Blood Cross

by Faith Hunter

Chapter 20

 

  Thief-of-kits. Die.

  Ignoring the men and vamp on the stairway landing, I raced up the stairs and into the apartment. I disabled a man with a knife, a chef by the smell of his clothes, bonked him on the head with the pommel of my vamp-killer, and left him unconscious at the entry.

  The apartment was opulent in red and white, lots of white marble, white-painted wood, lots of red fabric. The color of blood seemed to appeal to vamps as a decorating scheme.

  Go figure. I breathed the place in, scenting. It reeked of human blood donors, multiple vamps, pain, and sex. I raced from room to room, some with beds, some without, one with a complicated rack hanging from the ceiling, chains and tools of a bloody trade organized on shelves. There was a drain here too. There was no indication in the apartment's scents that the kits or Bliss had ever been here. I abandoned it for the third floor.

  This was a private place, one huge room, divided into sections by furniture groupings.

  The place reeked of the Damours, their scent patterns overlapping and intermingled. I knew what they wanted now, I knew what they were trying to do, and the knowledge made the stink stronger, darker, permeated with evil, though surely that was only my imagination.

  A large dining area was to my right with a table to seat twelve; a larger living space was ahead, with lots of leather. Two sleeping areas were just beyond, each with king-sized beds made up with fur. Lots of real fur. Vamps liked lounging on dead things. By the smell, this was a major lair of the Damours. I made sure the huge apartment was empty, finding a small but ornate bathroom tucked away in a nook, but no other individual rooms. Again the decor involved a lot of marble - floors, walls, pillars holding up the roof - but the color scheme was black and red, with black marble and deep scarlet fabrics. I stopped and turned, scenting with mouth open. Something was wrong.

  Something was missing.

  No humans, Beast murmured. No human blood. They do not feed here.

  "Or they don't feed on human blood here. " My body tightened, hard and sharp.

  I walked to the beds and lifted a pillow to me. Bliss's scent wafted out. Bliss and sex.

  The Damours were feeding off witches. Fury-fear spiraled up in me, flaming and icy, electric. Angelina? I climbed across the bed, mouth open, dragging in air over tongue and nose with ascaggh ing sound. Relief shuddered through me. Angie hadn't been savaged here. But what I did smell brought me up short.

  The vamp on the landing below had been in the beds of the Damours, recently. So had other vamps, including Bettina, Rousseau Clan master. I lifted a pillow and breathed in her scent, the stink of her sweat. It was laced with fear. She had not been here willingly.

  She had wanted to escape them. I should have gone to visit when she asked.

  "Princess?"

  I twisted on one knee and saw Derek at the door.

  "We're ready to take the heads of the rogues on the cots. "

  "Belay that. Until we find the kids, these particular rogue vamps get a pass. If we kill them, then there's no reason to keep Angelina and Little Evan alive. "

  He nodded his head, but it was resigned. "Fine. We can use them as bait. " He looked at his watch. "Time. " He meant time to go.

  "One more minute," I bargained.

  "Baldy just disabled one of my men and took off. Sixty seconds and me and my men are outta here. "

  Discarding any pretense of human speed, I raced from the bed and slammed open the armoires on the back wall, the doors rocking and banging as I passed. They faced the windows, all of them dark wood, carved with curlicues and flowers and leaves, dragons and gargoyles, faces out of legend and nightmare. Vamp scent roiled out of each until the next to last. And from it witch scent rose, fresh and potent and powerful.

  I paused, hands clenching on my weapons. "They were here. The children. " There was a mattress on the floor of the armoire, sheets and a blanket, small shackles on long chains.

  And a doll. A black-haired doll with yellow eyes, like mine. Ka Nvsita . The doll I gave to Angie.

  Icy fear sliced through me. Tears stung my eyes. I sheathed the shotgun and picked up the doll. The scent of Angie's fear and the salt of her tears were ripe in the doll's clothes. But there was no scent of blood. I thanked God for small favors as I closed the door and secured the doll inside my leather jacket. "They were here only moments ago.

