Blood in Her Veins (Nineteen Stories From the World of Jane Yellowrock) (67 page)

“Lucky, bring your friends right on in. I got cold sweet tea with mint or lemon and some tasty lemon cookies. They're store-bought, but you'd never know it. You're that Jane Yellowrock woman, aren't you?”

“Who?” The word hammered at the air from inside. “If that bitch is here I'll kill her! This is all her fault!”

Shauna Landry Doucette raced around her mama and out the door, fast as a vamp. Her mama caught her in both arms and held her in place, magics sparking all around them both. Lucky snapped his fingers, and a portable protective ward went up around him. It was too small to hold us too, and I grabbed Eli, pulling him down behind the ward. “Get down!” I shouted to Alex. He hit the dirt behind the bole of an oak. Uncontrolled magics sparked in the air, burning on our skin. Eli jerked and whispered a curse.

“You hurt me,” Mrs. Landry said, holding her daughter tightly, “and I'll be seriously unhappy with you, young lady. And if you turn your magics on me, I'll send you to your
grandmother
in a heartbeat.”

The word
grandmother
must have been an awful threat because Shauna burst into tears. The painful magics faded.

Her mother shook her hard. “This is no one's fault but yours and that blood-drinking husband of yours. You don't think. You don't plan. Marriage isn't roses and chocolate and candles and great sex. Most of the time it's hard work and pain and forgiveness, on both sides. You marry a blood-sucker and you got to plan for a whole lot more forgiveness than most.”

Shauna sobbed on her mother's shoulder. The girl was gorgeous, even with the twenty extra pounds of baby fat and her pale, anemic skin. Alex, rising from his undignified crouch behind the tree, took a sharp breath at the sight of her before retrieving his gear from the ground. Even Eli, with his dedication to Syl, couldn't help a spark of interest.

A trace of fatigue in his voice, Lucky said, “My wife, Bobbie. You know my girl, Shauna. Sorry 'bout dem fireworks. Shauna not herself.”

“Shauna needs vamp blood,” I said, “and not from her husband.” And that got their attention. I stopped at the bottom of the steps, crossed my arms, and stared up at the women on the narrow front porch. “Her husband is starving. Do you know what happens to vamps when they starve? The pain is physical, a raging in their blood. The blood hunger is so intense that they often go insane. He needs human blood. You're anemic, Shauna. You need some blood to heal, and Gabe doesn't have enough to spare. Your blood isn't enough to keep
you
healthy, let alone a young vamp. They need more blood than older vamps. Didn't Gabe tell you that before you married?”

Shauna ducked her chin and averted her eyes from all of us.

“Shauna,” Lucky barked. “Dis lady done come long way to help you. You answer her question.” His expression darkened. “Or you
gran'-mère
be here for real. You mother and me, we give you to her. Together.”

Shauna's mouth opened and I had the feeling that she had been playing one parent against the other. “I asked you a question, Shauna,” Lucky all but growled. “Did Gabe warn you?”

Bobbie's hands tightened on Shauna's arms and Shauna nodded jerkily. “Yes. He told me. But I thought . . .” Her pale face flushed with embarrassment. “I thought the sex feeling was just for me. I didn't know it was for every feeding. I thought I was the only one who would be in that . . . position. . . . When I found out it was for everyone, I . . . I lost it. And I saw
that bastard laying on top of Margaud. I should have . . .” She broke down again, without telling us what she should have done.

“Shauna, your husband can be taught to drink without sexual feeling. He probably never thought to ask if it was possible, and if Clermont Doucette is like most men of his generation, he probably never thought to tell his son.” Shauna's face lifted, her mouth open again, like a pale pink rosebud. I'd never seen a mouth so small and perfect. My own was wide and straight and showed a lot of teeth. I frowned and went on. “Gabe isn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but he was starving himself to death to make you happy. Then Margaud spiked his drink, called you, and set up a feeding. I'm not saying that Gabe doesn't deserve some kind of punishment for his lack of control, but you can solve this. You need to get yourself help. And starting a vamp-and-witch war isn't going to help anyone, including your baby.”

Shauna broke into a crying fit. From inside the house a baby started wailing too.

