Raven Cursed

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT I Was So Going to Hell

In an instant, I saw how she would land. Table and chairs, two wingback chairs facing the couch. She would miss them all unless—

I leapt. Springing back down, over the railing. Pushing off with all the strength in my thighs and back. Torquing my body. An impossible angle. I dropped the blade. It spun away. I caught the girl around the waist. Pulled her against me. Into my spiral. I fell toward the couch, twisting in midair. I fired the M4 where Thomas had stood, into the ceiling above. It exploded. The recoil slammed my shoulder. I hit the couch. The girl’s body landed on mine. My breath whoofed out.

Elbow as fulcrum, I pushed her to the floor. Gun barrel leading. Finger on trigger. To my feet. Thomas was in front of me. Pupils blacker than the doorway to hell, open in bloodred sclera. Fangs out. A short sword in each hand.

He cut forward with both, a scissoring motion. I fired the shotgun again. Point blank range. I could have sworn I saw the silver fléchettes fly. I whipped up with the barrel, into the path of one sword. Threw my body after it. Felt the other blade slice into my side, even as I twisted out of its way. The blade followed my motion, the cut from side to belly, upward, away. I drew another vamp-killer as I fell, this one a long slender blade. Throwing as it left the sheath.

It hit him at an odd angle, lower left side, above the hip. Missing anything internal that might kill him quickly. I wouldn’t survive until silver poisoning did its work. Thomas gripped and yanked the blade out. Tossed it to the side. He had a hole in his belly from the shotgun, big enough for my fist. It was pouring blood, filled with the swarming red and black motes of the spell. The lower hole, where the knife had been, bled too, his blood saturated with the pink spell. His skin was scorching from the dim light, but he was so full of blood he was fighting off both the burn and silver poisoning. Only then did I realize he was naked. And aroused. Vamped out, fully.

I landed on the floor. Sprawled. A leg bent under me. With a sword, he batted away the shotgun, the sound clanging, the blow reverberating up my arm. He leaned toward me, cutting at my clothes. Buttons popped and flew. Cold steel cut me, a paper cut of pain. Air hit my bare skin. With almost balletic grace, incongruous against his bestial expression, he set the swords aside. He moved my shirt away, exposing breasts, wound, and blood from his cut. I drew another vamp-killer as he fell forward. Lips back, exposing killing teeth. Fixated on blood. I braced the knife on my belt. Angled up. And he fell onto me. Onto the blade.

I felt it push through his stomach and up, into his aorta. Blood fountained over me. Hot and fast. As if his heart beat. His eyes changed. Looking puzzled. Confused. The pink haze of spell coalesced on his chest, at the point where the knife entered. Red motes swarmed in his blood, stinging my hand where his blood gushed over me.

I put an arm around his waist. Drew him closer, his face against the silver rings of my defensive collar. His flesh sizzled, scorching. I angled the blade higher. Shoved. He tried to roll away. I hooked a leg around his and let him push us over. Until I was on top. My favorite vamp-killer was beside his head. The one with the elk-horn handle. I didn’t remember losing it. I took it in my left hand and cut into his throat. Severing windpipe, veins, arteries, tendons. I had never seen so much blood spray from a dying vamp, blood drenched in the pink light of the blood-diamond spell. It was a fountain, blinding me even as he tried to heal from the wound. The Naturaleza had fed fully and the power that much blood gave him was unexpected, startling. I kept cutting. Sawing. Knowing that to kill a vamp and not have him rise as a revenant, I had to take his head. The pink spell whirred and whirled, an angry buzzing, stinging my skin.

At some point, his embrace relaxed. His arms fell away from me. His blood slowed to a trickle, the pink light hazing to a dull glow. But it still was not enough. I cut until there was only spine left, the bony protuberances and ragged tissue and blood. Blood everywhere. I wiped my face. Stood and found his swords. They were nicely balanced, the edges a gray, swirling steel. Using one, I swept down and through the spine in a single cut that I barely felt. I kicked the head away and stood over him. Hearing only my breathing, the soughing of the wind through the broken window, the softer breath of the girl he had been killing. The pink light of the spell died.

I looked around the crime scene—yeah, crime scene: dead bodies outside, dying girl—not sure what to do next. Confused. Hurt. I looked down at my bloody gaping wound. Hurt bad. I needed to shift. Beast? Beast! Nothing. A hollow, echoing emptiness. The girl moaned. I needed to call her an ambulance. I felt for my cell, but the paddlers had it. I needed a phone.