  How did they get by us?"

  I looked at the last two armoires. Maybe . . . ? The next held paintings, stacked in tightly. I yanked one out and saw a witch circle and pentagram. And vampires. And children. And lots of blood. "Derek? Get a couple of men up here and take these" - I nodded to the paintings - "as many as you can. " He started to refuse but I passed him the painting. His mouth twisted down, hard, and he spoke into his headset.

  The last armoire wasn't an armoire. When I pulled the door, a black space yawed open, a narrow stair leading down into darker night. The smell of sex, witch, and vamp led down. I remembered the utility area on the side of the building. I hadn't seen a door but one could be hidden there easily enough. "Derek?" When he looked at me, his shotgun out, braced across his body, I said, "They went this way. It leads down. Look for a passageway through the garage or a door to the outside. I'm taking the stairs. "

  Derek cursed with a marine's efficiency and disappeared, directing two men to take the paintings and get them into the van. I started down the stairs.

  Beast, already close to the surface, shoved her way into my forebrain. Pain gathered at my fingertips as if claws pushed through. Pelt roiled just under my skin, aching, wanting to be free. My eyes adjusted to the lack of light. I can see well in murky dark, but my vision is no match for vamp eyes, which can see in total dark. I found the stairs by feel, the treads deeper than normal with maybe a twelve-inch drop per riser. My steps were slow and careful, my mouth open to scent, short snuffs drawing in air.

  According to the scent markers, vamps and witches had come this way only moments ago, but no echo of sound remained except for my feet on the treads. They were hollow like wood, not quite smooth, not freshly sanded and lacquered. The passageway smelled old beneath the reek of vamp and witch-fear, with a moldy undertone of tea, indigo, rice, and cotton. And lots of human women and more human fear, though most from long ago.

  Maybe it was an original passageway from the eighteen hundreds, or earlier, and had been remodeled into the back of the armoire as an escape hatch. An image came to me, bright and sharp, though I'm not gifted with vision. Maybe just stuck with a too-strong imagination, mixed with the fear in the smells. But I saw black women, wearing chains and little else, the scents of melanin from their skin, and iron and blood and fear, semen and degradation. A slave ship captain had used this passageway to test out his cargo before he sold them. I knew it with certainty and an impotent fury burned in me, the fury of a people who had served in slavery, much like the imported Africans. The fury of a woman, understanding hopeless captivity. The fury of Beast, feral and untamed.

  Anger burned along my nerves and tingled through my skin. I nearly missed a step deeper than the others. And then was brought up short on the next three that had lower risers, as if the stair risers had been sized to create discomfort and confusion. I walked down the narrow passage, my eyes adjusting to the blackness, my other senses expanding, reaching out, testing the air. The echoes dulled, shortened, and I knew I was at the bottom. Ahead of me was a faint line of light. I reached out and found a leverlike handle. Pushed down on it. A door opened. Three men dressed in black ringed the door.

  I scented Derek and raised my hands. "Just me," I said, my voiced clotted with fury and failure. "Just me. "

  "We never saw this door in the shadows. If they came through here, they're long gone,"

  Derek said.

  Over his head, the moon was rising, the first night of the three-day-full moon. The three days most usually associated with the dark arts, with the moon change of weres
, with Beast's sex drive. If the Damours intended to sacrifice the kits and Bliss, they'd do it during the full moon for optimal results.

  I walked to the curb, smelling the fading scents of vamp and witch. And an overlay of diesel exhaust. They were gone. I had no idea where their captors had gone to find safety. Once again I was back to square one. I took a breath that hurt my lungs. Tears stung my eyes. I was nearly out of time.

  I walked back into my house, smelling Evangelina Everhart, the eldest of the witch sisters, and Big Evan, Molly's still-in-the-closet sorcerer husband. And smelling Molly.

