by Faith Hunter
I looked at the necklace in my hand, the sliver of iron wrapped in copper. I opened my mouth to say something, but I had no words. None at all.
“When the Mithrans were forced into the diaspora, the outclan priestesses took the wood of the crosses and created weapons to be used against our kind. The Naturaleza took the iron, and created weapons of binding and control. Two great tribes arose, the Fame Vexatum and the Naturaleza. A war was fought for many years and across many countries, until the Naturaleza heard of the New World. And they came here. Lucas Vazquez de Allyon was one such.”
“And with the weapon of the iron spike, or a part of one, and the magics of the witch circle and the sickness that the vamp . . . ires”—I finished the word as an afterthought—“he hoped to take over the New World now, in the twenty-first century, after the first vampires walked the earth.”
“Yes. And more.” Big H looked up from the necklace I still clutched. “The ferro chiodo creates. With its binding powers it takes that which is and makes that which is darker, stronger. The spirito malign, the immortal that cannot be killed, the thing of legend and nightmare.”
“Like the father of the Sons of Darkness.”
“When they have the methodology and spell for the transformation, the Naturaleza will stake themselves and rise on the third day. Invincible. No weapon, not even sunlight, will kill them. The only way to defeat them will be to take their heads and it would become a bloody, difficult venture.”
That sounded pretty sucky. I had a moment to wonder if a bomb might work, and realized that if it blew them apart, it would also take their heads, so yeah. I pulled the fused iron discs out of my pocket. “These are being used for binding witches into a circle.”
Real fear crossed Big H’s face, wrinkling his forehead up into his bald pate. “How many of those things do you have? And how many witches in the circle?”
“This one was three. The discs got close to one another and they fused. Twelve witches make up the circle, each with her own disc. At midnight tonight, it will be the true full moon. It’s likely that the working will be complete then.”
“You must find Lotus and take her head before that,” Big H said. “I will give you the location of her lair.” He smiled slowly, all pretense of humanity peeling away, all fang and vamped-out eyes, the huge black pupils in scarlet sclera like dark pits falling straight into hell. “You will destroy my enemy and bring me the blood-iron of the crosses.”
• • •
The SUV’s heater was on full blast. The sun was setting, the evening growing colder and wetter. Ice was starting to build up on the trees and shrubs, and icicles were starting to form on the eaves of houses. We sat in the dark, staring at the house, silent. We’d been here for an hour, waiting. It should have been tense or uncomfortable or something. It should have felt weird. But it didn’t. It felt like coming full circle somehow.
We had done this job by the book, researching like crazy, gathering all the records, following all the paper trails. We had then done all the footwork, checking out the properties owned by Lotus, by Silandre, even those owned by Big H. We had checked out so many other places, but they were empty; no lairs or only vacant ones. And all that basic research had been a waste of time. All I had needed was a scrap of paper given to me by the MOC of Natchez. He had known where she was all along, but until I ripped away the binding, he hadn’t been able to tell me, and none of his people had been able to speak of it either.
Lesson learned—save the MOC first. Then go after his enemy.
Now Bruiser and I were back at the house with the turret, the one where we had found Esther McTavish beheaded, and a charnel room in the basement.
I hadn’t gone down to the basement then, hadn’t inspected the place. I should have. I had screwed up, thinking that no one was left there.
Now it was just Bruiser and me, waiting in the icy rain for our backup. There would be no debate now, no unexpected visitors, no preacher standing in the rain, praying for us to succeed. No Rick to tear out the throat of a vamp. No Soul to ward us.
We would go in without the Kid or Rick. . . . My hands clenched in the dark. It was just the two of us, because we had snuck out of Esmee’s and taken off like bats on fire, leaving behind anything electronic that the Kid could use to track us. We would go in alone because we were the only ones who stood a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving. And everyone knew what happened to a snowball in hell. I smiled grimly at the thought.
