by Faith Hunter
I remembered the memory Beast had shared, and I shivered in the heat. It had clearly happened before Beast and I joined. And it showed just how much I didn’t know about her, how little control I might really have over her. It was another thing I didn’t have time for. Not now.
My stomach growled with hunger. I pulled the travel pack off. There was a tear in the leather, a claw tear, long and lethal if it had caught on prey. As in me. I opened the pack. My clothes spilled out: tightly rolled T-shirt, undies, thin cloth pants. Shoes. I dressed in a hurry and raced into the house, still pulling on my shoes as I ran. “Rick?” I shouted, stumbling through the front door, into the mess. It was worse through my eyes than through Beast’s, a lot more bloody. Rick lay in the center of a pool. I knotted my hair out of the way and knelt on the floor beside him, knees half in the blood, unable to avoid it. Rick was in bad shape.
I pressed a pillow against his neck, which was seeping. His eyes opened. He struggled to focus. “Mountain lion,” he murmured. “Sabertooth lion.” He worked to take a breath, his chest moving with obvious pain. “Lions fighting.” I pressed, knowing I couldn’t tie the pillow at his neck without cutting off his air, so I settled for minimal pressure, the cloth for a clotting surface. Not sterile, but infection worries were for later. If he lived. “Biggest . . . damn things,” he said.
“Uh-huh.” I found another pillow and laid it on his chest. The claw marks that scored across him had opened up from his left pectoral, laterally across his upper abdominals, and down to his right hip, deep enough that muscle had been ripped and white rib showed where the flesh had been torn away. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I spotted a drapery tie and yanked it off, wrapping it around his chest. Ludicrous yellow pillow, stained scarlet with blood, and a buff-colored, silky tie, the tassel hanging from his side. Not very good for a field dressing but marginally better than nothing.
My stomach growled again, demanding. “I heard you on the phone. Did you call an ambulance?” When he didn’t answer, I called, louder, “Rick!” and slapped his cheek. Not an approved medical response, but it had the right effect. His eyes fluttered open. His pupils were dilated, his face way too white. Shocky. I eased him down to the floor, and pulled an ottoman over, propping his feet on it.
“Jane?” he mumbled.
I met his eyes. “Yeah. Did you call for an ambulance?”
“Backup. Called for”—he stopped to breathe—“backup.”
I considered his choice of words. Cop words. Without permission, I patted his pockets.
“Not a good time, babe. Not quite up to . . . wild monkey sex.”
I chuckled, pulled his wallet and flipped it open, half expecting to see a badge, but there was only a driver’s license and bank cards. No official NOPD ID. But there was an odd choice for his “in case of emergency” number hand-printed in a little clear plastic wallet window. I was pretty sure it was Jodi Richoux’s cell number. I took the cell from his limp fingers and snapped it open, noting that he had called that number most recently. I tapped REDIAL. The call was answered almost instantly.
“Rick?” Jodi’s voice demanded. I almost answered, but instead I held the phone to Rick’s ear. “Rick?” she asked again.
“Yo, babe. I’m . . . kinda hurt.”
“Help’s on the way.”
“Bleeding . . .” He passed out and I dropped the phone. Jodi shouted for him. I left the phone on the floor, her voice calling his name. My stomach twisted with hunger, begging for food. I was shaky, needing to eat, but no time now. I had covered Rick’s wounds, but the pool of blood was still spreading. I stepped back, looking him over, searching for bleeders I had missed, and spotted it. Blood pumped from his arm to the floor, arterial bright.
Kneeling again, I gripped his torn T-shirt and ripped upward, exposing his right shoulder, revealing the tattoos that had been hidden there. Around his right bicep was a circlet of something that looked like barbed wire, but was twisted vines with claws and talons interspersed throughout. Recurved big-cat claws and raptor talons, some with small drops of blood on them.
I leaned over and tore his left sleeve, exposing the tat there. I rocked back, my fingertips barely touching him. Cold chills raced up my arms. On his left shoulder, from collarbone down his pectoral and around his entire upper arm was a more intricate tat. Much more intricate.
