Unbound

Prologue

February 16, 2004

New Orleans

Eric swallowed the last of his beer and then set the empty bottle on the sidewalk. Not my fault there isn’t a trash can nearby, he thought, ignoring the glare the tour guide gave him. The brunette off to his right didn’t seem to mind. She smiled at him in a way that made him glad he’d blown off his buddies to take this stupid haunted tour.

“…in front of us is the LaLaurie house,” the guide went on, gesturing to the big gray structure on the corner of Royal Street. “This is reputedly one of the most haunted places in the French Quarter. Here, in the mid—eighteen hundreds, an untold number of slaves were tortured and murdered by Dr. Louis LaLaurie and his wife, Delphine…”

Eric sidled closer to the hot brunette, who didn’t seem to be paying any more attention to the guide than he was. She was thin, the way he liked ’em, and though her tits weren’t big, she had great legs and a nice ass. Her face was pretty, too, now that he noticed.

“Hey. I’m Eric. ’S your name?” he asked, fighting back his slur. Smile. Look interested.

“Where are your friends?” she asked. She had an accent that sounded French, and it was a weird question. But she smiled when she said it, her eyes raking over him in a way that woke his cock up.

“They’re at Pat O’Brien’s,” Eric said, with a vague wave. The guide was glaring at him more pointedly now, going on about the LaLauries’ medical experiments on their slaves and other weird, gross shit he didn’t want to listen to. “You wanna grab a drink?”

The brunette came closer, until she was right next to him and her nipples practically brushed his chest. “I’m in the mood for more than a drink. Aren’t you?”

Oh yeah. He had definite liftoff in his pants. “Baby, like you wouldn’t believe.”

Eric glanced around to find a few people staring at him. Okay, he’d said that a little loud.

“I’ve got a room at the Dauphine,” he tried again, softer. “We could go there—”

“My place is closer,” she interrupted him, taking his hand. Firm grip, too. “Come with me.”

She led him down the street, weaving past people and throwing those fuck-me smiles over her shoulder at him every so often. Eric was excited. He’d been here three days and hadn’t gotten laid yet. It was about time he got some strange on this trip.

The girl took him down an alley, walking just as quickly as before, even though he had a hard time seeing where they were going. He tripped on something—a bottle, probably—but she just tugged on his arm at the same moment, keeping him upright.

“Hey.” He grinned. “Nice reflexes.”

She muttered something he didn’t understand, and not just because he was drunk.

“Is that French?” Eric asked.

Her dark hair swung as she glanced back at him. “Oui. Yes.”

“Cool.”

She led him up a fire escape at the end of the alley, opened an unlocked door at the landing, and propelled him inside. The lights were off, wherever they were, but this must be her place. She locked it behind him and then her smile grew wider.

“I am going to eat you,” she said in a sexy, accented purr that made him even harder.

Eric grabbed her, squeezing that beautiful ass while he kissed her. She opened her mouth, letting his tongue explore inside while he ground himself against her. Rubber’s in my back pocket, Eric reminded himself. A chick this easy might have something.

She put her arms around his neck, holding on to him like she was desperate for it. Eric fumbled with the front of his pants. Right here, right now worked for him, too.

He’d gotten his pants unzipped and his hands up her short skirt, when she clamped down on his tongue with her teeth. And yanked her head back.

Eric screamed, staring in horror at the blood around her mouth when she smiled at him again. His tongue throbbed like it was on fire.

“Crazy bitch,” he tried to say, but it came out sounding like “’aaazy ’itch.” Blood was still pouring from his tongue, and when he felt the tip of it…there wasn’t one anymore.

“You fucking whore!” Eric spat, not caring if she understood the garbled words or not. His fist came up—and then he was falling end over end, until he reached the bottom with a thud that made his head feel like it had split.

For a stunned second, Eric lay there. Stairs, it occurred to him. Bitch pushed me down a flight of stairs. He felt the first stirrings of fear mixing with his anger.

A light flicked on in the room and Eric jerked, blinking for a minute at the brightness before the images focused.

There was a tall, thin man standing over a mannequin. He looked like he was assembling it, since its leg was on the ground next to the man and its arm was in two pieces farther away. Then the mannequin’s head turned. Its eyes blinked, mouth opened…

Eric screamed, trying to scramble to his feet, but a scalding pain in his leg prevented him. The tall man ignored Eric’s screams and frantic attempts to back away as he gave an inquiring glance up the stairs.

“Mon amour, I was getting worried.”

The girl appeared at the top of the stairs. “Why? No one knows we’re here.”

Eric managed to stand. Agony shot up his leg even though he had most of his weight on the other one.

“Don’t either of you fuckin’ touch me,” he gasped, looking around for something, anything, to use to fight them off.

The girl smiled as she came down the stairs. With his blood still around her mouth, it looked more like a hideous leer.

“Touch you? Mon cher, I already told you—I am going to eat you.”

1

Bones didn’t spare a glance around as he strode rapidly up the streets of the French Quarter. Scents assailed him; countless perfumes, body odor from all manners of hygiene, food cooking—or rotting in the trash. Centuries of decadence had given the Quarter a unique, permanent stench no vampire could completely ignore.

A close second to the cacophony of scents was sound. Music, laughter, shouts, and conversations compounded into a constant white noise.

As he rounded a corner, Bones wondered again why Marie had summoned him. He didn’t have to come; he wasn’t under her line, so he owed her no loyalty. But when the queen of New Orleans called, Bones answered. For starters, he respected Marie. And he reckoned his head wouldn’t enjoy sitting atop his shoulders much longer if he snubbed her.

Though chances were, what Marie wanted would involve Bones killing someone.

He had just rounded another corner when instinct told him he was being watched. He jerked to the side—and felt searing pain slam into his back in the next instant. Bones whirled, knocking people over to dart into the nearest door. With his back safely to a wall and the only entrance in clear view, Bones looked down at his chest.

An arrow protruded, its broad head hooked on three sides where it had punched through his chest. The shaft was still sticking out of his back. He touched the bloodied tip and swore.

Silver. Two inches lower and it would have gone through his heart, ending his life the permanent way.

“Hey, buddy,” someone called out. “You okay?”

“Capital,” Bones bit off. He looked around and realized he’d stumbled into a bar. The patrons were goggling at his chest.

He paused long enough to pull the arrow out of his chest before ducking out the door, moving at a speed that would have been only a blur to the onlookers at the bar. He wasn’t concerned with them, however. His attention was focused on finding whoever had fired that custom-made arrow. From the angle it skewered him, it had been fired from above.

One vertical jump had him on the bar’s roof, crouching again while his gaze scanned the nearby structures. Nothing. Bones ran along the tops of the buildings for two blocks, until he felt certain that he was standing where the shooter had been. There was a faint, residual energy in the air that confirmed what Bones already suspected: whoever fired that arrow wasn’t human.

He took another moment to survey the rooftops, but there was no one to be seen. He or she was fast; it had been less than a minute from shot fired to Bones standing where the would-be killer had crouched. No amateur, this. And whoever this was had been alerted quickly to Bones’s presence in the Quarter. He’d arrived only last night.

Bones gave a mental shrug as he jumped down to the street, warier now to stay within clusters of people, but not forgoing his appointment. He’d already died once. It tended to take the edge off fearing it afterward.

Bones waited outside the wrought-iron gate of St. Louis Cemetery #1. His back was to a post, and he’d been eyeing the rooftops, ready to spring at the slightest hint of movement.

Ghosts bathed the cemetery and its surrounding streets like spectral cobwebs. Bones ignored them, though they could to be as noisy and bothersome as the tourists. New Orleans Quarter was the last place for anyone to rest in peace, be it the living, or the dead.

It wasn’t five minutes before a gigantic man walked toward him. His aura announced him as a ghoul, though he looked nothing like Hollywood’s interpretation of one. No, he had smooth brown skin, a bald head, and a barrel-like chest, the very picture of health and vitality. Except his walk, which had a noticeable awkwardness that was at odds with the normal, graceful gait of the undead.

“Bones,” the man greeted him.

It had been decades, but Bones remembered his name. “Jelani.” He nodded. “I am here to see Majestic, at her request.”

Jelani swept out a hand. “Follow me.”

Moonlight glowed off Jelani’s black gloves, their shape too perfect and too stiff. Prosthetics. Both his legs below the knees were missing, too. Bones didn’t know how Jelani had lost his arms and legs, but he knew it had happened before Jelani became a ghoul. The only thing that didn’t grow back after being cut off from a vampire or a ghoul was his head.

But what he didn’t know was why they were moving away from the cemetery, instead of inside its gates.

“You’re not lost, are you, mate?” Bones asked with cool geniality. He’d had meetings with Marie before, and they were only ever held in the cemetery’s underbelly, right below where her empty grave was. Marie Laveau had nothing if not a sense of irony.

Jelani half turned, but didn’t slow his stilted pace. “If you fear to follow me, then by all means, walk away.”

A snort escaped Bones as he stopped. “Trying to shame me into stupidity? Not bloody likely. Half an hour ago, someone made a very credible attempt to kill me, and now you want me to meet Majestic somewhere aside from her normal place. Tell me why, or I will walk away, and then you can explain to her why you felt it beneath you to prevent that.”

Jelani paused, his face still in profile. “Majestic is not here. She bid me to speak in her stead.”

Bones’s brows rose. Marie was notorious for handling requests, threats, or punishments herself, but she’d sent her lackey Jelani to meet with him? It made him even more curious to discover what this was about.

“Right, then,” Bones said. “After you.”

Jelani led him to Lafitte’s Blacksmith House, the oldest bar in the Quarter. Bones ordered a whiskey, neat. The ghoul didn’t order anything. His gaze kept flickering around, either waiting for something, or from nerves. Bones moved his hand to rest almost casually near his pockets. He had several silver knives lining his trousers and sleeves, in case of vampiric trouble, though nothing but decapitation would kill a ghoul.

