by Faith Hunter
“Make mine grilled,” Eli said, “yours too.” He was cleaning my weapons and rigs and sheaths free of blood. When we got home, he’d do a further cleaning with chemical compounds that would eat away at any DNA evidence. Under a Woods light, they might show up as having been exposed to body fluids, but I was a vamp killer. One might expect body fluids.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Alex said.
Once we finished eating, we drove into the night and checked the other addresses listed in the Nicaud women’s records. We found less than nothing. They might have lived at any of the places at one time, but they had taken off, leaving old scent patterns but no forwarding addresses. With nothing else to do and equipment to clean, we headed back to the house. The wards were up and the lights were on when we got there, and we trooped through, the sting of recognition a reminder of what it would have been like had the ward not been set to allow us entrance, and we tried to enter. Crispy critter YS peeps.
Evan was sitting in the recliner when we entered, and watched us as we scattered to different tasks. Me, to wash and bleach my shirt, jeans, and towels. Evan stopped me halfway through the utility room door with the words “Where’s Molly?”
I stopped and backed three feet into the living room. “Say what?” Which was when I caught the smell of magic and frustration. The trip through the ward had blunted my receptors.
“She told me you had texted her to meet you. But from her absence, I gather that was a lie. She never showed up, did she?”
Carefully, choosing words meant to be honest but innocuous, I said, “No. I didn’t text her. I haven’t seen her.” Molly had lied to Evan before, to do something she knew he would consider to be too dangerous for the mother of his children to do alone. And I was thinking about Molly’s addiction to death magic. . . .
“Molly has a natural ability to find trouble,” Eli said. So much for innocuous.
Suddenly something came to me, the way thoughts come to you when you aren’t looking for them. Molly had never touched the brooches, had shown no interest in them, which was really odd for my curious friend. “Where are the brooches? The two we have?”
Evan’s head came up fast and he and Eli dove for the weapons room, opening the bookshelf door. The smell of vamp and steel and gun oil filled the room. Eli didn’t blow out a relieved sigh when he opened the sack and the foil-wrapped brooches tumbled out onto Edmund’s bed, but his shoulders did relax a hint.
Evan took one and unfolded the foil, revealing the green stones. I took the brooch free of the foil and sniffed it. “Nothing,” I said. Evan took it and instantly jumped back two feet, ramming Eli, cursing a blue streak, and dropping the pin as if he had stuck his fingers into a light socket. Overhead I heard a vague thump as Eli leaned around him and picked the pin up with no problem. Evan glared at it, saying, “It’s being used.”
Angie Baby stuck her head around the corner of the bookshelf opening, saw us and all the weapons on the walls, and said, “Coolio!” Just like me. Dang it.
This time Evan cursed under his breath. Molly would be ticked that the secret location of our weapons room had now been irrevocably revealed to the little witch. Aloud, he said, “You will not tell your brother.”
Angie shrugged and said, “Okay, Daddy. But the witches aren’t using the brooches. They’re just using their power and the jew-lery is tied to them, like the black thing is tied to Aunt Jane.”
“Jew-el-ry. What black thing?”
“Ummm . . .” Angie said, uncertain. “Aunt Jane gots a black witchy thing inside her. It’s not dangerous. Well . . . not right now.”
“There’s nothing I can do about,” I said. “When things settle down we can address my little problems.”
“We know where Tau and Marlene went when they left the Elms after booby-trapping it. I tracked them from the apartment building.”
Our heads snapped up and we all saw Molly standing in the doorway. She looked exhausted.
“Where the . . . blue blazes have you been?” Evan shouted, clearly trying not to cuss in front of his daughter.
“We? I?” I said.
“And I saw the residue of Tau’s magic,” Mol added. “But let me get Angie to bed before we talk.”
“Back to bed,” Evan said, pointing out how late it was.
Molly nodded and herded her daughter up the stairs as we followed her out of the weapons room. Eli put the brooches away and locked up. Edmund was standing in the center of the living room, still dressed in jeans and a very expensive, tailored shirt. He had his hands in his pockets, aping human better than most vamps. I narrowed my eyes at him, putting together the unmatched pronouns. Molly had been with Edmund.
