Raven Cursed

CHAPTER TWENTY Get Your Own Damn Shoes

Two miles and sixty minutes of hard hiking later, we were in a narrow cleft of mountain, far from any path. The temps had fallen, and I was wearing my jacket; my feet, even in my hiking boots, were again wet and icy from walking in the only place a human could—the rill of water. I was out of sorts, the lack of sleep was catching up to me—that and the constant smell of death on the breeze, as if the entire mountain breathed with the stink of rot and grindylow. The hair on the back of my neck went stiff, as buzzards soared overhead, ghosting through the rising air currents.

The way ahead was blocked by dead trees; one gigantic white oak had come down, taking half the saplings on the mountainside with it, and together, they had blocked the cleft and backed up the creek, except for the small rill we had been following.

I started yet another hard climb, using the shattered limbs lodged with stone. I heard Rick follow, and knew he had put me ahead so he could catch me if I fell. It was totally unnecessary, and so sweet I couldn’t keep the silly grin off my face, in spite of the putrid stench and buzzards soaring. Hand by hand, I pulled myself up the dead-tree-and-rock wall and reached the top.

The water was backed up into a pool about twenty feet long, less than ten feet wide, brown with tannins from decomposing leaves, but clear. On the far slope were corpses. Deer corpses, bones and hide in a jumble, in various stages of decomposition; the most rotten ones were at the bottom; a well-picked, fresh corpse was on top. Maybe four deer, all small. There were also fish bones and several turtle shells. Buzzards lined the tree limbs staring at Kemnebi and the human intruders, alien emptiness in their eyes. Mixed with it all was the smell of the grindy. And an occasional whiff of something like the stink of sour cheese, if you first mixed it with dead fish and added in some vomit. Yuck.

“Dead deer,” I murmured, thinking of Angie Baby and her nightmare. Beast-fast, I pulled blades. If she were seeing my future, then something bad might happen here. If.

Kemnebi lay only feet away on a downed tree, his belly off the ground, staring at the corpses across the small pond. He was breathing too fast, a shallow pant, his muscles tense, shoulder blades up high. He looked like a scared cat. I licked my lips.

“Cave,” Rick said.

Beyond the pile of deer was a slice of blackness. The Appalachians were riddled with caves: limestone, mines through solid rock, narrow places where underground creeks once ran. Hundreds had been mapped. Hundreds more had yet to be discovered. And when they were, they were often hard to access. The mouth of this one was clear of brush and detritus. A well-trodden path led up to it, to the pile of bones, and to the water. It was covered with the three-toed and three-clawed paw prints of the grindylow. The entire area was covered with grindy markings, slashed into rock and trees.

I looked at Kem and back to the cave. The vamp-killers felt good in my palms as I stepped up and around the small pool toward the cave entrance. The jumbled bones were covered in flies. Maggots—not my favorite bug—crawled everywhere, big, small, totally gross. A buzzard spread its wings and flapped, irritation in every feather. I’d interrupted their feast. Rick at my shoulder, I stood at the entrance to the cave, letting my eyes adjust, drawing on Beast’s speed, vision, and hearing. Adrenaline flushed through me. Something brushed my thigh. I daggered downward. Jerked to a stop. The tip of the blade was buried in the shoulder hair of Kem-cat, just touching the skin over his scapula. He looked up at me and growled softly in warning. I showed him my teeth. My look promised challenge. Later. He looked into the dark before us. Together, we stepped inside the cave.

It was an underground microcosm of the cleft in the mountain, almost mimicking the shape of the pool. Twenty feet deep and ten wide at the entrance, it narrowed to a point overhead and at the far end, a slash into the heart of the world. Stone slabs composed its walls. The roof was fifteen feet high at the entrance, lower at the far end. The floor was dirt, covered with fresh fir branches. More fir branches lined a small shelf at the back, about three feet off the floor. And on it was the grindy, curled tightly in a protective ball. When I’d seen him last he had been wearing baggy human-style clothes. Now he was naked. Around him were green balls of fur, shocking bright, almost neon. One moved. And mewled. “Holy crap,” I whispered.

Rick said, “He had babies.” He was a she.

The grindy woke, moving from balled up asleep into fighting mad and protective-mother-predator in half a heartbeat. Standing over her litter, she showed us long killing teeth, her arms out, claws spread, legs wide, her head forward, like any predator in danger. Multiple teats like a nursing dog’s hung on her belly, and when she shrieked, it was a high-pitched squeal, her eyes wild, not recognizing us at all.

