Shadow Rites

by Faith Hunter

  From the house came the words “You are my dark knight, Vampire Edmund. I will take care of you too.” It was Angie’s voice. At the words, something shifted inside me. Something dark and light, heated and icy. My world shifted on its always precarious axis.

  “Angie?” I asked.

  “Oh, hell no,” Evan said.

  CHAPTER 11

  Everything’s Better with Bacon

  I wasn’t sure what happened in the next few moments. Other than the witch adults and the vampire all agreeing that Angie was too young to make or sign contracts, and that until she was eighteen, she couldn’t swear to anyone. Which seemed like a good compromise to me, but left Angie mutinous again. The entire household was in the living room: the witches, the children, the humans, the vampire, the werewolf, and the grindylow, whom I hadn’t seen appear but was making itself at home with the nonfamiliar cat, all three beasts curled on the rug in front of the couch. The children were on the couch only feet away, again watching the improbable Disney movie with dreadful gender role models but great hair. And the witches were chatting with the vampire.

  My world was . . . not falling apart. Was becoming something I had never been able to conceive. Never would have believed.

  “You need to put on some makeup, babe. We’re expected at vamp central and you look like death warmed over. And not in a vampy-undead-pseudo-sexy way. More like in the Walking Dead way.”

  “Dear God, yes,” Edmund said. “Shall I work on your hair?”

  “I saw in the mirror,” I said. “No. I can do my own hair.” Not sure how all this had happened, I walked away from the gathering to my room to change clothes. And do my hair. And put on makeup. To go to vamp central and do . . . do whatever it was I did there.

  * * *

  I was dressed in black, natch, when I smelled Molly at my door. “It’s open,” I said when she didn’t knock. She entered and closed the door behind her, standing with the door at her back, her hands on the knob. “You look awful,” she said. “Are you sure you should go out?”

  “No, I’m not sure. But I have a job.” I sat on the bed and rebraided my hair, fingers working on their own.

  “Big bad vamp hunter and vamp Enforcer,” Molly said. “A contradiction in every way.”

  “What’s up, Mol?”

  Molly made a sound that was part exasperation and part uncertainty. “I have a concern. About the conclave. And you.”

  “Okay.” I twisted my braided hair up in a tight bun, just in case I had to fight someone again at HQ. I shoved silver stakes into the bun.

  “Evan and I took a ride out to the vampire cemetery today.”

  My eyebrows went up and an unanticipated shiver of panic went down my spine. The vamp cemetery was where I was struck by lightning during a witch working. I still had the occasional nightmare about that. “Okay. Why?”

  “You were struck by lightning during a working. It’s never happened before to anyone I know. Evan and I think it wasn’t an accident. That it wasn’t a fluke. That the storm was attracted to the power on the ground, and that someone used that to direct an attack against you.”

  She waited for me to speak, so I gave her a shrug and went to the bathroom. She was right. I still looked awful. I pawed through my meager makeup, which I kept in a tackle box, and removed some concealer and powder and seven tubes of scarlet lipstick. “Okay. And?” I started dabbing the concealer onto the rings beneath my eyes. I wasn’t good at putting on makeup, but anything would have made me less corpselike.

  “The lightning strike was probably a deliberate attack on you.” She enunciated the last words as if I was too dense to understand them.

  “Okay.”

  “That’s it? Okay?”

  I shrugged again and applied powder over the concealer. Then chose a tube of red lipstick, one with a hint of yellow in the tint, and put a couple of dabs of the lipstick on my cheeks and rubbed them in. I could have used some blush, but I had never been adept at getting blush shades to match my lipstick, and my face usually ended up looking wrong. With the lipstick on my cheeks, I looked marginally better, so I smeared some on my mouth and dropped all the tubes into the tackle box. “Molly, I’ve thought it through too. I figured it had to be a premeditated, well-planned attack. But I’ve made so many enemies in this town, there would no way to pick out who might be behind it.”

  “A witch at the scene is the most likely offender.”