“Marie,” Bones prodded him.

“Majestic,” Jelani corrected at once.

Bones resisted the urge to roll his eyes. The formalities are over, so do pry the stick out of your arse.

Instead he said, “What does she want from me?”

Jelani reached in his jacket. His movement was slowed by his stiff, plastic hands, so Bones didn’t feel the caution he normally would have at the gesture. Then Jelani pulled out a manila envelope.

Bones took it, slipped the photos out discreetly, taking only a moment to flick his gaze over them and the pages underneath. Then he slid them back in their envelope and gave a hard, flat stare to the man opposite him.

“What makes you think they’re even still alive? There’s been hardly a whisper about the pair of them for half a century.”

Jelani’s eyes were dark brown, almost the same color as Bones’s, and his stare was equally hard. “They are alive, and they are in the city.”

“Because of some blood and bits of body parts found in an apartment?” Bones asked dismissively. “Any human could be responsible for the same.”

“It’s them.” Jelani’s tone was emphatic. “They’re repeating what they did forty years ago. Majestic was overseas then, too, and they came here just before Mardi Gras. By Ash Wednesday, fifteen people had disappeared. Now once again, the queen is away, and they’ve returned.”

Bones considered him. Either Jelani was a very good liar or he believed what he was saying. That didn’t make it true, however.

“I need more proof than missing tourists during Marie’s absence. Why didn’t I hear that they returned to New Orleans back then, as you claim? It’s not like such news wouldn’t have made the rounds, mate.”

Jelani was also careful not to say their names. “I smelled them both times,” he replied, not bothering to correct Bones calling her Marie again. “Majestic wants you to handle this quietly. Once it’s done, she will take the credit for their punishment, so it will not seem that she’s twice let murderers hunting in her city escape during her absence.”

Bones tapped his chin. It wouldn’t be an easy job. The LaLauries were infamous in both human and undead history. Louis was rumored to be around four hundred years old, and a powerful ghoul. Delphine was not quite two hundred, but what she lacked in Louis’s age, she made up for in viciousness.

“One hundred thousand pounds,” Bones said.

It was a steep enough price that Marie wouldn’t feel she owed him a favor, but low enough that she’d also know it was a friend’s rate. In truth, he might have done the job for nothing. The LaLauries were as nasty a pair as some of the other sods Bones had shriveled for free.

Jelani didn’t even blink. “If you finish the job by Ash Wednesday, the money is yours.”

That gave him just over a week. Bones finished his whiskey. No time to dawdle, then.

“You’ll give me full run of the city,” he said, setting his glass down. “And you’ll stay out of my way unless directed. Do we have an accord?”

Jelani gave him a thin smile. “We do.”

2

The townhouse smelled of death, blood, urine, and random police officers, in that order. Bones grunted as he knelt next to one of the reddish-brown stains on the floor.

“With the stench from all the different coppers in here, I’m amazed you could even decipher the LaLauries’ scent.”

Jelani stayed at the top of the stairs, not venturing down to the first floor.

“They weren’t only down there. They slept in the bed up here”—Jelani pointed to a room down the hall—“and sat on the couch here”—with a stiff finger at what Bones supposed was the family room.

Bones inhaled deeply, making a mental catalog of the scents. Then he leaped up the stairs in one bound, noticing Jelani’s inadvertent flinch as he watched.

Right. No need to remind the fellow of what he couldn’t do anymore.

“The bed and the sofa, you say?” Bones asked, changing to walk with the slowness he used when around humans. The sofa faced the telly, with a view out the balcony to the left of it. Bones went over to it and inhaled again, noting the differences—and the similarities—from the smells downstairs.

“The owner of the flat. The girl. Has her body been found elsewhere?”

Jelani gave him a slight smile. “What makes you think this wasn’t the boy’s place?”

Bones shot Jelani an annoyed look. “There’s a feminine scent all over this flat. This wasn’t where the boy lived, though it’s mostly his blood on the first floor.”

“There’s a picture of the girl in her bedroom.” Jelani’s voice was neutral, as if they were discussing the weather. “She’s beautiful. I imagine she’s still alive. For now.”

Bones stared at Jelani. All his instincts told him that the ghoul was hiding something. Bones wondered if he’d known the girl. Jelani was acting as if none of this affected him, but his scent was of fear…and hatred. If he’d been emotionally attached to the flat’s owner, that would make sense.

Or he could just be frightened of what would happen if Bones was unable to kill the LaLauries by the time Marie returned. Since Marie had left him in charge, it would be considered Jelani’s failure as well.

“You’ve never told me how you know Delphine and Louis’s scent to recognize it,” Bones stated.

Something flashed across Jelani’s face before it became smooth as dark glass again.

“I was married in the eighteen sixties,” Jelani replied. “She was a slave in the St. Francisville house, which happened to be where the LaLauries fled after they left the Quarter. While I was fighting in the Union Army, Delphine and Louis tortured and ate my wife. I arrived too late to save her, but I’ll never forget their scent.”

Bones didn’t blink. “Your arms and legs?”

“Amputated after the battle of New Market Heights. They told me it was a miracle I survived at all. Majestic changed me afterward, at my request. I wanted to live long enough to one day see the LaLauries die.”

Jelani’s expression was pure defiance now, as if he expected Bones to berate him for changing into a ghoul solely for revenge.

“I was turned into a vampire against my will,” Bones replied evenly. “Brassed me off for a good long while, then I got over it. Can’t change how we ended up as we are, so why bother fretting over it? If you’re looking for judgment, look elsewhere.”

Jelani seemed surprised. “I hadn’t heard that about you,” he murmured.

Bones let out a short laugh. “Why would you? It’s not the sort of tale to be bandying about, is it?”

“Don’t you hate your sire for that?”

I did.

For years, Bones had hated Ian for turning him into a vampire. But Ian hadn’t done it to be malicious—he’d done it out of a twisted sort of gratitude. If not for Bones sharing his meager food, Ian would have died on that long voyage from London to the New South Wales penal colonies, where they first met as prisoners.

But Bones wasn’t about to share that with Jelani. No need to air those particulars to a ghoul he barely knew.

“I don’t hate him anymore,” was all Bones said.

“You have a house in the city,” Jelani noted, changing the subject. “Will you be staying there?”

Bones shrugged. “Not after tonight. You can ring my cell, if you need me. I’ll send word when it’s finished.”

Jelani smiled, and it was cold. “Don’t underestimate them. Delphine took the boy during an evening walking tour of the Quarter. He was seen leaving with a dark-haired girl right after the tour had stopped at her former mansion.”

Has a sick sense of humor, does she? Bones thought sardonically. Their old home was about the last place he’d expect to find the LaLauries hunting, but it told Bones quite a bit. They were arrogant, which was good. Arrogance and a sense of invincibility were two large points in his favor toward killing them.

“How many ghouls and vampires live in the city?” Bones asked.

Jelani mulled it for a moment. “Year round, a few hundred. At Mardi Gras, that number doubles, easily. Humans aren’t the only ones to enjoy the city’s festival.”

Bugger. Which was why it was an ideal time of year for the LaLauries to hunt, of course. The abundance of people, alive and undead, made them blend that much more into a crowd.

Of course, it would make Bones blend, too. He felt confident he could catch them. What he wasn’t certain about, was how many people they might kill before he did.

“I’ll ring you when it’s finished,” Bones repeated to Jelani, and walked out of the blood-soaked townhouse.

3

The afternoon sun glinted off the countless beads people wore around their necks. The streets weren’t completely clogged yet. More people would venture out once it got dark. It amused Bones that a vampire could be about at this time of day, yet some humans let their excesses from the night before trap them in bed until dusk.

Bones’s only concession to being out in daylight was to wear shades and sunscreen. He wouldn’t burst into flames if the sun touched his bare skin, as the movies so comically claimed. Still, an hour in the sun for a vampire was akin to all day at the beach for an albino. He’d heal almost instantly, but there was no sense using his strength over something as trivial as a sunburn.

He’d already walked the length of the Quarter and back, noting the differences since the last time he’d been here—three years ago? No, it was four, because he’d celebrated the new millennium here. Blimey, the years were blinking by. It had been well over a decade since he’d set foot in London. Once I kill the LaLauries and finish tracking down Hennessey and the other miserable blokes he’s involved with, I’m going home, Bones decided. It’s been too long. I’m even sounding more like a Yank than an Englishman these days.

Only a couple blocks down was the LaLauries’ old house. Even in daylight, there were shadows shifting around it. Residual ghosts. Any sentient spooks who’d died there stayed away from the place, not that Bones blamed them. At night, the house positively crawled with old, despairing energy from its gruesome past. It was no accident that the house had changed hands so many times over the past hundred and seventy years. It was now empty and for sale again as well. Humans might not be able to see the residual manifestations, but they could sense them, on some deep level.

And Delphine LaLaurie, at least, seemed drawn to the house as well. Why else would she pluck one of her victims right in front of it during a tour? Was the irony just amusing to her? Or did she still, after all this time, miss her old home? Was that why the LaLauries kept returning to the Quarter, despite the danger of Marie’s wrath?

Bones came closer to the house. The strong smell of chemicals wafted to him from a store to his right. Salon, he diagnosed, then glanced at his reflection. His hair had been brown for quite some time. Since someone was obviously hunting him, it wouldn’t hurt to alter his appearance.

He entered the parlor, not surprised to find a few people waiting. Every business in the Quarter enjoyed a boost from Mardi Gras, except perhaps church services. He put his name on the list, took a seat, and waited. Forty minutes later, he was brought back by the hairdresser.

“Hi there, what’ll it be?” she asked in a friendly way.

“Color, trim, and wash, if you please,” Bones replied.

“You English have the loveliest accents.” She laughed. “Makes everything you say sound so proper.”

