Blood Bargain

by Maria Lima

Whatever the case, this statue was probably the largest one in the small cemetery. The Angel sat on a large rectangular limestone base upon which local women of past years would come and lay down offerings. During the days of what I'd considered my penance, I'd often spend more than an hour or so scrubbing candle wax and cleaning dead flower petals off the statue's base. Sometimes, the offerings had been somewhat grotesque, at least to me at the time. Tiny baby teeth, locks of hair tied lovingly with faded ribbons, fingernail clippings and other less savory and unexamined substances smearing the dark marble. I'd seriously hated that part.

  "I didn't think people still knew about her or came to her anymore,” said Tucker as we approached the statue.

  "I can't be sure,” I replied, “but it's a better guess than pulling something out of our collective asses. I mean if Alex didn't make it back to the Pursell ranch, and he didn't turn up anywhere else, what's to say—if Jolene told the truth—that is he didn't come out here, crawl over to La Angel and expire of an overdose or something?” I stepped over a piece of a broken headstone.

  "Shit.” Tucker stopped walking and threw out his arm to bar my way.

  "What is it?” I asked as I stumbled and grabbed onto his arm. “Did you see something?"

  "Smelled.” The word was curt. “They were here all right."

  "'They'—who's they?"

  Tucker grimaced. “I doubt it was Alex Robles, unless he decided to spend the last three months camping out here. Too recent. I smell candle wax, fresh, not two days old, incense and—” He paused a moment and concentrated. “Yeah, I'm not wrong. Blood ... fresh blood. Not today, but..."

  "Fuck."

  This was not good. As far as we knew, the four teens were still missing, whether or not they had run away. Blood and missing kids is not a combination I either expected or wanted to hear. Of course, there was the off chance that this hadn't anything to do with them, but could be some random person who'd stumbled across the place. We got our share of drifters throughout the Hill Country, like anywhere else. Except, of course, around here, it was a lot harder to hide or keep a low profile, since most everyone knew everyone else, or at least knew the faces that belonged.

  "Stay here a sec, Keira, and let me do a little recon."

  Tucker swiftly pulled off his T-shirt and tossed it behind him. He dropped to a crouch, unlaced his hiking boots, then stood and kicked them both off, along with his socks. He stood there a moment, facing away from me, feet shoulder width apart, arms loose at his side, the long rope of braided hair halfway down his bare back.

  I waited a beat, then two, then another. The insistent buzzy hum of the cicadas permeated the air, occasionally interrupted by scattershot bird chatter or the rustling of leaves in the slight breeze. I caught a whiff of candle wax, something sweetish, artificial vanilla and cinnamon caught up in cedar, an ashy residue behind it all. Something tugged at my mind: sounds, voices, a memory? I chased after it mentally, concentrating. There was something familiar ... The breeze danced past, and the sweet faded into the normal dusty heat scent and my brother was still standing there as unmoving as one of the cemetery statues.

  "You going to shift?” I asked what seemed to be the obvious question, although he hadn't stripped down to skin yet.

  "No."

  "No?"

  "Be patient.” He motioned to his right. “Stand there."

  I shrugged and walked around beside him, about three feet away. “Here good?"

  He glanced over, still distracted, still staring forward, concentrating on whatever. “Yeah, fine."

  I shrugged, and leaned back against the nearest gravestone. Alice Olivia Lovelace, it read. Beloved. I crossed my arms and watched my brother. Whatever he was doing, he'd eventually let me know.

  Although, I had to admit I was curious. Of all my family, Tucker was the least likely to go all woo-woo mystery and magick. Two of my other brothers, Rhys and Ianto, plus several close cousins, tended to get off on that whole “I am magickal, look at me sweep my velvet cape” posturing, a la Draco Malfoy. It amused them to play the game, even amongst clan. My mother's family? From everything I remembered, they were even worse—more Lucius than Draco with a touch of Bellatrix Lestrange thrown in for good measure.

  Tucker never got into that. While he didn't exactly eschew magick, it was as much a part of his nature as the wolf. He definitely preferred utilitarian shapeshifting to any hocus-pocus. With him, you always got what you saw. That is, mostly. We all had our private bits, I supposed. I'd never seen Tucker go the magick route. Right now, I watched, waiting to see what he was up to.

