Black Arts: A Jane Yellowrock Novel (33 page)

• • •

The hour before dawn found me, still in his arms, us stretched out on the gold velvet chaise, side by side, my head on his shoulder, looking into his face. He was asleep. Leo Pellissier had fallen asleep, with me in his arms. Fully weaponed. Able to kill him easily for his abuse of me, had I still wished it. Did I still want him true-dead? Did I blame the predator for death, for blood taken? I wasn’t sure anymore. When I was at my most fragile, he hadn’t abused my weakness. He hadn’t tried to drink or seduce. He had just held me while I grieved the loss of a love I never really had. I was so . . . confused. Torn. Ripped into shreds that lifted in any stray breeze. I hated him. But as a predator, I understood him. And I hated that about myself.

I studied this vampire, wondering how this creature of the night could hurt me, and then . . . try to make it right, somehow. I didn’t understand fangheads—I never would—but especially I would never understand
this
vamp. His face was soft in sleep, human looking, though not breathing, and pale as death. His cummerbund, tie, and jacket were gone. His white shirt was open at the neck, the sleeves rolled up. His shoes were gone, his feet encased in thin black socks. Long black lashes lay against his cheeks. His black hair was loose from its queue. He looked so like Rick in coloring, but more slender. More powerful. And much more dead. His body was cold against mine, the temperature of the room.

I slipped from his arms and found my shoes. I didn’t bother to put them on but picked them up and walked for the door. “Jane?”

I looked back at Leo. “What is the blood diamond?” he asked softly. I didn’t blink, didn’t react, didn’t answer. He finally said, “Jack Shoffru came to retrieve it, believing it was here, in my possession or in the hands of Molly Everhart Trueblood. From sharing blood with Adrianna he then came to believe that you might have it. Tonight, he came to the determination that she was most likely correct. Do you have it?” I was caught in his eyes and knew that he was reading my faintest reactions. “He believes that the diamond is a terrible weapon when used against my kind.” I didn’t try to hide the truth in my eyes. “Ahhh,” he breathed, sadness lacing the word like fine brandy. “Vengeance served cold. Do you still desire to take my head?”

Again I didn’t answer. Leo’s face didn’t change, but I heard the distant threat when he said, “Will you use this weapon against me or mine?”

I thought how to phrase it in the words that an old, old,
old
vampire might understand. “No. I will not use the blood diamond against you or yours, so long as you and yours do no harm to me and to those I claim. I promise on . . . on the blood of my father. On the blood of the first man I ever killed.”

Leo, the Master of the City of New Orleans, nodded once. “Jack Shoffru will not keep his word. He will be forsworn. He will attack me or those I claim, those I protect. Soon. You have my leave to defend.” He closed his eyes again in sleep.

Well. Wasn’t that just ducky?

I made my way down to the locker room, stripped, and changed into jeans and the new boots, pulling on a warm fleece shirt that was in my locker, but that I’d never seen before. In the mirror, my face was chapped and raw, my eyes red-rimmed, my nose red and swollen. My hair had come down, braids like long snakes around my shoulders, stakes hanging loose in the braids. I didn’t care. I pulled the stakes and stuck them in a pocket. I strapped my weapons on and left the dress and throat protectors—the gorgets—on the bench in the middle of the locker room, along with the other clothes and shoes.

I had new information freely given to me by Leo. Jack Shoffru had an interest in the blood diamond. Which he knew about from his time with the Damours. I just didn’t know how it all went together. I needed to think.

I walked out of the council headquarters into the dark gray of dawn. The world smelled fresh, of the flowers blooming in Leo’s garden, of spring, of man and his modern-day foods—coffee, strong on the air from the kitchen at my back, a kitchen that had to feed all the blood-servants who fed the vamps.

I helmeted up and kicked on my bike, leaving vamp HQ, giving a two-fingered salute to the guards on the way out the gate. I wound slowly through the streets of the French Quarter, chill spring air on my skin. I lifted my head, my eyes half-closed, smelling water and petroleum products and fish and humans. Familiar now. Familiar as the mountains of home had been once upon a time, not so long ago. The last of the snow would be melting, filling creeks and streams, making them gurgle and chortle—

The weight slammed me to the ground. I hit, my knee, hip, shoulder taking the crunch. My shirt ripping. Legs tangled, boots and feet twisting. Wrenching. I bounced. Helmet banging into the curb. I saw white flickers on black.
Stars,
I thought. But only for a moment. They cleared for me to see the bike spin off and ram into an iron light pole, sparks flashing.

