Blood in Her Veins (Nineteen Stories From the World of Jane Yellowrock) (32 page)

I pulled Derek onto the dance floor and kept him there for two numbers. That man can
dance
!

It was a good night, a better party, with fantastic food and energetic dancing. A great solution to a problem that had been simmering in the Louisiana backwaters for decades. As the locals might say, “Dem coonass clans Doucette and Landry? Dem family now, yeah dey is.” Heck of a lot better than any old
Romeo and Juliet
–style ending.

And best of all? I got paid.

The Devil's Left Boot

Liz tossed the rag into the dishpan and lifted it to take the dirty dishes to the kitchen. Seven Sassy Sisters' Herb Shop and Café used heavy country china and good-quality stainless flatware instead of the cheaper stuff. The customers liked the quality and the homey atmosphere, but being busboy—or -girl—was tough on her back.

“I've got it,” Cia said, and scooped the heavy pan out of her arms. “Share and share alike,” she added. Liz's once reticent and introverted twin had been doing a lot of that since Liz's injury. And it wasn't necessary. So, okay, Liz got short of breath. And her ribs hurt sometimes. She was still healing, and no one could expect complete and instantaneous recuperation after having a huge rock land on her chest in the middle of a magical attack. By their own coven leader . . . and elder sister.

Grief welled up again, and Liz blinked furiously against the tears. Evangelina's death had hit all the sisters hard, but the four witch sisters had felt her death most deeply because they had also lost a coven leader, and by the foulest means—addiction to demons. Although the actual cause of death had been a knife blade to the torso, the Evangelina they had grown up with and practiced their craft with for their whole lives had been dead for months before that.

Liz sighed, feeling the weakness in her ribs, a slow, low-level pain, and pulled out a clean rag to wipe down the next table. She was polishing the final booth, standing by the front door, when the flashy red Thunderbird wheeled up and parked. It wasn't a practical car for Asheville, but it was memorable, and that was what the driver wanted—to be known as an icon in her hometown. Liz huffed out a breath and called, “Cia! Company. And not the good kind.”

Her twin was by her side in a heartbeat. “Is that
Layla
? Too bad we don't have access to Evie's demon. It could eat her.”

“Not funny,” Liz said. The demon
had
eaten a few humans before it was sent back into the dark. “Maybe she's changed since high school.”

“Once a bitch, always a bitch,” Cia said. “What's that she's carrying?”

“A baby goat? What the—”

The door opened, and their archenemy from their high school years stepped in, bringing with her a cold spring wind through the air lock doors. Layla's face was as beautiful as ever, which made Liz stiffen and Cia narrow her eyes. Layla was black haired and pale skinned and skinny and graceful and delicate and feminine and damn near perfect. In high school she'd been the leader of a cadre of girls who had all been gorgeous and popular, most of them cheerleaders. Unlike the Everharts, all of Layla's pals had been human. And most of them had been mean. Now, just like in high school, the twins stood side by side, facing their enemy.

The inner doors swished closed after Layla and she stopped, standing with the poise of a model, slender and lovely, wearing a Ralph Lauren leather jacket, tailored pants, and a pair of bling-studded Manolo Blahnik ankle boots that were drool-worthy. She stared at the twins across the small space and across the years. No one spoke. When the baby pygmy goat under Layla's arm started to struggle, she soothed it with a gentle hand, and Liz felt Cia stiffen.
Layla Shiffen should not be gentle
.

“Boadacia Everhart and Elizabeth Everhart,” she said, the words sounding almost formulaic, her expression determined, “I require help.”

Cia crossed her arms and made a huffing sound. Liz dropped her rag and mimicked her sister.

The resolve on Layla's face flickered. “I can pay. And I brought my own goat.”

Liz laughed, the sound slightly wheezing from her damaged lungs.

Cia said, “Help? For what.” It didn't sound like a question—more like an accusation. Or a challenge. “And what does our help have to do with a goat?”

Layla shifted, her composure faltering again before her lips firmed in determination. “I need you to find my mother. The goat is for the sacrifice.”

“Sac—,” Liz started, then stopped.

“We don't do blood magic,” Cia spat. She pointed at the door. “Get out.”