“Lion,” he murmured, unexpectedly awake. He focused on my face, his eyes bleary. “I saw a lion. Half man . . . half cat.”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“I like lions,” he said.
The tattoos that I had noticed before, the black points that looked vaguely clawlike as they peeked from his left sleeve, were panther claws. The tattoo was tlvdatsi, a mountain lion. And behind the staring, predator face peeked a smaller cat face, pointed ears, curious and somehow amused, lips pulled up in a snarl to reveal predator teeth. A bobcat. My first two beasts. On Rick’s shoulder.
CHAPTER 24
You should have come when I asked
Multiple emergency sirens sounded in the distance, each distinctive—several cop cars, at least one ambulance. Jodi had stopped yelling for Rick, though the line was still open and some of the siren sounds came through the cell, proving that Jodi was one of the cops nearing, tearing down Privateer Boulevard. Getting close.
“You’re in danger,” he mumbled. “From the vamps. I have to help you. . . .”
He seemed to know he was talking to me, so I nodded, tying an upholstered arm cover and a second drapery tie-back around his arm, the fibers deep in the wound, slowing the bleeding. I rose, standing over him, my feet to either side, his blood pooled beneath and in my thin-soled shoes, squishing with every shift of weight. Blood had soaked into my pants, wicking up like thin fingers. It was under my nails, in the creases of my hands, splattered up my arms. The bleeding at his chest had almost stopped, though I had a feeling it wasn’t because of my great bandages, but because he was nearly bled out. He looked half dead, yet was still breathing.
The cops were nearly here. I had to decide. Go or stay? If they found me with a bleeding cop, I was in trouble. If I took off and Rick remembered that I was here, I was in trouble. If Jodi had heard me while I applied dressings, I was in trouble. If I had left prints somewhere, I was in trouble. I wiped my fingerprints off of his phone, but people touched things all the time that they didn’t remember. No matter what I did, I wasn’t going to get the big meal I needed anytime soon. My stomach growled hard, cramping. I was light-headed. Blue lights flashed through the trees and bushes that covered the windows, growing closer. Decide! I told myself.
Beast does not run, Beast said to me, miffed that I hadn’t figured that out myself.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Right.” I picked up the phone and spoke into it. “Anyone there?”
“Who is this?” Jodi demanded over the sound of sirens.
“Jane Yellowrock. Who is this? Jodi?”
“What are you doing on this call?”
“Saving a man’s life. What are you doing on it?”
“Stay put,” she said, all business, her tone cop-demanding.
Beast bristled. “Not going anywhere,” I said. Beast huffed with insult. “I see the lights. I’m going to the front door. Tell them not to shoot me.”
Jodi gave a creditable snarl and Beast went silent at the sound.
I stepped to the door and pushed open the screen, standing in the doorway with my hands raised high, open palms visible, if they could see them beneath the blood. The first two cars swept down the short cul-de-sac and swung into the drive. The next car and ambulance bumped into the yard, tires sinking into loamy soil, headlights bouncing up and down, over me. The car doors opened, revealing cops drawing weapons. Beast snarled in warning.
“Do not fire,” Jodi shouted, tumbling from her unmarked. “Repeat, do not fire! Don’t move, Yellowrock. Keep your hands where we can see them.” Like that hadn’t occurred to me.
Jodi and her shadow, Herbert, reached the small porch, He
rbert’s hand on his gun butt, eagerness in his eyes. “He’s inside,” I said. “I did what I could for him but he’s in bad shape.”
Jodi pushed past me. Herbert said, “Looks to me like you mighta put him there.” Jodi cursed, I assumed at the sight of Rick. I stepped aside for two stout EMTs and their stretcher.
“He needs blood,” I said, my arms still overhead. “You guys carry units in this state?”
“No,” the fatter of the two said, setting down his gear. “But we got volume expanders and if he needs faster transport, the choppers all got blood.” He took a look at Rick and at the blood on the floor and swore.
“Call the chopper in,” Jodi said. “Get ’em here fast.”
“Yeah. You ain’t kidding,” he said, pulling his portable radio and making the call.
