Broken Soul: A Jane Yellowrock Novel (18 page)

I nodded. I knew that.

“‘. . . and the Mohammedan troubles, the
magickal
must be sought out with a firm and thorough hand. Our dealings with them must be meticulous to reduce their numbers comprehensively and quickly.’”

“That’s horrible,” I said. “That sounds like genocide.”

“It was exactly like genocide. Religion as a political entity is always horrible,” Bruiser said, his tone final.

“But—” I stopped. My religion wasn’t supposed to be horrible. It was supposed to be based on love and generosity and forgiveness. But history had always suggested otherwise. And my other spirituality, the Cherokee, had a bloody and violent historical aspect that made the old pope’s comments seem conventional. How was I supposed to look at the mores of history and compare them to today’s violence and judgment? Current events suggested that humanity was no better today than it had ever been, that we had learned nothing. And my own job description suggested just the same. Vampire hunter. Vampire killer. My throat clogged on the implications, I said, “Go on.”

“That’s all. The rest of the pages in this folder appear to be from the same era and written by the same hand. Politics. Purchases of land. Taking of property and holdings from the people ‘disappeared’ by the Church.”

He shifted through the papers, pausing to read here and there. I refreshed his coffee, feeling disturbed for lots of reasons. He closed the file and stood, returning it to the box, his fingers moving through the pages and files. He reached deeper in and pulled out a very old book. “Ah, this is what you’ve been hoping for, I think.
Treatise of the Magikal
.” Bruiser opened the book and paged through the front; looked at me from under his eyebrows. “Shall we take this to the other room?”

“Yeah. Okay.” I started him a fresh cup and followed him to the living room. Overhead, I heard stirring, as Alex got up for the day and went to the bathroom. Soon he would bring me info on Satan’s Three, and my quiet time would be over. And I’d go back to being what I was and doing what I did. Bruiser sat on the couch, and after a moment, I curled up on the other end.

“This book is from the seventeen hundreds, printed in Germany. My familiarity with the tongue is limited, so I’ll read, translate, and then summarize it for you.”

“How do you know all this stuff? Languages and all. I mean, I know you’re old, but—” I stopped myself. “I mean you’re not
old
old, but you’re . . . just . . .”

“Old?” he asked, that same warm laughter in his tone. I shrugged uncomfortably, and he asked, “How old are you, Jane?”

I jerked my eyes from my tea mug to his face. Chills snaked along my limbs, any remaining warmth from our kiss chased away by the question.

“Are you as old as I? I was born in nineteen hundred and three.” His eyes were crinkled slightly as he watched me struggle with the question. “Until we emigrated to the colonies, I had a classical education, learning Latin, Greek, French, mathematics, philosophy, and history. Once I entered Leo’s household, I was tutored by a variety of Mithrans in numerous subjects. I like languages, their histories and mutability, the cultures they reference and revive from the ashes of time.”

“I don’t know,” I blurted. A weight lifted from my shoulders when he didn’t react. “Found in the woods when I was twelvish. No memories. Raised by wolves. All that nonsense. It made the papers.”

Mate to know all of I/we,
Beast thought at me.

Bruiser raised his eyebrows politely, asking silently for more. For no reason I understood, I answered. “I was about five on the Trail of Tears.”

“The
nunahi-duna-dlo-hilu-i
,” Bruiser said softly, his voice holding no nuance at all.

Shock that he pronounced it perfectly went through me and my heart rate sped. “Yes.”

“The trail lasted from 1831 to 1838, and involved many tribes in the eastern part of the States. The Cherokees were the last tribe moved. Forcefully. Brutally. So you might have been born anytime from eighteen thirty to eighteen thirty-three.”

He didn’t look like he was about to freak out so I nodded once, a jerk of my head.

“You’re robbing the cradle, then,” he said. Humor filled his face. “You’re a cougar.”

Laughter burbled out of me, part of it relieved nerves, the other part surprise at the play on words. “I’m not that kind of cougar,” I said, my tone lofty. Unthinking, I added, “I haven’t slept with you yet.” A hot blush followed the shock through me like lightning when I heard that last word come out of my mouth.

“No. Not yet,” he agreed, but his words were no longer smooth, or amused. He sounded something else, something heated and waiting. Bruiser returned his eyes to the old book and started reading, his eyes going back and forth across the page.

