Skinwalker jy-1

by Faith Hunter

  “And?” I asked.

  The twins exchanged a look, the kind that only those who have worked closely together for years, like old married couples, or twins, share, the kind that says so much more than words. Brandon said, “We were born in 1822.”

  I stared. “Crap. You’re old farts.” The brothers laughed, at which point I realized I had spoken aloud. I smiled weakly as they showed me down the hall toward the door, while offering assurances that they would pave the way for me with the other security personnel.

  I thought I was done, until I passed the hallway mural. I stopped midstep, midword, midthought. The nighttime pastoral scene was of vamps having a candlelit picnic. Naked vamps. And the food was naked too—alive and human. I couldn’t help my blush when I saw Brandon and Brian were part of the scene, and that they were depicted as being very well endowed. Very, very well endowed. My blush made the brothers laugh, one of those manly he-men laughs that said they were, indeed, well endowed, and that they thought blushing was cute.

  Beast is not cute, she thought at me. I took a steadying breath and said, “I recognize you two, and Leo, and Katie.” My blush deepened. “But who are the rest of the . . . um . . . vamps and . . . um . . .”

  Brandon took pity on my stumbling and stepped to the mural, pointing. “Arceneau, our blood-master, Grégoire”—he indicated a blond man who looked like he was fifteen when he was turned, like a child beside the lithe and muscular twins—“currently traveling in Europe. Ming of Mearkanis”—he pointed—“now believed to be true-dead, and her blood-servants Benjamin and Riccard. Rousseau and his favorites, Elena and Isabel. Desmarais with his Joseph, Alene, and Louis. Laurent with her Elisabeth and Freeman.” The phraseology had taken an old-fashioned cant, and I wondered if the mural took them down memory lane, bringing out archaic wording.

  Brian took up the instruction. “St. Martin, and his blood-servant at the time, Renée. And Bouvier with his favorite, Ka Nvsita.” I reacted with shock. The girl in the painting had long, braided black hair, coppery skin, and lost, lonely eyes that seemed to have a familiar amber tint, much like my own. Her name was Cherokee for dogwood.

  Anger rose in me, hot as burning heartwood. “Is she still alive?” I asked, swallowing my anger, to burn in my stomach with sour, acidic fire. I forced my hands to unclench.

  “No,” Brandon said. “She died in the twenties. She was a good kid. Her father sold her to Adan Bouvier when she was eleven, back in, what was it?” he asked his brother.

  “Maybe 1803 or ’04? She was mature when we came to servitude,” Brian said.

  Her father sold her. Like chattel. The vampires hadn’t made my tribeswoman a slave; her own father had. I remembered then that selling their own, like cattle, was once the way of The People. I nodded and moved on down the hall and out of the house into the fresh air before I tried to kill a twin. “Thank you for the tea and the information,” I said when I had myself under control, standing on the porch. “I may call with questions.”

  “And we may answer,” Brian said.

  “Or we may not,” Brandon said.

  I forced a smile on my face, slid into my jacket, strapped on the helmet, kick-started the bike, and got away.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon meeting and greeting the blood-servants who worked security in other clan blood-family houses in the Garden District. After sunset, I motored back home, taking my time through the District and the Quarter. Sunday in the city that parties forever was laid-back. Tourists and citizens went to church, mass, or brunch and then visited museums, strolled along the river, shopped, or had dinner at a quiet restaurant. The Quarter’s bookstores, cafés, and small shops did big business. Then came nap time, nearly officially sanctioned nap time in the European style.

  At night, the public went back out and started it all over again, the wealthy sitting in elegant restaurants and the penny-pinching back in the cafés. Music played on every street corner. Magic acts and comedy acts spilled into the street along with jazz and blues and every other form of American, African, Island, and European music. Despite the rogue, despite the media vans patrolling the Quarter, and despite having to travel by taxi rather than risk the dangers of walking the balmy streets, people were having fun.

  I would join them in a skinny minute, but I had a command appearance at a party full of vamps. I was not looking forward to it at all.

