Souljacker

by Yasmine Galenorn

  As she stood there, arms crossed, her long, meticulous nails drumming a beat on her forearm, I gathered my courage.

  “Tricia, Tygur told me you knew he was coming to me. I assumed you would take him in hand if it wasn’t okay with you.” Okay, an outright lie, but the name of the game was “Save your own skin.” Besides, if she thought he was a cad, it might make her grief easier to deal with.

  You’re pushing the rationalizations, Lily. But I didn’t have the luxury of caring at this point.

  She stared at me for a moment. When a big cat—be they Were or purely animal—stares you down, it’s a challenge. If you turn tail and run, they’ll follow and boom, you’re lunch meat.

  So, I stood my ground, holding her gaze. Unfortunately, Tricia didn’t find my courage a threat. Before I realized what she was doing, she hauled off and punched me hard enough to whip my neck to the side. I stumbled, falling back onto the seat, scraping my side against the table. It hurt like hell but I scrambled to my feet again, bracing myself against the back of the booth.

  “He was your husband, not mine. If he lied to me, if he lied to you, it’s not my fault. A vampire murdered him, not me.”

  “That’s supposed to make everything better? I hope you tell better bedtime stories to your clients.” She paused, a crafty look entering her eyes. “In fact, I’m absolutely certain that all your other clients are going to want to hear how your wards failed. How a vampire not only broke through them, but killed one of your clients right in your house. You might not have been the one who killed my husband, but you left the gate open for the murderer. And that makes you just as guilty.” And with that, Tricia spit in my face and stomped away, her posse trailing behind her.

  Everybody was staring at us. Dani handed me a napkin, and I slowly wiped my face. Bart himself came over to the booth. Cheeks blazing, I fumbled for my purse, looking for cash. How could I apologize for the scene? Bart would never let me come back.

  But when I silently held out the money, he shook his head. “On the house. You two have been coming here for years. Go get a breath of fresh air and don’t let her get to you, girl.” With a smile, Bart escorted us to the door and held it open as we left.

  Once we were outside the restaurant, we headed toward the exit. It might be cold outside, but we really did need fresh air. Dani found a bench and brushed off the snow. I sat down, shaking. At that moment, my phone jangled. Someone was texting me. Another chime, then a third, and a fourth came in before I could even pull out my phone to glance at the notes.

  “Crap. Tricia’s already been a busy bee. All four texts are from clients, canceling their upcoming appointments. None of them even bothered to make an excuse. They’re all Weres.”

  Dani blinked as a lazy flutter of snowflakes drifted down. “Looks like she wasted no time hitting the phone tree to smear your name.” Her eyes flashed dangerously, and I recognized the look.

  I shook my finger at her. “Don’t. Don’t even think about it. The woman just lost her husband, and while I didn’t cause his death, the fact is that he did die in my house.” I stared morosely at the texts. “I don’t blame her, you know.”

  “Don’t do this to yourself. You weren’t the one who killed Tygur.”

  “No, but Tricia’s got a right to be pissed.” I couldn’t help it. I felt partially responsible. “And the number of notches on my belt just keeps growing. Before I opened Lily Bound…before I decided I could settle down in one place and make a go of it, there was a time when I didn’t know how to channel my power. My mother tried to teach me, but she died when I was far too young, so the training didn’t take. My father vanished, and I was sent to my aunt’s. She ignored me, so I left early and spent centuries wandering the countryside. Along the way, I fed.”

  “You did what you had to in order to live.” Dani placed her hand on my arm. “You can’t blame yourself.”

  “Maybe not, but the fact is that I drained so many men I can’t even begin to remember the number. I haven’t killed anyone in seventy-five years, not since I learned how to siphon the energy off nonhumans. Now I can leave someone alive if I’m not in the grasp of the hunger. But Tygur’s death? It takes me back to a time I really hate remembering.” I touched the dagger on my leg. “It takes me back way too far for comfort.”

