by Faith Hunter
I said, “I need a favor.”
“And what do you trade for this favor?”
Beast growled. Leo, hearing the sound, chuckled. I thought fast. I had only one thing the blood-master of the city wanted. Crap. “You still want a taste of me?” I asked, hearing a tremor in my voice. Hating it. Knowing that Leo could hear it too.
“I want to drink of you in every way,” Leo Pellissier said, his voice dropping into spellbind timbre.
I swallowed at the images his voice brought to mind, and managed to say, “No way. But . . .” I took a breath, not quite sure what I was promising. “I need a favor. And I’ll trade a blood meal for it if I have to.”
There was total silence for just an instant. Sarcasm lining each word, Leo said, “What a lovely proposal. I can take an unwilling Valkyrie to sip upon, without true blood exchange, without a true joining, in barter for an unnamed favor. No.”
Blood exchange? True joining? What were they? I did not have time for this. “Look, you sorry, bloodsucking bastard,” I ground out. “Rick LaFleur is dying in surgery at Tulane Medical from a rogue attack. He needs vamp blood. What do I have to trade to get it for him?”
“You should have said so. George,” Leo said, his mouth no longer at the phone. “The car. Now!” The line clicked off.
I started to retort before I realized he was gone. I looked at the phone with its blinking CALL DISCONNECTED notice. “So, am I your dinner or not?” I asked it. Beast hacked with laughter. “Not funny,” I said to her. She just laughed harder. Beast has a weird sense of humor.
I took St. Charles Avenue, tooled in to the Garden District, and entered on Third Street. I stopped three blocks in, zipped up, and went the rest of the way on foot. A gentle rain began to fall as I walked, pattering on the trees overhead, wetting the street where the canopy of leaves parted to reveal the cloud-covered sky. A dog barked inside a house, demanding, not alerting, probably needing to go outside to do his business. Thunder sounded, close now. My feet were almost silent on the street. Music and TV sounds were tinny, so muffled no human would have heard them. Air conditioners and electric wires whooshed and sizzled. Beast was on full alert, energy humming in my veins, my senses ratcheted up.
The house where I had visited with the blood-servant twins was palely lit, the light of candles or maybe lamps flickering between closed window draperies. I was certain whom I had seen in the moments the liver-eater’s gaze and mine were locked, while he shifted. The Cherokee I had expected, but Grégoire was a huge surprise.
I had been in Clan Arceneau’s house and I knew that no rotting liver-eater was using the premises as a lair, but someone there would know where he was. I stopped on the walkway, only now realizing that the iron gates were open and no one had come to the door . . . and the drapes were closed. Drapes closed at night seemed backward. Something wasn’t right. Anxiety raced down my spine on little spider feet. Pausing, I stood in deep shadow, taking in the scents, letting my eyes adjust. The wrought-iron fence glinted in the streetlights like wet blood. The pattern of fleur-de-lis was like the pattern on Katie’s grillwork at the freebie house, and oddly like the brand on Katie’s arm. I wondered when some distant master of Clan Arceneau had turned a skinwalker. And how soon after that he had met his demise, to be replaced by the walker. And if anyone in his clan knew that Grégoire had gone rogue. Useless questions.
I lifted my face to the night, drawing the air over my tongue and through my nose, smelling, tasting the pheromones and subtle chemicals that permeated the night. Same as before. Chemical fertilizers, traces of yappy-dog and house-cat urine and stool, weed killer, dried cow manure, exhaust, rubber tires, rain, oil on the streets. And faintly, very faintly, the smell of the liver-eater when he wasn’t all rotten and stinky. Well. How about that.
I dialed Leo. When he answered, I said, “I’m at Clan Arceneau. Turn off the house alarms.”
“What?” he said, his voice haughty and offended, traffic noises in the background.
“Do it. Now. You got one minute.” I closed the phone, turned it off, and tucked it into a pocket, hoping he or Bruiser would do what I needed. Finding my timing technique amusing, I counted, “One Mississippi. Two Mississippi . . .”
