Pure Blooded

by Amanda Carlson

  Marcy turned to glance at me, her arm resting along the back of the seat in front of me as we sped forward. “It may have been a loa, or the priestess talking through one. But with the whole alternate reality, I’m really starting to believe she’s a bokor. A sorceress makes much more sense, especially with the zombie aspect of those snakes and wolves. No normal priestess would be able to mind-control such a force and keep them contained as well as what we just witnessed. I bet those things are technically dead and she controls them through a potion or a curse. But however you care to slice it, she’s got a crap-load of power.”

  “I think you might be right. But my father told me sometimes the wolves escape. They’ve been able to track them down before they hit a city,” I said. “But that doesn’t go along with her having supreme control over them.”

  Marcy shrugged. “Well, either she wants them loose or she has too many to control and some slip under the radar. Either way, it’s very bad for us.”

  Rourke angled the boat down a new channel at Naomi’s direction. “We’re almost there,” he called. “I can see boats up ahead.”

  A half mile down the new channel four airboats were roped to some trees on the side. Rourke cut the fan and maneuvered in behind them. On the bank there were several wolves in human form who I wasn’t familiar with. One shouted and my father emerged on what looked to be a man-made wooden walkway.

  I hopped out of the boat as soon as I could and ran toward him, which meant I had to scamper over the cypress roots, but it had been too long since I’d seen my father and I was excited.

  “Jessica,” he said as I jumped into his arms for a long hug, feeling like a little girl for one perfect, tiny moment. “I was so worried about you. It’s such a relief to see you home safe. Going to the Underworld was no small thing, and when I found out you went unescorted, you gave me several gray hairs, which on a werewolf is a hard thing to do.”

  I laughed and hugged him a little harder. He engulfed me in his arms, not letting go. We’d always had a strong bond, but once I’d become a wolf, it had intensified. Swapping blood during an oath had made it even stronger. I was aware of him on a different level, and being this close made our internal connection burst. His love for me zipped along my veins, like a mini hurricane of emotion, making me feel content and happy. A wolf needed to be close to their Alpha at regular intervals.

  I finally pulled back, feeling a little sheepish I’d held on for so long. My brother cleared his throat behind me while I kissed my father on the cheek.

  “Some of us are waiting here,” Tyler said.

  “Sorry about the gray hair,” I told my father, “but I survived Hell, so there’s that. We have a lot to discuss.”

  “Yes, we do. We’ll talk immediately after everyone gets situated.” He turned to embrace my brother in a wolfish hug, which meant a quick pull followed by a few back slaps on the back. No deep emotional words were spoken, but I felt their affection for each other and it made me happy once again.

  Rourke came up behind me and placed one hand on my waist and reached around with the other to shake my father’s hand. My dad took it and gave him a warm smile. “You went after her to the Underworld and kept her safe. I owe you my life.” My father inclined his head down.

  “You owe me nothing. She was the one who kept us safe. Your daughter is a natural leader, and a very powerful one at that. She did your Pack proud in the Underworld.”

  My father’s head angled toward me, and I could tell he was trying to process my new signature. “Lots of changes, I see,” he said, a single eyebrow raised. “Let’s head over to our less-than-adequate headquarters and discuss it then, shall we?”

  We followed him on the skinny wooden planks that ran through the trees. “How did you do this?” I asked, noticing the pathways branching off in a few directions.

  He shook his head. “It’s been as tough as hell to live here, let me tell you. We had to take multiple trips to get the supplies we needed, and once they were here, we had to build a sustainable place to live, which as you can see, isn’t easy in a swamp. When we were done building, we had to employ two witches to spell the area from humans. This is a national park, so we’re breaking many human laws, but it was necessary. We have three small areas like this staked out around the priestess’s perimeter. The Made wolves are a danger to every human they meet, and they also pose a threat to exposing our secret. Supernaturals are cloaked from humans for a reason, and allowing this priestess to break that law is unacceptable. So we’ve done what we saw fit to contain this dreadful situation.”

