Blood Cross: A Jane Yellowrock Novel

by Faith Hunter

  The pain it left seared every nerve. Spasmed every muscle. I grunted. Stumbled. Baldy stood over me. And he shouted a word of power. A spell wrapped into a single syllable of might. A wyrd.

  As I fell, the marines screamed. Heinous screams, as if tortured. Instantly, they started beating their own flesh. Cutting away at their limbs. Cutting at the dancing red motes of power that spiraled down and burrowed into them. Each man assailed by the motes. More flew up from the ground. Down from the sky. Stinging. Burrowing. Attacking.

  I landed. Facing Angie. Frozen. Unable to breathe. The spell had frozen my will and my autonomic nervous system.

  She smiled. Her mouth moved, but my ears were buzzing with the concussion of gunfire, vamp screams, and white noise and her words were lost. She reached toward Baldy, her fingers throwing, the blackness in her hands set free. I could see it move out, through the air. A shaped, pointed spear of power. Before it hit him, Baldy repeated the wyrd.

  My heart . . . stopped. The world began to dim at the edges of my vision. I couldn’t move. Beast couldn’t move. The might of our twined souls was stilled. My hands opened. Dropped my knives. The black light hit Baldy.

  Angie reached for me. Touched the river stone rune of power on my neck. I felt the ward rise around us. Around the marines and the blinded and dead vampires. But the red motes still attacked. Not me. Not the children. Not the vamps. Only the humans. I was thankful I couldn’t hear the screaming, my ears deafened by the carnage.

  Kits, Beast cried out, fighting the binding. Fighting the death that claimed me. Kits!

  Angelina moved her hands again. This time to touch my face. The dark power that was hers to call shot into me. Like black lightning. Like dark life. My body shuddered. An epileptic spasm clenched down on me. Shattered through my brain. My heart beat, a single, hard, painful compression. And then another. I sucked in a breath. Dark power flowed through me. My eyes opened and I saw Angie Baby.

  She giggled. “Go, Aunt Jane.”

  I took in the tableau of death even as I reached for the velvet bag and the sliver of the Blood Cross. The vamp children had been freed. Had fallen on the soldiers. Drinking hard and frenziedly. Only Derek was still upright, a knife in each hand, one cutting at Tristan, the other slicing at the throat of Renee, cutting off their heads. But Derek was dying. Bleeding from too many sites to count. The red motes were embedded in his skin. Eating at his life.

  The velvet bag opened. Fell to the ground. I held the sliver of wood. It was hot in my hand. Burning hot. But I held on.

  Baldy stood outside Angie’s ward, legs braced wide at the north point of the pentagram. His arms out and up at the heavens, his mouth open as he spoke another wyrd. The silver and obsidian athames were in his hands pointing high.

  The bloody gem was around his neck. Resting, canted, over his heart. I rolled to my feet in a single kip. Screaming my rage. From the arc of the kip, I lunged through the ward. Right hand out. Small silver of wood pointed forward. I saw the thin splinter pierce his skin. Just above the gem. In the V of the gold chain. It slid between his ribs. Pricking deep.

  “A sliver of the Blood Cross,” I whispered. “For your sins.”

  His eyes widened. Mouth opened. Horror slithered across his face and nested in his eyes. His blood gushed out of the wound. Over the gem. His blood linking the sliver of the Blood Cross and the gem and my hand over his heart.

  Red light blasted out. Over me. Over the clearing. It crashed through me like a tsunami and I staggered. Ripped through the light of the circle ward. Smashed against the power of the pentagram and rolled over Angie’s ward, mating with it. The white light swayed, almost an audible sensation as it absorbed the red. Both seemed to grow, as if they were greater than the sum of their own energies. It was a tide. A river. An ocean. It bathed everything in bloody, brilliant light. It rolled over my head. Cleansing. It was like going to water, if water were made of blinding crimson light. It tore through me.

  I pulled the sliver of the vamp’s greatest weapon from his flesh. An instant later, a bloody flame licked up from the wound. Spread over his torso in a flash. My skin went hot and I smelled my own hair burning. I rolled back fast. Smoke curled up from my hand, and I knew my fingers were burned. But I couldn’t feel the pain. Not yet.

  The maker of the young rogues flamed. The heat was enormous inside the circle of red power.