  And Molly had told the witches some things about me. Not secrets exactly. Probably all in innocence, but . . . still. It had hurt. “Yeah. I know.” I blew out a breath and sat back on the corner of the bed to slip into the shoulder holster and secure the matching Walther PK .380s. With my best friend in the world watching, I pulled on boots. I was wearing the fancy-schmancy ones Leo had given me. Lucchese, hand-stitched, one-of-a-kind, gorgeous boots, which I loved to death. Grunting, I said, “I figured that out back when the lightning happened.”

  “All an attacking witch or witches would have needed was something of yours—hair, fingernail clipping. If they had that, the assault could even have been long-distance, directed to the working and targeted on you.”

  Keeping my voice carefully expressionless as I slipped into my lightweight jacket and tugged it to fit over the weapons, I said, “I clip my own nails. I’ve never had my hair cut. The likelihood of someone getting genetic material from me by going through my garbage isn’t impossible, but it also wouldn’t be easy.” I hesitated before saying the next part, but it needed to be said, to clear the air between us. “Unless you’re telling me you gave them something of mine, which I don’t believe.” I dropped my gaze to the floor, not wanting to look at Molly. “But you did tell the witches things about me.” I could hear the hurt in my voice, and knew that Molly could too.

  “They asked me about you. I confirmed things that were readily available on the Internet and on your business Web site. I never told them secrets. And I never gave anyone genetic material. You know that I would never do that.” Molly gripped her skirt in her fingers, a new, nervous habit. “Don’t you?”

  And I did. But knowing it intellectually was one thing; hearing the truth in her words, smelling the truth on her body, made me feel better. “Yeah. I do,” I said. “Wait.” I blinked slowly, eyes closed, letting memories stir together inside me. Beast had said, Jane has hair.

  “That was back then,” I said, the words coming slowly as my brain flew through possibilities. “Now, with this witch scan spell, I keep smelling burned hair.”

  Molly’s perfect bow lips parted.

  My hair? Yes . . . maybe it had been my hair. And if so, then it was a very specific spell, a black-magic spell tied to my genetic material. If Molly was right, then the people at the lightning debacle in the vamp cemetery were part of what was happening now. “What if . . . What if you’re right and they burned my hair? That would explain why the spell was so specific, and so deeply attuned to me. Then and now.”

  “No one does DNA-specific spells anymore except for healing spells, and they take a coven of at least five well-balanced witches. Without that, the workings are too delicate and fall apart too easily. They’re unpredictable and end up flying.” When a spell didn’t work, Molly made a paper airplane and flew it across the room to entertain the children. Her eyes traveled left and right slowly as she put that together with what we knew. She said haltingly, “Until I met you, I thought I understood magic. But now? Anything is possible.”

  “But if we’re right, where did they get my hair to use in a spell? Unless someone else is involved. Like, maybe someone took a hair sample from a workout mat or skin scraping or blood from HQ after a battle or sweat after a workout or a spar.” I gave Molly what might have been a small smile and she nodded, the motion jerky, not happy. “It’s possible. I’m putting my money on a disgruntled vamp working with the two witches who attacked my house and me. If Edmund hadn’t just sworn to
me, I’d say he was a perfect possibility, having lost his status and wanting to get back at the whole vamp power struggle. But . . . someone like him.”

  Molly pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and walked to me. I didn’t want to, but I took the paper and unfolded it to see a list of nine names. Only Lachish Dutillet and Molly and the two witches who went by akas were familiar to me. Some had no last names, which was odd. She said, “Lachish says you never asked her for a list of the witches who were there, in the cemetery, that night, so I asked for you. This is all of them. All of us.”

  No last names. I didn’t know how to point that out. When I didn’t say anything, her scent spiked with adrenaline and grief pheromones. She asked, “If you thought it might be a targeted attack, why didn’t you ask me for the names? Did you think I would pick witches over you?”

  “I didn’t want to . . . put you on the spot?” Make you choose. That was what I meant, and Molly seemed to know that. Her scent spiked, hot and peppery with anger. Again. Pregnancy emotional swings.

