True Dead

by Faith Hunter

  When I killed the insane shape-shifter posing as Immanuel in my first few weeks in New Orleans, de Allyon had left the city of Atlanta to try and take over NOLA and had attacked Clan Pellissier. He’d had possession of small iron discs. I killed him. Then soon after, I went to Natchez and came into possession of pocket watches created with iron disks that had been made from the iron Spike of Golgotha. There had been skinwalker blood on the ingots. I still had some of the bloody discs. And skinwalker blood, my blood, went into creating the Glob.

  The timeline was chilling. I just had no idea what it meant or what to do about what was essentially history with seemingly little bearing on today.

  I texted Alex for the translation of La Historia de Los Mithrans en Los Americas. It told the tale of de Allyon, of his exploits, his evil, and had drawings of de Allyon and piles of skinwalkers dead and dying.

  The long game.

  Leo had been playing the long game against the Master of Atlanta. And because of me, Leo had won. That time. But that win had set others free to work on their own long game. 4D chess for real, with living, breathing humans, holy people, castles, knights, kings . . . and queens.

  All those players included Monique and the Firestarter. I’d had an illusion-to-face meeting with the Firestarter, Onorio Aurelia Flamma Scintilla. I was almost certain Aurelia was one of the women from Monique’s soul vision, but there had been others. Could one have been Cherokee? That frisson of fear expanded inside me.

  Was it possible that Ka was still alive? I hadn’t seen the eyes of the people in the bottom of Monique’s bloody-hull soul home. Ka had eyes like mine, the yellow of a skinwalker. I hadn’t thought the bound creatures in Monique’s mind were important, but they might be the most important ones of all. And if Ka had been there, then skinwalkers, some skinwalkers, could be bound.

  I was an idiot.

  I had left NOLA when I was dying and walked away from the game set in place centuries ago. Now I was behind, and reconnecting to New Orleans’s life wasn’t easy. I had to play catchup and figure out what was going on and fast. I added a request for Alex to track down Adan Bouvier’s location. The nutso vamp and I needed to have a frank discussion. Once upon a time, he’d accused me of not yet tracking down his blood-servants and saving them from captivity. We had tried but never found them. So if Ka had been one of those captive blood-servants, and Monique had her, that made freeing the bound people in the hull-shaped soul home even more imperative.

  Finally the smell of bacon drew me away from my research, and I went to the kitchen for breakfast. I had dithered so long everyone else had eaten, and so I was alone with my thoughts, sitting at the table, eating a feast meant to pack some pounds back on me. As I ate, Eli washed dishes, keeping an eye out the front window as an armed guard walked along the sidewalk close by the house. It was so strange to see armed security walking by, keeping us safe. Eli was also armed. Always armed.

  I was guarded. That was my life now. I could accept the restrictions and the power and make something good come from them, or I could whine and run away again.

  I was done with running.

  As I ate the last of the pancakes, my cell rang. It was Jodi Richoux’s number. I sat back in my chair and answered. “Good morning, Jodi.”

  “Thanks for the party last night. I had no idea you could move like that.” I started to speak but she rushed on. “You screw up my wedding, and I’ll skin you alive. Got it?” Before I could answer, she hung up.

  As I processed that, Bruiser walked in and took the seat across from me. “Wrassler called. Two Mithrans out for a near-dawn walk near the Garden District were attacked and killed in Lafayette Cemetery Number One. Do you want to come?”

  “Oh,” I said, staring at the cell with Jodi’s contact info on it. “That’s why the threat.”

  “Someone threatened you?” Eli demanded.

  “Jodi. Not to screw up her wedding.” I pushed back my chair. “Okay. Let’s go see the crime scene, and then we can go to see Leo’s tomb.”

  * * *

  * * *

  In a slow rain, water shushing all around us, Bruiser and I pulled up near the cemetery in the Garden District. It was odd how many vamp things seemed to happen in or near graveyards, but when you’re mostly dead, maybe you feel at home hanging out with the other dead people.

