The meeting was cordial and useful, especially when we brought Alex on electronically, face-to-face, to discuss the possible necessity of setting up satellite transmission of the fights and to settle on the best ways to financially secure the online gambling transactions.
The wolves were extra affable and congenial, probably because of Ziggy’s antics, pack dynamics, and the stronger wolf—Champ—showing Leo his belly. Whatever the reason, the groups merged well; Leo had planned it all out, giving us a path to meld us into a single pack under my leadership. And—despite Ziggy’s claims—because I was the only woman in a group of men, that made me the queen bitch. Werewolves followed the queen everywhere.
The appointment ended when Bruiser got a call and headed back to vamp HQ.
I saw the rest of us out, which meant time I had to chat—not my forte, especially in the face of Ziggy’s friendliness. I turned down an offer of a drink at Café Lafitte In Exile with the Bighorn werewolves, dancing at Oz, and hunting rogue werewolves. The café was low-key and unpretentious, a place where local gays socialized, according to Ziggy. Oz was another matter entirely, with bar-top go-go boys, high-energy music, and a laser show that was reputed to leave the dancers in a frenzy. “You love to dance. I can tell,” he said, dragging a fingertip across his lower lip. “And then we can hunt Prism down and eat his liver.”
“Ummm. Yeah. No. But thank you.” I was certain that I couldn’t keep up with wolves in a gay dance bar, and I had work to do that limited my time to hunt. He insisted. I desisted. When I finally convinced Ziggy that I really wasn’t going off with the pack, he kissed me on the cheek and hopped into one of the topless cars, fingers fluttering in a wave as they drove off.
As the rest of the guys closed up, I ordered a car and texted my plans to my partners. Have a few free hours. Need some alone time. Back after dusk. When the driver arrived, I told Shemmy to take me to HQ.
It was daylight and I went through the usual security measures, accepted a comms unit, and headed to sub-five to have a chat with a white werewolf. The elevator doors swooshed open and I stepped out onto the clay floor. The lights were focused on the SOD on the far wall, leaving the rest of the huge room dim, but my eyes adjusted quickly. I moved across to the SOD and the white wolf at his feet.
The subbasement reeked of old blood, the odor of damp werewolf, and the peculiar stink of the Son of Darkness. The sour, bloodless, heartless creature hanging on the wall would have garnered my pity if I hadn’t seen video of him drinking down and killing a barroom full of dancers and partygoers. The thing I hadn’t been allowed to kill was watching me, his dark eyes dull yet full of malice. That was new. I’d hoped me cutting out his heart and giving it to a cop would have kept him totally down and out. He was healing. That sucked.
At his feet, Brute was watching me, head on paws, looking sleepy, crystalline eyes content. There were two stainless steel bowls on the floor a few feet away. One held water. The other smelled of raw roast beef and blood.
I dropped to one knee beside him. “Hey.”
He yawned, showing me his killing teeth.
Beast perked up. Fight Brute?
No. He’s on our side. I think.
Beast padded away, her tail twitching, catty and irritated.
“Werewolves came here because they thought you were being held against your will.”
Brute chuffed and his big mouth grinned, tongue lolling.
“I know, right? You can timewalk, so there’s no keeping you anywhere you don’t want to be.” I could change time back to before something awful happened if I wanted. If I was willing to risk the time-paradox possibilities. I’d done that a few times by accident already and it was scary. Brute could do that too. I studied the wolf, who was watching me back. We hadn’t fought on the same side very often, and one of those times he was being eaten by a demon, so I doubted he remembered my part in that. “The angel who saved you, Hayyel? He left you in wolf form so he could give you the ability to timewalk, didn’t he?”
Brute blinked and yawned again. Bored.
“Hayyel wanted you here, to guard the Son of Darkness, didn’t he?”
Brute slanted his eyes to me, suddenly interested in what I had to say.
“He wants this psycho thing alive for some reason that’s more important to the timeline than human lives are.”
A low vibration trembled up through the clay floor into my knee, and I realized Brute was growling so low it wasn’t audible, even to me. Brute shook his head no, a foreign human gesture on the huge wolf head.
“Ooookay. So you’re here to bite the SOD? That’s it?”
Brute’s eyes narrowed, but the growling stopped, so I went on.
“The werecats might try to come back and steal the SOD.”
The werewolf’s eyes narrowed further in an expression that said the cats could die trying.
“Right. Okay. FYI: There are two different wolf packs in town and one of them may be the crazy kind.”
Brute raised his head, chuffed, and licked his lips.
“The other pack seems to think you’re something like royalty and would be honored to have you hunt the crazy pack with them.”
