Raven Cursed: A Jane Yellowrock Novel

by Faith Hunter

  He hesitated, and I could almost see the possible responses move through him, one sarcastic, one innuendo, one that was simply kind. “Our suite has three bedrooms. The hotel opened the third at no charge.” He pulled a card key from a pocket and said, “Leo has ordered a replacement for your Walther. It’ll be here in the morning.” He had settled on a response a friend might use.

  A tear fell and I caught it with a quick dash of my hand. I nodded, took the key, followed him into the suite beside mine. It was decorated in warm grays, cool browns, and dull creams. Soothing colors. I went to my room, a predominately gray room with a silky gray comforter and charcoal pillows, and I shut the door, leaning my back against it. I wiped my eyes. I never used to cry. Never. But then, I never used to have friends. I never used to put them in danger. I never used to kill humans. My life was changing and it was all pretty much sucky.

  I took a breath and forced calm into me. The room was tiny, less than half the square footage of the adjoining, bloody suite, but my clothes were in the closet, my weapons on the bureau, neatly laid out, which made me smile through the tears, and my toiletries were in the bath, seen through the open door. I pushed from my perch and stripped, moving through the room, dropping clothes where they landed. I stepped under the shower, the scalding water pelting me. And the tears started again. I was changing and didn’t like who I was becoming. I’d never get clean.

  How had I killed man and not even spared him a thought? How could I have eaten a full meal, joked and chatted and made a BFF, and not thought once about the man I’d shot. And killed. When the crying jag ended, I dried off and crawled under the covers, dry eyes burning. Beast padded through my thoughts, her gaze golden and steady, her paws silent, weighted, her breath a susurration, almost a purr. Sleep claimed me. Beast’s claws milked my soul.

  I woke at six p.m. and lay on the bed, staring at the shadowed ceiling. My own scent had filled the room as I slept, the smells no longer alien. I was calm. Rational. Not grieving over the part of me I’d lost. A killer, the blood-servant of an unknown vamp, had come into my room. His death didn’t make the danger go away. If he had been targeting me, then I was attracting dangers that might hurt the vamps, making me a liability to the job. If the man had been after the vamps, then the unknown vamp master would plan better next time, would send better quality killers. Either way, grief and guilt were wasted and stupid. I put them away.

  The most important and overriding factor was that he’d gotten past security. I’d been sloppy or it was an inside job—­someone I trusted had let him in. I needed to tighten security, switch around weapons, methodologies, timing, and personnel. Keep more people on duty, make the guys pull twelve-hour shifts.

  I crawled from the mattress and dressed, putting on a black skirt that fell to my shins, a tank with a tight vest, lightweight jacket, and dress boots. Into my boot holster went the six-round Kahr P380 and in the other went a sheathed knife with a ten-inch silvered blade and a deep groove—­a vamp-killer, which would work equally well against wolves. I rebraided my hair and wrapped it into a bun, tight against my nape, giving my face a severe, harsh angularity. I selected a tube of lipstick at random—­they were all shades of red—­and smeared it on.

  Last, I pulled the box of fetishes from the closet, opened it, and studied the necklaces inside. A skinwalker’s fetish necklaces are made of bones, teeth, beaks, talons, and feathers, each necklace strung with parts from one species. Skinwalkers can shift into most any land mammal or bird, providing we have access to a sufficient quantity of DNA, the coiled helix of genetic sequences specific to each species, each creature, and providing that the mass exchange is close. I’d never tried to shift into a fish, reptile, or sea mammal as Rick had asked, but that might be possible too, I didn’t know. Walkers can also shift into smaller creatures, if we’re willing to lose part of ourselves, depositing mass to be regained when we return to human-normal. Shifting into larger creatures requires taking mass from something with no genetic material and adding it to the shifting process. All mass transfers are dangerous, and I prefer not to attempt them, fearing I might lose too much of myself shifting into a smaller creature, forfeiting memories, abilities, even part of my body. Fearing I might not be able to throw off mass gained after shifting into a larger creature, ending up with an extra hundred pounds of me. So, most of my fetishes were mammalian—­predators or omnivores—­that massed about one hundred twenty-five pounds.

