by Faith Hunter
Page 7
He dropped his hand and cupped her bottom, lifting her closer, pressing himself into the heat of her.
And her cell phone rang. It was a simple chime but insistent. She sighed into his mouth, a soft moan of longing and frustration. Without breaking the kiss, she pressed his chest away while reaching back and removing the cell from her back pocket. And she broke the kiss. Her eyes held his as the cell chimed, and she smiled, her lips full and slightly bruised. She answered the call.
“Jane Yellowrock. ” And she turned away, moving to the front door of the Royal Mojo Blues Company and out into the sunlight.
Yes. He’d have her. Of her own free will and her own need and her own trust. And this one he would share with no one. No one at all.
Chronology of Books and Stories
“WeSa and the Lumber King” (in the compilation Have Stakes Will Travel)
“The Early Years” (in the compilation Cat Tales)
“Cat Tats” (in the compilation Cat Tales)
“Kits” (in the compilation Cat Tales)
“Haints” (in the compilation Have Stakes will Travel)
“Signatures of the Dead” (in the anthology Strange Brew and the compilation Have Stakes Will Travel)
Skinwalker
“First Sight” (in The Jane Yellowrock World Companion)
Blood Cross
Mercy Blade
“Easy Pickings” (crossover, alternative universe novella with C. E. Murphy)
“Blood, Fangs and Going Furry” (in the compilation Cat Tales)
“Dance Master” (in The Jane Yellowrock World Companion)
Raven Cursed
“Cajun With Fangs” (in the compilation Have Stakes will Travel)
“Golden Delicious” (in the anthology An Apple for the Teacher)
Death’s Rival
Blood Trade
“The Devil’s Left Boot” (in the anthology Kicking It)
“Beneath a Bloody Moon” (in the The Jane Yellowrock World Companion)
Jane Yellowrock Companion Guide Timeline
Faith’s Note: I’ve been asked by fans for a comprehensive timeline of the events in the Jane Yellowrock series for ages. Well, thanks to Carol, you finally get one. I adore it!
Carol’s note: The books and short stories are listed in order, with a short synopsis of each.
Stories:
WeSa and the Lumber King (in Have Stakes Will Travel): Beast, with Jane (or WeSa, as Beast thinks of her) in the background of her mind, observes the camp of white men. Beast feels as though the white men are responsible for the loss of hunting grounds and the destruction of the environment, and decides to kill one man out of this hunting party as retribution, as well as to take the meat he has. WeSa cautions Beast to not eat the flesh of or drink the blood of the white man. Beast kills the man and, after eating the meat he was carrying, walks off into the woods satisfied.
* * *
The Early Years (in Cat Tales): On her eighteenth birthday, Jane Yellowrock (so named because when she first walked out of the woods at the age of twelve, the Cherokee word that basically translates as “yellow rock” was the only word she said) is packing up her motorcycle, leaving the Bethel Nondenominational Christian Home to take a trainee job at a security firm in Asheville. Bobby, a year younger than Jane in years but very childlike, does not want her to leave. She has been his protector and his friend. Jane tells Bobby that it is time for her to leave, but she will come back to visit him. In addition to Bobby, Jane also hears the ever-present voice in the back of her mind—the one she tells no one about for fear of being thought crazy, the presence she continually forces to the background.
Jane had decided to take a detour on the way to her new job—to look for the horseshoe-shaped mountain and a nearby quartz boulder with gold running through it that are her only memories. Jane knew where the mountain was, thanks to the Internet, and after a night in a hotel along the way, she found the spot the next morning. Jane immediately feels as though she is home, but she also feels as though fur is rubbing against her insides. Exploring the area in the rain, Jane finds the quartz rock, with gold veins like the nugget in her necklace. After being bombarded with memories she has no idea how she could have experienced, Jane lies down on the rock and falls asleep. When Jane awakens, she is no longer Jane, but a Puma concolor, a mountain lion.
* * *
Cat Tats (in Cat Tales): For two years, undercover agent Rick LaFleur has been working on gaining access to Leo Pellissier, Master of the City of New Orleans, by taking jobs with lower-level vamps. One thing in his favor is that his uncle is security chief and primo for Katie, Leo’s heir. However, none of those things are of much help when he wakes up naked and bound in an old barn. Trying to make sense of where he is, Rick remembers the vampire Isleen that he had decided he could handle in order to have a little fun, but things did not go his way. As soon as it gets dark, Isleen comes in, soon followed by a woman—apparently a blood-servant, who tells Isleen that if she drinks from her again, she will be too weak to finish the spell in time.
