Black Arts

by Faith Hunter

  I patted the leather seat affectionately and used his intro. “Yeah. You know bikes?”

  “I ride with a group, all black guys and sometimes a couple a’ chicks. We volunteer with the community and the local po-po. Dress up like Santas on wheels for Christmas, and take gifts to families in financial trouble. I ride a Hog, the 2013 Street Bob, but I always wanted an older model.”

  I nearly gulped. A Street Bob started at thirteen thousand bucks. Being a valet made more money than I would have thought. All those cash tips, maybe. But I didn’t say any of that. “A Harley Zen master put Bitsa together from parts of two old bikes I found.”

  “You ever want to sell her, you let me know.” He handed me a card, and I replaced it with a five.

  “Not gonna happen,” I said. “Bitsa’s like family.”

  “I can see why.”

  “Hey,” I said, figuring it was now or never, “were you on night before last when three vamps left with a redheaded human woman?”

  Some of the light left his eyes, to be replaced with a cagey uncertainty. “Yeah, I was. I didn’t have the keys, but I saw them leave.”

  I handed him another bill, this one a ten. “Was the human upright and acting normal?”

  “Standing on her own two feet. Looked pissed. Said ‘Thank you’ when the fanghead opened the door for her, but it sounded like she coulda been saying for him to, uh”—his voice dropped—“get friendly with himself, if you know what I mean.” He glanced to the side where a man in hotel livery stood, watching, listening to whatever he could hear over the distance. “She was sounding all like, you know, like she was lying and not really thanking him.” He fingered the ten. “For another one of these, I could get the plate number for you.”

  “For the plate number,” I said, “I’ll give you two more.”

  “We keep a log. I’ll be right back. And if my boss walks over, this is between us and off the record.”

  I stepped to the side so his body was between us, pulled riding gloves out of my pocket, and gave them to him. “I’ll tell him I left the gloves on top of the saddlebags and you’re looking for them.”

  He flashed me a smile, pocketed the gloves as if he did sleight of hand at kids’ parties, and disappeared. I straddled Bitsa and unzipped my jacket, turning my face to the sky. The promised warm weather was arriving with piles of gray clouds and gusty, humid wind, and I was starting to sweat under all the leather. Beast wanted to find a hot rock and lie in the sun for hours, and I felt my face try to relax as she sent me a mental picture of her muscular body stretched out and snoozing. But underneath her lazy image I knew she was pacing, as worried as I was about Molly.

  “Here, ma’am.” The valet was holding out my gloves, a bit of white paper sticking out between them. I took them, handed him the promised bills, and got a brisk “Thank you, ma’am! You have a good day” in return. I texted the limo plate number to the Kid and kick-started my bike, making my way home, my heart feeling as if it weighed fifty pounds at the thought of telling Evan what I had found.

  • • •

  When I walked in the side door, Big Evan looked up and scowled. He must have been reading my body language because he puffed up and turned red and looked pretty much ticked off. I sighed and pointed to the kitchen table. Evan sent his kids to the TV room and I poured myself a cup of hot tea from a pot that someone had left on the electric tea warmer. Eli meandered in and hit START on the fancy-schmancy coffee and espresso maker I had paid for, brewing himself and Evan coffee, black and strong. Alex wandered in too, a tablet in each hand, his head bowed over them, eyes darting back and forth between them. Still silent, we all sat, which was all surreal, since no one had said anything.

  Taking a fortifying gulp of slightly scorched bitter tea, I filled the small group in on Molly’s actions and her unknown whereabouts. It didn’t take long because there wasn’t much, and I wasn’t about to tell her husband how bad it might actually be.

  Big Evan listened in silence and when I was done, he turned piercing eyes on me and said, “And do you want to tell me why I wasn’t informed?”

  “Because you’d have run off and gotten in the way and made a stink and caused trouble and scattered your scent all over the hotel room and brought in the cops, who have little to do with, and no control over, vamps. Molly went off with vamps, Evan. And I have contacts with vamps. The cops don’t. You don’t.” I let that sink in for a while and said, “I have a question for you. If Molly told you she was coming to New Orleans to see me, and then didn’t come see me, can you make a guess why?”

  “She was kidnapped,” he growled.

