Raven Cursed: A Jane Yellowrock Novel (47 page)

I sent Derek a text about Leo and warned him to be on the lookout for Evangelina—extra guards out front, loaded with antiriot gear, in Alpha One position. He’d have a cow, unless he already knew about Leo being in town.

Lastly, I dialed Adelaide Mooney while I stripped out of my dirty, sweaty, mismatched, wrinkled clothes. Her dulcet tones identified herself and I said, “Jane Yellowrock here. Have you heard from Lincoln Shaddock yet?”

“Yes, Jane, we have. It seems he’s with the witch.”

The vamp had disappeared with Evangelina, who had the blood-diamond again. She had the power to make
him jump to her demands. She also had access to the demon. And she would be after killing Leo. “Leo is in town.”

“Here?” Her voice was filled with alarm. “But the agreements aren’t fin—”

“They’re screwed to heck and back, Adelaide. The best-case scenario is strictly salvage. If I can get Lincoln back safely, you can bargain for more time. Ask for an extra decade based on Lincoln’s great record with his chained scions.”

“And worst-case scenario?”

“I’ll find Evangelina and have to stake your boss.”

I heard a click and another voice came over the cell, spitting mad. “If you kill my master, I’ll cut off your head and feed it to my dogs.” It was Dacy, Adelaide’s mother. The cell call went dead. I needed to find Lincoln Shaddock and Evangelina before dark.

Anger and adrenaline beating through me with every heartbeat, I threw myself into the shower, dressed, slid in a few knives, holstered the pretty handguns, and headed for the lobby, only ten minutes late. As I took the stairs down, I dialed Reach and told him what additional info I needed and all the people I needed it on. At this rate, Leo was gonna make him rich.

Derek was standing at parade rest in a shadowed alcove off the lobby. I drew even with him and stopped, my brows raised in question. He floundered a moment, and then asked, “You ever gonna tell me what you are, Injun Princess?”

“What difference does it make. My money spends as good as the fangheads.”

“Maybe the suckheads are easier to work with because I know what they are. They aren’t hiding anything.”

“Yeah. They’re so transparent. And easy to understand. And gentle. And peace-loving.”

Derek snorted, ironic amusement flashing across his dark-skinned face, to vanish like a shadow. “Trust is a two-way street, Legs.”

Not that I let it show, but warmth filtered through my veins. He hadn’t called me by any of my nicknames recently, and he’d used two in the space of seconds. He wanted equality, did he? “I’ll tell you all my dirty little se
crets if you tell me all yours. Starting with what you did for Uncle Sam in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“I signed a nondisclosure statement upheld by Homeland Security.”

“And I have honor.”

Derek considered that. After a long moment, he held out a hand, as if asking for rapprochement. I took it and we shook, once, firmly. He chuckled softly, the sound purrlike. At the thought, hurt shot through me, a pain I squashed. Beast wasn’t gone. She couldn’t be. The remembered, faint sound of her claws on stone gave me hope.

“Honor, huh?” When I didn’t reply, he straightened his shirt and started to speak, but looked instead over my shoulder. I stepped to his side so I could see. The elevator dinged. The scent of human and vamp cascaded into the lobby. The twins. Bruiser. Grégoire. And Leo.

I checked the position of the security crew, the night blacking the front windows, and asked, “The boys?”

“Assembling in riot gear and moving to Alpha One. We need another five minutes.”

Which meant we needed a delaying tactic. I stepped to the elevator doors and said, “Leo.”

He held out his hand to shake mine, and though I didn’t want to tie up my right hand when I was on the job, it wasn’t something I could get out of without being embarrassingly rude. I tapped the mike and said, “Derek, you’re on.”

“I have command,” he said into my earpiece.

Ignoring the fact that there had been an uncomfortable space between the hand being offered and taken, I took Leo’s. “It has been brought to my attention,” he said, “that I needlessly contributed to your difficulties on this parley, my
Enforcer
.”

Oh crap.
Enforcer.
I had to deal with that, still.
“Ummm, hunh?” I asked. I could have kicked myself for that scintillating comeback.

“When I banished Evangelina from my city, I did not know she had spelled my primo, George, and perhaps even me.” Having nothing to say to that, I glanced at Bruiser, the aforementioned primo. When I didn’t reply, Leo’s lips quirked and he released my hand. “That was an apology, Jane

Realization dawned. “Oh! Yeah, sure. Um, thanks. No problem.” I glanced at Bruiser again. He was laughing at me silently. Great. I’d acted the socially inept idiot I really was.

