Raven Cursed

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Butchery Disguised as Surgery

Hope shot through me like buckshot, burning and hot. Big Evan looked at me, frowning. I had saved Molly’s life, maybe the lives of the whole family and coven, but it wasn’t enough to make him like me, not after losing the blood-diamond to Evil Evie. He was here because, otherwise, Molly would come. Evan would never again let his wife go into danger with me, which is why I’d sent my request to him, not his wife.

Rick screamed again, the sound ululating, his limbs twisting and stomach muscles rippling. He panted through it, repeating, “Please, please, please, please,” begging for help, for surcease from pain. Big Evan’s face softened and his lips tightened, as if he were fighting with himself, unwilling compassion against anger and flint-hard judgment. The witch pursed his lips and said something under his breath. But he went to work.

He took two cases from the twins and shouldered the men out of the way. He knelt at Rick’s side and opened them on the ground, revealing wind instruments, which he studied carefully. Big Evan lifted a wooden flute out of one case, sat on the ground near Rick, and started to play. He was an air witch, his power traveling through air as sound. The mellow notes filled the clearing, magic in the melody. Instantly, Rick’s spasms eased. He curled into a fetal position, gasping. Moments later, Rick relaxed into a limp mass.

One twin opened out a fleece blanket and covered Rick. Another twin placed more deadwood on the fire, which crackled and sent sparks high into the air. Evan played on.

At the melody, even Kemnebi relaxed, the were-cat staring at me, hatred on his face. I grinned at him, tapping my gun with a forefinger as a reminder.

The twins opened chairs for themselves and their master, and produced a picnic and several bottles of wine, as if they had come for a show. Not that I could complain. They had gotten me here, and then picked up Big Evan. Maybe even convinced him to come.

Grégoire passed me a glass of wine. Confused, I took it and followed his pointing finger to Rick. Ah. Not for me. I held the delicate, crystal wineglass to his lips. Rick drank, sighed again, and closed his eyes. The night passed slowly after that. I left Rick’s side only to relieve myself deep in the woods and—because I was feeling guilty—to cut the round out of Kemnebi’s knee. I had aimed just above the joint, and was able to palpate the flattened round easily. It had formed a pustule on the inner side of his thigh, which made the butchery disguised as surgery easy. I used steel instead of a silvered blade to cut him—I was feeling magnanimous. Kem screamed long and loud, drawing out the note, the sound half cat, half human, and if the sign of his pain gave me pleasure, I kept it off my face. For the first time in my life, I felt entirely inhuman. And yet Beast was gone. I was totally alone.

I tucked the bloody silver round in my pocket and removed the silver cuff. Under the force of the full moon, Kem shifted instantly, gray energies playing over his form as he sprouted black fur. His bones snapped like dry sticks and reformed as his body shifted, able to heal the silver poisoning now that the round was gone. I clicked the cuff around his back leg the moment he was fully cat and before he could gather himself to bound away. The were-cat was not getting out of my sight. He wasn’t hunting either. He’d go hungry. I leaped away.

Golden-green eyes stared at me across the dark. Kem-cat growled, showing his teeth, promising my death. “Get in line,” I said, turning away from him. I took Rick’s hand again, his flesh

Evan’s large fingers were strangely delicate on the flute, moving with a syncopated, almost disorganized beat, but one that was organic and melting, with his lips relaxed on the mouthpiece. The music continued with only short breaks for Evan to drink and rest, the tones low and melting, limpid and crystalline and somber. After long hours, when dawn was near, I felt the magic of the notes change, smelled them shift into something tart and spicy. No longer a calming sound, the mournful melody altered and sped, and I realized that Big Evan was attempting something beyond simply stopping Rick’s pain. His eyes were on the mound beneath the blanket, and Rick rolled over, focusing on Evan. The two men held gazes as if they were newly met combatants assessing one another’s strengths and weaknesses.

Rick sat up, the blanket falling away to bunch in his lap. His chest and arm muscles were harshly defined in the shadows; his black hair had dried in the passing hours, standing stiff; his beard had grown out, rough and scruffy. And he was still the most beautiful man I had ever met. He pulled his hand from mine and my palm felt the chill, deprived of his heat.

The music stopped. Evan set the flute in his lap and said, “I think I’ve got a handle on the spell woven into your skin. I may have figured out how to craft a counter-spell melody for it. It won’t stop the pain or the moon-call, but it might keep both to manageable levels. If it works, I can make a CD and you can load it in a player and keep it with you. You’ll have to play it all night during full moons.”

