Blood in Her Veins (Nineteen Stories From the World of Jane Yellowrock) (71 page)

“Yes, my master.”

“And since you can heal without sex, make sure you don't annoy him with any come-hither pheromones or whatever you do to get sex. Because I'll let him shoot you if you do.”

“Spoilsport,” he said, wandering over to Eli.

I watched as Edmund spoke quietly to the Youngers, and then presented a blade, hilt first, to Eli, and lifted his other wrist to be cut. Satisfied, I walked over to the huddle of BO citizens. “Okay. Get your crap together and meet me at the bed-and-breakfast because I need to know everything you know, and can guess, about the demon and about Margaud, and about her brothers, and everything about that dang wreath. Because no way is it all disconnected.”

In the corner of the room a flame flared up. With a pop of speed, Gabe raced for a fire extinguisher and put it out, kicking the smoking remains of drapery away.

“Fine,” I said. “First we make sure the fire is out.
Then
we talk.”

•   •   •

I got a good look at myself in my mirror as I changed out of my wet, smoke-damaged clothes, and the pelt I wore in my half form was pretty awe-inspiring. Knobby joints, retractile claws on my fingertips, narrow waist, no boobs to speak of, feet shaped like huge paws that had ripped
my sneakers into ruined shreds, and a body of solid muscle, covered by a golden pelt. I shoved the cell into my jeans pocket and inspected myself closer. The brown/black nose looked a little odd, but the gold shining eyes totally made it work, especially with the gold nugget necklace. I had never thought this about myself before, but pelted? Even with the jeans and T on top, I looked hot. Weird. But hot.

Beast and Jane are not hot. Beast and Jane are best hunters. Beast and Jane are worthy of best mate. Beast and Jane are best at everything,
Beast thought at me.

I chuckled under my breath, grabbed a robe, and went to shower off the smoke stink.

•   •   •

It was two a.m. before everyone was finally healed and the fire was deemed completely doused. The rain had drained to a drizzle, though water still shushed through the magnolia leaves, swirled in the streets, and pooled in the ditches and low-lying places. The witches were still encircled, studying the wreath, and not much had changed with them, except this time they weren't wet. Seemed they had figured out how to add a water-repellent aspect to the
electric dog collar
ward.

Leaving human blood-servants to keep watch for changes in the witches' activity level, others to keep watch for the demon and Margaud, we gathered in the living room of the B and B. I had quickly made notes on the things I needed to know, and I started the little tête-à-tête by saying, “The vamps of Bayou Oiseau never had a formal parley with Leo and his peeps. The witch coven never met with the New Orleans witch council. I thought both parleys had taken place. Honestly, I don't have a crap-dang care why they didn't take place. They
will
take place next week. Lucky, Clermont, nod if you want to keep your heads on your shoulders.”

It may have been the honest agreement that the meetings needed to take place, or it might have been my pelted and glowing-eyed aspect that forced them into compliance, but both nodded. Beast chuffed, feeling her power over the gathered.
Beast is good ambush hunter.

I smiled, showing her teeth.

Clermont cleared his throat, laced his hands over his stomach, stretched out his legs, and crossed his ankles, every bit the relaxed gentleman. He was tall, lean, and gangly at nearly six feet, with dark brown eyes and
blondish hair, a combination that seemed common in this area and had been replicated in the genetic makeup of his son. Somewhere he had found clean apparel and changed out of his smoky, bloody clothes. Now, like the first time I saw him, he was dressed in worn jeans, an ironed white dress shirt, a gray suit jacket, a narrow tie, and boots, which were ubiquitous in Louisiana. His reading glasses were perched on his head, reflecting the light. “Lucky and I been talking, we has. Already confirm appointment with New Orleans' councils.”

“Good,” I said.

“Share, we do, all intelligence we know 'bout dat wreath.
Corona
.
Breloque
. It first appear in 1927, day de blood bar open. Professor be playing piano, lady singer singing, though I forget her name, it be so long ago. My sire, he dancing wid a local gal, blood-slave, she was, and thunderstorm outside. Rain pouring down like what it done today. Hard falling, it was. And there be a crack of thunder. And, like
poof
. It appear in middle of stage. All by it lonesome.”

