Blood Cross: A Jane Yellowrock Novel

by Faith Hunter

  I parked at NOPD, signed in once again, and waited for the armed guard to look over my credentials and make his phone call. This time, Rick came to meet me.

  Like the last time I was here, he was in street clothes, but not the jeans, T-shirt, and boots from his undercover days. Today, Rick wore black slacks, a black jacket, and a white button-down shirt. With a tie. I started to grin. The tie had little orange kittens scampering over an aqua background.

  “Yeah, I know. I’ve fallen so far.” He propped a hand on his hip, pushing back the jacket to reveal a shoulder-holstered 9 mm, and flicked the offending tie with his fingers. “My niece gave it to me.”

  “It’s . . . cute.”

  He laughed, a breathy, disgusted sound. “My captain came down on me hard yesterday about NOPD dress code. They won’t let me wear jeans now that I’m not undercover, so I had to buy some stuff. The tie’s revenge. He hates it.” He plucked the pants and jacket. “You know how long it’s been since I wore clothes like this? Catholic school, grades one through six. I had to go shopping.” He looked pained. “But no one specified what had to be on the tie. Yanks their chains, you know?” He flashed me a grin, revealing the little crooked tooth at his lower lip. He was just too dang pretty. “I have another one with pigs on it.”

  The casual business look suited him. But then, I had a feeling that Rick LaFleur would look good in anything. Or nothing. “You gonna yank their chains until you hang yourself? Pardon the mixed metaphor.”

  “Something like that. Entering the real world sucks when it comes to wardrobe. But there’s good things about it. My mom is overjoyed to discover that her degenerate son isn’t a reprobate after all. When she’s not being pissed that I didn’t tell her.”

  My brows rose. “Your mom didn’t know you were a cop?”

  He lifted a shoulder in a what can I say gesture. “Mom can’t keep a secret.”

  I nodded, though I had no idea what it would be like to have a mother. “So. You gonna let me in or keep me out here with the cons and the reprobates you’ve left behind?”

  “I’m guessing you want to see the woo-woo files again. Come on in. You’re not armed, are you?”

  “No guns, no blades.” I handed off my fanny pack to him, which wasn’t heavy enough to contain a gun. He didn’t bother to search it or me; I passed through the metal detector without a beep.

  Beads clicking softly, I followed him. In the bowels of NOPD in room 666, he tossed the file cabinet keys onto the table, lifted one finger in good-bye, and locked me in the tiny cell. Before I could call out, he was gone, and there still wasn’t a phone to call for my release. I thought about the possibility of being trapped down here if a fire broke out, or if Rick forgot about me and I was left overnight without food or water. The door wasn’t steel or barred, and its hinges were within easy reach. If I could find a sturdy piece of wood or metal, I could beat or pry the pins out and use some of Beast’s strength to rip the door off that way. But the next time I was down here, I was going to bring a picnic lunch.

  Now familiar with the filing system, I found the key marked 666-0V, opened the vamp cabinet, and started looking for history, specifically for info on the devoveo.

  Instead I spotted the bio of a certain near-rogue named Bethany. There wasn’t much to go on—Bethany hadn’t exactly hogged the limelight in the City of Jazz.

  There were no photos of her, but someone had compiled a breakdown of vamp-clan hierarchy back in the seventies, and at the bottom, Bethany and Sabina Delgado y Aguilera, the priestess of the vamps, were listed as “out-clan.” That word again. Interesting. I’d have to ask a couple people what it meant, as I couldn’t trust the vocabulary of just one person, not about vamp stuff.

  I’d seen both Sabina and Bethany in action, and they were vastly different. Bethany was slightly unhinged, African, and full of that icy shaman magic I’d never encountered before. Sabina was Mediterranean, nunnish, and sane. The only thing they had in common was power. A lot of it.

  I took photos of the file to download later, and settled a folding chair close to the file cabinet. I went through it methodically, and quickly found something I hadn’t seen before, a red file folder marked Legends. It consisted of unverified reports about vamps, all gathered through unnamed sources, paid informants, and by debriefing blood-junkies who had gone through rehab and tried to keep straight. The folder had been compiled by the same cigarette smoker, and handled by Jodi.