No one was watching me, so I put my arms down and stepped into the corner. The EMTs were fast, starting IV lines, taking blood pressure. Herbert was walking around, his thumbs in his belt, looking the place over. Jodi was talking to the medics, asking the kinds of questions a cop asked in the field, questions medical professionals had no answers for. Questions that cops asked when one of their own was injured in the line of duty. If I hadn’t already figured out that Rick was an undercover cop, that would have decided it. He was spying on the vamps for NOPD. Did Troll know his relative was a cop?
It occurred to me that I had no car here, no visible means of transportation. I’d have to lie about how I got here when they questioned me. I’d have to tell the cops that I arrived with Rick. Or walked. The first lie would be easily disproved, the second wasn’t likely. I really didn’t want to have to lie to Jodi, especially such a bad lie. When Herbert’s back was turned, I casually slipped out of the house. As soon as the shadows covered me, I broke into a dead run.
I called for a Bluebird Cab on my cell, and was lucky that Rinaldo happened to be off from work. I didn’t expect to be lucky again, and so took extra precautions when I stripped and rinsed my clothes in the bayou. Squatting naked on the bank not far from Fisherman Boulevard Bridge, I was totally exposed in the moonlight, had anyone awake been looking this way instead of toward the flashing lights. I heard several neighbors talking and spotted them, standing on front porches and in the road, not getting closer to the action, but not letting it out of their sights either. I hoped the distraction would keep them from noticing me.
Mosquitoes nipped at me as I worked to get the blood out, and I hoped I was successful before I was drained by insects or attracted every gator within ten miles. When moonlight assured me that my clothes and shoes were mostly blood free, I re-dressed. Dripping, I jogged up Privateer Boulevard in my squishy shoes, keeping to shadows, watching for my cab, watching for anyone who might spot me and then report me to the cops. I was hungry, shaky, sticky with blood and sweat, stinking of bayou, and hot, even with the wet clothing.
I crossed Fisherman Boulevard and was almost back to the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park, my breathing coming harder than I expected, my stomach cramping as if Beast had her claws in me, before I spotted Rinaldo’s cab. I flagged him down and waited, bent over at the waist, huffing and trying to control my hunger before I bit into him for a quick snack. Beast thought that was amusing and sent me images of a big cat attacking from the back of a cab.
“You look like shit, you do,” he said, leaning out the open window, one arm on the door.
I huffed a laugh and tried to stand. My back wanted to spasm, and my legs were trembling. “And you’re a sweet talker, Rinaldo.”
“That what my wife tell me,” he said, sounding increasingly Cajun the better he got to know me. “Lemme guess. You want stop at nearest fast-food joint for half dozen burger and three or two shake.”
“Sounds delicious.” I made it to the car. “I’m wet. Where do you want me to sit?”
“Up front fine. I got towel. What you do, go for a bayou swim? There gator in there, you know.”
I eased into the car and quickly shut the door so the interior lights couldn’t pick out the tinge of bloody red all through my clothes. I rested my head back and sighed, smoothing the edges of the towel to catch the spreading damp. “Home. Food. And not in that order,” I said. Overhead, the moon passed behind clouds, and thunder rumbled in the distance.
Rinaldo made a three-point turn. “Best burgers in state coming up. And boudin balls.”
“I’m not eating anything’s balls,” I said, closing my eyes.
For some reason Rinaldo thought that was funny.
I remembered what they were as soon as I bit into a fried boudin ball—spicy meat and sticky rice, shaped into a ball and fried in lard. They were totally wonderful; I had six, each as big as my fist, and only two double burgers. And two large shakes, one order of fully loaded fries with chili and cheese, and two fried apple pies. I treated Rinaldo to a burger and shake, and let him watch me eat as he drove. He was fascinated.
“Where you keep all that food?”
“I didn’t eat dinner tonight,” I said, shrugging, shoving a handful of fries into my mouth and licking the chili off my fingers. “Fast metabolism.”
“Like a damn race car, you is.”
I chuckled and drained one of the shakes through a straw with a long slurp of satisfaction.
