Left for Undead

by L. A. Banks

  “Games and falsehoods that any good wizard could produce from a coven’s shelves,” Mara sneered, staring at Queen Cerridwen. “That is not evidence; it is a pity if it is the best you can do.”

  “My best is beyond your comprehension,” Queen Cerridwen said with eerie calm, making the female Vampire back up as ice crusted the ground beneath her feet. “For the price of sixty innocent Fae, there will be blood.”

  “Make sure you carry our full and allied Fae message back to your cartel!” Sir Rodney shouted. “Vlad is the fool, a madman foaming at the fangs, if he is to believe that we will allow the Fae to be subjected to torment and death without retaliation. There will be no grave deep enough or a night dark enough to hide him from the Fae onslaught that will leave his ancient bones bleached by the sun! Give him that message, faithful dog!”

  “Oh, I shall,” Caleb said in a dangerous murmur. Then they were gone.

  Sasha and Hunter shifted back into their human forms and slowly walked to find their clothes. What was there to say? War had just been declared. The Vampires didn’t want to hear jack about possible secondary sources. The Fae were so outraged by the loss of lives tonight that they were beyond reason. Now that the Vampires understood that the Seelie and Unseelie were going to stand as a united front, that meant all the Fae establishments in the center of New Orleans—ones that were blindly frequented by human tourists and locals—would be under attack. And as stubborn as Sir Rodney was once he got a righteous Scottish bee in his bonnet, there’d be no closing a place down for the cause of fear, even if it meant human lives were at risk.

  Hunter tossed Sasha her jeans and top, finding their clothing pile first. They said nothing as they dressed and simply listened to the Fae as they gathered their dead and injured.

  “We need to help them get to the Sidhe and then warn our people,” Hunter said in a flat tone.

  Sasha simply nodded without looking at him and then stooped down to tie her boots.

  “Oh. my. God. ” Clarissa stared at Sasha hang jawed as both Sasha and Hunter filled in the team.

  “That’s why I need to know everything you can tell me about what a frickin’ Erinys is,” Sasha said, sending her gaze from Bradley to Winters and then Clarissa. “We need to understand why one would be in a graveyard opening vamp tombs, how they come out, when they come out—”

  “How to kill them,” Winters added in, staring at his computer screen as he did a database search. “Just sayin’.”

  “Right. You took the words right out of my mouth, Winters.” Sasha looked at Doc and Silver Hawk. “If there’s a way to barrier these Erinyes things and gargoyles from establishments in the same way we can keep vamps out with a prayer circle, that would help here as well as at the Fair Lady tavern in town or at Finnegan’s Wake, and Dugan’s Bed and Breakfast.”

  Hunter’s grandfather nodded and his expression remained calm, set in the leathery wrinkles of his face. Two long silver braids hung down his chest over his plaid flannel shirt and he breathed in slowly and exhaled slowly, as though in a semi-meditative state.

  “Daughter, I have already gone to the four corners of this military facility to say chants and send prayers up to the Great Spirit that the plague of war will pass us by, and it seems that my prayers were answered. The wolf clans have been absolved of any violence. But I will make prayers in the daytime for our Fae friends and to protect humans that visit their sites from harm. This will take time, though. They have many businesses and shops. How long do we have before the next Vampire onslaught?”

  “We may have, at most, twenty-four hours until the next bloodletting,” Hunter said, locking gazes with his grandfather.

  “I can accomplish that with Doc,” Silver Hawk replied, gaining a nod of agreement from Sasha’s father.

  “But Bear Shadow and Crow Shadow should be with you, Grandfather, to protect you as you are sealing a building in prayer. The gargoyles are not bound to the darkness and at dusk they attacked. We have seen what they can do.”

  “I have advised Bear Shadow and Crow Shadow not to travel here yet by human aircraft,” Silver Hawk said quietly. “Especially not Crow Shadow, who now has a human mate who cannot enter the shadow realms. I am an old alpha with shaman sight and can easily navigate the shadow paths. You and Sasha are clan alphas and have the protective amber and silver amulets to keep you from accidentally entering a demon portal while in the realm between worlds. It is best that only a few of our people come here to investigate and that we remain as neutral as possible so that we can learn the truth.”

