by Faith Hunter
“Sure. Whatever. And why are you going at all?” I asked.
Bruiser slouched in his seat, one elbow braced on a seat arm, fingers latched across his middle, legs out and crossed at the ankle. He looked good. More than good. And the way his eyes fastened to me, heated and intense, I’d say he knew it. I had seldom used the word sexy in my thoughts about anyone, but oh my God—the man was hot. Freaking. Hot. Sexy didn’t even begin to cover it. Or uncover it. A dozen visions of Bruiser naked on my bed or his or in the shower raced through my mind.
“Again—” Eli started.
“We know,” I interrupted. “Get a room. You wouldn’t be so difficult if you weren’t fighting with Sylvia.”
“Again. I am not going on a cruise.”
I grabbed the strap at the door to keep from being slung across the limo as Shemmy made a fast turn and braked in front of my house. The driver said, “I’ll stay right here unless traffic makes me move, in which case I’ll circle the block and come back.”
“Back up and block the street, emergency blinkers on. I’ll text when we’re nearly ready,” Bruiser said, opening the door. “If there’s traffic, they can wait.”
“I love my job,” Shemmy said.
We got out and ran for the front door, just as a crotch rocket motorcycle roared the wrong way up the street.
Inside, I shut my door and pulled out one of the newest sets of fighting gear sent by Leo. This wasn’t as pretty or as expensive as the three sets of fancy leathers he’d sent last time. The pretty ones were for formal occasions, and the one damaged at the witch conclave had been sent off for repair. The new leathers were not showy, but utilitarian; they had a dull finish that didn’t catch the light, and they didn’t squeak when I wore them. The fancy ones did. Eli was working on fixing that so I didn’t embarrass myself at the next official shindig, but for now, I was in matte black.
I drew on Beast-speed, stripped fast, and yanked on the long silk underwear that gave a layer of protection between my skin and the anti-spell silk lining of the leathers. I slid into the pants and zipped the jacket. My leathers, and the straps and buckles that held my fighting gear snug, had been adjusted to me, the fit tight but breathable. They were spelled with anti-spell workings by the witch coven in Seattle, the coven that spelled the government’s military armor. My gear had plastic armor inserts at groin, elbows, and knees—the favorite vamp dinner sites—and fine sterling silver mesh between the layers to keep vamps from biting down. I put on my own gorget and leather wristbands.
I weaponed up, threading on the harness designed to carry maximum firepower and blades. If the revenants had started coming out before dusk, I had no idea what might happen after the sun set.
Fun, Beast thought at me.
“Not,” I said to her. I added mags loaded with silver ammo in the utility pockets. I zipped them closed and folded over the Velcro pocket tabs to keep them in place.
As I seated the Benelli in its new Kydex holster, my door opened and Bruiser entered, shutting the door behind him. Without looking at me, he dropped a satchel on my bed, dumped out his old Enforcer gear, and stripped. It wasn’t pole-dancer erotic, just economical and efficient. Jacket, shirt, shoes, socks, pants, undershirt, folded and placed carefully on the bed. He left his boxer briefs on. The lights and shadows touched his body like living marble, like David under the hands of Michelangelo. Good lord.
Chest hair tapered to his waistband. Pecs to die for. A six-pack that needed no makeup or special lighting. Or even posing. Just there.
He bent over the bed and spread out the leathers and weapons. A small birthmark peeked out, high on his inner thigh, shaped like a jagged scar or a bolt of lightning—which was coincidence for sure—so pale it didn’t show in most light, and I hadn’t noticed until recently. I could see it perfectly just now. I’d bitten that mark the other day. Playfully. Very playfully. Heat zinged through me at the memory.
If I still had my cell I’d have taken a dozen shots as he moved. I might have moaned a little. His lips widened. He knew I was watching. His scent warmed, changing from the citrusy scent of his cologne to the heat of Onorio in a heartbeat, more like caramel and heated brown sugar, with a hint of something spicy. He looked up at me, his eyes nearly closed, as if he too was thinking about that last time we were able to take off a day and play.
Mate, Beast purred.
