Jane Yellowrock 14 - True Dead

by Faith Hunter

  Or it was until Bruiser put on some Latin music. The beat thrummed through my paw pads, woke up my brain. And when Bruiser swatted my bottom as he passed by, I laughed.

  He took up a position, long wooden stave high, short sword across his body. It wasn’t a fighting position I had seen before except in the dueling ring. “Let’s dance,” he said, a glint in his eye that communicated we were about to have fun.

  I mimicked his position.

  “Left elbow higher. Good,” he said. “Defend yourself.”

  Fun, Beast thought, purring, peering out through my eyes with a golden gleam I saw reflected in Bruiser’s. He attacked.

  The wood staves clacked, slow and careful, the sound reverberating off the bare walls and floor of the third story. Then louder. Faster. And I was sweating and breathing hard, even in this form. And it was glorious.

  But vamp swordplay hurt. When I complained, Bruiser said, “It’s supposed to. Bruises teach your mind to fight through, no matter what. Soreness teaches your body to move even in pain.”

  What it really taught me was that I sucked at this, even with the faster reflexes and greater strength of my half-form. But seeing it as a dance made me more graceful. More attentive.

  Beast is lithe and lissome, she thought at me. Jane’s words for Beast.

  Beast is a bruised cat, I thought back, as I barely blocked a vicious head strike.

  Beast is best ambush hunter. She took over and dropped us into a crouch. Swiped Bruiser’s knees, while also stabbing upward into his gut. Both staves landed. Bruiser ooffed out a breath and danced away limping.

  Okay, I thought. Yeah. We are getting pretty good at this.

  I/we are better than Jane and Big-cat.

  We struck out again. And again. Suddenly we were fighting together as one, one creature with one blended mind on blended reflexes, the same way we had fired the weapon that killed—sorta—Monique.

  We landed hits—fastfastfast. Bruiser ooffed and ooffed and danced away.

  “It’s supposed to hurt,” I sorta quoted him and laughed. “Bruises teach your mind to fight through, no matter what Beast and I do. Soreness teaches your body to move even in pain.”

  His eyes lit up again. “You and Beast are fighting together? Good. Then I don’t have to hold back on Onorio gifts either.”

  And that right there—and the attendant bruises and bangs and whacks and pain—taught me to keep my snarky mouth shut.

  CHAPTER 9

  Jane Needs Holy Water. Go to Place of Holy Water.

  “Aw,” I grumbled afterward, trying to stretch out the sore muscles. We were all in the kitchen for a typical Louisiana afternoon coffee break, with attendant beignets and multiple hot beverages. No one had looked at Alex’s timeline, though we each had a hard copy in front of us.

  “Old school,” Alex had called it when he placed the sheets on the table and took his seat. It was comforting, especially with the fire in the new fireplace burning merrily and the rain beating down. NOLA had nine months of summer, a month of fall and of spring (give or take) and two weeks of winter (but not all at once). The crazy temps were standard New Orleans fall: hot one minute, chilly the next.

  He continued, “The info is mostly collated from Reach’s old files. I never bothered to update this.”

  I sipped my tea, ate a beignet, and read the bullet-pointed timeline of Immanuel Pellissier, Leo’s son of his body, the child reproduced by human means and born into a powerful vampire family. The vamp eaten by one of my kind, and replaced by an imposter, by an u’tlun’ta doppelgänger. And then dead by my hand, the first month I was in New Orleans. By the end of the first few lines, I was beginning to understand why I was the wild card in all of this, because all sorts of possibilities were skittering around in my mind, none of them good. I had originally thought Immanuel had been eaten and replaced while in France to meet his fiancée, but I was wrong by more than a hundred years.

  Immanuel: born in early 1800s, no exact date specified in Reach’s files. Could have been sooner.

  Immanuel went upriver the first time that we know of in 1825.