Eli chuckled softly. “Way to go, Yellowrock. You just made a sick woman
and
her baby cry. You gotta win points for that somewhere.”

“Shut up,” I said. To Lucky I added, “Can we go inside now and chat. It's hot and miserable and the air's wet and I need tea.”

“Come on in. Her mama and me, we spoil her so when she a child, her so pretty and all.”

I realized that was both confession and apology. “Uh-huh,” I said, starting up the walk in Lucky's wake, Eli and Alex behind me.

Once we were in place in the spacious living room with iced tea in hand, Shauna in a rocking chair with her back turned, nursing her baby, I asked, “What can you tell me about the wreath?”

“My family be leaders of coven here in Bayou Oiseau, my mother and my sister, Solene. Solene can tell you what dem learn.” Lucky punched a number on his cell and when the call was answered, he said, “Jane Yellowrock back in town, her sent by Leo Pellissier to fix things here. You talk to her? Tell her what you learn? Yeah. Dat fine. Come now is good.”

Lucky ended the call and said, “Solene on de way. She talk to you.”

“Just in case, I'm hiding behind you when she gets here.”

Lucky laughed. But I was serious. Ticked-off witches were scary.

•   •   •

We drank tea, made uncomfortable small talk. Shauna made me hold her baby, and then laughed when I made a panicked squeak and the little boy screamed. I blushed and the Youngers laughed with her. It was mortifying, a word my housemother Brenda used to use instead of
embarrassing
. Previously, the usage was confusing, but for the first time ever, I totally understood the connotation. It came from a word that meant killing or putting to death, and I surely wanted to die with the baby in my arms. The last time I held a baby it was my godchild Little Evan, and that had been a long time past.

Beast, however, was totally at ease and she shoved me out of the way, purring over the child.
Kit. Human kit. Want kit.

Yeah. No. Later.

Beast growled and milked my mind with her claws, long sharp claws that gave me a headache, while forcing me to lean down and sniff the little boy, who smelled of lotion, baby powder, urine, poo, milk, and witch, from his mother. I was still holding the baby when the witch magics shuddered through me. The sink of roiling energies filled the home even as the door opened and she walked soundlessly inside. It was the Amazon. And she was fully powered up, angry and expecting trouble. And me with my hands full of baby.

Behind her, just outside of her range, two ogres followed, Auguste and Benoît, Margaud's brothers, ugly as homemade sin and twice as big. Margaud's brothers each weighed in at an easy three hundred pounds, hirsute, sour with last night's beer, and both smelling of fish and gator. Their last showers were weeks ago. Maybe months. Maybe never and the men thought wading through a bayou was the same thing as a bath. The men wore matching T-shirts, this time in subtle shades of orange, or maybe that was just the expanded sweat rings under old-fashioned bib overalls; on their feet were unlaced work boots that might have been brown once upon a time. I set the baby on the couch and stood, motioning Eli to stay put. I stepped in front of him, allowing him opportunity to ready weapons. The brothers were human and taciturn, even by my standards, with expressionless faces. The only active thing about them was the stink, and it might have walked around the house all by itself. The silent Cajuns glowered as they crowded inside.

The witch was huge, six feet tall, and outweighed me by more than I
had thought, all muscle and attitude. Dark hair and eyes, packed into T-shirt, jeans, and running shoes. Breasts like beach balls. I had a quick image of a blue-painted, tattooed, Celtic queen going into war buck naked, a knife and spear her only weapons, with the bones of her enemies tangled in her hair. She was surrounded by a haze of power that made my own bones ache. She extended a hand to activate a preprepared magical working.

Lucky grabbed his small family and snapped up a ward. Leaving the boys and me at the hands of the witch, me with access only to mundane weapons, which I'd never use in the confined space. So I went with my best talent, my smart mouth. “I know ogres eat human flesh. I have to warn you, I'm older and stringier and harder to kill than I look.” I pointed at Eli. “Military.” I pointed at the Kid. “Underage.
Be nice!
”

I pointed the same finger to the witch, and then dropped it when her eyes landed on the finger. It looked accusing instead of attention-getting. I folded all my fingers into loose fists. “I'm Jane Yellowrock, and I have no desire to fight. The vamps call it
parley
, and it's as good a word as any. I'm here to parley. Rules of parley include guarantee of safety to all involved and truce for the duration. So power down on the magical crap and let's chat.”