I gave him my best human scowl and ignored his interest in the bloody clothes I was taking to the utility space that backed up to my bathroom. I started a load of clothes with bleach, the chlorine strong enough to make me sneeze. The jeans would be a few shades lighter, but at least they would have nothing for a crime scene tech to find. I pulled off my boots and put them in a bucket, spritzing them with a mixture of water and soap and scrubbing the soles with a stiff brush before rinsing them. Edmund hung at the door, watching.
Finally he said, “Shame on you, wasting all that lovely blood.”
A small snicker escaped me and I sat back on my butt, looking up at him. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“I never said you did. However, I would make a far superior hunting partner than Eli and the boy.”
I thought about the scene we had made. About how a vamp might have immobilized the men with his mind, drained them to anemia and weakness, freed and physically healed the woman upstairs, while easing her mind into a peaceful state, then called her attackers to follow him and keep them out of trouble forever. And I wouldn’t have to carry with me the memory that I had maimed the two men. Along with the other memories of things I wish I hadn’t done. I sighed and finished rinsing my shoes, stood, and tossed my socks into the washer. He had a point. I hated that. “Free will, even for the bad guys I hurt. They didn’t have to kidnap and torture a woman. And the Youngers are my partners.”
“And I am your primo.”
“Okay. Noted.”
Edmund gave me a military-like nod of acknowledgment and followed me back into the living room, where I fell into a chair and closed my eyes. Moments later, Edmund served us tea, decaffeinated chai with all the proper trimmings—linen serving napkins, silver teaspoons, a china plate with cookies on it, and sugar and creamer. And humongous stoneware mugs. I laughed even before I saw my mug, because it said so much about my life, the juxtaposition of cheap tchotchkes and antique-expensive-fancy. The mug fell into the former category, new, candy-apple red, and it had a saying on it. “Namaste. Oops, vamps don’t have souls. Never mind.”
Edmund leaned over and sprayed a large upside-down cone of dairy creamer on top of my tea. I met the eyes of my primo as I accepted my mug. “Thank you. For the big mugs and the silliness. I needed both.”
“It is my greatest pleasure to hear you laugh, my mistress.”
Alex said, “I’d say, ‘Get a room,’ but I’m having to say that too much. Besides, I think the modern snark would be lost on the fangy guy. Good cookies, dude.” He bent over multiple tablets at his table-desk, not syncing them up to the main screen.
Molly tapped down the stairs as Edmund finished serving the rest of the cookies and tea and coffee. She stopped in the doorway, capturing Ed’s gaze. “Is there anyone else, anywhere, anytime, who takes precedence over your vow to Jane, to us, and to our children?”
Edmund stood military straight, his hands open at his sides, managing to look vulnerable, despite the fact that he was a blood-drinking killing machine. “No time, not anywhere, not any other person, save my wife and daughter, both long dead these many centuries.”
“Good,” Molly said. “I’ve worked with Tau. I’ve seen her magic, though it was while she w
as hiding her true power. I saw the signature of it then, felt its resonance. And I’ve seen it now, after she finished drinking from Ming. She’s like Angie. She’s homogeneous. Her father and her mother both carried the witch gene on the X chromosomes.”
My breath hitched. Molly was very close to letting a vampire into her biggest, most dangerous secrets, which was why she had clarified his loyalties. Gotcha. “Antoine didn’t smell like a witch,” I said.
“Recessive genes,” she replied without looking my way, her eyes on her husband. The big man nodded once, very slightly, accepting the risk she was taking, the secrets she was close to sharing. “I touched her magic in the Elms’ backyard. I know the feel of that magic. As soon as Jane told us she lost the scent at the apartment building, Edmund and I went there. Every chance I’ve had, I’ve followed the magical traces.” She gave her husband a tiny smile. “Not alone. I’m not stupid.”
Evan looked at the servile-appearing vamp, who did not meet his eyes.
