Blood in Her Veins (Nineteen Stories From the World of Jane Yellowrock) (66 page)

“Question,” I said. “Did you start feeling unhappy and miserable before or after you tried to hurt the thing? Before or after you got burned?”

The priest's eyes moved from Eli to his burned hands, and his lips parted.

Surprise, surprise.
I shrugged. “Maybe despair and lack of clear thinking is part of a punishment for trying to hurt it. Burned hands. Grief. Maybe, like the hands, it'll heal. And maybe it would heal faster if you let a witch heal you. Or a vamp.”

The man's eyes blazed with righteous fury and the stink of the burn grew on the air as he clenched his hands into bloated fists. Before he could speak, I said, “Never mind. Eli, let's get out of here before the man sets himself on fire with indignation.” Eli backed away and I followed suit, though how the priest could shoot us with burned hands seemed impossible. To be on the safe side, I angled my body to the entrance as we moved back down the nave into the narthex. And out into the noon sun.

Instantly I started sweating. Eli holstered his weapon, looking cool and unaffected by the encounter or the heat. “You want to tell me what was going on in there?” I asked.

“Yeah. My pal Joe sent back a text about a certain emblem being worn by a small, renegade group of the clergy in the Western Hemisphere.” He slipped on his sunglasses. “The emblem is a small red thing attached to their vestments. The group is composed of professor-type priests looking for magical things and magical people. A few things and a few people have gone missing.”

“Missing as in kidnapped?”

Eli shrugged, not willing to speculate.

“Think they're working against the Mithrans?”

“Joe thinks they have an agenda that they haven't revealed yet. And he thinks someone in Rome is responsible.”

The sun felt good on my back as we left the church grounds, but the knowledge of a sniper in the belfry didn't. “Think he'll shoot us?” I asked as casually as I could with sweat trickling down my spine and a target on my back.

“No. But I need to report everything to Joe.”

“Fine,” I said as we passed through the brick gates unscathed. “Question. You knew all this before we got here, didn't you?”

“I knew some. There's been some chatter about magical devices. Alex has been monitoring it and did some deeper searching in Reach's database. As soon as we heard about a magical device near us, I got in touch with people I know.”

Reach had been the best researcher of all, ever, anywhere, when it came to the arcane, the weird, the woo-woo stuff. Then he'd been attacked by a human and two vamps and disappeared. Or so we thought. There wasn't any direct evidence either way. I still didn't know if Reach was alive.

I'd come into possession of his database in what, under any other circumstance, I'd call coincidence. But I no longer believed in that, not when it came to the vamps and the layers of history and death and conspiracy they so loved. Someone had wanted me to get the data. I just didn't know who yet.

Deep inside, my Beast chuffed with amusement. I didn't know why, but I'd learned that Beast would tell me stuff when she was good and ready and not one moment sooner. I said, “And you got in touch with your friend Joe. A former Ranger?”

Eli gave his patented nonsmile, a twitch of his lips that he probably thought was cool. It could also have been constipation. Someday I'd hit him with that one and see how he reacted.

“Someone in the Vatican, maybe? People who want the magical stuff I've collected?”

“They think they can heal the world's wounds with them,” he said. “And they think they're the only ones who should have them.”

“Which means they're the last people on earth who should have them.”

“Correctomundo.”

“Joe. Former military?”

“Current.”

“I thought you were on the outs with the Army because of me.”

Eli gave me a real smile, showing a hint of pearly whites. “Worth it, babe. Totally worth it.” More seriously he said, “I have friends who know why I was blackballed and who still keep me in the loop.”

I looked away. The guilt about Eli's being ostracized by the military always got me deep down, but I also knew he was speaking total truth when he said it was worth it. I could smell that on him. “Okay. Joe. What's he do?”

“Joe is the U.S. liaison in charge of overseeing the Pope's safety.”

“Wait. The Pope as in the
Pope
? In Rome? That Pope?”

“Oh yeah. You have no idea how much the U.S. has invested in terms of time, intel, and equipment, keeping the Vatican's citizens safe and alive, all of them, for the last twenty or so years, since the jihad extremist movement got so big again.”

“Okay. And Joe says?”

