Raven Cursed jy-4

by Faith Hunter

  “No, but they need to get a room or turn around so I can get a better view,” Derek said.

  Before the witch noticed us, I pulled my men into a shadowed corner table. I’d had my share of booths with their restricted sight design and problematic body realignment options. We sat, my jeans stuffed into Lucchese boots with ash wood stakes exposed at the tops, each of us loaded with enough concealed guns, knives, and silver to bring true-death to every fanghead and human in the joint. I spotted Chen, standing at the end of the bar, his face like a slab of granite and eyes black as midnight. He inclined his head slowly, and moved toward the back, disappearing into the shadows. I figured that was tacit permission to do whatever I needed to his boss.

  When a perky waitress came we gave cola orders so we could keep sitting at the table. “Drink nothing, eat nothing,” I said, thinking of knockout drinks to disable us, or poison to finish us off.

  “Copy that,” Derek said.

  I studied the scene. The vamps were all sitting, lounging actually, on long booth seats, one or two to a booth, their human blood-meals gathered at their sides. Blood-drunk slaves were smiling vacuously while being dinner or were working as security, cooks, waitstaff, bartenders, and busboys. Once they looked us over, they returned their attention to the dancers, a security lapse no blood-servant would ever make. One-handed, I checked the placement of my hair stick weapons: six wood stakes and a slender-bladed, sheathed knife. With my other hand, I pulled my cell and dialed New Orleans, ignoring the way my heart tripped when it rang.

  The connection opened, and I heard R&B/island music in the background, the signature sound of the new house band at the Royal Mojos Blues Club, a bar and dance joint owned by the vamp master of New Orleans. “Good evening, Jane. How are you?”

  I pulled in a slow, calming breath. “Hiya, Bruiser. I’m good. You?”

  “Do you need me?”

  I thought about that for a moment and decided to go with pretending there weren’t a dozen innuendoes in that one question. “I need you to run an errand for me.” I ignored his “Pity” and went on. “I need you to go to my bedroom and into the closet. I need you to pick or smash open the weapons cabinet in it, and look for a black velvet bag. If it’s there, I need you to open it and pour the contents out on a table. Don’t touch it. And call me. Will you do that?”

  “Why?”

  “I need to know if Evangelina stole something from me.”

  “I can think of far better things to do in your bedroom than play smash and grab, but yes. I’m only a few blocks from there. I’ll call you shortly.” The call ended.

  Lincoln had his hand under Evangelina’s shirt. Public displays of affection were not Shaddock’s style; I didn’t like what that said about his state of mind. As for Evil Evie, she was once the most stuck-up, inhibited, repressed woman on the planet. Now? Not so much. I set the phone on the table, wondering how much power Evangelina was siphoning off her sisters and if that was more dangerous than interrupting the spell. I studied Shaddock and his dance partner, thinking about what I’d just set in motion due to the red mote I’d seen.

  When Bruiser got to my freebie house in New Orleans he would know I hadn’t planned to return. My belongings were in cardboard boxes on the floor of the closet, packed for shipping. They had Molly’s address on them. They had postage attached. I didn’t know what Bruiser might say or do, but I figured it wouldn’t be pretty.

  While we waited, I saw movement among the vamps as two powerful walking dead stepped into the restaurant. They weren’t powerful as in physically imposing, but they were formidable. Commanding. Dominant. Compelling. Dangerous. And, crap. They had decided to pay us a visit. They surged toward us across the floor with the boneless, nearly gravity-defying grace of the hunting vamp. “Heads up,” I said. “Dacy Mooney and Constantine Pickersgill at the door. They want something.” But then Lincoln’s heir and spare would do nothing unless they wanted something. “They’ll smell the gun oil and ammo.”

  As they neared, I felt the crosses under my shirt start to glow. The vamps draped themselves into chairs at our table, Dacy wearing a beaded buckskin fringed jacket and dark brown jeans with boots. She had feathers woven into her blond hair. On her, the look worked. Seeing the glow on my chest, Dacy laughed low, as if crosses didn’t scare her. Her fangs snapped down with a small click, one and a half inch bone-white killing teeth. Beast huffed in delight, which always surprised me. She liked sane vamps too much sometimes.

  Pickersgill said, “Are you boys here to try your hand against Linc?” There was insult in the word boys, as thick as if he’d used the N-word. But it was threat in the tone that my guys reacted to, pulling weapons, the light gleaming on silvered blades, the smell of challenge rising.

