Undead on Arrival

by L. A. Banks

  Still . . . she had to talk to Hunter, had to find out what he had learned that could help his case. Had to address whatever had sparked the bitter fight in the bayou between him and Shogun—as though that were a secret now. Had to admit what had happened in the teahouse, and had to talk to Doc . . . her father. From there, she had to go to Shogun and help the man while he was still lucid. If she went to him first, no one had to tell her that it would get ugly in the family.

  Sasha closed her eyes as she pushed the last forkful of her dinner into her mouth. She grabbed a handful of grapes as she crossed the room to pick up the wide belt that had a dagger scabbard built into it and threaded the buckle, pulling it tight over her hips with one hand. Thinking, dreading, she popped the grapes into her mouth and then stopped as sweet juice exploded on her tongue. It was so good it literally stunned her.

  Tiny chiming voices pelted her ears and dancing opalescent lights made her dizzy as she opened her eyes. For a second she stared down at the grapes. “What the . . .”

  “Miss, miss!” a tiny voice cried out. “We are so sorry!”

  Although she was looking at the grapes, the voices seemed to be coming from somewhere near her ear. Disoriented, Sasha’s gaze tore around the room and stopped on a sparkling, moving miasma of tiny dust motes.

  “Dugan tricked us.”

  On guard, Sasha tilted her head as she stared into the moving lights, slowly making out the gnat-size Fairies. Straining hard, she listened with wolf ears now.

  “Dugan tricked you?” she said softly. “How?”

  “Oh, our gardens,” the miasma wailed. “Our beautiful, beautiful gardens are ruined forever by blood!”

  “Okay, take me through it slowly. What happened?” Sasha popped another grape into her mouth and tried not to swoon from the flavor.

  “Dugan told us if we enchanted you, he could keep our gardens safe from the beast. But that didn’t work. She still came there after all those years . . . back to where she had been before,” tiny voices cried out in unison.

  “All right,” Sasha said, growing peevish as she cast the grapes on the table. She pointed at the floating lights. “What did you guys do to me at the teahouse?”

  “We enhanced what was there,” the small voices wailed. “Nothing bad . . . just like the grapes’ sweetness. We only made it better, we meant no harm. We just wanted to be safe. We don’t like Lei. We don’t like Dana. They called the beast there and fed her there, but Dugan said you’d keep her away . . . just like Shogun would. We wanted you both to like the garden and to stay near us to keep us safe. We don’t want you to leave with the other big wolf, Sasha . . . Shogun likes the garden. It was his father’s. Please stay in New Orleans with us, please. The Vampires here are so mean to us. They kill people sometimes, too!”

  Sasha slapped her forehead and closed her eyes. There was no denying the chemistry between her and Shogun, but an enhancement spell was so not what she needed to be dealing with right now. Hunter was gonna have a cow. Frightened Fairies were not going to make a good alibi to a jealous male wolf who mated for life.

  “You guys should have just asked me,” Sasha said in a weary tone, opening her eyes and pointing at them as though they were naughty children. “Bad Fairies!”

  A collective wail rose up from the shimmer, and she used their distress to press a point—after all, they’d given her some serious intel. Dugan was in on it, supposedly trying to keep Lei and Dana out of their gardens; plus, Lei and Dana had been caught luring an infected Werewolf there and feeding it. She’d already gotten word that Vampires had gotten Dugan to remove his defenses against them at the B&B so they could do a bait-and-switch with Hunter’s meds . . . but she needed to know what their angle was. And why would Dugan want her and Shogun to hook up?

  “You guys owe me, you know that,” Sasha warned. “You’ve really pissed off the big wolf, and now an innocent man got infected in a fight that didn’t have to happen.” She raked her damp hair and folded her arms over her chest.

  The colorful, shimmering cloud seemed to burst like Fourth of July fireworks, sending sparklers everywhere before coming back together.

  “Oh, Sasha . . . we saw. The Forest Pixies told us. The baron got your clothes and Shogun’s and left them for the huge Shadow. He was so upset . . . oooohhhh . . .”