After she washed his hair, she led him to her cubicle. Bones read her name on her beautician’s certificate and gave a snort of amusement.

“Rebecca DeWinter. Was that an intentional reference?”

She looked at him in surprise. “Yeah. My parents loved that book. You’re the first person who’s tied my name to it. Not many people are big readers of the older classics.”

Bones stifled his next snort, because telling her that he still considered Rebecca to be new fiction would require too much explanation.

“I go by Becca, though,” she added, giving his head a last toweling. “So, what are we doing with color today?”

What shade hadn’t he done recently? “Make it blond.”

She blinked at him in the mirror. “Really?”

“Platinum, the whole lot of it.”

Her hand was still in his hair, absently fingering his curls. Bones met her eyes in the mirror. She turned away quickly and threw “Let me just mix the color” over her shoulder.

A smile tugged his mouth. He had no false modesty about his looks. They’d been his trade in the seventeen hundreds when he was human and survived by selling his body to women. Since then, they’d ensured that he didn’t spend many nights alone, but by his choice, not for need of coin anymore. And at times, he’d used his looks when he was hunting lethal, feminine prey. They’d been a useful tool, but Bones placed far more importance on maintaining his wits and strength.

Becca came back and applied the color to his hair. Bones chatted with her, learning that she’d worked here for a couple of years, lived just outside the Quarter, and—interestingly enough—had been closing up the night Eric Greenville was murdered.

“…such a shame,” Becca continued. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen those tour groups by our window while the guides talk about that old house. They can’t stand on their corner, since that’s private property, so they hang out in front here. How awful for someone to be robbed and murdered by a person he met on one of those.”

“Is that what the papers say happened?” Bones asked, though he already knew the answer.

She shrugged. “Yeah. Weird stuff always happens during Mardi Gras.”

That might be true, but Bones was more interested in how Becca might have caught a glimpse of Delphine LaLaurie that night, whether she realized it or not. He’d intended to track down the tour guide from that evening, for the same reason, but that person would be much more recognizable to Delphine. Becca was anonymous. She could be right useful, and judging from her scent—and the lingering looks she snuck his way—she wouldn’t be averse to spending more time with him.

“I’m in town on business,” Bones said casually. “Leaving soon after Mardi Gras ends, but I wondered if you’d fancy having dinner with me?”

He’d been watching her in the mirror as he asked. Her eyes widened, then she broke out into a smile.

“Um, sure. That would be nice.”

She was quite pretty. Shoulder-length brown hair with blond highlights, a nice full mouth—and arse—and she looked well into her twenties, so not a novice when it came to dating.

Infinitely biteable, Bones decided with a speculative gaze. “Are you free tonight?”

She glanced away. Funny how many otherwise confident women shied under a direct look.

“Yeah. I get off in an hour, but you know, I’d want to go home and change…”

“Smashing, I’ll pick you up at your house ’round eight,” Bones stated, giving her his charming smile. It worked well enough. She didn’t argue, as it were.

When he left the salon, his hair was champagne blond, he had Becca’s address in hand, and a far different plan for to-night than he’d started out with. You might turn out to be my homing beacon for Delphine, Bones thought, giving Becca a peck on the cheek while promising to pick her up later. Or at the very least, we’ll both have dinner tonight.

4

Becca ordered a salad for her entrée. Bones, used to the baffling tendencies of women on first dates to pretend they didn’t eat, said nothing. He just ordered the large prime rib with three sides and cajoled Becca into eating half his food. Aside from being thinner than he preferred, Becca could also use the extra iron from the red meat, since Bones intended to lower her blood count by a pint before the evening was finished.

After dinner, they walked along the streets of the Quarter. Bones gave Becca his coat, since her short dress with spaghetti straps did little to keep out the chill. Around them, the crowds were getting livelier as alcohol mixed with the veil of darkness, and the primal vibe of the city urged people to lose their normal inhibitions.

The hum of energy and excitement coming from the writhing banquet of humanity brought out the undead in force as well. Bones, under the pretext of joining in the festivities, bought masks for himself and Becca. His hid half his face, but hers was a silly little thing with feathers that covered only the area around her eyes.

With his aura of power carefully in check, new hair color, mask, and persona of being just another blood drinker strolling with his future meal, Bones was as disguised as he could be. Somewhere in this seething mass of people, the LaLauries could be hunting, choosing their next victim. Time for Becca to assist him.

Bones drew her a few feet into the next alley they came across. Even above the raucous noise around them, he could hear her heartbeat speed up as he leaned down.

Instead of kissing her, however, Bones brought his face close to hers, letting green spill out of his eyes while he spoke low and resonantly.

“Remember the girl, Becca? The dark-haired one you saw that night walking with the murdered boy, can you see her face in your mind again?”

Bones knew she could. Determining that Becca had seen Delphine with Eric was the first thing he’d done when he arrived at her house earlier. A few flashes of his eyes, some help regressing her to that evening, and Bones was sure Becca had gotten a clear view of the female ghoul. Now to focus Becca on Delphine’s image, so she’d recognize her on the spot if she saw her again.

Becca nodded, transfixed by his gaze. Bones caressed her cheek.

“If you see her again, you’ll tell me at once. If I’m not with you, you’ll ring me straightaway, but you will not go anywhere with her, ever.”

“Ever,” Becca echoed.

“You won’t remember this conversation, either; you’ll only remember to act as I’ve told you if you see her. And no matter the circumstances, you won’t notice my eyes being anything but brown, or my teeth being anything but normal, right?”

Another nod. “Right.”

“Good.” Bones smiled. The emerald light left his eyes. Once free of their entrapping glow, Becca blinked, her awareness returning. Her gaze flicked to his mouth, and she licked her lips.

Bones closed the few inches between them, settling his mouth over hers in a firm, leisurely kiss. She tasted of wine and prime rib, and beneath that was her own taste. Sweet, like crushed flowers.

A scraping sound from above made Bones yank to the side with a curse. Someone was up there.

In the next moment, pain seared his back, just a few inches below his heart. As Bones spun around, he spotted a redheaded vampire perched on the roof on the other side of the alley.

“Ralmiel,” Bones muttered, recognizing him. He jerked away in the next split second before another arrow was fired off. This time, it landed in the building instead of his flesh.

“’Allo, mon ami,” the vampire called out genially. “Stand still so I can kill you.”

“Oh my God,” Becca gasped.

“Go into the parade now,” Bones ordered her, shoving her in that direction.

Another arrow came at him, striking him in the arm he’d extended to push Becca safely away. Bones yanked the arrow out, spun to avoid another one, and propelled himself straight up in the air. Since he was in the alley, most bystanders wouldn’t see him, and the ones who did would be too drunk to remember it clearly, anyhow.

Ralmiel gave an infuriating chuckle as he sprinted away, leaping over the roofs in gravity-defying strides. Bones chased him, drawing several knives from his sleeves. He flung them at the vampire’s back, but only one landed, and not in his heart. Bloke was fast.

“You cannot catch me, mon ami!” Ralmiel laughed, darting across the next roof onto the steeple of St. Louis Cathedral.

“Too right I can,” Bones growled, crossing the same distance in an aerial leap. He reached inside his sleeves, grasped two more knives, and rocketed them at the vampire.

The knives landed in Ralmiel’s chest, but he’d jerked back in a life-saving microsecond that meant the difference between them piercing his heart and burying less harmfully into his sternum.

“Sacre bleu,” Ralmiel swore, yanking them out and toss-ing them off the roof. Then he smiled at Bones. “Close, though, non?”

Bones reached in his sleeves again—and came up empty. Right, he’d given his coat to Becca, and it held the rest of his knives.

Ralmiel aimed his crossbow, then gave a snort as he saw that he, too, was out of silver.

“Normally it takes no more than four arrows, mon ami. I wasn’t expecting you to be so quick. We’ll have to continue this another time.”

Bones jumped onto the church’s roof. “We can settle this without weapons. Come on, mate, afraid to only use your hands in a death match?”

Ralmiel had an odd grin. “I think I will let you live to-night and kill you tomorrow. Or the next day. I get paid the same either way.”

Bones let out a short laugh. “Decided to take one of the many contracts out on me, did you? After I kill you, mate, I’ll be curious to see what your corpse is worth.”

Ralmiel sketched a bow, squeezing something in his hand. “I think not.” Then he vanished in front of Bones’s eyes.

Bones stared at the spot where Ralmiel had been. What kind of trick was this?

Since they were in New Orleans, the heart of magic and voodoo, perhaps it was a sort of spell. The few other times Bones had run across Ralmiel, he damn sure didn’t have the power to dematerialize on his own. Bones didn’t figure he’d hide such an ability, either.

Though that begged the question of why Marie would allow Ralmiel, a known hit man, in her city to hunt the hitter she’d hired. If Bones was dead, then he couldn’t take care of her problem with the LaLauries, could he? He’d have to inform Jelani of this. Perhaps Marie wasn’t aware of Ralmiel’s presence.

But now to find Becca, and erase from her mind all the things she’d just witnessed.

5

The next day, Bones went out of the Quarter to a shop titled The Swamp Rat, noting with amusement the layer of ground brick sprinkled across the threshold of the door. It was a voodoo defense barrier, supposedly capable of keeping out anyone who meant the shop owner ill. Pity it didn’t work against people who didn’t believe in voodoo. Or vampires.

As soon as he stepped inside, Bones flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED and locked the door behind him. A wizened little man behind the counter glanced up, blinked…and then, of all things, tried to run.

Bones was across the room and over the counter in less time than it took the elderly shop owner to clear his seat. He chuckled as the man let out a spate of Creole that cursed Bones, his parentage, and several of his ancestors.

“Remember, Jean-Pierre, I speak Creole, so anything you say can and will be held against you and all that rot.”

“Debil,” Jean-Pierre said in English with a hiss. “I ’oped I’d seen the last of you years ago.”