  CHAPTER 13

  You may call upon me

  I checked myself out in the closet mirror, halfway disgusted at the prospect of spending time at a vamp party when I could be tracking down the rogue, and halfway scared to death—and not only at the thought of being surrounded by vamps. My one little black dress was V-necked, thigh-length microfiber that could be scrunched into a travel pack and never show wrinkles. The dress had a built-in bra, was skintight across my chest, plunged enough to make a man look twice, and had narrow straps, and the skirt moved well for dancing. The skirt fabric was cut into various-sized squares that hung point down from the asymmetrical waist and fluttered around my legs. In three-inch heels, my legs looked like they went on forever. I did a little dance step and the squares flipped up higher here and there, showing more skin.

  I adjusted the length of the chain until the gold nugget hung a half inch above the neckline, between my breasts. Put on earrings, the old-fashioned kind that held on with screws or little hinged bobs. I had my ears pierced when I was a teen and wore earrings like all the other girls. But the first time I shifted, after I was free and out on my own, my lobes came back healed. I tucked the panther tooth the twins had discovered into the specially made pouch in my undies—the one that usually held a collapsed stake.

  I don’t own or travel with much makeup. I brushed on a bit of blusher, lined my eyes in black, and added a swish of mascara. Buffed my nails, all twenty of them. Put on three shades of red lipstick before I settled on one. I’d never be beautiful. But I was . . . interesting.

  I wondered if any of the vamps would know what I was by my scent. And if I should wear a vamp-killer strapped to my thigh. Just in case. Reluctantly, I decided against a weapon, though I hid a small silver cross in a minuscule bag that also held keys, ID, one credit card, a twenty-dollar bill, and the lipstick. It went on a narrow strap over my head and a shoulder.

  I almost left my hair down—it was a nearly four-foot-long veil that hung below the hem of the dress—but at the last minute, as headlights lit my front door, car engine idling, I braided it halfway and clipped a clasp in. I opened the door before he knocked.

  Bruiser stood there, dressed in a classic tuxedo, a simple crimson cummerbund, his hair slicked back to reveal a widow’s peak and sexy little mole next to his hairline. “Wow,” I said before I could stop myself.

  He chuckled, pleased, and looked me over, not hiding his perusal of my legs. “Wow yourself. You clean up nice for a vampire-hunting motorcycle mama.”

  “Thanks,” I said, shutting and locking the door behind me. A chauffeur stood beside the open door of a black, slightly stretched Lincoln limo. It could hold six passengers on two bench seats, but there were only the two of us. A privacy partition was up between the driver and the back. Bruiser indicated I should slide in first, and he waited, watching my legs—Bruiser was a leg man, for sure. He slid in beside me and the door closed. The car pulled from the curb and into the night. The suspension was so good the car felt like it floated, and the leather seats were so soft they could have been glove leather, cradling me like a baby. A girl could get used to this.

  “I’m guessing you aren’t wearing weapons,” Bruiser said dryly, still looking me over. “I was supposed to search you, but I see no place for stakes, knives, or guns.”

  I couldn’t help it; I had to toy with him. It was something I had picked up from Beast—a desire to play with my prey. I slanted him a look from the corner of my eye and said, “I own vamp-killer sheaths I can strap to my inner thighs.”

  “Yeah?” he said, his eyes on my legs and the little skirt. Bruiser was looking at
me the way a woman liked a man to look at her. Appreciation without condescension or objectifying. It was nice. It had been a long time for me, and never by a man who looked so good in a tux, slender, lithe, and elegant. A mental image popped up, of Rick LaFleur in a tux, and nearly made me salivate. I pushed the vision away. “Are you wearing them now?” he asked.

  I just smiled, figuring when we arrived I’d either have to lift my skirt or be frisked. And I wondered how I’d react to either.

  Bruiser settled back and offered me champagne. I refused. With my metabolism, alcohol filtered out of my system quickly, but I was also unused to it and didn’t want to show up at the party sloshed. As we rode, Bruiser pointed out hotels and businesses that catered to vamps, and private homes of the rich and fangy. I nodded a lot and said little, keeping pace with landmarks and street signs as we headed out of the French Quarter, in case I needed to get back alone.