  I didn’t let myself react, because it seemed a likely possibility. Even if Molly had left the hotel under her own power, it hadn’t been by free will, and it didn’t mean that she had been making her own decisions, and didn’t mean she was still missing by her own choice. With only a slight hesitation to mark my thoughts, I said, “Molly came here for a reason. She expected you to come to me, just like you did, so that, if she got in trouble, I could keep her family safe until I found her. She also wanted you here for whatever reason—and no, I don’t know what it might be,” I said as he started to interrupt. “Molly had to want my help, Evan. And she had to be in trouble or she would have told us all the truth and called me and told you and none of this would be happening.”

  And Molly hadn’t trusted anyone with her reasons for coming to New Orleans. Not her husband. Not me. Molly was in deep trouble. I didn’t say that aloud, but Evan must have realized it because he swore, “Son of a witch on a switch.”

  “Pretty much.” With Molly gone from her hotel room, and not checking in with any of us, things had gone bad. Maybe real bad.

  • • •

  There was little for me to do on any of my cases, and so when our confab was over, I did what all good vamp hunters do when nothing is happening. I lay down. I didn’t expect to sleep, but figured things might come to me if I put my feet up and closed my eyes and let my mind wander, let things percolate and steep and find unconscious connections. Fortunately, it was also nap time for the Trueblood children and I got in three long hours of uninterrupted, blissful rest, some of it probably snoring, despite my worry.

  • • •

  I woke when Angelina opened my door and stood there, one hand holding the knob, her body dangling from it, her feet pivoting as she swung back and forth and around. She had a doll under her other arm, and I recognized Ka Navista, the Cherokee Indian doll I had given her. Ka had black hair in a braid and yellow eyes like mine, and a wardrobe sewn for her of traditional Cherokee clothes. Ka originally had black eyes, but Molly admitted later that Angie had complained that the doll wasn’t “right,” so Molly had painted them to match mine. “Hey, Angie Baby,” I said.

  “Hey, Aunt Jane. Uncle Alex Kid says he has something for you and to wake you up, biscause it’s important. Be-cause it is important,” she corrected herself. Angie was growing up and had been trying to break herself of baby talk the last time I had seen her; still was, it seemed.

  “Okay.” I rolled off the mattress and checked the time as I tucked my phone into my jeans pocket. It was two hours before dusk. Plenty of time. “Let’s see what Uncle Kid has to say.”

  Angie lifted her arms to me and I picked her up, adjusting her on a hip so that Ka wasn’t squished. I slid my feet into slippers, but the floor wasn’t as chilled as it had been. The promised warm front was fully in, and rain pattered outside. I went to the kitchen, where I could smell tea steeping. I poured a mugful, getting a whiff of a spice-flavored tea left over from the holiday season. I added sugar and a dollop of Cool Whip and carried the mug to the living room. I set Angie on the couch and bent over Alex. “Got something?”

  The Kid tapped a tablet, bringing up a still shot from the video feed of Bliss and Rachael getting into the black cab limo. He pointed to the driver. “His name is Alonzo Nubbins. He owns a car service that caters to vamps and their dinners. The night of the party, he was driving himself
because a driver called in sick. He wasn’t willing to give me any more info on the phone, so you might want to pay him a visit.” He pointed to one of the unknowns in the car. “I’m pretty sure she’s a chick and that she has long, straight red hair because it matches the shade of Rachael’s hair in this light.”

  I leaned in. Molly’s a redhead. She might have straightened her hair. And then I realized how stupid that was. Molly was not tied in to my case. The timeline was impossible. I was reaching for straws. I was starting to panic about my best friend.

  The Kid said, “The other one looks like a dude, with a nose ring.”

  Once he pointed it out, I could make out the ring. It was an aggressive piece of jewelry.

  “From what Alonzo didn’t say, I’m guessing the chick’s a vamp, and was turned when she was about fifteen. He implied that she was classy, like an old-world vamp, though the words he used were ‘like she was a movie star, like from the ’forties. You dig? Like, a real classy chick.’” I managed a partial smile, but I didn’t think it fooled Alex at his mimicry. “The other one he didn’t say anything about, but I’m guessing it’s the vamp’s blood-servant or primo or something.”

  “How many redheaded vamps have lairs or homes in New Orleans?”

  “A few. I pulled up six. If we could get a name—”

  “Yeah.” I stood. “Anything on Mo— On the family case?”