  “What about the fracture pack?” Tyler said, glancing around us. “I can’t believe those deserters live like this in the swamp.” Tyler was referring to the wolves who joined together to move against me. I took out their leader, but they were still operational, which is why my father had come here in the first place.

  “No, they set up shop in a nearby populated town. We took out almost all of those wolves when we arrived three weeks ago. They’d already been largely leaderless, so it wasn’t hard to do. Once they were gone, we figured we’d erased the threat. But then we found two Made wolves lurking on the periphery and chased them, and they ultimately led us here.” He spread his arms. “We tracked them all the way in, through this godforsaken swamp, but they disappeared before we could get to them. But we waited them out, and it became clear that was their home base. Since we’ve set up shop, surrounding her, she has struck against us four times, kidnapping our wolves in the middle of the night. I have a total of eight men gone. We have no idea how she’s taking them, but in the process of going up against her, we’ve figured out how to efficiently kill the Made wolves without getting cursed.”

  We stopped at a ten-by-ten-foot wooden platform set up with a crude table and chairs and a rain tarp strung up between the trees. “How are you killing them without getting cursed?” I asked, thinking back to the big battle we’d fought with the vamps and witches against the demons, when we first discovered my dad had been cursed. Tally had managed to explode one and Ray had sucked the life out of the others.

  “Basically we have to give them a lobotomy. Once their brain function is dead, they crumple like marionettes,” he answered as he pulled out a chair and sat down. He gestured for us to sit. Rourke, Tyler, Danny, and I complied, while Naomi and Ray stood behind. For the first time, I noticed Marcy wasn’t with us. I glanced around the small space. She must have made a beeline to find her man. I smiled, thinking of how sweet their reunion would be.

  “How is that done, then?” Danny asked. “Do you have to tear their heads off?”

  My father shook his head. “No, we’ve all been carrying these around.” He unsheathed a sharp blade, about three inches long, from its holder on his waist. “We stick it right behind their eye socket. It happened by chance the first time. We’d been breaking their necks, their bones, everything, and those suckers wouldn’t die. We started taking up arms, guns, knives, anything to combat them. Then one attacked and Nicolas managed to get a knife securely into the brain and the thing dropped like a bag of garbage.”

  “Oh my goodness, Nick! Where is he?” I asked, restraining myself from jumping out of the chair to go search for him. “I can’t wait to see him.”

  “He’s at the far camp, two over from here,” my father answered. “I put him in charge and he’s doing a fine job. He’s grown into a great leader with a keen mind.” There was pride in his voice, and it was nice to hear it. Life growing up on the Compound had never been easy for Nick. And if a fox was in charge of wolves, then his standing in the Pack had definitely gone up since I’d left. “Don’t worry. You’ll see him soon. He’ll be over here tomorrow morning for a prearranged check-in.”

  I nodded. “I always knew Nick would be a great leader. He managed to keep me safe for all my formative years, and that took some gumption. How many status fights has he had?”

  “Three,” my father said. “After that, I placed him in charge of the younger wolves, and there have been
no further issues. He’s like a son to me, and my wolves know that, wolf or not. But I will not tolerate any underhanded dealings. If one of my wolves wants to challenge him, as they will, we’ll set it up appropriately. For now, next to James, he is the best person I have to keep these camps running so we can efficiently take out the threat.”

  “One more question before we discuss what happened to me while I was away, which I know you want to hear sooner than later,” I said. “You keep referring to this threat as a ‘priestess.’ Do you know for sure that’s what she is?”

  My father shook his head. “I’m not sure of anything, but I refer to her as that because that’s what Redman called her. When I came down here the first time and tried to talk some sense into the Southern Pack, he insisted that she had been in ‘his’ territory for years and that they previously had an understanding. She kept to herself and they left her alone. That’s how the fracture wolves knew how to find her. She’s a legend in these parts.”

  “And he said ‘priestess’ for sure?” I asked.

  “He said something like that, but mainly he called her a nuisance. Why do you ask?”