I walked to the kitchen, opened drawers until I found one with dishcloths. I wiped my face and pressed a handful to my side. Took several clean cloths to the moaning girl, pressing them into her wounds, which were less deep than I had thought.

I rolled her until her own body would keep the cloths in place and covered her with a blanket from the couch. Unlike the drapes, it wasn’t dusty, and as I stood, looking around the room, I could tell it had been cleaned in the last few weeks. Weird, the things you notice when you were nearly killed while killing and beheading a vampire, and now were trying to make logical decisions while bleeding to death.

I spotted a phone on a small table. It was an old one, but did at least have push buttons and not one of the weird rotors telephones used to have. I picked up the receiver and leaned against the wall, weaker than I should be. I almost dialed 911, but couldn’t remember where I was. Did they need to know? Could they figure it out?

The room swirled about me. I was light-headed, dizzy. Shock spread through me, paralyzing. My hands felt cold, and the pain from my side cut deep, filling me like water fills a lake bed.

Surprised that I remembered it, I dialed Bruiser’s private number. Bruiser answered with a curt, “George Dumas,” sounding all British and uppity and snobby. “Hiya, Bruiser,” I whispered. “I just killed Thomas Stevenson, and . . . I think I’m dying.”

“Jane?” He sounded unsure, maybe just the unfamiliar number on his caller ID.

“Yeah. And there are two drained bodies in a car in the yard and a girl who doesn’t look too good on the living room floor.” I looked down. “I’m not doing so good myself.” I was bleeding. Pretty badly. Really badly. I pressed an arm to my side, the hand to my belly. Blood-soaked cloths squished under my hand. I slid down the wall to the floor. The phone slipped from my hand. “Oops.” My vision telescoped down, into tiny pinpricks. I was pretty sure I was passing out. “Beast?” I called, the word a pained whisper of breath. And then nothing.

I woke up with Dave and Mike lifting me. Carrying me to the couch. I was only half awake as they cut away my clothes, made makeshift pressure bandages out of kitchen rags, and attached them to me with duct tape. That was gonna hurt when it came off. They covered me with blankets that smelled of vamp and sex and blood, and disappeared from view. I knew they were working on stabilizing the girl. I could hear her breathing. Pain thrummed out through my skin with my heartbeat, too fast. My breath was shallow and rapid, like a dog panting.

Mike said, “I’ll go pick out a landing spot for the chopper.” He disappeared from view. Dave nodded and tucked the blankets tighter around me. Lifted my legs and shoved pillows beneath my knees. Treatment for shock, I thought. It had been a while since my emergency medicine course, but some things you don’t forget. I looked up at Dave, tried to talk. Had to moisten my lips. “You were supposed to go on down the creek.” It came out a whisper.

Dave’s blue eyes held humor and worry. “Your boss made an offer we couldn’t refuse.”

“Yeah. He’s good at that. I always turn him down, though.”

Dave chuckled breathily. “I have a feeling he makes you different kinds of offers. Ours was to come up here and get you stabilized. He’s sending a helicopter for you and an ambulance for the girl.”

“How much?” I meant how much to help me.

“A thousand each. On top of what you’re paying us each to deliver you here. Not bad for a day’s work, and I get to paddle too. It’s all good.” His tone was deliberately lighthearted, not that I believed it. Not a bit. I’d have laughed if I hadn’t passed out again.

The next memories were fractured. Men in uniforms. Stretchers. A siren sounding outside. One of the twins, his head turned so I couldn’t see his mole, pale-faced and stern. Mike squeezing my hand. A stranger inserting an IV with no regard for my pain. Me saying something not very nice about him. My phone ringing, Dave answered. Bruiser’s voice in my ear, telling me to hold on. An argument between the B-twin and the stranger. Money exchanging hands. A lot of money. Rain on my face, outside. Mike and Dave disappearing into the trees, Dave with a lifted hand of good-bye. And more blackness.

I woke when they pulled me from the helo, seeing the hotel in the background. Later, I woke in my hotel bed. So cold. Shivering. The gas fire burning bright, flames whispering and hissing. Not alone. Grégoire over me, his blond hair hanging forward. His mouth on my stomach. His breath heated across my skin. Young boy face and old lover eyes, experienced, watching me as his tongue laved my flesh from navel to sternum. His hands roamed me, featherlight. Demanding. Claiming. Healing.