“Now, mate, you’ll hurt my feelings. Don’t know why you take such an aversion to me. Your grandfather and I got along splendidly, and I know I’m glad to still find you here.”

Jean-Pierre’s eyes flicked around the shop, but it was empty of anyone but Bones and himself. No surprise there; the wares he had on his shelves were ugly, shoddy T-shirts and other miscellaneous gimmicky items, all in questionable condition and priced higher than most of his competitors.

But Jean-Pierre’s real business was voodoo. The shops along the Quarter were for the tourists or the uneducated. Jean-Pierre supplied genuine ingredients for the practiced, discerning buyer, and his family had been in the business since almost the inception of the city. He was someone who knew many of the city’s darkest secrets. And because Jean-Pierre had inherited the family trait of being immune to vampire mind control, Bones couldn’t just use his gaze to glare information out of him, more’s the pity.

“Now then, what did I want to ask you about? Ah, yes, redheaded bloke who goes by the name Ralmiel. Vampire, ’round my height, and has the most amazing new trick of disappearing into thin air. What do you know of him?”

From the expression on Jean-Pierre’s face, he did know something about Ralmiel, but he didn’t want to share the information.

Bones didn’t lose a fraction of his smile. “Need me to bash you about a bit before you answer? No trouble at all. Just let me know which bone you’d like broken first and I’ll get to it straightaway.”

“Debils,” Jean-Pierre hissed. “Nothin’ but grave walkers, the both of you, ’cept even the earth don’ want you.”

Bones waved a hand. “Yes, right, we’re all wretched blokes forsaken by God and Mother Nature herself, now get on with it.”

Bones really had no desire to start beating on the little man. That would take too long.

“Redheaded debil, he come ’round every so often,” Jean-Pierre said, spitting out the words. “He have fetishes made for him, use magic.”

“Vampires are forbidden from using magic. It’s one of the few laws Cain laid down for his people. I’m surprised Ralmiel uses it so blatantly.”

Jean-Pierre’s mouth curled. “Cain. God should have killed him for murdering Abel, not made him into a vampire as punishment instead. As for Ralmiel, those who see ’im use magic don’t live long enough to tell about it, I think.”

That would keep word from spreading, true enough. But a few people had to know aside from Jean-Pierre. “This magic Ralmiel uses, who makes it?”

“Don’ know.”

Bones gave Jean-Pierre a measured stare. “I won’t enjoy it, but I’ll either beat the answer out of you, or I’ll take you with me and keep feeding off your no doubt dreadful-tasting blood until you tire of being my snack and you tell me then.”

“Hope she curdles your blood to dust,” Jean-Pierre spat, but gave Bones a name. And her location.

“You ring me if you see Ralmiel again,” Bones instructed Jean-Pierre, writing his number on the back of one of the sloganed coasters for sale on the counter. This one had a tagline of “It won’t lick itself!” Quite true, that.

“And don’t make me end my long, friendly association with your family by doing something foolish,” Bones added, letting green flash in his eyes as he handed him the coaster.

Jean-Pierre took it. “I don’t cross debils. Too much bad juju afterward.”

Bones just nodded as he left. Quite true, that, as well.

It was Bones’s fourth day in the city when another murder was discovered. As before, Bones went to the scene to see what, if anything, he could use from it to track the LaLauries.

Jelani spoke with the detective assigned to the case. From their muted conversation, Bones picked up that the detective thought Jelani was an associate of one of the city’s biggest donors, and that Bones was a private investigator.

Bones made Jelani empty out the flat before he went inside, ignoring the rubbish the detective sputtered about him contaminating the scene. He’d leave the scene a sight less muddled than those blokes.

Once alone, he walked through the flat, breathing deeply every few moments. Same male and female scent from the other flat. Spent less time here, though, and made a grand mess of things in their haste. Those blood spatters are from an arterial spray, arced wide enough that the girl would have been running when they tore open her throat. Not the same girl they finished off in the kitchen, though. She’s the poor lass who owned the other flat, and she didn’t have any legs left to run on.

The boy was watching. His blood’s fresher than theirs, and the stench from his fear is smeared all over both rooms. From the shallowness of his wounds, he was likely still alive when they ate his arms…

Bones felt the shift in the air right before Ralmiel appeared behind him. He spun, his knife flashing out, but the other vampire wasn’t pointing any weapons at him this time. No, Ralmiel was staring almost sadly around the carnage of the room.

“Mon Dieu,” he breathed, then gave a censuring glance at the knife in Bones’s hand. “Put that away. There’s been enough death in this room, oui?”

Under normal circumstances, Bones would have disagreed, and then proceeded to stab the hell out of Ralmiel. But the scents, sight, and aura of despairing horror in the flat also made him loath to add to it. Bones lowered his knife, but didn’t let it out of his hand. He wasn’t so affected that he’d lost his wits.

“Why are you here, if not to attempt to kill me again?”

Ralmiel walked around the room, inhaling just as frequently as Bones had. He held another small, dark satchel in his grip. Ah yes, that would be Ralmiel’s voodoo version of a teleporter.

“This was not done by human hands. It is one thing to kill such as you or I”—Ralmiel’s dismissive wave encompassed their mutual lack of worth—“but these are innocents. It is not right.”

Bones almost rolled his eyes. A hitter with a conscience. If Ralmiel wasn’t out to kill him, he’d buy him a drink and they could talk shop.

“You didn’t hear about the other murders? You should pay more attention, mate.”

“I heard about the last one, but didn’t know our kind was responsible. New Orleans is my city. It has its darkness, but not like this. You know who’s doing this?”

Bones met the other man’s green gaze. “Yeah, I do.”

Ralmiel waited. Bones said nothing else. Finally, Ralmiel gave Bones an assessing glance.

“But you are here to kill them, non? You are not too bright if you think Marie will thank you afterward for stealing her vengeance.”

Bones shrugged. “I’m doing it regardless. Call it a slow business week.”

Ralmiel laughed, but it had a harsh edge. “Tell me who is behind this, so when I kill you, you can go to your rest knowing I will prevent it from happening again. You have my word.”

“Thanks ever so, but I’ll take my chances,” Bones replied, green glittering in his eyes.

Ralmiel didn’t know it, but those magic pouches of his were numbered. Bones had paid a visit to Georgette yesterday, the maker of Ralmiel’s fancy exits, and had persuaded her to switch the ingredients for Ralmiel’s new batch. It barely required any threatening at all. Georgette knew using magic was against vampire law, and as the provider of the product, she was guilty by association. Once Ralmiel ran out of the real fetishes, Bones would have him right where he wanted him. Forced to fight—and die.

Ralmiel bowed. “As you wish.” Then he squeezed his pouch and vanished from where he’d been standing.

Bones looked at the empty spot and smiled. Two more down, mate. I suspect your genie impersonation will soon be coming to an end.

6

Becca chewed her lower lip. “You’re quiet tonight.”

Bones glanced up. “Sorry, luv, I’m just a bit preoccupied.”

She pushed her plate back. At least, three dates later, she’d quit pretending that a bowl of lettuce was all she wanted for a meal.

“Problems with your client?”

Becca thought he was a consultant for a corporation looking to save finances by downsizing its nonessential employee positions. It was close to the truth, in a twisted sort of way.

“Something like that.”

The real problem was, Bones still wasn’t any closer to finding the LaLauries. They didn’t appear to have their own residence, but just moved from flat to flat of the people they murdered.

And despite his walking Becca up and down every street in the Quarter the past three nights, she’d caught no glimpse of Delphine LaLaurie. Bones had come across several ghouls on those jaunts, but they were having a bit of harmless fun. Not looking to savage the first person thick enough to follow them inside a building.

Becca reached out, touching his hand. “Do you know where you’re going to be next, after this job? And, ah, will you be leaving right away when it’s done?”

He knew what she was really asking him. “I’ll be leaving straightaway when I’m finished. My work takes me all over the world, and leaves precious little time for anything else.” I’m not what you’re looking for, Becca.

Hurt flashed on her face for a moment, quickly masked behind a false smile. “Sounds exciting.”

Does it? In point of fact, it can be bloody lonely.

“You know,” Becca said as the silence stretched, “I’d understand if you just want to drop me home after dinner…”

“No,” Bones said at once, softening his tone when she blinked at how emphatic he sounded. “I’m sorry, I’ve been a right glum fellow, but I do want to spend more time with you tonight. If you’re willing.”

He almost hoped she’d say she wasn’t. If the circumstances weren’t so dire, Bones would drop Becca at her house and compel her not to set foot in the city until this was over.

But he couldn’t stand over the next freshly chewed body and know he might have been able to prevent it. Bones couldn’t sniff them out, not with the river of humanity thronging the streets, but he could have Becca give a good look at any female ghoul he found. One of these times, it would be Delphine.

“I’d really like to spend more time with you, while I’m here,” Bones said, giving Becca a smile filled with possibilities.

She smiled back, her scent of unease melting away from her.

“I’d like that, too.”

Rotten bastard you are, Bones thought. He didn’t let any of that show on his face, however. Instead, he signaled for the check.

Power raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Bones turned, muttering a curse when he spied a familiar face headed their way.

“Excuse me,” he ground out to Becca, rising.

“’Allo,” Ralmiel called out, sliding into the seat opposite Bones’s. He gave a charming smile to Becca. “Who might you be, ma belle chérie?”

“No one that concerns you,” Bones said curtly.

Becca’s mouth dropped. Ralmiel looked offended. “As if you would need to protect such a lovely flower from me. My business is with you, mon ami. Not with people who happen to be around you.”

Ralmiel didn’t have a reputation for harming innocent bystanders, but Bones wasn’t pleased at Becca being exposed to him. This whole situation was putting her at more risk than he’d intended. He’d have to change his plans for tomorrow night. But first things first.

Bones sat down, keeping his hands close to the silver knives in his coat.

