by Faith Hunter
My heart twisted. Stupid to pity the crazed and dead, but I did. On some level, I sympathized. I remembered what it had felt like to be empty of memories, lost and alone, stuck in a body I didn’t remember, among humans. Of course, I’d still been alive. I strangled a sigh, but the vamp must have heard. Her eyes darted up, into the limbs. She hissed. And dashed toward me.
Instead of taking the trunk as I had, she scrambled through the branches directly below me, huffing in hunger, her fetid stink rising. Almost lazily, I dropped from the branches, landing behind her, vamp-killer blade up, stake ready.
She whirled, snarled, reached for me. I stepped into her putrid embrace and touched her chest with the stake. Jaws wide, she rushed into the point. I rammed it home. It was so easy to kill the young. Too easy. The vamp paused as if frozen, her eyes on mine in the night. Humanity bled back into her gaze, puzzled and afraid. “No,” she whispered on her last breath. “No . . .” She crumpled at my feet, landing between two tree limbs, her legs splayed.
I knelt beside her and pulled a miniflashlight. The beam caught her full in the face. Under the filth, snot, tears, and dried blood, she was pretty, or had been. Curly brown hair, greenish brown eyes, short, needle-thin vamp canines, traces of makeup over very white skin. They always took the beautiful ones. I had never seen an ugly vamp. Like pedophiles, they liked them young and charming and pretty.
I set the flash on a limb, the light falling over the girl, and sheathed the vamp-killer, pulling a camera. I took photos from several angles, including a close-up of her face showing her new little fangs, and another of the stake through her heart. Photos were nice, but I needed more. I never trusted stakes. Lore says that a stake to the heart is fatal unless the sire is close by; he can sometimes heal a scion if he gets there in time. I pulled a knife with a slightly curved blade, and lay the edge against the girl’s neck, and put my back into it, cutting. Cold blood gushed over my gloves. A beheading was both final and proof for bounty. Newly risen, newly dead again.
When I was done, I set the head and the flashlight aside and grabbed the rogue by the heels. I pulled her far from the paths, and even farther from her burial site, and left her body for the vamp council’s cleanup crew to dispose of her. If humans got to her first, she’d be hard to identify unless she had prints on file. Besides, the vamps would make sure she disappeared before an autopsy was performed. Since vamps came out of the closet, there had been no reports of vamp postmortems. The bloodsuckers liked it that way.
Until recently this vamp had been human—a daughter, mother, wife, girlfriend, coworker, somebody important to other humans. Now she was dead and gone. Hundreds of people simply disappear each year in the U.S. because they walk away and find another life, or because they’re killed and their bodies never found. I had often wondered how many of the disappeared were vamp kills—wondered and never asked. The humans she left behind deserved closure of some kind, but I was betting that the vamp council wouldn’t give them that. Another dead rogue so soon after the brouhaha of the last one would be bad press. This girl would become one of the state’s missing and never found.
When the body was hidden, I scuffed away the drag marks with a leafy branch, and carried the head to Bitsa. I stuffed it into an oversized Ziplock bag and dropped it into a watertight carryall, which I slung over my shoulder. I didn’t have far to go, but if I was stopped by a cop, the head would be hard—though not impossible—to explain. I carried a copy of my contract with the vamp council in a pocket, and the vamp fangs were a dead giveaway (vamp humor) that I hadn’t murdered a human. Plus, there was a certain cop I knew who would back up my story. Rick LaFleur owed me a favor—a big one. I had saved his sorry butt two times.
I powered Bitsa up and tooled out of the park. Parts of the city—those close to city service buildings, hospitals, and other needed locales—were already back on the power grid, windows bright, doorways spilling light into the streets, and the party that never stopped in the city that was built for partying was back on go. Music and the rich scents of cooking food filled the air. Sirens wailed in the distance, with the sharp pop-crack of gunshots. Cars slid through the half-dark streets, slowing at the streetlights that were functioning, ignoring the rest. Other parts of the city were still pitch-dark, and would take a lot longer to return to life as usual.