We had found what we were looking for, and Bruiser had called Leo, who had authorized the funds. And then Leo had called in the backup we needed. Leo. Not me. Because he wouldn’t have come for me.
A pickup truck pulled in behind us; a bear of a man climbed out of the truck, the whole thing rocking like a toy.
Without speaking, we unbuckled and left the SUV, not locking the doors, and walked around to the back of the vehicle to meet Evan Trueblood, Molly’s husband. He stood in the rain like a mountain in the fall, topped by red hair and beard, a man so big he made two of Bruiser, and without an ounce of fat on him.
“How many people now know what I am, what my daughter must be, because of you?”
“Too many,” I said. Justified guilt swarmed through me, earned because Big Evan’s being a sorcerer had been a secret until I came along. And because his secret was out, Angie Baby and Little Evan, his children, faced future danger. “Leo’s vamps know. Rick. But not Rick’s partner. Soul. She knows there’s a witch because of Rick’s spell music, and she might have figured it out, but she hasn’t been told, and therefore, PsyLED doesn’t know. But when they find out—and they will eventually; that is always a given—we’ll be there to protect you and yours.”
I could hear his molars grinding. “You know how much I hate you?” he ground out.
“Yeah. I also know that what happened to your wife and to your kids when they were attacked by witch vamps was not the fault of my being evil. Just me being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I also know that the real reason you hate me is that you feel like you didn’t do a good enough job of protecting your family. And because you can’t stand that thought, you hate me instead.”
Evan growled, so much like a bear that I chuckled. “You through being a pop psychologist?” he asked. “Because I’m here to a job and get back home. To my family.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not done. You need to forgive yourself. I understand misplaced guilt. I totally understand it.” Before he could raise one of his massive fists and knock me into the next state, I held out the discs from the pocket-watch amulets. As per Evan’s instruction, the discs had been removed from the amulets and were now all fused into one circular lump. “Now I’m through.”
Evan growled again but extended his hand. I dropped it—them—into his left paw. I placed the iron sliver in its copper wiring in his right hand, just like he had texted me. The moment his hand closed on the small spike-shaped sliver, Evan started to glow a weird yellowish color in the grim gray light.
I looked at Bruiser and said, “Let’s do this.”
Bruiser was heavily armed, as befitted a true Enforcer, and I was carrying everything I owned that had a point, a sharp edge, or would fire ammo, plus the bag full of stuff Evan had required, under my arm. I drew the shotgun, checked the load, and headed inside, following Bruiser, who broke through the crime scene tape and busted open the door with a well-placed kick. He-man stuff. Which would have made me smile if my face still remembered how.
Inside, the house was cold but dry, the heat off. The electric company hadn’t turned off the power, however, and the house had little lights along the walls, like Christmas lights, to show the way. I took the lead and found the hidden door to the basement. Opened it, as I had the first time I was here.
The smell ballooned out, as if it had been under pressure and opening the door released the effluvia. It was horrible. It would never go away, no matter how many cleansers they used, no matter how many coats of paint, how many gallons of chemicals. This
smell of the grave never, ever, went away. They would have to burn the place. But now, nearly hidden below the stink of the grave, the place smelled of spidey vamp.
I stepped down the stairs. The men followed, and I turned on lights as I came to the switches, illuminating the room below. The cement floor was a reddish brown—the color of the blood that had seeped into the porous surface. There was no furniture, only bookcases on all four walls, the shelves bare. The place had been cleaned out by the cops searching for an entrance, a vamp lair. They hadn’t found one. But I had a new secret weapon, even better than holy water. I had Molly’s husband.
I set the shotgun nearby, where I could grab it up in an instant—not that having it handy was gonna help me against the things we had come to kill. The best it would do was slow them down. I opened the bag and took out the full-sized white bedsheet. It was brand new and I ripped the plastic wrap, stuffing the trash into the bag, and spread open the sheet. On it I drew a circle with black marker, the chemical stink vanishing beneath the smell of rot, and left a small opening. Evan, still glowing pale yellow, walked through the opening, and I closed the circle behind him, drawing the black marker onto the sheet, and capped the marker.