Brute dropped his head, as if bored by the suggestion.
“Yeah. Well. Thanks for the chat.” I looked up at the thing on the wall over me, speaking to it. “Someday Leo won’t be around and I’ll take your head. Just so you know.”
Joses Santana, the SOD, stuck out his tongue and curled it up at me, as if licking the air. And then he laughed. It was silent but mocking, his desiccated lips curling up and the flesh around his eyes crinkling. Brute chuffed up at me as if the idea of my killing the SOD was long overdue and I might save us all a lot of trouble if I just killed him now. Or maybe that was my fond imagining and the wolf just had indigestion. What did I know?
I took the elevator up, checked out, and took an SUV from the motor pool.
I drove by my house and spotted a PsyLED car out front, a tiny sticker on the back window the only clue. I slowed and rolled down the window, taking a sniff of the car, expecting to scent Rick. I got Ayatas instead. Dang.
I drove on past, thinking about the unfriendly werewolves loose in New Orleans and making pacts with gangs. About Ziggy and the friendly werewolves. About the Sangre Duello and the emperor, who I had ignored for hours as I dealt with were problems. Titus Flavius Vespasianus had been a powerful Roman general who became the Roman emperor. As a human, he and his human second in command, Tiberius Julius Alexander, besieged and conquered the city of Jerusalem. Inside the besieged walls were the Jewish, Christian, and Mithran defenders. The siege ended with the sacking of the city, the destruction of the temple, and the enslavement of what pitiful humans remained alive inside the walls. Titus returned home and gained the throne, ruling Rome for two years before he was turned by his vampire concubine, a woman captured from the fall of Jerusalem. He became the undisputed ruler of the Roman Empire and the European Mithrans. He had ruled for two thousand years. Technically, Leo owed him fealty. The legal challenge of Sangre Duello meant Leo was aiming to behead the king in personal combat. But Titus had been fighting with a sword for hundreds of years longer than Leo. To win, Leo would have to cheat. Fortunately he was pretty good at that.
Miles away from the city, my weapons and shoes left behind in the SUV, my feet in flops against the mud, I stepped along the path to the bayou, conscious of the tracks of raccoon, dog, deer, turkey, and boar, and evidence of hog destruction, all around me. Wild hogs used their tusks to dig up edibles and left the signs behind. A single wild hog could destroy large swaths of otherwise useful habitat. Beast had killed a boar once and had been badly injured from the experience, but that only increased her desire to hunt and kill another one. This one was in heat, and her musky odor seemed to have settled across the ground all along the path, into the foliage all around, even into the mud itself, obscuring the scents of the other prey and predators.
Hunt boar. Or alli-gator, she thought. Hunt and kill and eat. I hunger.
You’re always hungry.
Yes.
I found the low-hanging branch of a scrub tree and stripped, wrapping an extra pair of flops, my shorts, shirt, and throwaway burner cell tightly in a zippy in my gobag, which I secured around my neck. Adjusted the gold nugget and Puma concolor tooth on the doubled gold chain necklace. I sat on the low branch and rocked my feet back and forth, securing my flops in the mud to give me a balanced tripod perch on two feet and my backside. I relaxed. Closed my eyes. Sought the Gray Between of my magics.
Skinwalkers weren’t traditionally moon-called, like were-creatures, but the time of day and phase of the moon did make a difference. It was easier to shift on the three days of the full moon. Easier to shift at night, and harder to shift in the daytime—unless I was dying and a shift meant survival. And the shifting wasn’t a balanced thing. It was a peculiar effect of my skinwalker magics that while I could shift from human shape to Beast in daylight, I was unable to shift back to human until night. I wondered if Ayatas had that problem. The thought pushed the Gray Between away from me.
I admitted that I was feeling weird. Different. Emotionally different from my normal. Because of the man who claimed to be my brother. Who had been at my house just now. And I had run away from him.
Coward, Beast thought at me. Must make peace with littermate.
It was the same word she used to describe Eli and Alex. I asked her, Littermate. Like from the same parents or littermate in the same way the Youngers are?
Beast didn’t answer. Dang cat. But that might be why I wasn’t ready to face him, to make peace with him, yet. I wasn’t sure he was the man he said he was.
Coward, Beast thought again.
I blew out a hard breath and turned my thoughts inward. This time I gripped the Puma concolor fang on the gold chain and sank into the genetic structure stored there. This time the gray magics rose. This time I slid sideways into the magical forces, studying the new Vitruvian shape of my energies. They looked stable, like an illustration on a wall in a nuclear reactor.