  Our security parked around us, blocking the street, and when we got out, a human met me with an umbrella and a soft-spoken “My Queen.” He held the open umbrella over my head, protecting me, as if I was too weak to do it myself and might melt in the rain. Or too important to be allowed to get wet.

  I held in the irritated sigh and smiled at him. “Thank you.”

  Bruiser joined me and took the umbrella, gesturing the armed man down the cement pathway before us. In most places in the U.S., burials were accomplished below ground, but in a few locations, like NOLA, the water table was too high to allow for the typical six-feet-under burials. Here, the graves were often above ground, making for an old-world feel in the graveyards.

  Silent, we walked between family crypts, the rain puddled everywhere. It was dreary, dark, and I asked, “Is it still dark enough for us to have bodies, or have they crisped in the dawn light?”

  “As I understand it, they are still intact. The cleanup crew is in a van down the street, awaiting our arrival, and we hope to get the bodies out of the light before the rain lets up and the clouds clear.”

  Ahead was a blood-splattered mausoleum, scarlet spray up along one sidewall, where it was protected from the rain, and down into the puddles, where it had turned the water the color of cherry Kool-Aid. The colorful water was running along the pathway and into the grass to either side. The bodies were between two crypts. Their heads were nowhere to be seen.

  Bruiser and I walked up, and the HQ security who had been guarding the site stepped back.

  Together we studied the bodies in the dim light. Headless vamp bodies were not a surprise, but usually the damage was caused by a sword or a vamp-killer. Here, it appeared as if their heads had been torn off. There had probably been a lot of blood on them, but the drenching rain had washed the flesh clean and pale, the bloodless hue of most Mithran vamps. The neck tendons had retracted, the blood vessels too, as their hearts pumped out the last of the blood. The only indication that they were vampires were the claws at the ends of their fingers. They had been vamped out when they died, and the nails hadn’t retracted.

  “It looks like they were out for a stroll,” one of the guards said. It was one of the Tequila Boys, Blue Voodoo, and I was pretty sure we had danced a wild samba last night to something loud and Latin. We exchanged nods. “No visible defensive wounds,” he said. “We haven’t searched the bodies. Shall I check their pockets?”

  “Yes,” Bruiser said.

  Blue Voodoo did a thorough search, handed Bruiser the cells, and laid out on the ground two nine-mils, extra mags, four ash-wood stakes, credit cards, all in the name of John Smith, and a package of breath mints. He checked their collars and said, “Brooks Brothers, both of them.”

  Bruiser knelt and checked all the fingers against the cell’s fingerprint button. None of the fingers worked.

  A voice called out, “Found a head!”

  Bruiser and I followed the voice through the falling rain and met one of the new security guys a good hundred feet away. He was standing over a head. It was pretty banged up, but there was no doubt it was a vamp, even with broken-off fangs, torn lips, and a broken nose.

  “Anyone recognize him?” Bruiser asked.

  No one replied.

  “I had hoped facial rec on his phone would allow us access,” Bruiser said.

  “Got the other head!” a woman called.

  This one was away from the bodies at a different angle. I was glad I was wearing my waterproof boots. My feet were covered with diluted vamp blood, and my pants were soaked.

&nb
sp; This head was also a vamp, but it had taken all the damage to the back of the head. “Anyone know him?” Bruiser asked. Again no one replied. “Do you have a plastic bag?” Bruiser asked the guard. When she nodded, Bruiser said, “Bag it and bring it to the car, please. And alert the cleanup crew they can get in here.”

  Back in the SUV, I scrubbed off my boots with sanitizer wipes and dried off my pant legs with a cloth the driver handed me. As I toweled myself, Bruiser held the first cell over the dead head, and the phone came on. “Modern security measures,” Bruiser murmured, appreciative, flipping and tapping through. “Not much here. Burner phone.”

  He stopped, staring at a photo.

  “What?” I asked.