  “The baron, huh?” Sasha’s hands were on her hips. She cocked her head to the side. That definitely linked Geoff Montague with Dugan. To her way of seeing it, the only thing that bringing her and Shogun together and then leaving cold-blooded evidence like that for an out-of-control, possibly demon-infected Shadow to find would accomplish would be to start a wolf war. “Hmmm . . .”

  Sasha looked off toward the windows, studying the moonlight in the leaded, beveled glass. Have both leaders go into mortal combat, and that leaves the wolf Federations on both sides weak . . . allowing the Vampire Cartel to step back into power. Her mind was on fire as it tracked data points. Everything made so much sense. Once wolves were weak again, the Fae would fracture into special-interest groups, just as the Dragons and Mythics would.

  Dugan was a businessman, one who’d suffered severe losses after the hurricane. She just wondered what the Vampires had promised him. Maybe it was just a smart move—somebody hedging his bets to help the old boys’ network that never forgot a slight or a friend. Sorta like helping out the mob before they asked for assistance and being considered a good egg when they rolled on an area. She could figure out what his angle was later. At the moment she needed hard evidence to get both Dugan and Geoff off the tribunal and possibly convicted themselves.

  Narrowing her gaze on the distraught Fairies, Sasha walked in a circle around their throbbing cloud of shimmering dust.

  “First of all,” she said, trying to push as many guilt buttons in them as she could, “you have a man’s execution on your hands if we can’t come up with a cure—so I want a full-scale, all-out effort to help Doc and Clarissa come up with a cure, even if it involves cheating with a little magic.”

  “We’ll help, Miss Sasha, we’ll help. Oooohhhh . . . We never kill people. It is against all that we believe in—we never meant for him to get hurt!”

  The cloud burst into tendrils of sparkling rain all around the room. Maybe she’d gone too far. This could be a Fairy feint, she wasn’t sure, but she kept up the bad-cop voice just to whip them in line.

  “And now that you potentially have an innocent man’s life in limbo . . . I want whatever you can find out on Dugan and his Vampire connection to Geoff. If you have a tainted needle, a vial, anything they used—heard a conversation—”

  “Pixies can help us lift heavy things like vials and needles,” the Fairies said in quick squeaks. “But we cannot testify . . . noooo . . . oh, noooo . . .”

  “Why can’t you testify?” Sasha said in a flat, monotone voice, totally annoyed.

  “Because they’ll all know we helped you, and we never get involved.”

  “But you are involved! You did a spell and that backfired. So cut the don’t-snitch crap!” Sasha walked around the room as the cloud dispersed into fleeing dust motes. As she chased them, she could hear them squealing like they were having mini nervous breakdowns.

  “All right, all right,” Sasha finally said, standing still as the Fairies gathered their composure. Making them run screaming into the night wouldn’t solve jack.

  “I won’t press testimony if you can bring me intel and evidence in the next twenty-four hours that can help. I’ve got several problems that you guys helped create and therefore need to help fix—let’s start with a man in a dungeon who is very, very sick, plus one down the hall who is very, very hurt. I’ve got a she-demon wolf looking for me, and Lei and Dana are feeding her in your gardens . . . gotta find that bitch fast and make sure the other two do time for loosing that on the general public. Something like that can’t happen again.”

  “Oh, oh, those poor young humans,” the Fairies said, swooning. “Wood Sprites can help you find the demon. They will
tell us where her lair is—they don’t want her in their bayou any more than we want her in our garden!”

  “What about Lei and Dana?”

  “No, no, no, we saw but cannot testify . . . ohhh!”

  “You could do a truth-enhancement spell—an enchantment to bring out what’s already there,” Sasha said, calmly, watching the miasma settle down. “Let them tell on themselves at the tribunal. That way, you stay out of it, and it’s evidence against a coupla bad Werewolf chicks who you want out of your garden, anyway—not Vampires whom you’re deathly afraid of.”

  She took the Fairies’ lack of immediate response as a possible yes and pressed on, knowing they were considering the repercussions of going against Buchanan Broussard’s family by setting Dana up. The teeny folks did have a point; he seemed like a real bastard.