“Is everything okay?” Becca asked, glancing back and forth between them.

“Quite,” Bones replied, not letting his eyes stray from Ralmiel’s. “My friend just forgot his manners, interrupting our dinner.”

“I was going to wait for you outside,” Ralmiel said, settling back in his chair expansively, “but when I saw your chér amie, I decided to conclude our business tomorrow. After I learn more about la belle here.”

“I don’t like being spoken about as if I’m not even here,” Becca said, with a sharp glare at Ralmiel.

The waiter came with the check. Bones dropped several bills onto it without counting them, not tearing his attention from Ralmiel for a fraction longer than needed.

“Join us outside?” Bones asked, with an arched brow.

Ralmiel nodded. “Of course.”

Becca got her purse, still giving them wary glances. “Do you two need a minute alone to talk?”

No, Bones thought coolly. But I’d like a minute alone to kill him. He picked up his whiskey glass, noting with satisfaction that it was near full, and rose from the table.

“We’re fine, luv. Be finished up shortly.”

Bones and Ralmiel kept their attention on each other’s every move as they walked outside. The tension was thick enough to slice. Almost casually, Bones took a sip of his whiskey. Next to them, a group of smokers waited to get into the restaurant.

“What’s your plan, mate?” Bones asked. “Going to skulk after me and wait for your best chance?”

Ralmiel smirked. “Non, mon ami. I’m going to follow her home and then skulk around after you.”

Becca gasped. Bones just smiled. “I think not.”

Then he flung his whiskey on Ralmiel, using the lighter from the smoker nearest him to send Ralmiel up in flames.

Ralmiel screamed, swatting at the fire that covered the front of him. Several bystanders yelled as well. Bones didn’t wait to admire his handiwork. He yanked Becca with him through the crowd, ignoring her horrified sputtering. Once he found an alley, he propelled himself up in the night, covering both of them with his coat. Less chance of being noticed, since his coat was black against the night’s sky.

Ralmiel wouldn’t be following anyone, not in his condition.

Becca’s scream at being airborne was cut off by Bones clapping a hand over her mouth. He didn’t bother with the rooftops this time, but flew over the Quarter and beyond. He glanced back a few times, but there was no flying form chasing him. It would be too much to hope that Ralmiel hadn’t managed to douse the fire and was dead, but at least now he wouldn’t know where Becca lived.

She kicked and squirmed the entire way, making terrified grunting sounds against his hand. When they reached her neighborhood, Bones glanced around, saw no one loitering about, and set them on the ground by her front door.

“Shh, you’re fine, Becca,” he said, lasering her with his gaze. “I drove you home after dinner, and nothing out of the ordinary happened.”

She smiled at him, the fear melting away on her face.

“Thanks for a lovely evening,” she said.

Bones sighed, again regretting the necessity of using her. When this is over, he promised her silently, you’re getting a large donation in your bank account. It’s the bloody least I can do.

“No, luv, thank you,” he replied, brushing his lips across hers.

He’d intended it to be only a brief kiss, but she opened her mouth and twined her tongue with his, the scent of desire wafting from her.

Bones kissed her with more intensity, letting his hands slide to her waist. She gasped, and then groaned when his hips rubbed against hers.

Money isn’t all I can give her, Bones reflected. Becca didn’t want him to leave her at her door tonight. Her heartbeat and scent were screaming that to him.

She pulled away long enough to whisper, “Come inside.”

Again, it was the least he could do.

7

The float rounded the first street corner to the clamor of cheers. It was a mock-up of an opera stage, with a faux upper balcony and a piano in the forefront. Becca, barely recognizable in curled wig, theater makeup, and a long, Victorian dress, beamed at the crowd. Seated at the piano, Bones ran his hands over the keys while the float’s speakers blared out the familiar score from Phantom of the Opera.

More cheers came from the street’s onlookers, especially when Bones stood up and bowed. He wore a black tuxedo, with that trademark half-face mask obscuring his features, and a dark wig on his head. The other actors on the float mimed a musical rehearsal as Bones stalked toward Becca with the exaggerated seductiveness—and menace—of the Phantom.

It hadn’t been hard to switch himself and Becca with the original couple for this float. Just a few flashes from his eyes, and those people were happily drinking rum instead of playing Christine and the Phantom. None of the other actors argued, either. There were days when it was good to be a vampire.

Perched as she was on the fake balcony of the float, Becca had a bird’s-eye view of the people up and down the streets. This parade went all through the Quarter, and in their costumes, even Ralmiel would be hard-pressed to recognize either of them. Becca was as anonymous as Bones could make her, having no idea that, subconsciously, she was scanning faces in the crowd looking for Delphine.

After lip-synching a snippet from “Music of the Night” with Becca, Bones jumped down and walked around the outside of the float. This kept Becca’s attention where it should be; away from him, and on the faces upturned at her. If that deviated from the scheduled act for the float, so be it. It was only three days until Fat Tuesday. Soon the LaLauries would finish their murderous scavenging and leave the city. There were more important things at stake than following a parade script.

It was after eleven at night, which meant the crowds were at their peak. The parade was halfway down Bourbon Street when Becca suddenly stopped waving and flinging beads. Her eyes took on a glazed look as the directive Bones had instilled in her a week ago kicked in and bore results.

“The woman from that night. There she is.”

Becca didn’t even seem to be aware that she’d spoken. Bones swung his gaze in the direction Becca was staring, cursing the crush of people around him. There was a sea of faces, half of them female, and every third of those with dark hair. He jumped up to where Becca was, muttering, “Show me.”

Becca ignored everything around her, fixated on the directive Bones had compelled in her before: find the woman from that night. With a stiff gesture, she pointed into the crowd. Bones searched the faces ahead of them, looking for that faint, telltale luminance of undead flesh.

A woman about ten meters ahead turned around. Her hair was black and curly, her smile was wide, and her beautiful features were set off by pale, perfect skin.

Delphine.

Delphine noticed him, too. At first her eyes flicked over him disinterestedly, but then she paused. Narrowed her gaze. And turned around and began walking away.

“Stay here,” Bones ordered Becca, reaching inside his coat to pull out a large, curved knife. The crowd gasped, thinking it was part of the act. He ignored them as he jumped down, roughly shoving people out of his path.

Her dark head slipped below the crowd as she ducked and vanished from his sight. Bones increased his pace, almost throwing people to the side. Soon the police would notice the disturbance, but he didn’t care. His attention was focused on one goal. Don’t let Delphine escape.

He glimpsed her again, darting quickly through people with her head lowered. Delphine glanced over her shoulder, and their eyes met once more. She smiled, lovely and evil. Then she punched the person closest to her and ran.

Bones gave up pretending to be human. He chased after Delphine with all his supernatural speed. In the next moment, he was upon the young man Delphine had struck. The man was on his knees, blood pouring out between hands clutched to his stomach. She’d punched him hard enough to tear right through the bloke’s guts. It was a mortal injury—unless Bones stopped to save him.

He made his decision in an instant and kept going. It was worth the sacrifice of one innocent victim to save countless others. Delphine had underestimated her hunter by thinking this would secure her escape.

Another burst of speed brought him closer. Delphine was fast, but he was quicker. Savage anticipation coursed through him. His hand clenched on his knife. Almost there…

Just as Bones was nearly upon her, an arrow ripped through his chest, bringing an explosion of pain. He roared as he tore it out, plowing through people well below eye level to make his heart a far harder target. Ralmiel. He’d kill the sod for his wretched timing.

Another arrow landed in his back, missing his heart again, but showing Ralmiel hadn’t given up. The silver burned, yet Bones didn’t slow to pull it out. He couldn’t risk losing Delphine, pain be damned.

Every person he jostled by in the crowd felt like he was giving the arrow a good twist, however. Bones gritted his teeth and continued on, cursing the people in his way, the blaring music, the bloody beads, the myriad smells that made Delphine impossible to track by scent, and the Cajun hitter determined to mount him on his trophy wall.

Bones caught another arrow to the neck, skewering him clean through and spinning him around in rage. Blast it all, Ralmiel would get lucky with one of his shots soon, and Bones couldn’t kill Delphine if he was dead himself.

He took his knife and hacked the front of the arrow off, then ripped it out of his throat. Fiery pain throbbed for a moment until the wound healed. Bones kept moving, zigzagging, until he reached the side of a building and then shot straight up. Once on the roof, he tore his mask off; his gaze was sizzling emerald as he sought out his target.

Ralmiel was on the roof across the street, over the MAISON BOURBON sign. The Cajun didn’t smile or crack any jokes this time. He fitted another arrow in his crossbow and fired.

Bones whirled to the left, leaving the arrow to sail past him, then whirled again when another rapidly fired. And another.

Sod this, Bones thought. He folded one arm across his chest and then vaulted at Ralmiel, his other hand holding the curving knife. Ralmiel fired off two more arrows, but they landed in Bones’s arm, not his heart. Then Ralmiel jumped back, but too slow. One hard slash cleaved the crossbow in two. Another swipe split open Ralmiel’s chest. The blade was steel, not silver, since Bones had intended it for decapitating a ghoul instead of killing a vampire.

Still, the wound was deep. Ralmiel floundered, trying unsuccessfully to wrest away. Bones held on to him and raised the knife again. This one takes off your head, Bones thought grimly, swinging the blade. And that kills everything, doesn’t it?

But the knife swept through thin air instead. Bones snarled in frustration, his knees hitting the roof as the vampire under him disappeared. He spun around, just in case the blighter was about to reappear behind him with silver at the ready, but there was nothing.

Cold fury filled Bones. He hacked off the end of the arrow still piercing his back, then yanked that through as well, ignoring the starburst of pain it caused. Either Ralmiel would soon run out of magic pouches or Georgette had decided not to switch the ingredients in them. He’d deal with that later, though. First he had to try to find Delphine again, and God help Ralmiel if he interfered one more time.