  I made a note. I was born in 1830. His liver-eater could have been alive when I was a child and still living among the Tsalagi. We could have been related. It was too bad I couldn’t call and ask Grandmother if other skinwalkers were around at that time. But maybe Aya would know and tell me. He might even have PsyLED records about other skinwalkers. I had never asked him—point-blank—if there were others like us, if he knew other skinwalkers. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t asked, except for that sibling thing we had going where we kept each other at arm’s length while, at the same time, wanting the other closer. Stupid family stuff. I went back to the list.

  As per Reach, Immanuel went upriver multiple times before 1915. We considered the probability that he was turned in France, but it’s possible that on one such trip upriver, the liver-eater returned instead of Immanuel. With Leo busy running the city, he might not have recognized the scent change in his son, or Immanuel might have been able to change that too. Scent-change amulets exist, so it’s a possibility.

  According to best guess timeline, one provided by the outclan priestess Bethany (now true dead), Immanuel made his trips upriver before the first Son of Darkness was bitten by an arcenciel and ended up chained in the sub-five basement of vamp HQ.

  Ka N’vsita, sold to Adan Bouvier by her family or by Jane’s grandmother or by someone claiming to be Ka’s father when she was eleven, around 1803, entered NOLA around 1803–1804. She would have been born around 1790 or 1795? She was a mature woman when the B-twins “came to service.”

  Ka became Adan’s primo, but primos need to be bound. Conflict? Or something else?

  Ka could be Jane’s relative back a long way. Cousin, second cousin, great aunt? Someone closer.

  Leo took charge of NOLA in 1912.

  George Dumas (Bruiser) was 12.

  George became bound to Leo at age 16.

  After he took over, Leo sent Adan back to France for some undisclosed evil, and Ka went with him. Or she died. Reports vary. Leo told everyone that Adan died. But clearly he didn’t and they hooked back up, before Adan ended up a vamp prisoner, trapping arcenciels in a geode. (Which Jane destroyed.)

  Amelie (Immanuel’s fiancée) and Fernand (her brother) were blood-servants, and Leo turned them both, wanting them to be tied to Immanuel. Both might have been directed to Immanuel by de Allyon. Or our mystery vamps who are pulling the strings in the background. Perhaps multiple vamps worked together to keep Immanuel’s secret.

  Alex’s note #1: When a liver-eater eats a living being, it gets the body and the memories, but Immanuel was never considered a political being. Not saying he was stupid as shit, but he wasn’t known to be a genius either. Possibly someone pulled Immanuel’s strings. One possible candidate is de Allyon, but he’s dead, so there’s that. Not like we can drive up and politely ask him.

  Alex’s note #2: Three very strong vamps had primos or Enforcers that could not be bound . . . Adan, Leo, and Grégoire. Significance?

  Jane was the Enforcer. All of the primos (Ka, George Dumas, and the Roberes) were turned to Onorio by Bethany, outclan priestess, now true dead.

  I rubbed my fingertips over the words on the sheet of paper, as if I could get wisdom from the tactile connection. It was interesting that we were thinking alike. If skinwalkers were so hard to bind, then how did Ka become Adan’s primo? Was it voluntary? Forced? Or a relationship similar to the one the Robere twins and Grégoire share? They loved him, so serving him had always been a choice. I went back to the research.

  If skinwalkers can’t be bound, what hold did de Allyon or a EuroVamp have on the male skinwalker, Immanuel, and why did he stay with the role of Leo’s son for over a century?

  Jane (skinwalker) killed Immanuel (the skinwalker liver-eater), the agent of someone else.

  Immanuel dead. Jane working for Leo.

  Vamp who had been in charge of Immanuel lost his long game. Now pissed.


  Rick and Jane hooked up.

  I glared at Alex, who slurped another of the disgusting-looking natural energy drinks. His lips twitched up, but he didn’t look away from his own pages.

  The Damours took Molly’s kids, making another attempt to bring their long-chained to sanity. Did we consider timewalking attempts as part of their blood-black magic?

  Rick and Jane had a few weeks together before the wolfpack came to NOLA.

