Cold Reign

by Faith Hunter

  I swiveled in my seat and stared at him. “This house, in this part of town, would go for about—”

  “Fourteen thousand a month.”

  Up front Shemmy started coughing, probably to cover up laughter.

  “Are you out of your mind? We don’t have that kind of money.”

  “Just keep it in mind.”

  “You win the lottery and you can buy the house. I like it where we are. I won the house fair and square.”

  “Go ring the bell. Say hi.”

  My partner had a plan. Maybe nothing more than poking an anthill to see what climbed out, but it felt more like throwing rocks at a hornets’ nest. I handed him the blood bottle, opened the door, and got out, leaving the car door open to the rain. “All the men are nuts,” I said to the storm. “And naked. And Katie is nuts. And I must be nuts too, to be out here in the rain.” I walked up to the gate, which was wrought iron, the top railing a good ten feet high, with spear points rising above that. I stared at the camera and rang the buzzer. The camera mounted on the left of the gate made a soft whirring sound and turned to me. I gave it my most forbidding face, though how forbidding I was, in the rain-drenched everything, I didn’t know. I said. “I’m Jane Yellowrock. I don’t know who owns this house but be aware. I know about it.” I spun and got back in the limo, closing the door. “Happy?”

  Eli laughed, that odd and wonderful sound. I wondered how often Sylvia heard it but decided it was better not to ask. “More so than you know. Alex thinks Louis Seven owns it from back in the seventeen hundreds.”

  Exhaustion wrapped her arms around me. I slumped in the seat. “You coulda told me. Home, James,” I said.

  “Not my name,” Shemmy said easily, spinning the tires and taking us back toward the house.

  Moments later, I opened my eyes. “On second thought, take me to Bruiser’s apartment.”

  “Getting that room?” Eli asked.

  “Shut up.”

  • • •

  I crawled into bed with Bruiser. The smell of him filled my nostrils, the heat of him bathed my flesh, and he gathered me into his arms and pulled me close. In the cold of the storm, and with the dearth of insulation in his old apartment, his warmth was like a furnace and I melted against him with a small groan of pleasure. He slid one hand up along my hip, feathered it across my stomach, and cupped my breast. His mouth descended to mine and my moan softened. “Yes,” I whispered. “This.” Things proceeded to become a great deal hotter.

  • • •

  After a shower, a nap, another bout of fun and games, and another nap, Bruiser woke me at sunset with an early dinner of eggs with green and red chilies and ricotta cheese and shrimp and grits. Comfort food, high in protein, served in front of the burnt-persimmon living room couch, both of us wearing a pair of Bruiser’s flannel PJs against the cold, and a cushy comforter tucked over us. New Orleans houses and heaters weren’t built with cold in mind, and drafts were everywhere. Bruiser had a one-day beard, a scruffy look that made him look sharper, harder, and maybe a little mean. I liked it, and kept scrubbing my knuckles over the scratchy pelt. Beard. Whatever. His skin was hot beneath my knuckles. It felt good in the icy weather.

  Our plates were nearly clean when the knock came at the door and Bruiser let Eli in.

  The guys fist-bumped, which looked all wrong on Bruiser, but when he saw me watching over the back of the couch, he just smiled. “Breakfast?” he asked my business partner.

  “I’m good. We got problems. Exactly one minute after dusk, a riot broke out near Tulane, one at the St. Vincent de Paul Society cemeteries on Piety Street, and a third one at Rosemary Place. College kids get riled and cut the fool from time to time, but there’s nothing at Rosemary to incite a mob. It’s a residential street.” He dropped a heavy gear bag on my lap. It landed with a thump and a rattle. It mighta bruised me some too.

  Bruiser said, “However, Carrollton Cemetery is near Tulane. Metairie Cemetery and Cypress Grove Cemeteries are near Rosemary. And the St. Vincent is a cemetery.”

  “Yeah,” Eli said. “Cute jammies.”

  “Thanks,” I said as Bruiser pulled up a map of the city on his tablet.

  Eli sat on the edge of a white leather bar chair and said, “It forms a triangle, which might be witch magic.”

  “What it does is send us all over,” I said. “Spread resources. Create discord.”

  Bruiser said, “Let’s get to HQ first. We need to check some things.” My partner had brought dry leathers. Admittedly they were my dress black set, and they squeaked when I moved sometimes, but at least they weren’t drippy and slimy. I changed and tossed my wet leathers at Eli. “These need your special touch.”

  Bruiser removed a basket of rags from a long cabinet, each neatly folded. Folded rags? I had a feeling my honeybunch was a tad OCD. Eli stuffed the sleeves and the legs of the leathers with balled-up terry strips. It was better than I had done. I’d left them dripping in the shower. When this gig with vamps was over, we needed to invest in water-wicking, water-resistant poly-cotton-nylon suits. They were lighter weight and cost a lot less than the leathers Leo bought me. The military was coming up with mix-and-match uniforms and gear for all weather conditions, and the civilian providers weren’t far behind. I was sure we could get the Seattle coven to provide anti-spell gear. For a price.

  I stomped into my boots and followed the guys out. Shemmy was again behind the wheel and since he was part of the team for this gig, I took the time to look him over. Mixed race with brown eyes, bald head, ready laugh, and a physique that screamed bodybuilder. His back strained his pale gray suit, his neck was big enough to need its own horse, shoulders Atlas would have admired, and a waist tight enough to make a pole dancer envious. “Atlanta?” I asked, wanting to know where he had come from.

  “Got it in one.”

  I nodded and took a seat next to Bruiser as the limo moved away from the curb at speed. I heard a faint ding and Shemmy raised the privacy panel to take a call. Above us, lightning lit the clouds like fireflies in a bottle, making the storm clouds look like puffy cotton balls and Christmas tree lights, innocent and nonthreatening, but I kept expecting them to trigger my magics. They didn’t. It was almost as if the lightning were playing. Or maybe just warming up for the main event.

  I tilted my head as a stray thought speared into my brain and took root. “What’s happening to the SOD in this storm?”

  Bruiser focused on me intently. “He’s in sub-five basement. He’s too far down to be, do, or feel anything. As far as I know his brain is still trying to regrow.”

  “Huh. Yeah. When I first saw him, he was clawing into the copper wiring. It was doing something to him, giving him a jolt of power. What if the storm is jolting him. Hitting his magic.”

  “Accelerating his regeneration,” Bruiser said, evaluating my theory. “I’ll take a look.”

  The limo swerved and accelerated. Bruiser hit a switch. “Shemmy?”

  “The Council Chambers is under attack by revenants and members of the Bloods and the Crips. The gangs are working together, more or less, which Derek says is nearly unheard of. He’s called in reinforcements.”

  “A ruse?” I asked. “Another one? Or the purpose of the riots, resources already divided, and so they strike at their central target.” The two gangs were Derek’s old enemies, and they had been fighting over his neighborhood way back when.

  “Two enemy gangs working together?” Eli said. “What? Under some kind of truce? Or did some vamps pay them? Or drink them down and roll them?”

  The limo swerved and slid on the water in the streets, hydroplaning, headlights bouncing across the buildings and reflecting from vehicles nearby. We sideswiped a car parked on the side of the street, fishtailed, and hit a second one on the other side. The impacts sent us grabbing for the emergency straps overhead. Mildly, Bruiser said again, “Shemmy?”

  “
I’ll come back and call the police, leave a report and my card. Cops won’t come, not for something small like this, but at least there’ll be a record at dispatch.”

  Two blocks later, Shemmy roared up under the porte cochere and we boiled out of the limo to see people running away, into the dark. HQ’s security team was pulling two wounded in through the back entrance. The attack seemed to be over. The thought was half formed when I saw a human shape dressed in black pants and red jacket roll across the top of the brick fence and drop to the ground. Then two more. So the attack was coming in waves. Slight forms, short and skinny, underfed. Teenagers. Maybe hopped up on meth. Or spelled by the storm to more extreme and violent tendencies. And there was zero chance that the cops would show up here.

  As Eli and I watched, Derek, Wrassler, and a full security team dashed from the entrance and through the porte cochere, carrying truncheons and leather saps—handheld weapons made of leather with sand or lead pellets inside to knock someone silly. HQ’s people were wearing vests under winter coats. Better than armor and guns. The attackers might be ready to rumble, but they were still kids.