Bones darted along the Quarter’s roofs for more than an hour, using the higher vantage point to better see the faces of the people below. No sign of Delphine. He cursed himself for not simply flying over the heads of the crowd to get to her before, but hiding the secret of his species was so ingrained in him that his first instinct had been to follow her on foot. It would have been sufficient, too, if not for Ralmiel. Bloody bastard.

But now Bones knew what she looked like. Becca’s part in this could finally be over. Bones would try scouring the Quarter again tomorrow, and hope like blazes Delphine hadn’t been scared out of the city.

Bones left the Quarter and went to his hotel at the outskirts of city, doubling back several times to make sure he wasn’t being followed. With all his backtracking, the sun was almost ready to rise by the time he made it inside his room. He stripped off his clothes and sat on the bed, eyeing his laptop. Better check now for any important messages. Sleep could wait a bit longer.

Bones logged onto his e-mail, quickly reading through his messages. “Bloody hell,” Bones swore when he got to the last one. What was the ghoul up to?

8

That afternoon, Bones opened the side door to his townhouse to let Jelani in. He went through the foyer, listening to the clicks from Jelani’s plastic and metal legs as he followed. Bones stopped in the townhouse’s inner courtyard. It was beautiful, with a large fountain in the middle surrounded by flowers planted specifically to bloom even in winter.

“Very nice,” Jelani complimented, looking around.

Bones was silent. Jelani waited for a few minutes, but then impatience got the better of him.

“You said you had some news?” the ghoul prompted.

Bones gave him a thin smile. “I do indeed. About you.”

Then Bones crossed the distance and grabbed Jelani, holding the bigger man several feet off the ground.

“This is your only chance to tell me the truth. Lie to me and I’ll kill you right here. Ever since I arrived, I’ve had Ralmiel after me, with no fear of Marie’s reprisal for it. Strange, that. Then your story didn’t check out. Did you think I’d just take your word and not do my own investigation? There’s no record of the LaLauries ever being at the St. Francisville house, so they couldn’t have murdered your wife there. What kind of game are you playing?”

Jelani didn’t bother to struggle. His false arms and legs left him as helpless against Bones as if he’d been human.

“I was the LaLauries’ slave,” he spat. “Both me and my wife were purchased from them shortly after they moved to the Quarter. The stories of what they did to their slaves aren’t even half the truth. My wife and I tried to run away. They caught us and tortured me. Cut off my arms and legs and ate them in front of me, but that wasn’t the worst of it.”

Jelani looked away. The scent of pure torment wafted off him, but Bones didn’t loosen his grip.

“Go on.”

“Delphine changed me into a ghoul,” Jelani continued, his voice trembling with remembrance. “Then she kept me chained inside that hellish attic for days, until I was mad from hunger. She finally brought my wife up, chaining her, too, so she couldn’t run away. That night, I killed my wife. I killed my wife and ate her.”

Bones let him down. Jelani staggered for a moment on his prosthetic legs until he found his balance. When he did, he shoved Bones back.

“I’m sorry, mate,” Bones said quietly. “But you know it wasn’t your fault. It’s their crime, not yours.”

Jelani gave a bitter snort. “Oh, I know they’re guilty for her death. But every time I go to sleep, I can still hear her screaming in my dreams. Over a hundred years later, I can still hear it.” Jelani met Bones’s gaze squarely. “I want it to end. I want all of it to end.”

Bones let out a slow sigh. “Marie has no idea the LaLauries are even here, does she? That’s why Ralmiel is so brazenly after me. He has no fear of repercussions from her.”

“When Delphine and Louis were hunting in the city decades ago, Majestic told me not to act until she was back. She didn’t want anyone knowing for fear that news of it would weaken her power. But the LaLauries got away before Majestic returned. This time, I couldn’t risk letting them get away again. So I lied to you when I brought you here.”

Bones ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “Marie will kill you for this. But you must already know that.”

The big man’s shoulders slumped. “You can’t know what it’s like, living among our kind crippled this way. Majestic has made it bearable, but once the LaLauries are dead, I want to die, too. My only hope is that Majestic is kind enough to make death my punishment for my betrayal, instead of casting me off without her protection.”

Bones’s gaze traveled once more over the stumps that made up Jelani’s arms and legs. Jelani couldn’t wield a knife in defense of his life or in defense of Marie’s, which was the expectation of any member in an undead line. He couldn’t even walk, if someone were to sweep those prosthetics out from under him—and that would be the first thing any hostile vampire or ghoul would do.

Looking at it coldly, all Jelani had to offer Majestic in return for her protection was his loyalty, and he’d just burned that by going behind her back over the LaLauries. Even if Marie sympathized with why he did it, she’d still have no choice except to kill him for it. Not if she didn’t want to be regarded as a weak leader.

And if Bones was being practical, now that he knew none of this had been sanctioned by Marie, he’d leave the city to-night. Then once Jelani’s deeds were revealed, Bones could truthfully claim ignorance of the man’s betrayal.

But if he didn’t, any further actions he took would be held up to judgment by the queen of the city. Bones was a trespasser, hunting on Marie’s grounds without her permission. He knew she wouldn’t look kindly on that. Furthermore, while he was here, he was providing a damn fine target of himself to Ralmiel, since he couldn’t very well hide and hunt at the same time in the same small area.

Though neither could the LaLauries. Not for much longer, as it were.

There was only one choice, wasn’t there?

Bones stared at Jelani, not letting any emotion show on his face. “I don’t believe I’ll see you again, mate, but I’ll promise you this—you’ll have your vengeance.”

Jelani gave him a tight smile. “It won’t just be my vengeance. It will be shared by my wife, and everyone else who died at their hands.”

Bones walked away, not replying to that. Death he could give, yes. But at the moment, he wished he could give hope, too, even though there was none for Jelani, and perhaps none for himself, either.

9

Bones walked up the street to Becca’s salon. He’d tried her cell earlier, but she didn’t answer. She was probably annoyed with him for what she’d think was his disappearing last night. Or she was busy with customers and hadn’t been able to get to her phone. Either way, he thought a gesture was in order, so he’d picked up a dozen roses on his way.

And just in case Ralmiel was on a roof sighting down a crossbow on him, Bones was wearing a Kevlar vest underneath his shirt and coat. Let Ralmiel try to shoot an arrow through that. The next time that scurvy bugger pulled a Houdini and popped up, Bones intended to separate his head from his shoulders. If he could kill Delphine and Louis at the same time, he’d consider it a capital evening.

Bones was a few shops down from the salon when he smelled it. He inhaled just to make sure, then quickened his pace, running the short distance to the salon and flinging open the door.

The girl behind the counter looked up in surprise. Bones ignored her, stalking through the salon and yanking open every closed door, much to the consternation of a customer getting a massage in the back room.

“Becca’s not here,” the girl called out.

Bones stalked over, letting the roses drop to the floor as he grabbed her.

“When did she leave? Was she alone?”

“Hey, not so rough,” she protested.

Bones let her go and asked very precisely, “Where is Becca?”

“She called in sick. Or she had her new roommate come in earlier to say that Becca wasn’t working today, but when you showed up, to tell you to come over for dinner. So I guess Becca can’t be that sick.”

Even though he already knew, he had to confirm it. “This girl, what did she look like?”

Shrug. “Black curly hair, thin, about my age. Had an accent, I think it was French…”

Bones walked to the door. The girl continued to call after him.

“Tell Becca she’s in trouble with our manager. It’s Mardi Gras, we can’t afford for her to just decide to take a day off.”

Delphine hadn’t just run off last night. No, she’d doubled back and found Becca first.

Once outside, Bones inhaled again, deeply. Even with the scent of countless people trampling through the air, he could still smell Delphine. It was if she’d deliberately rubbed against the side of the shop to make sure he smelled her. Bones walked across the street to stare up at the LaLauries’ old mansion. Then he went to the gate and took in another long breath.

She’d been here, too. Again, the trail was so strong, it had to be deliberate. Delphine’s scent hadn’t been on it before, the many other times Bones had walked past this house. And now he could hear a heartbeat inside the normally empty mansion.

Becca. Come over for dinner, Delphine had said, and she was making sure Bones knew where dinner would be held.

A bitter smile twisted his mouth. No, Delphine. I’m not making it that easy for you. Ghouls are stronger during the day, while vampires are weaker. I’ll wait till after nightfall to accept your invitation. It’s not as if you have any intention of letting Becca go free once I arrive anyway, you murdering bitch.

Bones turned on heel and walked away, wondering if Delphine or Louis was watching him.

It was past nine when Bones came back. His coat was lined with several knives, both steel and silver. No telling whether Delphine and Louis might have vampiric help with them, so best to have all bases covered. He was still wearing the Kevlar vest underneath his shirt, even though it would slightly hinder his movements. Still, its benefit outweighed its liability.

Bones stared at the LaLauries’ old house. Even with all the noise around him from partiers enjoying the last few days of Mardi Gras, if he concentrated, Bones could still faintly make out the heartbeat inside the house. True, that heartbeat might not be Becca’s, but she might yet be alive.

Now for the last addition to his ensemble.

Bones turned and walked into the reveling crowd, pulling out the first few people his hands laid on, dragging them from the thick of the merrymakers and hitting them with his gaze. The alcohol they’d consumed helped with that, since none of them could claim exceptional mental willpower at the moment. Bones didn’t care if anyone looking on bothered to wonder why his eyes were glowing green. Let them think it was a special effect from the Phantom of the Opera mask he had on, if they bothered to ponder it at all.

After giving the three bespelled people their instructions, Bones went back into the crowd and pulled out another three, repeating the process. And then another three, then another, until he had more than a dozen obedient bystanders. Finally, Bones walked back down the street to stand on the corner in front of the house.

The shadows around it were darker now, throbbing with the memory of suppressed rage from centuries ago. It was almost as if those shadows knew their former tormenters had returned. Bones took off his mask, then rolled his head around on his shoulders.

