Raven Cursed

CHAPTER TEN I Sleep with Vamps for a Living

I did my business, aware that she did the same. I stopped at the mirror, undoing my hair and rebraiding it, waiting on her. Women wearing stockings or pantyhose took longer than women in jeans. The lighting claimed I needed some color. Lipstick. Blush. Mascara. Something. I braided my hair, watching her feet in the stall. If they spread and braced she might be pulling a weapon.

Adelaide flushed, opened the door—no weapon—and left the stall, meeting my eyes in the mirror; she washed her hands at the sink, standing beside me, still holding my gaze. She was amused, as if she had been betting with herself that I was watching for a gun. I couldn’t help it. I grinned back. She said, “You do yank their chains.”

“Sometimes,” I said.

“As often as possible,” she amended.

I gave a head shrug, a tilt of acceptance. “You wow them with your looks and charm, and keep them in their places panting after you. Looks and charm aren’t my strengths. I have to make do with moxie and muscle.” We still hadn’t met eyes directly, the mirror acting as intermediary. But this woman wanted something from me, and I hadn’t figured out what.

“You really have no idea how beautiful you are.” It was an incredulous statement, not a question, and she looked sad.

I snorted, not trying to be delicate. “I know exactly how beautiful I am. I’m not. I have good bone structure, but striking is the best I can do. Now, when I get all doodied up, and my pal Molly does my face, I do better than striking. But I’ll never be beautiful.”

“Mmm.” Adelaide pulled towels and dried her hands. “They all stared at your backside when you left the table.”

“I have a nice butt. Great legs. No class.”

“You chose to display little class,” she amended again.

I leaned my weight on both hands, against the counter, still holding her eyes in the mirror. I let a bit of snarl enter my voice. “Are you trying to be my best pal?”

“You aren’t making it easy,” she said, exasperated. She leaned in as well, her posture copying mine. “Do you know how difficult it is to find a friend who is as tall as I am? Who doesn’t make me feel like a lumbering giant? Who might understand the life of a blood-servant? Who isn’t chasing after me to get close to my mother?” The last was said with a soft undertone of old anguish.

My face fell. Crap. She was serious. After a long, silent moment, I said, “Yeah. To the tall part.” I studied her cornflower blue eyes. They were earnest, a hard emotion to fake. “So . . . you really are trying to be my friend?”

“And I have no idea why I’ve bothered. You are a pain in the ass.”

I laughed. She didn’t. I stepped away from the mirror and looked at her. She stepped back and met my gaze. “Okay,” I said.

“Okay? Okay what?”

“Yeah. Okay. Let’s be friends.”

An expression I’d never have expected flashed across her face. Delight. Which was just weird. Weird that someone wanted to be my friend. And not because I was famous—sorta—or different, or killed vamps for a living. But because I was tall. And because I understood.

Even Molly had become my best pal because I’d intervened between her and a pack of witch-haters way back when. Adelaide wanted to be my friend because she was tall. And lonely. And that I understood totally. I let one corner of my mouth curl back up. “You do know that I’ll never love dressing up like a girl. We’ll never go shopping or to the spa for facials and pedicures. We’ll never have anything in common.”

“Except height and similar awareness of life-with-vamp,” she said.

“Yeah.” I put out my hand, knowing that this part might ruin the possibility of friendship between us. “Jane Yellowrock. I kill vamps for a living.”

She took my hand. “Adelaide Mooney. I sleep with vamps for a living.”

Which shot ice water through my veins. I clasped her hand tighter, electricity zigzagging through me, chilling my skin. Her palm was soft and delicate, her fingers long and slender but powerful, holding mine. “You don’t have to,” I said softly.

“Neither do you.”

I felt the grin pull across my face. “I don’t want to like you. But I do.”

“Good. BFFs. For real.”

No one said BFFs anymore, but she was eighty years old. It was hard for the older servants to keep up with current jargon. “Okay. Deal.” And honest to God, she teared up, her bluish-lavender eyes swimming. “If you cry every time we agree on something,” I growled, “it’s going to be annoying.”

“No, it’s not,” she said. “We aren’t going to agree on much.”

I laughed, her tinkling laughter skipping across mine like stones on a lake. “There is that,” I said.

Slowly she let go of my hand. “Thank you.”

“Likewise. Now. I gotta get outta here. I need to make an appointment and then get a couple hours of shut-eye, and then I have to hunt werewolves.”

“Sounds like fun.” She produced a card like a prestidigitator. “My transportation service. Tell them I sent you. Set up an account with them and they’ll be at your disposal. But just so you know, they’ll tell me every location where they pick you up and where they take you. So if it’s a secret, don’t use them.”

I took the card. “I like you. And I feel like that’s a huge mistake.”

