Blood in Her Veins (Nineteen Stories From the World of Jane Yellowrock) (62 page)

Once again she gave me the best room, on the front of the house, the green room, with emerald green bedspread, moss green walls, striped green drapery, and greenish fake flowers in a tall vase near a wide bay with soaring windows and a door out to a gallery. The boys were sent into the room Derek had used on the last visit, which had two twin beds and a view into the garden out back. Edmund was left standing in the hallway alone, until she pointed to a third room, a nook at the top of the stairs. He frowned as he took in the windows and the draperies—which could be opened to let in the light while he slept, if an enemy was so inclined to watch him burn to death in bed.

He raised his brows. “Doesn't like Mithrans, I take it?”

“Not fond of anyone one but military boys.”

“I fought in the Civil War. Does that count?”

“Confederate?”

“No.”

“I'd keep it to yourself, then,” I said, tossing my sleepwear on the bed and my toiletries on the bathroom counter, and laying out my weapons with much greater care.

Patiently Edmund said, “Where am I to sleep, my master?”

Sleep with Beast!

I ignored her and stood straight, staring at him. “None of that ‘my master' crap. Not now, not ever. In fact, you can take that primo idea and stuff it where the sun don't shine. As to your sleeping needs, I doubt the B and B has a vamp-sealed room, so I guess that, if the bedroom she assigned to you doesn't make you all jolly, you get to spend the day in my closet.”

Edmund didn't sigh, as vamps don't have to breathe, but his body took on a long-suffering posture.

“Don't worry. I'll put a pallet in there with a nice comfy pillow from my bed. Meanwhile, why don't you go see what the vamps are up to and get the
lowdown on their point of view. I'm going to catch a couple of hours of shut-eye and head back out at five a.m.”

“Even when I was human that was an ungodly hour. And in case you haven't noticed, it's raining outside.”

“You'll dry.” I pushed him out of the room and shut the door in his face. “Nighty night, Edmund.”

I texted Clermont Doucette that I was in town, put a nine mil on the bedside table along with a stake and a vamp-killer, kicked off my traveling boots, crawled between the covers, which smelled faintly of lavender and vanilla, and closed my eyes. I was instantly asleep. I woke when the single door to the gallery opened and wet air blew in. The nine mil was targeted on the dim outline before I got my eyes fully opened. “It's loaded with silver,” I said, my voice gravelly with sleep.

“I would die, then, true-dead, if you shot me,” Edmund said, sounding unconcerned.

“Why are you entering my room from a second-story window?” I asked, as the night breeze fluttered the pale curtains into the room. The curtains were new since my last visit, and they had ruffles. I hate ruffles. “All the novels say suckheads can turn into bats and fly around. I thought it was fiction.”

Edmund made a
pfft
sound with his lips. “There is a tree outside your window with low branches. You need to put that toy away and come see this spectacle.” The guy really did have big brass ones. At the thought, I couldn't help but grin, and Edmund's eyebrows went up a notch. I waved the inquiring look away and rolled to the edge of the bed, my aim not wavering, and hit the floor in my sock feet. The bay window was narrow, and I motioned Edmund back with the weapon. He stepped out into the dark of night, onto the gallery, and I followed. The main intersection of Broad Street and Oiseau Avenue was visible between the waxy leaves of a magnolia in the yard of the B and B.

The witches were still standing in a circle in the middle of the crossroads. Standing behind them were two vamps for every one witch. They were positioned to attack and though the witches were outside the hedge circle—which was weird enough on its own—the vamps hadn't yet attacked.
Weird
.

“How long?” I asked.

“Since the rain stopped.”

“How long until dawn?” I clarified.

“Perhaps fifteen minutes.”

“I was supposed to be up before this.”

“According to Clermont Doucette, the witches put a sleep spell on the entire town. Once humans go to sleep, they don't wake until after dawn.”

I grunted. I wasn't human, so why was I affected? Miz Onie had still been up when we got here. Or had been woken. I had to wonder if Miz Onie was immune to sleep spells or wasn't human, to be able to be up and about. “What happens at dawn?”

“The Mithrans attack, moving at speed. The intent is to capture every witch and take back the wreath, which may be magical, though no one seems to know what its purpose is.