“Oh yeah. Definitely,” I said aloud.
Bruiser slid into the leather pants, his looser on his frame than mine on me, his pockets bulging with gear. He didn’t zip up, his leathers open hanging on his hips, his black boxer briefs perfectly exposed and uh, bulging with gear of a completely different sort. He stood, his jacket held by one finger, his chest bare, and slanted a look at me. “You’re not making this any easier.”
“Huh? Oh.”
“We could just stay here and let the security team handle the twice-risen undead.”
“We could. Probably should,” I agreed, still staring. His muscles had been sculpted by fighting and a judicious lifting of weights. His body was beautiful, not something I had realized the first time I met him. I’d just thought he was a blood-meal and sex partner to Leo who also was Leo’s knee-capping muscle.
Thanks to vamp blood he was scar-free, except for two very pale bullet scars on his chest. I was pretty sure he should have died from them, but drinking vamp blood has its perks.
“If you keep looking at me like that I’ll never get my leathers on.”
I flashed him a cheeky grin, walked to the door, and opened it a crack. Blocked the view both ways with my body. Over my shoulder I said, “Pretty sure you need a cold shower to get the pants zipped now.” I slipped out, hearing his chuckle. “Showoff,” I said through the door.
“Ready?” Eli asked.
He was decked out in leathers too, despite the fact that when we first met he had declared he’d never wear them. Once he’d seen how well mine protected me from injury, he had changed his mind. I had picked up my stakes on the way out and stuck silver ones in my fighting queue.
Outside a car flashed its lights. The limo, idling. A horn blew from down the street. Then two more. Then longer and more strident.
My door opened and Bruiser walked out, his boots silent on the wood flooring. He crossed the space to me, encircled my waist with one arm, and yanked me to him. He kissed me. Hard. Demanding. Plundering. He bent me back. A tango dance move that put all the important parts in very, very close proximity. Heat blossomed through me like bombs going off. And I had no doubt that if we didn’t have an emergency, we’d be in my bed right now.
I gripped his shoulders and kissed him back. And again my throat made that sound, that almost-moan that I couldn’t keep silent.
Bruiser broke away but held me bent over, all my weight on his one arm. “I know,” he said to the others, his eyes spearing me. “Get a room.” He whirled me upright and opened the door. Strode out into the dark and the rain. Eli cursed and followed.
I followed too, but quite happily. Now I knew what other women meant when they said a kiss left them floating. I was sure my boot soles were landing about six inches off the ground. I slid inside the limo, the door closed, and Shemmy sped off, me holding on to the emergency strap.
• • •
We reached St. Louis Cemetery Number One just as darkest night fell and the heavens opened up again. We got out at the corner of St. Louis and Basin Streets and raced to the nearest entrance. The deluge was stunning, the water beating down on us heavy and pounding. It already stood an inch on the sidewalks, falling too fast to run off.
Metal screeched and clanged—old iron being wrenched and torn. A gate flew at us and we all ducked. The revenant walked out of the entrance, holding something. A human leg, which he lifted and started eating. Lightning flashed and boomed, close by, thunder rolling. But my energies stayed put, stable. Beast shoved her way to the forefront of my b
rain, her vision turning the world silver and gray and sharp green.
Bruiser pulled his sword and took off the revenant’s head in one clean sweep. He was good. He had been Leo’s Enforcer once and he had over a hundred years to master La Destreza. The revenant fell and Bruiser kicked the parts in different directions, striding into the unlit cemetery. I didn’t know if it was always unlighted or if the storm had put the electricity out in a different part of the city. But watching him move through the rain in wet-streaked leathers was an erotic exercise all on its own. Holy crap.
St. Louis Cemetery was the oldest in New Orleans, containing the first bodies laid to rest in the 1700s, all aboveground. Statues adorned many of the mausoleums. Angels and crosses were everywhere. Stone children. The savior with arms outstretched, Jesus on the cross, the statue defaced, his legs broken off. Iron gates keeping back the riffraff from the tombs of the wealthy, vault doors bricked and cemented over. Carrara marble. Plaster. One tomb painted blue. Xs in red paint on others.