And the
thing
landed on me. Long and multicolored, like rainbows on white silk. No form, no shape. Just an impression of . . . something familiar. It wrapped around me and squeezed.

Anaconda,
some reasoning part of me thought. Contracting, squeezing, to kill.
Snake!
my Beast shouted.
Anaconda!
Something I had been sensing but not understanding for two days.

Shift,
Beast commanded. But I couldn’t shift. I was trapped in the light. I—

A horn blew. Tires stuttered on the pavement as an antilock braking system took over. “Jane!” a voice shouted.

But I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I was suffocating.

And the change took me, carrying me into the gray place, into the calm of the shift and the painpainpain. But something was wrong. . . .

• • •

I/we were not alone in the gray place.
Other
was there as well. Gray-blue-green and sparking with energy like stars and moonlight. Smelling of lightning when it hit the earth and burned through sand, making glass in its own image. I/we swiped at the snake/energy of the
other
. Rainbow hues and ice shot through the gray energy of me/us, seeing with Jane-eyes and Beast-eyes together. Hot and frozen, sharp and ripping, tearing through us in the place that was not a
real
place, ripping, cutting, just as the pain of losing a mate did to us in the vampire’s den. Swiped back, using claws in the gray place, using gray-energy-claws as weapons against
other
. Felt/heard when
other
screamed with pain.

Other’s teeth caught throat. Biting down. Coils of energy took us and wrapped us and tightened.

Could die here.

Felt/smelled/
knew
. . . Bruiser stepped into the gray storm that was us, here, in this place, his energies black and silver and the red of the forge. He waded into battle. Steel blade cut down into the storm of energies; sparks flew as steel met electricity. Bruiser’s blade exploded, metal shards flying. Was injured. But
other
was injured more.

Beast clawed free from coils of energy. Through gray place. Pulled self into world, pain like claws hooked deep into flesh. Bleeding. Leaped out of Jane clothes, pushed out of boots and leather and steel claws and guns. Pain. Deep in bones.
Hurt. Jane was gone. Asleep in darkness.

Turned fast, long thick tail whipping for balance. Knew Bruiser was fighting
other
. He was pulled into gray place of change. Was injured. Smelled his blood. Smelled steel and lightning. Bruiser was screaming, like shout for war.

Raced in, claws out, swiping into gray place. Into wild energy.

Pain like burning in fire!
Leaped back. Away. Shaking paw.
Burned!

Jane? Jane!
Screamed, big-cat scream. War scream.

Jane was still asleep in soul home. Did not wake. Could not help. And Beast could not help Bruiser.

Backed slowly from gray place, from battle in here and not here, pawpawpaw. Did not know what to do. Snarled in anger and prey-fear. Saw Bruiser fall. Spun, paws on road. Raced away. Into dawn. Smelling Bruiser. Smelling his blood. Smelling a thing that was known but not known, a thing made of light and dark and of energy like the gray place of the
change
. A thing like Rick’s Soul.

• • •

Noon. Sun high overhead, or as high as time of moons that Jane called
spring
allowed. Heat and warmth and sun held us still, lazing on branch over black water. Below, water swirled with good-to-eat fish. Or alligator, good to eat, not good to fight in water.

On bank of swamp, kill lay, buzzing with flies. Buzzards flapped in trees, smart birds to wait until Beast was finished with prey. Smell of pig blood and entrails was strong in nostrils.
Good smells. Good hunt. Good prey
.

Beast?

Jane.

I . . . What happened? Something landed on us.
Jane stirred in remembrance.
Bruiser. Is he—

Thing attacked us. We are safe. Bruiser is not safe. Rick is gone. Mate is
gone
.

Jane did not answer, silent like black water, slow and cold with winter rains. After long time, Jane thought,
Was that Rick’s Soul that attacked us?

No. Have thought like Jane thinks. Hard to do. Thing was same . . . species, Jane calls type of animal. But was not Soul.