“Ditto,” she said. “Be safe.” Adelaide left the ladies room while I dialed the number on the card and ordered a ride. Back in the dining room, I finished my pork and then walked out. I had places to be and wolves to track.

Adelaide’s service turned out to be a chartered driver company, like an upscale taxi service, but run on retainer. I didn’t expect to need it, but who knew? Back at the hotel, crime scene tape had been plastered all over my door. I paused for a moment before entering, shoving the damaged door open, ducking under the tape. A patch of bloody carpet had been removed. The room had been vacuumed by CSI techs. The linens were gone. And my things were no longer in my room. No clothes. No guns on the coffee table. I went to the closet and reached into the back corner, my fingers finding the box with the obfuscation spell on it. I pulled it forward and tucked it under my arm. The contents shifted slightly with the action, a deadened, hollow sound.

“Your belongings and weapons are in our suite.” I turned to see Brian standing behind me, yellow tape between us. I hadn’t heard him, the carpet in the hotel deep enough to muffle his footsteps. He was wearing slacks and a starched white shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, a tan holster over it. His feet were bare, which was endearing in an odd sort of way. “All except the weapon you shot the man with,” he continued. “The cops have it and I rather doubt you’ll get it back. Ever.” He fell silent, waiting for me to process what he’d said. The cops weren’t giving my gun back. Cops don’t give weapons back when the victim of a shooting dies. But they had let me go so . . . the man I’d shot had only recently passed on. Kicked the bucket. Died.

Slowly, like a wrecking ball falling, I realized what had happened. I’d killed a human. A thinking, breathing being with a soul. Not a rogue-vamp killing machine. Not a rabid were. I’d ripped him out of existence. And for hours I hadn’t thought about him. Not once. A cold mist of shock billowed slowly through me, expanding, filling me with the icy reality. I looked away from Brian, wondering why I hadn’t thought about the man I had killed until now. Wondered why I hadn’t considered the possibility that I’d killed him. I’d thought him only wounded, and blood-servants don’t kill easy. I killed a human being. I wrapped my arms around me, the box pressing into my side, staring at the bare patch of floor. There was a faint stain of blood on it. I could still smell the stink of gunfire. I killed a human being.

As if he knew what I was feeling, Brian said, “The lead investigator said the guy had no ID on him. Prints came back as a made man out of New York. He disappeared off the law enforcement radar two years ago, possibly going to work as a contract killer for a renegade Mithran.” When I didn’t reply, he said, “Two hits have been laid at his door in the last sixty days, one in New Orleans.” Which meant he had long arms, whoever the vamp master was.

I looked up to see that Brian was wavering. And then I realized my eyes were full of tears. When I managed a breath, the air moving down my throat ached. He continued. “He came in through our room. If we hadn’t both been in Grégoire’s suite you would have been safe.”

“And you might have been”—I swallowed through the tight pain in my throat—“dead.” I moved toward him and ducked beneath the yellow tape, closing the door after me. We stood in the hallway, close enough to smell his aftershave. “So, I’m bunking with you guys?”

He hesitated, and I could almost see the possible responses move through him, one sarcastic, one innuendo, one that was simply kind. “Our suite has three bedrooms. The hotel opened the third at no charge.” He pulled a card key from a pocket and said, “Leo has ordered a replacement for your Walther. It’ll be here in the morning.” He had settled on a response a friend might use.

A tear fell and I caught it with a quick dash of my hand. I nodded, took the key, followed him into the suite beside mine. It was decorated in warm grays, cool browns, and dull creams. Soothing colors. I went to my room, a predominately gray room with a silky gray comforter and charcoal pillows, and I shut the door, leaning my back against it. I wiped my eyes. I never used to cry. Never. But then, I never used to have friends. I never used to put them in danger. I never used to kill humans. My life was changing and it was all pretty much sucky.

I took a breath and forced calm into me. The room was tiny, less than half the square footage of the adjoining, bloody suite, but my clothes were in the closet, my weapons on the bureau, neatly laid out, which made me smile through the tears, and my toiletries were in the bath, seen through the open door. I pushed from my perch and stripped, moving through the room, dropping clothes where they landed. I stepped under the shower, the scalding water pelting me. And the tears started again. I was changing and didn’t like who I was becoming. I’d never get clean.

How had I killed man and not even spared him a thought? How could I have eaten a full meal, joked and chatted and made a BFF, and not thought once about the man I’d shot. And killed. When the crying jag ended, I dried off and crawled under the covers, dry eyes burning. Beast padded through my thoughts, her gaze golden and steady, her paws silent, weighted, her breath a susurration, almost a purr. Sleep claimed me. Beast’s claws milked my soul.