  “Hold,” I said. I stared at Mooney’s eyes, blue as her daughter’s, not vamped out, but in control. “I’m here to send the witch packing and Lincoln to Grégoire on his knees, quaking in shame and fear.”

  Dacy smiled. “You’un Leo’s enforcer?” Her accent was pure Tennessee, probably poured on thick to keep from sounding like the threat she undoubtedly was, but the heavy accent sounded weird coming out of a vamp’s mouth. I didn’t reply. I had seen the term in a codicil of the Vampira Carta, and read over the language an enforcer used to establish control over vamps, but I hadn’t really studied it. I didn’t fully know what enforcer meant in vamp terms, and I didn’t want to get stuck with any nasty duties I hadn’t already signed up for, not unless agreeing kept my people safe. So I shrugged, which was universal for, Call it what you want.

  “No need for violence, y’all,” she said. “If I’da wanted you’uns dead, you’da been hamburger sixty seconds ago. As it happens, however, my little girl says I can trust you, Jane Yellowrock, even if you do hunt my kind. And if you’re speaking the truth, then I’ll be happy to stand aside and let you”—she tapped her cheek as if thinking of the right phrase—“interfere with my master’s plans for the evening. He’s actin’ foolish, which ain’t like him a’tall, and is unworthy of us’ns.” She stood. Over her shoulder she said, “Try not to hurt him too much,” and winked. I laughed, letting Beast show in my eyes.

  Pickersgill followed her to their table. It was easy to see who was heir and who was spare: Dacy was firmly in charge, with political savvy, brains, and power. Pickersgill was smart, but in the power department, he was her shadow. As they settled, the outer door opened, and Adelaide entered. She was dressed in slim casual clothes and a pair of Italian leather boots that likely cost more than my entire wardrobe. She cast a fast, evaluating look around the restaurant, met my eyes and let her lips curl up on one side. Then she walked to her mom’s table and slid in.

  Derek was watching me. In the past, I would have pulled Beast back down and tried to pretend that nothing had happened when Dacy and I had our little dialogue, but lately I didn’t bother. I was getting tired of the angry, wary condemnation in his eyes each time I proved I wasn’t purely human. Or maybe the irritation was Beast, flexing her claws. Cats didn’t care who liked them, as long as everyone else knew their place—at the cat’s feet, under the cat’s claws. Derek sat forward, his body tensing. Before I could act on that subtle dare, my phone rang, Bruiser’s number on the display. I punched a button. “And?”

  “When were you going to tell me you were leaving for good?” His voice was emotionless, empty as a vamp’s.

  “When I made up my mind for good,” I said, stuffing guilt down deep and out of the way, “which I haven’t. What did you find?”

  “Several things. Magnolia Sweets’ old trunk, open, the contents strewn, a locked weapons cabinet, and an empty velvet bag.” I closed my eyes. I had known Evangelina was a thief when I saw the red motes in her spell. She had stolen the pink diamond, the blood-diamond that carried the sacrificial power of hundreds of dead witch children, the black magic amulet or relic used by the Damours—witch-vamps. I had taken it off the Damours when I killed them, and researched it, learning its name and some of the myths that surroun
ded it. The blood-diamond. The weapon that was at the heart of the witch negotiations with the vamps in New Orleans.

  “Hmmmm,” I said, thinking about Magnolia Sweets’ photocopied diary. I’d had her trunk for a while, and had never gotten around to digging into it. Once the werewolf had died, it didn’t seem like a good use of my time to take a blast to the past. I was betting Evil Evie had opened the trunk and sent the photocopy to Jodi at NOPD. “Thanks. I’ll get back to you. Lock up on your way out, would you?”

  “Jane?”

  “Yes?”

  “I want you to come back to New Orleans. This time without a spell between us.”

  “That’s problematic right now,” I said, “because Evangelina Everhart is using that spell on Lincoln Shaddock. And I’m getting ready to intervene.”

  “Between a witch and a bespelled Mithran? Do you have a death wish?” He sounded pretty close to dumbfounded.

