by Faith Hunter
Muzzle to ground, like dog Beast did not want to be, followed blood trail through rain. Alongside of house. Past Bitsa, covered with cloth. Past Edmund car, fancy car that Alex loved, with top and seats made of dead cow. Car was cold. Edmund had been on paws—on foot. Edmund did not have paws. Stopped at metal gate at end of alleyway. Stuck nose and muzzle through bars and sniffed. Looked. No people in rain. People were smart. Rain was cold and Beast was hungry. Even with vampire blood in belly.
Gathered self tight, looked to top of fence with metal flower. Leaped, pushed off flower with front paws, then back paws, over metal gate, and landed on smooth not-stone path, what Jane called sidewalk or concrete.
Uptown, Jane thought. Ed came from uptown. Bleeding all the way.
I/we began to trot, avoiding round places of streetlights. Rain fell, slowing. Water gurgled through downspouts. Tinkled off roofs. Plinked onto cars. Splashed as Beast trotted, covering much ground. Jane thought Jane thoughts. Sulking. Good word for juvenile kit. Sulk.
• • •
Beast was insulting me so I ignored her. It continued to rain, though the water didn’t penetrate Beast’s double-layered pelt. We had worked in Beast form in the rain before—rain being the normal for New Orleans at any season—but not in such cold weather. Her breath blew twin plumes of vapor into the night. Her paws splashed through puddles and runnels of water. Rain made the city smell fresh, releasing ozone and ions on the air. The scent of blood and vamp faded and I thought we had lost it, but we found it around the next corner, a puddle of blood and rainwater that had no outlet except across the concrete. The scent faded again, to reappear further on. Beast trotted around corners, doubling back, searching, nose to ground, keeping to the shadows. Melting into the dark when a car came past. She was smarter than any mountain lion. Adaptable. Reactive. Going on two hundred years of life would give any animal excellent survival instincts.
Even with dog genes incorporated into her brain and nose, Beast wasn’t the best tracker. I’d have better luck with a bloodhound nose, but I’d had problems lately changing back from canine to human. Without a handler and a leash, I could lose myself and stay dog forever; noses and the scent part of dog brains were that strong. Alex had known all that. He had understood what I was doing and why, possibly even before I raced outside.
The rain stopped. Started again. We passed restaurants almost empty of tourists. Bars full of drunk tourists. We passed churches next to Creole cottages, and we chased off a small pack of junkyard dogs with a single growl. Which made Beast chuff with laughter and victory. We passed cemeteries, the smell of old, old death and limestone and fresh white paint. We trotted beneath the I-10 interstate and were halfway to Highway 90 in what felt like a long way from home, though Beast wasn’t tired, just wet and grouchy. Mountain lions aren’t long-distance cats like jaguars or cheetahs, but in the cold, with the air decreasing the effect of heat buildup, we could travel a long way. A female Puma concolor’s hunting territory might cover a hundred fifty square miles.
Beast stopped. Looked both ways. Shoulders hunched. What? I thought at her, flooding back into her forebrain. I/we slunk close to a parked car and waited for two motorcycles to pass.
Like Bitsa, she thought, but not like Bitsa. Does not have Harley growl like Bitsa.
Okay, I thought. I loved the bike too, though not so much in a downpour. But why are we stopping here?
Beast trotted out from the protection of the car and down a narrow alley between two houses. The ground and walls stank of feral male cats, territory spray, strong musky stinks.
Stupid cats, think they are lions. But smell Edmund. He was here. With cats.
Where? Inside the house? I looked around, through Beast’s eyes, seeing the world in silvers and greens and blacks and grays of Beast’s night vision. I/we sniffed the air. Edmund’s scent was everywhere and nowhere.
Smell of Edmund on top of house. Smell of vampires and blood-servants inside house.
He was spying on the house. They came out and found Edmund. They fought here? What is this place?
Smell of Edmund blood and silver. Smell of vampire blood and strange blood-servant blood. Smell of white-man guns and steel. Edmund fought.
They fought here, I thought. Then Edmund got away. They chased him.
Human died here. Vampires drank female inside.
That made sense. The vamps—what vamps?—had found a victim and charmed and mesmerized her. She had brought them back to her house. She was dead inside, the smell of death coming through the cracks in the walls. Beast pushed me down, out of the forefront of her brain, taking control again.
