by Faith Hunter
Eli might have laughed through his nose at my swearword, but maybe I was too sensitive. He pulled past the drive and shut off the SUV just down from the house. “No car in the drive. No lights in the house,” he said. He reached over the seat and pulled a low-light monocular forward. This was a new toy, which allowed him to see in the dark with one eye and keep his other eye safe should anyone turn on a light and blind him. “Looks empty. I’ll take the right.”
He slung a hunting rifle over his shoulder as he got out and readied the weapon. “Cells off,” he reminded me. We had agreed to drive unweaponed. Even in Louisiana, citizens might report armed and dangerous-looking drivers. So all the gear was stowed in the floorboards behind us.
Much slower, I turned off my cell and opened the door, the lights off in the vehicle. The night smelled of plants in the distance, water all around, some stagnant and some moving. I smelled a skunk somewhere far off, and something dead closer, something that had been left in the sun to rot. The dying smell of exhaust from the SUV.
The night breeze touched me with tenuous fingers. Hairs that had worked their way from my braid brushed my face. In the distance, a night bird called, but closer to us, nothing moved. I sniffed, smelling old, faint magic. Nothing fresh. No hint of Molly herself on the air.
The magic I smelled was different from anything I had ever scented. It was metallic and brittle, like heated steel and old bones. It smelled like a man’s magic, though why I thought that I had no idea. Evan’s magic was sexless, no more masculine or feminine than Molly’s or her sisters’.
From the backseat, I pulled my M4 shotgun and checked the load. Seven rounds ready to fire, six more in the ammo holder clipped to the weapon. A nine-mil went in my spine holster. I slid a fourteen-inch-bladed vamp-killer onto my calf-strapped sheath.
Eli had moved to the garage and stood to the side, dipping his head back and forth fast, looking in the windows with each forward move. He turned to me and held up one finger. A car was in the garage. From there, my partner crouched and moved right, into the shadows. I moved left across the front of the house. I was exposed, should anyone be looking out, say a vamp or two, with their near-perfect night vision. But nothing moved.
I circled the house, meeting Eli in the back as we both continued on our circuits. He pointed to the side door as the entrance he would use. I nodded and pointed back to the front of the house, miming ringing the bell. He flashed white teeth at me and moved on. He thought I was an idiot for announcing myself instead of busting in, but really . . . We had parked within sight of the house. There were alarm company stickers on the doors and windows. No way would we be able to enter undetected. Why get arrested for B&E when someone might just open the door and invite us in?
I climbed the short steps to the door, set the weapon on safety, and slung the M4 back around. I readied the nine-mil and held it in my left hand, down by my leg. I rang the bell. It chimed inside, three soft, soothing notes. I heard nothing else, but my Spidey senses went on alert. I took a slow breath and stepped back from the door just as it opened. The girl who stood there was willowy and pale, about five-seven, wearing khakis and a long-sleeved T-shirt. She smelled familiar. She was one of the vamps who had been in Molly’s hotel room.
We stared at each other, the night bird starting to call again from far away.
The girl smelled of vamp—leaves and wilted flowers and, oddly, desert air. She had red hair, long and straight, but it was lank and dull, unlike the lustrous hair of most vamps. Her brown eyes were yellowed and sunken, her skin sallow. She looked far more mature than the sixteen she had been when she disappeared. She looked old. But she had Molly’s mouth. Molly’s nose. And a wreath of magic about her head and on her hands, held in place with fingers that worked and braided the magic as I watched. She was a witch, like her mother and her aunts, and her magic smelled of roses with long thorns and the heat of the sun on stone. “Shiloh,” I said, the word a breath of sound. Shiloh took me in from the top of my head to my boots, lingering on the necklace at my throat before dropping to my hands. “Are you going to shoot me?” she asked, her voice a croak, her eyes on the gun at my side. “Because you might as well not bother. I’ll be dead before dawn anyway.”
“What? No. Not planning on it. You gonna try to drink me down?”
She ghosted a worn, wearied smile at me and stepped back from the door, saying, “Come in, Jane Yellowrock. What took you so long?”