“And if it doesn’t work?” Rick asked, his voice raspy from screaming.

“You might go insane tomorrow night.”

Rick chuckled, the sound conveying anger and self-loathing and resignation. “Well, what’s not to like in that scenario? Go for it,” he said. I lifted a hand to stop him, but Big Evan put the flute to his lips and began to play. The notes were haunting and trilling, rising and falling through the scales, part gypsy, part western Indian—Hopi maybe—part tribal African, part Middle Eastern. Rick’s eyes started to glow, a pale amber light. The notes warbled. Rick growled. A bi

Chill bumps rose along my legs and arms. Rick looked at me and pulled his lips back, exposing human teeth, but the gesture was pure cat. His eyes glowed golden, the gold orbs on his shoulder grew bright. The music dropped low, and the growl tapered off, disappearing entirely. Rick’s eyes returned to his Frenchy-black.

The magic of the song danced along my skin like the fingers of a lover, the touch featherlight, delicate as falling rose petals, but electric and full of power. Somewhere deep inside me, I felt movement, the faint click of claws on stone. An uneasy sound. I eased away from Rick. The song played on, but I didn’t feel Beast again.

An hour later, the melody came to a close and Rick smiled at Big Evan. Both men looked exhausted and drowsy and oddly content. “Thank you,” Rick breathed.

“Don’t thank me,” Evan said. “Thank your fanghead here. He offered me a year’s wages if I found a counter-spell for your tats. My kids now have a college fund.”

I turned my head slowly and found Grégoire’s eyes on me. His blue gaze held the memory of my healing. Memory of the time in bed with me. Memory of . . . His lips curled up, his boyish face transforming into something like pure joy. Oh. Crap. “I can’t be bought,” I said steadily, challenging.

“I did not think that you could, mon coeur.”

Rick looked back and forth between us. “Did I miss something?” I didn’t answer.

“It is nearly sunrise,” Grégoire said, his eyes on me still.

The twins started packing up their cases, Big Evan lumbered to his feet, all the grace in his melody and his fingers gone. Grégoire, lounging in his chair, still watched me, I could feel his gaze though I kept my eyes on Rick’s catlike beauty. “I’ll help you get dressed.”

I walked Rick through the dark to the tent site in the campground, Kem at my side, stalking on the leash. The cat tried to scratch me once and to get away twice, but the leash and the rattling of his silver cuff was enough to ensure good behavior. He might be near the top of the food chain in Africa, but in a lot of ways, he was more human than I was. Tonight had proven that to both of us.

At the campsite, I spotted the white wolf in his cage. I’d forgotten all about Fire Truck, and wondered if he had been the dog I’d heard howling. I jerked the lead on Kem-cat; the were turned slit eyes to me and hissed, I mimed shooting him and blew on the tip of my finger, to remind him who was in control. He sat down with a huff and started to groom his front paws. I hugged Rick to me, feeling the weariness in his body, a fine tremor thrumming though him. “Eat. Drink a lot of water.” I gave him the gun loaded with silvershot. “Shoot Kem-cat if he tries to eat you.” The cat ignored us both, which I thought was a good sign. “I’ll check on you tonight.”

“I’ll record the spell-song and send it to you later this morning.” I jerked around to see Big Evan standing in the moonlight behind me. I hadn’t heard him follow us. Hadn’t heard him at all. My surprise seemed to amuse him, or maybe he just wanted me to see his pearly whites. “Come on Yellowrock. The fanghead and his dinners are waiting for us.”

Silent, I hugged Rick and followed Big Evan up and down the trail—mostly up—to the new landing site. We made the bone rattling, noisy ride to Big Evan’s front yard where we touched down only long enough for him to jump free and lumber to his house. Molly and Angelina stood in the doorway, and I could make out Angie Baby’s lips move in the porch light. “I wanna ride in the helicopter with Aunt Jane!” I waved as we lifted off, hand against the smoked glass. I made it to my bed, alone, after dawn, and fell asleep, fully clothed, so tired my bones ached.

I woke an hour after sunset to the buzzing of my phone. It had been going off for quite a while, if the number of messages was anything to go by. Molly had called, so had Bruiser, Rick, Derek, and others. Shaddock’s blood-servant and lawyer Adelaide Mooney had left several messages and one succinct text: CALL ME.

Though business concerns were pending, I called Molly back first, asking about Evangelina.