  “We can cover them,” Woods said. “Me and Fisher may just be so-called familiars, with a little wolf in our DNA, and can’t shift or whatever, but we are Delta Force trained and can handle a mean M16, an RPG launcher, and ain’t bad on mortars. So if some gargoyle mofos want some action while Silver Hawk is praying around buildings with Doc, we can bring it.”

  “Much obliged, Lieutenant. It would sure make me feel better to know you and Fish were out there in a Jeep covering our clan elders,” Sasha said, dragging her fingers through her hair.

  “Roger that. Consider it done,” Fisher said, giving Sasha a nod.

  “Okay, so whatcha got, Winters?” Sasha walked over to Winters’s computer propelled by nervous energy.

  “Wikipedia says—”

  “Please,” Bradley muttered, and then stood to go to the crate of books he’d brought to their temporary lab at NAS. “They are chthonic entities, Greek demons of the underworld. ‘The Erinyes’ means, quite literally ‘the angry ones.’ ” He flipped open a page in a thick, dusty tome and began reading, “ ‘The Furies are the same creatures, but the Roman version.’ ”

  Looking up, Bradley held the group captive with his minilecture. “They are without number, but the three prominent ones that come to the fore in literature are Tisiphone—who punishes crimes of murder. Her name translates to ‘Avenging Murder.’ Then there’s Megaera, or ‘Grudging,’ and Alecto, ‘The Unceasing.’ They go after those who have sworn a false oath, if they have been called. To call them requires a ritual sacrifice, a live victim, that must be placed in a megaron—a sunken chamber—where they rip the sacrifice to shreds and eat it alive.”

  “Great, Brads.” Sasha blew a damp curl up off her blood-splattered forehead, wanting a shower in the worst way. “So, we’ve possibly got an avenging, grudge-holding, unceasing crew of very angry demon bitches in the mix to contend with—ya gotta love it.”

  “If we can figure out which one was called or, better yet, who called it, maybe we can find out who’s targeting our local Vampire population.” Doc looked around the group and let his gaze settle on Clarissa. “Between you, me, and Silver Hawk, we ought to be able to do some sort of divination.”

  “No,” Sasha said before Bradley could open his mouth to protest. “The Vampires always lie, so they could have sworn a false oath that pissed anybody off from an average tarot card reader to the Devil himself. Until we know how far and deep this goes, I don’t want anybody trying to do a divination on a creature that is some kind of avenging demon, all right.”

  “Sheesh,” Winters muttered. “You don’t have to tell us twice.”

  “But that’s probably why the Vampires didn’t want to hear our findings. They damn well must know what one of these creatures is, and may simply believe Queen Cerridwen conjured it up from the depths.”

  Sasha stared at Hunter’s dirty face, loving him even more for the way his shrewd mind worked. “Which has to be why they want her brought to Elder Vlad, preferably alive. Now that I think about it, their gargoyles didn’t seem to be trying to kill her out in the swamp. They just circled her and Rodney like birds of prey, swooping and diving, making them hunker down while they slaughtered their soldiers. They didn’t even go after me, you, or Garth.”

  Hunter nodded. “It is all very curious.”

  “Yeah, well, it certainly makes sense why all the local psychics went into hiding. If the Vampires are looking for human diviners, those with a soul
who can connect with one of these things and figure out who called it up, I’d take down my shingle for a coupla weeks, too—at least until all of this blows over.” Bradley glanced at Silver Hawk. “So, can you add some extraspecial barriers around Clarissa. just in case?”

  “It is done, now that I understand the enemy we face.” Silver Hawk folded his arms over his chest and closed his eyes.

  “What say we go check out the local black-magic covens?” Sasha said, looking at Hunter. “They may be shady, but they are human and the Vampires must have gone to them, right?”

  Hunter rubbed his jaw and frowned. “Yes, so why would the normal psychics go into hiding, then?”

  “Yeah, true.” Sasha let out a hard breath and slumped against the wall. “Shit.”

  “When you debriefed us, didn’t you say that the locks were frozen and then shattered, which is how whoever got into the crypts to open them?” Winters glanced between Sasha and Hunter. “Seems real coincidental to me.”

