Cold Reign

by Faith Hunter

  I stabbed again, working the blade back and forth, severing tendons. They were old and tough and it wasn’t easy. I was screaming in pain, in battle fury. Her head lolled forward. But her jaws didn’t unclench off my shoulder. I sawed. Panted. Mewled in agony. She shook me, my whole body sliding on the wood floor, through my blood. Things tore inside my shoulder joint. Blood shot into my right eye. Into her face. Her eyes opened and she stared at me. She started drinking; the sucking sounds were just eww. Even if it hadn’t been my blood she was drinking.

  I yanked the knife out, movements clumsy, and placed the tip of the blade into the jaw joint. Temporomandibular joint. Yeah. Odd the things I think and remember when I’m probably dying.

  I shoved it in and cut backward. Her bite decreased, but she was healing. Focusing on me. Aware of me. Gaining sanity. I had to end this now. Or die. I turned the blade. Stabbing back into the vertebrae. They were brittle and they cracked. Her bite softened more. Using my legs, I rolled her over. Pushed at her and her fangs pulled through my flesh with a slow, sickening sound. Her eyes dulled.

  Silver caught my eye. Swinging down. Fast.

  Her head separated from her body. She collapsed beneath me.

  Eli stood above us, looking down. There was a light in his eyes I hadn’t seen before. “Babe. Shift. So I can kill you at my leisure.”

  “Kill me?” I whispered.

  “For taking her on without me.”

  I laughed, or tried to. Pain zinged through me. Lightning boomed. Beast ripped the Gray Between open and I shifted. The last thing I saw before the change took me was human-shaped fingers. I was changing back from fighting half-form to human, which was a good thing, as it was still daylight-ish. If I’d changed to mountain lion, I’d have been stuck in that form until nightfall, an irritating glitch in my skinwalker energies.

  CHAPTER 9

  Sword of the Enforcer

  “You want to tell me why you took her on alone?” Eli’s voice was low, almost a whisper. The way he sounded when he was seriously ticked off.

  I licked my fingers, cleaning the burger juices off them, thinking. He had sent Shemmy to get me a dozen burgers and fries and a couple of two-liter Cokes. He had waited until I ate every single bite to ask me anything at all.

  I almost said, I came alone because you were nearly drained of blood last night and were weak. But I figured he might just shoot me. I almost said, You were busy. Ditto on the shooting. I settled on, “I was stupid?”

  “Very.”

  “Thank you for the clean clothes? And the food?”

  Eli grunted. He was sitting on an undamaged pew beneath the crucifix, bent forward, forearms resting on his thighs. His hands no longer held a weapon but dangled between his knees. He skin was very dark in the church’s shadows, his hair buzzed close, brown scalp showing through, gray eyes looking charcoal. Eli was a seriously pretty man. And was seriously ticked.

  I was on the floor at his feet, eating like the calorie-starved person I was after so many shifts and half-shifts in quick succession. Oh. And nearly dying. Nearly dying is hungry business. Plus my hair was a mess and I didn’t have lipstick with me. Not that I’d ever say that to Eli. No freaking way.

  Though I might look a mess, the magics coursing through me, the ones that now formed a star, and were so different from my usual skinwalker magics, felt steady and smooth and relentless. So that was good, right? Except, Eli. Ticked. Dangerously ticked.

  “Babe. Don’t do it again. Even disabled I’m better than nothing.”

  He said it as if he’d been disabled and had still held his own. The scar on his collarbone shone white above his black tee, which was rain soaked, though no longer dripping. He had acquired more scars since coming to work for me, pale streaks on his neck and across his chest, but I seldom noticed them, not in competition with the white, puckered scar on his collarbone.

  His dress pants were soaked. His skin was covered with chill bumps, gleaming in the church lights. The jacket he’d worn to HQ was gone. When he breathed, steam blew from his mouth. It was unexpectedly icy in the old church.

  “I won’t. Pinkie swear?” I held up my little finger, crooked.

  There was an instant of silence, then Eli laughed. An actual out-loud chuckle. “Babe.” He shook his head in resignation.

  “I know.” I dropped my hand.