  My brother shook out his arms, crouched down, placed a palm flat on the ground and shut his eyes. He began to hum under his breath, a low tuneless melody punctuated by whispers of sound. The humid air seemed to grow thicker, stiller, denser. The background sounds of cicadas thinned, faded, elided into a faint hum, teasing the edges of my awareness. My feet began to sweat in my boots. My socks, too warm. All my clothes suddenly felt too tight, too heavy, too much. I slipped out of my denim overshirt, but that wasn't enough. I was suffocating, drowning in the thick humidity, the air too close, too dense. I could scarcely breathe. Like the worst of the worst summer days—hundred-plus temperatures with nearly hundred percent humidity—the whiff of ozone, of energy surrounded us. Could it merely be Tucker's magick? The feeling reminded me of the atmosphere before one of the famous gullywasher thunderstorms so prevalent in the area. I tried to take a deep breath, struggling against the pressure. Something pulled at me, currents tugged at my skin, a whine of electric vibration made my bones sing.

  "Here ... come ... here."

  The whispers insinuated themselves in the back of my skull, sliding past and fading into the thick air. Was I really hearing this or was this another manifestation of whatever my brother was doing?

  "Tucker—” I began to complain as I tried to shake it off, but stopped as I saw his face.

  "Something is very, very wrong,” he said, his voice low and angry. “I can't...” He stood in a swift motion, his attitude all predator. The muscles on his back rippled, tensing and releasing, tensing again.

  "What is it?” I concentrated on my brother, trying to ignore the feeling of suffocating energy swirling around me, causing my skin to tingle. My muscles tightened as the energy increased.

  "I'm not sure.” Tucker clenched his hands into fists and closed his eyes, sniffing the air. His brow furrowed. “It feels off. Like..."

  "Damn it, Tucker, what?"

  With a low growl, he tore open the buttons on his jeans and skinned them off as if the fabric was burning him. A couple of deep breaths and a shimmer of light later and the wolf that was my brother stood next to me. With an almost audible pop, the energy vanished.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  "Tucker, what's going on?"

  I did not like this one bit. Tucker rarely changed in broad daylight in front of people, even if “people” meant me. Not that he was shy, but changing required a certain level of concentration and focus that was difficult to achieve when in the presence of non-shifters. Tucker had always preferred to do it in private.

  He shook his head, his shaggy reddish fur glinting in the sun. I smiled a little, despite the situation. In whatever incarnation, my brother was a handsome beast. He stood tall when human. As a wolf, his shoulder nearly reached my waist and he probably weighed in at well over 170 pounds. Large for a wolf, and definitely not someone you'd like to run into in a dark alley—in either form. Good thing he was my brother.

  Tucker crouched a moment, head down, eyes shut. I held still, waiting. With a shudder and shake, his form quickly shifted back to human and he fell to the ground, still panting, bare sides heaving as if trying to catch a breath.

  I crouched next to him, my hand on his shoulder. “Tucker, you all right?"

  He groaned, eyes screwed shut, curling into a fetal position. “Hurts a little,” he mumbled. “'M'a'right."

  "Hurts? It's not supposed to hurt. What sort of all right is th
at?” I couldn't keep the fear out of my voice. I'd never seen him like this. Shifting back and forth took energy, yes, but never like this.

  "'M all right,” he insisted, voice stronger now. “Give me a minute."

  I patted his shoulder, feeling helpless. What the hell could I do? I had no idea what happened.

  Tucker lay there breathing heavily, hands clenching as if trying to work out a muscle spasm for a few more minutes. Then, with a lurch, he got to his hands and knees, arms shaking a little with the strain. I stumbled back and sat down hard on my backside as the effort of his trying to get up upset my balance.

  "Damn it,” he said. “I feel like a newborn shifter, a first-timer.” He panted through the words then, with a groan, sat back on his heels, fighting to keep upright. “What the fuck was that?"

  "You're asking me?” I snapped back, my worry evident. “One minute, you're all silent stoic spellcaster dude, and the next, you're tearing off your clothes and shifting ... in the daylight ... in front of me. Then you shift back a few minutes later and tell you feel like a newborn."