Beast is alpha. Beast has hunted. Nose to ground. Want cow.
You did what I asked, Jane thought. Thank you.
Jane is po-lite. Po-lite does not feed Beast. Sat down in dark place beneath plant with big leaves. Feed Beast.
I have nothing to feed you.
Smell dog. Big dog on chain. Could eat dog, Beast suggested hopefully. Is on chain. Would not fight long. Could not get away.
I bet dogs taste bad. How about this. We shift back to human, call a cab, grab a bucket of chicken, and go home, where it’s nice and warm and dry. Then we can hunt alligator in the swamp on a full moon night.
Jane has been Beast two times this night. Chased vampire who killed revenant. Tracked Edmund. Am hungry. Want cow. Want to hunt cow in Edmund car on full moon night.
Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna happen.
Want cow. Want to hunt cow in Edmund car.
That’s between you and Edmund. Jane sent image of Beast talking to vampire, making funny puma sounds. Was not funny but Jane laughed.
Jane bound Edmund like dog on chain. Edmund will let Beast hunt in Edmund car if Jane makes him.
Jane went silent. Beast groomed paws. Paws were wet with rain and tasted of gasoline and exhaust and rats. Was bad for Beast but would heal when Beast shifted again.
Alligator on full moon hunt, Jane thought. Jane was mad. She pulled up Gray Between and reached into snake that was Jane. Jane-snake was not quite right but was good enough. Like Beast with dog nose was good enough. Was maybe better. Bones began to twist.
CHAPTER 4
Put Down Your Pin Sticker
I woke lying in the dark beneath the dripping leaves of a banana plant, my too-long black hair wrapped all around me, but at least that was better than some places Beast had left me. I tied my hair in a knotted tail, opened the waterproof gobag, and dressed in thin layers and flops. My stomach was cramping like I had swallowed a nest of water moccasins. Shivering, I pulled my unofficial cell—one Leo couldn’t trace—and called Rinaldo.
“Who dis is?” he answered, instead of hello. I could hear kids screaming in the background, the TV on a sitcom. The cabbie was off duty with the nearly defunct Blue Bird Cab Company but he sounded mostly sober, and he offered to pick me up when I gave him an address two blocks away from the house where Ed had fought and bled. “Twenty minute,” he said, and disconnected.
I jogged through the rain, holding a dripping hand over the flip phone, while calling in a DB to vamp HQ, with the words, “Dead body. Looks like vamp attack.” I gave the address and disconnected. A good citizen would have called 911. I wasn’t a good citizen. Leo’s team would make sure the body was found and the death looked like an accident. One of his private labs would do a full forensic workup, an arrangement I had suggested to keep track of paranormal crimes that we didn’t want reported to the police, for some reason. Leo would also do what he could for the victim’s family, children, parents.
And then Leo would send me to find and kill the vamps who’d killed the girl in the small house. They were also the vamps who attacked Edmund. A life for a life. Yeah. He’d demand the vamps die.
The wait was short, but when Rinaldo arrived he wasn’t driving a Blue Bird cab but a black four-door sedan. He saw me, shoved open the front pa
ssenger door, and shook his head when I squelched inside. I was soaked and trembling and gratefully wrapped myself in the oversized towel he tossed at me. I took the cup of hot coffee and sipped while he idled at the curb. I’m not a coffee drinker, but there was plenty of sugar and cream in the travel cup too. “This is good.”
“Why some big-ass famous vampire killer and assistant to de devil out in de storm in you underwear?” Rinaldo asked in his Frenchy accent.
I wasn’t wearing any underwear and my clothes were sticking to me like a second skin, my real skin showing through, though Rinaldo turned his head away, politely, which was nice. I no longer had huge vampire-hunter/vampire-employee secrets from Rinaldo. But he didn’t know everything.
“I’ll answer that if you tell me why you’re not picking me up in a Blue Bird car.”
Rinaldo made a snorting sound, very Frenchy, a sound I’d heard in cafés and restaurants among the locals. “Traditional cabbies, we losing money against Uber cabs. Closed down. I now self-employed Uber driver too. I make more money. I pick my calls. Dat part I like. But I hafta pay my own taxes, I do, and I hate me some math.” He shrugged. “You turn.”
