Blood in Her Veins (Nineteen Stories From the World of Jane Yellowrock) (27 page)

“We learn only later dem suckhead supposed to be chain up for ten years befo' dey set free. Hard lesson dat was too, but dat another story.

“Wid dat Marcel Chiasson free, dey slaves, dey start to disappear, one by one. And more suckheads like Marcel appear. Crazy in dey head dey was, each and every one, crazy.”

Despite myself I was drawn into the story. I ate onion rings and gator and drank the free beer, feeling the movement of the sun as it plummeted toward the horizon.

“De priest, Father Joseph, he made dem crosses to be everywhere, on every house and building, and most dey attacks in town stop. He teach dey townsfolk how to kill wid stakes and swords. Den de war come, and all de town boys go off to fight Yankees. Town was dying, it was.” Lucky was turning the stone bowl full of spices in his hands, which were strong and knobby from years of handling heavy sides of meat. He stared into the spice-and-salt mixture as if it had the answers to all the secrets of the universe. “Father Joseph was turn one night. But he strong in de faith. He rise and he come to the church, holding his craziness inside all by hisself, and he tell dem townspeople to cut off he head. Dey did. But it nearly kill mos' dem all.”

His voice softened. “Julius Chiasson and he older brother—human was old man Chaisson,” he clarified, “old,
old
man by den. Dey know dey have to stop Marcel, 'cause he still crazy in de head. Dey set a trap. And dey kill dey own.” Lucky shook his head. “Julius' wife, Victorie, her name was, she went crazy wid grief and attack and kill old man Chiasson, head of family, patriarch. Julius have to stake his wife.” Lucky shook his head and opened his own beer. Took a swig. As he lifted his arm, I saw again the tats, and the flames seemed to ripple and flicker with the motion.

“But he not cut off her head. She rise from de grave, she did, and she kill and kill and kill. Church got itself a new priest, Father Matthieu, and he lead a hunt to kill her. Dey take her head and burn her body in center
of de streets jus' befo' dawn, nex' morning.” He pointed outside to the crossing of Broad Street and Oiseau Avenue.

“Dem Bordelon sisters, witches all, dey come gather up de ashes for to make hex. And Julius, when he hear of all dis, he make war on dey witches. Kill dem mostly. Dem witches, dey make de hex, and de suckheads cain't eat, cain't drink. Sick-like. Dey kidnap Dr. Leveroux, kill him when he cain't cure dem. Leave his body in middle of town, like warning.”

Lucky pointed at my plate. “Fried gator not good cold. Eat, you.” I shoveled food in my mouth, knowing I should get the heck out of Dodge—or out of Bayou Oiseau—but I was hooked. And I had no doubt that was what Lucky had intended.

“Dem witches join wid dem priests and fight dem suckheads. And war was everywhere, here, in de bayou”—he pronounced it
bi-oh
, which sounded odd to me—“in de swamp, in the north. In New Orleans, Flag Officer David Farragut was in charge; Louisiana territory was in control of de North. We had no help. Cut off from de rest of de world, we was.” Lucky stood and reached to a phone on the wall, picked up and dialed. “Miz Onie,” he said a moment later. “Dis Lucky Landry. Get you bes' room ready. Town got Jane Yellowrock here for de night. Yeah, dat so. Dat room on front of de house, one wid porch out front and green. Purty room it is,” he added to me. “Yeah, I bring her over to you befo' de sun set. Yeah, sure.” He hung up and sat back down. “Where I was?”

“Farragut in New Orleans, and war everywhere.”

“Ah. Yeah.” He picked up the bowl again, but this time sprinkled a little of the spice onto the table and set the bowl into the middle of the spices, so when the bowl turned on the surface, it made a soft scratching sound, as if grinding. “Amaury Pellissier hear of our trouble. He come on horseback, him and he nephew, Leo. He kill Julius for not runnin' he clan like he should, for not keepin de secret of de suckheads. And den he leave. But he leave behind de swamp suckheads, ones made and set free while dey still insane.”

He raised his brows to make sure I understood, and I did. Vamps went into devoveo, the insanity that followed the change, for the first ten or twenty years after they were turned. He didn't seem to know the term, but he was aware of the insanity peculiar to vampires. I nodded that I understood and he continued, his voice as melodic as a song.