Though the windows were all dark, the vamp council headquarters’s white-stucco exterior was lit with lights hidden in the vegetation, the rumble of generators in the background. I braked my bike as I turned into the circular drive, moving slowly, though there were no obstructions, limos, or armored cars, no one to look me over as I rode past, eyes following me the way professional muscle would, with a look that was half assessment, half threat. Of course, there had to be cameras. The place might look empty, but I knew it wasn’t. There was always someone on duty in case of emergency, a contact vamp, with access to all the clan masters.
Parking for the servants and hired help was hidden in back, but I pulled to the front door and cut the engine, lowered the kickstand, and unhelmeted. I was wearing bloody, muddy jeans and boots, was carrying weapons, crosses, and stakes, and I knew I’d have to ditch them all when I was searched, not that I’d even necessarily see a vamp tonight. I’d probably be reporting to a blood-servant flunky. What fun.
Though vamp citizenship was being considered in Congress, at the moment they were treated as aliens, and carrying a weapon beyond the foyer of the council house was tantamount to taking a weapon into a foreign embassy or a federal courtroom, a good way to get jumped on and locked away. I climbed the stairs; the door opened before I knocked. A blood-servant I didn’t recognize let me in—male, tall, well muscled, and bald, he looked like an escapee from the World Wrestling Federation. The guy was seriously big.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. He pointed to a table, where I set down my head bag and removed my weapons. This was my third visit to council headquarters, so I knew the score. When I was done, he motioned me aside and opened the bag. His brows rose when he looked in, but he made no other reaction, just resealed the bag. He patted me down thoroughly, not wasting any effort on being gentle. Handing me the bag, he pointed me to the small waiting room. The big silent type.
I’d been stuck here before on my previous visits, and knew there was food. I opened the refrigerator, taking a can of Coke back to the couch. The TV, set high on the wall, was displaying the weather with Ada’s northward progress mapped out in livid reds, greens, and yellows. I plopped down, popped the Coke, and drank. There were no windows. But at least this time no blood-servant stood guard at the door. Maybe they were starting to trust me. Or maybe there was just no one on duty important enough to guard, what with Ada just passing. Or maybe I was locked in. Whatever. I was too tired to care.
I waited an hour, which was no surprise. I’d waited longer on a previous visit. I drank two more Cokes and raided the kitchen for food, putting a hurting on a plastic container filled with cookies and crackers. It was near two a.m. when the door opened. The WWF-looking security guy nodded me out and took off down a hallway. I figured he wanted me to follow, and grinned at the mental picture of his expression should I start opening doors and peeking inside instead. He glanced back and frowned as if he could read my mind and didn’t like what he saw. Meekly, I caught up, my head bag on a strap over my shoulder.
WWF Guy took me to the second floor, knocked, and opened a door; the herbal scent of vamp wafted out. WWF stood back for me to enter. Inside was a library, books on shelves and piled all around, and leather chairs with small side tables. Because it was a vamp room, there were no windows. A fire burned in the fireplace with the snap and scent of real wood. An air-conditioned breeze cooled the room. Ambience achieved at the cost of the vamp carbon footprint. Vamps weren’t into being green.
In a chair near the fire, a book open on her lap, sat a vamp I knew, the second in command at Clan Arceneau, Dominique—blond, pale-eyed, and at least two hundred years old. The last time I saw her, Dominique
was chained, tortured, and suffering from excessive bloodletting and silver poisoning. I had threatened her and then saved the life of her clan blood-master. I had no idea if she would want to thank me or suck me dry in revenge. After all, I had left her chained. In silver. But she just looked me over as if I were a horse she might buy, or a slave. Dominique’s family had owned a plantation before the Civil War—I had done my homework and knew a lot about the most important and powerful New Orleans vamps.
Her nostrils widened, and I knew she smelled blood. And dead vamp. She went deeply and utterly still. Before I spoke, I too took a careful breath, to see if I recognized the scent of the vamp who had made the young rogue. Dominique wasn’t the sire. The tension went out of me. Not certain of protocol, I said, “You look . . . well.”
“Your boots are dirty,” she said, her voice as smooth as watered silk.
“Yeah,” I said, handing her the bag. “The head of the vamp I just killed.” Her eyes tightened, an infinitesimal flicker. “A young rogue,” I said. “I’ll collect the bounty later, but I need the cleanup crew sent to the New Orleans City Park to dispose of what’s left of her.”