  “Listen,” Sasha said in a weary tone that was no act. “I’ve got two huge wolf Federations about to go to war over the bull, and a local yokel angling to get him and his daughter installed as the next clan leaders. That would be lovely—picture that,” she added with biting sarcasm. “Then, if that weren’t bad enough, I’ve got a squad on the run that needs protection. And if all of this isn’t enough to make your head hurt, think of it this way . . . if the wolf Federations go to war, and you’d better hope they don’t, the Vampires will be in prime position to take over not just the UCE again, but also New Orleans. The math is real simple—either help me or you’re screwed as not-so-innocent bystanders. I’m going back up to the North Country when this is all over; you guys have to live here. This is your neighborhood.”

  Sasha watched with great satisfaction as the shimmering lights stopped moving about for a moment, gathered together, and then took on a dark gray hue that she could only interpret as outrage. “Face it. You got played,” she said with a dramatic sigh designed to add a little inspiration for them to step up. “Hate to tell you, but, your man Dugan hung you out to dry.”

  Hunter stared at his grandfather across the table in his room. He ate; the old shaman ate. Words seemed to elude them.

  “This is not like Sasha,” Silver Hawk said. “There was something else involved, no matter what you found in the bayou.”

  Hunter looked up from his plate, his gaze level with his grandfather’s. “From all that you’ve told me, even my own mother made choices like this,” he said in a bitter tone. “That’s how I got here. She chose someone over her life mate, who was a wrong fit. Couldn’t blame her, just like I can’t blame Sasha . . . Sasha thought I was dead to her, a junkie to the antitoxin, maybe even Turning . . . as good as dead. So she made a logical choice. I suppose my half brother was that.” He shoved another forkful into his mouth as his grandfather’s eyes slid away from his.

  “Son,” the old shaman said quietly. “There is more to it than you know, I’m sure. Let her tell you in her own time. Your words are raw now, just as your heart is raw. Let both heal before you speak pain that will leave her heart injured. That is all I ask. I am tired. I am going to see if I can help my friend Doc, and then together two old men will endeavor to save a young man’s life. The rest of it—the healing, the bringing together of blood brothers and justice—is in the hands of the Great Spirit.”

  Silver Hawk stood. Hunter abandoned his plate and stood as well. The two looked at each other for a long while, and then the old man simply embraced him.

  Doc looked up quickly from his meal as a knock sounded at his door. Silver Hawk had promised him he’d return soon after he talked to Hunter, but if he was back already that was not a good sign. Standing slowly, he called out for the person at the door to come in. But seeing Sasha enter his room as two guards left her and closed the door behind her thoroughly shook him. He hadn’t planned on talking to her alone until the morning . . . until his beaten, fatigued brain could rest and come up with an explanation that her pain-filled eyes demanded.

  “Hello, Dad,” she said in a quiet monotone. “Mind if I sit down so we can finally get to the truth?”

  Whatever had been in the bathwater stung every silver wound like hell. Cooked meat, the stench of roasted pheasant and—of all things—vegetables, was about to make him hurl.

  Shogun lay across the bed panting and naked with sweat rolling off his overheated body. Goose down was too hot. The duvet, the linen, the silk pillows all made him want to howl. He needed to be outside. Needed to run, to hunt, to kill something . . . to taste blood! His claws dug into the comforter, shredding it as blind rage propelled him up off the sumptuous mattress to begin flipping furniture, hurling the privacy screen at the bars that had enclosed the tub, a toilet, and a small dressing area, and then crashing anything else in his huge cell that wasn’t nailed down.

  He could hear Lei screaming for the guards to come assist him, but her voice was shrill enough to make his head throb.

  “Make that shrew shut up!” he bellowed. “Put her on another side of the castle! I don’t want her near me—she betrayed me and the family!”

  “I didn’t, I didn’t,” Lei said sobbing as guards opened her cell to move her quarters. “Don’t take me away from him—only I can help my brother now,” she shrieked, fighting against air as the Fae guards stood back and sent enchanted vines to bundle her into acquiescence on the floor. “I did what I did for you!”