“That there was a blip in the Holy Vicar's security intel yesterday morning, and it necessitated sending a small group of God's warriors to the U.S. They landed at John F. Kennedy International this morning. They have a direct flight charter scheduled for New Orleans at four p.m. And then, unless they go the helo route, they'll have a drive in.”

“Oh crap. We're gonna have to fight the Vatican, aren't we?”

“The Holy Roman See, to be specific, not the Vatican. And the See is considered a sovereign state. Which means all their men will be considered papal representatives and will be accorded all protections under law afforded to all international ambassadors on U.S. soil.”

“Soooo they can do anything to anyone and get off scot-free. But . . .” I thought it through. “The vamps are currently under a temporary but similar legal protection.”

“Until the U.S. government in all its wisdom and glory—”

I snorted derisively.

“—decides if they are citizens or not.”

“So we have to involve Leo. Like, now.”

Eli laughed evilly. “He's sooo gonna be pissed.”

I'd have socked him, a good, solid thump, but it would have only made him laugh harder.

•   •   •

We didn't have long before the people from Rome arrived and made a bad situation worse. I was pretty sure that Lucky, despite being a witch whose ancestors were technically hunted by the Catholic Church since the witch hunts in the Middle Ages, and terrorized by the Church in the time of the Inquisition, was a Catholic. Pretty sure. Not totally. But his daughter, Shauna, and her vamp husband had been married in the yard of the Catholic church. . . . Would the priest be in trouble for his part of the ceremony?
Crap
. This was getting sticky. I decided to go back to Boudreaux's Meats, ostensibly for lunch. And after a good meal, Eli and I needed to get info. Any way we could. Even if it mean hurting Lucky. That bothered me. A lot.

•   •   •

Alex met us at Boudreaux's and we dined on the Cardiac Confidence, my name for the lunch that consisted of fried gator, fried smallmouth bass, fried soft-shell crabs, and fried boudin balls bigger than Lucky's fist. He made one to show us the truth of that statement. We also had beer-battered fried onion rings, fried squash, fried pickles, fried crab-stuffed hot peppers, and fried mushrooms in a basket so greasy it took a handful of paper towels to stop the drippage. Lucky said, exactly as he did the last time I ate here, “My own batter, secret recipe it is, and dat oil is fresh and hot for cooking.” Certainly lard, but while we ate, imminent heart disease seemed worth it. After dinner, while we were disposing of the beer bottles that were illegal to sell in the dry parish but were totally legal to give away for “tips,” I said casually, “Lucky. I remember you telling me that you had family who were killed in the vamp-witch wars here in BO.”

He narrowed his eyes at me, and I thought I saw the flame tattoos on his arm flex in irritation before subsiding. “Priest in dem wars, Father Joseph, he was, before the war.” Lucky was talking about the Civil War, I knew because I had heard the story. “He teach townsfolk how to kill wid stakes and swords. Him made dem crosses to be everywhere, on every house and building, and most dey attacks in town stop. Peoples, dey safe in town until Father Joseph was turn by de suckheads one night. But he strong in de faith. He rise and still in he right mind. Fight de blood/drink/kill temptation. He come to de church and tell dem townspeople to cut off he head. Dey did. But it nearly kill most dem all to kill priest.” His mouth turned down, and he crossed the room, taking a beer from the cooler before
sitting at the table with us. When he started again, it was nearly word for word as he had said it last time, history by rote.

“Vamp turn on vamp. Kill each other, they did.” He popped off the top of a LA 31 Boucanée with a shell-shaped bottle opener. The beer was made by Bayou Teche Brewing in Arnaudville, Louisiana, and it smelled of hops and smoked cherrywood. He drank a third of it, tossed back some of his own fried mushrooms, chewed, swallowed, and continued, his eyes faraway as if he saw the story he told.

“But they not always find suckhead to cut off head. One, they stake her. 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 jutted his jaw outside, to the crossing of Broad Street and Oiseau Avenue.

“Bordelon sisters, witches all, dey come gather up de ashes for to make hex. And Julius, blood-master, hem was, 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 local doctor, Dr. Leveroux, kill hem when he cain't cure dem. Leave his body in middle of town, like warning.