Sixty seconds later, I walked up the front walk, unstrapping the Benelli, not that I intended to fire unless I had to. Collateral damage, possibly killing a twin or another human blood-servant, would mean a prison sentence unless I could prove self-defense. My contract only covered me for accidentally or purposefully killing vamps helping the rogue. I checked the vamp-killers in their sheaths, settling the stakes as I walked. I pulled a cross, one of inlaid silver and wood. On the wide front porch, I rang the bell. Nothing like a frontal approach.
I heard footsteps inside, close together, unsteady, like an aged, human servant. Where the heck were the twins? I remembered the sight of the skull in the underground lair. The liver-eater had eaten at least one blood-servant. Why not others? I felt sick. I liked the twins.
When the footsteps inside paused, I reared back and kicked the door, just over the dead bolt. The bolt held, but the dry wood around it gave, a harsh, splintered sound. The servant screeched. An alarm went off. And was silenced. Cold air rushed out at me like a blessing, cooling my face. But the servant was still screaming.
I turned to the cringing, wailing human. She looked like she was two hundred years old, her face drawn and wrinkled, skin hanging like swags of old cloth from her jaw. “I’m not here for you,” I said. Her screams didn’t abate. She raised a hand. It held a derringer.
I knocked the little gun away with a swift slap of the cross, metal to metal clicking hard. Before it hit the floor, I grabbed her shoulder and shook her, holding the cross in front of her eyes, dragging her to the mural. This was not going like I expected. I ground out, “Shut. Up.”
She did, her eyes on the cross. I pointed at a man in the mural. “Who?” When she looked puzzled, I said again, pointing to the blond man who looked like he was fifteen when he was turned. Wanting to make sure, to confirm my identification. “Who is he?”
“Grégoire. Blood-master to Clan Arceneau.” Her voice wavered.
“Where’s his lair?” I growled, Beast bleeding into my eyes.
“No.” Her shoulders went back; her chin rose. “Never.” It occurred to me that she saw a lot worse than a mountain lion in the eyes of her bosses.
Before I could respond, I heard from the stairs, “Correen?” The voice was grating, sexless. Beast flared through me, into my limbs. I raced down the hall and up the stairs toward the sound, touching the charms to make sure they were still in place. I reached the second story.
“Correen?” The voice sounded weak. Scared. Dominique, the blonde who had commanded me to call on her, tottered from a bedroom, a white nightgown fluttering around her feet. Metal bracelets clinked as she moved. The cross in my hand flared with vicious light. Dominique cringed, hissed, her fangs falling forward. I ran toward her. She wrenched back, her feet landing wrong. Falling, she hit the floor, her wrist catching her weight with a loud snap. Her face twisted into a grimace and she turned her eyes from the cross, holding up a protective hand. “No,” she said. “Put it away. Please.”
“Not yet. Where is he? Where is the rogue?”
She cradled her broken wrist, the hand sticking out at an odd angle. “No. I can’t.”
“You don’t have much choice,” I said, breathing in. “I can smell him. He’s been here. The vamp council gave me authority to kill you without reprisal for harboring him.” Beast rose higher, snarling.
“Harboring him?” She laughed, a wretched gurgling sound, hysterical and despondent all at once. Full of . . . despair? Vamps can feel despair? Dominique turned her face up to me. She was crying bloody, watery tears, trailing down a face so pale that her skin looked transparent. “I haven’t been harboring him. None of us have. We’re his prisoners,” she spat. “You should have come when I asked.”
She held up a foot, displaying a shackle around he
r ankle. The flesh beneath it was red and swollen, blistered with pustules, torn skin seeping watery blood that made little ssssing sounds as it cauterized against the silver metal. The clinking I had thought was bracelets was a silver anklet, binding Dominique.
I knelt and examined her. She was pale and bloodless. Her skin was faintly yellow, like brittle parchment, and her eyes were hollowed with purple smudges. Her neck showed repeated vamp bites, the skin torn and ridged with scar tissue. She had been bled, often and without recourse to enough blood to restore her. Worse . . . I hadn’t known vamps could break bones. “The silver,” I guessed. “It’s poisoning you.”
“Yes. Me. Three others of my clan held prisoner here.”
I pivoted on one knee and looked back into the hallway. At each doorway stood a vamp wearing nightclothes, looking haggard. I inserted the silver cross inside my leather jacket. Dominique sighed with relief and dropped her head to the floral carpet. “Your human servants aren’t feeding you?” I asked. “Where are the twins? Why don’t they just let you go?”