  “Nothing new. I made it into the hotel security footage, but it’s a lot of work to locate the right floor and right day without access to their dedicated system. I’ll text you the minute I get anything. The plates from the limo that the ‘family case’ got into were hard to trace because your source didn’t give you a state for the rental agency. The car was rented out of Galveston, Texas, seventy-two hours ago.”

  My forehead crinkled in surprise. Texas? Leo didn’t rule Texas. I didn’t know who did, but it was in a database somewhere. The Kid went on. “Within an hour, but not on the same credit card, two buses were rented, all vamp-specific, which could have nothing to do with the limo rental. Or it could be related.” He shrugged. “I can’t rule it out, so I included it in my report.”

  “Yeah. Good,” I murmured, trying to figure out what Texas had to do with anything in New Orleans. “Find out which vamp rules Texas,” I said. “I’ll ask Bruiser to look into who came here and who is on Leo’s territory. Vamps are real careful about traveling into another vamp’s hunting grounds.”

  The Kid snorted at the term, but that was the way vamps thought of land—space filled with humans to hunt and drink.

  “I’m supposed to be at vamp HQ before dusk for chili and a security meeting,” I said. “I’ll go alone. You and Eli keep working. And maybe send Eli to the black cab limo company to talk to Alonzo?”

  Alex laughed softly and looked up at me under his shaggy, curly hair. “Yeah. Big brother could probably get all the info we need.”

  “Tell him no broken bones, no blood, no witnesses—real or electronic.”

  “Hmmph. Eli will charm the dude.”

  “Eli? Charm?” I thought about the way Eli acted around me—no charm at all if you didn’t count innuendo and verbal sparring, most of which had dried up now that children were on the premises. And then I thought about the way he had handled himself at Guilbeau’s, with Scott Scaggins. The former Ranger had skills that were vastly underused. “Okay. Yeah. Eli can charm Alonzo.” I drank my tea and the spicy warmth eased some of my internal chill away.

  Before I finished the mug, Big Evan came in, Eli behind him. Evan was grumpy, glowering at me, but at least he didn’t jump me in my own living room. EJ, unimpressed by his father’s size and attitude, raced to him, squealing. There was no way to be out-tuded by any guy, no matter how big and gruff, when a toddler (holding his sister’s doll) was hanging on his pants demanding to be picked up. I managed to keep my grin off my face, but Evan clearly knew the picture he presented wasn’t overly formidable; he heaved a breath at lost opportunity and lost machismo, and lifted his son to his shoulder. “You got anything?” he asked after EJ kissed him on both cheeks and tugged on his beard.

  I pointed to the couch. “Angie, will you watch your brother for a minute?”

  “Okay,” she said, not looking up from the TV, which was playing a Disney film, one with fish, the title escaping me. Evan set his son down beside Angie while I got him a mug of coffee and a package of cookies that he had brought in the travel supplies. Old-fashioned Fig Newtons, which I hadn’t had since I was a kid. I bit into one as Evan lumbered back to the kitchen and sat down. He slurped his coffee and said, “You’re about to piss me off, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe.” I turned my mug in a circle on the tabletop. It made little scuffing sounds on the old wood. “I left a message for Leo that Molly was in town and missing.”

  “And the fanghead said what?”

  “Nothing so far. It’s been three hours and no reply.”

  “I’ll bust—”

  “Nothing and no one,” I interrupted without looking at him. “I’m heading there shortly. I’ll deal with it. And if you can’t sit things out, then I’ll start telling you nothing. You’ll be out of the loop, and anything you do might endanger Molly. She’s in trouble. She’ll need you whole and hardy and full of power. So stay here. Protect your children.”

  I felt magic swirl into the room, dark and stormy. I didn’t look up. I didn’t want to see what was in Evan’s eyes. He kicked back his chair and it hit the countertop before clattering to the floor. Eli stepped into the room.

  “Dude. Chill,” Eli said.

  A moment later, the spiraling wind eased to nothing. “You really got a pair of big ol’ brass ones, don’tcha, Jane?” Without another word, Evan left the room.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” I murmured to the tabletop.