  "I don't know, Keira,” Tucker answered. “I thought if I did a casting, tried to feel out the ground, the site, tried to get an idea of what had been here...” His voice trailed off and he got a thoughtful look on his face. “There was something, some energy I couldn't pinpoint. I reached for it, grounding myself, but then it—I don't really know. Like a backlash or something and I had to shift."

  I got to my own knees and put a hand on his arm. “It made you shift? Holy shit!"

  "No,” he said. “Not exactly that. More like, it built and built, and the only thing I could do was shift or..."

  "Or?"

  "I don't know, really. I knew that shifting seemed to be my best bet. But even that, when I was in wolf shape, I felt weak, exhausted.” Tucker scrubbed at his face, then stared at the Angel, his eyes narrowing. “I do not like this,” he said. “Whatever's around here is not a good thing."

  "What do you think it is,” I asked. “A spell? A ward?"

  "Possibly both. In any case, I don't want to try to get at it again without some help."

  "At it?"

  Tucker inclined his head towards the statue. “Back there, behind the Angel. That's where it came from."

  La Angel stood about nine feet atop a fifteen-inch tall base. The base itself created a sort of shelf all around the statue and the whole thing was tucked into a depression in the limestone overhang, which created a natural shelter. The whole setup reminded me of those Virgen de Guadalupe statues often found on the lawns of devout Mexican Catholics. I'd always thought it was supposed to be a seashell behind the woman's figure, but evidently, the icon's background signified a full body halo. Our angel had its own backdrop. If you looked at her from the front, you got a similar feel to the Virgens. Except of course, our statue looked completely different.

  In any case, I'd always figured that whoever placed the Angel here either had a whacked sense of humor or hadn't noticed the resemblance. Or better yet, maybe they were actually creating a shrine. Years ago, when I'd first come here, I'd wondered whose grave this was because there was no name carved into the plinth. I'd meant to ask Gigi or someone if they knew. But the question got lost in all the rest of life's teenage angst and I'd never learned the answer.

  The statue itself sat close to the stone wall. Once upon a time, when I'd been assigned to clean this place, there had been no overgrowth, no snarled mesquite to block the way, a live oak behind and on either side of the statute to provide shade, as if La Angel needed protection from the Texas sun. They effectively blocked the area behind the statue, but a person could fairly easily squeeze through if they wanted to. I'd never bothered to clean back there, figuring no one would notice if I skipped that.

  Years of neglect meant that the mesquite, blackbrush and other types of underbrush had taken over and for all intents and purposes, completely closed off the space between the Angel and the wall. Countless rains washed debris and junk into this hollow, creating a six-foot high deadfall, denser than some hedgerows.

  "You want to go back behind there and check it out?” I asked.

  "No, not right now,” Tucker said. “I'm certainly not up to it yet and like I said, I think we need reinforcements."

  "Who the hell do you think we can get? Unless you want to call in the family, and that will take at least a day or two for someone to come out here from B.C.” I stood up and brushed the dirt from my jeans. “I vote we go tell Carlton we saw some evidence of recent activity here and let him and the searchers take over."

  Tucker braced his hands on his thighs and with a visible strain, hauled himself to his feet. “Hand me my jeans, would you?"

  I picked up the jeans and his shirt and brought them over to him. “So, your idea?"

  "I'm not so sure bringing the humans is a good idea,” he said as he fastened the jeans and held out a hand for his shirt. “Even non-magickal folks might be affected by it."

  "I wasn't,” I said bluntly.

  Tucker grimaced at me, his lips tight as if holding back words. He stayed silent until he'd finished dressing, pulled on his boots and laced them. “You think not?"

  "Not,” I answered. “I felt it, the air was thick with it. But that's all. Then when you shifted, it vanished, like a bubble popping."

  "Huh,” he said. “Wonder what that means?"

  I laughed, getting a little of my humor back. “I'm immune?"

  "Smartass.” My brother grinned back at me. He was beginning to look more like his normal self, except for the free-flowing hair hanging down his back. He rarely left it loose, but shifting so quickly had wreaked havoc with his usual braid.