  Behind him, NOPD detectives and crime scene techs were working up the scene, which was hard to do with the bodies being in several places, scattered all over the church. With the perpetrator crumbling to ash. And with her being dead three times now. The paperwork was gonna be a disaster, I thought. Fortunately not my problem. The crumbling to ash was the weirdest part. I’d never seen such a thing, but then I’d never seen a thrice-dead vamp out in daylight and then dead on holy ground. I was expanding my horizons and not in a good way.

  “We need to talk and you need to know something before we go back outside,” he said.

  “That sounds ominous. Not as ominous as a revenant chewing on my shoulder, but bad enough.”

  “Alex asked a question. One I hadn’t thought through.”

  I nodded for him to continue and wadded up the garbage.

  “Why are all these vamps buried with their heads? It’s common knowledge that vamps killed with silvershot, blades, or stakes can rise as revenants.”

  I thought back to the only buried vamps I’d seen, in a mausoleum in the vamp cemetery. The vaults had been raided and the bodies tossed around. I honestly couldn’t say if they’d had their heads or not. “I don’t know. That sounds like a very important question for Leo.”

  “Another one, then. Why were these suckheads buried in human graveyards instead of the vamp cemetery?”

  “Huh. More questions for the MOC. That it?”

  “No. Bruiser is outside, dealing with the media and with law enforcement for the riot and for the crime scene here.”

  “And that’s important because . . . ?”

  “Law enforcement includes PsyLED.”

  It took a moment for the words to sink in. Another moment for my brain to catch up to my suddenly speeding heart. He didn’t mean Soul. He’d just have used the name of the Senior Agent. Eli meant someone else. I stood up from the floor, slowly, carefully. Just as slowly, I weaponed up in the gear Eli had set aside when I shifted. Nine-mil. Vamp-killers. I wished I had the Sword of the Enforcer. It had a scabbard and looked important. So did the blade Bruiser had given me. That one would work too. I needed more weapons.

  “Jane?”

  I pulled my hair back and up into a tail, then tied it in a knot and twisted it around. “Phone,” I said, holding out my hand.

  Eli placed his in my palm. I dialed HQ, the direct line to Scrappy, Leo’s newish assistant. “This is Lee, Mr. Pellissier’s assistant. How are things progressing, Eli?”

  “This is Jane. If I’m arrested, I recommend Eli Younger for my replacement as part-time Enforcer. Derek will need help, at least until this EuroVamp crap is handled.”

  “Arrested?” she squeaked.

  I hung up. Handed Eli his cell. “Keep outta this,” I said to him. “It’s personal.”

  “Got that. Still gotchur six.”

  There was nothing I could do about that. Free will and all. I spun on the toe of my boot and stalked into the rain. It wasn’t pouring as hard, more a steady patter instead of the previous downpour and alternating sleet. The lightning had resolved into a faint and distant rumble. The strange wet mist was back, though, thicker than ever, and I strode through it, my off-the-shelf combat boots splashing. I wasn’t in Enforcer gear—no spectacular leathers, no specially designed boots, and there was no way I was putting on the gorget until it had been steamed clean of my own blood and the damaged links repaired. But I was dressed in black, a long, lean form, my gold nugget necklace my only jewelry, weapons, and a scowl the devil himself would have admired.
From the way people backed away, I knew my eyes were glowing gold, Beast close to the surface. It was her snarl on my face.

  I stalked to the flashing lights, blue and red emergency vehicles resolving out of the fog, cops and techs and detectives stepping back. I caught his scent on the wind, slight but undeniably his. Wereleopard. Black wereleopard. Ricky-Bo LaFleur. The SAC, senior special agent in charge of the Knoxville, Asheville, and Chattanooga PsyLED office, and several other states if assigned by his superiors. My ex. We had things to say to each other.

  Well, maybe it was clearer to say I had things to say to him. Not all that long ago, Rick had promised to kill my honeybunch and take me back, as if Bruiser were his personal threat and I was a toy to be fought over. Not. And Not.