I managed to keep my breath from whooshing out with relief, but my skin felt hot and prickly. Beast purred inside of me, oddly satisfied. Upstairs, Alex started a shower and thumped around in the bathroom.

Long minutes later Bruiser said, “The magical beings have existed for thousands of years. There are numerous kinds, and they appear to be divided along racial, ethnic, and familial lines, though that is thought to be due to travel restrictions and inbreeding in prehistoric tribal times, not an actual genetic or racial difference that denotes ability or power levels. The writer seems to be saying that all witches are equal. But not really.”

“Helpful. Not.”

“Mmmm. The persecution of the magical began after the fall of Atlantis”—his eyebrows went up together—“in the year 5,000 BC, following a great worldwide flood. That makes it
seven thousand years ago. A flood that killed off The People of the Straight Ways.”

“Say that again.”

Bruiser looked up at me. “The People of the Straight Ways?”

“Yeah. That could tie back with the
l’arcenciel
—the light-dragon that bit Leo and Gee. Back with stuff I heard when I was working south of Chauvin, hunting that escaped prisoner.” Bruiser inclined his head. “I was told that they built lots of the ancient canals found in Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, New England, and all over the world. Do you know about them?”

“
L’arcenciel
, or the
arcenciel
. The
L
is the article.” I gave a nod of understanding, and he went on. “I’ve come across the term once or twice, but not with any particular emphasis or related to any flood. Or related to
the
flood.” He closed the book and pulled off the white gloves. “You look tired. When did you last sleep?”

I thought about that for a while and sipped my cold tea. “I don’t remember when I last slept for a whole night. I’ve been on vamp hours. And then my house was targeted by a bomb maker. And then I got cut up by a master swordsman.”

“And broke his neck.”

“Yeah. That too. So I don’t know.” I added, by way of ambush, “What do Satan’s Three want with Leo? And me?”

With a faint smile, he said, “You’ll have to ask Leo that.” Bruiser held up the book and asked, “May I take this with me? I’ll read and summarize it for you as I go and send it to you via e-mail. The contents don’t sound as if they need immediate attention.”

So much for verbal surprise attacks. I flipped my hand in a modified shrug. “Sure. If you find anything out about the iron spike of Golgotha or any of the other magical items, let me know.”

Bruiser took my mug and carried both empties back to the kitchen. I watched as he washed the cup and mug. I had watched Eli and Alex doing that for months, but this felt different. Weirdly domestic. Bruiser placed the cleaned stoneware upside down on a dish towel to drain and placed the book and gloves by the side door before returning to me. He bent over my chair and placed his head near mine, the heat of his skin a furnace on my cheek. Breathing into my ear, he whispered the words, “I should not suggest this to you, but—” He placed a kiss on my ear, and shivers thundered through me. I
pulled in a breath that smelled of him,
Bruiser
. My hands tightened on the edge of the couch cushion.

His lips moved on my ear as he said, “All magical items that interest the Mithrans go back to the Sons of Darkness, one of whom disappeared here, in New Orleans, long ago.” My confusion must have shown on my face because Bruiser said, “The makers of all vampire-kind, the sons of Judas Iscariot.” With no warning at all, he bent, slid his arms under my knees and around my back, and picked me up.

My heart did a major stutter stop-and-go and I gasped. He carried me through the foyer and pushed open my bedroom door. My bed was unmade. My room was a disaster. This was not the way I wanted this to play out. “Bruiser. What—?”He dropped me on my bed. I bounced. I’m pretty sure I squealed.

Bruiser turned on a heel and left me there, amid the twisted, unwashed sheets and squished pillows. “Get some sleep.” He shut my door.

“Wh— Get some sleep? No fair!” I shouted through the door.

I heard him chuckle as he let himself out the kitchen side door.

“So totally not fair.” I punched my pillow. Not that I had indicated to him that I’d welcome any romantic overtures. Well, except for the kiss at the door. And maybe a hot make-out session in my shower once. And on a limo floor. But then there had been Rick, who had torn a raw, painful wound inside me. Maybe that was what Bruiser had been waiting for? For me to heal?

Jane is silly kit,
Beast murmured at me.

