Black Arts

CHAPTER 16 Dead-Slab-of-Gravestone-Marble

The dance ended. Leo released my body and, following the pressure of his hand and arm, I moved out to his side, facing the partygoers. Our arms were out, clasped hands extended in the air between us. “My Enforcer,” Leo said, releasing me. “Bring me the supplicant.”

Shoffru’s head lifted, his nostrils widening as he took a breath, hard and deep. But I had already pulled two blades, one a steel-bladed, silver-edged throwing knife, the other a twelve-inch-long vamp-killer. I drew on Beast-speed, racing to Shoffru’s side and bursting through the witch magics, throwing green sparkles into the room, feeling them burn against my skin.

The keep-away spell was targeted, I thought, but not against skinwalkers. It’s hard to spell against something you don’t know exists or don’t have a blood sample from. Shoffru had expected to be escorted up by vamps or humans, and planned a little witchy surprise for them. Leo had turned the tables. The fanghead was good at that.

I placed a blade at the pirate’s throat.

His eyes widened and I grinned; it wasn’t a sweet grin. He leaned in and sniffed me. And his fangs dropped down on the little hinged bones, a soft snick sounding in the suddenly silent room. The music had stopped, and the room’s natural acoustics had taken over. “Hiya, Jackie,” I said, the sound warm and bright and carrying everywhere in the quiet. “Welcome back to New Orleans. Things are gonna be a little different this time around.”

Ignoring my comment, he asked, “What species of predator are you?”

“The kind who kills vamps for a living.” I chuckled, letting Beast’s power course through me and shine in my eyes. I could see the golden reflection in his pupils. The lizard poked his head up from the black shirt collar. It was sitting on Shoffru’s collarbone, its long tail curled down his chest. It was watching me, as if unafraid, curious.

Shoffru’s body was still, that vamp-style, dead-slab-of-gravestone-marble still. I could feel him trying to bring up the keep-away spell, but with me so close, it wasn’t happening. I let my blade press against his neck, just enough to barely slice the skin. A line of red appeared. The scent of vamp blood flooded me, his caustic and sharp like cacti and desert nights. The lizard whipped his head to the cut. His skin turned a bright, interested green, a patch on his throat growing reddish and puffing out, as if he was excited.

Around us, Shoffru’s vamps converged into a semicircle, starting to form a pincer movement, or a constriction like the mouth of bag drawn tight, to enclose us. Adrianna had vamped out, eyes wide black pupils in bloody red sclera. Her fingers were clawed with razor-sharp talons.

From the doorway, I heard booted feet, and the mixed scents of Derek’s men blended into the room. Shoffru’s people hesitated, and the pirate seemed to know his rebellion had been anticipated. “The world is always changing,” Shoffru said. “Only the strong survive the evolution of life.”

“Jackie’s a philosopher as well as a pirate captain,” I said. “Good. It’ll help when Leo bares your throat and drinks.” His pupils widened into black holes. He didn’t vamp out. I gave him that. He stayed in control. “Tell your girl to sit this one out.”

“Adrianna, my love,” he said. “Please await me.”

The nutso vamp hissed in displeasure, but she lowered her talons.

I said, “Let’s go, Jackie. Move slow. It’s like a dance, but you follow my lead without touching me or the blade slides home to nestle into your cervical spine. Got it?”

Shoffru didn’t nod—not with my blade so close—but he did school his face in agreement.

I led Shoffru to the center of the dance floor, where Leo waited, Bruiser beside him. From the corner of my eye, I saw Wrassler standing behind Adrianna, and her facade was not the happy-camper face of a partygoer. It was the fang-down expression of a wanna-kill-something suckhead. I figured that Wrassler had a blade to her kidney. Good. And Derek had weapons leveled at Shoffru’s peeps. Even better. Gee DiMercy stood to the side, watching the little game like an interested spectator.