“But . . .” Layla's eyes filled with tears. “But I need you. I said the words right. I researched how to say it.” She sobbed once. A real sob. Not like the fake sobs she'd used in the school play the year she had the lead in
Romeo and Juliet
. “I don't have anyone else. The police can't help. Or
won't
. They say there's no sign of foul play. They took a missing-persons report and that's all they'll do,” she said, her words running together. “My mom's in trouble. I
know
it. And I don't know where to turn.” Tears fell across her perfect cheeks and dripped onto the silk scarf around her neck. “P-please.”

Neither twin reacted. They still stood side by side, staring and silent. Liz could feel the power building up under her twin's skin, prickly and cold, like winter moonlight. It was slow to rise, with the moon beneath the horizon, but it was powerful magic, especially when she was angry. Their human sisters must have felt it too. They stepped in through the archway opening from the herb shop, one with a shotgun held down by her leg. The other sister would be armed as well, nonmagical, but deadly in the face of danger. One robbery was all it had taken for their human sisters to find a way to protect themselves. Liz shook her head at them, a minuscule motion.

“Big whoop,” Cia said. “I don't like you. I remember too much.”

Layla's face went all blotchy and red under her porcelain makeup. Her nose started running, and she raised a wrist to wipe it, bringing the goat close to her. The goat butted her chin and made a soft bleating noise. She tucked the animal under her chin as if cuddling it and said, “Please. You have to help me.” She looked back and forth between them, her expression growing frantic. She clutched the baby goat to her chest. “You
have
to. It's my
mother
.”

Liz felt Cia shudder faintly at the last word and knew that Layla had won, just like in high school. Nothing had changed since they were teens. “Son of a witch on a switch,” Cia cursed.

Liz sighed and waved their sisters off. Regan and Amelia both frowned, recognizing the woman and knowing her history with the witch twins. But they went back to the herb shop side of Seven Sassy Sisters', moving reluctantly and keeping an eye on the café. Both crises averted—magical and weapons fire—Liz dropped into a booth at the front window and pointed to the bench seat across the newly cleaned table. Liz had good reason to keep Cia busy and off the TV and Internet. Maybe this would
do that. “Sit,” she said to Layla. “What's your mother's name and why do you think she's in trouble?”

Layla sat and settled the baby goat on her lap before reaching into her Bruno Magli Maddalena suede bag for a tissue and patting her face. Liz could almost feel Cia's covetousness as her twin slid onto the bench seat, reestablishing the arm-to-arm, skin-to-skin contact. Of course, even if an Everhart could afford a bag that went for more than two thousand dollars new, none of the sisters would buy it. Maybe a vintage one in need of TLC and a little magical cleanup. Everharts were notoriously cheap. Covetous but cheap. Liz nearly smiled.

“My mother is Evelyn Janice McMann. She called me the day before yesterday on her way home from work. We ended the call when she locked the door behind her, just like always. It's this”—Layla waved one hand in the air, as if searching for a word—“safety thing we do when Mom works late. She works for a developer, and late-night business meetings are common, as you might imagine.”

Liz had no idea what hours developers kept, but she nodded, understanding security measures.

“Her boss called the house the next morning. Mom had missed an important meeting. Which she never does.
Never
.”

Liz had to wonder if that had been a problem for Layla growing up. Maybe growing up second to the job.

“So I went by there. Mom's house looked perfect, as always. Except her clothes, the ones she wore when we had lunch the day before, were scattered everywhere, like they'd been thrown. Carelessly. There is
nothing
careless about my mother. So I went to the police.” She wiped her face again. “And they made me wait until this morning to file a missing-persons report. They think she was having a
fling
and took off with some
man
,” Layla said, her tone bitter. “My mother doesn't have
time
for a man in her life.
Trust
me. She works fourteen hours a day.
Every day.
Always has.”

Cia nudged her, and Liz knew her twin was thinking along the same lines. Abandonment issues, much? It might explain a lot about Layla, growing up. Not that her having issues made them forgive her. Not gonna happen.

“Her keys? Purse? Cell?” Liz asked.

“All on the floor with her clothes.” Fresh tears gathered in Layla's eyes
and she bent over the goat. It nudged her jaw and licked her chin. “I don't know what to do. Can you help me? Can you find her?”

Cia and Liz shared looks that said,
No. Yes. No. Maybe. No.