“Dem witches, some of my peoples, dey join wid priest and fight dem suckheads. War was everywhere, here, in de bayou”—he pronounced it
bi-oh
, which sounded odd to me—“in de swamp. My
gran-mère
be one dem Bordelon sisters, Cally Bordelon. She still alive when war was over. Most dem suckheads, most dem witches, dey dead.”

“Would a priest today help you, join with you, to fight the vamps?” I asked.

Lucky snorted and finished off his beer, one that should be consumed slowly to appreciate all the goodness in the bottle. “Priest today not too interested in helping us no more. Turn he back, he did, when my Shauna marry . . .” He stopped.

“After Shauna married Gabe in the eyes of the Church.”

“Yeah.” Lucky picked up the bottle and dropped it with a
clink
on the table. “Dat priest sent away. New priest . . . hem witch hater, from new sect of priests. Call demselves Keepers of Truth. Got priests from all different orders and societies. Michaelites, what dey call dem Salesians.
Augustinians. Dominicans. And some dem Jesuits. Black Robe what they brung in, hem witch hater even more than local boys.

“What I'm gone do?” he asked me. “My Shauna. You see her. Black hair what she got from me, blue eyes from her mama. Beautiful like angel from day she born, my baby, she is.”

“But not acting like herself due to the hormones and the depression. The priest? We didn't see the local guy. Black Robe, that's a Jesuit scholar?” I glanced at Eli and received a scant nod. “They want the
corona
to be sent to Rome to be studied. Meaning destroyed.”

Lucky lifted his eyes from his beer bottle and said, distinctly, “No. Not to Rome. I throw it in de swamp for de gator to eat first.” I started to reply, but he spoke over me. “Dat Church in Rome hunt witches all through history. Torture them all. Burn them. Kill them. I a man of forgiveness, but they don't want no forgive. They still take war to my peoples.”

“I need to talk to Shauna. And to Margaud,” I said.

Lucky's tats blazed with his reaction. Anger flaming up his arms. Eli pressed a gun to his side and said, simply, “Don't.”

Lucky cursed in French and his English patois, but his heat faded quickly. He looked down at the muzzle over his kidney. “You really shoot me wid that gun?”

Eli didn't respond and Lucky raised his gaze to Eli's eyes. “All dis. Dis because I call you
boy
?”

“I'm a man of forgiveness,” Eli paraphrased Lucky's words, “but they don't want forgiveness. They still take war to my people.”

Lucky snorted, full-nosed and half in his throat. “You right. Troublemaker in my nature. I am ass, I is.” He stuck out his hand. “I ask you forgiveness. You accept? Then you put dat pop gun away?”

“Deal,” Eli said. They shook, and Eli put the gun away. I noticed the safety was still on, and he had never injected a round into the chamber.

“You got Margaud's contact info?” I asked.

“I do. And You can see my Shauna now. No mo' customer come in today, not wid all trouble. I close up shop and we go my house.” Lucky kicked his bench back and stood, disappearing into the back of the shop. “Leave all dat,” he said, pointing over the counter to the messy table and greasy paper and plastic products. “I clean it up when I get back.”

•   •   •

Lucky Landry's house was not what I was expecting. I hadn't been invited home on my last visit, but I had subconsciously created a vision of a redneck double-wide and cars on cement blocks in the yard. Maybe a toilet planted with petunias, positioned on the front porch. The white tidewater home with centipede lawn and tastefully planted flower beds was a shocker. I did manage to wipe my surprise off my face before I got out of the SUV.

Lucky parked his ancient blue pickup truck behind a half-shed carport, invisible from the road, and we all got out, Alex moving slowly as he gathered all his electronic equipment. Lucky led the way to the front door, speaking over his shoulder to us. “My wife, she make me park where my coonass huntin' truck can't be seen by de neighbors. Not for her, I be living in trash, I know.”

The front door opened and the woman standing there was, well, also not what I had expected. Blue eyes, nearly black hair with just the slightest hint of red when the sun hit it, petite and curvy and pretty. And not dressed like a country singer at Mardi Gras, all bling and fringe, but in suit pants, a fitted shirt, and a business jacket. Except for her height, which was far too short for a successful model, she could have walked out of a fashion catalog.