“Not their fault that one coven didn't have the power to send major storms packing,” I said, flicking crumbs off my T-shirt onto the floor. “Mother Nature's bigger than any one family. But they did get Katrina to drop from a category five to a cat-three at landfall. You gotta give them credit for that.”
He stood, placing his hands on his gun butt and his night-stick. “Don't gotta do nothing.”
“You gotta be a dickhead,” I said, mildly. “No help for it.”
He started around the table. I grinned at him. Beast nearly purred.
Fun . . .
I saw an image of her playing with an injured rabbit and let my grin widen. But I carefully didn't move from the corner. Jodi said nothing, watching us speculatively. Yeah. She'd picked her position.
“We don't like witches in N'awlins, no better'n we like vamps,” Herbert said, moving in on me slowly. He hooked a chair with his foot and slung it aside with a screech of wood. Beast watched him through my eyes.
Fun . . .
She gathered herself. I held her still. “Vamps, who killed a dozen cops and ate 'em like they were meat. And you're working for the cop killers.”
When he was two feet away, Jodi grabbed his arm and said sharply, “Jim. Go wait outside, please.”
“Yeah,” I said, pushing things and unable to help myself. “No one knows if the cameras in the walls also have audio or if they're straight video. You might just appear on YouTube making an ass outta yourself, and spouting off something NOPD would consider seriously anti-PC. The vamps bring a lot of tourist money in. I bet no one wants to annoy the moneymakers.”
“The vamp council can kiss myâ”
“Jim! Outside. Now.”
He jerked away and stomped to the front door. He slammed it on the way out. I laughed and felt a bit guilty all at once. Though Beast was having fun, I didn't particularly like the fact that I enjoyed baiting the law. It wasn't smart or safe.
“You're not going to help us, are you?” Jodi asked, her voice so soft that it might not have carried to the imaginary audio pickups.
“I'm going to kill the rogue who's killing your cops, your hookers, and your tourists. Sounds like help to me.”
“Are you really human?” she asked again, her voice soft with real curiosity.
“I already addressed that question.”
“Your papers claim you're twenty-nine, but you act like a fifteen-year-old kid half the time and a fifty-year-old grandmother the other half. You carry yourself like a street fighter, you set off my psy-meter, which means you're leaking power, carrying power of some kind, or generating power, and you deliberately taunt a cop when you might need us.”
“You brought him here to see what I would do when he got stupid,” I guessed, but making it like a statement. Jodi had the grace to blush. I huffed a laugh. “Good cop/bad cop works only in the movies. I have your cell number, Jodi. I'll call if I need backup. I'll call if I need information. And I'll call if there's anything that NOPD needs to know.”
“Why didn't you just offer that right up front?”
“Why didn't you just ask for it right up front?”
Jodi stared at me, uncertainty in her eyes. I said nothing. She said nothing. After a good minute of that, she heaved a breath and turned to the door. “Thank you for your time.”
Silent, I followed her to the door and locked it after her. When they pulled away, I walked to the bedroom and threw myself onto the bed. Could I be any more stupid? Could I?
Beast purred in happiness.
Fun . . .
I wished that Molly would call. On the heels of the thought, the phone rang. I rolled over, yawned at the ceiling, and answered. Molly's number showed on the readout. “How'd you do that? You're a witch, not a psychic.”
“I didn't,” she said. “Angie told me.” We were both quiet for a moment at that one. The girl was scary strong. When Angie came into her power, she had been terrified, magic rushing out of her in a maelstrom, destroying the trailer they lived in at the time. When I rode up, it was to see the metal roof peel back as if with a can opener. Not knowing what was going on, I raced inside, right into the magic. And I shifted. It scared the pants offa Big Evan, who hadn't known what I was. Molly can keep a secret.
Evan and Molly had been trying to bind the girl's power, to keep it controlled until Angie was older and could handle it. Power, oddly similar to the gray place I saw when I shifted, was blowing through, ripping at everything. Angie was screaming. It was crazy. Beast, unafraid, had padded right up to the child and curled around her. Purring. Angie had gripped Beast's ears and pelt and hung on, screaming. Which had left Molly and Evan free to work. Without asking, I knew Molly was remembering too. Into the silence I asked, “Let me talk to her?”