  Bruiser asked what drew me to my line of work. I mumbled something about the security business leading to other things. He asked about my dress. I answered with where I bought it—Ross Dress for Less. He chuckled so I didn’t volunteer what it cost, which was twenty bucks on sale. I wanted to squirm. It was the kind of small talk I hated. Eventually I fired the same questions back to him, except the one about the dress, of course. “Where is this party?” I asked during an extended conversational lull.

  “The Pellissier clan home. Its purpose is to welcome Leo’s two newest blood-family members into public life. It should be interesting for you.”

  “New vamps?” My curiosity went up a couple of notches, and so did my interest. “New as in, ‘This is the first time they’ve been unchained from the basement’ ?”

  Bruiser raised a brow, amused at my deliberate gaucherie, and I suddenly felt better about the conversational footing. “You would do well not to refer to them as ‘vamps,’ and Leo is not the kind of sire who keeps his scions chained. But yes, this is the first time they will move among humans in a social situation. You’ve had a chance to study the folder Katie gave you, with photos of the clan blood-masters?”

  I nodded, and he produced a similar slim folder from the side pocket of the car and opened it to reveal three photographs. “The woman is Amitee Marchand,” he said of an exquisite woman, black haired and dark eyed, with skin like alabaster and a swan neck that looked like it belonged on a ballerina. “Her brother, Fernand.” He pointed at the photo of a dark-haired man. I could see the family resemblance, though the woman looked elegant and her brother just looked jaded. “Miss Marchand is the intended bride of Leo’s son, Immanuel,” he said, pointing at a digital photograph of a vamp.

  The information and the vamp’s Christian name were arresting. I pushed myself into an angle on the seat so I could see the photos better. Leo’s son, whatever that meant, had short, ash blond hair and chiseled bone structure. His smile was infectious, even from a photo. “Not trying to be catty,” I said, “but son like his blood-son, and bride like Bride of Frankenstein?”

  Bruiser chuckled. “Immanuel is Leo’s biological son, turned when he reached his majority some years ago.”

  Which could have been years meaning decades or centuries. The young-looking man had little of Leo about him, except for the shape of his jaw and nose, and I never would have caught the resemblance. “I didn’t know vamps could breed at all,” I said, intrigued. “I figured sperm and eggs died when vamps were brought over.”

  Bruiser had an agenda and didn’t reply to my nosy statement. “Immanuel met the bride in Europe and the marriage was arranged. And please don’t use phrases like “Bride of Frankenstein” at the party. I’d rather not have to duel over your insult.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was serious or not, and I had a metal image of Bruiser with a fencing foil or pistols at twenty paces. “I’m just yanking your chain,” I said. “Arranged marriage?”

  “Things are done differently in vampire families as old and influential as the Pellissiers. The Marchand family has served as blood-servants to Clan Rochefort, in the south of France, for two centuries. The joining of the two families creates business opportunities for Clan Pellissier and strengthens the blood and commercial connections that they currently share.”

  “So, if the girl is part of Clan Rochefort, why didn’t they bring her over?” I asked, trying to gain as much information as I could while I had a willing source. And trying to ignore the fact that I was as fascinated as any vamp-fangirl.

  “Leo wanted to bring both of the young people over himself, so that Immanuel and Amitee could share in a mind bond later, if they so wished. We’re nearly here.” He lowered the privacy partition and gave the driver instructions.

  I’d have to ask about the mind-bond thing. Along with vamp reproduction. Ick.

  Leo’s house stood on a bend of the Mississippi River, the water purling softly in the night. It was at the end of a well-paved but little-used road, no houses within sight. The house was built on high ground, the hillock rounded and smooth and clearly artificial, some twenty feet above sea level, higher than anything around it. Curling-limbed live oaks arched over the long drive, standing like sentinels on guard in the night.

  The white-painted, two-story brick house was a mixed architectural style all its own, with dormers in the tall slate roof, and gables at each corner with turret rooms, or whatever they were called, on the third floor. Light poured through the windows, black shutters at each, two shutters hanging open at an angle, proving they were working devices, not just for show. Stained-glass windows were here and there, shades of crimson and scarlet and cerise pouring into the dark.