  I studied the fetishes, thinking, undecided. For once Beast had no comment to make, hunched deep in my consciousness, silent, watchful. If I hunted as Beast, scent-tracking would be working against her natural abilities. Puma concolors—­mountain lions—­are sight trackers, ambush hunters, and I needed something better suited to scent-tracking. Like the bloodhound I had tried once. Excellent nose. But a bloodhound could get so involved with a scent it would forget to eat, drink, or change back before dawn. And no bloodhound had the weapons to fight werewolves if I got lucky and found them. I set the mountain lion fetish in the bag and replaced the box. I unzipped my go-bag, checking clothes, throwaway cell phone, and cash. I picked up my Bible. It felt foreign in my hands. The gun in my boot did not. Something was seriously wrong with my life for that to be so, but I could think about that later. After this job was done.

  I called for the valet to refuel and bring around the car I had used last night and then stepped from my tiny bedroom. I stopped and placed a hand on one hip. A chair had been dragged from a seating arrangement and now blocked the exit. One of the twins was sitting in it, dress shirtsleeves rolled up, pants with a razor crease. There was no mole at his hairline, IDing him as Brian. His arms were on the chair arms, one ankle on the other knee, facing my door. Blocking my way out. And one hand held a trank gun.

  My thoughts went into overdrive. I hadn’t brought any tranks on this job. Tranquilizers were Derek’s specialty. Seems like my right-hand man had been thinking on his own, and Grégoire’s two right hands had been sharing his equipment. I didn’t know how my metabolism would react to a tranquilizer. I’d never dosed myself. Some things I hadn’t thought I’d need to know. And so far, neither of the twins knew about me being a skinwalker. He hadn’t fired. Yet. I smiled, showing teeth, not trying for sweet. Moving slowly, not taking my eyes from the twin, I set my go-bag and Bible on the surface nearest. A bureau by the height. “Brian. You got something to say? Or do you want to fight me, ’cause it’ll come to a fight if you think I’m staying in tonight.”

  “I know you’re not staying in. I don’t intend to fight you. I just want to make sure you listen to me.” His New Orleans accent dropped in, thick as warm honey, the words slow, the emphasis wrong, like the way a Southern gentleman might have spoken a hundred years ago. Polite, despite being implacable.

  “I’ll listen better without the trank gun.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Today you killed a man.”

  My flinch was internal. It didn’t show. “And?”

  His words took on the lilt of that same old Southern man telling a story. “I killed my first man when I turned forty. A priest and two of his laymen came after Grégoire with a stake and holy water and a necklace of garlic; with kerosene and a pistol for me. It was Brandon’s day of rest, and at the time we kept only one blood-servant with him. There hadn’t been trouble for decades. We had become lazy.” He gestured with the trank gun. “Complacent.

  “I was alone in the lair, when the priest cantered up on his piebald mare, the laymen, horsed, at his sides. The house was small, on a bluff overlooking a bayou. It had a hidden room under the floor, the tunnel entrance concealed by a rug. Grégoire’s lair.”

  He shrugged slightly. “Some Mithrans sleep all day. Some don’t. Back then, Grégoire slept deeply by day. And the priest, he seemed to know that, he did. Seemed to know where Grégoire would be. To know my master would have only one blood-servant to defend him. I don’t know if one of the blood-slaves had told the priest, or perhaps the church tortured it out of someone. But the priest, he
had no qualms, not one. He had come to kill a devil and a devil worshipper.”

  I looked away. Tension I hadn’t known I was carrying seeped out of my shoulders. I blew out a breath and took the nearest seat, a corner of the couch. I sat with my elbows on my knees, my hands close to the boot holster. If Brian tranked me, I’d shoot him before I went under. If I went under. But I wanted to hear this.

  When I was settled, he went on. “The laymen splashed kerosene over the front porch and walls. I panicked. Killing humans is against Mithran law, and against Grégoire’s personal edict. But I had to protect him. I stood beside a table, facing the door, three pistols and a sword at my side, and waited, sweating like the house was already on fire, my heart a thunder in my chest. The priest threw open the door and strode inside.