Evan sat, his legs bending into the small space with difficulty. He laid the fused disc on the sheet between his knees, keeping the copper-wrapped iron in one fist. With the other hand, he pulled a small wooden flute.
“Are you sure?” I asked. It was an awfully weak circle.
Big Evan glared at me. “I do this my way. This is witch business.”
I shrugged, and Evan placed the flute between his lips. He started to play. It was a simple melody, only four notes, something he could play with the fingers of one hand, four notes in a dirge of song, primitive and plaintive.
He had played for less than five minutes when the disc between his knees moved slightly, angling to the right only a few millimeters. It paused, then traveled over the sheet the way iron moves toward a magnet, and stopped at the edge of the black circle I had drawn and Evan had powered. The witch stopped playing, the sad notes hanging on the air for a moment. “The lair is there. Behind that wall and down.”
Bruiser pulled a crowbar out of his belt, and I smiled. “Mr. Prepared for Anything,” I said. He flashed me a smile before he wrenched back and stabbed forward, wedging the sharp end of the crowbar into the wood of the shelves. Within minutes, the back of the bookcase was in splinters, revealing only brick, until he splintered a long board off the wall and a small aluminum handle appeared down near the floor. I took up the shotgun and braced it against my shoulder. Set my feet and bent my knees slightly. Bruiser looked at me, and I nodded. He bent forward and gripped the wood. With a single savage jerk, the damaged shelves squeaked open on hinges. A black maw appeared.
Something white smudged across the darkness. Time slowed into the consistency of glue, each moment clear and concise, as if trapped in amber. All I could think in that long, stretched-out moment was that Molly would never survive the loss of her husband. My godchildren, whom I hadn’t seen in months, would grow up without their father. If this didn’t work.
Silandre waved through the opening, as if pulled along by more than four limbs. Big Evan stood, as if safe in his weak circle. I fired once, twice, three times as Silandre raced up the hidden stairs. Missing her each time as she wove side to side. The vampire launched herself at Evan, the witch in her lair.
I pivoted, following Silandre’s wavelike charge.
Bruiser fired at the form that followed Silandre. Fired again, at Lotus, her black hair flowing like a skein of silk. The rounds hit. But the silver fléchettes didn’t slow the vamp.
Silandre seemed to fly through the air. And across the circle. Around Evan, the witch circle imploded. It’s not going to work.
Faster than I ever expected, faster than any creature should be able to move, Evan reached out and scratched Silandre. Her blood shot into the air.
Big Evan adjusted the angle of his hand and reached for the witch still moving toward him. He scratched Lotus. And both vampires fell.
It was anticlimactic after all the killing and all the blood. With the iron spike wielded by a witch, the vampires were bound. Not dead, but in a form of stasis.
“Huh,” Big Evan said. “Would you look at that? It worked.” The sound of surprise in his voice made me shudder.
From the black hole leading down to the lair came a moan of pain.
CHAPTER 27
While There Is Breath, There Is Hope
I flipped on the switch and looked down the stairs. At the bottom was a tiny room, barely big enough to hold the oversized bed. The walls were unadorned; the mattress had no sheets. The room smelled of damp and mold and human blood and human waste.
Curled up on the floor, wedged between the wall and the floor, were four forms. Three women and a child. “Evan!” I said. I leaped the distance down, landing in a small, clear spot of floor, and touched the woman nearest. She flinched. “It’s okay,” I said, “You’re safe now.”
The woman turned her head to me and blinked. She was pale as death, and her throat was bloody from forced feeding. It was an Acheé witch. I looked at the others, trying to see beneath the blood loss and bruises, and I realized that we had all of them and all were still alive. Including the old woman who had walked my dreams, Kathyayini, who slept, scarcely breathing, in a corner of the small room.