  He turned the screen to me. It was a pic of a parchment scroll, the kind that very old, hidebound vamps used for official proclamations, demands, and invitations. There was a smear of red on the bottom that looked like a wax seal. With two fingers, he made the photo larger to read the calligraphy-style writing. I leaned over his arm and read. It was a list of addresses. The top three were the old Rousseau Clan Home, now the Yellowrock Clan Home, Grégoire’s rebuilt Arceneau Clan Home, and my freebie home. Below were the rest of the vamp clan homes in NOLA.

  I could smell Bruiser’s fury rising. “This is an assault list,” he said, his voice vamp-soft and vamp-silky.

  Beast thought the power and emotion was sexy. She rolled over and showed her belly at the tone.

  Down, girl, I thought to her.

  She chuffed in amusement. Is strong mate. Beast loves Bruiser.

  I went back to the scroll. At the bottom were the words “Blood Master of Melker Clan,” followed by three initials that didn’t show up well on the photo of the curled scroll. “Melker,” I said, remembering. “Legolas’s real name.”

  “The seal and the style of the letter itself tells a great deal,” Bruiser agreed. “The initials could be SML or SNL, or even SNQ. Whoever it is, they’re a Blood Master, one strong enough and old enough to use handmade paper and a wax seal for orders. He or she is ready to attack you. They are here planning against you, initials on a scroll of command. I doubt it’s the ultimate power behind everything that’s happened, but even an underling could be a powerful vamp.” Bruiser took a pic of the pic with his own camera and sent it to Alex before calling the IT wizard.

  “What?” Alex demanded. It was the snarly tone he used when he was being interrupted.

  “George, here. Alex, do you have any footage we can view?”

  Alex had scripted supersecret programs for hacking into private security camera systems, and I had no doubt that they were all going at full speed. “I’m in four different security companies and scrolling through as fast as my programs can. Searching for visuals of the men on any of the streets that bordered the cemetery. So far I got nothing.”

  “We’re bringing you a vampire head and his cell phone. We need access.”

  “Yeah good. Bring it on.”

  “On the list Bruiser sent, at the top,” I said, “is the address of the newly remodeled Arceneau Clan Home. It’s near where the fangheads were killed.” Alex didn’t answer. “Alex?”

  “Sending you something,” he said. “It’s security video. Grainy as heeeeck.”

  “Got it,” Bruiser said when his cell vibrated. On the screen, we watched as the two vamps stopped at an entrance to the cemetery. They stood still, not talking, not moving at all. A charred, burned, skeletal creature scuttled up to them on three limbs. They didn’t move. The creature reached up with its free arm and drew one down. Almost casually, it drank down the vamp. Then the other. The creature leaped the fence and so did the drained vampires, following. They disappeared.

  Bruiser replayed it, both of us watching closely. “Male or female?” Bruiser asked.

  But what he really meant was, was it Leo, risen as a revenant, or was it Sabina? The outclan priestess had been burned in the vamp cemetery fire. “Watch it again,” I murmured.

  But even after three more viewings, I didn’t recognize the jerky movements of the vampire. Couldn’t prove or rule out anyone, of any gender. The vamp drank down two bloodsuckers, ensorcelled them to follow, and ripped off their heads. Killing one’s dinner in such a violent manner was a revenant action.

  Except that the victims were not humans or clan vamps. They were enemy vamps on New Orleans hunting territory. That suggested choice and reason, not things revenants demonstrated.

  As if we had shared that thought, Bruiser whispered, for my ears only, “What if it’s Leo? What if he is risen and is not revenant? What if he is simply confused and is going to war against his enemies?”

  “That assumes the crispy critter is Leo and not Sabina. And if so, what is he? Something better? Something worse? He drank SOD blood. And he was beheaded, or close enough to not matter.”

  “I don’t know. He always played the long game,” Bruiser said, echoing my own recent thought.

  “So did Leo assume he would survive? Or assume he would die?”

  “Both, I’m quite certain.”

  “We need to see the vamp cemetery,” I said to the driver.

  A van pulled up behind us. The vamp cleaning team had arrived to sanitize the site and send the bodies for full ID at the vamp funeral home. The rain began to let up. The cleanup crew, wearing white uniforms and face masks and gloves, raced to beat the sun. Our driver pulled away from the curb and wove through morning traffic, wipers working against the sprinkles and mist.