  “I don’t know if they got their signals wrong, or it might have been an innocent mistake, but the laymen struck their match too soon. Flames billowed up. The priest fired. I fired. He missed; I didn’t. He fell, with flames leaping behind him. He wasn’t dead. He crawled for the door, screaming for help. But the house, it was old, the wood like dry tinder. I pulled up the iron trapdoor and crawled through the small opening, onto Grégoire. I curled there, as the heat rose, and the roof crashed down and the priest, screaming, burned to death.”

  I said nothing, knowing now that he didn’t intend to kill or trank me. Knowing that this was a form of intervention, an act of compassion. Some confessions are just that—­acts of kindness.

  “I might have disarmed him, dragged him down with me. I might have forced him to drink of Grégoire’s blood and heal him. But I saved myself and let him burn. And, even now, I hear his screams when I wake in the night. Hear and know that I did nothing to save him. He had been sent to kill me and to kill my master. And so I shot him and left him to die.

  “What you did today was self-defense. That man’s death might provide short-term protection for my brother, my master, and me. And so I thank you for the sacrifice of a small piece of your soul.” I started, hearing words on his lips I’d thought myself, hours earlier. “If you are willing to take the advice of an old, old man, then do your penance, and live—­with the memory of your own evil.”

  I lifted my Bible. “Is there any penance for the death of another?”

  “Abel died.” His New Orleans accent faded away, his voice now pitiless. “Cain was marked with the mark of the Beast and exiled. But he lived. I confessed to my own priest, who gave me harsh penance, and then he left the country never to return. Mithrans and their crimes were more than a man of God could bear. It took twenty-five years to work off my penance. In the twenty-five years, I found freedom and peace. And you will find peace as well, if you choose it.”

  Mark of the Beast. Yeah, I know that one. “I’m not Catholic.”

  Brian smiled then and shook his head. “No. You are a little goddess.”

  I stood and gathered up my things. “I’m not a goddess. Can I go now?” Brian stood and pulled the chair out of the way. I left the suite.

  I drove to a little church I had found—­a wooden, white painted, two-hundred-year-old building on a crossroads, tucked into the side of a hill. The steeple rose against a backdrop of dying hemlocks, pointing to heaven where the sun set, a golden, rosy glow. Boulders the size of small houses rose up in the grassy yard all around, one behemoth half as tall as the church itself. The land was unsuitable for farming, but made a good site for a church and, if gifted to a congregation, would be a contribution to be remembered. It wasn’t the church I had once attended when I lived here, but a new one, where no one knew me, which said something about who I was now, something that I didn’t want to look at too closely. It was the same denomination that I’d attended in New Orleans, though they eschewed the word denomination. This one was called simply Church of Christ, and they were having a revival-type service all week long.

  I was early, only one truck parked in the lot, the front doors wide to air out the day’s heat, half the lights on, but the sanctuary empty. I went in and took a seat in the semidarkness, sliding to my knees on the old, wide-plank floor. It had been a long time since I had prayed. And I didn’t know what to say to God. I settled on confession, beginning with the whispered words, “Today I killed a man. His death was sudden. I didn’t give him time before death to confess. To seek you.” Tears started to fall, hot and searing. “I killed a man,” I whispered, the words like the breath of hell in my mouth. “I didn’t really mean to kill him. But all I can see is his body fall. And fall. And fall. Like so many vamps and weres. And I have to wonder if they were all as precious to you as a human is. I have to wonder if the blood of murder rests on my soul.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Streams Talking Softly

  in Mountain-Water Tongue

  No one bothered me while I prayed. No one bothered me while the small church filled up and the lights came on, and the heat went up despite the open windows. I stayed through the service, singing with the congregation, without the benefit of instrumental music. I listened to the earnest minister and his sermon on what it meant to be drenched in the blood of the lamb, a topic Beast might have reacted to, but this once, she remained silent, in the background. And I slipped out during the last hymn so I wouldn’t have to talk with any of them. It was the chicken’s way out, but I wasn’t ready to be welcomed into the presence of God’s people yet. It was hard enough to try to reach out for the presence of God himself. And I had a feeling that I might find it easier in the silence of the forest and ragged hills, far from other humans.