Kem turned with a liquid grace and leaped from the cave. I backed away, not taking my eyes from the grindy, Rick’s shoulder touching mine. He was holding a nine mil, safety off, ready for firing. I felt better just seeing the gun. I had seen what the grindy’s claws could do to a boulder, and my flesh wasn’t nearly that tough. I also wasn’t immortal. If I lost my head I was done for. If I received a mortal blow, and didn’t have time to shift before blood loss took me, I’d be dead. My father had died that way, too fast for a shift to save him.

In the daylight I blinked at the sight of Kemnebi, on a log, still staring at the cave. He looked at us and patted the log twice with his left front paw before whirling, front feet leading his body, taking off up the hillside. “And that means, what?” I asked Rick, still processing the sight of the grindylow with babies. Babies with neon green fur. Angie had seen this. How weird was that?

“He’s hunting. We get to wait.”

“How about we do that upwind of the bone pile.” We trudged uphill, pulling our way with trees and roots when needed, until we found a stone outcropping overlooking the grindy’s lair, but upwind. We sat, our feet swinging over a seventy-foot drop. Rick opened his backpack, revealing apples, raisins, and nuts. I opened mine, showing packages of jerky made from three types of meats and six Snickers bars. “So how long do we wait?” I asked, taking off my shoes so my feet could dry.

A cat-scream and a roar sounded, echoing through the folded earth of the mountain. I jerked my gaze up, following the sound. The roar rang out again, followed by the challenge of a big-cat. Snarling. It was a fight. “I’m thinking Kem is trying to kill a bear. So not long,” Rick said, his tone wry. He took my feet in his hands and began to rub, his eyes watching out over the mountain below us. The sloppy sentimental thing called my heart did a little somersault.

Want to kill a bear, Beast thought at me, flooding my system with longing and my mouth with the remembered taste of hot blood and fat. Long time since I hunted black bear.

“Not today,” I said aloud. And shook my head when Rick looked at me curiously. I bit down on a strip of turkey jerky and chewed while Beast prowled the back of my mind, pouting. And Rick rubbed my cold feet. This was turning out to be the weirdest job I’d had in a long time. Moments later I was asleep.

Rick said, “He’s back. Wake up, sleepyhead.”

I sat up and yawned, spotting the dark shadow that was Kem, far below us on the opposing face of the mountain. He was moving erratically, jerking and sliding, backside first, dragging a black bear down the mountain. It looked like two hundred pounds, maybe two fifty. Beast couldn’t have dragged the bear. She hissed in displeasure, but it was true. Beast could drag a hundred fifty pounds, but not much more. Leopards have excellent musculature in head, jaw, neck, and shoulders, and superior climbing ability. They can even climb down a tree headfirst. The leopard could probably drag the bear up a tree, which is where leopards keep their dinners, safe from other predators or scavengers. Kem dragged the carcass inside the mouth of the cave. I looked at Rick. “I thought Kem was ticked off with the grindy for killing Safia.”

He shrugged. “Instinct is hard to resist. I’ve seen him feed the grindy while fighting the urge to kick it. He says the two species are linked, I’m guessing on a metaphysical level.”

I shook my head and put my cold, wet boots back on. Together, Rick and I descended the precipitous hillside, mostly on our butts. When we got to the bottom, Kemnebi stepped from the cave in human form. Naked. I averted my eyes. Rick opened his backpack and tossed Kem some clothes and a bag of nuts. Kemnebi dressed without the slightest sign of embarrassment, and ate the nuts, while I tried to affect a bored expression, pretty sure I wasn’t succeeding. Rick tossed him a package of granola, the kind with M&Ms in it. Kem ate that too. Then he walked barefoot toward us with that deadly-looking, catlike grace. Without preamble, he said, “They give birth only once a century. I did not know she was female, nor that she was carrying young.” I wasn’t sure how he could not know her gender, and he answered almost as if he had heard my thoughts. “They have very little external genitalia. They are very private creatures. I put her life in danger by bringing her to this country.” His voice was toneless, but his eyes were heavy with guilt and sorrow. He looked around the steep hills and back to the cave. “She has been deeply stressed by her inborn imperative to hunt down feral weres, while carrying young. She did not hunt enough for food, did not gain enough weight, and her litter is small. The bear will feed her baby-hunger for the remaining days of her nursing.”