“Strongest suckhead, Clermont Doucette”—which came out
Cler-mon Doo-see
—“make hisself a new clan, become a blood-master. In 1865 dat war end and de slaves go free. Everythin' change, it did. Black folk take off for de north or into de swamp for freedom. Some join dem witches, some join dem suckheads, some leave, some stay, to make a free, human way here on land and swamp, in place dey know.”

But they still had problems, which Lucky hadn't gotten to yet. “When did the first Cajuns get to Louisiana?” I asked.

“Moutons say dey get here in 1760, but my family, de Landrys, land in New Orleans in April 1764, but dey don' get here in dis town till 1769.” He smiled his pretty teeth at me and waggled his brows, lifting and shifting the stone bowl from palm to palm like a magician with a nifty trick or a ballplayer half tossing his ball between innings. “My
gran'-mère
one dem Bordelon sisters, Cally Bordelon.”

I began to see a glimmer here. Lucky Landry was way more than a butcher with a melodic quality to his voice. Here was a tattooed man from a witch family, a man with a rogue-vamp hunter suddenly stuck in his town, and in his power. And wouldn't you know it, Lucky's family had a Hatfields-versus-McCoys feud going on with vamps. I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Like my history, you do?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I grinned back and set the empty beer bottle on the table with a soft
snap
. “I'm waiting for you to get to the part where you need me for something.” Lucky's smile got wider, and he pointed a finger at me as if acknowledging a clever point in a debate. “But you're trying to keep me here until it's too late to leave town safely, even if I got my bike going again, which isn't likely.”

“Smart lady, you.”

“If I were smart, I'd have pushed my bike back to I-10 and slept under a tree, where only the mosquitoes would have sucked my blood and the nutria chewed on my bones.”

Lucky laughed at that, his black eyes flashing.

And that was when it hit me. The history he knew so well, his nearly mesmeric storytelling. His witch family origins. The flames on his arm that had seemed to waver. The tats were a lot like a scenic tat I'd seen on another man's arm, chest, and shoulder. Spelled tats. “You're a male witch,” I said, my voice cold as ice. “And you want
me
in this war.”

I caught a hint of movement from the corner of my eye, and everything went dark.

•   •   •

Beast's claws flexed in my brain, waking me, yet holding me down. Through her memories, I knew instantly that I was in the best room of Miz Onie's bed-and-breakfast, lying on the edge of the bed, my hands and feet unbound and hanging over the side. Even without Beast's memories, I'd have guessed where I was, by the colors I could see through my tangled lashes: the emerald green bedspread, moss green walls, striped green drapery, and greenish fake flowers in a tall vase gave it away. That and the fact that Lucky Landry was sitting in a chair in a wide bay with tall windows and a door. That and the fact that I smelled his special peppers and spices in my hair. All that and the fact that my head was aching, yeah, that was a clue. “You sucker punched me,” I growled, Beast in the tone. “With a spice bowl.”

Lucky nodded. “Sorry 'bout dat, I am,” though he didn't sound very sorry, and proved it when he added, “Ruin me a good batch of my special spice mixture.”

Yeah. Funny guy.
I grunted and sat up slowly, holding my head with one hand. It was pounding like a bass drum interspersed with clanging cymbals, sharp pain in every pulse. “What do you want?” I snarled when I could, though it came out more like a whisper.

“I tried to call Leo Pellissier. Him no take my calls. I want you to call him and ask him for help.”

“No.”

Lucky's eyebrows went up and he smiled. But this time the genial Cajun butcher was gone, and a powerful witch smiled in his place. I could feel the power crackle in the air. Male witches were very rare, most of them dying in their youth of childhood cancers. I thought about that for half a second until Beast informed me that Lucky had divested me of my weapons. My leather jacket was hanging open, and my holsters and blade sheaths were empty. Nary a gun nor a knife nor even a stake was still on me. Which really ticked me off.

I let a bit of Beast flow through me, and knew that my eyes were glowing gold. Beast was an ambush hunter herself, but that didn't mean she wanted to be ambushed. Lucky's body tightened at what he saw in my
eyes, and he made a little swirling motion with one finger, not hiding that he was preparing a magical defense.