Beast, ever impatient, reached out and extended her claws. Pricked the magics. The shift took me. Pain, pain, pain. I grunted breaths as my back arched and whipped forward, throwing me to the mud. And then I was lost to the shift.
Beast sat on Jane’s shoes, front paws in mud, sniffing, pulling in air over scent sacs in roof of mouth. It was good to be puma form. It was good to be in hunting territory. But it was also bad. Jane had seen prints in mud on track. Jane had smelled hog in heat. Jane had not looked beside track, in green plants. Where hunter had paced. Where hunter had followed deer, days past. Hunter on Beast’s territory. Jane had not smelled scent of trespasser.
Jane still slept. Beast did not know yet what to tell Jane.
Beast leaped into low tree and climbed high. Perched and scented. Hunter was werecat. Three werecats. One was female lion; one her lion mate. One was black wereleopard. Werecats had been on Beast’s hunting grounds. Werecats had pissed and shat, leaving spoor. Werecats had scratched on trees to sharpen claws. Werecats had left Beast and Jane messages on Beast’s own territory.
Asad and Nantale and Kem-cat had chased Beast’s deer but had not killed them. There was no scent of blood or death on air and no buzzards circled over old kill. Asad and Nantale had sharpened claws on trees and pissed on ground where Beast had pissed. Asad and Nantale had left message to say they knew where and when Beast hunted. To say their claws were long and could have killed Beast or Beast’s prey. It was threat, but it was weak like watered blood.
Weak because hunt on Jane’s land had occurred before Jane/Beast had hurt Kem-cat. Before Jane had torn claws through Asad’s plans and left them dead and ruined.
Kem-cat had wanted to be more than beta to Jane. Had wanted to kill Jane. Kem was now house kitten, mouser cat. Tamed to Rick’s hand. Threat that was no threat. Rick had pride to mate with and to protect like African lion. Kem was threat no more. Rick was Beast’s beta.
Asad and Nantale were humans in cat skin. If they challenged Beast, Beast would kill them. Beast thought about ways to kill lions. Must fight one at a time to win. Or grindy might fight and kill them.
Beast had much to think on but was hungry. Leaped to ground, landing silently. Pawpawpaw to pile of scat on ground. Beast bent and drew in scent, what Jane called flehmen, pulling air over scent sacs in mouth. Kem had smelled healthy and full of male hormones. Also of anger and hunger and frustration and longing.
Kem was tamed. But Kem had access to witches. If Kemnebi did not stay tamed, if Kem-cat came back, Beast would kill him too. Kill him and leave his body to rot and to feed buzzards. Jane might not like this, but Jane was asleep and Beast would not share territory. Beast turned away from spoor and leaped into trees, moving from branch to branch toward water.
Beast hunted alli-gator from trees, along water that coiled like snake. Leaping limb to limb. Silent. Beast found sleeping alli-gator, stretched out on bank of water, half-buried in mud. Alli-gator was longer than Jane body. Alli-gator was longer than Beast body and tail. Female alli-gator was big. Beast hungered after shift. Needed food. Beast territory had been invaded. Beast needed to kill. Beast needed to fight. Wanted to fight and kill and eat.
Gathered paws close beneath body. Slowed breathing. Stared at place on back of alli-gator neck, just below head/skull. Place where spine joined head.
Beast dropped.
Landed. Four paws to mud. To either side of head. Fall gave fangs and jaws power. Slammed down, mouth open. Bit down on alli-gator.
Alli-gator whipped whole body. Rolled. Rolled over Beast, through mud. Beast bit deeper, through hard skin. Through flesh. Into bones. Gator rolled. Rolled. Trying to throw off Beast. Rolled toward water. Other alli-gators were there, watching. Beast fought roll. But Beast paw was too close to alli-gator teeth. Gator teeth bit down on paw. Painpainpain, like shifting but more. More pain. Alli-gator shook head, tearing Beast flesh. Holding Beast paw, alli-gator rolled. Beast shoved down with three paws to stop roll. Alli-gator would roll into water. Would drown Beast and feed Beast to all alli-gators if she could. Beast did not let go of alli-gator. Alli-gator did not let go of Beast paw.
Alli-gator thrashed. Whipped tail. Hurt Beast. Would win if Beast did not kill now. But alli-gator skin was harder than last alli-gator Beast had hunted. Alli-gator was bigger than last alli-gator.
Beast bit down and down and down. Clamping jaw tight. Bones crunched. Teeth passed bones and into spongy meat. Was brain. Alli-gator mouth opened. Dropped Beast paw. Gator closed eyes. Opened eyes. Thrashing slowed. Stopped. Except for tip of tail. Was dying. Beast is best hunter.