I remembered the teats. I’d thought the grindy was an amphibian, not a mammal.

Without looking at Rick, Kemnebi held out a hand, imperiously. “Shoes.”

Before Rick could react, I jerked the backpack out of his hand and stalked to Kem. Far too close, inside his personal space. I felt his cat flinch at the intrusion. Beast huffed in defiance. “He’s not your servant. He’s not your slave. He’s not your punching bag.” Kem’s eyes went golden green so fast I didn’t even see the change. But I wasn’t finished. “And he isn’t yours to challenge or to kill. He’s mine. Get it?” I tossed the backpack into the pond. It landed with a splash. “Get your own damn shoes.”

I grabbed Rick by the elbow and yanked him downhill. “Yours, huh?” he said, sounding entirely too satisfied. I growled at him. “You do like to play rough, Jane Yellowrock. I like that about you.” I ignored him, dragging him along, Rick laughing under his breath, shaking his head.

I shook my head and hid a smile. “Shuddup.”

Back at the parking lot, I let the men go off in their borrowed, battered truck and I headed back to Asheville. I was cold, wet, exhausted, and really, really, really needed a nap. Which I got. Finally. Even though sleeping meant I still had not called Angie back.

By half an hour after midnight I knew there were problems, I just didn’t know what kind or how bad. The evening’s talks had been scheduled to begin at twelve, but Shaddock was late. Again. No one answered at the clan home. No one answered anywhere. It was like Shaddock and clan had been sucked out of the universe, and thinking about the thing in Evil Evie’s basement, the bite marks on her neck, and the pink spell, that might be possible. I just hoped he wasn’t stuck in the basement ward. If he was, I’d need Evangelina’s sisters to free him. And maybe a howitzer.

Grégoire, insulted, retired to his suite with his twins, having a midnight blood-snack and a massage, leaving me with orders to find Shaddock. Things weren’t going well for the local vamp, and if Grégoire’s expression was indicative of the future, Shaddock wasn’t going to be master of any city, anywhere. Ever.

Back in my room again, I closed the door behind me, stripped off my fancy jacket, and opened my cell. There were no voice mail messages or texts from Molly. No calls from Evan either. Nada. Nothing. They wouldn’t call now, not this late. There was also nothing from Rick.

I was closing the cell when it rang, startling me. I flipped it back open, my heart in my throat, but it wasn’t Mol. I narrowed my eyes at the number on the screen. It wasn’t one I wanted to hear from right now. “Yellowrock.” I let my tone show my lack of pleasure.

Bruiser hesitated as if reading my emotions from the single word. He said, “Leo is dispatching the Rogue Hunter to the service of Lincoln Shaddock.” Bruiser was sounding all formal, which he did when he was acting strictly in Leo’s behalf, and not entirely with his own approval. When Leo wanted me to sleep with Kemnebi, Bruiser had used the same tone.

“Yeah? Would this have anything to do with old Linc being a no-show? Again?” I asked.

“There has been a disturbance. You will provide him and his clan all reasonable service.”

“I don’t sleep with Leo’s pals,” I reminded him.

His voice was warm, a low burr, when he said, “You have been remarkably resistant to my charms.”

Ooookaaay. I opened my mouth and closed it. Not gonna say anything I was thinking.

“Now,” he went on, his tone sharpening, “Leo hears rumors that his pet Rogue Hunter has claimed the title of his Enforcer. Is this true?”

“Ummm?” I got a sudden bad feeling. “Maybe.”

“Brilliant.” But I could tell he really meant stupid. “The Enforcer is a titled position in a Master’s household. Have you drank from him? Have you drank from any Mithran?”

“Nooooo.” I drug the word into three syllables.

“Don’t, for a period of two moon cycles, unless you want to be bound to that vampire as an Enforcer—a top blood-servant similar to a primo. One sip of blood will seal the contract.” I let a breath go, a long exhalation he couldn’t hear. Not a problem. I had no intention of drinking from any vamp, ever. “Please . . . attempt to be less foolish,” he said. The call disconnected.

I was still holding the cell when it rang again. I was a popular gal tonight. “Yellowrock.”