• • •
I sat in the darkened living room, on a chair across from the cold fireplace, staring at a dead girl who was still dying. She was vastly different from the picture I had seen of her in her abandoned bedroom, in her mother’s house outside Asheville, North Carolina, and in the NOPD’s woo-woo room. Older than the photos, indicating that she hadn’t been turned immediately after they were taken. Skinnier, paler certainly. Probably a bit taller. Her hair was a browner shade of red than Molly’s.
She didn’t move with vamp grace, the way they do when they want to charm or disarm, but all lizard-y, bird-y, snake-y, the way they do when they’re fearful or angry. Or sick. She was sitting on the sofa, her spindly legs drawn up onto the cushion, arms held up in the air, the skein of magic still working, providing the only light.
“Where’s Molly?” Eli asked. He was standing in the corner, weapon at ready, ocular perched on top of his head like a science fiction cyborg.
“He took her today while I was sleeping, after Bliss got sick,” Shiloh said, still staring at me. It wasn’t the regard of a predator with prey in sight; more like being regarded as uninteresting, unnecessary, and I remembered her question at the door, “What took you so long?”
Beast padded slowly forward, into the front parts of my mind, studying her. Witch-vampire. Dying, Beast murmured.
“Your eyes are starting to glow, just like Aunt Molly-Lolly said they would,” Shiloh said.
Molly-Lolly? I hadn’t heard that name before. I took a breath and pulled myself together. Someone took Molly. I had work to do. “You look sick,” I said. “Bliss is sick too?”
“Yes. Something’s wrong with Aunt Molly-Lolly’s magic. Jack is a witch like me. Or not like me, but he’s a witch. He got Aunt Molly-Lolly blood-drunk, cast a spell, used his compulsion on her, and redirected her magic. With the death magics, he can make people sick and kill Mithrans. He’s going to use it on Leo Pellissier, as soon as he gets him away from his power base.” Shiloh smiled, the skin of her face pulling into wrinkles, as if she was badly dehydrated. She looked worse, if possible, than she had when she answered the door, but maybe it was the lack of light. She still hadn’t turned any on.
“Death magic,” I said.
“Yes.” She took a breath and her fingers, still manipulating magic, trembled like dried sticks in a winter wind.
“That’s why the grounds are dying. Because of Molly,” I said.
“Yes. If it isn’t used, it spills over. She’s fighting him, but he’s draining her, and when she fights him, other things die and people get sick. She can’t last long.” Shiloh chuckled, and there was nothing amusing in the laughter. It was raspy, dry, the laughter of the grave, full of despair. “She’ll give up soon and let him use her. She’ll have to. And then I’ll be dead.”
I pointed at the magic she was doing. “You’re fighting the death spell.” When she nodded I said, “If it can be fought, it can be defeated.” I pulled my cell and dialed Big Evan.
“Stop,” Shiloh said. “Don’t. He’ll know.”
I looked at the cell and back to the girl. And it all made perfect sense. “Someone is telling him stuff about us. Stuff we say on our cell phones.”
Shiloh nodded, her neck like a thin stem, overbalanced by her head.
“Did he use the name Reach, by any chance?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
I wanted to scream, but I didn’t have time just now for vengeance. I would take care of Reach later. Once I found him. I pulled a burner phone from my pocket and dialed Evan. When he answere
d, I said, “Jane here. Don’t talk. Just listen. Jack Shoffru has Molly, but I have Shiloh. Molly’s magic went bad and turned into death magic.”
“Magic doesn’t go bad. It takes—”
“I said shut up.” He did, but I didn’t have time to enjoy it. “Shoffru is directing Molly’s magic against her will, killing vamps and making humans sick. Shiloh is fighting it, but she’s losing. I need you to play something disruptive. And now.” It took a few seconds, but over the cell connection I heard the first strains of flute music. It was a melody similar to the one he had devised for Rick LaFleur, and tears prickled under my lids. But I didn’t have time for grief either, not for Rick, and not even for Molly. I held the cell to Shiloh, forcing all emotion down inside, where it raged and shrieked and slashed at the cave walls where I confined it.