  She raced to my arms when I came in the side door. Slammed into me, holding me tightly. Over her shoulder Evan looked at me, his gaze murderous, his red beard vibrating with contained fury, promising retribution for the loss of his children. I hadn't been very good to Evan; I had placed his wife in danger more than once, nearly gotten him killed once, and now allowed his children to be stolen. The fact that I hadn't been present when they were taken had little relevance in his mind. Or in mine either, if I was honest.

  "You don't have to worry about how to kill me," I said to him. "If I don't get your children back, I'll be dead trying. "

  "Better be," he rumbled. "Or I'll skin you alive, pelt and flesh. "

  Evangelina, who didn't know I was a skinwalker, looked back and forth between us in confused consternation, then took solace in food and tea, as was her wont. She dished up a hearty stew from a pot on the stove, scooped a round of brown rice in the center, placed small salad bowls at each plate, and dumped buttery biscuits from a steel tray into a basket. Comfort foods. "Sit. Eat," she commanded. I peeled Molly out of my arms and passed her to Evan, who looked as if he was ready to rip her away from me. I removed the shotgun harness and laid it across the kitchen cabinet, but other than that, I remained fully armed.

  I sat, picked up my dinner spoon by feel, and dipped it into the stew and rice.

  "Tell me," Evan said. I put down my spoon and blinked at my tears.

  "No. She eats first," Mol said sharply. "Look at her. She's about to drop. "

  I lifted my spoon and shoveled in the stew. Intellectually, I knew it was good, but it could have been ashes for all I cared. I ate mechanically, emptying my bowl in minutes.

  Snubbing the salad, I took four biscuits and placed them on the bread plate, dumped honey and butter on them, and applied the spoon to them too. When I was finished, Molly brought me another bowl of stew. And then another. I was eating as tears rolled down my face, and I realized that none of the others was eating at all. They were watching me. When I finished my third bowl, I sighed and pushed away the empty dishes. Without looking at any of them, I wiped my face, took my tea mug in hand, and started talking. I told the tale. All of it except the parts about Beast; I took credit for her contributions and for once she didn't seem to mind.

  As I ate, Evangelina told about the witch coven she had visited. They had claimed they knew nothing about the attack on my house, but there were inconsistencies in the story they told, and Evangelina could tell they were keeping things back. Also, only three members met with her, when there were supposed to be five adult members in the coven. So something was hinky, not that Evangelina would ever use such a term.

  Before she finished, while I was still eating, a knock sounded and Rick opened the side door. I'd heard his Kow-bike and knew he was coming. I introduced him around and Evangelina dished him up a bowl of stew.

  He sat and dug into the food; halted with mouth full, chewed, and swallowed. "Dang, this is good. " He looked at Evangelina. "You cook this?" When she nodded, he looked at me and said, "No offense, but our date's off. I have to marry her. " My tears had dried and I twitched a strained smile. He was trying to lighten an impossibly dark situation, and I appreciated that. Not that it would work. He went back to the stew, dipping a biscuit into it and sopping up the juice. He also changed the subject.

  "I got news from the files. I spotted something when I was photocopying the witch and vampire files. " Too involved with the meal, Rick didn't notice the intense interest of the three witches at the table. I was pretty sure he knew Molly was a witch, but not the others.

  "That witch vamp Renee and her husband were once - when they all were human - the owners of the clan's blood-master, Bettina. " My mouth fell open. Rick grinned at my reaction. "Bettina was sold by Tristan Damours in 1770 to a vamp madame named Bethany who shipped her to New Orleans and put her to work as a sex slave in the Quarter. Bettina had a gift for satisfying customers and she and Bethany ran a successful business. "

  Bethany had owned slaves? I shook my head, wondering about the rift between Bethany and Sabina during the Civil War. If it hadn't been about slaves . . .

  "Later she got sick - I talked to a nurse I know and he thinks it sounds like the clap.