  “My mother is alive—where?” he shouted, a sudden intense desire to pack-bond with the demon-infected overwhelming him. “All these years you knew, and kept that from me! I had a brother and you knew, bitch!” Shogun shouted through the bars, watching them carry his struggling sister somewhere he couldn’t see her.

  A lonely, agony-riddle howl crept up his throat as his hands sought his hair. Tears stung his eyes. He was Turning . . . God help him, he could feel it.

  The sound of Shogun’s howl made Sasha hug herself as she stared across the table at Doc. She knew she should have gone to Shogun first, but she’d told herself that she needed to speak to the medical professional on the team to better understand what she was dealing with so they could both go together. The moment she’d opened the door to face Doc she knew she’d again told herself lies. This was about unfinished business and needing to understand why any and all of it had gone down the way it had.

  Doc had stopped speaking when he’d heard Shogun’s howl. The pain in his eyes made her finally reach across the table and clasp his hand. That simple gesture made tears well in both their eyes as Doc squeezed her hand back.

  “I’m immune, too, Sasha,” Doc said in a quiet rasp. “Like my mentor, Lou Zang Chen. We’d both been scratched over the years by patients—soldiers we were harnessing down after they’d been brought in half eaten during the Colombian incident. That was before we realized how the contagion morphed, how a man transitioned. But that’s also when we discovered that he and I shared a hidden secret. We both wanted a cure. We both had wolf DNA in our blood and both had pure human mothers.”

  Sasha dragged her fingers through her hair. Somehow, talking to Doc about DNA and cures was so much easier than discussing the subject they both were so obviously avoiding.

  “But if I’m half human from my mother’s side, plus one-quarter Shadow from you—because you’re a fifty–fifty mix of human and Shadow,” she said, studying the grain of the wood in the highly polished table between them, “then why is my wolf so strong?”

  Xavier Holland let out a long, tired sigh as she looked up and met his weary gaze. “All I’ve ever been able to attribute that to is dominant and recessive genes being the roll of the dice, Sasha. It’s just like in a family of brown-eyed individuals—a startling pair of green eyes or blue eyes can show up, or even a vastly different skin color.” He opened his hands, as though imploring the heavens to give him an answer. “There’s been no adultery in those cases, only what old folks used to call a throwback trait—something that probably got many an innocent woman stoned or beaten to death. Pure human ignorance of the vagaries of genetics . . . such a waste.”

  “Why didn’t you, me, or Lou Zang Chen Turn
, though? There’s something among the three of us that we’re not figuring out,” she said, her gaze trailing away from her father toward the waning moonlight.” She looked at Doc. “I got infected, you got infected, he did, too—and we all had varying degrees of Shadow Wolf and human in us.”

  “His wolf was very far removed,” Doc said quietly. “Only an eighth or less . . . yet he didn’t Turn. That genetic riddle has stumped me my entire career.”

  “I wish we had blood samples from your mentor,” Sasha said, raking her hair.

  The deafening silence made her quickly look at Xavier Holland.

  “We do,” he said in a thick, shame-filled murmur. “We kept all the bodies from that lab accident.”

  “Frozen?” Sasha’s eyes were so wide now that it felt as though they might roll right out of her skull. “All of them?”

  Doc nodded and looked away. “Yes. All of them.”

  “My mother . . .”

  Doc closed his eyes. “I will never let you see . . . what was left. Don’t ask me that, Sasha.”

  She stood and went to the window, drawing in ragged breaths. Nausea made her stomach roil. Science and the military knew no bounds.

  “I won’t ask you to see her,” Sasha finally said. “I don’t ever want to see her like that—I’ve seen her in the shadow lands in spirit, whole and beautiful. That’s enough for me. But I’d like to go back to NORAD with you and Clarissa to look at Dr. Chen’s blood, comparing that with Shogun’s and with ours . . . there’s gotta be a marker, something.”

  “For three decades, Sasha, I’ve turned over every stone. What can we possibly find now at this late hour? As much as it breaks my heart to say this, Shogun probably won’t make it tomorrow night. It’s gone too far too fast in his system.”