Heat like a drumbeat though my veins. The sound of my moans. The smell of my blood, of human blood and the sight of Brandon’s face as his master fed from his neck. Blackness.

Waking to pleasure. Grégoire’s tongue on me, sliding up my body. Slowly. The faint scrape of long canines, teasing. My hands reaching for him. The feel of his hair, like warm silk. The smell of his body like flowers and spring rain and desire. My need growing. Strength filling me. Tracing his face with my fingertips. Firelight reflected in wide, black pupils. The taste of him.

“Drink from me.” Whispered words.

“No. I won’t belong to you.”

Blackness.

The sound of drums. Echoing through a cave. The feel of stone at my back, my pelt and spine pressed into it. The ledge high up, above the families below, around the curve of the cave wall, their fire glowing on the damp stone. Tsaligi, hiding from yunega. Hiding in Beast’s cave. Out of sight of cave opening. Hiding from yunega aniyowisgi, white soldiers who would make them go west, as the others had gone west in the cold moons.

Tsaligi had not seen Beast. Four days and four nights the family had hidden here. Soon they would go back out, into the light, leaving Beast her den. Until then, Beast hunted only late at night. Returned to den, to hiding place, away from white men and guns and long-distance death. Away from Tsaligi and human kits. Closed eyes, listening to drums. Blackness.

I woke at dusk, warm, pain free, an arm across my waist, a head pillowed on my shoulder. I stiffened. My heartbeat raced. I felt his mouth curve into a smile. “Mon Amazon. George said you would be angry to find me here, in your bed. Please say that you are delighted instead.” I moved my hand. I was naked. So was he. Oh crap. Crap in a bucket. Crapcrapcrap!

He sighed. I felt his breath exhale across my breasts. My naked breasts. He slid from the covers with that boneless grace the really old ones have. I pulled the covers over me. What had I done? I slid a hand down my stomach. Healed. Around my waist. Healed. Panties? No. Crap. He stood over me, patient. I wasn’t going to look to him. Couldn’t look at him.

Minutes passed. He was still standing there. He was hundreds of years old; time was different for old vamps; he could stand like that for hours, waiting, and not get tired. Heart not beating, not breathing, unmoving as a stone angel in a graveyard. I blew out a breath. “What?”

“You are healed.” There was just a hint of irritation in his voice. A hint of steel.

After a moment I said, “Thank you?”

“I did not drink from you. You are not my Enforcer. And . . . we did not make love.” His words were carefully precise. Relief washed through me so hot I broke out into a sweat. “According to your provincial American standards,” he added.

And with a little pop of displaced air, he was gone. According to your provincial American standards? What did that mean? I remembered his hands all over me. His tongue . . . I pulled the covers over my head and burrowed into the pillows. Oh crap. I was so going to hell.

And Beast was still absent. No snarky comment. No pad of paws across my mind, or prick of claw on my conscience or sly, sated happiness. Just a welling emptiness. But there had been the dream. I remembered the dream of the cave. Beast? She didn’t answer.

After I checked in with Molly about the whereabouts of Evangelina—still unknown—and about the health of her injured sisters—improving quickly—and with Derek about the security status of everything else, I stayed in bed the rest of the day, regaining strength, ordering room service, the TV on in the corner—mindless game shows, mindless talk shows, trying to stay mindless, so I didn’t have to remember that Beast was gone, or buried so deeply I couldn’t feel her. So I didn’t have to remember Grégoire and his talented mouth. Difficult to do, as his scent was in my sheets and my body was hypersensitive, every nerve twanging like a violin string. If Beast had been with me, she would have been purring. But she wasn’t. The need for Beast and the memory of desire flickered through me with every heartbeat, every nerve ending sparking, so sensitive it was like riding a blade edge between pain and pleasure. To keep from calling Grégoire, I ordered room service—every meat and seafood dish on the menu and several they prepared just for me, and four pots of tea. Each delivery was brought up by a happy Hispanic guy whom I tipped really well. He was making a week’s tips today as I regained my strength. Nearly dying when I couldn’t shift to heal was debilitating.

At seven p.m., the sun setting late in the early fall, my cell rang. It was Rick. Guilt zinged through me like lightning. I opened the cell, “Rick.”

“Help,” a voice panted, groaning. Rick. In pain.