“We’ve been trying to track her,” Mol said, her voice sounding tired and wan. “She’s got something hiding her, a spell or the blood-diamond. We don’t know. But we’re pulling out all the stops after the sun goes down. We’ll set a circle under the full moon and try to track her that way.”

“I’m sorry, Molly,” I said.

“Not your fault, Big-Cat. Not your fault at all.”

Uncomfortable, I floundered for a less painful topic and asked, “Did a check get delivered today?”

Mol chuckled, sounding relieved. “Yeah. A cashier’s check by way of a messenger service. And Big Evan told me you were responsible for it. Thank you.”

A half smile played over my mouth, and my mood lightened. “He gave me credit for something good? That’s a first.”

She laughed softly, “Yeah. It is. He’s been in his man-cave over the new garage all day, working on a music spell for Rick, working out specific notes, recording it, while my sisters and I work on finding Evangelina. Hmm?” she said, drawing her mouth from the phone. “Gotta go, Jane. We might have something.”

“Call me when you need me. I’ll be there when you corner her.”

“Thanks, Big-Cat. But this isn’t your fight.”

“Evangelina made it mine, Mol. Call.”

“Okay. Later, then.” The phone went dead.

Holding the cell, I called out in my mind, Beast? Talk to me. I had heard her claws, seen one of her memories, but for now there was only the echoing silence of caverns and darkness. Grief welled up in me, flowing out from the emptiness. I crushed it down. I had work to do.

I pulled up the dossier on Evangelina and started dialing every number associated with her, hoping to hit pay dirt: cell, home, café, herb shop. She never answered, but I left the same lying message at each. “Evangelina Everhart Stone. Leo is in Asheville tonight, for one night only, staying at the Regal Imperial Hotel. You want him, you come get him.” I figured she would take a few hours to get in place and come after the head-fanghead bait, and when she did, I’d be ready. Leo was expected to be here in three nights anyway, via his private Learjet, to finalize the parley. Of course, it hadn’t been negotiated yet, which, in Leo’s eyes, would be my fault.

I bit the bullet and called Derek back next. Before he could get in an opening salvo, I said, “Meet me in the lobby in thirty. We need to talk.” I ended the call. Way to go Jane. Rick was next on my list and I got his voice mail. Disappointment cascaded through me, but I left a message. “I’m up. Call, okay?” My next call was to Bruiser.

“Jane,” he said, sounding far less warm than usual. “Leo understands that you allowed Grégoire to take a flight before sunset. That you allowed him to sit in the woods with no perimeter defense and only two bodyguards. And that he got back to the hotel after sunrise.”

“Yep,” I said. “He had a ball. And if Leo had wanted me to tackle Grégoire and tie him up in his hotel room, he should have phrased our contract accordingly. Anything else? No?” I ended the call, feeling satisfied and a lot snarky. I had just silenced the primo blood-servant of the alpha suckhead of the Southeastern U.S. Go me.

My phone rang again and Bruiser preempted me by saying, “We are in Asheville, in the Evening Light Penthouse Suite of the Regal Imperial Hotel. My master was deeply disturbed over your call last night and the fact that you and his scion disappeared on personal business. You will attend Leo at sunset.” His call ended.

Leo was here? Crap! It would have been nice to know that before I used him as bait for Evangelina. Like sixty seconds ago. It was a little late to call Evil Evie back and tell her not to come. I rubbed my face. So much for my little game of one-upmanship. My personal business had sent Leo chasing me all the way from New Orleans, only to be put into danger by me.

I sent Derek a text about Leo and warned him to be on the lookout for Evangelina—extra guards out front, loaded with antiriot gear, in Alpha One position. He’d have a cow, unless he already knew about Leo being in town.

Lastly, I dialed Adelaide Mooney while I stripped out of my dirty, sweaty, mismatched, wrinkled clothes. Her dulcet tones identified herself and I said, “Jane Yellowrock here. Have you heard from Lincoln Shaddock yet?”

“Yes, Jane, we have. It seems he’s with the witch.”

The vamp had disappeared with Evangelina, who had the blood-diamond again. She had the power to make him jump to her demands. She also had access to the demon. And she would be after killing Leo. “Leo is in town.”

“Here?” Her voice was filled with alarm. “But the agreements aren’t fin—”

“They’re screwed to heck and back, Adelaide. The best-case scenario is strictly salvage. If I can get Lincoln back safely, you can bargain for more time. Ask for an extra decade based on Lincoln’s great record with his chained scions.”