  I caught Bruiser’s scent, but not the smell of his blood. He was still okay. Something tight and twisted unclenched inside of me. But he was standing with Rick, his form tall and controlled, looking like a male model, a passive metrosexual. Utterly deceptive. I had seen my sweetcheeks fight. He was deadly. He’d fight if attacked, but would he be fast enough? Were-creatures were faster than human eyes could follow. The fear returned.

  I strode from the fog, long steps, straight between them. Stopped, nose to nose with Rick. Unlike the cops behind me, he didn’t pull away. “Talk. Now,” I said. “Bruiser, we’ll be a minute.”

  “Of course, love.”

  I heard him turn and move away, about ten feet. Onorios have very acute hearing. He was giving me the pretense of privacy but still covering my back. Eli, disobeying orders, took up a position at Rick’s back. The corner of Rick’s eye twitched. He was a predator. He knew when he was being stalked and cornered. He looked different, older, worn. His black eyes still flashed and his hair still fell over his forehead in a small black curl. In the weather, it had formed into small ringlets at his collar. He was swoonworthy. He had also broken my heart, embarrassed me in front of the entire vamp city, and taken off with another woman, a curvy, sex-on-a-stick, gorgeous wereleopard. A creature like him. I had grieved. But I was done with that months ago.

  I smiled at the memory, showing too many teeth, and snorted a breath at him. Big cat to big cat. The first steps of a challenge. “Ricky-Bo,” I whispered. “The last time we talked personal crap, you said we can’t be together, but that eventually you’d find a way out of this ‘were problem.’ Then you said, and I quote, ‘If you’re sleeping with him,’ meaning Bruiser, ‘I’ll kill him and take you.’” I dropped my voice, so low even a wereleopard had to tilt his head to hear. “Understand this, you foul piece of scum. You and I are done. I’m with George Dumas,” I said, using his real name to make sure there could be no confusion. “You touch my Bruiser and I’ll take your head so fast you’ll still be blinking as you fall in two. Anything happens to my Bruiser by an outside force or person, and I’ll take your head. My Bruiser disappears, and I’ll take your head. He stubs his toe and I’ll make you pay. Are we clear?”

  “Threatening a federal law enforcement officer?”

  “Damn skippy.”

  Rick’s face relaxed. Rain dripped from his hair and trickled over his forehead. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Jane. I’m sorry I shamed you. I’m sorry I was such a lousy human being that every single person who matters to me in New Orleans wants to punish or kill me. Including my mom.” A smile touched his lips. “She likes you. Still asks after you.”

  I didn’t respond to that one. Rick’s parents were amazing. So were his sisters. I had liked them. A lot.

  “I was magicked,” he said. “Not an excuse. There is no excuse. But you should know. I was spelled a long time ago, a blood spell, through my tattoos, but the working was left unfinished. When the incomplete spell was mixed with two types of were-taint, that messed me up. Bad.

  “It took time but I’m free of it now. You and George are safe from me.” His smile widened. “But the day you two break up and go your separate ways, I’ll be back. Promise. And this time I’ll be the one doing the courting.”

  Rick had told me only part of the real tattoo problem, but I elected not to comment on that now. “Sometimes things die, Ricky-Bo. And they stay dead.”

  His smile fell away. “Sometimes,” he agreed. “Talk business now? And tell your second to put away his blades.”

  “You know Eli’s my second?”

  “I know a lot of things.”

  And I had to wonder how and why. “No. I’m done with you. Eli. Bruiser. Limo.” I turned and walked away from Rick, through the rain to the limo and Shemmy and something more to eat. I was starving, and there was a fine tremor running though me. Nerves and not something to do with the new magics pulsing in the shape of a star around me and through me.

  In the limo, Bruiser found towels and passed them to us. He handed me a box of energy bars and candy bars and I tore open a Snickers and munched down. Heaven. He had an odd look on his face as I ate. Sorta . . . bemused might be the right word. “What?” I asked.

  “My Bruiser?” he asked.

  I flushed scarlet and wanted to fall through the floor into the weapons container below our feet. “Ummm. He threatened to kill you.”

  “So you laid claim to me?” His tone was full of peculiar emotions, feelings I couldn’t name. Didn’t understand. Except that he wasn’t teasing me. His eyes were warm, like melted milk chocolate with flecks of hot caramel, but gleamed like brown obsidian, a high sheen.