  Dani let out a long sigh and stood. She offered me her hand and pulled me to my feet. “Fine. I hear you. But we don’t have time to let regret bog us down. We have to check Nate’s wards. Then we have to talk to Archer. Leave the past where it belongs, Lily. Focus on now. It may be the only time we have.”

  With that somber thought, we headed toward the parking lot. Dani and I agreed to meet at Nate’s. As I sat in my car, staring at the steering wheel, I flashed back to when I first had met the Souljacker, back when he was just Charles. Back when his art came to life, and he was still a sane, talented man.

  It started one night about six years back. We were all at Fat Bastards, a restaurant, cheering on Greg—Dani’s husband. Greg and Dani had wanted to throw a celebration party but they were living in a small apartment that could barely fit the two of them, let alone a group of about twenty. Nate was there, and Rebecca, and Tygur and Tricia—they were only just beginning to date—and a number of other power players in the Supe community.

  Most of the people were milling around, chatting, but a core group of us were gathered around the table.

  “Here’s to Greg, our newest Seattle political power player! Or should I say, our newest state senator—Senator Fallow!” Nate stood, raising his glass.

  Greg, a tall, lanky man with shoulder-length brown hair, grinned.

  “I’m so proud of my husband—he said he was going to make it into politics by the time he was thirty and he’s done it!” Dani rested her arm on his shoulder, leaning over to give him a kiss on the cheek. It was obvious the pair doted on each other.

  Greg let out a short laugh. “And I didn’t even have to buy votes!” He sobered. “Let’s face it, most politics are simply a combination of popularity and wealth. And considering the feelings toward the Blood Night District, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to manage it, given my stance on the vampire rights bill.”

  While there was certainly a mix of races in the district, it was well known that the vampires were doing their best to control politics behind the scenes. Specifically the Deadfather, who had carved out a large stake in the commerce of the Blood Night District. It was thought his reach extended far beyond Seattle, that he might as well don a crown and call himself the king of the vampires. Money ran the world, and one thing a number of vamps were good at was business. Our district was the best place from which they could try to force the vampire rights bill through, but Greg had managed—by a slim margin—to take control of the seat in an election against the vampires’ choice for senator. How he did it, we had no idea, but by a handful of votes, he had managed.

  “So, what’s going to be the first thing you do when you take office?” I didn’t particularly care for political discussions. Over the centuries, I had discovered one thing to be true: even with good intentions, power corrupted. I had never seen a government that truly helped its people rather than hurting them. But I had also learned another valuable lesson, albeit it a jaded one. It was far better to be in the inner circle rather than on the outside. I counted myself lucky to have influential friends.

  Dani glanced at me. “Greg’s going to immediately start quashing the vampire rights bill. We have to make people understand how dangerous they are.”

  At that, Greg shot her an irritated look. “Let me speak for myself, love. I’m going to establish myself…make a few friends, and then see who will work against the bill with me. Killing it will still be a few years off, but eventually, we’ll manage. Hell, maybe I’ll decide to run for governor next. I’ve always wanted to make a difference in the world.”

  Dani frowned, and I sensed some unspoken argument.

  I changed the subject. “Well, you’ll have Wynter behind you. M
y people don’t like vampires either. Which means courting the Eastside.” The politics of interspecies interactions and alliances made for a controlled chaos, but at that point, nobody really had the upper hand. What we needed to do was put a stop to the rising clout of the vampires.

  As a heated, yet somehow boring debate on another subject started, I pushed back from my table and wandered over to the lounge, where a lovely woman was singing. Her voice had incredible reach, and I stood, mesmerized. A moment later, Greg joined me. Surprised to see him, I glanced up at him with a smile.

  “She’s good.”

  “She’s really good. Do you know who that is?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’ve never seen her before.”