  Bettina was turned at Bethany's request to save her life. " Rick pulled papers from his leather jacket and passed them to me. I took the pages, opening them to expose a photo of Bettina, decked out in the clothes of a soiled dove, a corset, pantaloons, and a shawl.

  "Bethany didn't turn her?" Evangelina asked.

  "No. She's out-clan, and no out-clan can turn a human. They can't offer safety during the chained years, so they can't turn anyone. No protection. And at the time, the info of the Rousseau curse of insanity was still a secret. When he was asked, the Rousseau master agreed to turn her and adopt her into his clan. "

  He turned a page and pointed to a line written in a flowery cursive script. "Bettina was set free by accident, here in New Orleans - no one says what kind of accident - when she was still rogue. She went hunting for the Damours to kill them. She failed. When Bettina became blood-master of her clan, she had power over Renee and tried to kill the long-chained Damours. Renee stopped her. No record of how. "

  He stuffed half a flaky biscuit into his mouth and talked through it. "Bettina is our way in. We need to talk to her. If we can find her. "

  I felt a vibration and opened my cell. It was Derek Lee. "Yeah?"

  "I'm out front. Take these pictures. They give my men the willies. "

  "How many did you get?"

  "All of them. "

  "Who came when we got out of there? Cops?" I didn't look at Rick, but he was looking at me, speculation in his gaze as he ate.

  "No cops. Human blood-servants and slaves. I left a man watching from across the street. They're loading the long-chained ones into an eighteen-wheeler. Cleaning out the place. My man'll get a tracking transmitter on it if at all possible. That's what you meant by using them as bait, isn't it?"

  I could hear the grin in his words. "Thanks. "

  "Let us have the bounty on the heads of the long-chained and that'll be thanks enough. "

  I remembered the faces of the raving vamps. The way the girl vamp licked at her own arm, trying to taste her own blood. On one hand, it seemed wrong to give them true-death if there was any chance at a sane future, but not if that future sanity was promised at the death of children. "They're yours. "

  I closed the cell and stood, looking down at the witches. "I have some evidence. " Rick looked up at that, his expression saying clearly that he wasn't sure he should be here.

  "Don't ask," I warned him. He sat back and set down his spoon.

  "I have a feeling this stuff isn't pretty. It might involve the ceremonies where vamps sacrifice witch children. " Molly touched her mouth, her fingers quivering. "If you can't handle it, go upstairs. And you," I said to Rick, "you stay out of sight and don't look at the deliverymen. " I went to the door.

  Derek Lee already had a half dozen paintings on the porch. I grabbed two in each hand and carted them inside. They were in heavy gilt frames, each weighing about forty pounds, a lot heavier than they'd felt back at the lair, with adrenaline surging and Beast close to the surface. I propped the paintings against the couch and went back for more.

  The van roared off as I worked. There were fifteen paintings. Rick was li
ning them up on the floor, propped along the furniture.

  Her mouth in a tight line, Evangelina was changing the order, separating the paintings into two groups, one group on one side of the room, facing the other. I closed the door when I brought in the last one. Molly was in Evan's arms, her face in his shoulder. I could smell her fear. Evan's fear was subsumed beneath a rising anger. Evangelina's scent was more complex, her emotions tightly controlled.

  Rick was ignoring me, studying the paintings. I joined him. This wasn't the first time that I had gotten important info from vamp paintings. "Good thing vamps chronicled their every important move in oil on canvas," I muttered. "Self-obsessed bloodsuckers that they are. "

  Evangelina said, "That trait may have come from the fact that silvered mirrors reacted to them and didn't show their reflections well. So they sat for paintings to see how they looked. " She had separated the paintings into two groups according to time period, one batch with the female participants dressed in belled skirts, big sleeves, and corsets that came to a point below the navel, and for the men, knee pants, lace and satin, ugly big-buckled shoes, with white hair piled up tall. The other batch depicted people - well, vamps and witches - in high-waisted, slender dresses that showed a lot of cleavage, delicate shoes, and natural-colored hair.