“Now,” he told the waiting men and women at his back, and vaulted up into the air.

Below him, they began walking to the front of the house and hurling things at it. Beer bottles, their shoes, their masks; whatever they could get into their hands, they flung it. Windows broke on the first and second floors, the sound drowned out by the yells and hollers from the people. They didn’t go within a dozen feet of the house, though. No, they stayed just far enough away so that anyone who wanted to stop them would have to come out and get them.

Drawing out Delphine or Louis wasn’t the point. The racket they made while they smashed up the house was. Hidden behind the chimney on a nearby roof, Bones waited for his chance. When two windows smashed simultaneously, Bones sprang forward, streamlining his body and diving through the second floor windows.

Bones rolled as soon as he hit the floor, staying low and searching the room, careful not to let any green shine from his eyes. He wasn’t going to make it easier for them to find him, if they’d determined the noise they’d just heard was him instead of more objects being hurled through the windows.

The room was empty of all but furniture. Bones inhaled, trying to track Becca by scent, and then swore. The room stank of embalming fluid, a noxious scent that masked damn near everything else. Clever bastards, he thought. That was all right; he could still pick up the heartbeat as a beacon, though now that he was inside, it sounded like there were two heartbeats. Both in opposite directions from each other.

He chose the one that sounded stronger. Since Becca was their most recent victim, it made sense that the other, fainter heartbeat belonged to someone the LaLauries had acquired before her. While Bones felt pity for that unknown person, Becca was his primary concern.

He crept forward in a low crouch. The lights were off, not that ghouls needed illumination to see. There was no sound inside except for those heartbeats, his own stealthy movements, and the occasional smash from whatever item was still being flung at the windows.

Yet Bones could feel the energy in the house. Delphine and Louis were here. Waiting. Whatever trap they’d set had been sprung as soon as Bones entered the house. Now all he could do was see it through to the end. Everyone’s got to die one day, Bones mused with grim determination. Come on, you sods. Let’s see if you’ve got what it takes to make today my day.

10

Bones edged down the hallway toward the sound of the heartbeat, careful to watch for any hint of an imminent attack. So far, he didn’t see anyone, but all his internal alarms were ringing. The trap would be where Becca was, true, but he couldn’t just abandon her. After all, it was his fault Delphine took her in the first place.

The heartbeat was coming from the room at the end of the hall. Four menacing, open doorways stood between him and it. Bones pulled two knives from his coat, one steel, one silver. He gripped one in each hand as he kept low and moved forward. Come out, come out, wherever you are…

Everything in him tensed as he crept up to the first door, his nerve endings anticipating a sudden slice of pain from a knife or other weapon. Bones sprang into the room, braced to counter an assault—but there was nothing. Just more furniture with dust covers over them and that noxious embalming odor that neutered his ability to track anything by scent.

One down, three to go.

Bones repeated the same routine with the next door. This time, he was hit in the face by a spiderweb, but nothing more threatening than that. The third room was empty, as was the fourth room, but the fourth room had blood in it. A lot of blood.

Bones knelt by one of the wide, pooling spots, giving it a deep sniff. Even above the chemical fumes in the room, he knew it was Becca’s blood. Which meant the pieces of bones tossed almost casually in the corner were hers as well.

He rose, the swell of killing anger in him making him calmer, not crazed. Bones approached the last room with the heartbeat just as slowly and cautiously as he had the others. If the LaLauries had thought the grisly display of their leftovers would have him dashing in with reckless abandon to save her, they were wrong.

This room was empty of furniture except for one long, dark coffin where the heartbeat came from. Bones waited before entering, his senses tuned for any nuance of noise or movement. Nothing. Then again, a ghoul didn’t breathe, and could hold as still as a statue if need be. Delphine and Louis could both be in there, waiting for him.

Bones dove into the room, rolling immediately to counter any frontal assault, the blades gripped in his hands seeking flesh to bury themselves into. Nothing. Not even a whisper, except for that steady heartbeat. The closet in the room had no doors, so no one was hiding in there, and unless Delphine or Louis had acquired Ralmiel’s dematerializing trick, they weren’t in this room.

He approached the coffin, taking in another deep breath. There was the scent of the embalming fluid, Becca’s blood, and something else. Metallic, though too faint to decipher over the stink of the chemicals. Muffled noises consisting of mmph, mmphh! interspersed with ragged breathing from inside the coffin. Someone was alive in there. Gagged, from the sounds of it.

Bones ran his hand along the coffin’s lid. This was too easy. Was Delphine in there with Becca, waiting to thrust silver in his heart as soon as Bones lifted the lid?

If she was, she’d soon find out the futility of that.

He cracked the lid, heard a faint click—and then flung himself away the instant before the blast. Silver fragments from the specialized bomb were embedded all over the back of him. So were the body parts of whichever unfortunate soul had been in that coffin. Only Bones’s Kevlar vest kept the ragged silver pieces from shredding his heart. For a stunned moment, he lay on the ground, mentally calculating his injuries. Then Delphine and Louis burst into the room, swinging away with silver knives.

Bones staggered to his feet, wincing at the pain in his legs where chunks of flesh had been torn off by the bomb. His head was both ringing and throbbing; some silver must have embedded in his skull. He whirled, making the stab Louis aimed for his heart slice into his shoulder instead. But it was a mistake, since the blade pieced deeply into his skin when it would have only bounced off the Kevlar on his chest. Bones shook his head to clear it, mentally lashing himself. Quit being stupid, or you won’t have long to regret it.

He’d lost the knives in his hands during the explosion. Bones received two more deep swipes before he could secure a blade and attack back. Louis LaLaurie was quick, dodging the blade and kicking Bones in the thigh, where a particularly large piece of silver was still lodged.

It cost him a step as he spun again to avoid Delphine’s attack from behind. Her knife cleaved into his upper arm instead of through his neck. It bit deep, though, almost severing the limb. Delphine was strong, and she wasn’t fighting like a novice. She slashed at him while Louis attacked from the front. All the silver in his flesh was using up his strength as his body automatically attempted to heal itself—and heal the new injuries that were being inflicted, one after the other.

Delphine and Louis forced him back, causing him to almost trip over a piece of rubble. His left arm, hanging by a few ligaments, took a few seconds to repair itself, but those seconds were costly. Bones couldn’t use the arm to fight, and Louis and Delphine were pressing their advantage. More silver hacked at him, until every inch of his body felt like was burning and his blood spattered the ground around them, weakening him further.

Sensing victory was close, Delphine leaped onto his back, savagely tearing at him with both her teeth and her knives. Bones couldn’t dislodge her and keep Louis at bay. He couldn’t even get more of his knives, since Delphine had managed to rip his coat off in her rabid attack. He couldn’t reach the ones strapped to his legs, either, without Louis taking his head off as soon as Bones bent down.

Louis smiled, feral and satisfied, as an upward swipe bit deep into Bones’s gut, making him hunch instinctively at the blast of agony. Delphine redoubled her efforts and focused on hacking at his neck, realizing she couldn’t penetrate the Kevlar on his back or chest.

A blur in the corner of the room made Bones drop down on one knee. Louis let out a triumphant laugh, but Bones wasn’t kneeling in defeat. It was because he’d seen what Louis, with his back turned and his attention fixated on Bones, hadn’t noticed.

Delphine saw it, too. She started to scream even as Bones sprang back, slamming both of them against the wall behind him—while a long, curved blade arced its way through Louis LaLaurie’s neck.

Louis’s head turned to the right and kept going. It rolled off his shoulders even as he slumped forward, a dark, viscous hole facing Bones where his head used to be. Ralmiel held a red-smeared blade behind him.

Delphine screamed again, in a piercing wail of rage and grief. Bones didn’t hesitate. He reached into his boots and pulled out the two oblong canisters they contained, ripping the tops off and stabbing them into her chest.

The twin flares erupted, lighting her clothes on fire as they burned her from the inside out. Bones held on to them, pitilessly pushing them deeper. A ghoul’s body didn’t have enough blood in it to put them out. Delphine’s screams became frenzied, her legs and arms scissoring madly as she tried to escape. Bones pinned her to the floor, ignoring the licking flames on him as she continued to burn. He’d fed well before tonight; he wouldn’t burn as easily. The fire spread through Delphine’s body, splitting and blackening her skin faster than she could heal.

Something savage in Bones made him want to prolong this. To keep shoving flares into Delphine and burning her until there was nothing left but ash, except there wasn’t time. Sirens wailed, getting louder. The police would be there soon. That bomb, though relatively small, hadn’t gone unnoticed.

Bones pulled a long blade from his boot, letting Delphine see the gleam of the metal as he held it above her. Then Bones cut deeply through Delphine’s neck, feeling little satisfaction as her head rolled across the floor to stop at Louis’s decapitated corpse. After all the evil the two had committed, it was too quick and merciful an end for them.

But Jelani, at last you have your vengeance.

Ralmiel walked over to him and held out a hand. Bones, after a pause, took it and let the other vampire pull him to his feet.

“Aren’t you supposed to be trying to kill me?”

Ralmiel didn’t smile. He glanced at the ceiling and shook his head. “I came in by way of the attic and saw her. She doesn’t have much time.”

Becca.

Bones ran out of the room, following the sound of the other, fainter heartbeat. The explosion actually helped in this regard. The chunk it blew out of the hallway revealed a metal staircase inside the walls, Becca’s heartbeat sounding louder in there. Bones pulled back some of the drywall to slip through, then raced up the narrow stairs. He flung back the hatch at the top of the stairs that opened into a small, box-shaped room on top of the house’s roof.

Becca was lying on a bench. Bones’s face twisted as one glance revealed the extent of her abuse. He knelt beside her, turning her head so she could see him.