Tension stretched between us, pulling like a rubber band. The door in the bay was open, and the night poured in, smelling of night-blooming flowers, the stagnant water of swamp, the fresher scent of a recent rain, and the herbal tang of vamp. I heard a car passing by outside, the engine noise muted, the tires loudly splashing through a puddle.

I had met a few male witches in my life, way more than most people ever met. But as a traveling rogue-vamp hunter, I tended to end up with the supernats of any town I visited. My best pal was earth witch Molly, or had been until I killed her sister. Long story. Anyway, her husband was a witch, still in the closet, still hiding what he was. Her son was a witch, and I'd seen a third male witch die at the hand of a sabertooth lion. Another long story. My life was practically full of them. Now this dude with spell flames licking up his arm.

“No,” I said again. “I'm not calling Leo. And if you hit me with a spell, I'll make you regret it.”

“Make me?”
He sounded mildly incredulous. Then his mouth pursed in thought. “Some spell you gots on you? To do combat wid me? Some witch spell like dat charm on you bike? Keep-away/don'-steal charm?” His finger stopped swirling, and the tension in the air seemed to float out the window into the night.

I had no spell, no real defense against magic, but I did have Beast, and I had seen her neutralize spells meant to harm me in the past. So I kept any trepidation I was feeling stowed deep inside, my eyes almost lazy, and I let my lips lift just a tiny bit on one side.

“Okay,” Lucky said. “Why you not call Leo for me?”

“I'm not a deal broker.”

“Mebbe you change you mind when I tell you rest o' my story.”

“Skip a few centuries to the part where I rode into town.”

Lucky nodded, lounged back in the chair, and pointed to my side. “Aspirin and water for you headache.”

I didn't usually take drugs, but I did drink the water while Lucky got to his point.

“Suckhead coonass clan, Clan Doucette, in bayou, gots my daughter.”

I nearly choked, then blinked, set down the glass, and shifted into a
more comfortable position. “Okay. That I didn't expect.”
Coonass
was an insulting word for Cajun, and it was interesting that Lucky, a Cajun himself, called another Cajun
coonass
. “Okay,” I said again. “I'm listening.”

“When Leo and Amaury Pellissier kill off de blood-master of Clan Chiasson, dey leave suckheads in swamp. No trainin' dey gots. No law. Some insane for decades. Suckheads and witches in dis town not get along, not never. Now dem suckheads got my girl, stole her dey did. Kidnap.”

Beast shifted her claws in my brain and said,
Kit? We will save kit
. I nodded, as agreement to Beast and as a signal to the witch in the chair to continue.

“I want her back. Word in de street is Clermont Doucette boy gone turn my girl and run wild with her, or mebbe chain her up in he attic for ten year.”

I blew out a sigh and felt part of the pain in my skull decrease. Skinwalkers healed a lot faster than humans, even after getting whapped over the head with a hunk of rock. I touched the sore place on my head, thinking. “Is your daughter a witch? Dumb question,” I answered myself. “Daughters get one of their two X chromosomes from their father. The trait passes on his X chromosome, and so of course she's a witch. Got it. Witches don't take well to the turn. They sometimes stay in the devoveo for forever.”

“She is witch, yes. Devoveo? Dis mean
insane
? Insane
forever
?” Lucky snarled. “Not my girl. No. I kill dem all firs'.”

“Yeah, yeah. I get that you're ticked and wanting to stake every vamp in sight. You shoulda said all this in the first place, not coldcocked me. Understand that I am not happy and this is not over. But okay. I'll call Leo.”

Lucky tossed me my throwaway cell, an unlisted one I had purchased at RadioShack. I'd had no calls on it in the last week, not one, because no one knew the number and I hadn't called anyone to share my new contact info. I hadn't even stopped at a library on the road to update my website and check for potential jobs, because I knew certain contract employees of Leo's could tell if I had done so, determine which town I had updated from, and come looking for me. The only way to be invisible these days was to stay totally and completely off the grid. And even then it was hard.

I had to call Leo anyway. My retainer had run out, and I needed to make sure the vamps had received my resignation papers and clarify that I was done working for and with the vamps of New Orleans. The last job
in Asheville had done a number on me in lots of emotional ways, and I'd had enough. My retainer had run out two weeks past, and I had mailed back all the electronic devices that tied me to the MOC of New Orleans. In the packet, I had included a letter of resignation as well as an “intent to vacate” the premises to my landlady.