Blood in Her Veins

  “Oh crap. We’re gonna have to fight the Vatican, aren’t we?”

  “The Holy Roman See, to be specific, not the Vatican. And the See is considered a sovereign state. Which means all their men will be considered papal representatives and will be accorded all protections under law afforded to all international ambassadors on U.S. soil.”

  “Soooo they can do anything to anyone and get off scot-free. But . . .” I thought it through. “The vamps are currently under a temporary but similar legal protection.”

  “Until the U.S. government in all its wisdom and glory—”

  I snorted derisively.

  “—decides if they are citizens or not.”

  “So we have to involve Leo. Like, now.”

  Eli laughed evilly. “He’s sooo gonna be pissed.”

  I’d have socked him, a good, solid thump, but it would have only made him laugh harder.

  • • •

  We didn’t have long before the people from Rome arrived and made a bad situation worse. I was pretty sure that Lucky, despite being a witch whose ancestors were technically hunted by the Catholic Church since the witch hunts in the Middle Ages, and terrorized by the Church in the time of the Inquisition, was a Catholic. Pretty sure. Not totally. But his daughter, Shauna, and her vamp husband had been married in the yard of the Catholic church. . . . Would the priest be in trouble for his part of the ceremony? Crap. This was getting sticky. I decided to go back to Boudreaux’s Meats, ostensibly for lunch. And after a good meal, Eli and I needed to get info. Any way we could. Even if it mean hurting Lucky. That bothered me. A lot.

  • • •

  Alex met us at Boudreaux’s and we dined on the Cardiac Confidence, my name for the lunch that consisted of fried gator, fried smallmouth bass, fried soft-shell crabs, and fried boudin balls bigger than Lucky’s fist. He made one to show us the truth of that statement. We also had beer-battered fried onion rings, fried squash, fried pickles, fried crab-stuffed hot peppers, and fried mushrooms in a basket so greasy it took a handful of paper towels to stop the drippage. Lucky said, exactly as he did the last time I ate here, “My own batter, secret recipe it is, and dat oil is fresh and hot for cooking.” Certainly lard, but while we ate, imminent heart disease seemed worth it. After dinner, while we were disposing of the beer bottles that were illegal to sell in the dry parish but were totally legal to give away for “tips,” I said casually, “Lucky. I remember you telling me that you had family who were killed in the vamp-witch wars here in BO.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me, and I thought I saw the flame tattoos on his arm flex in irritation before subsiding. “Priest in dem wars, Father Joseph, he was, before the war.” Lucky was talking about the Civil War, I knew because I had heard the story. “He teach townsfolk how to kill wid stakes and swords. Him made dem crosses to be everywhere, on every house and building, and most dey attacks in town stop. Peoples, dey safe in town until Father Joseph was turn by de suckheads one night. But he strong in de faith. He rise and still in he right mind. Fight de blood/drink/kill temptation. He come to de church and tell dem townspeople to cut off he head. Dey did. But it nearly kill most dem all to kill priest.” His mouth turned down, and he crossed the room, taking a beer from the cooler before sitting at the table with us. When he started again, it was nearly word for word as he had said it last time, history by rote.

  “Vamp turn on vamp. Kill each other, they did.” He popped off the top of a LA 31 Boucanée with a shell-shaped bottle opener. The beer was made by Bayou Teche Brewing in Arnaudville, Louisiana, and it smelled of hops and smoked cherrywood. He drank a third of it, tossed back some of his own fried mushrooms, chewed, swallowed, and continued, his eyes faraway as if he saw the story he told.

  “But they not always find suckhead to cut off head. One, they stake her. She rise from de grave, she did, and she kill and kill and kill. Church got itself a new priest, Father Matthieu, and he lead a hunt to kill her. Dey take her head and burn her body in center of de streets jus’ befo’ dawn, nex’ morning.” He jutted his jaw outside, to the crossing of Broad Street and Oiseau Avenue.