  “That is Isabel Carter. She’s Ian Carter’s daughter. He’s a business mogul that I need to win over. He’s wavering right now, contemplating accepting the support of the Deadfather, which would mean he would come out pro-vampire rights. We need to convince him that’s not a good idea. The Deadfather can sink a lot of capital into Carter’s projects, so it’s going to be a tough road.” Greg stared at the woman, and I suddenly felt like he had tuned me out.

  At that moment, Dani appeared. She looped an arm through Greg’s, and he shook his head, smiling down at her.

  “We need to celebrate your win, love,” Dani said.

  “And how do you propose to do that? I thought we were celebrating.” But he grinned at her, and once again I thought they were lucky to have found one another.

  “The entire table has decided to get tattoos to celebrate tonight’s victory.” Dani walked us back to the table. “I was just about to tell Greg about what we decided.”

  Nate spoke up. “There’s a new tattooist in town. He’s down on the corner of Sycamore and Pine. They say he can see into your soul.”

  I frowned. “Do they now? What do you know about him?”

  “His name is Charles, but he’s known as the Souljacker. Scary name but damn, the guy is good. I talked to a couple of friends who went to him. They said he’s so intuitive that he can reach inside of you and coax out your inner self through his art.” Nate leaned his elbows on the table. “He’s really incredible. You don’t go there asking for something specific. He sees what you need…and makes it happen.”

  It sounded like a gamble. I wasn’t sure I wanted somebody else deciding what artwork would go on my body. But then again, I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted.

  “I’ve heard of him,” Dani said. “Nate’s right. He’s like a shaman with his art. I’m in. We can call ourselves the India Ink Club. Who else is up for it?”

  Rebecca and Tygur agreed, along with Jolene, and several of the others. Greg opted out, but encouraged the rest of us to have at it. Tricia bowed out—she liked tattoos but went to one of her Pride’s artists.

  So that night, we all traipsed down to the Souljacker and scheduled our appointments.

  Two months later, Greg was killed and turned by a vampire before he could even take his oath of office. His opponent in the race, Woodrow Blythe, was named senator in his place, and he immediately began pushing hard on the vampire rights bill.

  All we had to remember our friend by were the tattoos we had gotten in celebration.

  And that was how we had met Charles and lost Greg.

  I glanced down at my leg, thinking about the tattoo. The Souljacker had brought the phoenix to the surface. The moment I saw him ink the outline and realized what it was going to be, it felt like the image had always been there in spirit, had always meant to be a part of my body.

  What had happened to the soft-spoken man who scarcely said a handful of words while he worked on through the night, tattooing my leg as the perpetual buzz of the tattoo needle sounded through the silent shop? Charles had been so quiet; he had seemed so gentle that it didn’t compute with the raging monster he had become—with the man who had turned and murdered a family after he had been turned into a vampire.

  Had being turned destroyed his mind? It didn’t always follow. Some vampires managed to hold on to a semblance of who they had been. But somehow, the lines had blurred, and after the turning, Charles had ceased to be Charles. He had gotten lost.

  With a soft sigh, I put the car into gear and—with Dani following—headed for Nate’s.

  Chapter Seven

  Once we were at Nate’s, it only took Dani ten minutes to ascertain that his wards were all still intact. She had brought another bottle of Zaddul oil just in case and she left it in his mailbox.

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” she said. “If we don’t find some way to cope with the rogue vampires, it’s going to be a rough road ahead for anybody left alive.”

  “All vampires are rogue, even the ones that act like they’re trying to fit in.”

  “You’ve got that right.”

  I gave her the address for Archer’s office, and we headed out again. Traffic wouldn’t be too bad, but still—even with the Overpass Trains, rush hour was rush hour, no matter how you looked at it.

  Archer Desmond’s office was in a fourth-floor walkup in the heart of the Blood Night District. On First Avenue, one block above the dividing line leading into the Ports and across the street from the Underground, the building had seen better days. Someone was trying to reclaim it from years of disrepair—the restoration work was obvious—but it still looked rundown and tired, as did a number of buildings in the district.