I woke at six p.m. and lay on the bed, staring at the shadowed ceiling. My own scent had filled the room as I slept, the smells no longer alien. I was calm. Rational. Not grieving over the part of me I’d lost. A killer, the blood-servant of an unknown vamp, had come into my room. His death didn’t make the danger go away. If he had been targeting me, then I was attracting dangers that might hurt the vamps, making me a liability to the job. If the man had been after the vamps, then the unknown vamp master would plan better next time, would send better quality killers. Either way, grief and guilt were wasted and stupid. I put them away.

The most important and overriding factor was that he’d gotten past security. I’d been sloppy or it was an inside job—someone I trusted had let him in. I needed to tighten security, switch around weapons, methodologies, timing, and personnel. Keep more people on duty, make the guys pull twelve-hour shifts.

I crawled from the mattress and dressed, putting on a black skirt that fell to my shins, a tank with a tight vest, lightweight jacket, and dress boots. Into my boot holster went the six-round Kahr P380 and in the other went a sheathed knife with a ten-inch silvered blade and a deep groove—a vamp-killer, which would work equally well against wolves. I rebraided my hair and wrapped it into a bun, tight against my nape, giving my face a severe, harsh angularity. I selected a tube of lipstick at random—they were all shades of red—and smeared it on.

Last, I pulled the box of fetishes from the closet, opened it, and studied the necklaces inside. A skinwalker’s fetish necklaces are made of bones, teeth, beaks, talons, and feathers, each necklace strung with parts from one species. Skinwalkers can shift into most any land mammal or bird, providing we have access to a sufficient quantity of DNA, the coiled helix of genetic sequences specific to each species, each creature, and providing that the mass exchange is close. I’d never tried to shift into a fish, reptile, or sea mammal as Rick had asked, but that might be possible too, I didn’t know. Walkers can also shift into smaller creatures, if we’re willing to lose part of ourselves, depositing mass to be regained when we return to human-normal. Shifting into larger creatures requires taking mass from something with no genetic material and adding it to the shifting process. All mass transfers are dangerous, and I prefer not to attempt them, fearing I might lose too much of myself shifting into a smaller creature, forfeiting memories, abilities, even part of my body. Fearing I might not be able to throw off mass gained after shifting into a larger creature, ending up with an extra hundred pounds of me. So, most of my fetishes were mammalian—predators or omnivores—that massed about one hundred twenty-five pounds.

I studied the fetishes, thinking, undecided. For once Beast had no comment to make, hunched deep in my consciousness, silent, watchful. If I hunted as Beast, scent-tracking would be working against her natural abilities. Puma concolors—mountain lions—are sight trackers, ambush hunters, and I needed something better suited to scent-tracking. Like the bloodhound I had tried once. Excellent nose. But a bloodhound could get so involved with a scent it would forget to eat, drink, or change back before dawn. And no bloodhound had the weapons to fight werewolves if I got lucky and found them. I set the mountain lion fetish in the bag and replaced the box. I unzipped my go-bag, checking clothes, throwaway cell phone, and cash. I picked up my Bible. It felt foreign in my hands. The gun in my boot did not. Something was seriously wrong with my life for that to be so, but I could think about that later. After this job was done.

I called for the valet to refuel and bring around the car I had used last night and then stepped from my tiny bedroom. I stopped and placed a hand on one hip. A chair had been dragged from a seating arrangement and now blocked the exit. One of the twins was sitting in it, dress shirtsleeves rolled up, pants with a razor crease. There was no mole at his hairline, IDing him as Brian. His arms were on the chair arms, one ankle on the other knee, facing my door. Blocking my way out. And one hand held a trank gun.

My thoughts went into overdrive. I hadn’t brought any tranks on this job. Tranquilizers were Derek’s specialty. Seems like my right-hand man had been thinking on his own, and Grégoire’s two right hands had been sharing his equipment. I didn’t know how my metabolism would react to a tranquilizer. I’d never dosed myself. Some things I hadn’t thought I’d need to know. And so far, neither of the twins knew about me being a skinwalker. He hadn’t fired. Yet. I smiled, showing teeth, not trying for sweet. Moving slowly, not taking my eyes from the twin, I set my go-bag and Bible on the surface nearest. A bureau by the height. “Brian. You got something to say? Or do you want to fight me, ’cause it’ll come to a fight if you think I’m staying in tonight.”

“I know you’re not staying in. I don’t intend to fight you. I just want to make sure you listen to me.” His New Orleans accent dropped in, thick as warm honey, the words slow, the emphasis wrong, like the way a Southern gentleman might have spoken a hundred years ago. Polite, despite being implacable.

“I’ll listen better without the trank gun.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Today you killed a man.”

My flinch was internal. It didn’t show. “And?”

His words took on the lilt of that same old Southern man telling a story. “I killed my first man when I turned forty. A priest and two of his laymen came after Grégoire with a stake and holy water and a necklace of garlic; with kerosene and a pistol for me. It was Brandon’s day of rest, and at the time we kept only one blood-servant with him. There hadn’t been trouble for decades. We had become lazy.” He gestured with the trank gun. “Complacent.