Limping, Beast carried/dragged long alli-gator into brush. Dropped alli-gator on bluff of ground and lay on top of prey. Licked paw. Was bad bite. If Beast could not shift into Jane and heal, Beast would have only three legs. Beast would die. Injury had happened before, many times, when Beast was alpha and Jane was beta. Shifting to Jane had kept Beast alive. Beast had learned to be glad that Jane had stolen body. But Beast had not told Jane this. Would not tell now. Beast licked own blood and chuffed at thinking human thoughts. Beast was more than puma.
I woke to the sound/scent/taste of fresh-caught gator being devoured. Fangs ripped through hard, knobby, armored skin into meaty flesh. Mud was everywhere, all over the gator and all over Beast, a thick, gummy, drying, crumbling, dark mess. Blood was mixed with the mud, a deeper, darker gray in Beast’s sight. Flies were buzzing me/us, lazily dropping to feast and lay eggs. I caught a glimpse of two buzzards in a tree, patiently waiting for Beast to finish her meal. The sky was less bright, the sun only a few inches over the horizon. It would set soon. It was time to get back to HQ, to work, to politics which I hated, to security measures which I loved. But it was peaceful here, in the mud. Calm, despite the death that made the meal valuable.
I felt pain, however, and when Beast blinked, I saw the damage to her paw. Two toes were ripped nearly off, claws hanging. The central pad of the paw was torn. Not all the blood was the gator’s. The gator got you. That your only injury?
Beast tore through entrails and gorged on organ meat. It was an odd taste combination of intestinal/fishy/livery/lung-ish meat.
You not talking to me?
Beast is best hunter.
I know. I caught sight of the tail. Wait a minute. How big was this gator?
Was big. If Beast had kits, would take tail to den to teach kits how to eat meat.
Holy crap. This thing was, like, twelve feet long.
Was big.
It bit you, but you sound pleased with yourself.
Alli-gator bit Beast. Alli-gator is dead. Beast is best hunter.
Okay. I agree. Crap, that’s a big mama gator.
Beast is best hunter. Beast must kill Kemnebi.
I went still and quiet. Kem is tamed.
Kemnebi has hunted in Beast territory. Kem left spoor. Challenged Beast. Beast must kill.
I thought how to explain the danger her plans presented. To kill Kemnebi outside of self-defense means Ricky-Bo would have to fight Beast. And Rick is PsyLED.
Beast stopped ripping flesh. Swallowed a large gobbet of meat from tail. Rick would fight Beast? Rick could become alpha over Jane? Put Beast in cage?
Technically yes.
Beast will kill Kem-cat where Ricky-Bo cannot find kill. Or in what Jane calls self-defense. Beast tore more food, thinking. What is self-defense?
If Kem attacked Beast in cat form, for no reason, and Beast killed Kem, that would be self-defense.
Beast licked her jaws. Flipped the tip of her own tail at the buzzards to show them alligator food was still Beast’s. Will think on self-defense. But will kill Kemnebi if Kem-cat comes onto Beast territory to hunt again.
I figured it was the best I was going to get. Okay.
Want to go home. Home to mountains.
I had nothing to say to that.
At dusk, I woke up in human form in a decent place, no mud, not lying in the middle of a dead gator, which I had halfway expected, and close to my SUV. That part was fortunate because Beast had spent so much time rolling in mud that the gobag was muddied through and through, including my clothes, which had somehow come out of the plastic zip bag. I had more clothes in the SUV.
Standing in the falling light, I dressed in the chill of early evening, feeling the familiar gnawing pangs of hunger. I could have gone back to the extra pair of flops in the mud, but I could also get them next time. Hunger helped me decide on not going back into the swamp after the flops, though the thought that I was littering on my hunting grounds bothered me.
Dressed, warmer, I got in the cab, feeling pensive. There was a protein bar in the glove box. Three, actually. I ate them all without tasting them, which was likely a good thing. I could have bought Popeyes and now be eating cold fried chicken, but I hadn’t. Not poor planning, just . . . I hadn’t wanted to stop.
The drive back to the city was silent, the radio off, no music through the system. Thoughtful. Worried, just a little. About Beast. About Ayatas. About tonight and my schedule. It was full and it was all going to be difficult.
When I got home, I found a parking spot a half block down the street and walked to my door in the early dark, barefooted, carrying my muddy gear. Sniffing for the scent of lemons, the smell of werewolves. But the scents were the same as ever: food, urine, dust, mold, water on the muggy breeze. Because I was so close to Beast, I smelled him even before I got to my door. The floral scent of Ayatas.