“Our young blood-servants were bled and taken away. I don’t know if any survive. The ones remaining are old, their parents, or even great-grandparents, unable to fight, unable to help us for fear that their loved ones yet live and will be killed. And we cannot feed while exposed to silver. The poison taints the feeding.” She tilted her head to see the man across the hall from her. “He’s taking so much. There isn’t . . .” She turned back to me, her head moving slowly on the stalk of her neck. An emptiness spread across her features, and I recognized a despondency so heavy it looked like death. A deep, daunting desolation. “There isn’t enough blood in the world for him. Not even Mithran blood. And if he takes more from us, we fear we will rise rogue, that the old tales will be borne out in our flesh.” Her eyes closed and she whispered, “Already each of us takes far too long to find our own sanity at sunset.”
I reached for her shackle. “I can take care of—” Her eyes shot from my face to my neck; my skin went sweat slick. The magic charms instantly grew hot against my stomach, burning in the presence of the danger presented by a hungry vamp. I fought the urge to move away in fear. “If I free you, can you control yourself enough not to drain me dry?”
The man across the hall chuckled. “If you set her free, she will rip out your throat in joy. We all would.” He sniffed the air, raising his head, licking his lips. “I remember your scent from the Pellissier party. Not quite human. Tasty.”
“So much for being kind,” I said. I stood and stepped away from Dominique. “You’ll just have to wait until I kill your blood-master.”
“No!” Dominique said. “Why would you kill Grégoire?”
The vamp across the hall laughed, derision in the tone. “You are a fool, you little ‘not-quite-human.’ Grégoire is not rogue. No! He is prisoner, and has been for these two months and more. He is shackled, as we, with silver. He still lives, though he grows weak. I feel his heartbeat, slow and weak.”
“You should have come when I asked,” Dominique said. “You should have come.”
Understanding slid into place with an almost audible click. The rogue was bleeding Grégoire, which was why Dominique had commanded me to visit, back at Leo’s party. And if she hadn’t felt safe telling me at the party, then the rogue had been there, close by, listening. Could I be any more stupid? I pulled the cross from my shirt. “Where is the rogue keeping your blood-master? And why is he keeping you shackled—other than a blood meal? And most important, who is the rogue?”
The man across the hall laughed. Dominique wept. The vamps in the other two doorways rattled their chains. And Correen moved up the stairs, a butcher knife in her hand.
“Though it surely means the death of my human family, I called Clan Pellissier,” she said to Dominique, as tears rained down her wrinkled face. “The blood-servant of the blood-master of New Orleans is on the way.” Outside, lights drew up in front of the house. An engine died. Doors closed. They must have been close by. I saw my payment for bringing in the rogue’s head flitting away. Correen screamed and raced toward me.
I threw Dominique to the floor of her room, stepped in after her, and slammed the door. Out in the hall, Correen banged the blade into the door, screaming, “Dominique! Dominique!”
I dropped to one knee, so close I was bathed in the sick breath of the vamp. I shoved the cross at her face, blazing a cold, bright light. “Where is the rogue keeping your blood-master? Why is he keeping you shackled? And most important, who is the rogue?”
When she answered, all the breath went out of my body.
By the time the footsteps made the top of the stairs, I was standing in an open window overlooking the back garden. Gathering Beast to me like a cloak, I jumped, hit ground, rolled into a crouch, and took off across the lawn. In a single leap, I took the six-foot-tall back fence and raced to my bike, still hidden in the shadows, three blocks away.
CHAPTER 25
Witchy power
I gunned the engine, crouching over the handlebars. Beast crouched with me, face to the wind, my/our mouth open for scents. I was heading out of town, along the Mississippi River. And I was about to do great damage to the entire vamp council in general, and to Clan Pellissier in particular. When I was done, I figured someone would kill me.
Lightning cracked overhead, throwing the world into jagged edges of light. Rain sliced down, beating me as I rode through the storm. I was soaking wet by the time I found the old house and turned down the drive between the rows of oaks, in the wake of two cars, moving slowly through the rain. I passed both, the people inside obscured by the night. Security guards? Not like it mattered. They’d never have time to react.