After Isleen leaves to go hunting, Rick learns that the young woman/blood-servant, Loriann, is a witch whose younger brother Isleen is holding captive until Loriann completes a binding blood-spell on Rick. After going through a tarot deck with Rick cutting the cards a few times, Loriann asks him to choose what his tattoo will be: canines, equines, or felines. To his surprise, Rick chooses felines. He asks the witch why he is being used for this spell of revenge against the vampire Katie, and learns that she is a several-times great-grandmother to his mother, which explains where some of the money came from for big expenses over the years.
After the first night of tattooing, Rick begins to devise a plan to get away, gathering tools with which he makes stakes. When Loriann manages to get Isleen to agree to bring her brother along to the ceremony the next night, she tells Rick she will help him, even leaving him a knife. When Loriann arrives the next day, she tells Rick that she called Katie’s and told them what was going on, and that as soon as she sees that her brother is still alive, she will text them the address. Though Rick fails to stake Isleen in the spot he needs to, Leo and Katie arrive in time to kill the crazed vampire. Loriann and her brother are safe.
Thankfully, Rick learns the next day that the binding was not activated, but he has a feeling that there is something special about the bobcat and mountain lion tattoos he now wears.
* * *
Kits (in Cat Tales): On her way out of town to track down a rogue vamp on the loose in the North Carolina countryside, Jane needs to stop by the restaurant owned and operated by a family of sisters—some witch, some human—to pick up the tracking charm she had commissioned from one of them, Molly Trueblood. When she arrives at Seven Sassy Sisters Herb Shop and Café, Jane learns that Molly did not come in that morning, or even call. Sensing that something is very wrong, Jane proves herself as a friend to one of Molly’s sisters, first by mentioning that she stood up to some witch-haters on Molly’s behalf a while back, then by answering a few questions. Jane heads over to Molly’s home, a double-wide trailer on two acres, but as she approaches she notices what appears to be a storm cloud centered right over the house.
With Beast pressing upon her mind to get to Molly’s “kit,” Angie Baby, Jane considers calling in some of the witch sisters to help with what is obviously some type of magical problem. Unfortunately her phone has no signal, and shortly thereafter her motorcycle dies as well. Taking off at a run, Jane heads to Molly’s, seeing part of the roof being peeled back. When she gets inside, unable to resist the magical pull, Jane shifts into Beast, who finds and comforts Angie—from whom the magic is coming—by wrapping herself around the little girl. Soon the maelstrom of magic dissipates, and when Molly comes over to look Beast in the face, she sees Jane in her eyes, as well as the necklace Jane always wears. Beast then leaves, and after dark Jane once again emerges, waking up on the ground next to her
bike.
Missing her jacket and boots, Jane decides to go up near the house to see if Molly hears her outside. Molly comes on the porch, thanks Jane for everything (she and Evan had not expected Angie’s powers to manifest until puberty), and over tea Molly swears undying friendship to Jane, and Jane tells Molly she is a skinwalker—the first time she has ever told anyone that.
* * *
Haints (in Have Stakes Will Travel): Molly Trueblood, earth witch, has been called in by a local coven to check out what seems to be a haunting of an older house being renovated into an office. For support and assistance, Molly’s friend Jane Yellowrock has joined her to examine the place. Molly is reminded of Jane’s “secret” as she observes her friend’s catlike behavior while she goes through the rooms. Jane states that she smells both witch and vampire, but not anything dead as Molly feels there is. When prompted by Jane, Molly senses a very old ward and a keep-away spell, and also learns that Jane can now sense witch magic since being around Molly and Evan.
When Molly concentrates, she can see that the spell is protecting one corner of the room where there is a cloth covering other items. However, as soon as she says out loud that she needs to get through the spell in order to find out what talisman might be causing it, she is overcome with feelings of dread, which she realizes is due to the spell. Jane reports that a ladder started to move when Molly said she needed to go have a look at the corner, so Jane decides she will be the one to go exploring. Jane finds an old stethoscope, and Molly sees green tendrils of magic going up Jane’s arms until she drops the spelled item and then smacks it, neutralizing the spell. Molly now is able to more closely examine the stethoscope/amulet, but as she does so, Jane shouts to her as a headboard comes flying down the stairs and straight at Molly. Jane tells Molly to leave the house, which she does, dodging items as she goes. Jane informs Molly that a vampire owned the stethoscope.
Later that evening, Jane joins Molly and Evan at their house to share what she has learned about the house’s previous inhabitants. There was a doctor named Hainbridge in the town in 1870, 1910, and 1940, and from the hand-painted portraits she found, it was obviously the same man—the vampire she sensed. The doctor had a human son who contracted leukemia in 1845, and his father’s efforts to treat him resulted in madness. Since other approaches didn’t work, the doctor turned the son—a forbidden practice. The two disappeared from the area at the time of the Civil War, but returned in 1870, involving witches from a local coven.