  I reared back and kicked out. My foot landed in the middle of Baldy’s chest. Flame kissed my boot. I kipped to my feet again and rammed Baldy with Beast-strength. The burning witch/vamp fell back, through the red light. Onto the forest floor. I whirled. There were no more vamps standing. They all were down. The heat of the burning vamp was intense, and I covered my eyes against the glare.

  The soldiers were all down too, screaming and moaning. Cutting their own flesh. Even Derek, who was grunting with the motion of his knife as it flayed a length of his skin away, the muscles of his arm exposed and bleeding onto the earth. His fingers raked into the exposed muscle, fingernails digging at a mote of red light. He was chewing the tissue of his mouth, his bloody teeth working at a mote buried in his lower lip.

  I looked at the sliver of wood. It was the Blood Cross. The true cross? I didn’t know. But even if it wasn’t part of the true cross, it was a powerful relic. I wiped it clean and pricked Derek. He screamed again, and the red motes burst from his skin and up into the night. Buzzing like bees, they rose in the air. Derek’s spine jerked in a whiplash of agony. He eyes cleared. “Son of a—”

  I turned and pricked each of the others, even Hicklin, who had died so quickly. The red motes left their skin, formed small clouds, and rose. Joining into a hive of angry red light in the sky above us. It didn’t look like a safe place to leave them. I held the wooden sliver up at them. Nothing happened.

  Angie sat up from the ground, bracing herself with one arm. “Aunt Jane, try the necklace. The one the mean man was using.”

  They’d all been pretty mean to my way of thinking, but I stepped to Baldy’s smoking remains. In the center of his scorched rib cage, the bones curled up around it like protective hands, was the necklace, untouched by the heat, still bright red with blood. I wasn’t about to touch it. I pulled a silver-bladed vamp-killer and reached through the ribs with the point. Lifted it from among Baldy’s smoking vertebrae by the gold chain. It was a lot heavier than it looked.

  I stood there, surrounded by gasping, bleeding men, all but one still alive, holding a vamp-killer, a powerful amulet draped across its blade. And I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. The motes in the angry cloud above me paused. I could have sworn they could hear my laughter and were responding to it. They formed a long, ropy shape, and spiraled down. Right toward the bloody gem hanging on the knife blade. They coalesced into a cloud around the now-scarlet gem. And melted inside it.

  Their passage made the gem swing and pulse as if it were alive. And for all I knew, it was.

  In my other hand, the sliver of wood glowed with a white light.

  And in Angelina’s hands danced a black light of might.

  CHAPTER 24

  Hot to trot?

  We tramped out of the forest, a short line of blood-soaked humans and I. Angelina riding my back like a horsey ride, her heels kicking my hipbones. Little Evan, still asleep, was nestled in Derek’s arms. Bliss was limp in a fireman’s carry held by one of the soldiers whose name I hadn’t learned yet. Hicklin was carried by the rest of his mates.

  Faces unmoved, the soldiers had dispatched the ravening teenaged vamps and beheaded the rest. I hadn’t let Angelina watch, which had made her pout. The vamp heads were in a pile in the center of the pentagram, gathered for the bounty they would bring Derek and his crew, all but Baldy’s, Bettina’s, and Adrianna’s. Baldy was mine, confirmation of my completed contract, and my proof for payment. Bettina was still bound, too hungry to be released without a proper blood supply, preferably several of her own servants. Adrianna still had her head, though stakes pierced in her heart where she lay, fa
ceup to the moon. I hoped that Leo might be able get something from her about the plot. Who knew what resided in a dead brain, that could be retrieved by a master of the city?

  The bloody gem and the sliver of the Blood Cross were secreted in my pockets, though it gave me the willies to have the gem anywhere near me. It was still bloody scarlet and glowed, warm to the touch.

  “It’s Mama!” Angie screamed in my ear, her whole body quivering.

  I flinched slightly, my eardrums still sensitive from the death keens of the vamps and the gunfire. “Yeah. And your daddy and Aunt Evangelina.”

  Molly and Evan ran to me, Molly taking Angelina, Big Evan cradling his son. They fell together on the grass, in the dark, and I could see their magics blending into a protective and healing ward. Evangelina took over, directing the soldiers where to drop their burdens. She had them place Bliss in the back of a rental car and gave each of the human men a healing amulet. But her attention was for the witch, her face hard and set, and the power she pumped into the drained girl was visible in the night air.