We reached the center of the room, and when I felt Bruiser’s body heat at my back, I stepped away, letting Shoffru go. Leo and Bruiser had him boxed in like a layer of vamp jelly between two slices of deadly bread. I walked to Wrassler, blades still out, and said into my mic, “Play us some music, something dangerous,” knowing that Angel would hear. Just before I reached the traitor, the opening strains of “All I Wanted” by Temporary Empire began to play, soft and low. It wasn’t what I had asked for, but the heartache in the song fit my own broken heart, pulling the anguish to the surface again. It played softly, at the edges of my hearing.

Grief and anger warred with a killing lust deep inside me as I reached Adrianna. “Hello, dead woman,” I said. “I’ll have your blood on my hands soon.”

“Oh no, Enforcer,” Gee DiMercy said by my ear. I hadn’t felt him on my trail and I almost flinched, but I held it down, as if my other half had known of his presence. “That particular joy will be mine,” he said.

I laughed, the sound only slightly louder than the near-silent music. “I’ll fight you for it, Mercy Blade. But later.” I whirled, my skirts spinning out around me, and I turned to the center of the room, giving Adrianna my back, in what any predator could only assume to be an insult, and I heard her hiss at the affront.

In the center of the room, Jack Shoffru stood before Leo. The MOC of New Orleans placed his hand on Jack’s shoulder and pressed down. Jack’s upper lip curled in resistance and his body locked upright. At the edge of my vision, the swordswoman snarled, her body poised to draw and fight, her expression suspicious and confused.

The announcer said softly, “Jacques Shoffru, turned by François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture, leader of the revolution in Saint Domingue. Survivor of the Purge of New Orleans, whereby two of the Domingue clans were slaughtered. Captain of the privateering vessels: the Ring Leader and the Lady’s Virtue. Copartner with Jean Lafitte in the Whale’s Tale Enterprises in New Orleans.” Jack, locked beneath Leo’s hand, looked as though he’d break a sweat if vamps did that kinda thing. Leo looked as if he were pushing down on a flower stalk, two fingers on Jack’s shoulder. The overhead speakers went on. “Once, secondo heir in the now decimated Clan Rousseau. Currently, and for two centuries, Master of the City of Veracruz and Cancún, Mexico, and all hunting territories between. Seeking supplicant status from the Master of the City of New Orleans.”

Shoffru’s knees buckled. The vamp with all the interesting titles dropped to the floor at Leo’s feet. Leo now had one hand on his enemy’s shoulder; the other palm went to Shoffru’s forehead, pushing the pirate’s head back, elongating his throat. The posture was one of total submission, though it didn’t really look as if Jackie was feeling very submissive. More as if he’d been forced that way, fighting it with everything he had. Leo, on the other hand, moved with effortless grace. And the MOC hadn’t even pulled any power from the clans. Go, Leo. “Do you yield and surrender?” Leo asked softly.

Adrianna hissed again, but so did all the vamps that had come with the pirate, and it sounded like surprise. I looked around to verify that impression and saw that Leo’s people were surprised too. So . . . yield and surrender meant . . . what, to a vamp?

Leo said, “My Enforcer, attend me.”

All of a sudden, I didn’t like this, not one bit. I still had my weapons out, however, and I stepped slowly to the center of the room, my dancing shoes making soft taps on the wood floor. I stopped three feet away and waited, but Leo didn’t acknowledge me, so I said, “I’m here.”

Leo didn’t respond to me but repeated his question to Shoffru. “Do you yield and surrender?”

Shoffru ground out, “For now. Yes.”

“For one decade,” Leo said. “Or until we meet in formal Blood Challenge—which will be at a time of my choosing.”

And then I got it. Somehow Leo had brought the wording of a Blood Challenge into the little tableau, and also somehow, that meant Jack was well and truly beaten, even though he was accepted by the MOC of New Orleans. The only leeway I thought might be in the wording was in the weapons used. Leo had claimed the time. Jack could choose the weapons.