Rinaldo stood about five feet seven and had been a little paunchy at one eighty, but he had lost weight, was dressed nicer than when he was a cabbie, wearing ironed khakis and a golf shirt. He had also stopped trying to cover up his bald spot with a comb-over. He looked good. “You smell better. You gave up smoking.”
Ruefully Rinaldo said, “Ha-ha. You funny, you is. My little one, she crawl up in my lap and she say, ‘Daddy, when you get sick like Mrs. Marillett, I gone get a oxygen tank for you. ’Cause I love you!’” Rinaldo shot me a look. “I ain’t had me cigarette in two months. Hardest two months a’ my life. But can taste food now again. Dat a good part. You answer my question now.”
“I was chasing vamps. I ended up without my coat, no shoes, and wet to the skin.”
“Dat ain’t no answer. You want burgers or chicken?”
I pointed to a small Cajun eatery and bar on a corner. The painted sign said EBO’S NO. 2 FANCY. “See if they got boudin balls? Get me a few pounds?” Rinaldo slowed and parked as I fished out two twenties from my gobag.
“You ever gone tell me you secrets? I thought we become friends of a sort.”
I studied Rinaldo’s earnest face. He needed a shave. Renewed rain beat against the windows. A sudden gust of wind rocked the sturdy car. I was glad to be out of the rain. And I was out because of Rinaldo. He had been there for me when I needed him. I had never done anything for him except tip well. Yet he knew only what the general public did, nothing confirmed by my own words and my own trust. “You’re right. We are friends. I’m not human. These are the clothes I wear when I’m tracking a vamp.”
“Goo’ enough. Dat a start.” Rinaldo opened an umbrella and jogged through the storm to Ebo’s, leaving the sedan and the heater on so I’d stay warm. It felt odd having a . . . a new friend. I hadn’t had many—none if I was honest—in my life until earth witch Molly Everhart and I became pals, and I was grown by then. This felt . . . itchy.
Rinaldo jogged back through the rain, a huge paper bag under an arm. The car door closed on the storm once again and he handed the bag to me, offering with his other hand the second twenty and change. “Keep it,” I said. I unfolded the bag and held it out to him. “Want one?”
Rinaldo, who had no idea how hard it was to give the first boudin ball away and not chow down on it myself, took a ball and a handful of coarse napkins. “Jist dey one. I watching my girlish figure, donchu know.”
In companionable silence, Rinaldo and I ate and made the ride back to Yellowrock Securities while wiping grease off our faces and hands and licking our fingers. There was nothing like the food in this city. Not even back home in Asheville.
• • •
I sat on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket, surprised that it was only near midnight, that dawn hadn’t found the world yet. I had agreed to be fed vamp blood by Dacy Mooney simply because I was more tired than I thought I would be, even after eating a steak and fries, and I needed to be in fighting form. With a master vamp nearby to feed me, I was taking the cheater’s way out because the night wasn’t over. I had too much to do. Too much to think about. So I drank the blood of the heir of Clan Shaddock while she told me why she was in town, visiting from Asheville. She was checking on Shaddock’s scion, Amy Lynn Brown, which was no surprise. Amy was the miracle vamp whose blood brought new vamps from the devoveo—the madness that freshly turned vamps experience for ten years or so after rising—in record time. It was expected that the European vamps would want Amy for their very own slave, and no one was giving her up. Amy could easily be the cause of a World Vamp War.
I listened with half an ear, drank maybe a half cup of Dacy’s revitalizing blood, and made little ummm noises in the appropriate conversational places. I watched as Dacy fed Eli again and carried my hunky partner up the stairs to his room, Alex sprinting along to make sure the blond Tennessean didn’t try anything inappropriate with his blood-drunk brother. I watched as Tex and then Wrassler fed Edmund again, and the Onorio twins, Brandon and Brian, helped my primo—my primo, for good and real, now—into bed in his nook under the stairs where we kept our weapons.
Brandon—or maybe it was Brian; I didn’t look for the mole that differentiated them—said, “He’s living in a Harry Potter room. Long fall for a master of his own clan.”
The other twin said, “No windows. There is no room with no windows but this one.”
“Still. Long fall.”
“Indeed.” The conversation ended. There was no doubt that they had intended me to hear it. They had nothing to say to me as they closed up the shelving unit that secured the daytime sleeping place of my primo. I had nothing to say to them either, remembering Edmund’s memory of the dying slave in the blizzard. Silently, I watched as they all left the house.