  “Bordelon sisters, witches all, dey come gather up de ashes for to make hex. And Julius, blood-master, hem was, when he hear of all dis, he make war on dey witches. Kill dem mostly. Dem witches, dey make de hex, and de suckheads cain’t eat, cain’t drink. Sick-like. Dey kidnap local doctor, Dr. Leveroux, kill hem when he cain’t cure dem. Leave his body in middle of town, like warning.

  “Dem witches, some of my peoples, dey join wid priest and fight dem suckheads. War was everywhere, here, in de bayou”—he pronounced it bi-oh, which sounded odd to me—“in de swamp. My gran-mère be one dem Bordelon sisters, Cally Bordelon. She still alive when war was over. Most dem suckheads, most dem witches, dey dead.”

  “Would a priest today help you, join with you, to fight the vamps?” I asked.

  Lucky snorted and finished off his beer, one that should be consumed slowly to appreciate all the goodness in the bottle. “Priest today not too interested in helping us no more. Turn he back, he did, when my Shauna marry . . .” He stopped.

  “After Shauna married Gabe in the eyes of the Church.”

  “Yeah.” Lucky picked up the bottle and dropped it with a clink on the table. “Dat priest sent away. New priest . . . hem witch hater, from new sect of priests. Call demselves Keepers of Truth. Got priests from all different orders and societies. Michaelites, what dey call dem Salesians. Augustinians. Dominicans. And some dem Jesuits. Black Robe what they brung in, hem witch hater even more than local boys.

  “What I’m gone do?” he asked me. “My Shauna. You see her. Black hair what she got from me, blue eyes from her mama. Beautiful like angel from day she born, my baby, she is.”

  “But not acting like herself due to the hormones and the depression. The priest? We didn’t see the local guy. Black Robe, that’s a Jesuit scholar?” I glanced at Eli and received a scant nod. “They want the corona to be sent to Rome to be studied. Meaning destroyed.”

  Lucky lifted his eyes from his beer bottle and said, distinctly, “No. Not to Rome. I throw it in de swamp for de gator to eat first.” I started to reply, but he spoke over me. “Dat Church in Rome hunt witches all through history. Torture them all. Burn them. Kill them. I a man of forgiveness, but they don’t want no forgive. They still take war to my peoples.”

  “I need to talk to Shauna. And to Margaud,” I said.

  Lucky’s tats blazed with his reaction. Anger flaming up his arms. Eli pressed a gun to his side and said, simply, “Don’t.”

  Lucky cursed in French and his English patois, but his heat faded quickly. He looked down at the muzzle over his kidney. “You really shoot me wid that gun?”

  Eli didn’t respond and Lucky raised his gaze to Eli’s eyes. “All dis. Dis because I call you boy?”

  “I’m a man of forgiveness,” Eli paraphrased Lucky’s words, “but they don’t want forgiveness. They still take war to my people.”

  Lucky snorted, full-nosed and half in his throat. “You right. Troublemaker in my nature. I am ass, I is.” He stuck out his hand. “I ask you forgiveness. You accept? Then you put dat pop gun away?”

  “Deal,” Eli said. They shook, and Eli put the gun away. I noticed the safety was still on, and he had never injected a round into the chamber.

  “You got Margaud’s contact info?” I asked.

  “I do. And You can see my Shauna now. No mo’ customer come in today, not wid all trouble. I close up shop and we go my house.” Lucky kicked his bench back and stood, disappearing into the back of the shop. “Leave all dat,” he said, pointing over the counter to the messy table and greasy paper and plastic products. “I clean it up when I get back.”

  • • •

  Lucky Landry’s house was not what I was expecting. I hadn’t been invited home on my last visit, but I had subconsciously created a vision of a redneck double
-wide and cars on cement blocks in the yard. Maybe a toilet planted with petunias, positioned on the front porch. The white tidewater home with centipede lawn and tastefully planted flower beds was a shocker. I did manage to wipe my surprise off my face before I got out of the SUV.

  Lucky parked his ancient blue pickup truck behind a half-shed carport, invisible from the road, and we all got out, Alex moving slowly as he gathered all his electronic equipment. