by Amy Sumida
“There are hundreds of Reginald Mackenzies listed online, but most of them are dead and the rest don't fit the description,” Torrent said.
“Any angels?” I asked with a smirk. Then I frowned. “How about priests? Are any of them priests?”
Torrent's eyes moved side to side quickly; as if he were reading. Then he said, “Not a single one.”
“Sugar snap peas!” I huffed. “I thought I was onto something.”
“Are you certain of the spelling?” Blue asked Horus. “Could it be Mckenzie—without the A—instead of Mackenzie?”
“There are hundreds of Reginald Mckenzies,” Torrent offered hopefully. “One is a football player.”
“No; I verified the spelling,” Horus said. “It's definitely Mac.”
“Maybe we should return to Pride Palace and see what the others have discovered,” Torrent suggested.
“Hopefully, they'll have more than the name of a dumb Scottish angel,” I muttered.
Yeah; I was going to go straight to the kitchen when we got home. I needed a sandwich stat.
Chapter Seven
“You should have eaten zere,” Kirill said as he handed Lesya another cookie. He looked up at me in concern. “Do you vant another sandwich?”
“No; I'm fine,” I said as I brushed the crumbs from the front of my dress. “And I couldn't go to lunch mid-track.”
“And after?”
“After we spoke to the priest, we had to get back to the villa,” I said.
“Mommy, I want tea with my biscuit,” Lesya declared.
“Tea and biscuits?” I looked down at her. “When did you become British? We call those cookies in America.”
“We aren't in America,” she said.
I gave her my Don't-be-sassy-with-me-I'm-the-Queen-of-Sassy face.
“She vants tea party,” Kirill explained with a smile at our daughter. “Zariel has tea set zat zey play vith.”
“You want a tea set too?” I asked her.
“Yes, please.” Lesya beamed up at me; looking so much like her father that it made my heart hurt in the most wonderful way.
“You're getting really good at that look, little lioness.” I leaned down to kiss her forehead. “If you act as sweet as that face promises, you'll get a tea set for Christmas.”
Lesya pouted. “But I want—”
“If you finish that statement with 'it now,' you will never have one,” I warned her sternly.
Lesya widened her enormous, blue eyes at me as her lips started to quiver.
“That won't work either.” I narrowed my eyes at her.
Lesya looked at her father for help.
Kirill laughed and picked her up. “Some zings are vorth vaiting for,” he told her with a glance in my direction. “Trust me; tea vill taste better in cups you've earned.”
“What?” Lesya scrunched up her face at Kirill.
“It means; be patient, Kotyonok.” Kirill kissed her cheek. “You and Zariel can play vith her tea set for now. She's a good girl who shares vith you. Be zankful for your friend; she's vorth more zan all ze tea in China.”
I had a flash of Zariel in a future that I'd changed—hopefully—and she hadn't been so good then; not as a friend to Lesya or in general. I'd been pushing aside those memories of Zariel; telling myself that I shouldn't blame her for things she hadn't done. But just knowing that she had it in her to betray my daughter and the Intare made me distrust the child. I felt horrible about it, but I couldn't change it.
“Vervain?” Trevor came into the kitchen. Then he spotted Lesya. “How's my lion princess?”
“Uncle Trevor, I want a tea set and Mommy won't get it for me,” Lesya said in accusation.
“Is that right?” Trevor asked with a chuckle.
I lifted a brow at Lesya, and she deflated.
“But I can be patient,” Lesya muttered.
“That's good,” Trevor said. “Because impatient lions make poor hunters.”
Lesya seemed to consider this; pursing her lips in thought. Then she declared, “I want a tea set, not an antelope.”
I burst into laughter at Trevor's pained expression.
“You've inherited your mother's impertinence; that's for sure,” Trevor exclaimed.
“What's im-pert-nants?” Lesya asked suspiciously.
“Being sassy with your uncles,” Trevor said as he tapped her nose.
“I'm impertnants!” Lesya declared.
“Or something like zat,” Kirill said with a smirk.
“Is everyone back?” I asked Trevor.
“Yep; they're all waiting for you.” Trevor nodded his head back toward the dining hall.
“I'll take Lesya upstairs,” Kirill said and headed out.
“But I wanna stay,” Lesya said.
“Nyet; zis is not conversation for little lion princess; no matter how impertinent she is,” Kirill declared as he pushed open the swinging door.
A chorus of greetings directed at my daughter erupted; only slightly muted when the door shut. I smiled and shook my head; Lesya would doubtless ask every one of her aunts and uncles for a tea set, and she'd wind up with twenty of them this Christmas. It would serve her right.
“Did you find anything?” I asked Trevor as we followed Kirill and Lesya into the dining hall.
The dining hall of Pride Palace was gigantic; both in length and height. It wasn't all that wide; just enough to accommodate sideboards beneath the windows on the right, the width of the dining table in the center, and a sitting area with a few chairs before the fireplace on the left. But it was at least a hundred-fifty feet long and three times that high. Wooden beams arched across the ceiling—making it feel as if it were domed when it wasn't—and the arches were mimicked in the tops of the large windows that ran the length of the right side.
Velvet maroon curtains were pulled back in heavy swaths from the windows with golden tassels. I'd done a bit of redecorating for the holidays; changing some of the fabric colors to deeper tones that would be appropriate for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. But I hadn't added any seasonal knickknacks; the only things on the mantle above the fireplace were a painting that Trevor had given me and a gold, Japanese, cat statue that was a gift from Amaterasu.
The table ran the length of the room and had some massive candelabras set along its center—wrought-iron creations that went with the Old World theme—to fill some of that vertical space as well as the horizontal, but that's all that was on them. No festive garlands or anything like that decorated the expanse; I hadn't got to it yet. Beneath the table and its iron behemoths was a rug that was even larger, and there was a much smaller, matching one set beneath the chairs before the fire. The clicking of my shoes on the tiled kitchen floor dulled a little when I hit the stone of the dining hall, and then muted completely on the carpet.
“No physical traces,” Trevor said. “But we got some interesting information regarding the exorcism.”
“Really?” I watched Kirill take Lesya from the room; waiting for her to be out of hearing range before I asked, “What did you guys find out?”
“I interviewed Donato's wife,” Thor said. “She didn't believe in possession, and never attempted to contact the Catholic Church for help.”
“She didn't contact the Church?” Horus asked. “Then who performed the exorcism?”
“She said that she had finally accepted that her husband was possessed, and she was about to visit the local church for assistance when there was a knock on their door,” Thor said.
“Was it ominous?” I asked with a smirk at Horus.
Thor blinked in surprise. “Actually, she said it seemed portentous.”
My smile faded.
“Was there an angel at her door?” Pan asked. “A Scottish angel?”
“An angel?” Azrael growled. “Who saw an angel?”
“The Bianchi mother said that God had sent an angel to help her daughter,” Toby explained. “But she may have just been projecting her relief into a spiritual concept.”
<
br /> “Isa, Donato's wife, didn't use the word angel,” Thor said. “But she did say that the man who exorcised Donato's demon was ethereal in his attractiveness. She said he had dark looks but there was a radiance about him.”
“Did she get his name?” Horus asked.
“Reginald Mackenzie,” Thor said.
My team exchanged glances and groans just as Kirill came back into the room—sans Lesya.
“Vhat's happened?” Kirill asked.
“It appears that a Scottish angel is killing demons,” Pan declared. Then he looked back at the rest of us. “Does this mean we're going to Scotland?”
“Zere are Scottish angels?” Kirill asked skeptically.
“No,” Azrael said. “There aren't. Angels are just angels; no matter what ethnicity they resemble. They have angelic names. So, if this is an angel, he's using a false name—for obvious reasons. He couldn't very well say his name was the Archangel Gabriel.”
“Do you think it's Gabriel?” I asked; instantly on edge.
Gabriel had done some messed up things; one of them was kidnapping me. Lucifer had led the Army of Hell into the Seventh Heaven so Azrael could save me from him.