Lightning shattered overhead. I smelled the rogue’s human scent, fresh on the wind. I gunned the engine and bent over the bike. I took the stairs to the porch with a grinding of wheels on wood and hit the front door, still moving fast. The door wrenched open and kicked back against the wall, the impact slamming through my bones. I rode the bike into the foyer, spun out on the slick family crest, and killed the engine. Glass tinkled as something broke.
An alarm wound up, the single tone starting low and climbing, getting ready to wail. I was moving so fast that the engine was still whirring with power and the alarm was only a hope of urgency. I kicked the stand into place while tossing the helmet, checked the M4 for firing readiness. Pulled the strap over my head so I wouldn’t drop it. Rested the weapon on my chest. I wasn’t going to use the gun unless I had to. I could smell humans in the house. I saw one at the kitchen, her mouth wide.
With one hand, I reached under my jacket and pulled my T-shirt free of the jeans. One of Molly’s little charms landed in my damp glove, the tingling of its harnessed power hot even through the gloves. I had worn them close to my body, reactivating the protection portion of the spell they carried. Now, like the Benelli, they were locked and loaded. The bike fell silent. I retucked the shirt and rotated my head on my neck to loosen muscles tight from the ride.
I raced up the curving staircase on the right, my booted feet almost silent on the deep carpet, my motion throwing rainwater in spirals. The vamp scent of the rogue was strong. The alarm wailed.
Immanuel, Leo’s son, raced into a hallway at the top of the steps, swathed in silvery light, already shifting. I had a single instant to see dress pants, bare feet, shirt hanging open, revealing his bare chest. I reached the landing. Pulled a stake. The alarm reached its pinnacle, wailing.
A paw swiped out, claws raking the air—so fast. I dodged, ducked. Chose my spot on his chest. Slid up under his guard. Stabbed him with the stake. Hard, up under his ribs.
He staggered back. I pulled the cross and advanced. There was only a pale glow. Immanuel fell against a tall stand. A statue tottered, started to fall. A marble statue. On a stone stand. He roared. Stone cracked. The statue exploded before it hit the floor. Marble dust and rock shards shot over me, shrapnel, cutting deep. Immanuel was drawing mass. I’d hit his heart. He should be dead
, if he was a skinwalker turned by a vampire. . . .
Not a vampire, Beast said. Skinwalker. Liver-eater. Took Immanuel’s place.
In an instant I understood what I should have comprehended earlier. Way earlier. The usual methods of vamp killing wouldn’t work because this thing wasn’t a vamp and never had been. A vamp hadn’t turned a skinwalker and brought it in to a blood-family. If Immanuel had done that, Leo would have recognized my blood scent. Instead, a skinwalker had eaten the liver of a vamp and taken his place, subsuming his native scent; he had eaten Immanuel, Leo’s son, and taken his place. The reek of rot filled the hallway.
Statue dust rained down. The marble pedestal exploded. The rogue/skinwalker was drawing more mass. I back-tracked through a storm of stone projectiles. Immanuel lashed out. One massive paw. Claws fully extended. They ripped through my leather jacket. Sliced flesh beneath deeply. I sucked in a scream.
“Stop!” The word echoed with power. Witchy power. The walls rippled at the purpose and intent of the single syllable. Power bombarded me, hot prickles of pain, stealing my breath. Off balance, I fell to the floor and bounced, muscles frozen, stopped.
Immanuel, on one knee, at the apex of his swipe, stopped. I realized it hadn’t been Immanuel’s command. The alarm died. Lights flickered. A human I hadn’t seen stood at the end of the hallway, immobile, panicked. Footsteps trod up the stairs, soft in the carpet. I remembered the cars I passed, people inside. Crap. The cavalry had nearly been here when I arrived—witches. “Stop,” the voice said again, softer, closer, strengthening the spell. Beast raged in me. I held her down, resisted her need to move. To fight.
My hands sizzled with heat and electric agony. I’d been hit with a spell before, and I understood that to resist was to make it stronger. I ceased fighting against the compulsion and released my grips. My hands fell open. My body relaxed. The Benelli thumped softly to the carpet; the charm lay exposed in my palm.
“Stop! ” Power flowed from the word like silvered light.