He was still in my house.
Moving silently, I keyed open the door and slipped inside. The lights hadn’t been turned on in the foyer and there were enough shadows to hide in. I smelled Ayatas, Eli, Alex, Edmund, and Gee, pretty much the main members of my vampire clan and my maybe-brother. And the garlicky smell of Bodat. Their voices came from the kitchen and the living room. I moved into my room and showered off the remaining mud. Dressed in a long black skirt and jacket and a starched white shirt. I made up my face, going for dramatic, with black eyeliner and lots of mascara though it made my eyelids feel heavy. Scarlet lipstick. Working clothes.
I pulled on a thigh rig weapon harness and weaponed up, adding the Mughal Empire dagger Bruiser had given to me, on a small harness on my hip. The hilt was gem-set jade; the scabbard was velvet-covered wood. The knife had been made in the 1700s, in India, with a slightly curved blade, a central ridge, and double grooves. It had a gold-overlaid palmette and cartouche at the forte. I had made it my ceremonial blade, wearing it when I wanted to make a statement. The blade was watered steel and it was said that it had magic, being charged with a spell of life force, to give the wielder the ability to block any opponent’s death cut. Bruiser had said about the spell, “Pure balderdash, but it makes a nice tale.” Still. Sometimes a history and reputation were magic of themselves.
Barefooted, I walked silently into the living room. Alex and Bodat didn’t even look up. They were bent over several tablets and laptop screens, with the big-screen TV in front of them divided into various views. It was all security video of HQ. I didn’t bother to study anything. Pulling on Beast’s stealth and ability to move unseen, I stepped into the opening of the kitchen and stood there. Watching. Listening.
Gee was at the table, sitting in my place. Edmund was standing near the sink, opening a bottle of wine. Eli was taking a huge chicken pot pie out of the oven. I knew the menu by the mouthwatering aroma. Ayatas was standing with his back to the side door, at an angle where he could see all the others but couldn’t see me, wouldn’t see me unless he turned his head or smelled me and searched me out. I was counting on the chicken pot pie—which smelled heavenly—to cover my scent. Ayatas would have a skinwalker’s scent glands, mostly human, whereas Beast had taken in the genetics of a dog’s scent glands and the part of the brain that analyzed and remembered the scents, from when we shifted to bloodhound. She was way better than any old skinwalker.
Littermate, she thought. There was a sound of longing and wonder in the single word.
Ayatas said, “You were telling me about the video footage.”
“No. I wasn’t,” Eli said.
“I could bring you in for questioning.”
“You could. You won’t.” He set the Dutch oven on the table, on a wood rack I hadn’t seen before. My stomach cramped. I hadn’t eaten much after the shift and I was starving.
“And why wouldn’t I?” Ayatas asked.
“Because Leo has his talons in every law enforcement agency and politico in the state and a good many in D.C. Because you want Janie on your side. Taking me in, Alex in, Jane in, is not the way to build good relations. It’s a way to burn bridges you haven’t decided to burn yet. Bridges with Leo. Bridges with Jane. Bridges with Soul.” Eli took a long-handled spoon and cut into the pot pie’s crust, releasing steam and chickeny goodness. I pressed a hand to my middle. “You’re a smart guy,” Eli said. “But you’re also stupid.”
On the surface, Ayatas didn’t react with offense, but his scent changed. A faint spike of anger. Insulted.
“Here’s what I think happened. You came here in your capacity as PsyLED to oversee the Sangre Duello. Smart. Necessary even.” Eli looked at Ayatas to make sure he was listening and back to his pot-pie work. “You had heard about Jane Yellowrock. Seen some YouTube video. I figure you had researched through PsyLED databases and questioned your family about the long-lost sister. And then Soul came into the picture and gave you more info, more than you found in the databases. The Europeans came. Things heated up here. You decided to apply for a job transfer, with the opportunity to meet Leo, and, on the side, to see if Jane is that sister. Combining two purposes into one trip isn’t stupid by and of itself. But that made Jane an afterthought.” He looked at Ayatas again. “Just a note of caution, counsel, whatever—Jane Yellowrock is never an afterthought.”
I smiled, seeing Eli’s tension as he said that, his jaw tight. No one else might notice his anger, but I did.
“If you put Janie first you might get somewhere. If you can figure out how to do that, and still complete your investigation, you might like your life a lot better and live a lot longer.” Eli began to scoop up servings into the bowls around the table. We were having the pie, salads, and a loaf of herbed bakery bread. Enough for all of us, but I was so hungry that I wanted to kick everyone out and eat it all myself.