Jane sighed in mind.
Soul. Not
Rick’s
Soul
.

No. Rick is gone.

Yeah. He is.

Big-cats do not mate forever.

I know. I know. I’m done grieving
.
I have bigger problems than a cheating ex-boyfriend and a catwoman in heat.

Or we can find mate-Ricky-Bo and take him from lie-false-bad mate. Kill lie-false-bad mate.

No.
Jane looked away, into the dark of me.
No. Tell me about Bruiser.

I/we smelled his blood on streets when Beast became alpha.

Okay. I guess we don’t have a phone.

Beast snorted.
Beast cannot carry phone. Beast cannot dial phone. Beast cannot talk on phone. And Jane cannot be alpha until sundown.

Yeah. There is that pesky problem with shifting into you in daylight.

Beast twitched ears.
Am alpha. All day. We have prey to eat. Water to drink. Alligator to fight if Jane needs blood and battle.

I’ll pass, thanks,
Jane thought.

We can go to Aggie One Feather’s den. She is there now.

Yeah? You planning on eating her?

No.
Snorted with amusement.
Old and stringy human.

I promise to not tell her that.

Beast chuffed with laughter.
We are close. I will take us there and shift near stinky-smoke-fire-hot place.

Thanks. The closer the better. I don’t have any clothes, you know?

Jane should keep Beast pelt and claws instead of human skin.

I’ll take it under advisement. And, Beast? Thank you.

• • •

I woke as the sun set, a hot red ball in the chill sky, tinting storm clouds vermilion, cerise, plum, and black-grape-purple. Tints that promised a long, wet, stormy night. I was on my side, lying in a painless location, on sand instead of pine needles, which was a kindness Beast seldom offered me. The sweathouse was just in front of me, smelling strongly of smoke from a long-burning fire. The scents of shrimp and hot peppers also hung on the air, coming from the small house nearby. Maybe étouffée and rice. Hot coffee.

I lay in the hard-packed sand, the night air wafting over me, currents cold and leisurely. I felt almost detached from my own inner pain. I was hungry. I was always hungry after a shift and I usually tried to stuff myself with grains and protein. Tonight, if I went into the sweathouse, there would be nothing to eat. Aggie One Feather liked me fasting when she took me through journeys into my own past, into memory dreams. Which had been both joyful and terrifying experiences.

In the last months, since I came to New Orleans, I had taken a lot of those journeys. Buried deep inside me, I had met the memory of my father and my grandmother. Had found what I was. Discovered the evil that I might become.

Since then, I had killed the only other skinwalker I had ever encountered. Had met potential mates. Had been bound to the Master of the City. Had found a family of sorts with the Younger brothers. And had lost Rick.

And maybe . . . maybe, had lost my God.

I lay on the cold sand, wondering if God heard me anymore. If he, the Elohim, the singular-plural God worshiped by the Christians and the Cherokee both, though by other names, even knew that I was alive. If he recognized what I was. Wondering if he had even created me, or if my kind had come into existence through some dark magic, as the legends had told. I shivered. “Do you hear me, God?” I asked into the night.

Instantly I remembered the resistance of steel slicing through flesh as I helped to kill my first man. God didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure he ever would.

Pulling my hands under me, I got up, my muscles aching, something I seldom felt after a shift. I went to the back of the sweathouse and turned on the spigot, holding on with one hand to the corroded metal as well water sluiced over me, cooling, raising pebbles of chill bumps on my skin. Physically, I didn’t need a shower, but I wanted it. Wanted the drench of icy water over me, my hair loose and long and plastered to my body. I shivered hard, my stomach cramping, thigh muscles quivering with cold and the shock of the shift. When I felt cleaner, I shut off the water and shook out one of the simple, long, unbleached linen cloths hanging on the hooks. Long-legged jumping spiders fell, and scampered away. I shook it hard, to make sure they were all gone, before I tied the linen around me.

Barefoot, I went to the house, stepping gingerly across the shells in the drive. I climbed the stairs and knocked on the door. It opened almost instantly. I made out the features of Aggie One Feather in the dark. Smelled the étouffée, the shrimp and spices potent on the night air. Before she could speak, I said, “Help me. Please.”