“When Shauna brought the wreath to her father, Landry decided that it was a religious artifact instead of a witch artifact and took it to the Catholic priest, who then called the bishop of Orleans Parish, St. Tammany Parish, St. Bernard Parish, Plaquemines Parish, and Jefferson Parish, who happens to be the same person, the preeminent religious figure in the southeast part of the state. The bishop sent a spokesperson, who kept it all of one day before deciding to send it Rome for exorcism.”

He paused for my reaction, but I didn't have one to give, except to lower my weapon.

He inclined his head in recognition of his change in status from prisoner of a sort to gossip artist. “It has a great deal of power. I could smell it on the air. When the Mithrans heard that it was to be sent to Rome, they came en masse to the church. But it had been closed up behind the crosses on the walls and doused in holy water.”

I looked back at the gathering on the street and sighed. “Leo sent me into a mess, didn't he?”

“To be fair to the Blood-Master of New Orleans, he did not know that things had become so dire.”

“Uh-huh. Go on with your story of intrigue, love lost, and magic crap.”

“Someone, not a Mithran, as he was undeterred by holy icons, stole over the wall to the church grounds, and pilfered the wreath from the priests.”

I started laughing softly, though I wasn't sure it was from amusement
or something more dismal. Watching the tableau in the street, the sodden witches and the hyperalert vamps, was like watching paint dry.

“That person took the wreath to the coven of witches, the female witches of the town, and the coven immediately recognized the power of the artifact.”

“So we have the vamps, the Holy Roman Church, and the witches all after the same thing.”

Edmund was definitely laughing now; his eyes were even twinkling. “The coven has been studying it for three nights, attempting different tests and spells to identify the magical signature—these are the words of Elodie and Gilbert, Mithrans who would speak to me, not my own. The wreath has been resistant to everything, even to being used as a power source for a spell of healing, the most simple and beneficial of all spells. While clearly powerful, the wreath is not assisting and is resistant to anyone spending its stored power.”

“And they called it a wreath?”

Edmund paused, his lips pursing slightly as he thought back. “I called it so. They did not object or suggest another name or title.”

“Go on.”

“The Mithrans want the wreath back, but the witches are in place before dusk and remain in place until after dawn. They are safe from attack by use of a spell that I have never seen or heard of before—what they call an
electric dog collar
. If anyone touches the faint circle that encloses them, they are instantly zapped with a strong force, sufficient to set a Mithran attacker ablaze, or stop a human heart. Or to send a wood beam catapulting across the square,” he added drily. “A human tried that one and received a broken arm for his troubles.”

I laughed then and took a seat on the small chair inside the room, the gun hanging down between my knees.

“Neither the Mithrans nor their humans can get to the witches,” Edmund said. There is evidence that the love match between the witch Shauna and her husband, Gabriel Doucette, is under strain.”

“No kidding. Okay. You say that the coven has been studying the thing for three nights. What happens at dawn?”

“The Mithrans pop away, as you might say, to their lairs, safely away
from the sun, and the witches drop their
dog collar
spell, pick up the wreath, and walk away.”

“Go wake up the boys, will you? And be prepared for Eli to try to kill you. He'll be unhappy to have slept past four a.m.”

“I'll toss a bucket of water on him from a safe distance. That often works for mad dogs.”

Before he could move for the door, I heard a
pop
of sound and focused on the open gallery door. A form stood there, silhouetted in the faint gray light, his hands raised in a gesture of peace. It was Gabriel Doucette, heir of Clan Doucette, husband of Shauna Landry, the witch who had stolen the wreath. And a vamp.

I was glad I was still holding my weapon, because it was instantly settled on Gabriel's pretty face. Gabe wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier when I met him the last time, and time and marriage hadn't made him any smarter. He vamped-out—eyes, fangs, talons, the whole nine yards. Before I could squeeze the trigger and fill him full of silver-lead rounds, Edmund had my visitor's head in his claws and his body bent back over one knee, exposing Gabriel's belly and throat. It was clearly a position of forced submission.

“What do you want with my master?” Edmund asked, his power spiking so high it sizzled along my skin like the flare of sparklers, if the burning could be frozen into icicles taught to dance.

Gabriel made a sound like, “Gurk igh ugh eee.”