Angie's little voice said, “Aunt Jane? You got my doll yet?”
A lump grew in my throat. It often did when I talked to Angie. Beast had adopted her like a kit, and so both parts of me loved her. “Not yet, darlin'. But soon.”
“Okay. I love you.”
The lump in my throat spasmed painfully. “I love you too.”
Kit. Cub
, Beast murmured, sleepy and longing. When Molly came back on, I said, “So. You want to come visit me here in the hot, muggy, Deep South.”
“You kill that rogue and we'll come. Evan's talking about finally adding on to the house after six months of dithering. I am
not
going to live in a house open to the elements, with carpenters and bricklayers traipsing through.” Unsaid was the fact that the house would remain unwarded during the construction. “Later, Big Cat,” she said. “And stop messing with the cops. Angie said you were playing with them.” The connection ended.
Too wired to go back to sleep, I dropped over at Katie's Ladies, knowing it was too early for the girls to be up, but worried about Troll. The woman who had served dinner last night answered the door and peered up at me over her bifocals.
She waved me in and I followed as she tottered back to the dining room, her long black skirts swishing. “This way,” she said over her shoulder. “I am having a lovely little Assam black. Would you join me?”
“Assam black” meant tea. “I'd love a cup,” I said, meaning it. I needed caffeine.
“Sugar? Milk?”
“Sugar,” I said, remembering the tea cabinet at the freebie house. Had this woman been part of Katie's love of tea? Maybe served it to her when Katie lived in the house?
I asked, “What do I call you?”
The small smile widened as she sat near a teapot wrapped in a cozy. “I am Amorette. The girls call me Miz A.” She waved to a place, indicating I should sit.
“Thank you, Miz A.”
I took the chair she indicated and accepted the delicate china cup, saucer, and a silver teaspoon. And a cloth napkin. I had a feeling Miz A did everything with old-world formality, but wondered how she dealt with the silver-kills-vamps problem. Gold tableware maybe? “Thanks,” I said, sipping. It was smooth, dark, rich, and wonderful. I told her so as she settled in next to me, a tiny pixie of a woman with skeletal fingers.
“I'm so happy you like it.” She twinkled at me over her cup rim. “This single-estate Assam is my current favorite. Most young people prefer coffee.” She grimaced. “Tea is underappreciated in today's world.”
“I'm a tea drinker. I have a nice Assam at home, and a single-estate Kenyan, a Millma. I'll bring some leaves over if you like.”
“That sounds lovely. Please do,” she said. She passed me a serving tray with delicate cucumber sandwiches and crackers with cream cheese, smoked salmon, and something pickled and strong on top. Maybe capers. I ate two and accepted a second cup of tea before I asked about Troll, remembering to use his proper name.
Miz A sighed. “Tom is alive, weak, and healing, asleep upstairs, the dear man. It was a near thing, I fear. And poor little Katherine would have been devastated to lose him. They have been together for over seventy years, you know.”
I nearly spluttered the tea at the “poor little Katherine” and the “seventy years” comments, but was saved when one of the girls wandered in, wearing a moss green silk robe and fuzzy pink slippers. It was Tia, the girl with the coffee-and-milk skin, hazel green eyes, and kinky blond hair of her mixed-race parentage. “Morning, Miz A. Got any coffee?” she asked, her eyes half closed.
Miz A looked at me, her eyes saying,
See? Coffee, not tea. Such a shame
. “Coffee is in the kitchen.”
Moments later, Tia joined us at the table and downed half a mug of scalding coffee in seconds. “Ahhhh. God, I'm beat. I need a vacation.” She opened her eyes wide as if stretching her lids, yawned, and said, “Maybe Rio. Maybe Carlos will take me.”
The way she said it made me realize that Tia was an innocent, even if she was one of Katie's ladies, an innocent because she wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier. She looked at me and seemed to wake up for the first time today. “You're the hired vampire killer. Don't kill Carlos, okay?”
“Ummm,” I said, not knowing how to reply.
“Carlos is not a rogue,” Miz A said. “He is safe from retribution. Did you have a nice time last night, dear?”