  My Cherokee self, the part of me that had memories from long ago, was damaged. Had been broken by the death of my father, the rape of my mother. Had been further damaged by the loss of my people on a cold and frigid snowy night. By the years I spent as we sa, a bobcat, before I stole Beast. And by the hunger times, lived in her form. I had tried to find that ancient, human, Cherokee part of me, to wake it and merge it with who I was now, creating one cohesive self. I felt that if I did, if I could find my ancient self, I might learn something important, might finally feel whole. But I was fractured, broken, and I didn’t have the time, not now, for self-analysis and soul-searching. Someday. Someday.

  I glanced back at the small church and started up the truck, driving away as the last notes of the last song poured through the open, stained-glass windows, along with the stained light. I had a search of a different sort to begin.

  A half hour later, after a stop at an Ingles to purchase ten pounds of raw steak, a dozen granola bars, and a roll of paper towels, I turned off the paved road near Hot Springs, onto a well-kept gravel road, still some six mountain road miles from the site I had decided to search. It was near the Rich-Laurel Wildlife Area, on a little feeder creek that emptied into the French Broad River. There were no people close by. It was late and the weekend campers were long gone; the few hard-core campers were gathered at their tents, fires burning merrily here and there, easy to spot and easier to avoid in the dark.

  I maneuvered out of the campground, parked out of the way, and got out to reconnoiter, leaning against the armored vehicle, the metal warm beneath my skin, wild grasses moving against my skirt and boots. I let Beast rise slowly to the surface, her senses expanding. I could discern her heartbeat, slower when at rest than mine, beating strongly beneath my own, a mystical sensation, powerful in my memory. The night, dark beneath the overhead foliage, grew perceptibly brighter as my pupils widened with Beast-sight. My lips parted and drew in air over tongue and through my nose, the way big-cats scent, though I had no scent sacs in the roof of my mouth like Beast.

  Even to my human nose the night breeze was sun-heated and rich with the perfume of the earth, river-wet from the French Broad only feet from me. Fish and water plants. Warm stone and old campfires, turtles, wild undergrowth mixed with escaped garden plants, basil in flower and something spicy-bitter. But no human scent nearby. No human sound or voice carried on the air. I was alone. I started to pant in the warmth. The engine pinged softly b
eneath my hands.

  Good night for hunt, Beast thought at me. Moon is big, like pregnant doe.

  I carried my supplies to the base of the Paint Rock. The red rock cliff was jagged and broken, rising a hundred feet or more above the French Broad River. It was once covered with ancient paintings, paintings that predated the Cherokee, drawn in red pigments, but time and the elements and the stupidity of man had erased most of them. Humans had spray-painted their names and ancient-looking figures over large parts of the fractured surface. But with the breath of the river flowing across the earth, the place still had power.

  I opened the steaks and dropped them on the smooth earth at the base of the massive rock, the meat still chilled from the store’s refrigeration. With the roll of paper towels, I cleaned my hands and put the wrapping and foam containers into the grocery bag and sealed them. Carried the trash back to the SUV.

  I stripped in the front seat and left my clothes in a pile on the floor, hoping no one would tow my vehicle, but not really caring if they did. Grabbing up my supplies, I stepped from the SUV, barefoot and soundless, my travel pack under one arm. Opening the zipper bag containing my fetish necklace, I set the necklace of the Puma concolor over my head. It was made of the claws, teeth, and small bones of the biggest female panther I had ever seen, the cat killed in Montana during a legal hunt, the pelt and head mounted on some bigwig’s living room wall, the bones and teeth sold through a taxidermist. The mountain lion was hunted throughout the western United States and thought to be extinct in the eastern states, though some reports said they were making a comeback east of the Mississippi. One could hope. I didn’t have to use the necklace to shift into this creature—­the memory of Beast’s form was always a part of me—­but it was easier. I locked the SUV.