  We stopped at a drive-through coffee shop where they made an adequate chai latte for me, and Bruiser ordered a coffee with chicory. The driver took care of the transactions. Despite the direction of our travel, I could get used to the perks of having paid servants.

  Silent, sipping, we wended across the river and to the vamp cemetery.

  * * *

  * * *

  I had never wanted to come to the burned fanghead graveyard, the charred mausoleums, the scorched destruction. Tsalagi of my time had not revered the resting places of the deceased. We didn’t go sit at the grave and talk to the dead. But the scope of the fire that had taken place hit me hard as our vehicles rolled slowly up the road in front of the cemetery. The inferno had burned so hot that the walls of the crypts were crumbling. The metal on the statues had melted in long black streams; the marble cracked and split. The scorched ground was sprouting new grass, wild things that had self-sown. The original grass had charred into the roots, the heat glazing the sand here and there. The white shell walkways that wove among the mausoleums had been baked into quicklime by the heat of the fire, caustic and potentially dangerous. The chapel was burned to the raised foundation. Nothing was left of it except the foundation bricks and the steps.

  The gate was open, and we rolled closer to the Pellissier crypt and the two SUVs parked there. Wrassler was waiting at the side of the small building where he could see us and the damaged side of the crypt. We parked and walked up to him, moving as if we were attending a funeral. For me it was the funeral. I had missed the real one with all the pomp and circumstance and bloodletting. It had happened while I attempted to recover on the island where he died. My short visit to his grave, later, hadn’t been the same.

  Wrassler greeted us with an unsmiling nod, which I returned before walking around the crypt.

  This mausoleum had received the brunt of the heat. The walls were blackened char, the once-beautiful stone pitted. The door had expanded with the heat and had curved, wedged tight. The walls were intact, except the one closest to the next crypt. It was damaged. I stepped into the narrow space and dropped into a squat.

  Just like Wrassler’s video had shown, the blocks of the wall had been knocked inside the hole recently, long after the fire was out. Had Leo escaped, they would have been pushed out from the inside. I looked over the nearby crypt wall. There wasn’t room to wield a standard battering ram. So maybe fist power, vamp-style? />
  I stood, pulled off my jacket, handed it to Wrassler, and accepted a heavy-duty flashlight from him. The beam was blinding. This sucker was a big, heavy, well-balanced weapon, enough to decapitate a zombie with one good blow. I almost smiled at that thought.

  Bending low to the ground, I duckwalked across the rammed stones and inside, shuffling my feet through the debris on the floor to stand. There was room for only one person in the mess.

  There were ashes on the floor where yesterday there had been body parts. The sun had been enough to burn them, and the smell of smoke, scorched stone, and bone dust hanging on the air brought on a sneeze. Then a few more.

  When they passed, I shined the light around. Wooden coffins had been pulled from their vaults and dumped. Amaury’s, two child-sized coffins, three against the far wall. I searched for the coffin with Leo’s stone nameplate and found it in the corner near the warped door. The lid was closed. I shoved the coffin around, and the rank stench of scorched rotten blood hit me as the light beam played along the surface. The wood had once held a beautiful grain; now it was raised and rough where my fingers touched it.

  “Jane?” Bruiser asked from outside.

  “In a minute,” I said.

  I didn’t really want to open the casket, but I had to know. I slid my fingers around the crack and found gouges in the wood, as if someone had used a crowbar on it. The lid was no longer sealed. I lifted up on it, bent, and aimed my flashlight and my left eye into the crack. The stench boiled out. The wood casket was lined with seamless metal, and there was no fluffy satin stuff for the body to rest on. There was a layer of scorched blood and char.

  But there was no body. A faint shudder of shock cascaded through me.

  Before Leo was interred, his casket had been filled with the blood of his enemies, forcibly bled as some kind of weird vampire tribute. That blood was supposed to give a vamp a chance to be thrice born—raised from the dead a second time—so why waste it on fabric. The blood in the bottom was dried, cooked, and so rotten that Beast shied away from it.