  “Yeah,” Hunter said, now giving Winters his full attention along with everyone else in the room.

  “Well, the use of cold is in the purview of the Unseelie,” Winters pressed on, pulling up an Excel spreadsheet that he was using to track the facts, “and if the Unseelie were involved, wouldn’t they have the spell-casting know-how to cover their tracks to human divinations? Like, I’m just sayin’, they’d know that the first thing a pissed-off Vampire cartel would do would be try to get a black coven or a really strong diviner to figure out who called up some Erinyes on them, right? And, if you ask me, it really does look fishy that both the lock was freeze-busted and then evidence of this avenging demon was out there. around the same time a human body got buried in the graveyard.. Ahem, let us not forget Mr. Romero.”

  “You are indeed a boy wonder,” Sasha said, pushing off the wall she’d been leaning against. “Because let’s face it, the Unseelie could break into the tomb, but a seriously old and powerful Vampire is no slouch in the strength department. One might be able to bust open a crypt door, but it’s quite another thing to be able to physically or even magically drag a superstrong Vamp out into the sun without Unseelie causalities.”

  “It would have to be a team effort of several Unseelie working in unison to have that much combined power to overthrow the death struggle of a viceroy,” Hunter said, walking off to stare out the window. “Or it would take the strength of an Unseelie monarch.” He rubbed the nape of his neck and then turned back to stare at Sasha. “Which is why all things point back to Cerridwen, who had both opportunity and motive, unless some rogue Unseelie Fae simply opened the tomb and then. ”

  “The avenging demon busted in there and dragged the viceroy out.” Sasha shook her head. “Damn, that’s cold, but that’s exactly how I’d do it to save my side from collateral damage.”

  “But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that it wasn’t Queen Cerridwen,” Doc said, his worried gaze roaming to each face in the group. “Then what Unseelie would benefit from Vampire wars? Why would they try to bring down the House of Hecate, because this is where all of this could have been going, if Sir Rodney would have turned her away at the castle?”

  “And an educated bet was that Sir Rodney would have turned her away,” Sasha said flatly. “Only somebody maybe didn’t expect him to be such a romantic.”

  “Ah, the X factor,” Bradley said with a half smile. “Quantity unknown.”

  “But that leads us right back to square one. Full circle and no cigar, folks.” Sasha began hunting along the choices of artillery that Woods and Fisher had spread out on the table. “Maybe it’s time to have a conversation with the queen about what her succession plan is if she were to meet a sudden demise. That could tell us a lot.” Sasha picked up a small handheld Uzi and fit in its magazine with a click.

  “Before anything, I need to let Shogun know what’s happening.” Hunter rubbed the nape of his neck, becoming agitated. “I have to warn my brother, but he never told me where he was staying.”

  Sasha checked both safeties on her weapon and then looked up at Hunter. “Don’t howl. The Vamps might take that as a rallying call to arms from the wolves and get any lone wolf out there accidentally ambushed. But I know who might know.”

  Hunter gave her a puzzled look and simply cocked his head with a question in his eyes.

  “Amy Chen’s parents have a store near Xavier. She lives with her parents,” Sasha said calmly. “If anyone has his cell number, it would be her.”

  “Good answer,” Hunter said, moving straight toward the door, but Sasha flat-palmed his chest with one hand and simply shook her head.

  “Don’t freak the Chens out, man. You’re covered in Fae blood splatter and gargoyle gook. Why don’t you take five and give in to a shower—I’m just sayin’.”

  CHAPTER 10

  A quick hot shower, a change of clothes—courtesy Colonel Madison’s order to two MPs to get Sasha and Hunter uniforms—and she was good to go. Sasha fingered her engagement ring that she’d threaded onto the silver chain that held her amulet while she waited for Hunter in the Jeep. Back in the bayou, one shape-shift and she’d almost lost it. The silver amulet always seemed to hang right and to fall in place just so when she’d transform, but even that was a battle hazard. Now she thoroughly understood why wolves didn’t wear the traditional American demarcation of being unavailable. One thing for sure, though: She was tired of living like a nomad.