Lucky said, “The witches heard about it. My family ancestors, the Bordelon sisters, asked to see it. The vampire said no. We not see dat
breloque
until my Shauna took it and brung it to us.”

Clermont frowned. Maybe Shauna would be considered a thief in the eyes of the courts, providing that the
corona
belonged to the vamps under some form of finders-keepers rule of law, but I couldn't let that topic become the center of the discussion. Before anyone could accuse Shauna of stealing, I said, “And were either the vamps or the witches ever able to use it?”

“No,” Clermont said, his mouth forming a totally human smile. “Back before de electronic revolution,
la corona
sat on top my TV for years. Best rabbit ears dey ever was.”

Lucky laughed. So did I. And if there had been tension in the room, it dissipated. “Okay. So where was it kept when Shauna and Gabe got tricked into causing all this trouble?”

“It in my gun closet. Locked to keep the young 'uns out. Key hanging on my bedpost on leather thong.”

I looked at Shauna, who was pretty as a picture, sitting beside her husband, snuggled on the sofa. She looked abashed and tucked her head down under her husband's chin, snuggling their child up close in her arms. The
silence pulled like a long length of taffy, and she finally spoke into it. “When I saw Margaud and Gabe together in the bar, I went home, packed, got the key, and took the wreath. Then I strapped Clerjer into his baby seat on the airboat and went home to Mama and Daddy.” She turned her clear, blue gaze to her hubby. “I was a fool.”

“No, Shauna, my love, I was de fool,” Gabe said.

“You were all fools, but we don't have time to list the ways,” I said, thinking Shakespeare, with the height, breadth, and depth of foolishness. “So what does the wreath do?”

“I can tell you that.”

I swiveled on my satin-upholstered chair to Alex, standing in the doorway. His skin looked darker than its usual caramel, and his hair was kinked high from the rain and the humidity. Except for the laptop, he looked like a nineties rapper, in boxy pants and oversized T-shirt. “I found it in the new database.”

That meant Reach's database, the one he was still learning how to use. Alex turned the laptop around, and on the screen was a picture of a marble statue of a man wearing a wreath—laurel leaves standing up at attention—but this wreath was stone, not metal, and it was missing the lower part, the part with the writing. I started to say that, but Alex said, “It's a statue of Julius Caesar, commissioned in the seventeenth century for the Palace of Versailles. And he's depicted wearing what was called a civic crown. The civic crown, also worn by Napoleon and other kings, is the laurel leaf part of the
corona
. The lower part is what I'll call a band crown, as seen on Greek kings and consorts, like you see on this silver coin, called a silver tetradrachm.” He displayed a picture of a coin with a woman's face on it and then zoomed in with his fingertips on the touch screen. The crown was a narrow band and did indeed seem to have etchings on it that might—or might not—have been a match to the ones on the corona. “I haven't actually seen one of the band crowns, but they were worn by queens or consorts in the BC era. And it shows these little marks. See? Here.” He pointed.

“Fine,” I said. “I see the marks and I acknowledge the research, but—”

“Someone combined the two crowns, a laurel leaf civic crown and a band, worn by a consort. A witch took the two concepts and melded them into one. Like this.” He punched a corner of the screen and a picture came
up, which matched perfectly the corona in the street, surrounded by witches, standing, dry, in the rain.

Alex was tired, I could see it in his face, and beneath the stench of smoke and blood in the room, he smelled of caffeine and testosterone and adrenaline, a combo that said he had been bingeing on energy drinks. “Okay,” I said quietly. “We have a theory about what the
corona
was made from. Now we need to know where it came from and what it does.”

Alex heard the word
theory
and his shoulders slumped. Then his face brightened. “My research says this: ‘
La corona
does one thing and one thing only. It allows a misericord to attain human form.'”

I stood slowly. “Oh crap.” I looked at the windows. Outside, lightning flashed and distant thunder rumbled. “We might be in a bit of trouble.”

The misericords were Mercy Blades, the creatures who made sure that vampires didn't keep their children alive after a decade, two at the most, in the devoveo. In other words, they administered the mercy stroke of death to the chained, insane killing machines that never made it through the vamp turning into true vampires. They were also Anzu. Storm gods. And . . . I had recently been struck by lightning during a storm.
Holy crap. What am I missing?