“I yield,” Jack said, “and surrender my titles and territories and cattle, for a time of ten years, or until I defeat you in formal Blood Challenge, at the time of your choosing.”

Before Jack even finished speaking, Leo vamped out. He sank his fangs into Shoffru’s throat. I turned away, making a point of watching Adrianna and Jack’s peeps, not really wanting to watch Leo drink anyone down.

My throat tightened as my own memories surfaced again. Fangs at my throat. The priestess holding my head. Bruiser stretched out beside me, as much a prisoner as I had been. I shoved the memory away, deep down, into the recesses of the black cavern that was my soul. But I couldn’t block out the sound of Leo drinking, flesh on flesh, soft sounds of swallowing. Before me, Adrianna was led off into the night by Wrassler and Gee.

I whispered, “Turn up the music, Angel.”

Around me the raspy voice of Keeb, the lead singer from Temporary Empire, rose, the lyrics weeping into the air, “. . . . Everything is quiet, everything is calm. Everyone’s a riot. Softer than a psalm.” Behind me, I felt heat and warmth. And I knew Bruiser stood there, not touching, but there. Waiting. The band was a little-known one out of North Carolina. Only Bruiser would have thought to find it for me. Only Bruiser would have cared enough to find it. But Bruiser wasn’t who I wanted.

I sucked down a breath and forced the tears away. Damn you. Damn you, Rick LaFleur. How had I let him do this to me again? I was an idiot. But I didn’t have to stay one. It might take me several tries to learn a lesson, but it was well and truly learned this time. No matter how strong the mating magic and mating pheromones were, he could have resisted. He could have. I’d never trust Rick LaFleur again. Never let him into my life again. And the lyrics moaned, “. . . you’re all I ever wanted in this world. You’re all I ever needed . . .”

Never again.

Never.

• • •

The rest of the night went by in a blur. Shoffru accepting the terms of his servitude. Leo and Jack toasting each other with humans to sip from. Adrianna not reappearing. Vamps dancing while drinking from their human partners. Humans drinking hard, partying as if there would be no dawn.

Me, not crying. Not crying.

Not crying. Not where anyone could see.

• • •

It was nearly four a.m., and everyone was gone except the humans too drunk to drive, and the vamps who were inebriated from drinking from the drunk humans, and they were all being offered rooms and bunks and lairs to sleep it off.

I went to see what the cameras had caught, watching the night’s anomalies over and over. I was certain it was more than one. The first one was quick. Someone or something—maybe more than one—had gotten inside HQ through my great security plan. The blur was a prism of colors, like light diffused. That one had injured Derek’s man—had appeared on three cameras, knocking out Vodka Sunrise’s tooth, leaving him dazed on the floor, before heading up to the guest quarters, and being turned around by Derek’s armed men, who admitted to seeing something but had no idea what it was. Then the swirling bands of light had rushed out through the front doors and into the parking area. A final camera saw the blur jumping the gate. Not human. That one had been something unknown.

Another one had moved through the hallways, jamming the cameras, and out the front door as if chasing after it. The security guys stationed there hadn’t seen or noticed anything, though the doors opened and closed right beside them. Magic. A don’t-see-me spell. And then it reversed and raced back through HQ, to the ballroom, where it disappeared.

And I still had no freaking idea what was going on in New Orleans. Not a hint. Until I walked the hallways where the blur had raced and the spell had taken place. And I smelled magic and blood. The dry burned magic of a dark practitioner. It smelled like Shoffru, except the pirate had hadn’t left my sight or Leo’s sight all night. Someone was with him every moment. So it couldn’t be him. Could it have been the woman with the sword? Had that been how she got into HQ carrying a weapon? Crap. It wasn’t just a don’t-see-me; it was mixed with a forget-me spell. And it was a good one. Even now I had to struggle to remember her.