  I stood there, my arms empty, having no idea what to do or how to do it, the relics burning holes in my pockets and my mind.

  From up the road, a heavy black Hummer moved toward us, followed by two unmarked cars. Leo was here and he’d brought Jodi and her crew. Maybe Leo had been summoned by Derek. Maybe by the amount of power we’d unleashed. Maybe by the death of so many vamps at one time. Either way, my shoulders tightened. As usual, I wasn’t up to a battle with Leo. Wasn’t sure I ever would be.

  As the armored vehicle and its tails slowed to a stop, the soldiers fanned out, hands empty, waiting. Moving with that snakelike vamp grace, Leo stepped from the passenger side of the high truck and to the ground. He was in a business suit, and the wind caught the jacket, blowing it open, revealing the silk lining, shining in the full moon. His eyes were human, and more sane than I’d seen recently. The breeze caught his black hair and tumbled it back from his face.

  Bruiser emerged from the driver’s side, finding me instantly in the night. His eyes were dark, intent, as they looked me up and down and came to rest on my face, on my right cheek, where the gem had touched me. I was pretty sure I would have a scar even after I shifted again. It was hurting with a cold pain, like frostbite but with a blood-pounding thump. Bruiser wore slacks and a dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to reveal his forearms, a gun under one arm, and as the wind blew at his clothes, I spotted another holstered at his ankle. Two vamp-killers were sheathed on his thighs. He’d come to do battle. A little late.

  Leo stopped at Derek and his men and they gathered in a small circle, voices low. I didn’t bother to try to listen in. Bruiser came to me, stopping just inside my personal space, a bit too close so soon after a battle. His eyes still held mine. The silence between us had weight and texture, as if words were being said that I couldn’t hear. His fingers came up and touched my right cheek, gently brushing, tracing down to my jaw, circling a wound that was a lot bigger than I’d expected.

  To his side, I saw Jodi, Rick, and Sloan emerge from the unmarked van. I didn’t watch to see where they went, my attention on Bruiser. He smelled of dry herbs, cracked pepper, and papyrus, of Leo and vamp blood. Faintly, of aftershave, spicy and spiky. His fingers were warm on my cold skin. I had no idea what to say. Bruiser said it for me. “I wanted to be here.”

  I understood. Wanted to be here. Couldn’t. He was Leo’s. I managed a twisted smile, holding in the spurt of disappointment. “You had to do what Leo wanted. Follow orders.”

  “Yes.” His hand cupped my face, his palm warm and dry.

  I wanted to lay my injured cheek in his hand and weep. Wanted to rub my pelt over him, scent-marking him. But I wouldn’t do either. I closed my eyes on the need that thundered through me, sudden and violent and demanding. It was the full moon. Only the full moon. Nothing else. “You had to follow Leo,” I repeated, not able to prevent the loneliness echoing in my words.

  “For now, Jane Yellowrock. But not forever.”

  My heart leaped, and I raised my head. Beast, close to the surface, peered out through my eyes. “You’re his blood-servant. That’s forever.”

  “Not always. There are sometimes . . . options. With conditions. If you’re interested.”

  I found a real smile. I had no clue what he was talking about, but Beast was happy to have him near.

  “Jane?” Rick’s voice. At my shoulder. Close.

  I stepped back and found the cop in the dark. He was armed and wearing a dark blue Windbreaker, the word POLICE in bold white letters. I had to make an official report to both Leo and the cops. Might as well start now.

  “I’m okay.” I took a steadying breath and blew out. “But we have one human dead, from vamp and witch wounds. Hicklin. I don’t know his full name.” It was suddenly awful that I didn’t know the first name of the man who had died tonight. I swallowed back tears. “We broke up a ceremony intended to bring sanity to rogue vamps. To the long-chained. But it required the death of two witch children, which I wasn’t gonna let happen. It was also, somehow, part of a plot to kill Leo and take over the city.”

  Bruiser flinched slightly. If I hadn’t been watching for it, I’d have missed it. Protective instincts bred into him by sips of vamp blood. And maybe by love. Who knew?