“I wouldn't put it past him.” Azrael shared a grim look with me. “You know how bitter he's been.”
“But how would he manage it?” I asked.
“That's another thing,” Thor said. “Isa said that Reginald had a golden vial which he held to her husband's lips. She said the demon was exorcised into the vial, which Reginald stoppered up and took with him.”
“A vial,” I whispered. “That sounds familiar.”
“It reminds me of those Voodoo jars,” Odin said. “Do you remember, Vervain?”
“Yes!” I pointed at my husband. “That's it; the soul jars. A bokor can trap a person's soul in a jar. If that can be done, then why not something similar with a demon soul?”
“Do the Catholics have anything like that?” Odin asked Azrael.
“There are holy containers and vials,” Azrael said with a pensive look. “There are ampulla to hold oil, and reliquaries for relics, but I have never heard of a soul vial.”
“If someone were to learn how to collect a soul, it wouldn't matter what the container was,” Blue said. “It could be a mason jar and still work. The issue isn't the vessel but what this man did with the captured souls after he left those homes.”
“He destroyed them,” Azrael said. “That's obvious. If he had released them, they would have returned to their bodies, and if he had enslaved them, Mark and Alan's bodies wouldn't have disintegrated.”
“But how?” Blue persisted. “Killing a soul is not a simple matter. Technically, energy cannot be destroyed. It would be far easier to consume the soul or use it to empower something.”
“Use the energy,” Odin said as he nodded. “That's possible; similar to how we once used the energy in blood sacrifice.”
“Some of us still use it,” Eztli said smugly.
Eztli and her vampires could drink blood as a sacrifice—without killing the donor—and receive the energy that other gods could only get from the dead. It was a convenient loophole that kept me from having to become a vampire hunter.
“We need to investigate how this could be done, and who would know how to do it,” Blue went on with a chiding look at his wife.
Eztli shrugged and smiled at him; she was what she was. But even though her expression was aloof and arrogant, her eyes went soft for her husband. Blue saw past her mask easily—he should have, he had one of his own, after all—and lifted her elegant hand to his lips. His jade green eyes met her chocolate brown ones and spoke volumes; darkly erotic volumes. I looked away quickly before I started to remember when he'd looked at me like that.
“I think this calls for another visit to the Baron,” Re said as he grinned at me.
I sighed deeply but nodded. If anyone could tell us how a soul pot was made, it would be Baron Samedi. And he would too; Sam was very forthcoming. No; getting him to talk wouldn't be the problem. It was his home, or rather who was in it and what they did there that was the issue.
“Isn't that the guy who has a constant orgy going on in his bedroom?” Trevor asked with narrowed eyes. “Or is it his living room?”
“I think it's both,” I muttered.
“Yes; it is.” Re smiled broadly. “Who wants to come along?”
Chapter Eight
Pan took Re up on his offer; no surprise there. Trevor and Kirill decided to come as well because they didn't want me going into the Vodou den of iniquity with only two perverts for backup—that's a Trevor quote—and Azrael came along to represent his father.
We traced into the collective tracing chamber for the Gede. The Gede were, to put it simply; Vodou Death Gods. The tracing room was a round chamber with multiple doors of different sizes and different materials set into its continuous, red velvet wall in a very Alice in Wonderland way. A crystal chandelier hung from the domed ceiling; casting fractured rainbows over the polished ironwood floor. We went straight to the largest door in the room; an ebony mammoth with gold hardware. Re knocked on it politely as the other men checked out the unusual collection of doors. Trevor sniffed at one that looked to be made of stone and then recoiled.
“It's a gravestone,” Trevor whispered.
“They are gods of the graveyard,” Re said and then knocked again; louder.
A flurry of voices filtered through the wood door before us:
“You get it!”
“I got it last time!”
“You're a liar and a thief!”
“What's that got to do with the fucking door?”
“One of you get the damn door?”
“Why? Where'd it go?”
Laughter at that.
“Get the fucking door!”
“It's not my terr'try. You get it, you lazy bastard.”