Dominique opened the bag and stared at the face in the baggie. “She was young. Her fangs are not yet full sized.”
I had thought her fangs were just small, not that they’d get bigger. Interesting. “I watched her rise from her grave,” I said. Dominique lifted her gaze to me. “Her first rising,” I said, to clarify.
Dominique closed the flap. She pressed a button on the small table beside her. WWF opened the door fast. “Take this. Tell Ernestine that a bounty check should be drawn up for Ms. Yellowrock. Retrieve the head and return the satchel before she leaves. Ms. Yellowrock will also provide you with a locale. Send a sanitation team in to dispose of the body before morning.” Dominique looked at me. “Is that all?”
I thought about Derek Lee and the heads he was keeping. For some reason he didn’t want me to negotiate with the council in his name. “I have six more heads in a cooler. Young rogues.”
This time Dominique’s eyes did widen, surprise on her face. WWF shifted on his feet and looked at me, his gaze traveling up and down me, reassessing. A different expression raised his brows. Amusement and maybe respect. Which I didn’t deserve since I hadn’t killed the vamps, but now I was stuck in the sort-of lie.
“Six more?” Dominique asked. When I nodded, she said to WWF, “See that a retrieval car is sent for the heads at a place and time of Ms. Yellowrock’s choosing. Once the fangs are verified as young, instruct Ernestine to write an additional check to Ms. Yellowrock.”
To me, she said, “Will there be anything else, Ms. Yellowrock?”
“Nothing at the moment,” I said. Remembering manners, I added, “Um, thank you.”
Dominique inclined her head, very regally. “You may go.”
I hated that about vamps, especially the old ones. Everyone was an inferior, a servant. They always kept you waiting and then dismissed you, which ticked me off. But then, I was on their territory, not my own. Holding my tongue, I followed WWF out of the room.
In the hallway, he again studied me, this time as if looking for proof of my vamp-killing prowess. He gestured with his hand for me to follow him. “Six more?” he asked as we walked to an intersecting hallway.
Since he didn’t ask if I had actually killed the six, I nodded.
“Damn. George said you were good.”
“George Dumas?” I murmured. WWF nodded and I allowed myself a smile. George was Leo’s blood-servant, first in command of Leo’s household security. The guy was seriously cool. And he had a nice butt, which I might not mind seeing out of his jeans, someday.
“He says you call him by a nickname, him and Tom, Katie’s blood-servant, but won’t tell us what they are.” Katie was the vamp who had done my employment interview, owned Katie’s Ladies, the house of ill repute that backed up to mine, and was the title owner of the house where I was living. She was currently in an honest-to-Bella-Lugosi coffin, drowned in mixed vamp blood, healing from a near-true-death experience. And her bodyguard, Troll, was talking about me? I wasn’t sure I liked that, but I wasn’t about to tick off the security of the vamp council. I shrugged and didn’t enlighten him.
“Do you give us all nicknames?” When I shrugged again, the tiniest bit, he said, “What’s mine?”
I looked him over, feeling mildly self-conscious.
“No. Really. What’s mine?”
I sighed. “WWF.”
After a moment he said, “World Wrestling Federation?” I nodded and he laughed, the tone appreciating. He ran a hand over his bald dome, considering. “WWF. I like.” He stopped at a doorway and knocked before opening it. Inside was a small room, an even smaller desk, a huge safe, its thick black door open to reveal stacks of money and papers. Sitting in a leather desk chair was a shriveled, wrinkled crone of a human, whom I instantly and tritely nicknamed Raisin, for obvious reasons.
“Ernestine, this is Jane Yellowrock,” WWF said.
The woman stared at my boots and lied. “Charmed, I’m sure.” Her accent was British, maybe Welsh, and I put her age at over one-fifty. Blood-servants lasted a long time, extended longevity being one benefit of letting vamps drink your blood and use you as they wanted.
WWF said, “Ms. Dominique said to cut her a check for twenty thou, and make funds available for a hundred twenty more, bounty money, to be paid on proof of death of six young rogues.”