Shiloh’s eyes shot to the cell vamp-fast, and her fangs snapped down on the tiny hinges in the roof of her mouth—the thin needles of the young, newly risen vamp. The magic in her hands swept to the cell and enveloped it in sparkles of green and white and pale blue, colors of light that I could see in Beast’s vision. The cell in my hand began to heat and the screen flickered for a moment. The battery wouldn’t last long at this rate. Neither would the electronic guts of the machine.
Strength returned to Shiloh, and her head moved upright, her fingers grew steady. But Shiloh’s eyes began to vamp out, and I knew she needed blood. Eli must have known as well. He said, “Bliss is sick. How about Rachael?” I closed my eyes and slumped in my chair, breathing deeply, scenting, trusting Eli to keep me safe while I was busy. Beneath the smell of vamp and the sting of magic, there was a scent on the air, like sweat on sickbed sheets. The girls had been here. They still were here. “Bliss? Rachael?” I called. “Come in, please.”
The door to the kitchen opened, revealing the two girls standing in the dark. “Hey, Jane,” Bliss said as she and Rachael walked into the living room. They looked horrible, as if they’d had the flu for days, but Bliss went straight to Shiloh and held out her wrist.
“You don’t have to,” Shiloh said, sounding stronger, but staring at the proffered flesh.
“Drink. You have magic help now, so I don’t think you’ll lose control,” the little witch said.
My brow crinkled with confusion as Shiloh bit down and sucked, greedily and hard, ravenous. Bliss flinched at the pain before the pleasure in the vamp saliva made it bearable. Shiloh still had stuff to learn about being a vamp and making her dinners happy. But the witch part, she was getting pretty well. In front of her body, her fingers kept working, braiding her own magic with Evan’s that sounded from the cell.
“Someone want to tell me what’s going on?” I asked.
Rachael said, “We were stupid. We went to a party at Guilbeau’s, looking for a little fun on the side. And we saw Molly standing with this guy. He looked like our type—rich and vampy. She looked drunk.”
“We went over to say hi,” Bliss said. “You know, because Molly was nice to us when she stayed with you and high-class ladies don’t usually treat people like us as”—her hand made a waffling motion—“people. Anyway, we don’t know what happened.” She cupped Shiloh’s head with her free hand, a grimace of pain on her face, and her voice showed strain. “Everything seemed great. The guy seemed hot, like Mr. Wonderful, great in bed and with wads of money. And he introduced us to Shiloh.”
“And next thing we knew, we woke up here,” Rachael said. “Chained to the beds upstairs and a newly risen fanghead loose in the house.”
“Hungry,” Bliss added. “Which kinda sucked, pun intended. Okay now,” she said to Shiloh. “Greenwitch. That’s enough. Remember what we said. Greenwitch. It’s time to stop.” Shiloh’s fangs slid from Bliss’ wrist and she licked the wound to close it. Or to get the last drop. Or both. To me, Bliss said, “Greenwitch is our safe word. So far it’s keeping her need in check.”
Shiloh looked less ill, as if there was more flesh cushioning between bone and skin, and she looked more in control. She clicked her fangs back into her mouth. “Aunt Molly-Lolly said I probably need more blood than the average Mithran. I had been talking to two blood-slaves, Devin and a guy named Ozzie, and two of their pals at the party. But then I saw Aunt Molly-Lolly and Bliss and Rachael. And then I don’t remember anything else.”
“Jack has a bottle of wine,” Bliss said.
Rachael said, “Honey wine. And if you drink it, you get, well, let’s say you get real suggestible, real fast.”
“Molly said it was probably the bottle that was spelled, because he would pour wine into it, cheap stuff, and it would turn into honey wine. And the spell transferred to the wine and then to the drinker. And according to him, it works on every species.”
“Enough,” I said. “Let’s get you three back to Katie’s house.”
“You’re going to bring a hungry fanghead and the two”—Eli hesitated a bare second—“ladies back into the city?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Into the cell, I said, “You hear that, Evan? Make sure things are safe at Katie’s. Make sure she knows what happened so she doesn’t kill her girls or Shiloh.” The young vamp’s eyes went wide at that, but really, what else could I say?
CHAPTER 21
Went to the Dark Side
The ride back to Katie’s was anticlimactic. The blood had given Shiloh strength, and Evan’s magic had given her something to use to keep the black magics at bay. And contrary to what I expected, when Katie saw her, the older vamp invited the younger into Katie’s Ladies instantly. Katie was changing, and so far, the changes seemed positive—barring that possessive streak and the quick temper.