  Gee kept track of Rick. Failed to stop the black leopard bite. Notified no one of Rick’s location.

  Gee might have tried to get rid of Rick. Posit that Leo approved of the removal of Rick very early on and set things in motion for it to happen. If so, it changes lots of things because Rick then ended up partnered with Soul in PsyLED. Was Rick a gift to the arcenciels?

  Grindylow killed the biter instantly (who had already turned Rick into a black were-leopard) but didn’t kill the wolfpack right away. Why? Posit—the only one in this hemisphere who knew Rick had black panther were-taint. And they don’t render judgment for killing humans, only for turning them.

  Gee rediscovered Rick’s whereabouts after he was taken by the wolves, but may not have told Jane right away. Again, there exists the possibility of Leo’s machinations.

  Jane went all badass and killed the wolfpack. The bitch who was their queen died.

  With Rick out of the picture, the field was free for Leo. (See above posit that Leo wanted Rick out of the way.)

  Jane claimed Enforcer status, giving Leo another hold on her.

  De Allyon’s Enforcer is killed by Jane.

  First major appearance by a demon and then the Angel Hayyel.

  De Allyon made his move for world (or at least U.S. vamp) domination, attacking other vamps with the vamp plague.

  Jane killed his ass. Cut off his head. Whatever.

  Timewalking circle in Natchez.

  We found iron ingots from the Spike of Golgotha in Natchez in pocket watches. Bethany and Sabina mention the “vessel” that can hold blood—Holy Grail? Or were they being vampy, inexplicable, and referring to something else?

  First appearance of spidey vamps (with exoskeletons) was in Natchez.

  First time we found a timewalking circle was in Natchez, and that killed lots of witches.

  Le Batard came to town. Grégoire killed his ass. Cut off his head. Whatever.

  If Adan knew the arcenciels wanted to destroy vamp timelines, he might be willing to trap and use them to keep that from happening. Or he pretended to be imprisoned in order to obtain trapped arcenciels for his own purposes. Or—who knows what Leo was planning. He was a sneaky bastard.

  Ka was possibly a prisoner of the enemy, which forced Adan to do their bidding.

  Now Ka is back, along with others. Assuming Adan is back too.

  Suggest torturing Gee to get answers. Just kidding. Not really.

  I ignored the last part. Some of this was history, some of these dates had already been contradicted by Sabina and by my own grandmother, but there was enough that felt right for me to not sweat the small things. I remembered that the B-twins, Brian and Brandon Robere, had once commented to me that Ka N’vsita was a “good kid” and that she died in the twenties. The Roberes were old enough to have known Ka, but she hadn’t seemed to make much of an impression on them.

  Gee had once mentioned that the old ones remembered things they had never written down. I tried to figure out who to ask about it all. Raisin, at HQ, was old enough to have been alive during this time frame. She didn’t like me very much, but if I brought her a pie or some beignets, maybe she’d talk about Ka.

  Or Koun. He might be even better. I checked the time. He was still sleeping. I texted Koun, Raisin, and the B-twins for any info they might have. I didn’t have a number for Coreen, the oldest living blood-servant in the western hemisphere, and she didn’t take calls anyway, if I remembered right.

  There were so many people in NOLA vamp history, so many threads of time and power and position. How did Leo keep up with it all: all the layers and threads and the depth of the tapestry that he had been weaving? And how did I unravel it enough to see the power brokers behind the scenes?

  So many had died since I entered the picture: both Sons of Darkness, Le Batard, de Allyon, Louis VII, and Charles II of Spain—all VIVs—very important vamps. The heads of countries and masters of cities all over the world. Who had taken their places? Who were their heirs? Who was left?

  There was always an heir. Almost always. Leo didn’t appoint Immanuel for around a hundred years, so Leo had been an outlier there. Most vamps appointed an heir the moment they came to some new kind of power or the moment the previous heir died true dead. There had to be someone to accept a vamp’s power, both magical and political. But not all heirs were able to handle the power or politics the way they needed in order to maintain a balance of power or gain more power. The life of an heir was often short and ended violently.