  Tears of frustration gathered in her eyes. “You’re my friend, damn it. Damn, damn, damn it! I put you first! Before witches. Before everybody!”

  I smiled. Molly had just cussed out loud, where her kids might overhear, which she never did. I said, “I know you do. And I love you too.” At which point Molly’s tears pooled over and spilled down her cheeks. I was making everyone cry. I sat and patted the mattress and she fell on the bed beside me, doing the pregnant-woman boohoo at a loud wail and with full waterworks. I put an arm around her and gathered her close. Big Evan opened the door, took us in, and closed the door, leaving her to me. Coward.

  I held Molly and rocked her while she cried and moaned and said things like “You can trust me.” And “I’m not a death witch anymore.” And “I love you. I love you. I love you. You’re my bestest friend in the whole entire world!” And “I never held Evangelina’s death against you!” And a dozen other things that may have been in Gaelic, but were sure not English, and made no sense. At all.

  When she calmed a little, enough that I thought the baby might not suffer from the emotional overload, I said, “I trust you, Molly. I’ve always trusted you. Even when the death magics rode you so hard.”

  “You do? You have?”

  I patted her shoulder even while I eased her away from my now-drenched clothing. “Yes. I do. I have.” I patted a time or two more, wondering if this was enough physical contact or if Mol needed more. I wasn’t good at this stuff. After a few more pats, I said, “So, while you’re up close and personal, can you check out my hands and body for any spells and crap that may be clinging to me?”

  “Spells and crap?”

  I gave an overly nonchalant shrug. “Workings. Come on, Mol.”

  Molly wiped her eyes and dried her tears on her skirt. She took my hands, turning them over and inspecting both sides. I felt a tingle of power, of her magics. They feathered across my palms, delicate energies, a soothing warmth, and then stronger, like the hot/cold electric touch of sparkler fireworks when lit. Oddly similar to a master vampire’s magics, cold and hot all at once.

  I pulled in a breath, sharp and quick. “I guess you’re inspecting me for the spell.”

  The ghost of a smile touched her lips. “Gotta bring home the bacon. And to that, I gotta have a bill to hit Leo with. Now shut up. I’m working here.” She set my right hand in my lap and held my left, her fingers tracing across my palm. The sparkler heat changed and she pressed her fingernails into the pads of my palm. A branding iron of heat shot into my hand. Into my nerves. My bones. It was all I could do not to jerk away, but I bared my teeth and my breath hissed. “Oh,” Molly muttered. “This may hurt a bit.”

  I breathed through the pain. Hurt a bit, my butt.

  After what seemed like an hour later but was more likely only ten minutes, Molly shook her head. “I can see leftover energies. Nothing more. If there’s anything here, I don’t know what it might be.”

  “So there’s no chance it’ll explode and blow us all to smithereens?”

  Molly laughed, a happy, healthy laugh, and rewiped her cheeks. “I never said that. There is always a chance for destruction and violence, big-cat.”

  She had a point, but I still felt better, and by her scent, so did Molly. “I gave you the general descriptions of the witches who attacked the house. Do any of the names match the descriptions?”

  Molly’s tears had stopped; her eyes were still red and watery as she said, “Several of them are large women, but only one matched the little woman. This one.” She pointed to the name. It was only three letters, no surname. “It might be a nickname.”

  “Tau,” I said. “Okay. Thank you. It’s a place to start. But I havta ask. Why no last names?”

  Molly shook her head. “Lachish says that after the coven couldn’t stop hurricane Katrina, the anti-witch sentiment was so bad that most witches went underground and stopped using family names. To protect the humans in the families. She refused to give me more.”

  Which made sense and eased away some of the worry that clutched my spine. But only some of it. Witches might have tried to kill me. Why not give me the full names to protect me?

  * * *

  Later, on the way out of the house, I left the list with Alex, with the request “See what you can find?”

  “I heard,” he said, taking the folded paper and snapping a photo of it on his phone before handing it back. “We all heard. Emotional women.”

  From upstairs Molly shouted down, “You try carrying a baby for nine months while chemicals and hormones run through your body making you nutso and fat and swollen and then push an eight-pound lump of squalling human out through an opening big enough to fit a straw in and see if you don’t react from time to time. Until then, shut your trap.”