Edmund eased his hold and said, “Speak the full truth or die,” which was not what I'd come to do, but sounded pretty effective.

“I got to speak to the Enforcer before dawn.”

“You're speaking to her,” I said.

Gabe's eyeballs rolled around in his head until he could see me. “I have a . . . a petition for Enforcer of de Master of de City of New Orleans.” Which was formal talk, taken directly from the Vampira Carta. The local suckheads had been studying, it seemed.

“Let him go, Edmund. But if he gets riled, you can take back up where you were.” I frowned at the meek-looking vampire. “You
were
going to hurt him, right?”

“Yes, my master, his death, for entering your presence uninvited.”

Yeah. That seemed a little strong to me, but I wasn't going to argue,
not with Eli and the Kid still spelled asleep while flying vamps invaded. There might be others wanting to enter. I did glare at the use of “my master,” a title I was
not
going to accept.

Edmund gave me his meek look in return. He wasn't bad at it, puppy-dog eyes and all, but I knew a fake when I saw it. Practicing that look in the presence of vamps might have given him extra acting skills, but having been a clan blood-master for so long had unbalanced it in favor of an underlayment of arrogance.

“Whatever,” I muttered. I looked at our prisoner. I didn't have a real firm grasp on the proper response, except that it was equally formal. I sighed and pulled back the slide on my weapon, ejecting the round. I set it and the nine mil on the small bedside table and moved to the edge of the bed, where I sat again, empty hands dangling. I needed more downtime than I'd gotten. Vamp time was hard on a girl's beauty sleep. “The Enforcer of the Master of the City of New Orleans and the Greater Southeast United States, with the exception of Florida, will hear you.” When he didn't say anything I added, “Talk, Gabe. Make it clear, concise, and fast.”

“I the man who responsible for the troubles in this town, I am.”

That was pretty concise. I hadn't paid much attention to Gabe's voice when I was here last, trying to keep my skin on my bones and my blood in my veins. But his Cajun syllables were clear and pleasant, a higher tone that contrasted markedly to his father's deeper voice. “Okay. Let's hear your side.”

“A vampire man, a Mithran as the Vampira Carta say, he have certain needs.”

My head went back. “If this is about sex, I'm not interested in suckhead infidelity.”

“No, no, no. Not
sex
.
Blood
.”

Edmund didn't bother to hide an amused grin. My prudishness was a source of cynical entertainment among the vamps. I frowned at him and caught a glimpse of my own reflection in the mirror over the vanity. My hair was everywhere, as if I'd fought a vamp in my dreams. I sighed and said, “Edmund, we're safe here. Go check on the boys. No buckets of water.”

Edmund dropped Gabriel, saying, “As my master commands.” With a pop of displaced air, he was gone.

“Get up and sit”—I pointed to the floral upholstered chair I had just deserted—“and tell me what you did that got all this started.”

Gabriel rose from the floor with the fluid grace of the undead and took the small chair. He was dressed in rain-wet jeans and a camo shirt, work boots, and leather armbands worked in Celtic symbols with the logo of a rock-and-roll band. Around his neck he wore a leather thong with a tiny gold Celtic circle hanging from it. His brown hair fell to his waist, some braided, some hanging free, all of it wet and dripping, which might have made another man look like a soaked dog, but on Gabe, with his aquiline nose and almond-shaped eyes, it just made him prettier. When he bowed his head over his interlaced fingers, his hair touched the floor. It was a graceful gesture, and it was no wonder that the witch, Shauna, had fallen for the pretty boy. “Been a fool, I have,” he said.

That was a good start. I pulled a vamp-killer, which I placed at my side. His eyes went wide and he swallowed, a totally vamp reaction to the presence of a fourteen-inch-long steel blade plated with silver. I reached around and began unplaiting my braid, going for casual and killer all at once. I nodded for him to continue.

His eyes on the weapon, he said, “All dis mess”—he jerked his head to the outside in a gesture that was particularly Cajun and Gaelic and Frenchy—“might . . .
pro'lly
, have start when Shauna found dat I done drank—one time only—from someone else.” My eyebrows went up in surprise. “Shauna, she got baby blues after our lil' boy, Clerjer, born.” It came out
Clarshar
, the name all pretty and flowing syllables of the expectation of peace.