I pulled off my clothes, dropped them on the floor, and smoothed the covers over me. Even with the sounds of hammers and skill saws in the background, where the house next to Katie’s was being renovated, I was asleep in an instant. But his words hung in my mind, part spoken in Bruiser’s voice, part from a fragmented memory.
A Son of Darkness disappeared here.

Who Was That Masked Man?

I woke with a jolt, the dream slipping away. Which totally sucked, because when a dream-thought slipped away, it was always vitally important. All I could remember was Jodi saying something about penguins. No. Wait. It was
Peregrinus
. The old vamp in town, along with his partner, Batildis, and the blood-servant the Devil. The blood-servant who had hurt Reach.

If Reach was telling the truth. Was Reach really hurt? Would he have made up something like being tortured by the Devil? The dream was about the vamp and the Devil—a blood-servant so terrifying she had no name, only a title, who had built a bomb and put it at my door. Maybe. Or perhaps it had been her master, Batildis. Where were the Devil and her vamps? In New Orleans? Was the Devil acting alone or with the help of other human followers, other blood-servants? What the heck had they gotten from Reach? I was having a hard time putting things together, because the bad guys had all the intel.

These bad guys were vamps, so being here in New Orleans probably wasn’t because of just one reason, but many reasons, multilayered and overlapping. That felt right, but logic wasn’t pulling the dream any closer; rather, it was tearing at the dream like talons until there was nothing left but a feeling of disquiet. A feeling that I was missing something important, some instigating event that brought the attention of Satan’s Three to New Orleans. Unless that event had been publicized all over the world on TV. Yeah. I gave a mental sigh. It was looking more and more like this was all my fault. Again.

My cell buzzed and I rolled over in bed to grab up the phone. It was a text from Soul, saying she was clearing her calendar. It was about time. I closed my heavy cell, staring up at the ceiling as the overhead fan twirled lazily above me.

I heard footsteps in the foyer and a soft tap on my door. “Hold on,” I said. I flipped the covers away and looked for my black robe, which was nowhere to be seen, so I pulled on the wrinkled clothes I’d dropped to the floor. When I opened the door, Eli stood there, his dark skin appearing even darker in the shadowed foyer. He was wearing his business face, which meant even less emotional expression than usual.

“Someone’s watching the house,” he said.

The gnawing worry ramped up. “Again?”

“You’re popular in the whacked-out fangy crowd.”

“Thanks, I’m sure. But it’s daylight. Not a vamp.”

“Okay. But my money’s on the vamps anyway. Maybe a vamp’s blood-meal, but still a vamp.”

“No argument.” I slipped my bedroom shoes back on my feet and left my room, following Eli. “Where?”

“Not the usual place.” The usual place was the house cater-cornered, across the street. It had a small nook at the door and low, wide porch walls supporting the posts holding up the porch roof, making it perfect for pots of plants or for a watcher to sit and observe. I’d found more than one spy there. “This one is actually
in
a house. Directly across the street.” He stopped to the side of the kitchen window, which was small and obscure, but looked out over the front street. I leaned over to get a better view.

“See the window to the left of the door, second story?” he asked. “That curtain’s never been open before. It’s just a crack, but there’s a small round object, like the end of a scope, in the opening.” Eli handed me a pair of binoculars and I reshaped them to my face.

I found the window and the corner of the drapery that had been folded back. Sure enough, there was a round thing in it, pointed directly at my house. “Who owns the property?”

“Alex is checking now.”

With very few exceptions, like me, few people lived in the houses in the French Quarter. The property values were so high and the tourist attention was so acute, that the buildings and houses were often rented out as artist’s studios, small shops, bars, and restaurants rather than used as homes. I handed Eli
the eyes and went back to my room, saying, “I need a shower and a few minutes to think.”

Behind closed doors, I stripped, dropping the clothes again as I made my way to the shower. I wasn’t dirty, but I was sleepy, my brain was sluggish, and all I could think to do about the spy was to go over there and slap him silly. Physical force might be my specialty, but it wasn’t always the most effective means of problem solving.

Ten minutes later I turned off the cold water and stepped out of the bathroom. Five minutes after that, I was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with a jean jacket over it all to hide my weapons. I yanked on an old pair of scuffed and worn Lucchese Western boots and left my room. To Alex, who was sitting at his small desk, surrounded by electronic tablets, I asked, “Who owns the house?”