Red flowers spun into the air, lifted by a sudden wind, and then were knocked to the ground. It was gusting and frigid, forcing the rain beneath my collar to stream down my spine. Palm trees lashed the night, branches flying.
The voodoo priestess Marie Laveau was reputed to be buried in the cemetery, but really, who would know if she had even died. I had never asked if she had been turned, taken another name, and lived as a vamp today. It was possible.
Over the smell of the rain, I caught the scent of fresh human blood and bowels released. Vomit and urine. The sharp tang of fear and despair. And the older stink of revenant. I pulled my vamp-killers, turning my head at each small space between mausoleums, waiting for attack.
Bruiser turned down an . . . aisle? Walkway? Eli and I followed. And we found them. Beer bottles were everywhere. A lantern that could survive the deluge cast soft light. Illuminating three revenants, feasting on humans. At least two victims, by the number of heads, but there were five legs, so that was wasn’t anything to go on.
They looked up at our appearance, dropped dinner, and dove at us. These had feasted well and they were fast, nearly as fast as a normal fanghead. I whipped the vamp-killers in a scissors move and took out the one near me, cutting her in two. Bruiser took out the man with a clean beheading. The first two crumpled, dead again.
Eli hesitated as a child dove at him. Fangs flashing. Eyes empty and wild. A child vamp. She couldn’t have been more than twelve. He hesitated. Bruiser stepped in and took her head.
The act was necessary. Completely essential. Yet the ease with which Bruiser moved shocked me. There was no hesitation. Just a fluidity of motion that was like death on the wing.
Eli’s mouth opened as the child’s head flew and spun into a puddle. He got a strange look on his face, as if he’d seen a ghost. Or was reliving something from his past. Yes. That. He stood, there, frozen, weapons down. Vulnerable. I knew, through personal experience, that being taken to water this morning had brought him closer to his past, his memories, his own private hells, the ones he’d lived through courtesy of Uncle Sam. And they had risen up and attacked him all at once.
Bruiser gripped his own bloodied blades in one large fist and grabbed Eli’s jacket. Rain slicked his face as he shouted over the downpour, “Not a child. She looked like a child, but she wasn’t. Her name was Joan Bennett and she stood only four feet nine. She was staked and beheaded in nineteen forty-three for killing two humans.” He shook Eli. “Not. A. Child.”
Eli focused on Bruiser. Took Bruiser’s hand in his and pushed it away. But he wasn’t back yet. He was somewhere else, someone else. Emotions locked down. Feeling nothing. Remembering everything. It was the first time I’d seen evidence of the PTSD symptoms that probably helped end his career in the Rangers. I didn’t know what to do to help.
“She had her head back,” I said to Bruiser over the downpour.
“All of them do, and all were beheaded at their deaths,” Bruiser said, his tone grim. “We have to—”
A gust of icy wind blew the lantern over with a clatter. Battered us. Sudden dark enveloped us and I pulled hard on Beast’s night vision. Inside me she growled low. I stumbled against the wind, a howling banshee, and regained my footing. The rain, which had come in waves all day, again pounded down so hard it threw up a white mist as the droplets shattered on impact.
Over it were strange scraping sounds, like flesh against stone. Revenants poured out of the cracks and crannies and rushed down the walkways. Blind eyes zeroed in on us. Seven revs. Bruiser stepped close, placing Eli between us, his back to me. I turned and faced away too, my partner in a safe place until he got his head together. Revs weren’t built for wind. Three slipped and I dispatched two of them. Bruiser took a third one.
They were on us. I stabbed and cut, but they were too close. I tried to pull on the Gray Between, but I couldn’t find it, the place I reached for inside myself empty. And for the first time today, there was no lightning. No way to take them down from outside of time. I stabbed and cut, stabbed and cut. It wasn’t enough.
One latched on to my elbow, getting a mouthful of armor and silver. She wasn’t deterred. Her mouth smoked. The stink of burning vamp rose against the beating rain. I dropped my longer blades and drew the short ones. Stabbing, aiming at heads, cutting across eyes. The female on my elbow pulled me down. I landed on one knee, feeling something wrench. This was going to end badly unless Eli got himself together. Beast screamed in rage, the sound tearing my throat.