Rinaldo dropped me off down the street from my house and I walked the rest of the way, carrying his towel. I had insisted that I be allowed to wash it for him, taking refuge in manners when I really just wanted to keep him from seeing the thin, washed-out blood soaked into it. He charged me an arm and a leg for the after-midnight fare, cash, and I paid it without demur. I also tipped him well, wanting to keep my safe transportation happy. As it was, if Jodi ever discovered and questioned him, Rinaldo would provide a lot of unusual information to the suspicious cop.
When I got inside, I showered off fully clothed, hung up the wet things, and re-dressed in vamp-hunting garb, human style. I had gotten a good look at the rogue vamp in his nonstinky form and I now knew enough to go hunting. The vamp that didn’t stink had been painted on a mural once, decades ago. I recognized him from the naked vamps partying in the mural at Arceneau clan house—Grégoire, blood-master of Clan Arceneau, lately traveling in Europe.
When I left the house, my shotgun was slung over my back, the Benelli still loaded with the hand-packed silver-fléchette rounds. I carried a selection of silver crosses in my belt, which would be hidden under my leather jacket when I zipped it up, and stakes in loops at my jeans-clad thighs. I hooked the chain-mail collar over the necklace of panther claws and bones, the gold nugget necklace well secured. If I had to change again tonight, I wanted all the help I could get. Studded leather gloves protected my hands, steel-toed boots were laced up my legs. Vamp-killers were strapped in leather sheaths at waist and thighs. My hair was tightly braided in a long plait, close to my head and tucked under a skullcap. No vamp would be able to grab me by the hair during a fight. Into pockets went extras: extra crosses, a vial of baptismal water—not that I knew yet how it worked against vamps, but in a pinch I was willing to try it—a camera for proof of death, and extra ammo.
My cell rang five times while I dressed, all the calls from Jodi. Her voice mails went from nasty to threatening. The last thing I grabbed was the wooden box of Molly’s witchy tricks from the top shelf. It was slightly dusty, free of fingerprints, proof that no one had touched the box through the obfuscation spell on it. I unlatched it and studied the charms: petrified wood disks hand-carved in bas-relief, scenes of the cross with a dead Jesus on them. I dropped them down my shirt collar; they slid down my belly to rest against my skin at my jeans.
This time when the cell rang, it was Molly’s number. “Molly,” I said, heading out the door. “It’s the middle of the night. What’s wrong?”
“You opened the spell box,” she said. I thought about that for a span of heartbeats. Before I could reply, she added, “Be careful.” And hung up.
I chuckled. “I’ll do that.” I kick-started the bike and took off. I wa
s two blocks away, the bike roaring beneath me, when the first marked cruiser turned down the street, lights flashing, but sirens silent. I had gotten away just in time.
Even with the leather jacket unzipped and the gloves off, even at fifty miles an hour, the wind wasn’t cooling. It was wet with unspent rain, heavy with fog, the artificial breeze I created as I rode smelling sour and ripe. I was sweating like a ditchdigger, trickles running into my hairline, under the skullcap, streams damping the silk shirt against my skin, pulling with every movement under the vest. I was so hot I was pretty sure I was melting, and the charms resting against my skin added to the sense of sweltering itchiness. As I sweated and drove, I dialed Jodi.
“Richoux,” she answered. “Where the hell are you, Yellowrock?”
“Out and about. How’s Rick?”
“Dying,” she said, the single word brutal.
I felt a chill settle on me, like the chill of death, cooling the sweat that smeared my skin. I remembered the tattoos. I remembered his worry that I was in danger. “How bad?”
“They flew him to Tulane Medical. He’s in surgery. They’ve given him four units of blood and most of that is on the floor. Where the fuck are you?”
I slowed and wheeled the bike off the road. Came to a stop and killed the engine. Into the phone I said, “I’m sending help. Tell the docs.”
“Tell them what?”
I hit END and speed-dialed another number. Bruiser didn’t answer. Leo, the head of the vamp council of New Orleans, picked up his own phone. “Jane.”