  “Because Marcy seems to think she’s not a priestess, but something more powerful.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “A sorceress.”

  8

  “A sorceress?” My father scratched his head. “I guess that makes some sense given she can make rabid wolves. My understanding of priestesses is that they feed the ghosts they worship or some such nonsense. I’ve never paid much attention.”

  “I don’t know the role a priestess plays, but in voudoun Marcy said the sorceresses are called bokors.” I wished Marcy was here to explain, but I would do my best to relay her thoughts.

  “That sounds about right. I’ve heard of them before, but only vaguely.” My father shifted in his tiny seat.

  Rourke cleared his throat. “I’m not up on the practices of Haitian voodoo in the last few hundred years, but I agree with Marcy’s assessment. I’m somewhat familiar with voudoun. I know it started in the Congo at least a thousand years ago, and from what I’ve heard on my travels, a bokor does indeed specialize in mind control. I’m not sure if the creatures they puppet are dead or cursed, but it seems to fit the bill here. They also use fetishes. It’s their specialty. I know this because some supernaturals are willing to pay large sums of money to procure them.”

  “I’m assuming you’re talking about an object—that kind of fetish?” Danny asked. “Or are they just really into certain things, like feet or belly buttons? I can totally understand the belly button part, because who doesn’t love a good navel? But feet? No, sir, I’ve never been a fan.”

  Rourke arched an eye at Danny. “They trap magic into objects to enhance their power when they need it later. No navels.”

  I drummed my fingers on the table. “So this is another supernatural who can harness power and magic?”

  My mate turned to me, his face grim. “There are no accidents or coincidences where you’re concerned, Jess. I believe that. Like Eudoxia said in the Underworld, the fact that we’re where we are right now is not a mistake. This bokor is aware of you. My guess is she knew you’d show up eventually if she kept sending rabid wolves out. The minute we entered her territory, she let you in, and when you left, she gave you an ominous message. None of that was a mistake.”

  “What did this sorceress say?” my dad asked, leaning forward.

  “She said that we would meet again soon,” I answered. “And she called me a wild animal in some kind of Creole. Naomi heard it.”

  My father raked a hand through his hair and leaned back in his chair. “If she’s a bokor, and those Made wolves are dead, this just became more complicated. Dammit.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “I wanted to eradicate this threat and be home before you arrived back from the Underworld, but that clearly didn’t happen. So here we sit, playing chess with a sorceress who wants to harm my daughter by draining her power.”

  “A sorceress who’s likely been playing games with us since before Stuart brought his ragtag pack of wolves to her doorstep,” I said. “She must have taken one look at him and saw her opportunity. She set this up so we’d be forced to come here, and if she can pull power or magic out of me, there’s no doubt she’ll try.”

  “The question is, how do we fight her?” Tyler asked. “Do we know enough about her magic to gain an advantage?”

  My father shook his head. “No, we don’t know anything about her, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find a way to best her. I’ll put a call in to Devon as soon as I can. He’s been busy gathering information from a home base in Florida. But before we try to figure out a game plan, I need both of you to fill me in on what happened while you were in the Underworld. I can sense your signature change, Jessica”—he leaned over, his eyes grave as they met mine—“and your power feels layered. I need to know what’s going on.”

  “Of course,” I said. I had so much to share. “Is this the only place we can talk?” I glanced around at the small space. “Where do you eat and sleep?”

  “We have another area where we keep our food and supplies. We can move over there, though it’s not much more comfortable than this,” my father answered. “We had to take some trees down to gain the space. But you’re right, let’s head over there first and get situated. I want James to hear this too. There are twelve of us in this camp, and fifteen in both the others. James usually stays at one of the others, but we knew you were coming, so he’s here now.”

  I chuckled as I stood, following my father’s lead. “He might be a bit busy at the moment. Marcy came with us. But she needs to be in on whatever we’re doing. She’s the only one of us who knows anything about the kind of magic we’re dealing with.”