“Brigitte, ma cher—”
“Fuck off, Sam!” A female voice said. “I'm not your maid.”
“Oh, yes; I remember this,” I muttered.
Finally, the sound of footsteps approached the door along with an angry muttering.
“Drinkin' my rum and eatin' my food but can they open a fucking door? No-ee. Useless drunks and lechers all. Damn; I love 'em.”
The door swung open to reveal Baron Samedi himself. His top hat was set at a cocky angle, his pants were unbuttoned, and he had on a jacket with no shirt beneath it. He was wearing all black today, and I would have expected the color to dull his walnut skin, but instead, it made it seem richer—silkier. His face spread in a brilliant smile—teeth nearly blinding in their whiteness—and he stretched his arms out; one hand holding a silver-tipped walking stick.
“It's the Re-Rider!” Samedi exclaimed before he lifted me off my feet in a hug. “I'm so happy to see you, cher. Byen venu; welcome back to my home.”
“Thank you,” I said with an uncomfortable look toward Kirill, Azrael, and Trevor.
They all lifted their brows at me while Pan laughed his ass off.
“I'm stealing that one,” Pan declared. “Re-Rider!”
“Is that the Pan?” Samedi asked with interest.
“It is I!” Pan declared grandly. “May I join your rowdy celebration, Baron?”
“Indeed, you may, Horned God! You're just what we be needin'.” Then he called back over his shoulder. “The Greek is here!”
“Which Greek?” Someone called back.
“The only one I'd be excited to have here, coo-yon!” Samedi shouted. He looked back at us. “Damn fools; one and all, but what can ya do?”
“We can drink,” Pan suggested.
“Ah; I knew I'd like you. It's about time you made your way to my door, Wild One,” Samedi said. “And how ya been, Sun-Rod?”
“I'm good, thank you, Sam,” Re said as he shook Sam's hand. “It appears that Pan needs no introduction, but these are three of Vervain's husbands; Azrael, Trevor, and Kirill.”
“Three of the husbands, eh?” Samedi looked the
men over. “What we got 'ere? An angel, a wolf, and a lion? Nice little menagerie, cher.”
“Sam, take it easy on them,” I said. “Someone's killing Azrael's friends. That's why we're here.”
“Killin' your friends?” Sam asked Az as he went serious. Then he transferred his hard stare to me. “You ain't be thinkin' I have something to do with it, Godhunter?”
“Of course not, Sam,” I chided him. “We're here to ask for your help.”
“Oh!” Sam went back to smiling his toothy grin. “In dat case; come on in. We aim to please here, and we do as we please.” He turned around and started leading us down a dimly lit hallway. “Basic'ly, there be a lot of pleasin' going on. Although, sometimes, the aimin' be off!”
Sam pointed at a guy who was kneeling before a woman in the hallway. He was between her legs and beneath her vibrant skirts; making sucking sounds that had me blushing. The woman's head was angled up, her eyes were closed in bliss, and both of her hands were pressed against the moving bulge of the man's head. One of her knees was over the man's shoulder.
“I mean you, Nibo!” Sam declared. “You'd better clean my wall when you're done down there.”
Nibo grunted.
“I feel like I've just fallen into a porno,” Trevor muttered as we stepped into Samedi's social room.
It was a massive place—cavernous even—with a rectangular dining table at one end, sprawling collections of sitting areas in the center, and beds of differing styles around the edges. The lighting was low, the conversation crass when it wasn't straight-up sexual, and smoke hung in a heavy fog around the mirrored ceiling. I frowned at that; I hadn't noticed the mirrors the last time I was there. Perhaps it was because I'd been too busy trying to keep my gaze from straying to the wild sex happening in most of the beds... and on the sofas, ottomans, tables, and even the floor.
“Cherie!” A stunning woman with golden curls streaming around her pale shoulders came rushing over to hug me.
“Hey, Brigitte,” I said as I hugged her back. “You look fantastic, as usual.”
“Sweet girl!” She slapped my shoulder lightly as she pulled away.
And then she saw the men.