  "Who were you thinking could help, if not the local law?” I asked.

  "Our friendly neighborhood vampires."

  "But they're not so much about the magick,” I said.

  "Even so, I'd rather have Niko and Adam at my back, in case this happens again,” said Tucker. “Wouldn't you?"

  "Oh, by help, you mean: we come back with them,” I said. “Not, turn this over to someone else."

  "You'd give up now?” Tucker looked at me with a quizzical look on his face.

  "Maybe.” I dug into my pocket for a coated rubber band for his hair. “Here."

  He took it gratefully and started to twist a braid. “I kind of thought you were invested in finding Alex Robles and those kids."

  I crossed my arms and leaned against the nearest headstone. “I was,” I said. “But that was before you got all Scooby-Doo on me. I don't like the fact that there's some sort of wild energy there that forced you to shift. Neither you, nor I nor any of the vampires have any experience with this kind of energy ... at least, we don't. I guess I can't really speak for the vampires, but I seriously doubt it. I mean, what's Niko going to do—bite it?"

  Tucker's head went back as he laughed. “You, dear sister, crack me up."

  "Well? I mean, really."

  "Honestly, I was hoping that maybe we can call someone in the family and see if they know about this. Then we can come back with a vampire or two and try to get back behind the statue, scope it out—without me trying to do magick this time. Should be safe enough."

  "Here's the thing, Tucker. Are you doing this because of Alex Robles or the kids—or because of the energy? Because I don't exactly see how either those kids or Robles could have gotten back there without disturbing that deadfall. That thing's been like that for a while."

  "I do think those kids were here,” he said. “There's candle wax on the base of the statue, and that's less than three days old. And next to the wax, see? A smudge of incense.” He made show of sniffing the air. “Patchouli? No, something darker. Myrrh, maybe?"

  I took a few steps closer to La Angel wanting to get a better look. He was right. Smears of wax, some smudges of ash and the remains of at least one incense cone next to the various smears.

  "Some sort of teenage ritual or hanging out smoking weed?” I asked as I poked at the melted wax with
a stick.

  "Why they were here, if it was them, isn't really important, I imagine,” Tucker said. “Maybe this is their version of a make-out place. Or a place to tell ghost stories and such. I bet they were here and maybe saw something."

  "Something or someone?"

  "Yeah, exactly."

  The wax was soft in the late afternoon sun, thick but pliable. I poked the stick through it, stirring it as I thought. I knew what Tucker meant. It could be either. Perhaps some leftover stray energy from a long time ago built up for some unknown reason. Wasn't unheard of. Maybe someone who created whatever caused that energy surge. A ward, a do-not-disturb spell? I wasn't sure what it could be as this was absolutely not my cup of witchbane. I'd never been that good at warding or identifying such. Problem was, neither was Tucker.

  "So, what next?” I asked, dropping the waxy stick as I straightened up. It touched my thigh as it fell onto the statue's base. Damn, I'd have to get the wax out before I tossed these into the machine, I thought.

  "I don't know about you, but I'm wiped,” Tucker said. He peered up at the lowering sun. “I vote we go back to our respective abodes, crash for a while and then talk to Adam and Niko. It's more than an hour till sunset, but I think both of us need to sleep first. We can come back in a few hours."

  "I like the idea of sleep,” I agreed. “But much as I hate to say this, before we do any more exploring, like you said, we may want to call family. For all we know, one of our dear departed-to-B.C. clan members left behind a booby trap they forgot about and you triggered it. Could save us some flailing about.” Or a trip back here, I didn't say. As much as I loved my brother and as much as I wanted to find out what the hell we'd encountered, I'd be happy to discover this was some old warding left by some Kelly years ago—because if it wasn't, that meant something else was responsible.

  Tucker chuckled. “Point to you, sis. How ‘bout this: Sleep, then let's regroup in Adam's office at nine or so and call Jane?"

  "Nine? That's what? A whole couple of hours or so of sleep? Hate to break it to you, but I really want at least four or five hours. I'm not as young as I used to be. And really, could we try Isabel again instead of Jane?” I asked. “I really don't want another lecture along with any information she can give us."