  Porches wrapped around both stories, interrupted by the turret things. Lights hidden in the foliage threw a soft white glow on the outside walls while others lit the drive and walks. It was a house originally built in the nineteenth century, one that screamed it had been constructed by slave labor. Slave labor probably kept it looking nice even now, all painted and pristine, but by willing blood-slaves, not by humans bought and transported wearing chains.

  Limos moved toward us and turned in behind us, headlights glimmering on the drive. An old man stood at the bottom of a staircase to gesture at the house, as if the guests couldn’t figure out where to go once they arrived. When we pulled to a stop, he opened the car door and said, “Good evening, ma’am, George. Mr. Pellissier is waiting for you and the young lady to arrive.”

  There were probably a dozen steps to the front door. I flashed a lot of leg going up and could tell that Bruiser was enjoying every moment. At the top of the stairs, a woman in sensible shoes and tux skirt with apron offered us champagne, and this time I took a glass to have something to do with my hands. Which were clammy with apprehension.

  I had never been to a party as froufrou as this, and I already hated it—designer party clothes, party social manners, and party people milling around chatting. Give me a beer keg, a radio blasting country music, and a bunch of security experts discussing guns, edged weapons, and Har leys and I was fine. This was agony.

  At the door I said to Bruiser, “You forgot to search me.”

  “I’m saving that for later,” he said with a half grin. “Much later.”

  Oh boy. I gulped the champagne. Bruiser chuckled and watched me look the place over.

  Inside, the foyer was as big as the living room in the freebie house, floored in white marble, with a mosaic heraldic emblem in front of the door in black, white, gray, and maroon marble, depicting a griffin with drops of blood spraying from his claws, a battle-axe, shield, and banner. A real stone fountain splashed near the crest, beside tables loaded with fruit, cheese, and hot and cold meats: a whole salmon; a roasted piglet with an apple in its mouth; various fried meats; boudin in heaps instead of fried into balls, piled in a heated serving tray; sauces, crackers, and the overwhelming scents of spices and food and vamps. Lots of vamps.

  Beast rose, seeing through my eyes, making me breathe deeper, faster, taking in the scents, the world a textured smorgasbord of fragrances, smells ta
ngled as a tapestry, bright as a painting. I counted ten vamps standing in one group. Dozens in smaller groups. Crap. There had to be fifty of them, all well fed and moving human slow. All wearing designer gowns and tuxedos, any one of which cost more than everything I owned. Beast went all twitchy. So did I.

  Bruiser stood to my side, watching me watch them. I knew I was giving away all sorts of things about me. And I couldn’t stop. I had never been in a room with so many vamps—sane or not—or so much money. I focused on the house and the scents I could parse. Vamp scent of old parchment, dried herbs, subtle perfumes, traces of fresh blood from recent feedings. And an underlying reek of entitlement. I didn’t smell the rogue. And no one instantly turned to me, pointed, and shouted, “Skinwalker!” I felt a faint disappointment even as relief washed over me.

  There were two sets of stairs, one on each side of the huge foyer, curving up and around to a small space at the top, like a stage, with another hallway extending back. Rooms opened up to either side. On the ground floor, the foyer stepped down to a formal reception room beneath the upper floor, with furniture done in shades of charcoal, gray, and soft whites. It wasn’t bland, however; touches of color were everywhere from the paintings lining the walls to the pillows on the couches. Rugs in every shade were scattered all over the marble floors, their placement looking haphazard, but they had to be carefully positioned, didn’t they? Or did vamps not fall?

  I had a mental image of Leo’s feet flying up in front of him as he landed in a thumping tumble, fanging his lip. Beast’s soft laugh escaped me, breathless. Bruiser raised his brows in puzzlement. I didn’t enlighten him. We moved on inside. Maybe ten feet from the front door.

  As we passed a group of vamps in formal wear, one black-clad blond woman turned and sniffed the air in my wake. Faster than I could follow, all the others followed suit. Eyes began bleeding black. Fangs snapped down. I stopped. Whipped around to confront them, my back to the wall. Beast rose in my eyes. For a single moment we faced each other. Me wearing heels. No weapons. Crap. My heart rate sped up. Beast poured speed into me, her pelt rising and rippling beneath my skin, her claws flexing in my fingertips. The vamps each took a single measured tread toward me. Spreading out. Ringing me. Crap, crap, crap!