“A woman named Margery Thibodaux. According to records, she’s lived there for sixty years. Recluse, drives a 1972 Ford Galaxie, has a net worth of two million, some of it in conservative stocks and bonds. Her husband and she bought into Walmart the same year they bought the Ford, and that’s where most of the money came from. She has a daughter in Dallas and a son in Connecticut. I found contact numbers and neither adult child has seen or heard from her in forty-eight hours. Both have, by now, called the police.”

I dropped on the couch and let a tired grin on my face. “The police. Now, why didn’t I think of that?”

From the kitchen window, Eli said, “A marked car just pulled up. Female officer, going to the door.”

I closed my eyes and let my head fall back. “I coulda stayed in bed.”

The sound of automatic gunfire shot me to my feet. I made the side door and was outside before Eli finished his turn. Beast butted in close, sharing her speed and strength. Behind me, I heard the Kid shouting into his cell phone, “Officer down, Officer down! Automatic gunfire! Request backup and medic!” He started shouting the address as I rounded the house.

I didn’t bother with the wrought-iron gate. There wasn’t time. I leaped, grabbed the horizontal bar to the side of the fleur-de-lis at the gate top, and vaulted over, landing in a crouch. Behind me, Eli cursed and rattled the gate lock. Another burst of gunfire erupted from across the street.

I leaned into the side of the house and looked around the
corner. The officer was lying in the street, bloody, but crawling for the protection of her unit. She had her service weapon in one hand and from her body came the sound of a steady beep—the “officer in trouble” alarm and GPS that cops pressed when they were in danger. Already I could hear sirens from all around.

I looked up at the window where we had spotted the surveillance and saw the glass was busted out. The barrel of a weapon was trained down, directly at the cop. With no thought at all, I raced across the street, seeing the barrel rise toward me. And realized that was exactly what the shooter had been trying for—me in the line of fire.

Time did that weird slow-down thing that happened often when I was in danger of getting dead. I jerked my body left, then right, the barrel in the window following. Behind me I heard the distinctive sound of a nine-mil as Eli laid down cover fire. Puny shots in the aftermath of the automatic weapon fire.

The shooter fired again, rounds hitting the street just behind me. I dove for the cop, grabbed her as I landed, and rolled her behind the car. I lay atop her as the cop car was riddled with bullets. What hearing I had was lost to the concussive battering.

NOPD units started to arrive, sirens and lights flashing. A car swerved up to me and screeched to a halt. Suddenly I was surrounded by three cops, all with their weapons pointed at me. “Not me!” I screamed and pointed, deafened. “The window!”

Two cops fell, hit by the shooter before they could take cover. One was dead before he hit the street, the back of his head gone. The unwounded cop pulled him and the other officer out of the line of fire. He started doing CPR on the dead guy. I rolled off the female officer and applied pressure to the bloody place in her left shoulder. The blood was pouring, not spurting, but no telling what was happening inside her.

More cop cars arrived. “Around back!” the officer shouted, and pointed at the house. “Seal off the streets!”

“Got him!” someone screamed. “Down on your knees! Down on your knees. Hands behind your head!”

Eli. They had Eli
. Cops in a panic, three of their own down. “He’s with me!” I shouted.

The cop beneath me added her voice to mine. “Not him! Not him! The house.” She pointed, and coughed blood. I knew
instantly what that meant. A round had hit a lung. The lung was collapsing and her chest cavity was filling up with blood. The officer was drowning in her own blood. My emergency medical training was years old, but it came back to me now with absolute clarity.

I angled the cop against the cruiser door. Looked up into the eyes of a paramedic who dropped to his knees beside me. “GSW,” I said. “Left lung. Probable hemothorax.”

The medic stuck his ear pieces in and listened to her chest with his stethoscope. “Yeah. Lung is down,” he said, already cutting through her uniform shirt. “We have to get her transferred stat.” He started removing the Kevlar vest that hadn’t protected the officer. The bullet had gone in just above the vest at a downward angle.

The cop coughed and sucked blood and coughed again. Blood splattered over all of us. She was wearing a T-shirt under the vest. It was scarlet and sopping. I felt her heart stutter under my hands. If my hearing hadn’t been compromised by the concussive gunfire, I knew I could have heard the heart in distress. Beast’s hearing is that good, even over the sirens squalling.