It all had to be connected somehow. How-freaking-how—I didn’t have a clue. Except it was magic and vamps and a Damours witch I didn’t know. My duties were done, except the security debriefing. To the assembled security personnel, I said, “You averted disaster. You did good. I’m putting in for bonuses for the injured.” I looked at the guy who no longer had a full set of teeth. “And dental work. Gratis.”

“Yeah? I want the best dentist in New Orleans. I used to be purdy.”

Everyone laughed. I guess it was humor as a bonding experience.

• • •

When it was over, I found myself in Leo’s office, alone, staring at the fireplace, smelling the warm scent of hickory smoke on the air and the stronger scent of cigar, something expensive left from some private discussion that had taken place during the night. Music played over the speakers, some blues singer I didn’t recognize and lyrics I didn’t want to hear.

Through the binding of my Beast, I felt Leo when he entered, and I was looking up when he stopped at the desk, our eyes meeting and holding. The silence was the silence of a graveyard when the mourners are gone, the leafless branches clattering softly together in the wind, sounding like desiccated bones clacking. The air smelling of dried tears and dying flowers, funeral scents, chilled with death.

I felt it when Leo took a breath, as the binding between us grew stronger, tighter. And I didn’t know how to fight it anymore.

“You did well tonight, Jane Yellowrock,” he said softly. I said nothing. There was nothing to say. It had been a play, a game, chess on a bloody board. He added, even more gently, “I did not know about Paka.”

And my tears spilled over. My scream was half stifled, caught in my throat as if trapped beneath strangling hands. I caught myself, my hands across my chest, gripping my arms. And the tears fell, swamping me. My knees gave way. And I gave in to the grief. No, no, no, no, no. I would not cry. Would not.

Cool hands caught me, lifted me. Carried me to the velvet chaise. Lowered me to sit in his lap, his arms, stronger than any I had ever felt, wrapped tightly around me. Holding me. As I cried. I had promised myself. Never again. And here I was. Crying. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“I am so sorry, my Jane. I did not know. I truly did not know. Even I would not have done such a thing to you.”

He rocked me, slowly back and forth, cradling me as I cried. And cried. Knowing, even then, that I grieved for much more than simply the loss of Rick LaFleur.

• • •

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.”

Aggie stared at me, taking in the long wet hair, the clothes that came from her sweathouse, the bare feet, and probably the desperation that sat on me like a bird of prey with its talons digging deep.

“Please,” I whispered.

“Why should I help you, Jane Yellowrock, of the Tsalagi?”

I was too tired to even feel the shock of her question, the shock of her, maybe, not helping me, and I whispered into the night, “Because I’m lost without your help.”

“You have not spoken truth to me. You have kept truth far from me. You have lied. Why should I help you, Jane Yellowrock, of the Tsalagi?”

I realized she was asking something ritualistic, something important. And if I answered wrong, I might never get her help again. I laughed, the sound broken and croaking, like a raven dying. What the hell? What the hell? What the hell?

“When I was five years old,” I said, “I led my grandmother to two men, the two who killed my father and raped my mother. She took them. I don’t remember how. She kept them in a cave.” I laughed again, the sound now like the cawing of crows on a battlefield crowded with the dead. “I watched Uni lisi, the grandmother of many children—my own grandmother—kill the first man. When she hung the second man over a pit of stones, she gave me a knife. I helped her kill him.”

Aggie drew in a long breath. It sounded like pity and pain, as if she suffered with me. But not for long. She wanted truth? Well, I was tired of hiding it, not saying it aloud to any who asked.

“I’m over a hundred and seventy years old, as close as I can guess. I walked the trail of tears with The People before my grandmother helped me to escape. I’m a skinwalker.”

To give her credit, Aggie didn’t go pale or back away as if she were facing a crazy woman. The silence between us stretched, like drops of sweat from a prisoner’s back, long and thick and gelatinous. “You are not u’tlun’ta. You are not the creature called liver-eater. Spear Finger. You do not kill children and eat their livers or kill the sick and steal their hearts.” She said, her tone growing vehement, “You do not!”