I swung my legs to the floor. “What’s happened?” I heard a voice in the background and the sound of the cell hitting something. I started to call his name, but over the open airwaves I heard Kemnebi’s voice, smug and satisfied. “The moon is full. It calls to your beast-nature.”

Tonight? No wonder I’d been so . . . whatever I’d been with Grégoire. The full moon and sex went together for Beast like— Beast . . . ? She didn’t answer.

“You will continue trying to shift but will not succeed. You will not survive. Not without my assistance.” Rick screamed. The phone went dead.

Beast had been right, that Kemnebi would not honor his submission, that he was a human in cat skin. Kem-cat wanted Rick dead. He’d be in the woods somewhere. Lotta help that was.

I threw on clothes, taking care with hiking shoes, backpack, weapons. Someone had retrieved and cleaned my gear—had polished the blood out of and off of my guns and silvered blades. I dialed as I dressed. Bruiser answered, warmth in his voice. “Jane! How are—”

“Fine,” I interrupted. “Three things. One, there won’t be a parley tonight. Shaddock is on the run with the witch who spelled him, so Grégoire can take the night off. Again. Two, I need GPS positioning on the number I’m sending you, assuming it’s in Big Creek National Park above the Pigeon River. Three, I need Leo to order Grégoire to send me there in the helicopter.”

“One moment.” I heard keys tapping and he said, “Yes, the call originated from that mountain. Sending you a topo map of the area. You’ll be there in half an hour. Meet the helo at the hotel’s pad. Parley is canceled, and all participants notified.”

I clicked the cell shut and burst through the door into the common area just as Brandon answered his cell. “She wants to go where?” he said. Pushing the B-Twins to speed, talking as we raced to the helo pad, I dialed Derek and put him in charge of security for the night.

Brandon powered up Grégoire’s helo. Over the engine’s high-pitched whine, I was informed that Brian and he were both qualified pilots, and their master, Grégoire, loved to fly. A vamp with a death wish. Go figure. Even the undead had to be crazy to fly in a flimsy glass, air (and maybe a half pound of steel) contraption with no wings and no glide power. If it broke, it would fall like a rock. Beast had refused to ride in the helo. My heart clenched. She wasn’t fighting me.

According to the B-Twins, chattering while they powered up and completed a checklist, the helo was a refurbished Vietnam Era Bell Huey. It had four permanent seats and gear for more, with heavy armament and black-out windows suitable for vampire travel. Like I cared. All I was interested in was its jet engine, functional weaponry slung under the carriage, and infrared tracker and laser-detection signalers. In case I had to track Kem and shoot him with a missile. The engine whine grew and I gritted my teeth, nodding where appropriate and finishing my texts.

At the last moment, a shrouded form leaped into the helicopter and slid the side door shut. The helo’s whine went up in volume as I stared at the dark shape, my phone forgotten, one hand on a weapon. I sniffed. Vamp-scent. Grégoire. Dressed in vamp traveling clothes—layers of robes, tightly woven, gloves and boots and a full-face toboggan with black glass sewn into the eyeholes. I nodded to him. He nodded back regally, or as regally as a vamp can in that getup. He set a wicker picnic basket on the floor. I let go my vamp-killer and went back to work, texting requests to everyone on my list. I sent Derek a terse note that Grégoire was with me.

My meat-lovers buffet rose in my throat as we lurched into the sunset. The rain had stopped, the clouds were breaking up, glowing golden in the western sky, but the unseasonable cold had come back, and the air was frigid. I was shivering in the thin, damp air, but at least my boots were on the correct feet and I had plenty of ammo, more than half silvershot, just in case Kemnebi tried to kill Rick and I had to kill Kem.

The helo angled into the sky. Beast, who hated the flying machines, said nothing.

We got to the campground in less than half an hour and set down onto a brand-new helo pad used to evacuate hikers, campers, and idiot paddlers who tried to take the Upper Big Creek in especially dangerous weather. Without waiting for permission, I leaped from the helo, ducked under the whirring blades, and raced down the mountain. Water fell in big, slow drops from the leaves of tall trees and landed with a heavy, icy punch that slammed through my clothes. From somewhere down the mountain and behind me, a dog howled, the frenzied sound fading as I ran. The helo powered up and lifted off, taking a path right over me, the thrum of blades like the fast heartbeat of a giant bird. Off to do another favor for me—to hopefully bring me the help I’d need to keep Rick alive.