“Jane?”

I jerked my head to Alex, who looked oddly concerned. I stood, digging in a pocket for my cell. “Yeah. I gotta make a call.”

I walked outside under the gallery roof into the drizzle that had started again. I pulled up my address list on the official cell, the one that my boss could trace, listen in on, and read texts from. I found the name Gee DiMercy, who was also known as Girrard DiMercy, aka Leo's misericord, or Mercy Blade. An Anzu. Once worshipped as a storm god. Like a blue and scarlet Big Bird with a bad attitude. A storm god . . . I hit
SEND
and waited. The cell rang. Rang again. And then I heard a calypso dance number behind me.

I pulled a vamp-killer, spinning on one toe. Ducked the sword strike that was aiming for my head. Threw my body into a forward roll, tucking, landing on one shoulder and sliding under the swing hanging on chains. Gee laughed, and his laughter was exactly as I remembered from the first time I heard it—joyful, like a kid in a park, and I found myself smiling with him, even though I was hiding behind a swing, in the dark.

He didn't attack again and I saw him sheath the sword, the steel a silver gleam in the porch light. “What are you? Kato?” I accused.

“That would make you the Green Hornet. And . . . a sidekick? Have I fallen so far in your estimation?” He swept a hand to his chest. “My heart breaks. However, I am not likely a secondary character, and I much prefer your first appellation—Zorro, the swords master hero.”

Gee DiMercy was standing under the porch light, his very-milky-chocolate-colored flesh cast in a slight yellow tint from the bulb. A V of chest hair was framed in the opening of his shirt, and a faint film of pale energies ran on and under his skin. His black hair was dry and longer than when I first saw him, loose and curling around his pretty face like a cap. His skin looked Mediterranean or Middle Eastern mixed with a hint of African. His features were utterly beautiful but full of mischief, like an angel who was pushed out of heaven for laughing during prayer. He was dressed in a draped-sleeve, open-throat navy shirt and blousy pants with boots to his thighs, but now he also looked younger, maybe fourteen years old in the poor light. But since it was all a glamour, he could look like anything he wanted.

I stood up, keeping the swing between me and the Anzu, no matter that he looked like a dance student rather than a swords master. Slight, delicate, and smelling of jasmine and pine, the commingled scents fresh, lovely, and dangerously disarming on the night breeze. I sheathed the vamp-killer, which would have been useless against the longer sword, even with Gee's shorter reach. I had been taking lessons, but I mostly sucked with a long sword.

His gaze swept me from my feet to my head and said, “The pelt is lovely, but feathers would have been beautiful. Remember that you owe me a hunt.”

“I remember. Why are you here?” I asked.

“I am here for
le breloque
. It is mine.”

“And how do you figure that?”

“It was made for my kind by my goddess and friend. It was lost when one of us died unexpectedly. Until now, we did not know where it had landed.”

“Uh-huh. And how do you intend on getting it, seeing as the witches have it warded and protected?”

“Their magics are child's play to one such as I.”

“Hmmm. And if they have a steel blade and stick you with it?” Anzus—Anzi?—could be wounded and even killed by steel. I had seen that myself.

Gee scowled.

“Right,” I said. “And if they decide that ‘finders, keepers' is a more appropriate method of deciding ownership, and they attack in a coven of twelve, could they singe your tail feathers?”

His scowl deepened.

“Come inside and talk to the leaders I've managed to get in one place. The coven leader is”—I waved a hand into the slow, misty rain—“otherwise engaged.”

“She tries to use misericord magics, stored in
le breloque
. She cannot.”

“Whatever.” I opened the door and went into the bed-and-breakfast, pausing by the front door. Gee passed me, altering his apparent age to midtwenties before assuming a fists-on-hips, aggressive stance, like a sea captain, or maybe a pirate captain. All he needed was an eye patch, a parrot, and a stein of rum. “I bring greetings and a warning to your people. I am here in peace. But I will have
mon breloque
back or you will all die.”

If I'd been close enough, I'd have head-slapped him. Fortunately the witch and Clermont laughed at him. Edmund stood and pulled his swords. He stepped in front of the others and said, “I will not permit—”