“That iron and salt odor you smelled at the pit where they held Ming?” Mol looked at me now. “It was Tau after she drank from Ming in huge quantities. Over and over. Tau isn’t a vamp, but she’s no longer just a superwitch. She’s the closest thing to an Onorio and probably more magically powerful than anything ever. Tonight I caught a glimpse of her while I was using a sight working. When she isn’t using her gift, her magics aren’t witch magic, not anymore. When they’re at rest, they look and feel like the magics on Bruiser, except that they flicker like toxic flames, green and ebony. She used the brooches to keep Ming compliant. But she also used them to change herself into something else.”
I placed the half-empty mug on the small table nearest and thought about the scents I had picked up from the witches, some that—knowing this—made sense. I pulled my official cell, called Bruiser, and gave him the information.
He said, “I’ve been talking to the outclan priestesses. They call Tau a senza onore. Loosely translated to dark honor or without honor. There hasn’t been one in a thousand years. This is . . . Be careful, Jane.”
He disconnected and I stared at the dark screen, putting it all together. Senza onore . . . Bethany, one of the outclan priestesses, was on my short list of inside men for getting the witches my DNA material and the DNA of anyone at HQ. I said, “Tau became a senza onore, which I’m guessing is a dark Onorio.”
Alex said, “Translation sites say it means without honor in Italian.”
I had no idea what it all meant except that the Witch Conclave had to be called off. I checked the time on the cell. The city was already full of witches. Lachish had been healed enough to get around in a wheelchair or with crutches. Leo was prepped. He’d never call it off. It was far too late. He’d expect me to pull security measures out of my hat like rabbits. I asked Molly, “Where did you see the witch?”
Molly pulled her husband down beside her on the sofa and Big Evan gathered her close. She leaned into him, their bodies making a nest for her baby bump. “You’re gonna love this, Jane,” Mol said, her eyes closing. “And maybe I should have opened with this, but . . .” She sighed, and I could smell the fatigue on her exhaled breath. “Tau was outside the Elms. Riding a brilliant blue motorcycle, one of those foreign ones with a lot of aluminum and a molded plasticized body.”
“A crotch rocket,” I said, remembering the sounds of the high-pitched engines several times. They had been watching me, keeping track. Probably through the magics in my left hand. I looked at my palm. Nothing there. Didn’t mean that I was free of magic. I wondered how many blue bikes were in New Orleans and the surrounding area.
Alex stated emphatically, “There’s not a single record of Tau owning a bike. But . . .” His fingers tapped whirlwind-fast on a tablet. “There were other witches in the circle where you were struck by lightning. Maybe one of them has a bike. I’ve done a search on them in case one of them was offering sanctuary and assistance to the Nicauds. But I haven’t looked for a bike. Or a bike maybe owned by one of their friends or family members. This will take a while. It would help if I knew the make.”
Molly shook her head. She didn’t know.
Before we left, the Truebloods turned in, safe behind the upgraded ward, one so powerful that even antitank missiles couldn’t penetrate it. Air elemental spells could still penetrate, but not without setting off a big honking alarm now. Evan and Mol hadn’t been able to make a magical filter working large enough to cover the house.
Alex turned in as well, taking the necessary tablets to bed with him to continue the search for conspirators. Eli, Edmund, and I made a trip to vamp HQ, to fill Leo in on the problems in the hope that the MOC might, maybe, put off his participation in the big witch hoedown. Not likely. Not likely at all.
CHAPTER 18
Leo Has a Type?
“You believe, then, that this superwitch, Tau, has a plan to compel the witches and Mithrans into war and kill whoever is left alive. Or undead,” Leo said, adjusting his cuffs and looking himself over in a long cheval mirror beside his desk. “Something of the like was to be expected, of course. Witches have always been notoriously sly and unpredictable. Unlike Mithrans, who can drink of a subject or scion to determine reliability and loyalty, and to compel that loyalty when needed.” He ran a hand down his flat stomach and turned to see himself from every angle. Satisfied, he removed solid gold cuff links, not the sterling silver ones he might have worn to show his power to Mithrans, and dropped them in a velvet bag held by one of his valets, whom I had seen but never met.