  I chuckled and ended the call. I left the cell on the table, and tossed silver crosses to the men at the table. They caught them, the silver glowing. “Hope you boys are ready to play,” I said, letting my hands drop to the stakes in my boots as I stood. Ash wood, no silver, weapons for wounding not killing, unless I was very unlucky and hit Lincoln’s heart. In that event, I figured I’d be dead at Dacy’s fangs before he hit the floor. And she’d be the new vamp in the talks with Grégoire. I wondered which ending Grégoire would prefer. “Follow my lead, and I’ll leave you an immobilized vamp to restrain. Then I’ll take the witch.”

  I moved ahead of my guys toward Lincoln, who was facing me, dancing with his eyes closed, leading Evangelina into a quarter turn. Beast poured her strength and speed into me. I flew across the floor. Hit the couple. Heard Evangelina’s breath grunt. The vamp and witch separated. Bodies moved back and away as my own rammed between them. The pinkish glow of the spell prickled over my skin, scattered. And now that I knew what it was, I smelled witc hblood and black magic, tart and burning, like fire, heavily banked but killing-hot.

  Lincoln snarled, vamping out. Fangs dropping. I staked him fast, hitting him in the abdomen, low enough for the watching vamps to recognize a deliberately nonlethal strike. Trusting the men to handle him, I whirled on Evangelina.

  She flailed for balance, feet scuffling. I followed her down, grabbing her arms. Pulling them wide, out from her body. Pushing her. Stepping over her, a leg to either side, riding her down. I let gravity do my dirty work, feeling her hit the floor, and the air whoosh out; I landed on her abdomen as if straddling a horse, my feet on her arms, my hands at her throat. “Hiya, Evie,” I said. “Let him go.” And I let Beast slam through me, eyes glowing golden, a growl low in my throat, “or I’ll kill you where you lie.”

  “You won’t steal this from me,” she gasped. “I won’t let you.” She rocked hard, more power in her limbs than a human should ever have. The pink glow of the dark magic built beneath her skin.

  But the I/we of Beast was coursing through me, and no witch could hope to win. “Yield,” I said, my voice the lower pitch of Beast. “Yield!” I showed her my teeth and she drew back against the floor, chin down as if to protect her throat in my hands. “Say it. Say you yield,” I said. I don’t know what she was seeing, but Evangelina went limp.

  “I yield,” she whispered.

  “Release him. Say the words.”

  “Bíodh sé saor, le m’ordú agus le mo chumhacht.”

  I had heard Molly speak Irish Gaelic and this sounded something like that, mellifluous, melodic, and full of poetry. I wasn’t sure what to do, until I heard Shaddock curse.

  “To me! To me! Scions to me!” His power rippled over me like a blanket made of cactus thorns. And suddenly there were blood-slaves everywhere, and the snicksnicksnick of semiautomatic handguns readying for fire, followed by the familiar ratcheting sound of shotguns.

  All thoughts of killing Evil Evie were pushed aside. I just wanted to get out alive and stop a small war. “Lincoln Shaddock and all his scions,” I shouted over the sudden silence, knowing I was about to get myself in trouble. Just knowing it. But we were on the brink of something deadly. “Bow to the enforcer of Leo Pellissier, Master of the City of New Orleans and Blood Master of the Southeastern United States. Bow or die!” I shouted, using the language from the codicil to the Vampira Carta. The lines sounded so Hollywood I wanted to laugh, but when I felt a knife blade stroke my neck just under my bun I stifled it and added more softly, “By the command of Leonard Pellissier’s enforcer, the Rogue Hunter, stand down!” The rogue hunter. Who was me. And man-oh-man, didn’t that sound weird, to command by my own title.

  “Listen to her,” Adelaide said, pleading, commanding. “Lincoln, master, listen to her. She is here to help.”

  “Hold, scions,” Shaddock snarled. That unnatural silence fell on the restaurant again. I captured Evangelina’s gaze and held it. She swallowed, suddenly seeming to realize that she was in a spot of trouble. She opened her mouth and I tilted my head in warning. Her lips sealed shut. The blade disappeared from my neck. A cold sweat prickled down my spine in belated reaction.

  “Do not hurt her,” Shaddock demanded. “She is mine.”