I smelled Edmund.
CHAPTER 10
Their Heads Should Loll Over and Bounce as They Walk
Long blades flashed. Edmund took down three vamps, moving so fast and lithe it was like watching water slide down a rock face. Bruiser matched his stance to Edmund’s and suddenly the revs were all down. We were standing in ankle-deep water and vamp entrails and remarkably little blood.
Edmund turned to me. “You will never leave me out of a fight, mistress. Do you understand?”
“You were hurt. You nearly died, you idiot.”
“I am well.”
“Yeah.” I raised my voice over an icy gust of wind that whistled through the mausoleums. “Who attacked you?”
Ed’s face twisted in something that might have been self-anger. Or indigestion. The words seemed to drag out of him when he said, “I do not know. I did not know the scent of their blood. I did not see their faces.”
Lightning struck, hitting close by. The light was shocking, brightening the entire St. Louis Cemetery Number One. The water around us carried the electric charge, zinging up our bodies. Finally, if a little late to help in the fight, I bubbled out of time. The female vamp’s head was still attached to my arm, and so I used the blade of the knife and worked it between her jaws. She had been a freshly turned vamp before she died the second time, and her four small fangs hadn’t penetrated the leathers, the silver, or the plastered interior armor. The jaws finally released and the head fell away from my shoulder and the bubble of time. Then it just hung there.
Beast sent me a memory of a dog she had seen once. The reddish dog had a half-rotted rabbit in its locked jaws, foam and spittle all over the rabbit. The dog was moving in faltering circles. Rabid and dying. Beast had hated the smell and had moved far away and out of the dog’s territory. I sniffed. That smell wasn’t present here, so that was one good thing.
I worked my elbow joint as I made sure all the vamps were separated from their heads. Eli was still staring around, his eyes not seeing, his face slack, but he was uninjured. Satisfied, I knelt down to study a vamp and head, lit by the lightning, caught in stasis. The cut that separated the head from its shoulders was clean, but above it, closer to the jawline, was a fine line, reddish and jagged. I realized that I was seeing a line of very, very fine stitches, the tiny circled and knotted ones made by a plastic surgeon. The head had been removed to bring about a second death, then reattached postmortem. F
or burial? That made sense. A vamp mortician had made her pretty for a coffin viewing. I hadn’t been to a vamp funeral. Maybe I should have. Because now I knew that some vamps buried with the head reattached could get up and move again.
I moved through the nonfalling rain, from head to head, checking, and all had the dog fangs and the stitching. I figured all the previous revenants had it too, but the thread was so fine I hadn’t noticed. So either there was something different about the dog-fanged vamps themselves that allowed them to rise for a second undeath, or there was something unique about the reattachment that allowed the head and neck to regrow together in the coffin. I needed to talk to someone who knew about vamp funerals.
I stood and checked out Eli, who was in the act of blinking against the rain. I thought that might be a good thing. The experience had thrown him into a stasis of his own, one probably from the Middle East, not a place associated with rain. The weather might bring him out of it.
Edmund was looking where I had been standing, and he was royally ticked off. Bruiser had a different look about him. It was protective. Which was just so sweet. I looked up into the storm and the lightning.
Three arcenciels were right there, in full dragon form with dragon heads, not the human-shaped heads they were capable of presenting. Wings out, hovering above me, a couple hundred feet high, hanging in the air. Soul and Opal were beautiful and feral in their rainbow dragon forms—pure magic that humans had not been able to see. Soul was staring where I had stood, and I was pretty sure she was saying something to me. I returned to my original spot and waited until the Gray Between let me go.
It juddered and shuddered and snapped back into time. Darkness and the storm dropped over me, blinding, the torrent sounding like a jet engine. Soul dropped down to within inches of my face, glowing with rainbow lights. “Someone rides the dragon,” she hissed, her lips moving over her bladelike pearled teeth. “Close. That one seeks to cage us. Our sister must be set free.”