  Though the participants changed through the years, all of the ones in charge of the ceremonies held knives and had fangs. Some of the vamps in the center of the witch circles and pentagrams had fangs and were clearly raving; in several paintings, they were the two teenagers I'd seen in the warehouse, the long-chained ones. The sacrificial children were dead, their throats cut, lives forfeited in the pentagram's center. In others, they were being drunk from as they died.

  In the later depictions, the experiments had changed several times. One showed the long-chained ripping out the throats of the sacrifices and drinking them down. In one, the adult was, I guessed, Renee. Her husband and her two children were in the circle, savaging a human. Two younger, fangless children were being sacrificed by Renee, a silver knife held high. On the latter canvases picturing both Damours, a bearded vamp was assisting the ceremony. The brother? Wasn't he supposed to be the last of the three to find sanity? I rearranged the order of two paintings and smiled grimly. "Evangelina, you're the educated one. What time periods are we seeing?"

  "I never made a study of fashion," she said dryly, "but I'd say the older batch is from the seventeen hundreds and the more recent from the early eighteen hundreds. This one" - she tapped a painting in which the participants wore modern-looking clothes -

  "I'd say came from the nineteen seventies. "

  "That's what I figured. " In it, only the children were in the circle, feeding on a witch child. Adults stood outside, at points of the pentagram. They bore striking resemblance to one another. They had to be the Damours.

  "You understand this?" Rick asked. "Because I sure don't. "

  "Therewere no notes of the Rousseau experiments from the seventeen hundreds.

  Nothing was destroyed in the fire. " I turned one of the oils into the light better to study the face of the strange vamp. I wondered who he was. "These paintings were the records of experiments, shipped to the States, probably in the frames, but behind other, less important paintings. Some of the later ones were maybe painted here. But whenever they were painted, thisis the Rousseau record of the experiments to rid the clan of insanity. "

  "They could be transported, hidden behind other paintings, but in plain sight, and no one would ever know," Evangelina said.

  There were definite differences in the styles of the paintings as well as the experiments.

  In the older set, there was no pentagram in the witch circle. No crosses on the trees. In the more recent batch, all the elements I'd seen in the young-rogue burial sites were present. Except . . . "In the older ones, the circles and pentagrams are made by cutting into the earth, like with a spade. In the newer ones, the circles are made with other things. Something that looks like powder or flour in one, flowers in one. Feathers. And stones in two, one with pebbles, one with shaped stones, like bricks. "

  "And the sacrificial athames in the older depictions are steel. The most recent ones indicate silver," Evangelina said. "The vamps in charge change. "

  "And there's this bearded guy. He's in . . . " - Evangelina counted - "six of the later paintings. Look at his position. Almost as if he's in charge now. And I'm betting that necklace on his chest in all the paintings is an amulet that lets him draw power from the others. "

  I studied the amulet. I didn't know much about gems, but it looked like a pink diamond or a washed-out, pale ruby, about the size of my thumb from the last knuckle to the thumb tip, faceted all over. It was on a heavy gold chain, a thick casing holding the gem, the casing shaped of horns and claws. It looked barbaric, brutal, and powerful, an artifact from a distant time and place.

  "That's what they intend for my babies?" Molly asked. She was standing where she could see all the paintings at once, her hands fisted so tightly her fingers were white, fear and grief and fierce anger on her face. I wanted to promise that I'd get to the children in time, that I'd save them. But the promises were for me, not for her. Molly knew what we were up against now. I nodded instead and went to the last painting from the eighteen hundreds. It was different from all the others. In it was an extra figure racing downhill, her white dress flying back with her speed, eyes blazing, holding a flaming, bloody cross. Sabina Delgado y Aguilera coming to the rescue, her face in a rictus scream of pain, her arms on fire, flames licking up toward her body. The vamps in the circle were running away, faces full of terror.