  So what did the heirs who were causing problems want with time travel? Replacing vamps took only a decade, but replacing old vamps was impossible. Once ancient vamps were dead, they were dead dead. A strange thought reoccurred to me, one I’d had before, but it hadn’t solidified, not so concrete. What if the vamp causing problems wanted to go back and change the original black magic working at the moment their kind was created? What if they wanted a way that would allow them to keep their souls and regain an afterlife? To daywalk and live like humans? Maybe to not have to drink human blood to live?

  It was that same moment, that act of black magic, that arcenciels wanted to go back to also, but their goal was to destroy the Sons of Darkness before vamps could be made. War could be on the horizon as the two paranormal groups considered timewalking back to the beginning of vamps.

  My mind circled back to the scene of Sabina watching as Bethany and Adan killed Ka. They had been standing in an iron witch circle. I flipped the current page of the timeline over and drew a sketch of the black square in a concrete floor and set it with the iron witch circle. To show dimensions, I added stick figures.

  When I was done, I slid it to Bruiser. “Have you ever seen an iron witch circle like this? In a black square?”

  His face pulled down in thought. “No. Maybe?” He rested his chin in his palm, elbow on the table. His sleeves were pushed up, and the fine hairs on his arm made Beast perk up.

  Mate . . . she thought at me.

  Bruiser said, “I vaguely remember seeing a section of a black marble square tile with a line of iron in it. Somewhere. But it was just the one tile. Not a whole circle. Is it important?”

  “It might be,” I said.

  His face pulled down more. “Let me think.”

  * * *

  * * *

  I was feeling antsy. And bruised. And I needed something without knowing what it might be. Outside, the rain had let up. It was daylight, which was an impossible time to change into human shape, at least for me. But Beast had secrets and skills I didn’t have. She had changed shape in the daylight in the past.

  I adjusted the gold nugget on my necklace and removed the cat tooth that hung there, just in case she wanted to get frisky and be a cat all day. Not that she usually needed it, but with my funky shape-shifting these days, I would remove any advantage she might have.

  Inside me, Beast snarled and blew hard through her nose, a cat snort of disgust.

  Suck it up, I thought at her.

  Not caring if I got my clothes wet, I went out through one of the new narrow doors to the side porch. Bitsa, my bastard Harley, was on the porch leaning against the house. Beside it was Bruiser’s Indian. One of the boys had clearly seen that the bikes were delivered, because the last time I saw them was when Bruiser and I had taken a three-day, midsummer trip through the mountains, staying in cheap hotels, seeing my world. It had been wonderful.

  I touched my bike. Freedom surged through me, the need for it, the desire for it. The certainty that someday I’d be free again, not have to be the DQ, but just a
Master of a Clan, able to put my own people first. Maybe have a little fun.

  I pulled my hand away. That day wasn’t today.

  Walking into the yard, I studied the changes carried out at Bruiser’s orders. The gate in the brick fence into Katie’s backyard, the paved space to park a small car or turn one around. Katie’s fountain had been cleaned, and the bowl was full of rainwater. There were flowers planted everywhere along the fence walls in pots of all sizes. Fall greenery had been tucked into crevices of what was left of the boulders Katie had put here when I first came to New Orleans. Most of the boulders were shattered or broken, used for mass changes when I needed them, but one was still mostly intact. Bare-pawed, I maneuvered across the rain-slippery rock, avoiding the plants someone had put so much care into, and sat on top.

  I closed my eyes and went back to my earliest meditation exercises—a candle in a dark place. I took and released several breaths, each breath slower and deeper than the one before. I kept the candle before me, the only light in the darkness.

  Beast? I want to be Jane.

  Why? Jane is weak.

  I will never be weak as long as Beast is with me. I/we are Beast.

  Out of the darkness, Beast padded into the light of the candle. Her golden eyes met mine, her mouth partly open, her killing teeth showing. We are more and not-more than we were before, she thought.