  There was a lot of wacky stuff in it, things I discounted or knew had been disproved at one time or another, but there was a snippet about the Sons of Darkness, the term Bethany had used for the vamps who had turned her. The Sons were supposed to be the first vamps in their own recorded history. The very first. And according to blood-junkie scuttlebutt, they had been feral for a few days, not ten years. Somehow, they’d been able to skip the curing process. At least one of them was purported to be still alive, sane, and had visited in this country in the last decade, as guest of Clan Pellissier. It might not be true, but Bruiser had blanched at the mention of the Sons. I had no idea if any of this had anything to do with the vamp I was hunting, but he’d been raising young rouges for a long time. And almost anything could be evidence pointing to him.

  I pulled my pad from my fanny pack and took notes from the Legends file, things that might help me find the rogue maker, things that caught my fancy, and things that might lead me in a new research direction. I found a mention of feeding frenzies, which had been on my mind since last night, but it was from a source the cop in question doubted. The blood-junkie had told him that “Clan Desmarais went nutso crazy and killed half their servants and all their slaves. I barely got out alive.” No bodies had ever turned up, and the report had been buried. Like so many of the reports in this room.

  I glanced at my phone for messages before I remembered where I was. One of my calls before I left the house had been to Bruiser, who hadn’t answered. If he called back, I wouldn’t know until I got out of here.

  I returned to the file, deliberately hunting for red folders, and I found a slim one containing a stack of police reports written in the same distinctive handwriting as the cigarette smoker, the cop who had been investigating the vamps and the disappearances of witch children: Detective Elizabeth Caldwell.

  In the red folders, I found dozens of small scraps of paper, each smelling of old smoke and containing terms, names, questions. Little made sense until I found a scrap that read: A few sips of witch blood brought the devoveo back to sanity for nearly an hour. On another I found one that said devoveo: the Curse of the Mithrans. And young rogue: the cursed.

  I sat, holding the two scraps of paper, my gut telling me that something important was contained in them, but my brain couldn’t see it. So I copied down the phrases and went on with my hunt.

  I wanted to read more about Caldwell’s investigations, and remembered Rick’s key ring. No door keys on it. But there was a key marked 666-0W. I tried it on a file cabinet I hadn’t been able to get in to last time I was here. With a metallic click, the drawers loosened and the top one eased out an inch. Every file was red. Every single one. I opened the drawer and let my fingers do the walking through the tabs. It was a file on area witches, compiled by Elizabeth Caldwell. And there was one file marked Devoveo. Inside were reports of young rogues who had also been witches. Which made no sense at all. Vamps would turn shamans, but not witches, yet I was pretty sure they were collaborating with witches. Nothing made any freaking sense.

  Settling down with several files, I spent another hour doing research and trying to find a common thread in Elizabeth Caldwell’s investigations before thirst drove me to put everything away, lock it all up, and again bang on the door. And bang and bang. And bang. Eventually I heard the lock click; the door opened to reveal Rick himself, hiding behind two drink cans. “Sorry. I forgot about there not being a phone in here. Coke truce?”

  I propped a hip against the doorjamb, took an icy, sweating can, popped the top, and drank. Wryly, I said,
“There isn’t a bathroom either.” Without a segue, I said. “Who is Elizabeth Caldwell?”

  Rick’s expression went instantly to cop face as he shut down his reactions. “She was a good cop, killed in action in 1990. By vamps unknown. She was also Jodi Richoux’s aunt.”

  My mind went into overdrive. Jodi had pointed me to red files, all belonging to Elizabeth. Jodi had a reason to hang around me, other than friendship. I had a strong hunch Jodi had secretly taken over her aunt’s research, an aunt who had died by vamp attack . . . I’d gotten Jodi into vamp HQ. I had contacts with the vamps. I was research.

  I don’t know why it hurt, to learn that she was maybe using me for a case. It’s not as though we were bosom buddies. But it did.

  Rick didn’t seem to notice my reaction. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you out.”

  Silent, we took the stairs, and Rick let me stop off in the ladies’ room, where I didn’t bother to e-mail the photos; instead, I checked my voice mail. One was from Bruiser, and unexpected relief flooded me. If there had been a feeding frenzy, he had survived it, sounding bland, factual, and surprisingly helpful. I hadn’t expected to get anywhere with my latest request.