Hearing the certainty in her tone, seeing the belief on her face—belief in me—I closed my eyes. A sound, equal parts fear, pain, and relief, ripped from my throat before it closed up again. Tears tore out of me, the tissues of my throat rending and rough, tasting of my blood as I struggled to breathe past the obstruction blocking my airway. I couldn’t name the emotion that raged through me. Too intense for peace. Too raw for acceptance. Maybe redemption of a different sort from what I’d experienced so far in my life.

I felt as if I’d been crying for days. I hated crying. Hated it. I’d been depressed not that long ago, and this felt a lot like that, a black cloud filling me. But this jag didn’t last long. As quickly as it started, it ended, and I found myself leaning against Aggie’s house, exhausted and empty. “Sorry ’bout that,” I said, my voice a croak.

“Have you eaten?” she asked gently. I shook my head no. “Go to the sweathouse. I’ll be there soon.” I started to push away from the wall and Aggie said, “God does not condemn the children led into deeds by a War Woman. Such actions are not evil.”

I stopped. “But does he condemn the adult who looks back and remembers? And is glad?”

“You were baptized, yes? Poured in the blood of the sacrifice? The redeemer does not condemn his own. He sees only his own blood when he sees you. Not the blood of those you have killed.” She closed the door in my face. I blinked, hearing her words again. He sees only his own blood . . . Broken, as if I hadn’t healed from a beating, I turned toward the sweathouse. And a vision of myself I didn’t know if I could stand.

An instant later she opened the door again. “You need to tell someone you are alive?”

“Ummm.” I wiped my eyes and they ached as if I’d been staring at the sun too long. “I’d love to borrow a phone.”

Aggie opened the door wider. “Make it fast and go back out. Be quiet. Mama is watching Wheel of Fortune reruns.”

Standing in the hallway, I dialed home and didn’t bother to respond to the hello. “Have you heard from Bruiser or Rick?” I asked, Aggie’s old-fashioned landline phone cradled between ear and shoulder as I braided my hip-length hair.

Eli said softly, “Good to know you’re alive. George crashed on your couch about an hour ago. Evan is playing his flute, trying to heal him.”

Bruiser is alive. My fingers twisted in my hair, pulling on my scalp as I breathed out in relief.

“Rick is a no-show here,” he added. “Are you okay?”

“Ducky. Bruiser. Details.”

“Bruised,” he chuckled sourly at his own play on words. “Blood loss. Strange abrasions over his throat and back and one leg. Looks like he lost about twenty pounds. He keeps mumbling your name and stuff about snakes.”

I closed my eyes in relief. And if a rather loud voice was shouting in the back of my head that I had left him to die and shouldn’t be so worried now, I was able to shove it down along with all the other stuff I’d have to deal with someday.

“So tell me how your bike and your gear ended up scattered all over the street.”

“Bruiser’s snake. Or . . . I don’t know what it was, but it kinda looked like a snake. My bike?”

“Busted. I don’t know how bad. Jodi let me pick it and your gear up. You need to call her. But first, debrief me.”

Bitsa! some small, bereaved part of me howled. I shoved it down inside too and, concisely, I filled Eli in on the fight and how I’d spent the day—which felt weirder than anything I had ever done before. I wasn’t sure how to be honest about being in Beast form; saying the words made me feel as if I’d eaten something slimy. But Eli seemed to take it in stride, or maybe he was standing bug-eyed on the other end of the line and I just thought he was nonchalant. I ended the debrief with “I won’t be home soon. Some stuff I need to take care of.”

“Okay. Call Jodi. She has news she won’t give me. Or maybe she wants to schedule mani-pedis and facials.” He ended the call. I didn’t call Jodi. I knew there wasn’t time. And I didn’t want her to have access to this number in relation to me. Her news or spa-day plans would have to wait.