Moments later, Alex stood in the opening to the foyer, shoes on his feet, real pants—the kind that covered his legs to his ankles—and plaid shirt over his T-shirt. “Since my blood-drunk brother is healed and sleeping off the treatment, I plan to go out. Okay with you?”
I looked at Alex blankly. I could count on two fingers the times he had left the house to “go out” since he and Eli moved in. And then I remembered and quoted back to him. “‘Game con in town. Small one,’ but you got friends who’ll be there. Go. Have fun.”
“Right. Call me if you need me.” He waggled his cell at me. Undoubtedly his other electronics were in the gobag slung over his shoulders. “You’ll watch Eli?” he asked unnecessarily.
“Of course,” I said, also unnecessarily, but polite.
And then I was alone but for the sleepers.
I sat now on the sofa, with an afghan wrapped around me, wishing there were a fireplace in the room, and wondering which walls originally had one. The house was built when fire, probably coal fire, had heated every room. There would have been fireplaces in each, but we had none and now that I thought about it, there were brick-built chimneys on the roof. Maybe I should invest in finding the original fireplace locations, tear into the walls, and have them rebuilt. They would make the place feel more warm and cozy in winter.
Or . . . Maybe I should run home. To the mountains. Not that I’d be any safer there.
I had bound my primo. I had glanced into his mind and he into mine. It was freaky and weird and I had a deep and abiding discomfort at the intimacy of the contact.
Almost as bad—Beast was still keeping secrets from me. Big ones.
She hadn’t wanted me to kill Leo for trying to bind me. We had instead bound him and tied him to our soul home. And when his binding to us had severed, something had been left in its place. What had really happened in the metaphysical moment when Leo was set free? What had it all meant? Was Leo’s being bound to us part of some bizarre plan Beast had hatched? But long-term plans went
against Beast’s nature in every way I could think. So why had she done whatever she had done? And what else was she keeping secret from me?
My cell rang. I looked down at the screen to see Molly’s face and name. My BFF was calling at an odd time. Unless it wasn’t her. I tapped the screen and said hello.
“Hey, Aunt Jane,” a tiny voice said. It was Molly’s daughter.
I curled tight on the couch and said, “Hey, Angie Baby. What are you doing up?”
“Me and EJ and Mommy and Daddy are going out of town. So I had to call you now. My angel said to tell you something.”
My heart and my magic leaped in dread at the words. The angel Hayyel had started a lot of the troubles in my life. “Okay. Like in a dream?”
She yawned hugely and her voice was sleepy-sounding when she said, “Nope. He waked me up. He said to tell you it was raining and the storm was dan-ger-ous. You have to make some ’cisions. He said your magics was gonna be a problem but you can fix ’em. Or . . . I dunno, maybe he can fix ’em? And if you do the right things everything will be okay. Okay? I’m going back to bed, Aunt Jane. I’ll see you when we get back from Daddy’s camping trip. I love you.”
“I love you too, Angie Baby.” The call ended.
My heart was racing. My breathing was too fast. Angie had a dream. Right? Except that with Angie I never really knew. She was probably the most powerful witchling on the planet. And I knew for a fact that angels talked to her.
I pulled the afghan closer and tried to sleep, but my eyes kept popping open with every little ping or pop of the house settling. To relax myself, I put a nine-millimeter and a short-bladed vamp-killer on a small table, close to hand. It didn’t help.
• • •
A little after two a.m. I heard keys at the front door, and it opened again. Bruiser’s clean citrusy aftershave and heated Onorio scent blew in as the cold blew out. He closed the door after him. I didn’t look up. We didn’t speak. Instead I heard him enter the kitchen and the sound of water scudding into the teakettle. The sound of the stove lighting with a soft whoosh. The softer sounds of him preparing tea. The warm scent of chai on the air. The sound of a paper bread bag opening and the fresh smell of a bakery loaf filling the house as he toasted slices. The delectable scent of salmon, both smoked and raw. The sound and smell of cucumber being sliced as cucumber sandwiches and salmon tartare on toast points were prepared. At two a.m. Something soft and heated opened inside me. With the exception of the Youngers, no man had ever cooked for me. And Bruiser was fixing me an elegant meal of cucumber sandwiches and salmon tartare.