  Sabina had known exactly what I was describing when I told her about the young rogue and the witch circle in the woods. She had known and hadn't told me.

  A soft knock sounded at the door and Molly whirled, the reek of her rage and panic bitter on the air. No one had set wards. I peeked through a sliver of clear glass, glanced back once to see Rick with his weapon drawn and Evan with his hands out in a warding gesture. I opened the door. Two witches stood on the shallow stoop. I had never seen them before, but I recognized their scent.

  Beast reared up fast, her pelt pressing against my skin, her claws sharp in my fingertips. Thief-of-kits! Beast lunged into my mind. Flamed into my eyes.

  One witch, petite and blond, stepped back fast, shock on her face. Threw up her hands, palms out, power gathered there. Before she could throw the spell, I leaped. Was on her, a vamp-killer at her throat. Her thief-of-kits scent oily in my nose. "Any reason I shouldn't just kill you where you stand?" I growled.

  Screaming sounded all around me. The other witch begging, Molly shouting my name.

  Evan roaring. But the witch's terror was so strong it was sweet in my nostrils and mouth, heady. Her blood was mine. I slid the blade across her flesh, only a fraction. The witch's skin spilt. She was crying. I inhaled, smiling, showing killing teeth. Whispered,

  "Thief-of-kits. Die. "

  It was Evangelina who placed her hands on my arms, power flowing up from her fingers like cool bayou water, drawing away my rage, her voice soothing. "Wait. Not yet. Not just yet. Jane, let her go. I have her. She will not get away. "

  I met her eyes, my voice hissing and guttural. "Thief-of-kits. "

  Amazingly, Evangelina smiled, and suddenly she was beautiful, greenish eyes sparkling, her face young. "And we have her now. She will not get away. " She pushed at the vamp-killer, a gentle pressure. I blinked, Beast vision overlapping with mine.

  Evangelina's peace chilled my killing heat. Soothed me like a hand down my pelt. I let her press the weapon away. My fingers slowly opened, one at a time. I released the witch. Under Evangelina's hands, my rage eased, settled back, and found a resting place, like a sun-warmed rock in my mind. Unsteady, blinking in the sharp man-light, I stepped back. I was still holding the knife. It was the one Evan had carved for me and when I looked up, I saw his eyes on the hilt.

 
"Please come inside," Evangelina said to the two witches, her tone genial and gracious, a hostess asking guests in. "And you will tell us everything. " Her lips twisted into a smile that made my heart stutter. "Or I will kill you myself. "

  My Beast liked this woman. She was wise and strong.

  I went inside and busied myself making tea. Ignoring the stares from the others. Finding my place, myself again, inside Beast's angry heart.

  The witches' story was simple, and so stupid that it was believable. A vampire sorcerer, a male witch who had been turned, had come to their small coven, five women of the same bloodline, who worked together. He'd claimed he had proof that Leo Pellissier was kidnapping and killing children who carried the witch gene, killing off the next generation of witches to cement his waning power. He had proved he was more powerful than Leo by walking in the last rays of the sun. They had believed his story.

  Against the wishes of the city's other covens, they had agreed to help. Working with them, he had identified several undocumented witch children and teens and staked out the perimeters of their homes.

  When the attack came against Bliss, protected behind only electronic security, without wards, the vamp and the two witches were watching. Two vamps, most likely Renee and Tristan, had spelled Bliss, who had come out of her room through the window. The watching witches had attacked to save her. But the vamp who had befriended them turned on his witch helpers, joining the Damours. Both witches were injured.

  The Damours had placed an amulet on each witch's chest, into her blood, and drained her power. Carrying Bliss and forcing the wounded witches, they had climbed over the fence and blasted their way through the wards on my house. They'd taken the children and gotten away, dropping off the conned, injured, magically drained witches to make their way home in the dark.

  "Why didn't the vamps drain you?" Rick asked.