Layla eased the goat back into the crook of her arm, placed the expensive pocketbook on the table, and opened the flap. “I can pay.” She pulled out a stack of hundred-dollar bills and pushed it across the table toward them. Neither twin looked at the money, but they both saw it. More money than they made in tips in a month. Maybe two.

Cia's magic rose again, like a wave at high tide, hard and powerful and angry. She leaned forward and said, “We can try. Trying is a flat fee of a thousand. Success is another two thousand. Nonnegotiable.” When Liz started to debate the amount, Cia said, “That's Jane Yellowrock's fee for a PI job. And she doesn't have magic. And”—she looked hard at Layla—“if we get your mom back, the fee is required, no matter what shape your mom is in.”

Liz sucked in a slow, painful breath. Layla gasped, her face paling. The comment was blunt enough to be worthy of Jane Yellowrock herself, and the rogue-vampire hunter was honest to the point of being brusque. Cia meant that Layla's mom could be dead. She was the gentler twin. Usually. Suddenly Liz remembered what it had felt like to bear the brunt of Layla's cruelty—the goading, the taunting. And that one time . . . In that single indrawn breath, the memory descended, full, complete, and awful.

“Boadecia,” Layla had hissed. “Stupid name for a
stupid
girl. Some people think the twins have some kind of
power
. I just think they're
ugly
.” A shove, hidden from the teachers by the group of girls surrounding them. “
Stupid
and
ugly
.
Ugly
red hair and
ugly
freckles. When Mother
Nature messes up, she messes up bad. She made
two
of them.” Another shove. A yank of hair.

The moon had been full that day, making Cia less stable, more reckless, like stormy waves on an icy ocean, pushed by a full-moon tide. Fear had grown up inside Liz, like frozen rocks hanging on a cliff face, ready to fall.

Not fear of the taunting girls, but fear of themselves, fear of losing control. Fear that one of them would erupt and pull the other into her magical reaction through the twin bond. Fear that they would misuse their gifts and pay the price. Then the bell had sounded. They had gotten away, barely, before one of them lost control and they hurt the girls.

Liz blew out her breath.
Yeah. Okay. Cia was right.
That girl who hurt
them back in high school was the woman facing them. To an enemy, their services shouldn't be offered as a gift freely given, the way they were
supposed
to be for one in need. “What she said. That's our price.”

“No matter what,” Layla said. Her hands trembling, she counted out thirty hundred-dollar bills. “I pay up front. You do your best.” She stood, tucking the goat into the crook of her arm and soothing it with an absentminded caress.

“We need to see the house,” Cia said, her tone still hard. “We'll need to take something your mother was wearing the day she disappeared. To do a working to find her.”

Layla opened her pocketbook and removed an expensive-looking pen and planner. She wrote down her mother's address and tore off the sheet. Then she tossed down a business card, glossy and dark, with her contact info on it. “Call me.”

She turned on the heel of the Manolo and left the café, the icy spring wind whipping inside.

“She wanted us to sacrifice a goat kid.”

“She's an idiot. She called us by our full names, as if we're fae and can be commanded.”

“Not our full names,” Liz said.

“Nope. I'm not sure we ever told anyone our full names. But I'd kill for those boots,” Cia said.

“I'd fight you for them.”

Her twin gave her a hard slash of smile and said, “Good idea on Jane's prices, huh?”

Liz nodded and opened her mouth to tell Cia that Jane Yellowrock was in town for the hearing about the day their sister died. About the day Jane had killed her to save human lives. But she closed it on the words. Some things needed to die peacefully, things like the memory of their sister being put out of her insane, raving, psychotic, demon-drunk misery on live TV. So far she had been able to keep the news from her twin. Why spoil it?

Cia handed Liz the address and card and said, “Let's get set up for lunch. I have the kitchen, and while the soups aren't demanding, the salads and breads are.” Cia sashayed toward the back. “As soon as we're done here for the afternoon,” she added, “let's go by the mom's house and get this over with.”

“Evangelina never had trouble handling the kitchen,” Liz grumbled. “Why can't we get the knack? We need to hire a chef.”

“On it,” Cia said from behind the kitchen bar. “Résumés in a stack.” She waved a sheaf of papers in the air. “Maybe we should have a cook-off.”