  Crap. He had claimed her? Like a blood-servant? I had only moments before I had to deal with Shaddock, and strangling his pet witch before his eyes was not the way to keep this parley moving forward. Killing Evangelina might tick Molly off too, once she came out of the spell, and if she survived its ending, but I really wanted to hurt the witch. I tightened my fists against her windpipe, lowered my face to Evangelina’s, and murmured against her ear, “You stole something that was entrusted to me.” Her body tensed, her fingers curling into protective fists, thumbs inside. Stupid move. She would break her thumbs if she hit me. “You’ve been using it, spelling your sisters, draining their power, making yourself prettier, younger, thinner. Drawing people to you. Making them feel and do what you want them to. You used it on Bruiser. You tried it on Leo. And now Lincoln Shaddock.”

  “My ends justify the means,” she whispered. “I’ll kill you for interfering.”

  “Get in line,” I said, my mouth a vibration on her cheek. I pulled back just enough to see her eyes. Strands of hair crossed her face, a red so intense and silken that it looked artificial, altered by the spell she had cast. Her eyes were bright and lovely, her skin so perfect it glowed. “Black magic,” I said, softly, “powered by the blood of witch children.”

  Evangelina’s face flushed a florid, almost painful red. She sucked in a breath to speak a spell. I raised up and came down hard, butt on her belly, boots on her forearms. She gagged with pain and I smelled stomach acid and acrid sweat. “Stop fighting. I know what you’ve been doing, but for the safety of your sisters, we’ll deal with that problem and for the return of my property later.”

  “Not yours,” she said instantly, though it was more a reflex than actual thought. “But, deal.” I stepped off her arms and stood up. Evangelina rolled over, to hands and knees, and was out the door nearly vamp-fast. So much for taking the witch with me.

  I whirled to Shaddock. Only moments had passed, but the vamp looked older and weaker, oddly withered. He had a wooden stake buried in his middle, and three humans in black jeans and tees holding him down. He wasn’t fighting. His scions stood around him empty-handed. “I yield,” he said tiredly. “I yield.”

  “You will call Grégoire, Leo’s emissary,” I said, “and offer apologies.” I pulled every formal word I could think of and said, “You will grovel at his feet in shame and fear, in dishonor and ignominy. And this once, I’ll back you, by telling Grégoire that you were under attack by enemies of the parley. This once. After that, I’ll slit your throat, cut off your head, and toss your body to the human protestors. And hope Dacy is better prepared to resist a pretty face. You’ll be true-dead. Do you understand?”

  “I do.” He looked at me, his fangs clicked back, his eyes human, or nearly so. Confusion flooded through him, so strong I could smell it. “What happened? What did I do?”
<
br />   Crap. He really didn’t know what he had done. “You let a witch spell you. And I’ve saved you the one and only time.”

  I followed Lincoln back to the hotel, where I guided him to Grégoire’s suite, his elbow firmly in my grip. Inside the suite, he fell on his face, prostrate, and begged the forgiveness of Grégoire and Grégoire’s master in language so flowery and archaic, I didn’t even bother to try to understand it. The delicate elegant vamp looked at me in utter surprise. I managed a small smile and tilted my head, suggesting with body language that Grégoire accept the apology. He stood, snapped down on his vest points, bent at the waist, and pulled the taller, heavier vamp to his feet as if he weighed two pounds. Grégoire was an elder master, and size was no indication of might in an old vampire. He looked at me.

  “He was attacked,” I said, trying to think how I could make this part sound as formal and fancy as I needed, to maybe save the negotiations and Shaddock’s butt. “He was spelled by a witch, with an amulet created by Renee and Tristan Damours and their brother. It’s black magic powerful enough to cloud the mind of a master vam—Mithran. The . . . culprit”—yeah, that was a good word—“will be dealt with.”

  “Is this so?” Grégoire asked Shaddock.

  The tall, craggy-faced vamp looked at me in surprise. In spite of my promise, he hadn’t been expecting me to defend him. “Yes.”

  Grégoire focused on me, his eyes slowly bleeding black in scarlet sclera. “I charge you—when this parley is over, you will find this culprit and bring her to me.”

  A cold chill I had been fighting all evening shot through me. I was so screwed. And Evangelina was so dead. But if I disagreed, Derek would be given the job; Derek would bring him Evil Evie without a qualm, and when she died, the spell she had snared her sisters in would implode. Molly might die. By agreeing, I was sealing my own fate and destroying my friendship with Molly forever. She had forgiven a lot over the years, but turning her sister over to the vamps for punishment would be the last straw. Already trying to find a way out, I nodded.