“And worst-case scenario?”

“I’ll find Evangelina and have to stake your boss.”

I heard a click and another voice came over the cell, spitting mad. “If you kill my master, I’ll cut off your head and feed it to my dogs.” It was Dacy, Adelaide’s mother. The cell call went dead. I needed to find Lincoln Shaddock and Evangelina before dark.

Anger and adrenaline beating through me with every heartbeat, I threw myself into the shower, dressed, slid in a few knives, holstered the pretty handguns, and headed for the lobby, only ten minutes late. As I took the stairs down, I dialed Reach and told him what additional info I needed and all the people I needed it on. At this rate, Leo was gonna make him rich.

Derek was standing at parade rest in a shadowed alcove off the lobby. I drew even with him and stopped, my brows raised in question. He floundered a moment, and then asked, “You ever gonna tell me what you are, Injun Princess?”

“What difference does it make. My money spends as good as the fangheads.”

“Maybe the suckheads are easier to work with because I know what they are. They aren’t hiding anything.”

“Yeah. They’re so transparent. And easy to understand. And gentle. And peace-loving.”

Derek snorted, ironic amusement flashing across his dark-skinned face, to vanish like a shadow. “Trust is a two-way street, Legs.”

Not that I let it show, but warmth filtered through my veins. He hadn’t called me by any of my nicknames recently, and he’d used two in the space of seconds. He wanted equality, did he? “I’ll tell you all my dirty little secrets if you tell me all yours. Starting with what you did for Uncle Sam in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“I signed a nondisclosure statement upheld by Homeland Security.”

“And I have honor.”

Derek considered that. After a long moment, he held out a hand, as if asking for rapprochement. I took it and we shook, once, firmly. He chuckled softly, the sound purrlike. At the thought, hurt shot through me, a pain I squashed. Beast wasn’t gone. She couldn’t be. The remembered, faint sound of her claws on stone gave me hope.

“Honor, huh?” When I didn’t reply, he straightened his shirt and started to speak, but looked instead over my shoulder. I stepped to his side so I could see. The elevator dinged. The scent of human and vamp cascaded into the lobby. The twins. Bruiser. Grégoire. And Leo.

I checked the position of the security crew, the night blacking the front windows, and asked, “The boys?”

“Assembling in riot gear and moving to Alpha One. We need another five minutes.”

Which meant we needed a delaying tactic. I stepped to the elevator doors and said, “Leo.”

He held out his hand to shake mine, and though I didn’t want to tie up my right hand when I was on the job, it wasn’t something I could get out of without being embarrassingly rude. I tapped the mike and said, “Derek, you’re on.”

“I have command,” he said into my earpiece.

Ignoring the fact that there had been an uncomfortable space between the hand being offered and taken, I took Leo’s. “It has been brought to my attention,” he said, “that I needlessly contributed to your difficulties on this parley, my Enforcer.”

Oh crap. Enforcer. I had to deal with that, still. “Ummm, hunh?” I asked. I could have kicked myself for that scintillating comeback.

“When I banished Evangelina from my city, I did not know she had spelled my primo, George, and perhaps even me.” Having nothing to say to that, I glanced at Bruiser, the aforementioned primo. When I didn’t reply, Leo’s lips quirked and he released my hand. “That was an apology, Jane

Realization dawned. “Oh! Yeah, sure. Um, thanks. No problem.” I glanced at Bruiser again. He was laughing at me silently. Great. I’d acted the socially inept idiot I really was.

To my side, at the front of the hotel, pink light poured through the night-black windows. It was Evangelina, responding to my lure of Leo, who was not supposed to be here yet. “Crap! Weapons!” I shouted. Knowing Derek would get the vamps under cover, I raced to the front doors, throwing myself to the side and peering out. Evangelina stood in the circular drive in the open door of her sports car, the convertible top down, and behind the antivamp protestors. Over them a huge, misty, black bird flapped its wings. The protestors moved forward, a man out front, leading. They each held small pots and splashed something on the drive with every step.

In the backseat of her convertible sat Lincoln Shaddock and a slumped form I couldn’t identify. I wasn’t sure if either of them was alive.

“Freaking dang Murphy and his freaking dang laws,” I muttered, possible scenarios racing through my mind. “Brandon! Brian!” I shouted. “We got a Delta seven! Wrassler! I need my Benelli!” I needed the firepower of the shotgun, back in my room. I drew my puny .380 and checked the load.