  The security team waded in and hit and smacked, going for kneecaps, elbows, and fists instead of faces and the sides of heads. Minimizing long-term injury, preventing death. They were trying to stop the kids without gunfire because they were kids.

  Shemmy lowered the passenger window and shouted, “Security woman monitoring the cameras just saw someone go in a side gate? But we don’t have a side gate.” He pressed fingers to his earbud. “She says it’s a revenant and six gang members.”

  “Side gate,” I whispered. “Oh crap.” To Bruiser I shouted, “Get to Leo’s office! Incoming!” I pulled on Beast-speed and raced out the gate and around the block. The rain was pattering, but the fog was growing denser. There were cars and media vans arriving up and down the street, as if they had been alerted. I tilted my head away from any cameras that might be able to focus through the heavy mist and darkness.

  It was hard to spot the small gate in the brick fence. It was overgrown with vines. A dark hole resolved out of the whiteout and I stepped inside. The rain stopped instantly. The silence was intense after the constant sound of drumming downpour. It was darker than the inside of hell.

  The gate had been propped open with a long block of wood, allowing for egress. Ahead, flashlights revealed a revenant racing through the blackness, chasing a dozen older teenagers wearing gang colors just like the ones at the porte cochere. The rev was tracking them by scent, running blind. The group dashed ahead, waited until the revenant almost caught up, and dashed ahead again. They were leading it inside. I was reminded of Leo’s comment about revenants being bodies a commander was willing to lose.

  Beside me, a few feet inside the door, stood Rick. His hands were empty. Dangling. His face was hard with horror. He knew this gate because he had been carried out through it by werewolves when he was kidnapped. After which he had been tortured and raped by a werewolf bitch and her pack. But he seemed frozen, standing, doing nothing. PTSD. Eli, now Rick. The horror of memories that had broken them. The magical storm was affecting everyone.

  I walked up to him and seized his face in one hand. Pulled him close, until he had no choice but to look in my eyes. “You can beat this. You beat it the first time. You can beat it every time.”

  He gurgled a laugh, sounding like a death rattle. “Beating I can do. But am I going to have to relive it every damn time?”

  “Probably. But you’ll survive that too. Beat that too. And you can have a good life.”

  “Without you.”

  “Without me.” I let his face go and walked into the dark. But not before I saw movement in the gate. Carolyne Bonner and a cameraman, filming me holding Rick’s face in what had to look like a lovers’ tryst. “Well, crap.” I adjusted my weapons and took off after the rev and the kids.

  CHAPTER 12

  A Six-Foot Snowfall in Hades

  Eli had followed and he fell in beside and slightly behind me. The passageway was narrow and stank of mold and kids, their sweat laced with violence and adrenaline. There was a faint reek of rot from the rev. They took the winding passageways through the place but bypassed the entrance leading up to Leo’s office. Instead, we came out in the ballroom. In front of us, the group had raced across the wide space and ducked into a small set of hidden stairs leading down to all the basements. I stopped Eli, a hand on his arm. In Beast-vision, the room was silvers and greens. Empty. But something was wrong.

  I sniffed. Again. We were definitely alone in the ballroom, in the dark, and the stink of the rev was strong, but there was something different beneath the other stinks, something that hadn’t been there during the last inspection. I had smelled this scent recently. “Plastic explosives,” I whispered. “If you wanted to destroy the ballroom where the EVs and Leo will meet to obstruct or delay the parley, where would you plant them?”

  “The columns,” he said, just as soft. “Bring down the roof and take out the windows. It could be repaired, but likely not in time for the EuroVamp visit. Plus it’s quick. Strap explosives to the columns and bug out. Detonation from offsite.”

  “I smell magic too,” I said.

  “No reason magic can’t be added to bombs. Military postulated magical weapons decades ago.”

  “So who planted them? Outside vamps or ones from inside? Never mind, I know the answer to that. Sleepers.” We had enemies here at HQ. Always had.