I blinked back tears, thinking of the time they had spent here in this lair, tortured and tormented, all because I hadn’t come down to search. I ignored the small voice that whispered I wouldn’t have found the witches, not without Big Evan and the spell he used on the discs. Like the accusation I had made to Big Evan, I wasn’t ready to forgive myself yet. Not about everything. Not about this.
I said again, “It’s okay. You’re safe now. Let me hand you up the stairs.”
The witch started to cry. Above me, Big Evan bent over the hole to the lair. He started to curse softly beneath his breath.
• • •
We were standing in front of the refrigerator in the old bar, waiting to step into the witch circle. Just Big Evan, Bruiser, and me. And two unconscious vamps. Evan hadn’t been gentle with them, not since treating the Acheé witches. His eyes had filled with tears over the girl, not yet an adult, abused and nearly catatonic with fear. Kathyayini was in a coma, still dream-walking when the ambulances came.
And he had been taking his anger out on the vamps ever since. Yet I knew that Evan would have a problem taking a life, even a vamp’s undead life, even with justice so long overdue. He had already refused to kill, saying that no witch would use blood magic to break black magic. And I wasn’t sure if he could break the spell of the full witch circle without taking their blood and their heads.
“Time?” I asked.
“Eleven twenty-four,” Bruiser said.
“Close enough,” Evan said, urging us on.
I didn’t have to have my cell phone handy to know that the others were looking for us, worried sick. I could actually feel Rick’s panic, like a burr stuck in my paw. He had nearly changed already once, and the pain had been unendurable. Now the moon was at her fullest, almost midnight of the full moon, the witching hour. We had been waiting for hours, Big Evan setting the timetable and outlining the plan.
And now, at last, it was time to save Misha.
“I’ll go through first,” I said, “and open the trapdoor. Then you send the vamps through. They’ll fall through the opening into the circle below. Then I’ll close the door and you two come through, one at a time.”
I had wanted to do it all by myself and not risk Big Evan again, but breaking a working this strong took a witch and the blood of the vamp who set it into motion. Since he was dead, I was hoping that the blood of his killer and the blood of his heirs would do. I stepped into the fridge and fell.
Even though I was expecting it, I nearly lost my supper. I caught myself only by the most delicate line of luck. I landed hard, stumbled, and ended u
p on one knee and both hands. Moving fast, I turned on the flashlight and opened the trapdoor. The reek that flowed up through it was so close to the stench of the charnel lair that my stomach roiled again. I dropped through and stood to the side, the trapdoor open. I didn’t look around with light. I couldn’t make myself. I was such a coward sometimes.
Moments later, the two vamps fell through to bounce at my feet. They were bound with silver and steel and a spell. And a full roll of duct tape, Big Evan’s last-ditch protections against vamp strength. I closed the door, and when it opened, Bruiser walked down, followed moments later by Big Evan, whose bulk barely fit through the opening.
The big man swore at the sight of the twelve witches, taking the flashlight from my hand without asking and studying them. He spent the longest on the witch who was nearly buried. Now only her mouth and nose were above the ground, but even he was afraid to brush away the sand, for fear the spell would activate and kill her instantly. “While there is breath, there is hope,” he whispered.
His face was grim as death when he came back to me, harsh lines and angles in the sharp light of the flash, his body bent to protect his head from the floor system above. He nodded at me, and I opened another new sheet, this one already partially marked with a circle, part of the preparations we had made in the hours while we waited for midnight.
I spread the sheet over the uneven floor, in a place between the bones that littered the surface. Normally Evan would have used a spade to dig a circle in the earth, but the bones and the absolute concentration of power made that unpractical.
He picked up Lotus and tossed her into the circle. Bruiser tossed Silandre. Both vamps were rounded, sensual, and warm to the touch, full of witch blood. Neither showed signs of the transformative process of the witch working and the binding of the red iron. And neither had spoken since they were captured, maybe silent in the presence of lesser creatures. Maybe waiting out the clock for the few minutes left until midnight.