  CHAPTER 6

  Well-Trained Junkyard Dogs

  The rest of the day was busy but fruitless. Eli got nothing much from Alonzo. The driver of the black cab that had taken Bliss and Rachael from the party had taken the driving gig through his Internet Web page, and it had been paid for with PayPal. Which was just amazing. Vamps using PayPal. Who’da thunk it? The driver gave Eli the PayPal info and e-mail, which went nowhere when the Kid tracked it down, and the address where he took the girls when he picked them up from Guilbeau’s. Which was another vamp party, at the Arceneau Clan Home.

  There was nothing new on any case by the time I got dressed for vamp HQ, and I was feeling pretty itchy at the inactivity, and useless in my own house. I wasn’t going to a party or a fight, so I didn’t dress for either. I was in jeans, ancient black Lucchese boots, a T-shirt under a silk shirt I’d bought in a consignment shop, my gold nugget on its doubled gold chain, with the mountain lion tooth wired on. And I wore only a few weapons. By my usual weapons’ standards I was nearly naked, but, because of the rain, I was being driven to my appointment, and self-protection was never a problem when Eli was around. I could see no weapons on him as he steered the French Quarter streets, wipers on low against the drizzle, but I was betting he was carrying three handguns and as many blades, with extra mags easy to hand, and that the back of the SUV was full of weapons, secured just under the floor.

  The drive was silent beyond me saying, “Thanks for keeping Big Evan from trying to hit me. Or blow me away.”

  To which he answered, “Big dudes bleed, and it’s a pain in the butt to get out of wood floors.” I laughed and Eli gave a slight smile—tantamount to a belly laugh for him.

  After that there was only the patter of rain, the swish of wipers, the splash of vehicles plowing through standing water, and the hum of motors. It was pleasant.

  When we slowed in front of the steps leading up to HQ, Eli said, “You sure you don’t want me to come with?”

  “Nah. Help the Kid keep Evan occupied.”

  “Alex has him looking at surveillance footage from the hotel.”

  I thought about that for a moment and said, “Stuff Alex has already viewed, and
found nothing, so that Evan doesn’t see something first, and go off half-cocked?”

  Eli let his lips stretch to something nearly like a smile. “My brother came up with that all on his own. Devious. I think we’re rubbing off on him.”

  “I think he’s growing up.”

  “Yeah.” There was a note of confusion in his voice. “Call when you need a ride. Call if someone else brings you home. Keep me informed.”

  “Will do.” I opened the SUV door and scampered up the stairs and into the air lock in the foyer. Eli’s SUV motored away, the powerful engine thrumming steadily. I went through the meet-and-greet with the two newest twins. None of them were really related, but whoever put the teams together was going for a look-alike theme. This time the team was male and female, with long blond hair in ponytails, dark eyes, sculpted bodies, and similar heights, about five-ten or so, dressed in black. They looked polite and deadly, as if they’d smile convivially as they shot you dead.

  I deposited my weapons and the leather file on the tables and the woman frisked me, still smiling. I needed to get up-to-date on the names of new security personnel, and make sure that only teams with the most experience got access to the doors. Good gatekeepers were a necessity and I hadn’t taken that into consideration when I redid the security protocol handbook. That was change number two. I hated the paperwork that went into being Leo’s part-time Enforcer. Old blood-servants weren’t always the easiest to retrain, and the ones in security needed to be flexible, hence me in the position, helping out the hundred-plus-year-old Bruiser, Leo’s primo. My weapons were locked away as I watched. “You are aware that in a security situation I’d get to keep my toys.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” they said together.

  “Right this way, Ms. Yellowrock,” the woman said.

  We entered the foyer and I stopped, closing my eyes and breathing in over my tongue. Vamp, blood, sex, vampvampvamp, food, blood, and vamp. No hint of Molly. No hint of magic on the air. And if the vamps Molly had left with were here, I didn’t know the scent sigs well enough to identify them. Just the stink of vamp that made me want to sneeze. I opened my eyes to see the security woman watching with undisguised curiosity. I narrowed my eyes at her and she took a step back fast. I flipped a hand, indicating I was ready to continue, and it was a moment before she turned on a heel and led me to the elevator in the back of the building. We went up a floor and down a hallway, to a room I hadn’t been in recently—the blood-servant lounge. She opened the door for me and the air that whiffed out smelled heavenly, of beef and pork chili with beans, rice, and beer. Yummy. I also smelled humans, human blood, human sweat, and blood-servants, scents that were axiomatic anywhere vamps laired.