“Jane. It’s Adelaide. We need you at the compound.” Adelaide, tall and blond, the blood-servant lawyer who wanted to be my gal-pal. Before I could respond she said, “Lincoln’s chained scions have been let free of their shackles. They killed—” Her voice shut off as if someone had garroted her. I heard a breath drawn, full of tears. “They killed Sarah. She turned twenty-two yesterday. She was just a child.” There was a sob in her voice. She had liked Sarah.

This was why Leo had turned my services over to Shaddock. Young rogue-vamps who killed humans were staked. By me, if they got out of the scion lair; opening a scion lair with unchained rogues was a near guarantee that some would get out. I chose my words with care. “Why hasn’t Lincoln handled it? Or Chen?”

Her voice changed, growing stilted and sharp. “Mr. Shaddock isn’t on the premises at the moment. He is not available. And Chen is elsewhere employed.”

“Ah.” Crap. Shaddock was missing from more than his parley talks, and Chen was hunting him. “And the person who set the rogues free?”

“We have the event on digital video, and the perpetrator is contained.” Her emphasis on the word contained made me think her culprit was not in the best shape.

“I’ll be there within the hour.” I tossed my vamp-hunting gear on the bed, catching sight of myself in the long mirrors as I moved. I was no clotheshorse, but I looked pretty good in harem pants, boots, white silk shirt and short vest. Too bad I wasn’t going to get a chance to show the outfit off. While I talked on the cell—ordering the supplies I needed, and my SUV brought around front—I stripped and pulled on leather studded with silver. Weaponed up, stakes in my bun, and every vamp-killer blade and gun I owned. And strode toward the door to the hallway.

It opened, my hand still above the knob. The smell of vamp swept in. I had a hand on a stake before I could catch myself, and met Grégoire’s gorgeous dark blue eyes. His delicate brows lifted, his gaze resting on my hand and the stake, unamused. I released it as if it burned. “Oops.” Grabbing a stake in the presence of a master vamp wasn’t smart.

Grégoire laughed. Waving one hand as if he were dismissing the gesture of violence, he moved into the suite, graceful as a ballerina. His forward motion alone backed me up, his blond hair loose about his shoulders, his scent like aromatic lilies tonight. Grégoire was wearing midnight blue silk jammies that probably cost more than everything I owned, the shirt unbuttoned to reveal a pale chest, hairless and smooth. And he was barefooted. I don’t know why, but the sight of a man’s bare feet can make me melt. Of course, if a vamp wanted to get the drop on me, he would come at me just like this, looking innocent and harmless. I backed up fast, my hands off my weapons. “Grégoire.”

“Rogue Hunter.” The matching bookend blood-servants stepped in behind him and shut the door. They were wearing even less than their master, silk pajama bottoms hanging low on their hips and twin looks of expectancy that sent warnings through me like lightning. “My master sent a gift for you,” Grégoire said. “I have been instructed to give it to you prior to your activities tonight.” He extended a black velvet box six inches high and fourteen square, like something from an expensive jewelry store.

“Ummm.” One can’t be too careful accepting gifts from vamps. Sometimes they thought it meant they owned you. Not that I’d ever received a gift from one, if I discounted the sabertooth lion bones Leo had given me once and the cell phone. And the guns. And I discounted all that because it was business. But this wasn’t. “Okay. What is it and what does it mean?”

“I have been assured that it is an indication of his satisfaction with your expertise and service, and to replace something lost in his labor. A boon, with, as you Americans say, ‘no strings attached.’”

I took the box gingerly, as if it might explode, and set it on the coffee table in front of the couch. Grégoire sat in a wingback chair and waited, the twins at his back, eyes on the box. I took that as my cue to open the gift. I sat on the couch and raised the hinged lid. The inside was black silk, and on the silk was a jewelry display shaped like the neck and shoulders of a woman. No head. The shoulders were covered with a black silk scarf, lightly draping and partially obscuring a piece of jewelry beneath. I hoped the MOC wasn’t sending me jewelry. Or a promise that he wanted to take my head. There were all sorts of ways to interpret a headless mannequin.

With a gesture suitable to a magician’s stage, Grégoire leaned forward and swept the scarf away. Beneath it was a mesh of interwoven rings. Leo had replaced my broken vamp collar, the one a werewolf had destroyed, crushing it with his massive jaws. I breathed out slowly. It was beautiful, made of three different sized rings, hooked together in an intricate weave. There were tiny, faceted stones attached, all in tawny gold colors, the shade my eyes flash when Beast is near the surface.