  Wisely, Alex did.

  * * *

  On the way to vamp central, I wondered again how I survived the lightning that struck me. And if the angel Hayyel had saved me in a far more concrete way than I had originally thought. Did God want me alive for some reason? Did the angel work deliberately and independently to stop the witches trying to kill me? Are angels even allowed to interfere? If Hayyel acted to save me, was he in trouble with the Big Guy Upstairs?

  If anyone could do something with the list of names, Alex could. Maybe he’d have something for me when we got back. Like full names. Photos. Their social media pages. Or their favorite things—walks in the rain, puppies, honesty, and laughter. Oh! And using magic to try to kill Jane Yellowrock and start a vamp-witch war.

  Maybe not. I was good at the moment, no matter what he discovered. Mostly because of Edmund’s words “Yellowrock Clan,” which still reverberated through me. Yellowrock Clan. Yeah. I could live with that.

  * * *

  We went through security measures at HQ, much more stringent than the ones we had been through before. We were issued the brand-new, updated headsets, each with a small built-in camera. They were heavier, more bulky than the older models, not only so we could communicate with the security team while we were on the move, but so we could see what they saw if the poo hit the prop. I didn’t care for the extra weight, but for the upcoming events—all of them—the portable cameras might come in very handy proving innocence on the part of the team.

  While we were still at the front entrance, Wrassler limped up and delivered to Eli the carved box holding the brooches. “Courtesy of Leo,” Wrassler said. “He knows you have the Truebloods at your house. He wants you to have them inspect the magics on the pins and see if they can track the witches on the other end.”

  “Sneaky,” I said. “Pit the Truebloods against the witches who probably want the conclave and the witch-vamp parley to end before it begins. Divide and conquer. No wonder Leo’s so politically successful. What did he do? Study under Machiavelli?”

  Wrassler rubbed his hand over his shaved skull and gave the old gri
n, the one he used back before he’d been so terribly maimed under my watch. Seeing it made my heart tumble over. “Not exactly. But it’s my understanding that the MOC owns one of the few copies of the sixteenth-century political treatises, in the original Latin, by the Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. It’s possible that they were pals. I never asked.” Wrassler winked at me, turned on his prosthetic leg, and disappeared into the bowels of HQ.

  Eli tucked the box under his arm. “One should remember the source when making fun of fangheads,” he said to me.

  “True. Let’s check in with HQ’s security arrangements for the conclave and get outta here. I’m still beat.”

  The meeting with the security team covered every planned moment from the time Leo left his private rooms, walked through the building, exited under the porte cochere, and was whisked into his limo. It covered the two other teams in similar limos who would leave at staggered times to throw off any bad guys or media types who might be watching HQ through telephoto lenses or drones. It covered the armored and well-armed SUVs that would keep pace with Leo’s limos. And it covered the motorcycle backup, crotch rockets carrying armed guards, most of them in white riding leathers and with full radio coms beneath the white helmets.

  Weekend traffic in New Orleans wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t good either. I had learned firsthand how trapped a car could become. I still missed my bike and the ability to weave between cars, take one-way streets the wrong way, outsmarting traffic and never being late. I had big plans to head to Charlotte the moment the Harley was repaired enough for a test drive. Until then, I was making sure that Leo had motorcycle backup among his guards and among the police.

  We also discussed with Derek which shooters would be utilizing the rooftops surrounding the Elms Mansion and Gardens, what ammo and equipment they would have access to. And who was in charge of their taking a shot. If our people shot anyone—even an attacker—there would be hell to pay, not only with the legal system, but also with the political situation. The smart thing, and our second choice, would be to have observers only, no weapons, but if our men saw a bomber or witches casting a deadly spell, and they didn’t intervene, the consequences could be even more lethal. The third option placed off-duty NOPD officers on the roofs with high-powered rifles. There were dangers in each of the three options. It was such a dicey discussion that by two in the morning, we called Leo and Grégoire in on it.