  “Seemed the most”—I hunted for a word—“most expedient way to keep you alive.” I resisted squirming in my seat like a four-year-old.

  Bruiser’s lips softened and parted, his bold, sculpted nose casting a shadow across his face. “Thank you. No woman has ever wanted to protect me.”

  I frowned and almost said, No man ever wanted to protect me either, except that was a lie. Eli protected me. Leo protected me when it suited his course of action and future goals. Alex and the Robere twins. The Mercy Blade a time or two. I met Bruiser’s eyes and the smell of Onorio in heat flooded the room.

  Beast peeked out, making my eyes glow. Mate, she thought.

  “Get a room,” Eli grunted.

  “I intend to. As soon as possible,” Bruiser said, his eyes still on me. And my blush, which had cooled, burned even hotter.

  Beast might as well have been rolling in catnip, she was so happy.

  Eli wasn’t the eye-rolling type, but if he had been, now would have been the time. He dragged our attention to business. “Without prior authorization of the governor, Rick is the official who has to authorize Jane’s use of force—unless there is a direct threat to the populace, in which case she can act unilaterally.”

  “Rick?” I said, sitting up in my seat. “Not Soul?”

  “Soul isn’t here.”

  “She will be,” I said, remembering Opal in stasis in the lightning. That seemed important, but nothing came to mind. “Soon.”

  “PsyLED has law enforcement control here, even over the feds,” Eli said. “This is Rick’s show. So keep that in mind.”

  Bruiser laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh. But Beast liked it even better than the Onorio heat.

  “Moving on,” Eli said. “Alex uncovered some evidence—other than Grégoire’s panicked assertion and the rising of the revenants of their line—that Le Bâtard and Louis Seven are both in town. It’s possible that they’re in the Roosevelt Hotel in the French Quarter. The tip came from Grégoire’s boys just before they disappeared.”

  Bruiser’s eyes sharpened and his entire body came alert, all without moving a muscle. “Disappeared?”

  “Brandon and Brian aren’t with Grégoire and won’t answer calls,” Eli said.

  “That is very strange. And unexpected,” Bruiser said.

  “We got pics of this Louis and Bâtard?” I asked.

  Bruiser passed me his cell phone. On it was a photograph of a small painted portrait. I studied the likeness of the two men pi
ctured there. One was pretty, with curling brown hair, the other wore a van-dyke beard that accentuated a cruel mouth and hard eyes. “Louis,” Bruiser said, gesturing to the pretty one.

  I grunted and passed his cell back. Heard the muted click and Shemmy said, “Excuse me, sirs, ma’am. But we have a report of a revenant rising in St. Louis Cemetery Number One. There’s already video of skeletal fingers pushing through a mausoleum wall. I’m assuming you want to go there?” Shemmy sounded eager, as if he found all this entertaining as heck. Let him get chewed on by a dog-fanged vamp and see how entertaining it was. I stretched my shoulder, peeved. I liked that word. Peeved. It was more refined than saying pissed.

  “With all speed,” Bruiser said, swiping his cell. “It’s nearly dusk and we’ll have undead Mithrans responding to Le Bâtard’s call as well as revenants. This will get messy.”

  “We need better gear,” Eli said.

  “Correction, Shemmy,” Bruiser said. “To St. Louis One by way of Jane’s home, please.”

  The limo made a quick right turn, throwing me against Bruiser. I stayed there for a moment longer than necessary before sitting up straight. I didn’t know about other limos, but Leo’s limos didn’t have seat belts. When I sat up, I started braiding my hair into a tight-fighting queue.

  “That will get us gear,” Eli said. “What about you?”

  “I relayed a message from the Enforcer”—he glanced down at me—“to have a cyclist meet us at Yellowrock Securities with my gear.”

  I was responsible for the MOC having motorcycles, all white, all exactly alike. Crotch rockets, fast, responsive, and popular among the blood-servants, especially the younger males, some of whom had been reprimanded for racing in the streets at two a.m. last week. Now they had permission to drive too fast.