“The collar is composed of two layers, which may be worn together or separately. The lower layer is made of sterling silver over titanium, for better strength and protection than the collar you lost to his service. The upper layer, which attaches so”—he indicated a delicate latching mechanism—“is decorative. Twenty-four carat gold rings with chocolate diamonds and citrines scattered across the surface. My master had it created especially for you so that you might wear it even when working in a formal gown and yet be safe.”

I blinked. And ran his words through my mind again. Sterling, gold, and diamonds? This thing must have cost a fortune.

“The silk scarf is my small contribution.” He flicked it smoothly over my arm. “It may aide you when you hunt at night. It secures over the collar to hide the gleam of metal, and to assure that no rogue Mithran will recognize a weapon around your neck prior to an attack.”

I looked up at the twins and licked my suddenly dry lips. “Is this okay?” Meaning, can I accept it without prejudice or would acceptance be a promise to hop into Leo’s bed?

“When a master of a city offers a boon to a servant or employee,” Brandon said, “it’s exactly as my master has said—a gift only, a reward for a job well done.”

Suu-weet. I reached to take the necklace but Grégoire’s hand was there first, vamp-fast. I yanked back my hand. Slammed back into the couch. He was standing in front of me. And I didn’t see him move from the chair. Crap. This was payback for reaching for a weapon in his presence—being taught that he was way too fast for me to kill. Having it shown to me that sane master vamp beats stupid vamp-hunter any night. A cold sweat broke out on my flesh and Beast was oddly absent, not bragging to me that she could win this fight.

Grégoire lifted the necklace and removed the upper gold layer, setting it aside. He unclasped the silver fighting necklace and moved. That air popped and I felt the wind of his movement on my face. I tensed. My jacket was pulled back, the jerk hard enough to make me gasp. The silver necklace settled around my shoulders, cold, and tightened on my neck. Grégoire’s fingers were no warmer than the silver. Grégoire’s fingers were touching the silver. Crap. A vamp who can handle silver. He had been silver poisoned recently. Surviving that might give him immunity. Thoughts fast and desperate.

I heard the faint snick when the latch caught. And suddenly Grégoire was in front of me again, leaning over me. His hands on my throat again. I was inches taller than Grégoire, and pounds of muscle heavier, better trained, way better armed. And yet, if he wanted me dead, he could snap my head around and pop it right off. I had once fought Leo. I knew how hard masters were to beat. Gently, he pulled my leather jacket in place. Raised the zipper with a metallic ratchet. “Do we understand one another, ma chère?”

“We do.” I forced myself to meet his eyes. They were dark with rage, pupils wide, as if he were slipping into his vamped-out state, yet held himself in check. He had that much control, was that strong. I took a breath, slowly, carefully. And drew on my Christian school girl manners, hoping it might be enough. “Please assure the Master of the City of New Orleans that his gift is received in all . . . humility”—I searched for more words— “and delight.”

“And?” Grégoire asked.

I swallowed. And? And what? “And . . . um . . . and the scarf is beautiful.” But that wasn’t what he wanted. “And . . . please assure that I meant no offense to the blood-master’s most trusted and beloved adviser and scion.”

Grégoire smiled sweetly, almost angelically, and patted my cheek. “You have not brought me the witch who bespelled Lincoln Shaddock. And now he is missing again. Still bespelled?”

“Probably.” I admitted.

“I gave you a charge. Fulfill it.” He vanished with a whirlwind and that pop of displaced air. The twins were looking at me quizzically, and I realized that they hadn’t seen me almost pull a stake on their master. I sank back in the couch cushions and tried to remember how to breathe.

I managed three insufficient breaths and stood. I needed out of here. “I’ll report back by sunrise.” They nodded, still confused, and I walked around the coffee table, the headless mannequin, and the golden collar, and out the door. Sometimes all a girl has is moxie, and when her knees are knocking and her heart’s racing and she’s sweating drops of pure fear, that’s a good time to draw on that feminine talent. That and prayer. Yeah. Prayer might be a real good idea about now.

Crap. Grégoire had handled pure silver. Just like Leo could. Had Leo been silver poisoned once? And he was fast. Maybe faster than Leo. So why was Leo the Master of the City of New Orleans, and not Grégoire? And how was I gonna get out of killing Evangelina if Lincoln was trapped in her basement with a demon?