To my side, at the front of the hotel, pink light poured through the night-black windows. It was Evangelina, responding to my lure of Leo, who was not supposed to be here yet. “Crap! Weapons!” I shouted. Knowing Derek would get the vamps under cover, I raced to the front doors, throwing myself to the side and peering out. Evangelina stood in the circular drive in the open door of her sports car, the convertible top down, and behind the antivamp protestors. Over them a huge, misty, black bird flapped its wings. The protestors moved forward, a man out front, leading. They each held small pots and splashed something on the drive with every step.

In the backseat of her convertible sat Lincoln Shaddock and a slumped form I couldn’t identify. I wasn’t sure if either of them was alive.

“Freaking dang Murphy and his freaking dang laws,” I muttered, possible scenarios racing through my mind. “Brandon! Brian!” I shouted. “We got a Delta seven! Wrassler! I need my Benelli!” I needed the firepower of the shotgun, back in my room. I drew my puny .380 and checked the load.

To the desk I shouted, “Lockdown. You are under attack.” When no one moved, I screamed, “Lockdown! You are under attack!”

The little uniformed girl found her head and raced to the phone.
Civilians
. Can’t live with them, can’t let them get slaughtered. A news van rolled to a stop and a cameraman jumped out, already filming. Especially can’t let them get killed in front of TV cameras. “Son of a freaking goat,” I whispered.

Out front, a bellboy decided to be a hero and shouted something to the protestors. The bird overhead beat its wings and called, a sawing sound. It attacked. The bellboy disappeared inside the winged black cloud. A primal scream of pain echoed against the building, cut off as if with a blade. When the shadow withdrew, the only thing left was blood splatter and a lower leg.

The protestors stopped as if petrified, their eyes on the leg and foot. It was still wearing a shoe. The leader’s mouth worked but no sound came out. Evangelina pointed at the doors and shouted, “The vampires did it! They killed the boy! Get them!”

The demon overhead called again, a softer rumbling note with three soft
tocks
afterward, a satisfied chirp. The leader of the humans swiveled back to the hotel. His face contorted, full of fury. He charged, flinging blood before
him with stained fingers. His supporters followed. Just before they reached the entrance, Derek slammed the metal rod into place, securing the door with a metal bar and deadbolt. He turned a key in the deadbolt lock and the metal tongue
schnicked
into place just as the protestors fell against the door with a hollow thud. “How long?” I demanded.

Derek said, “Twenty-eight seconds until they’re in place.”

A window shattered. A rock bounced across the lobby, sparkling glass shards catching the pink glow from outside. “As soon as the protestors are down, have the men draw back. That black thing is a demon.”

“What thing?”

“He cannot see it,
me sha
.” I rotated my upper body at the familiar French tones. “He is fully human,” Leo said. Outside, the demon cast no shadow. He wasn’t fully here.
Yet
.

The master of the southeastern vamps, and arguably one of the most powerful vamps in the U.S., shrugged negligently. He was wearing a tuxedo with a black silk shirt, white cummerbund, and bowtie. He looked beautiful. And deadly. His black eyes sparkled as if he knew what I had thought, and he reached out to smooth my hair back from my face, along my shoulder and spine, in a sleek caress. Beside him stood Grégoire, a slight figure in midnight blue tux with a blue silk shirt the color of his eyes. The vamps looked gorgeous together.

I put my weapon on safety, holstered it, and pulled them back from the door. “Go back to your rooms.” They looked at each other, turned to the windows, and smiled, fangs clicking down. It wasn’t charming. More like two feral creatures staring at prey. I got a bad feeling.

“It has been many years since we have been to battle,” Grégoire said. “Our servants are restrained.”

I scanned behind me. Ignored the rock that exploded into the room only feet away. Bruiser and the twins were sitting on the couches in front of the fireplace. Staring at nothing. I raced over and saw my weapons on the floor at the twins’ feet. Wrassler was asleep on the rug. “Let them go,” I snarled, weaponing up, strapping on blades, checking the M4. “I need them.” The shotgun was loaded for vamp
with silver fléchette rounds. I was hoping silver worked on demons, and I was the only one with silver. Leo’s decision. A dumb one. I could lay blame later, if I lived. I took Leo’s arm. “Please. Let the servants go.”