Tia reached for a cucumber sandwich. “Carlos is a dream. Mr. Leo and Miss Katie say I can be a blood-servant soon, if they get the right offer.”
“
Offer?
” I said, hearing the edge in my tone.
Miz A patted my hand. “I will explain. Tia,” she said to the girl, “take your coffee and snack upstairs, yes? Miss Jane and I must speak privately.”
“Oh.” Tia nodded sagely, her ringlets bobbing. “Business. I gotcha.” She gathered up a handful of sandwiches and made her way out of the room. The girl glided like a dancer, her big fuzzy slippers sliding on the wood floor. At the door she turned and said, “Thank you for not killing Carlos.” Before I could formulate a reply, she was gone.
“Offer?” I repeated. “Slavery was abolished a long time ago.”
Miz A nodded and topped off my tea. As she poured, she said, “It seems Tia's parents were unaware of that. They were selling their twelve-year-old daughter out of the trunk of their car.” At my hissed breath, Miz A nodded, her wrinkled face looking grim as she placed another salmon cracker on my plate. “My Katie heard about the girl's . . . situation. She put an end to it, but it was too late for her proper development. She had been badly scarred, emotionally. Katie has spent a great deal of time and money rehabilitating Tia, and trying to find the right protector for her.” Miz A looked up at me, her black eyes suddenly snapping. “She cannot live alone and she is too sexually aware and vulnerable to simply be set free on the city's streets. She would end up used, homeless, and destitute. A husband might eventually desert her. A vampire master will provide for and protect her for as long as she lives. She needs only the proper arrangement.”
I had no idea how to respond to that so I ate my pretty little sandwich and didn't say a word. When I could get away, I thanked Miz A for the tea and snack, jumped the fence, and fired up Bitsa, needing to blow the vamp webs out of my head. What can you say to logic built upon pragmatism and compassion? But it gave me the willies.
I tooled around the Quarter on Bitsa, sniffing things out, finding places where vamps frequented, but not discovering more fresh rogue traceâor maybe rotten rogue trace is the right phraseâeven though I motored along last night's route. Finding my way into the Lake Catouatchie areaâwhich is mostly swamp and infested with mosquitoes, and which Beast had entered off-road along the sick vamp's trailâwasn't fun. But I finally caught the distant scent of rogue and tracked it. I ended up on a dead-end, crushed-shell street in the middle of nowhere.
I slowed my bike at the dead end and stopped, putting my feet down, the motor rumbling softly beneath me like a big cat's purr. The house was small, probably built in the 1950s: a gray, asbestos-shingled house of maybe twelve hundred square feet, with the screened porch I vaguely remembered seeing in the back. It was well kept, with fresh-painted charcoal trim, a new roof, and a garden that smelled of herbs in the midday heat.
In human form, something called to me from the house. Distant memories, things clouded in smoke and fear and blood. And the sound of ceremonial drums. The power of The People.
Tsalagiyi
. Cherokee, to the white man. Cold prickles raced along my skin.
Tsalagiyi
was a Cherokee word. I remembered it.
A sweathouse was out back. An elder of The People lived here. And the rogue had hunted here, close, too close. Stalking him? Her? I shivered in the heat, hope and fear crawling through the sweat beading on my skin.
Not quite sure what I intended, I turned off the bike and set the kickstand. Propped the helmet on the seat. I walked up the crushed-shell drive, shells crunching under my feet. In the Carolinas, roads and driveways were coated with gravel when unpaved, and stone was mixed in with asphalt when paving was used. Not much stone in the delta; they used what was handy. Shells. Dim-witted thoughts, my mind steering away from the fact that I was walking up the drive to an elder's house. I took the steps to the porch, noting only then that the house was on brick pylons, raising it up above hurricane flood line. I pushed the bell. It dinged inside.
I stood in the heat. Waiting. Sweating. Flies and bees buzzing around, the distantly remembered scent of sage and rosemary hanging on the air. And no one came.
This is stupid.
I pushed the bell once more as I turned away and was startled when the door opened. I don't know what I had expected, but the slender, black-haired woman in jeans and a silk tank wasn't it. She didn't speak. She just looked at me. My shivers worsened. Time did one of those weird rocking things where the earth seems to move.