with, but the blood bar is not gonna make my bride happy.”
Music started up through the speakers, a waltz, and Gee DiMercy appeared in an alcove. I was pretty sure he hadn’t been there only a moment ago. I kept an eye on him as we talked.
I shrugged. “Tell Deon the blood bar has to be moved to the gym.”
Wrassler shot his eyes to me. “Really?”
“It’s your wedding. You’re pretty much in charge of what goes on at HQ anyway. Just make sure the visiting vamps understand that they have to be escorted back and forth to the bar—and that no means no. They do not have permission to consider this event a buffet or to roll the humans.”
“And if one of them gets out of line?”
I considered. “I like beheading vamps who get out of line. And as the Dark Queen, I don’t care if the blood shows.”
Wrassler burst out laughing and gave me a massive hug. “I love you, Janie.”
“Love you too, big guy.”
From the doorway, a voice called, “Are you trying to steal my man?”
Wrassler let me go and winked at me before limping to Jodi and giving her an even bigger hug, tight enough that she squeaked in surprise. When he let her go, she shouted to me, “Don’t you dare mess up my wedding, woman.”
“I’ll do my best to keep things perfect.” As promises went, that one pretty much sucked, but it was the best I could do.
Wrassler was right. This particular wedding combo was rife with bad possibilities. As I watched, Gee gave instructions, and Wrassler took Jodi, who was like half his size and still wearing her service weapon, in his arms. With Gee correcting hand and arm positions, and Wrassler trying so hard to obey even when his prosthetic leg gave less than perfect balance, they began to waltz.
Tears pricked under my lids. “This is so sweet. It’s going to be fabulous,” I murmured to Derek, who was still standing near me.
“Yeah. You done good, Janie. The ballroom is looking great. Homer is happier than I ever saw him.”
“Homer?” I said, watching the couple as they danced across the room, dodging the delivery men.
“Homer Perkins. Wrassler.”
I shot him a look of surprise. “Wrassler’s name is Homer?”
“Homer Perkins. Word is, he used to take all kinds of shiii . . . crap about it when he was a kid.” There was a soft smile on Derek’s mouth, not a smile that had ever been directed
at me. “Then he got so big, and no one hassled him anymore, but he still hated his name. Dubbing him Wrassler is the best thing you ever did for him. Well. That and pushing him to go out with Jodi.”
I frowned at him. Derek was talking to me. Normal human talk. Nothing insulting or mean or snide. “I need to go to the subbasement four storage room.”
“I’ll walk with you. I can update you on security for the wedding.”
Derek was going to walk with me. Okay. Either he was going to shoot me and hide my body—there were probably bodies buried in the walls—or someone had changed places with him. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Pod People, maybe. We got on the elevator, and the doors closed, me waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Derek slid in his card key to initiate the elevator and clasped his hands in front of him, standing with his feet shoulder width apart, like some kind of parade rest. I slouched in the corner, watching us both in the steel reflections. The elevator started down. He said, “I’ve been a jerk. I hope you will accept my apology.”
I saw myself blink. It would have been the perfect time to attack because I was pretty nonplussed. I squinted at his reflection. “You hated my guts from the first time we met. One of your people had a sniper rifle aimed at my spine.”
“I didn’t tell him to shoot. Hate was too strong a word. Disliked immensely. More that.” There was a twinkle in his dark eyes and a slight twist to his full lips. Almost a smile.
“Uh-huh. I haven’t done anything to make you like me. At the gather, when I got here the other day, you stared daggers at me. People don’t change, not without either a lot of work or some sort of life-changing trauma.”
Derek said, “Trauma. I was run off the road, beaten, drained, and dragged myself back to vamp HQ half alive. I had a lot of time to think while I was trying not to die. I think that qualifies as life-changing trauma.”