  Somewhere along the way from New Hampshire to the NAS she’d lost her duffel bag. She was pretty sure that she and Hunter had dropped their belongings at Sir Rodney’s sidhe, since that was the first stop. But between all the shadow hopping, location changes, and then a shape-shift, she couldn’t be a hundred percent certain where she’d left anything. And that was the problem. They were always on the move. Nomads.

  Her goldfish, Fred, had died months ago, due to either lack of care or overfeeding by Mrs. Baker. Sasha shuddered to think about how her brother was going to cope with a baby on the way. How did Shadow Wolves rear children anyway, or was it just that her life as the pack’s female alpha and enforcer mated to the pack’s supreme alpha male was the thing that made her life so insane? Did wolves do the suburbs, soccer practice for kids, or Little League? Sheesh.

  The more she thought about it, when was the last time she’d even been in her own apartment? It was tidy, IKEA furnished, but it wasn’t home. Hunter had his bachelor’s cabin out in the Uncompahgre, and they’d created a love nest in a cabin up in New Hampshire. But where was base camp going to be? The French Quarter? It was one more thing that she and Hunter never talked about; life would just get crazy and then they’d up and shift and run. Then celebrate. And not a lot of talking got involved in the celebration. Howling, yes. Talking, no. Right now, for some reason, she had questions. About a hundred of them.

  Sasha stared at the diamond-heavy ring that dangled at the end of the silver chain looped around her neck. New dog tags for sure. Her brother had gotten married. Hunter was talking about getting married. Shogun was planning on getting married. Bradley and Clarissa were gonna probably cave any day now.

  “You okay?”

  Sasha almost leaped out of the Jeep and then closed her eyes and allowed her body to slump. “Don’t do that, jeez.”

  “Walking light is just force of habit,” Hunter said, looking concerned as he jumped into the driver’s seat and gunned the engine. “I guess with gargoyles flying I should have announced myself sooner. Sorry.”

  “It’s cool,” she said, glad that Hunter mistook her jumpiness as mission related. Once he’d mentioned gargoyles, the other thoughts that had been tugging at her faded into the background of her mind. “I think you were right to want to take the Jeep. No sense in freaking out the Chens by stepping out of a shadow in their store.”

  “I was also hoping that it might be a good opportunity for you to have a brief word with Amy.” Hunter glanced at Sasha from the corner of his eye as they pulled up to a military exit checkpoint. “I sort of prom
ised Shogun you would, even though we have other pressing matters. This is important to my brother.”

  Sasha nodded and handed the clipboard to the guard shack MP, saying nothing until they had clearance. “Okay,” she said, once they were well past the barricade.

  Hunter glanced at her again. “Just ‘okay’?”

  Sasha shrugged. “Yeah. Like, Oooo. Kaaay. What?”

  “Usually there’s much more than ‘okay.’ ” He held up a hand and smiled when she drew a breath. “I’m okay with ‘okay’ as long as you’re okay with ‘okay.’ I just didn’t know if it was okay—but I’m pissed or okay—cool. Sometimes I don’t speak she-Shadow and I wanted to be sure I wasn’t in the doghouse.”

  “You’re not in the doghouse,” she said, finally cracking a smile. “It’s just, what do you guys want me to say to this young woman? In fact,” she said, turning around in her seat to fully face Hunter. “What does any woman say to another woman about something like this?”

  “Okay,” he said, giving her quick glimpses between trying to keep his eyes on the road. “This is what I meant by are you okay with this. My gut is never wrong; my wolf is always right. You’re—”

  “Twisted up, Hunter.” Sasha sat back and ran her fingers through her damp hair. “Amy loves the ground that man walks on. To her, he’s a freakin’ deity. I mean, Hunter, she sees him as the knight in shining armor, the man who saved her from demons! He was gentle, and patient, and met her family. His ferocious nature only came out to protect and serve her, to save her life. Then he delivered her to a magical castle and nursed her back to health, and brought her home to her parents, who wept at her return. Then he goes with her to China and meets all her relatives. and sends gifts and receives her like royalty—because he is. Then you guys concoct a plan in the woods, mind you, while I’m not there, and I have to be the one to tell this poor girl there’s no Santa Claus?”