  Relaying the entire story of our Underworld escapades took two full hours. I told my father every detail, ending with the power of five, killing Lili, the fact that I’d made a mistake by ending her life one hundred years too soon, my possible place on the Coalition, the Hags’ anger, Juanita, and finally the plane crash. Then I filled him in on what the airboat guides had told us of this place and how we’d just escaped the priestess’s alternate reality. My brother told his part, including the length of time that had passed for him in the Underworld, his torture at the hands of the demons, and added details I didn’t have about the rescue of the Prince of Hell.

  My father sat back, his face set as he absorbed it all. Finally he said, “That was quite a story. I’m not sure where to begin.” James sat next to him at another makeshift table, this one a little bigger. We were surrounded by crates of supplies and hammocks strung through cypress trees. “How about we talk about Jessica’s new power acquisition first. What can you do now that you have the power of five? I’ve never heard of a supernatural absorbing magic before you. It’s truly amazing. I’m at a loss for words.”

  I stared at him and blinked. “That’s a good question.” I nibbled my lower lip. “I’m not sure. I barely figured out how to harness the demon magic while I was in the Underworld, as I told you. My wolf sort of stored it away as fast as we gathered it.” My wolf growled, showing us glowing with multicolored magic. “My wolf is indicating that we can pull it apart as needed, but I don’t know how to do that… yet.”

  “Well, it makes sense it would take some time to figure it out, but it means you’re extremely powerful,” my father said with finality. “It took me fifty years to figure out all my strengths and weaknesses. I don’t want you to feel any pressure. I just wanted to try and get a gauge on what we’re dealing with here.”

  “Jessica,” James interjected. “Your new power gives you one thing for sure. It ensures that you can defend yourself, and that will be your biggest asset.”

  My father nodded. “James is right. That’s the most important piece in all of this, and it’s what will keep you alive.”

  “There’s one more thing,” I said. “It concerns Tally and the witches. I told you the witches disappeared, that the
circle was dead in the Underworld. But I’m going to let Marcy share what she found out from a witch in Europe. Things might be brewing in Italy.”

  My father turned to Marcy. She was perched on the edge of James’s leg. She straightened under his intense gaze. “Jessica’s right. According to the witch I spoke with, there’s been a convergence of supernatural activity in Italy. Florence, to be precise. She told me supes were flocking there by the hundreds. I feel, because of that, it’s a good indication of where my aunt may have gone—either by choice or against her will—but her leaving without sending word, whatever the circumstances, is highly unusual. We are the only true family we have. My feeling is she was taken, kidnapped or worse, and her witches went after her.”

  I nodded along. “Tally wouldn’t have broken her word and left us stranded in the Underworld unless something extreme had happened. She’s proven herself loyal.” I glanced around the table. “And I also believe the event of her leaving or being taken coincided with me killing Ardat Lili.”

  “You can’t know that for sure,” my father said. “It could be an internal power struggle, witches fighting witches. But, I agree, there is some merit to it. From my understanding, if there’s an open seat on the Coalition to be filled by a particular Sect, the power shift is felt by all in that Sect. I haven’t felt anything yet, but that doesn’t mean we won’t. I suspect, across the board, there will be skirmishes to gain power before the final five supernaturals take their permanent positions. It could be all-out civil war inside each Sect until that final day comes.”

  “What do you mean? I thought we were fated to our seat on the Coalition?” I asked, my wolf echoing my sentiments in my mind.

  “Fate has something to do with it, and in your case particularly—as there are no other female wolves to fight you. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be powerful female supes vying for a place on the Coalition. No supernatural will step aside willingly if they think it’s their right. Fate can shift, as you’ve now seen firsthand.” He raised his eyebrows. “It’s not infallible. Choices are made, paths shift, and supernaturals will die. Sitting on the Coalition is the ultimate station in our world. Now we know all five will share power, making the entity of the Coalition the strongest supernatural group on earth. We believed they were in stasis all this time—at least I did—but they were clever. A rebirth means all five seats will be filled at once.”