My GPS led me down and down, off the path into thick brush and dusky light. I could see nothing, and was forced to slow my mad rush. If Kem was planning to kill me and making it look like an accident, this was the perfect way. I could plummet over a sheer drop-off and smash at the bottom. But ahead, a campfire glowed through the trees. I raced for it, bursting from a laurel thicket into an open space, to find Rick lying in front of the flames on a silver foil, heat-retention, rescue blanket, naked and sweating. I skidded to a stop. His back was arched in agony, every muscle in stark definition, sweat puddling beneath him. His face was pulled with fierce pain, human teeth bared, white in the shifting light.

Kemnebi lounged in a camp chair, a beer dangling from his fingers. Empties had been tossed behind him and scattered across the ground, an open cooler at his knee. He was staring at Rick with a fixed smile. It never wavered as he drained the beer and tossed the bottle over his shoulder. It landed with a clink. “We are gathered here, on this auspicious night, to watch my enemy die,” he said.

I wasn’t aware I had moved until the drunken were-leader tumbled out of his chair. He landed with a pained whoof and I kicked him, his body muzzy in the red haze of my fury. “Rick LaFleur will not die tonight, because if he does, I’ll kill you myself.” I was suddenly holding one of the pretty red-gripped .380s and I fired point-blank into Kem’s knee. He screamed. “That’s just a taste of what I’ll do to you if he dies.”

“It is silver! You shot me with silver!” he screamed.

“Yeah.” I threw down my backpack, dropped down to my knees, and slid a silver-plated handcuff around Kem’s wrist. With a snap, I snaked out a length of line and secured it to the nearest tree. “Silver will keep you from changing shape to heal, even with the moonlight pushing at you when it rises. But if you help Rick, I’ll think about cutting the round out of your knee joint so you can shift. Up to you.”

He screamed at me, cuss words in his native tongue, I was sure. I holstered the weapon and went to Rick, kneeling beside him, moving to the side a pile of clothes I hadn’t noticed before. I kept my body at an angle, knowing Kem would kill me in a heartbeat now, if he could, so I wasn’t turning my back on him. “I’m here, Rick. I won’t leave you. And he won’t be killing you when you shift.”

He groaned, but he gripped my hand. The motion exposed the tattoos on his shoulder, the scarred and ridged tats of cats and mountains, mauled by werewolves. The golden eyes of the bobcat and mountain lion gleamed on his olive skin, glowing in the firelight. They looked hot, burning; I touched one and jerked my hand back. Scalding. The spell built into his skin was smooth as a stone, the glowing orbs glossy, like pieces of gold, the maimed cats watching me.

Once again I was hit with the feeling of destiny, as if someone up there had planned for us to be together but something had gone horribly wrong. Rick screamed again, his hand twisting mine, the grip so hard my bones ground. I held on, ignoring the demands and eventual pleading of Kemnebi, but kept my body angled so I could see him.

There was no water, but Rick needed something to replace the slick, greasy sweat that runneled his skin. He was dehydrating. When his cramps eased, I brought him three of Kem’s beers and opened one, holding it to his lips. I had no idea what alcohol would do to a were trying to shift, but it was all I had. He drank it gratefully. Another cramp hit him. He screamed and arched his back. It was like watching lightning thrust through him. The golden eyes of his cats glowed, even when he thrashed to his side, into shadow. Magic. The magic that held him in this form.

Each time the spasms eased, I fed him more beer. Once I scavenged for deadwood for the fire. Time passed. What felt like a long time. Hours. The moon rose in the sky, brilliant white overhead, almost perfectly round, marred only by scudding clouds. Kem had begun to gasp in pain as well. He was getting a taste of Rick’s torture, unable to shift with the silver in his knee and clamped to his wrist. He cursed at me long and hard in English and French as well as the liquid syllables of his mother tongue.

I looked up when Brandon and Brian walked through the thicket, carrying an assortment of cases. I knew they could see the naked hope on my face. But Grégoire stepped alone from the laurel behind them, the ancient vampire no longer shrouded in traveling clothes. He wore ironed jeans, thousand dollar hiking boots, and a silk shirt under a heavy cotton work shirt. His blond hair was tied back in a little tail. He looked like a male model on set for an L.L. Bean catalogue shoot, a metrosexual playing at being an outdoor guy. And he wasn’t who I needed tonight. The vamp knelt beside Rick, studying him like a doctor might, while my breathing went ragged and tears filled my eyes. He refused to come.

Long heartbeats later, Big Evan stepped from the laurel thicket.