“Live a lot longer. Is that a threat?” Ayatas looked amused. He was leaning against the wall beside the butler’s pantry, where we kept our tea and coffee equipment. He looked relaxed, but his scent said otherwise.
Gee said, “No. A fact. The Mithrans in NOLA are always dangerous. Apex predators.”
“And Jane,” Eli said, “is their Dark Queen, which means she’s the biggest, baddest cat in the city.”
My eyebrows went up. Me? That was crazy. Wasn’t it?
“So what is the Dark Queen?”
“Not totally sure,” Eli said. “A mystical, powerful creature that can use all sorts of magical items, witch, vamp, were. She can take positions of command and authority for herself, rearrange power structures. Sorta like a wild card in a full deck.”
“You’re calling her a Joker?”
“More like a Queen of Spades with the powers and unpredictability of the Joker.”
I smiled in the shadows. I liked that description. It fit most of what we knew about the position of Dark Queen.
Ayatas said, “She shifted into a half cat / half human. I have to find out how she did that. How she shifted into parts of something.”
“For the agency? Or for yourself?” Eli nodded to Ed. My primo began to pour white wine into the glasses. Eli went on. “Because I’m guessing you can’t do what Janie did and you want to find out how. You want to learn how to shift into fighting form yourself.” Eli smiled, a tiny quirk of his lips, and carried the Dutch oven to the sink, then stood straight, his hands at his sides. It was the smile that warned me. And warmed me. He said, “You may be Janie’s brother or you may not. But you’re a selfish bastard. And we won’t let you hurt Jane. That? That is a threat.” He raised his voice so Alex and Bodat could hear. “Dinner is served.”
I waited a good five seconds before rounding the corner. “I hope there’s enough for me. I’m hungry as a Beast.” It was a way to tell Eli that I’d been a cat and needed to replace calories used up in shifting.
My partner gave me a look. It might have meant most anything. I smiled at him blandly and nudged Gee out of my chair, saying, “Up, my Enforcer, unless you want me to take a bite out of you.” To Eli I said, “This smells yummy. I hope you made two.” I’d need more than a single serving to make up for lost calories.
As the others took their places, shoving chairs around and bumping knees at the too-small table, Eli nodded his head and said, “There’s plenty.”
I looked at Ayatas, the only one who hadn’t moved. “Even for him?”
Eli made a pretense of looking around the table. “I guess I could set another place. He could squeeze in next to Bodat. If you want him here.”
I looked at my br—at Ayatas. “It’s the way of The People to feed guests. To see after their needs.” Eli had another place setting ready and set it near the garlicky gamer kid as everyone scooted chairs closer.
Ayatas was staring at Edmund, not moving. “I thought Mithrans preferred blood over normal food. Human food.”
Placidly Edmund said, “We consume a variety of foodstuffs. Blood is the favored food, but I do not sip from my mistress or her family. And Eli is a splendid cook.” Edmund turned to me. “Do you wish to offer thanks, my mistress?”
We had started praying over meals after the angel Hayyel had reappeared in my life. It might be nothing more than covering my bases, or it might be something significant, but it made me feel better. I nodded and closed my eyes. The others quieted. “We are thankful for the blessings of this day. Thankful for family. For clan. For food.”
Eli, Alex, Edmund, and Gee said together, “Amen.” Bodat looked confused. Ayatas looked surprised. I passed the bread around and dipped a spoon into the pot pie. And Oh. My. Gosh. Ignoring the men gathered around the table, I ate. And ate a second serving. And then ate a third serving. Fortunately Eli had more than one loaf of bread, and the second pot pie in the oven. It was, nearly, enough.
By the time I was finally fullish, the others had long finished eating and Bodat and Alex were washing dishes. Eli had slipped to the third-floor construction site with Gee and Edmund, their muted voices coming down the stairs. Ayatas was sitting to my right, his gaze on me. I pushed my chair back from the table, meeting Ayatas’s eyes. “Alex?” I said. “Would you mind leaving the dishes?”
“We’re mostly done.” He looked back at me and said, “Oh. Come on, Bodat. Let’s give them some privacy. We can finish this later.”
My entire face softened. Only a few months before, Alex wouldn’t have understood what he was being asked. Now he was adulting. They left the room. I picked up my wineglass and sniffed the contents. It had a nice crisp aroma. Even good wines tasted a little vinegary to me, and unless I was cuddled with Bruiser, I didn’t typically enjoy them. However, as an Enforcer I needed to know about them even if only a rudimentary and passing familiarity. I hadn’t touched the glass while I ate and it was a little too warm to be perfect now, but I sipped anyway. It had a nice balance of acid and earth and oak. I swallowed. Eh. It was still wine. I put the glass down. I had dithered enough. “I heard you talking to Eli.”