  Dani and I found parking spots in a nearby garage. I grimaced as I stuffed thirty dollars in the slot. Fifteen an hour. That’s how much parking cost. The city planners had accomplished their mission: it discouraged people from driving to work, so the streets were relatively clear during the day, but the Overpass Trains were jammed full on every morning and evening run. If they didn’t think of another way to increase mass-transit options, or add more runs to the lines, there were going to be a lot of unhappy voters at the polls.

  Dani glanced up at the building and shivered. “We aren’t far from the Underground.”

  “I know. Right across the street, in fact.”

  I glanced around. Underground Seattle was no longer a passing tourist attraction. A number of the nightclubs—especially vampire clubs—had cleared out the rubble and shored up the sagging timbers. They had set up shop, and the Underground was a thriving community now. Seattle leaders hadn’t cared much for that, but they didn’t have much say, given the Deadfather pretty much held the reins.

  “So, are you sure about this?”

  We headed for the stairs. Elevators in the older buildings weren’t all that trustworthy.

  “I don’t think we have a choice, Dani. We have to do something.”

  She shook her head. “Chaos demons are freaky. I’ve met a few. It used to be that some witches were able to summon them, but honestly, nobody tries anymore. There are too many over here as it is, and the old command spells aren’t what they were back in the day. Somehow, when all of you Fae and the like came out of the closet, it shifted the web of reality.”

  “What do you mean?” I seldom talked to Dani about her magic. For one thing, it seemed like a private affair. For another, most of the witches I knew were on the scary side. They were human, yes, but beyond human in a way that was hard to define. The Craft had a way of changing people, especially those who had been born and bred to it. And more often than not, the witches I encountered were from Fam-Trads. They had been brought up in the Craft because it had become acceptable. There had been a time they were as mistrusted as the Fae or the Weres.

  “There’s so much magic running rampant now that it’s subtly altering the structure of our reality. It’s hard to explain, but my coven has been conducting some experiments lately and we think we’ve discovered a parallel world to ours, where the Fae never came out. Our world is harsh, but it’s just as bad over there, from what we can tell. The vampires hide in the shadows, and nobody really knows they exist.”

  I wanted to ask her more, because the concept fascinated me, but we were on the fourth floor and in
front of Archer’s office by then. I glanced at her.

  “Here goes nothing.”

  “Right…tell me another one.” But she laughed as I opened the door.

  Archer Desmond’s office was reminiscent of an old movie set. Think film noir from the 1950s, with a touch of tropical. There were two rooms to his office—the main waiting area and then a private office. The bathroom was down the hall. The waiting area was decked out with a worn but comfortable-looking leather sofa, three armchairs, a table with a few magazines on it, a water cooler with hot and cold water, and assorted tea bags. A TV on the wall was tuned to a local news channel, the volume playing at a low level. Potted palms and something that looked like a bougainvillea brought a spot of color to the room.

  A bell next to the inner office door had a sign over it reading, Ring please, then have a seat until I can get to you.

  I rang the bell and we sat down. I picked up one of the magazines but it was News Flash—a political rag that pretty much printed all the scandals it could find, most of them wildly inaccurate.

  “Lovely reading material.” I thumbed through the others. A home-and-garden magazine, Fae Weekly—a local ’zine that listed Fae activities—and a couple others that looked to be generic office-magazine stock.

  Dani was about to say something when my phone buzzed. Wearily, I pulled it out and glanced at the text.

  “Another cancellation. That leaves the entire next week free. I guess Tricia Jones has more clout than I gave her credit for.” I frowned, staring at the terse note. Frasier Wills had been one of my best clients. He was a werewolf, unmarried, not interested in long-term relationships. And he had the money to pay for his liaisons. That meant that Tricia’s influence extended beyond just the Were Wives’ Club. And yes, there was a Were Wives’ Club.