  “Bettina, the blood-master of Clan Rousseau, is bound and starving back at the site, next to a staked anamchara, part of a cross-clan plan to challenge and defeat Leo and return to the Naturaleza. Leo might be able to do something with her memories. She still has her head. I’ll give you a full report later. For now we have seven vamps dead, all involved with the creation of the young rogues, all sanctioned under my contract with the council. Two witch children and one witch adult saved. If we can keep her alive.”

  “Where?” Bruiser asked. I pointed at the rental and Bruiser went quickly to Leo, drawing the vamp away, toward Evangelina and Bliss.

  That left me with Rick. The pretty boy. The Player. The Joe who had been undercover and now was back with the cops. I looked at him. He didn’t have the smooth, effortless movements of George Dumas, nor the charisma. But he smelled human, of cheap aftershave, of Leo’s expensive coffee and pastries, of gun oil and ammo and faintly of horses. I smiled. He gave me back a half smile. “You with him? With Dumas?”

  “I don’t think so. He belongs to Leo. I’m not one to share, especially with a vamp.”

  “I have horses, four dogs, a barn cat or three, parents who live nearby, and too many sisters to make my life pleasant. No wife, no girlfriend, no vamp master.”

  I felt a warmth start in my belly and move up and out. “You offering yourself?” I hooked my thumbs into my leather pockets and dropped my weight on one hip. “For what?”

  “For . . .” He stopped, his mouth quirking up, revealing the crooked tooth on his lower jaw. “For whatever you might want. We could start out with wild monkey sex and see what develops.”

  The heat shot through me, hard and fast, like gunning a bike motor and hitting the road with a growl of tire on asphalt. “I need a shower. And I have a houseful of houseguests.”

  Rick let his smile spread. “I have a shower. And a hot tub out back under the stars. Course I live in a single-wide trailer. It may not be up to your standards.”

  “Don’t let the fancy house fool you. It’s Katie’s. My usual digs consist of an efficiency rental under the eaves of Old Lady Pierson’s house. I have a shower but no hot tub, and if I did, Old Lady Pierson would want to join us.”

  “Hot to trot?”

  “Nosy.”

  “My place it is, then. I can take you to your bike. You can follow me home?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  He didn’t touch me. Just turned and led the way, flipping a nonchalant wave to Jodi on the way by. I walked in his wake and sat in the passenger seat of the unmarked. He climbed in the driver side and started the engine. And pulled slowly past the other vehicles lining the road.

  Leo sat in the rental, the window d
own, blood on his lips. I was pretty sure it was Bliss’s blood. He took a breath that looked odd, not quite needed, not quite human when his chest moved, but he didn’t notice me. He was healing her the way vamps healed, with sips of blood and a slow laving of tongue.

  Bruiser stood on the sidewalk, staring at the car, catching my gaze. Holding it. No question in his eyes, no accusation. Just an uncomfortable patience and a quiet strength. But I’d made my choice. I didn’t want a blood-servant, no matter how powerful and sensual and . . . No. Not a blood-servant. I wanted a human. I wanted this human. And mostly, I didn’t want to share. I was pretty sure he read all that in my eyes. His gaze followed us as we moved out of sight, his mouth lifting at the corner, his expression plain in the side mirror.

  By the time the night was over, I was tired and happy and satisfied, taking up more than my share of Rick’s bed in exhausted contentment. I wasn’t going home just yet. I figured it was best to give the Trueblood family time to reconnect alone anyway. According to Bruiser, who called on my cell just after sunrise to fill me in, Leo’s reaction to what he learned at the battle site didn’t result in a vamp bloodbath, but it was close. And the council—the ones still healthy after Leo finished punishing his rivals—was in pretty big disarray, not that I cared. The Blood Master of the City was intent on forcing certain new policies down their throats and they were going to have to give in, including bringing the witch/vamp cold war out of the past and to the bargaining table. They didn’t have a choice. Killing children—even witch children—was worthy of death sentence in the Vampira Carta. And Leo was fulfilling the law with a new purge. This time there would be no forgiveness.

  I listened to Bruiser’s spiel while hanging head and shoulders off the bed, my legs twined with Rick’s, his fingers tracing lazy circles on the back of my thigh.

  “You’re likely in danger for a while. The remaining renegades that Leo’s chasing down have sworn blood vengeance on you.” He sounded worried. “I want you to take care.”