“They are very protective of you.”
“They’re family.”
“You have a family.”
I said nothing.
Slowly he leaned forward and rested his arms on the table, lacing his fingers together. His sleeves were folded neatly to midarm, exposing skin that was the same golden shade as mine. He said, “Where were you all those years you were missing? Why . . . why didn’t you come looking for us, once you grew up?”
“The early reports were correct. Amnesia. No memory, no language, no social skills.”
There was no smile in his voice when he said, “Raised by wolves.”
I shrugged. “I’m sure you know my childhood history. There’s enough public record to make that part easy. When I turned eighteen I left the Christian children’s home where I’d been raised and moved to Asheville, where I got my training in security and lived for several years. While I was there I rode through every small town where The People still lived in North and South Carolina, into Tennessee, looking, listening. Wondering if I had family, if someone among The People would recognize me as a missing daughter, sister. Would take me in. When I did come upon someone who looked and smelled and sounded like what I remembered, they had no interest in a skinny Cherokee chick. And no one knew of a kid who had been lost in the mountains and never found. I rode through the territory of the Western band once. It was even more foreign.” I took a breath and asked the question that I’d wondered for so very long. “Your questions work both ways. If you’re not lying to me, creating an intricately layered fiction, if my family are all skinwalkers, if they are all as long-lived as you seem to be implying, then why didn’t . . .” I let my words trail away, thinking, Why didn’t my family come looking for me?
There. That was my real reason for running away last night. Ayatas FireWind claimed to be what I was, claimed to be family, and he hadn’t come right away. Latent shock boiled up inside. Pain, loneliness, betrayal gushed after it. A geyser of misery that went back to a single day in the snow that I could barely remember. The day an old woman forced me to shift into a bobcat and pushed me into a blizzard to live or die alone. I had been five years old.
I swallowed hard, forcing down the pain. Forcing it back into the darks of me. Yet, tears gathered in my eyes, hot and stinging. I blinked them away too. Calmed my breathing and let go a breath that smelled of old despair and suffering. I knew Ayatas had smelled the pain. I knew that gave him some kind of power over me if I let him take it. Instead I pulled all my suffering deep inside and crushed it into stillness. Emotionless, sounding almost detached, I stared into Ayatas’s eyes and said, “Eli is right. If my family still lives, why didn’t you come for me?”
“We didn’t know you existed until the videos surfaced. Until we saw you on the television as a warrior woman working for the vampire master of New Orleans. Until we saw you kill a demon, the Raven Mocker, on television. Uni Lisi, who is one of the Keepers of the Secrets, said we must watch and wait to be sure you were not u’tlun’ta. They had to research and share the old stories. This took time. Time to be certain that it was possible. The Elders do nothing in haste.”
At the mention of the Elders, I thought about Aggie One Feather, the local Elder who was helping me to try to remember my past. There was no way that she had been left out of the loop. They had called her. I was sure of it. And I was equally certain that she had told them nothing. Personal privacy was sacrosanct to an Elder. But did it work both ways? Why hadn’t she talked to me about it, unless she couldn’t?
“Why should I believe you?” The question was harsh and disbelieving, but inside, deep in the soul of the lost little girl growing up in a children’s home, I wanted to believe. I wanted this more than I wanted breath or vision or sanity. Valued it more than I valued the sanctity of my own soul. And that was a weakness that another could exploit. That was—
“Gvhe,” Ayatas said, the syllables more breath than air.
Tears flooded my eyes, hot and painful. I focused through them on his laced fingers, thinking, reasoning past the unbridled emotion the single word created in me. How had he known? I had only just remembered my child name. I had told no one. I didn’t blink. Didn’t move. I held in the tears by force of will, breathing deeply. Not looking up. Only someone who had lived then would know that name, my baby name.
“Wildcat,” Ayatas said. “Or We-sa, Bobcat. According to the old tales, our father called you both.”
My gaze turned inward, backward, to a past I no longer consciously remembered.
I was standing on a precipice of rock and loam. Inches from my bare toes, a sheer cliff fell off into a chasm. At the bottom, a fog swayed, so dense it seemed impenetrable. A cloud upside down. Below us a hawk soared. At the bottom the cloud parted to reveal racing water, a river running wild, white water roaring.
A hand held mine. Heated. Long fingered. Golden skinned.
A hand like Ayatas’s. I said nothing, but I knew this place. It was a real place in my childhood memory. I knew this place.