  Back on the main floor, Rick stuck his hands in the pockets of his black slacks and casually asked, “So. Want to get dinner on Saturday? My treat.”

  A frisson of uncomfortable heat roiled through me. A date? It sounded like a date. His treat and all. It had been years since I’d had a real date. And Saturday was just after the three days of the full moon. Beast would still be feeling . . . amorous. I swallowed and was pretty sure I blushed, hoping it wasn’t easy to tell with my coppery skin. “Um. I should be finished with this contract by then. Sure. Maybe eight?”

  He nodded, ducking his head and glancing up at me. “Bikes. Burgers. Okay?”

  “Yeah.” Actually, that sounded like a fun date. And I had houseguests, so I didn’t have to worry about any awkward leave-taking or expectations. “Um . . . Eight, then.”

  Rick nodded at me, gave a little one-fingered salute-style wave, and disappeared back into the bowels of the NOPD. Crap. I had a date. I flipped open my phone and returned the most important call that had come in while I was trapped in the woo-woo room. It was answered on the first ring. “George Dumas.”

  I straddled Bitsa and helmeted up. “Jane. So, you got permission for me to visit the official vamp cemetery?” Not to be confused with the grave site where I’d killed the rogue the other night.

  “Yes. When?”

  “No time like the present.”

  “On my way.”

  When I’d marked my map with the location of all the reported young-rogue vamp attacks on humans, there had been three clusters, and one had been in the two miles around the vamp cemetery. I needed to look around a bit.

  The call ended. A man of few words, our Bruiser. But a man of really good kisses, especially the kind delivered on the floor of a limo. Uncomfortable prickly warmth spread through me. I was interested in a blood-servant. Interested as in interested. And Bruiser seemed pretty interested in me. He could have turned off the security system at the cemetery from Leo’s house. Was he just using the alarm system as an excuse to see me? The scratchy warmth spread, barbed and maddening. Yeah. I was interested.

  Yet I had a date Saturday with another man entirely. A breathtakingly gorgeous human man, who would be a far better choice for romantic entanglements than the blood-servant of the master of the city. I’d once figured Rick for a player, but that was back when he’d been undercover. I didn’t really know him at all.

  Thinking about men was frustrating and tied up my mind in barbed wire. Not something I had time for right now. I switched mental gears to more pressing matters, like the feel of Bitsa between my thighs, the heated wind beating against me, and the ripe smells of the city.

  I could have searched the vamp cemetery alone once Bruiser had disabled the alarms, but he was a careful man, less trusting than Rick when it came to keys and security precautions. Once inside the barred gate, he entered the first mausoleum we came to. When he left the crypt, he nodded at me once. I figured that meant I could do whatever I wanted, but he didn’t leave. He leaned against the hood of his car, watching me from behind mirrored sunglasses. He looked patient. Which made me nervous. If he’d been impatient, I could have been annoyed and recalcitrant and deliberately taken my time. It was harder with a calm and peaceful man.

  I removed my helmet and tossed my denim jacket to the seat. From the saddlebags, I pulled a pad and pen and began sketching the layout of the cemetery. It didn’t have to be exact or to scale, but I wanted a map to trigger my memories later if I needed. I drew in the eight mausoleums, labeling them with clan names and descriptions, including the naked angel statues on top of each. The last time I’d been here, several of the mausoleums had been damaged. Now there was evidence of repair work: tire tracks crushing the grass, a ladder lying flat, a device that looked like a portable cement mixer but likely was something else, and a few cigarette butts littering the ground. Bruiser picked them up as I worked, looking disgruntled. I watched him from the corner of my eye as I sketched in the chapel from which the priestess had emerged the time I’d been here in owl form. Today the place looked deserted.

  When I returned the pad to the saddlebags, Bruiser wandered over. He looked pale, as if he’d been badly fed upon and not restored enough by sips of his master’s blood. Last time I saw him he’d been facing a feeding frenzy. “You look a little pale. Okay, a lot pale,” I offered diffidently. “You okay?”

  “I’ve been better. Tell me again why you have to be here?”