“I was alone in the lair, when the priest cantered up on his piebald mare, the laymen, horsed, at his sides. The house was small, on a bluff overlooking a bayou. It had a hidden room under the floor, the tunnel entrance concealed by a rug. Grégoire’s lair.”

He shrugged slightly. “Some Mithrans sleep all day. Some don’t. Back then, Grégoire slept deeply by day. And the priest, he seemed to know that, he did. Seemed to know where Grégoire would be. To know my master would have only one blood-servant to defend him. I don’t know if one of the blood-slaves had told the priest, or perhaps the church tortured it out of someone. But the priest, he had no qualms, not one. He had come to kill a devil and a devil worshipper.”

I looked away. Tension I hadn’t known I was carrying seeped out of my shoulders. I blew out a breath and took the nearest seat, a corner of the couch. I sat with my elbows on my knees, my hands close to the boot holster. If Brian tranked me, I’d shoot him before I went under. If I went under. But I wanted to hear this.

When I was settled, he went on. “The laymen splashed kerosene over the front porch and walls. I panicked. Killing humans is against Mithran law, and against Grégoire’s personal edict. But I had to protect him. I stood beside a table, facing the door, three pistols and a sword at my side, and waited, sweating like the house was already on fire, my heart a thunder in my chest. The priest threw open the door and strode inside.

“I don’t know if they got their signals wrong, or it might have been an innocent mistake, but the laymen struck their match too soon. Flames billowed up. The priest fired. I fired. He missed; I didn’t. He fell, with flames leaping behind him. He wasn’t dead. He crawled for the door, screaming for help. But the house, it was old, the wood like dry tinder. I pulled up the iron trapdoor and crawled through the small opening, onto Grégoire. I curled there, as the heat rose, and the roof crashed down and the priest, screaming, burned to death.”

I said nothing, knowing now that he didn’t intend to kill or trank me. Knowing that this was a form of intervention, an act of compassion. Some confessions are just that—acts of kindness.

“I might have disarmed him, dragged him down with me. I might have forced him to drink of Grégoire’s blood and heal him. But I saved myself and let him burn. And, even now, I hear his screams when I wake in the night. Hear and know that I did nothing to save him. He had been sent to kill me and to kill my master. And so I shot him and left him to die.

“What you did today was self-defense. That man’s death might provide short-term protection for my brother, my master, and me. And so I thank you for the sacrifice of a small piece of your soul.” I started, hearing words on his lips I’d thought myself, hours earlier. “If you are willing to take the advice of an old, old man, then do your penance, and live—with the memory of your own evil.”

I lifted my Bible. “Is there any penance for the death of another?”

“Abel died.” His New Orleans accent faded away, his voice now pitiless. “Cain was marked with the mark of the Beast and exiled. But he lived. I confessed to my own priest, who gave me harsh penance, and then he left the country never to return. Mithrans and their crimes were more than a man of God could bear. It took twenty-five years to work off my penance. In the twenty-five years, I found freedom and peace. And you will find peace as well, if you choose it.”

Mark of the Beast. Yeah, I know that one. “I’m not Catholic.”

Brian smiled then and shook his head. “No. You are a little goddess.”

I stood and gathered up my things. “I’m not a goddess. Can I go now?” Brian stood and pulled the chair out of the way. I left the suite.

I drove to a little church I had found—a wooden, white painted, two-hundred-year-old building on a crossroads, tucked into the side of a hill. The steeple rose against a backdrop of dying hemlocks, pointing to heaven where the sun set, a golden, rosy glow. Boulders the size of small houses rose up in the grassy yard all around, one behemoth half as tall as the church itself. The land was unsuitable for farming, but made a good site for a church and, if gifted to a congregation, would be a contribution to be remembered. It wasn’t the church I had once attended when I lived here, but a new one, where no one knew me, which said something about who I was now, something that I didn’t want to look at too closely. It was the same denomination that I’d attended in New Orleans, though they eschewed the word denomination. This one was called simply Church of Christ, and they were having a revival-type service all week long.

I was early, only one truck parked in the lot, the front doors wide to air out the day’s heat, half the lights on, but the sanctuary empty. I went in and took a seat in the semidarkness, sliding to my knees on the old, wide-plank floor. It had been a long time since I had prayed. And I didn’t know what to say to God. I settled on confession, beginning with the whispered words, “Today I killed a man. His death was sudden. I didn’t give him time before death to confess. To seek you.” Tears started to fall, hot and searing. “I killed a man,” I whispered, the words like the breath of hell in my mouth. “I didn’t really mean to kill him. But all I can see is his body fall. And fall. And fall. Like so many vamps and weres. And I have to wonder if they were all as precious to you as a human is. I have to wonder if the blood of murder rests on my soul.”