My father’s voice came to me out of memory. “Gvhe. Your mother carries my child, a brother or sister for you, one of her clan. I charge you to remember this place, this moment. I charge you to promise to care for your mother and your brother or sister. They are yours. Your heart is strong. You are strong. You are enough to protect them should something happen to me.”
I stared into the chasm. The river rumbled. The ground was chilled beneath my feet. My father loved this place more than any other. He had wanted to fight for this place, for this land. For this water called Nvdayeli. The yunega, the white man, was stealing it and all the land which no one could ever own. America was stealing it. And there was nothing the Tsalagi could do about it. We would have to leave. Forever.
Because the white man had discovered yellow rock here. Gold, like my true, full birth name. And the white man lusted after it.
My father said, “Your mother will name our child after this place. Nvdayeli. And you will care for the child of your mother’s womb.”
This memory, this place was the origin of my brother’s name; the name meant Land of the Noonday Sun, a gorge so deep, so sheer, that the sun reached to the valley floor only at midday. Nantahala. Nvdayeli, in the language of The People.
And . . . Yellowrock. Yellowrock, the gold for which my people had suffered. Gold—the curse for which I had been named.
I blinked and the tears spilled over my cheeks, scalding and salty. My breath came faster. Shorter. I whispered, “Nvdayeli Tlivdatsi, of Ani Gilogi. Nantahala Panther of the Panther Clan. Ayatas Nvgitsvle, One Who Dreams of Fire Wind. Your sister welcomes you. I welcome you to my home.”
Ayatas reached out and touched my hand with one fingertip, a sliding caress. “Sister.”
I said, “I failed you.”
“How so?”
“Before you were born, our father told me your name. He told me to take care of you. Instead, if your tales are right, I attacked and injured a white soldier, and I was forced into the snow to live or die. I let my anger endanger you, after our father took my word that I would protect you.”
“You were a child of five or six.”
Ayatas’s finger was still touching the back of my hand, the sole point of contact between us. The touch was warm and unexpected. “I failed.”
“I . . . You . . .” He stopped and began again. “You need forgiveness, but I don’t need to forgive. There is nothing to forgive.”
I shook my head. I didn’t know what I needed. What I wanted. But my tears and my inability to meet the eyes of my brother said I needed something.
He said, “In the way of the yunega, I offer you pardon and absolution. You should not carry this burden any longer, my sister.”
I shook my head. I hadn’t carried the burden of taking care of Ayatas. I hadn’t remembered it until the single word triggered the memory. Gvhe.
I believed. And I didn’t. I halfway believed because Ayatas had the proof of words and partially remembered tales, and I had fragments of memory. I halfway believed because I wanted it to be true. I disbelieved because the timing of it was too convenient. Because magic might fool me, or he might have heard old stories that he had made his own. But mostly I disbelieved because Eli had been right. Ayatas hadn’t come for me. The man claiming to be my brother could have come months, even years earlier. He could have told the Elders to stuff it and come anyway. It’s what I would have done. He could have made the pilgrimage to meet me when it wasn’t killing two birds with one stone. When Bruiser hadn’t turned him down for arranging a meeting with Leo. When I was not an afterthought. Would a brother make finding his sister an afterthought?
These deliberations allowed my breath to come easier. My tears to dry. I slid my hands to my lap and raised my eyes to his. I inclined my head in the way of The People, an acknowledgment without agreement. “I have work to do. I hope you will understand and excuse me.” Polite, as The People are unfailingly polite except when they kill their enemies. I stood in preparation to go to my room, the kitchen chair scraping across the floor.
“Jane.”
I stopped. Tilted my head so I could see him from the corner of my eye, my hair falling across my vision, hiding my face.
Ayatas was sitting so that his long black hair tumbled forward in a shimmering veil. It coiled on his thigh and dropped below the chair seat. Hair just like mine. “Even if you will not believe that I am your brother, I know you accept that I am skinwalker.”
I nodded. “I accept that.”
“I know the timing is bad, but—” He broke off as if wanting to stop. But he couldn’t. “I’m asking you to teach me the half-form that you fight in.” The words came out rash and almost angry.
Maybe I should have gotten mad at his presumption, like the lost child I had been, and told him to get out. Maybe I should have been nice, like the sister I might be, and said yes. Instead, I felt nothing, and so answered as the woman I was, with all the formality of the job I had. “Your request has been made known to the Enforcer of the Master of the City of New Orleans. It will be considered at a time of my choosing and you will be informed of my decision.”
Ayatas rose from his chair. “Ayatas FireWind awaits the decision of his sister. Not the Enforcer of the Mithrans.” Quietly he left the house.