She was awake, though in her state, that was a curse instead of a blessing. Bones stared at her, letting the power in his eyes capture her mind. In her condition, it took a few moments. He waited, murmuring, “It’s all right, luv. You’re safe now,” until the horror and terror left her gaze and she quit trying to move or talk.

She couldn’t do either, though. Her lips were sewn together with what looked like fishing line, and her arms and legs were gone. The only reason she was still alive was that Louis—or Delphine—had used some of their own blood to seal the gaping wounds left where her limbs used to be. What used to be her arms and legs were now hideously smooth stumps.

Bones closed his eyes. He could save Becca’s life…by taking it. She wouldn’t survive the transition if he tried to turn into a vampire, but he could make her a ghoul. All it required was her drinking some of his blood before she died, and that wouldn’t be long. She was very near death as it was.

He thought of Jelani. Of the ghoul’s admitted pain over trying to live as someone who would always be helpless compared to even the weakest of their kind. And Becca didn’t know there was another world that existed on the fringe of hers. How could Bones condemn her to wake up trapped in that body, changed into something she didn’t even know existed?

A slow sigh came out of him, then he forced himself to smile. His gaze brightened while he harnessed all his energy into making Becca believe everything he was about to tell her.

“It’s all right,” Bones said again, stroking her face. “You’re safe, Becca, and there’s no pain anymore. You’re not injured. You’re not even here. You’re in a beautiful field, flowers all around you. Can you see them, Becca?”

She nodded, her features slipping into relaxed planes that were completely at odds with the ragged stitches around her mouth.

“…you’re warm, and you’re lying on the ground looking up at the sky…look at it, Becca. See how blue it is…”

Her stare became more fixed. Bones leaned forward, his mouth settling on her throat. Her pulse was so faint, he could barely feel it against his lips.

“Sleep now, Becca,” Bones whispered, and bit deeply into her neck.

11

Ralmiel met him at the front of the salon where Becca worked. From there, they had a clear view of the police swarming over the LaLauries’ old house and the bomb unit being called in. Blokes didn’t want to chance that anything else might explode in the place, not that Bones could blame them.

After a few minutes of silence, Bones turned to Ralmiel. “Why did you come there tonight?”

Ralmiel shrugged. “Jelani offered to pay me double the highest bounty on your corpse, if I let you live instead. So I thought to help you kill the scum fouling my city. It was easy to know where you were, mon ami, once the house went boom.”

Bones couldn’t contain his snort. “Mate, I’ve got some bad news for you. Jelani’s skint broke, and Marie hasn’t authorized any of what he’s done the past several days, so don’t expect her to reimburse you, either.”

Ralmiel stared at him. “There’s no money?”

“’Fraid not.”

“He lied to me. I will kill him,” Ralmiel said in outrage, pulling a pouch from his pocket and squeezing it.

Nothing happened. Ralmiel looked down in surprise, then squeezed again. And again.

A slow smile spread across Bones’s face. “Having some difficulty, are you?”

Understanding bloomed on Ralmiel’s face. “You found Georgette,” he murmured.

“Never underestimate your opponent,” Bones replied. “You know you’re not to be trifling with magic, and if anything happens to Georgette for coming to her senses and refusing to participate in your crimes again, I’ll be forced to make them public.”

Ralmiel said nothing for a long moment. Bones waited, wondering if now that Ralmiel knew he wouldn’t be collecting any quid for “letting” Bones live, he’d dare to take him on in a fair fight, without the chance of one of his magic escapes.

Finally, a faint smile creased Ralmiel’s mouth. “Non, mon ami. That time is past. Money is not everything, oui? One day, perhaps, you might assist me.”

Bones inclined his head. “I hope you’re not lying. I rather like you, but if I ever see you on the other side of a silver weapon again, I’ll shrivel you.”

Ralmiel shrugged. “Understood.” Then he nodded at the mass of people in the street. “Thirsty?”

Another snort escaped Bones. Did he want to plunge into that crowd and glut himself on the throats of nameless, countless people who’d never know they’d been bitten by the time he was done with them? No. He wanted to take Becca to his townhouse, clean her body up, and then bury her in his courtyard so no more indignities could be committed upon her.

But he couldn’t do that. Becca’s family had the right to bury her, not him. The best thing Bones could do was leave Becca where she was. The police would do their investigation, tie it into the other murders, and perhaps decide they had a copycat killer who’d taken his obsession with the LaLauries’ dark history too far. Since Delphine and Louis’s bodies, in death, would have regressed back to their true ages, the police might reckon they were old victims unearthed in that hidden room from the bombing. They’d never realize they were looking at the killers themselves.

So, in truth, he had nothing to do but throw himself into the crowd that had no idea of the horrors committed just a block away. Besides, Marie might just try to make this his last Mardi Gras. The scale of her retribution had yet to be determined. Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die, Bones thought sardonically.

He swept out a hand to Ralmiel. “Lead the way, mate.”

12

Underneath the cemetery, the air was damp and cool, with a heavy scent of mildew. Almost an inch of water stood on the ground. These tunnels never got completely dry, no matter how hard the pumps worked. A single candle broke the darkness, illuminating the face of the woman who sat in the only chair in the room.

Jelani knelt in front of her, which hadn’t been an easy task, considering his prosthetic legs. But now his huge frame was in a posture of submission and resignation. He’d just confessed his crimes and was waiting for his sentence.

And after him, Bones was next.

Looking down at him, Marie Laveau’s expression was blank, hiding whatever thoughts were swirling in her mind. After several tense minutes she stood.

“You betrayed me.”

Her voice was as smooth as her skin, making guessing her age difficult.

“Yes, Majestic,” Jelani murmured.

Power blasted out from her frame as her temper slipped. Bones didn’t react, but he felt like the air had just become littered with invisible razors slicing into his skin.

“You are not sorry.”

Despite her anger electrifying the air, when Jelani raised his head, he was smiling.

“No, my queen. I am not.”

Christ, Bones thought. Intending to go out with a bang, are you?

Something flickered across Marie’s face, too quickly for Bones to decipher if it was pity or rage.

“Good. If you are to die for something, then you shouldn’t regret what it was.”

Her arm flashed out, so fast that Jelani’s smile never had a chance to slip. It was still on his face when his head rolled off his shoulders and his body slumped forward.

Marie didn’t move out of the way, even though Jelani’s slowly oozing neck was now pressed against the hem of her skirt. That long, curved blade was still in her hand as her gaze met Bones’s.

“What about you? Are you sorry?”

Bones thought about the question, and not just because he knew his life might hinge on his answer.

“I’m sorry I didn’t kill the LaLauries sooner,” he said at last, holding Marie’s stare without flinching. “Sorry an innocent girl met a horrible end because I involved her. Sorry for the bloke at your feet, who felt revenge was worth more than his life. But if what you’re asking me is, would I do it all over again to stop Delphine and Louis…the answer is yes. And I’m not sorry about that.”

Marie tapped the knife against her leg. Bones glanced at it and then back to her dark eyes. If you want my head, I won’t kneel for you to take it, he thought coolly. You’re not my sire and I didn’t betray you, so you’ll have to fight for it.

With a knowing look, Marie wiggled the knife. “Do you think I need this to kill you? Do you think I need any weapon at all?”

She dropped the knife and stepped around Jelani’s body. The air around her changed. It thickened with power, becoming icy, despairing, and angry. A faint keening noise seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.

“You know what happens when a voodoo queen becomes undead?” Marie asked. Her voice echoed, like multiple people were somehow speaking through her vocal cords. “My ties to the otherworld were strengthened. Those consigned to the grave filled me with their power. Listen to them roar.”

Marie opened her mouth and there was a roar, rage-filled and eerie enough to make Bones shiver. Dark swirls appeared around her, as if her shadow had multiplied. Those swirls moved to curl around Bones, stroking him with freezing, malevolent, hungry hands. His strength seemed to melt out of him with their touch while the memory of his death, so long ago, flashed in his mind. He felt the same way he did then; cold, weak, succumbing to that inevitable slide into nothingness.

Then the power around Marie faded. That unearthly keening stopped, the shadows curled back into her, and in a rush, the strength returned to Bones’s body.

Marie watched him, a small, brittle smile on her mouth. “I wish you would have lied to me. Then I could have justified killing you.”

Bones recovered enough to shrug. “You already knew the truth. Lying would only have insulted us both.”

She studied him again, her expression giving nothing away. “You are banned from New Orleans for five years,” she finally stated. “If you violate this ban, I will kill you. If you speak of these events to anyone, I will kill you. As far as what everyone else will know, I contracted you to take care of the LaLauries while I was out of town, and Jelani was killed by them in defense of his city. Furthermore, you owe a debt to me equivalent to the value of a life, since I’m letting you keep yours.”

Bones didn’t argue Marie’s assertion that she could kill him. Her display of power moments ago made it plain that there were things about New Orleans’s queen that few people knew—or lived to tell. All things considered, Bones was getting a slap on the wrist. Then again, it was also in Marie’s best interest to leave Bones alive to back up her version of events.

As for Jelani, at least Marie was giving him an honorable legacy. There were worse things to die for than securing a long-denied revenge. Sooner or later, everyone died. It just took death longer to catch up to those it had already visited, like vampires and ghouls.

“Done,” Bones said.

Marie dropped her gaze to look at the dead man near her feet. “Get out.”

Her voice sounded huskier. She knelt by Jelani’s withering frame to stroke his shoulder. Even though she’d killed him, her grief was clear. That sort of ruthlessness combined with her level of power made Marie truly frightening. If meting out Jelani’s death had meant nothing to her, Bones wouldn’t have found her chilling. But even though it had hurt her to kill Jelani, that hadn’t stopped her from doing it.

Yes. Best be going quickly.

Bones left without looking back. His flight out of the city was already booked. By tonight, he’d be on his way to Ohio, searching out the undead accountant he’d been tracking before he got involved in this mess.

This was over, but it was time for the next hunt.