Eli and I filed in after her, and I was doubly surprised to see Amy Lynn Brown sitting on the couch in Katie’s office, next to Big Evan. The young vamp and devoveo prodigy didn’t even stand, she just lifted her wrist. Shiloh fell at her feet and drank. When the young vamp had taken all she safely could, Katie offered the girl her own wrist.
I had never seen Katie do that for anyone. Katie’s blood was special, composed as it was now of the blood of eight clans, and I had to wonder why the old, cagey vamp would be so generous, until she turned her teal green eyes to me and asked, “Do you claim this one?”
I hesitated, knowing that either way I answered, I wouldn’t like the result. I nodded and Katie smiled, showing her fangs. I almost backed up a step at her expression but stopped myself in time. Katie said, “My master insisted that I offer apologies to you for the blood I forced.”
Instantly I was on the cold floor in the warehouse, Katie’s fangs buried in my flesh, pain like lightning shooting through me, hearing Big Evan’s niece slurping my landlady’s cold blood. I lifted my chin, waiting, knowing that she could hear my heartbeat suddenly racing.
“My blood is valuable,” she said, “far more than yours. We are now as blood equals, owing each other nothing.”
I thought about that, about agreeing with her, wondering if that meant I, and the people who looked to me for protection, would still be safe from her. I said, “I agree to . . . not kill or injure you or yours? And you agree to not kill or injure me or mine? And I get to keep the house.”
Katie narrowed her eyes before it hit me what I had just asked. I had meant that I would get to keep my rent-free status on the house, but it came out different. And it suggested that my blood was worth as much as her own. Maybe even more. Very carefully, I didn’t move as Katie’s eyes slowly bled to black. With her fangs down, she was fully vamped-out. However, when she spoke, her voice was even and without inflection. “Agreed. I will have the papers sent over to you via messenger. Taxes and insurance are due. Pay them.”
I gave a minuscule nod. I had just accidentally outbargained a powerful vamp for a house. And won. Go, me. But maybe it was smart to not acknowledge that win for fear it would sound gloating. Carefully I said, “We are even.”
As I spoke, Shiloh slid to the floor in a boneless glide that ended with a muted thump of her head on the thick rug. She was grinning an
d rosy-cheeked, a tiny drop of cherry red blood on her lips. Drunkenly, she licked it away. “I will keep the girl alive,” Katie said, “for three days. On the third day, if you have not ended the death spell that is draining her, she will die. I will also care for and respect the blood-servant tie between the Mithran you claim and her new blood-servants.” She looked at Bliss and Rachael. “I will not treat with them as traitors to my household but as former employees who have found a new master. You are released from my service.”
It was a better bargain than I expected, and it gave a place of safety and service to Bliss and Rachael. It also made me wonder about the value of my skinwalker blood, but I knew better than to ask. “Done. Eli, Evan, we need to go now.”
And then the doors blew off the house.
I leaped for the front entry. The windows smashed in, glass shattering everywhere. My ears popped as the pressure changed, midleap. Wind blew through, whirling and smashing things to the floor. Batting me out of the air like a fist to the gut as my leap took me clear across the entry to protect the humans and the vamps.
Magic ripped across me, scoring like knives, stinking of burned sage and scorched human hair. The lights went out. It was as dark as it had been in Shiloh’s lair, and as I watched through the open door, lights all down the street popped and went out. I knew, somehow, that Jack Shoffru’s magic interfered with electricity, which was how he cast such great don’t-see-me spells and charms while in Leo’s headquarters. A weird silence settled over the French Quarter as the lights continued to go dark. I stepped for the open door, the M4 in one hand, the stock between my elbow and my body, held close, a vamp-killer in the other hand.
Talons and fangs out, Katie raced past and I caught her with the shotgun, swinging her by the waist back toward the office. “Stay put,” I whispered. “Keep them safe.”
Wind ripped through the house without warning, battering me back into the office, as if the air itself knew where its prey was. I shouted over the roar as I rolled the sofa over the humans and bent my own body back to a crouch.