“No. The little witch is ours,” Grégoire said. He vamped out fully, his pupils growing wide as quarters in blood red sclera. “You have done well, bringing her to me.”

He had ordered me to bring him Evangelina so he could kill her.
Crap
.

“And we must liberate Shaddock.” Leo freed his arm from my fingers with a small shake that jarred my bones, peering out the window into the growing dark and increasing reddish glare of Evangelina’s magics. Lincoln’s head was still silhouetted in the pink energies. “Shaddock’s master, Dufresnee, is sworn to me, and I to him. I have drunk from him. Shaddock is
mine
.”

“Shaddock is a barbarian, but he is
our
barbarian,” Grégoire agreed, sounding eager.

“Shall we?” Leo asked him.

Grégoire drew a sword from a sheath I hadn’t noted, hanging at his side. “Forgive me if I precede you, my master.” With a firm pop of air, like a drumhead hit hard, he disappeared.

“He is always first on a battlefield,” Leo said, aggrieved. He vamped out faster than I could process the change and disappeared with a puff of air that moved my hair with its passage. Both men reappeared outside. It looked magical, but the movement of air and falling glass indicated that they had gone out through the broken windows. They faced off against Evangelina.

I swore succinctly and gathered myself to follow. Derek caught my arm. “You’re not wearing a vest, Legs,” he said.

“They don’t have guns,” I replied. “Time?”

“They’re in place. On my order, I’ve instructed the men to target the humans and the witch on first volley. Where is this demon?”

“Your two o’clock. About ten feet off the ground. I have silver ammo,” I said. “It might work on the demon.”

His eyes promised me retribution for not telling him about the silver. “Go,” he said.

Time had done that slow-down thing, where every sight
is sharpened, each sound is clear, crisp, and slow. Outside I heard the sound of firing, a boom-boom-boom of overlapping shotgun fire. Humans fell fast, downed by fat, non-lethal, antiriot beanbags fired at point blank range by figures dressed in night-combat black. Then they were shot by tranquilizer darts, to keep them down. But nothing hit Evangelina. She stood tall in the red car, behind a red ward, a
hedge of thorns
so strong, the concrete blackened and cracked where it intersected the ground outside of the tires. The ward sizzled a smutty black, like charcoal and flames, her arms out to her sides as she gathered power. Her scarlet hair flew to the sides, a wind buffeting her slender form, molding to her body.

Blue strobes lit the scene as cops pulled up. They’d be in the way, but there was no help for that. Beside me, Derek counted off the time for the shooters to get back to safety. “Three-one-hundred, two-one-hundred, one-one-hundred.
Go!
”

I dove into the fray, the M4 in one hand, stabilized against my side, and the semiautomatic in the other. The smell of human blood, witch, and vamp blood hit me. Demon burned my nostrils, acrid as smoke. I had weapons, but I needed more. “Hayyel!” I shouted as I ran, hoping my angel was still hanging around, keeping an eye on the blood-diamond.

Derek followed me, firing rubber bullets up, not hurting the demon, but drawing his attention. Allowing me to get in under the winged evil. Time slowed further, a thick construct that parted around me, allowing me to move faster than any human.

“Hayyel,” I breathed, stepping beneath the Raven Mocker, his wings wide above me. His beak open. Screaming. The tail that constrained him was attached to his leg like a shackle, dropping to the earth, snaking across the hotel’s drive along a trail of blood thrown by the protestors. Evangelina’s blood. Shaddock’s blood. Drained into bowls and splashed by humans. Humans who were now inactive. No longer throwing blood. The tail thinned. I had a feeling that if the Raven Mocker got loose, it would be bad. Really bad. “Hayyel. Please come get the Kalona Ayeliski, the Raven Mocker.” The demon screamed and beat his wings,
looming above me. “I give him to you on a platter of silver fléchettes.”

Darkness and emptiness drenched me, swarmed over me, filled me with a pressure that stole my breath. It felt like being smothered in my sleep, drowning in the knowledge of failure, utter and complete. Like dying in the darkness, drenched in the blood of my brothers and sisters and children. The Cherokee on the Trail of Tears had been lied to, cheated, defeated, beaten, and banished, for the greed of the white man. They had walked the long trail, dying in despair by the hundreds, their lives cut short feeding this demon.