Raisin’s eyebrows went up nearly to her hairline, pulling lines out of her eyelids and depositing them onto her forehead. “Six? Well.” She looked me over and for some reason I couldn’t explain even to myself, I felt the way I had as a teen, when I was called to Mr. Rawls’s office for a discipline breach. Discipline in a children’s home is swift and unyielding, especially for fighting, and while not corporal punishment, it was unpleasant. For a variety of reasons I used to get into a lot of fights, and clearly, if I had taken down seven vamps, I had been fighting, hence my discomfort. “Six,” she repeated, sounding mildly surprised. She pulled a book of checks to her and lifted a pen. “Quite remarkable.”
I didn’t quite know what to say to that, so I stood mute, looking over the office, memorizing vamp party dates on Ernestine’s calendar, categorizing everything I could identify in the safe, and staring at the electronic brain of a security system as she wrote a check, making a lot of curlicues and flourishes with the antique-looking pen. She blew on the check as if the ink took a while to dry and scooted it across the desk to me, along with a card. Her name with the initials CPA was centered on it, a phone number beneath. “There you are, my dear. Next time, please call ahead. I’ll have a check ready, and will leave it at the front desk.”
So I wouldn’t have to bring my muddy-booted, bad ol’ fighting self inside. Got it. “Thank you,” I said, taking the check and folding it into a pocket. WWF backed from the room and I followed. At the front door, I weaponed up and gave a two-fingered salute to WWF as I left.
Out on the street, the muggy wind in my teeth, I shuddered hard. When I went into vamp headquarters and came out alive, I felt as if I had fought a battle and survived. Not won it. Just survived it. And for some reason that I couldn’t name, this trip had been worse than the last.
CHAPTER 3
Golden eyes, my daughter
Back at home, I slipped through the ward, which was keyed to me in some arcane way that Molly had tried to explain one time and which I had totally not understood. After locking away the weapons so the kids couldn’t find them, I stripped, showered, and fell into bed. Beast had wanted me to shift so she could roam until sunrise, but I needed sleep. Once on the mattress, however, I couldn’t relax, seeing again and again the tiny fangs hinge down, like baby teeth in a human. Most of the time it was easy dispatching a rogue, but watching this young rogue rise in her stained party dress, and then seeing her eyes bleeding back to humanity as she died, had left a bad taste in my mouth; I felt shaken by the experiences of the night, di
rty almost. I needed . . . cleansing. I rolled over on the mattress, knowing it was time to do something I’d been putting off for a long while.
At five thirty I crawled from the bed, bleary eyed and groggy, stumbled into jeans, T-shirt, and Western boots. As ready as I could be for this experience, I left the house again without eating or waking Molly or the kids.
Bitsa sputtered when I started her, but pulled into the dark street and went up to speed quickly enough. On the far side of the river (all directions in New Orleans are in relation to Lake Pontchartrain or the Mississippi River, upstream or down), I took the necessary turns and straightaways, and finally veered into a white-shell, dead-end road and the tiny house at the end. The smell of wood smoke was sharp on the air, the scent denser as I pulled into the drive.
The air was graying with light when I pushed the bell, and I started when it opened instantly. The slender, black-haired woman inside was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. She smiled at me as if she had known I was coming—which was impossible, wasn’t it?—and when she spoke, her voice was soft and breathy, in the way of the speech of the People. “Gi yv ha,” she said, and held open the door. “Gi yv ha” was Cherokee for “Come in.”
I nodded formally, almost a bow, and said, “Thank you, Egini Agayvlge i—Aggie One Feather.” I wished that there was more of the People’s tongue in my memory, wished that I was a speaker, as the People said of the few who still could converse in Cherokee. But the words were scattered and broken, mostly lost, in my damaged mind. I had spent too long in Beast form and had forgotten the ways and tongue of the People.
“Are you ready, Jane Dalonige’i, Jane Yellowrock, or Jane Gold, in the speech of the white man?” Aggie asked. Her voice was soft, melodious, the gentle voice of dreams and nightmares both. When I nodded, she asked, “Did you fast today?”
“I did.” Beast was hyperalert, but hunkered down, deep inside me, watchful and silent.