  I explained about the clusters of young-rogue vamp attacks. “Like the rogues had risen close by, and attacked the first humans who happened to be in their path.”

  He looked interested. “Where else have they risen?”

  I briefly detailed the map, then told him more about the rogue I’d taken down the other night. “I’d never seen a rising before, and there was something really strange about it, something I don’t think is part of a normal rising. The site had a pentagram and a casting circle shaped in shells on the ground. There were crosses nailed to the trees at the points of the pentagram.”

  I glanced at him, catching a look of utter disbelief on his face. “What?”

  He shook his head. “Not possible. The crew sent to clean up the grave site in the park would have reported on that.”

  Now, that was interesting. There were crosses when I’d been there. Someone had gotten to the city park pretty quickly after the rising to get them down between my visit and the visit by the sanitation crew. Or . . . maybe the lightning strike I’d smelled when I first got there had changed the timing of the rising? Was that even possible? Frankenstein had risen after his maker had channeled a lightning strike into his body—early cinematic defibrillator. I grinned and Bruiser raised his brows. I shook my head to show that my thoughts weren’t important.

  He went on. “Any young rogue who woke in the presence of crosses would be driven back into the grave, screaming in pain.”

  “Maybe the pentagram and the magics performed in the soil prevented it?” Bruiser stared off in the distance, face closed, thinking thoughts he had no desire to share with me. When he didn’t reply, I insisted, “But why the crosses? Okay, I get that vamps live and breathe religion, which is pretty weird for the undead, who don’t need to breathe.”

  That startled Bruiser out of his funk. “Religion? And vampires?” His tone added, “Are you crazy?” though he didn’t say it. But there was something off about his body language.

  I looked out over the graveyard, keeping him in my peripheral vision. Calmly, I said, “Vampires and religion should be like oil and water, but they aren’t. Because vampires believe. Organized religion pervades everything they do and everything they are—the myths attached to the holy land, their reaction to crosses”—I thought of the priestess, Sabina—“all the formal Christian trappings. There’s no such thing as distant hist
ory with vamps. All their grudges, alliances, even though they shift, seem to have roots in events that took place hundreds or thousands of years ago. Their history, as humans perceive it, impacts their present, and whoever the rogue maker is, he’s been raising young rogues for a long time. He may be driven by something that happened yesterday, a century ago, or two thousand years ago.”

  Bruiser shifted on his feet, an unconscious adjustment of balance. “I suggest that you not repeat such nonsense to the Mithrans.” But his scent change suggested that I was dead-on with my religion and vamp analysis.

  I flipped my palm up in a hand shrug and turned away. Over my shoulder I said, “I’m going to walk the perimeter of the grounds. It won’t take long.” Bruiser didn’t reply, and I paced away, walking sun wise—clockwise—around the ring of trees surrounding the cemetery. The sun was hot, the air muggy, sour, and unmoving. Sweat trickled down my spine as I walked, trying to get a feel for the place, something I hadn’t allowed myself the previous times I was here. Of course the first time I’d been in the shape of a Eurasian hunting owl, and the other time I was with Rick, so it wasn’t as though I had the right senses, time, or opportunity to let the place seep in under my skin, to get to know a patch of ground the way Beast did.

  Now I mentally nudged Beast awake and let my senses loose to absorb the place through its smells, the taste of its air, the springiness of the grass beneath my boots, and the magics wafting across the ground. There was power here. Not holy ground power, not ley line power. Not power that has seeped into the earth at old churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, or other places where faith makes the ground holy. Not quite the power of belief. But power nonetheless, of an old and vital kind. Though I couldn’t place it, I recognized the taste of it.

  I was halfway around the large clearing when the ground became damp, giving beneath me with a squelch. The air cooled, thinned, became wetter, though how that was possible with all the humidity I couldn’t have said. I breathed in and scented something peppery and astringent, the faint herbal scent of vamps on the breeze from the woods, the odor itself dry and desiccated. Beneath it was the tang of decaying blood, and a trace of magic. Witch magic. I moved into the trees. The signature of power tingled faintly along my arms. Shade from the trees above me closed out the sun and some of the heat, shadows darkening the ground.