Lawrence Hefner was English, with a south London accent, according to Edmund. He wasn’t exactly a blood-servant, nor was he a blood-slave. He was more of a rarity in the vamp world, a human in that strange position of salaried specialist who did not drink vamp blood beyond that which was necessary to be trusted. Larry, who had sniffed at me when I called him that, drew the strings of the bag tight and placed it carefully on Leo’s desk. Leo’s shirt was a modern blend, both wrinkle-free, soft, and heavy-starched-looking all at once, tailored to show Leo’s trim form and the muscles beneath. Modern tech fashions were pretty cool.
But as I stood there, Leo unbuttoned the shirt, pulled it from the tuxedo pants, and tossed it at Larry. I blinked. Twice. I hadn’t seen Leo shirtless in . . . well, never. At least not any time when he wasn’t bloody and damaged. This was different. His once-olive skin was pale and scarred, the kind of scars that indicated damage no human would have survived. Dozens of life-threatening injuries. Beneath it, lithe muscles flexed as he took another shirt from Larry and pulled it on. This one was linen, the cut loose across the shoulders. As he buttoned it, I met Bruiser’s gaze. His eyes twinkled, his expression an understated amusement, as if to say, Yes. He’s pretty. I know. I remember seeing him strip off a shirt before.
I realized that there was a reason Leo had us meet here, while he was dressing. He was showing off. I shook my head at Bruiser as if to say, Oh. My. Gosh. Really? Really! Bruiser’s eyes went to laughter and he looked away, at the rug beneath his feet, as if to hide his expression.
“Yes,” I said to Leo, bringing my attention back to the conversation and away from the silent communication with my sugar lump. “This very situation we’re facing has to be why there’s a schism between vamps and witches. Because a small group of determined, powerful, prepared witches could ambush and destroy a larger, better-armed group of vamps.” Leo lifted an eyebrow at me in disdain. “In a heartbeat,” I said. “No matter how fast a well-fed vamp might compel or mesmerize them, witches can work in daylight and from a distance. If the witches ever decide to take over the paranormal world, vamps are screwed. Especially when fighting a senza onore witch.” Leo knew all this. Dang it.
“Hmm. What do you think, Lawrence?” Leo asked, ignoring everything I had just said.
“I prefer the other, milord. The fabric, while not traditional, will provide comfort in a stressful situation, and should you take off your tuxed
o suit coat for some reason, the lines of that dress shirt are more appealing.”
“I tend to agree. Now, what about the silks and the cummerbund?”
Now he was just messing with me. I was tired, worn, it was nearly dawn, the day of the Witch Conclave. I sat down. Without permission. Larry sniffed at me again. So I put my feet up on the desk and crossed my boots at the ankles. And yawned. Larry turned his back on me, clearly scandalized.
Leo laughed. “I depend upon my Enforcer to care for me,” he said. He took in the entire office, which was tightly packed with too many people, all watching him dress or carefully looking elsewhere. His gaze finally settled on Bruiser and Edmund, who had stepped up behind me, in some kind of unspoken accord. Leo’s face went tight and hard, his scent peppery in the crowded room. “Even a senza onore witch,” he said, emphasizing the words, “will not stop this parley. It is essential to the survival of the city and to my clan and my bloodline. It is essential to every Mithran and witch and human in the land. And it will take place.” He gestured to the door. “Everyone out. Except the Enforcers and the Onorio.” He glanced at Eli. “And that one.”
The room cleared fast, and as the door closed, Leo said, “My Enforcer and the Onorios shall all be in attendance. I will be quite safe at the conclave.”
I said, “But no one else will be.”
His shirt hanging open, Leo faced me, piercing me with his eyes. His power buffeted me, cold and potent, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. I realized then that he was blood-flushed. He’d been drinking, and drinking deeply, from all the clan blood-masters and from the Son of Darkness in the lowest subbasement. The feel of his power along my flesh made me want to drop my feet to the floor and put my back to the wall, but to Leo, that would have appeared to be a defensive move, would have suggested that I was afraid, would have made me lose face in the presence of my enemies. So I stayed where I was, drawing on Beast to keep my breath and heart rate low and the stink of my fear inside me.