“She needs a chest tube. She won’t make it to the hospital,” I said. Paramedics weren’t certified to insert chest tubes in the field. Only doctors could do that. Meaning that this cop was dead. I looked at her for the first time. She was brown haired, brown-but-pasty-skinned, brown eyed. Maybe Latina. Maybe one of the mixed races found so commonly in the Deep South. And she was seeing her death, her eyes wide and panicked and knowing.

With a pair of scissors, the paramedic cut her T-shirt open. The wound was bad.

Eli dropped to his knees beside me. Eli. He was a Ranger. Rangers have to do all sorts of things in the field. Like save one another, or themselves. I asked the paramedic, “If you were to stick a large bore needle into her chest beneath her left arm, well around her chest wall from the bleeding bullet hole, where exactly would you stick it?”

The paramedic looked back and forth between us, understanding what I was asking. He couldn’t help her, but a bystander could. “I’d stick it right here.” He touched the cop’s skin. It was icy, sweating. She was going into shock.

I slapped her face, and she looked at me, pulling back from
the brink. “We can try to save you, or we can be smart and avoid a lawsuit and let you die. You want us to try to save you? Nod once for yes.”

The cop nodded once, then again, and again. Coughing. Blood going everywhere.

Eli handed me an oversized Betadine swab. I swiped her chest at the site the paramedic had pointed to. Eli tore a paper-and-plastic package and removed the plastic top from a needle. It looked like a ten-penny nail with a hole bored through. It was huge. There wasn’t time for gloves or better cleaning. There wasn’t time for anything.

Eli’s fingers pushed between two of the cop’s ribs, pressing into the . . . intercostal space. I remembered the word. Useless now, that memory. He jammed the needle through the flesh. The injured cop didn’t even flinch. Blood flushed through the needle end and out into the street. Eli secured the needle in place with a wad of gauze and taped it down.

I looked at him and said, “Get outta here.” He understood. So did the paramedic and the cops around us. Civilians don’t do stuff like this. The official types all looked away. Eli grabbed a blue absorbent pad, stood, and walked away, head down, wiping his hands and hiding the blood all at once. He moved down the street away from my house, away from the shooting.

I looked at the cop and saw her badge. Her name was Officer Swelling. She was maybe twenty-five. Was wearing a wedding ring. She took a breath and exhaled, the sound of air gargling and thick, her eyes on me. She didn’t cough, but it was a near thing. She mouthed the words,
Thank you
. I shrugged at her and she added, her words a whisper, “Who was that masked man?”

I laughed. So did Swelling, as well as she was able. Moments later, the cop was inside an ambulance, hooked up to fluids and being transported down the street toward the nearest hospital. A second ambulance was departing with the other injured cop. The coroner was standing over the third one. The paramedics were still doing CPR but everyone knew it was just a formality. The officer was familiar, but I couldn’t think of his name at the moment. A face I’d seen at NOPD or on a scene. An older guy, midfifties, one who’d eaten one too many beignets and sipped one too many sugared drinks. White guy. Dead white guy.

I looked up at the broken window pane where the shots had come from. Other panes were busted out from where Eli had
fired back. I looked down at myself. I was covered in sticky, drying blood. I opened and closed my hands; the blood was tacky and cold in the warm air.

I had blood on my hands. Again. Maybe this time I should have felt good about it, good because I’d maybe saved an officer’s life. But I had a feeling that Swelling would be uninjured and going about her life just fine had I not lived across the street from the house.

I might be War Woman, but my past was still alive and well inside me. My old enemy guilt rose up and wrapped cold, slimy arms around me, a death stench rising from inside me.

Around us all, a breeze gusted, cooler than the midday air. Overhead, clouds were moving in. Rain on the wind and the threat of lightning in the ozone scent.

I felt a tap and looked down at Jodi, my friend on NOPD. The vamps’ best friend at cop central. “He fired from up there,” I said, nodding to the busted window. “Did the unknown person who offered me cover while I pulled Swelling to safety hit him?”

“Blood at the scene,” Jodi said. “No one there. Trail out the back door, across the alley and the garden behind the house, through the next alley to the street; then it stops. Shooter got into a vehicle and disappeared.”