The Amazon's eyebrows went up. “Magical
crap
?”

“Magical stuff. Magical boo stuff. Magical woo-woo stuff. Spells. Workings. Magical thunder and lightning. Call it what you want. You win. Now
power down and let's talk
.”

“Leo Pellissier would allow you to dodge a fight?”

“Leo is male and he thinks in terms of war, strategy, and one-upmanship. He also has testicles, which I've come to understand means he thinks with them as often as with his upper brain.”

The Amazon's eyes crinkled, but if it was a smile it never reached her mouth. “You've come to parley about balls?”

Auguste, or maybe it was Benoît, laughed, displaying an impressive number of missing teeth. The other brother scratched his butt. Through his clothes, thank God.

I figured laughter, even laughter at my expense, was better than a magical war. “It seems to have worked as a conversational gambit.”

The witch chuckled, dropped her ward and all the aggressive power she had gathered. She plopped onto the recliner nearest the door and motioned to the ogres. “Wait outside, boys. There's lemonade in the truck.”

“Hard?” one grunted.

“No. Freshly squeezed,” she said. “You can drink the hard stuff on your own time.” The ogres shuffled out and the stink in the house lessened appreciably. “So. Jane Yellowrock. Parley away.”

“First, who the heck are
you
?”

“I'm sorry.” She inclined her head regally, the gesture somehow increasing the image I had of her with tattooed blue skin and the finger bones of her enemies tied into her hair, maybe also in a necklace around her neck, some warrior goddess leading a tribe into battle. “I'm Solene Landry Gaudet, Oiseau Coven leader, sister to our host, aunt to the hotheaded fool hiding her baby.”

“You don't talk like him,” I said, nodding to Lucky.

“Turn on dat coonass mojo, I can, if I need to,” she said, then dropped the accent. “But I went away to college and learned to speak in a socially correct way, so far as the rest of the country is concerned. Are we gonna parley or not? Sundown isn't that far away, and I'm busy.”

I told her everything I knew, had figured out, guessed at, and deduced. It didn't take long. “What we need here,” I said in conclusion, “is a way to stop the war, repair a marriage, and open lines of communication between the vamps and the witches. And then get you both tied in with the regional councils so dumb stuff like this doesn't happen again.”

“I'm not giving the
corona
back to the suckheads,” Solene said. “It isn't theirs.”

“It came from them,” I said, going for reasonable. “Shauna stole it.”

“
This
time. The
corona
is witch magic, old, and half-forgotten. Therefore, originally, it was witches who made it.”

“That's one possibility. Another is that witch magic itself came from someone or somewhere else and that someone else made it and technically owns it. Or that the magic feels like witch magic but isn't. Maybe humans made it and witches added the magic later, under contract to a third party. Which would make it belong to that third party. Or maybe it's like a magic teapot, a spirit captured inside and needing to be set free.”

“Like a genie? Rub my lamp and you get three wishes?” She made a sound of disgust. “Tell you what. That third party shows up, proves it belongs to them, and I'll give it to them.”

“What kind of proof of ownership is necessary?” I asked “How about if they can unlock the thing's magic and use it? Would that do?”

Solene narrowed her eyes at me. It was clear that she hadn't planned on my accepting her suggestion or having a rejoinder to it. I put on my best innocent expression. I'd never been very good at fake innocence, and I didn't think Solene believed this face, but I kept it in place, hoping for the best. “All I'd need is to see it, take a pic of it with my cell, and we can start searching out its . . . provenance—isn't that the word?—to get it back to its legal owner, its creator, or at least the person who should be responsible for it.”

“If it belongs to Satan, one of his emissaries, a demon, a Watcher, or any of the dark pantheon, the witches will keep it.”

“As long as the phrase
dark pantheon
is not construed to include Mithrans or vampires, I'll agree to that. If the vamps actually own it, it goes to Leo Pellissier.”

“If you can provide appropriate provenance that it belongs to the suckheads, I'll turn it over to them. I'll stipulate that I'll ‘turn it over to the rightful owners.'”