  "One tried. The little girl who lived here hit him with something," the smaller blonde said. "I didn't see what, but it stopped him. He looked at her, and then he let us go. It was weird. "

  Angelina. Angelina had caught his attention. With her strong powers bound just under the surface, Angie Baby was the perfect sacrifice. I wanted to rip the heads off the witches' shoulders for their stupidity.

  "We were both pretty bad off, drained of our gifts," the other witch said, "but as soon as we could, we came straight over here to tell you. " The witches looked at each other and back to me, fearfully. The women were sitting around the kitchen table, Rick leaning against the cabinet, Evan standing in the doorway, as if he couldn't be any closer to the grouping or he would kill someone. Evan was a huge man. If he lost his temper, he might be dangerous. I stood off to the side, silent, knowing that Beast was still in my eyes, the full moon holding her close to the surface. For now, she was content to let me remain alpha, but I didn't expect it to last.

  The smaller blonde said, "I'm Butterfly Lily. My mom is Feather Storm. " When she saw Evangelina's brows go up, she grinned. "Okay, not our real names, our coven names, and the only ones we'll give you tonight. " Her smile fell away as if the tissue beneath broke apart and pulled the emotion with it.

  "We thought we were doing the right thing, saving witch children, working with the vampires to heal the rift between our races. Picking the winning side. " Butterfly Lily ducked her head and her voice went softer. "Mom and I are not real powerful. Mostly we're used as routing for group workings. "

  She said to Evangelina, "We brought him to our coven. He promised to help us catch the kidnapper. We believed him. He was convincing. "

  Evangelina said nothing, her expression both sad and condemning. She sighed. "Go on. "

  "I know. It was stupid. We were stupid. He had us watch the vamps for weeks. Had us track them to their parties and to their lairs. Gathering information. "

  There had been five witches outside of the vamp party, under a glamour. Hiding.

  Watching. This coven. Doing the dirty work of the Damours.

  "He got us to track down every nonaligned witch and witch child in the city so he couldprotect them. He said that once he had enough evidence to prove that Leo Pellissier was kidnapping witches, he was going up against the blood-master of the city.

  When he won, he'd declare peace with us and sit down to negotiate. "

  I was fighting an enemy I'd never met face-to-face. An enemy I'd seen only on canvas and in the young faces of his children. I wanted to weep.

  Feather Storm said, "The city's covens are . . . really mad at us. We'll help any way we can. "

  Beast under control, I left the room, and brought back the painting that showed the ones I thought were the three Damours and their children. I shoved the painting in front of the women and they recoiled from it as if it were evil. "These are the witches who took the children?" I asked. When the witches with the silly names nodded, I looked at Rick.

  "If all three of the adult Damours are sane, that means the blood magic ceremonies worked at some point for adults, but didn't work on children. They're experimenting on strangers, turning them, changing the ceremony each time, trying to find what will succeed. That's what this is all about. This is the proof. It's a way to bring people over without the insanity of the devoveo, the young-rogue state, and to allow the long-chained to find sanity. It ties everything together. And it means they're close to a solution to the devoveo.

  "They know if they're caught they'll be killed and there will be another purge, so they're attacking first, forging alliances with two strong clans, undermining Leo's power base, pumping up his enemy Rafael. I have a feeling they might be getting the Crips to fight other gangs too, keeping the police too busy to see what's about to happen, which is a war with Leo. Tell Jodi. See what you can put together. "

  My cell rang and I answered. Derek said, "No dice, Princess. My guy got a transponder onto the truck taking the long-chained, but the security found it. We lost 'em. "

  My heart fell. "Okay, Derek, thanks. " I disconnected and looked at my guests. "I'm going out," I said. "I'll be back. " They fussed and yelled and made a stink, but I reweaponed up, got back on Bitsa, and took off.

  I should have slashed his tires. Now there was nothing I could do about Rick following me on his Kow-bike. Not a dang thing.