  If I’d been human I would have missed the sound of a sword being drawn. I whirled. Pulled a weapon. Racked back the slide. Aimed at the head behind. Before I could fire, he was gone. Popped away. A breeze touched my cheek. Movement from above as he leaped over us. “Behind us,” I shouted to Eli. And fired at the second vamp.

  Vamps are fast but not faster than a bullet. I nicked her in the rear as she popped away. Stupid. Humans were present. I put the gun away and drew a vamp-killer. More gunfire sounded. Kids and twenty-somethings poured in through the porte cochere entrance. And boiled in from the stairwell entrance. Part of the first wave had made it inside. Bruiser and Derek followed the group from the back. Gunfire sounded, echoing against my eardrums. There were too many combatants. More raced in from the passageway to the hidden gate entrance.

  Outside, lightning crashed down. Hitting in the backyard of HQ. Into the small chef’s garden. The world went bright and brilliant and full of glare.

  The Gray Between ripped out of me. The world slowed, hesitated, stopped. Standing outside of time, my hands grew pelt, claws, but I willed my knuckles to stay human sized. They ignored me. I could operate a gun if needed, but not well. My face ached. Fangs pushed through my gums and I tasted blood. It freaking hurt. My shoulders expanded, my waist shrank. But my feet were human in the boots. The transformation stopped there. I was still me-ish. But time was stopped.

  Beside me Eli faced a vamp, one I didn’t know, redheaded, glowing pale skin, blue eyes. The one that had somersaulted over us and landed in front. Dang ninja vamp.

  Eli was bleeding from a nick on the outside of his forearm. The vamp had a sword and it was descending on my partner, wicked sharp. Three rounds hung in the air between them. I calculated the speed of the bullets and the speed of the falling sword, one powered by a master vamp. The rounds would hit the vamp midface, but using my own blade, the sword would continue to fall, slicing though Eli’s arm. I pushed the sword about three inches outside its current arc. It resisted, the vamp’s muscles engaged, but I put my back into it and the sword moved.

  As long as I didn’t touch their flesh, they stayed in their own time. Or that was the way it had worked in the past. Things seemed to change a lot with magic, even mine. And one thing I didn’t want was for the enemy to know everything I could do with time. So while it wasn’t a perfect solution, this worked.

  Eli safe, I stepped into the ballroom. In the bright light of the lightning, I counted two unknown vamps a
nd seven gangbangers. Weird. It had felt like more. Chasing the kids up from the stairway were Bruiser, Derek, and some of Derek’s security guys. Wrassler was firing down the stairs, his weapon aimed high. Cover fire. Derek and one of the new guys were firing at the gang kids, who were also shooting up the place.

  I guessed that Gee and others were in Leo’s office protecting Leo, Katie, and Grégoire.

  I had time to study the two unknown vamps, the redhead, and the one I had shot in the tush. They were skilled and old, far older than they looked on first glance. They were vamped out and had old, old, old eyes. Both vamps were using two long swords in the La Destreza style. From their body positions I’d guess they were masters at the fighting form.

  The shot one was pale skinned, covered in ancient blue tattoos in spirals and circles and wavy lines. I had seen someone like her once and made a mental note to find Koun and chat him up. In the shadows of the lightning strike, I saw something unexpected. Two vamps I recognized. One was named Callan, the other Fernand Marchand. Both had been enemies to Leo and had reason to hate me.

  Callan had been a vampire kept in a cage at Katie’s and I’d nicknamed him Corpse, verbally abusing him, allowing the vamps to torture him. Well, maybe torture was too strong a word, but they hadn’t been playing tiddlywinks with him. He had served a vamp named de Allyon but claimed it was only because his master kept him alive. He had boxer’s shoulders, the thighs of a cyclist, long, slender fingers, and an angel’s face, but he’d been turned for his looks, not his brains. Or so I’d thought. When De Allyon had been defeated, Callan had asked to join Leo’s power base and been welcomed in. He’d been healed by Sabina and fed by Christie, one of Katie’s working girls. Now it appeared that his loyalty was lacking. Part of the attack on Leo’s power base. And maybe the brainless part had been a ploy.

  Fernand Marchand was a longtime troublemaker, had been a suspect in more than one security leak. Dark haired and jaded, he was the brother to Amitee Marchand . . .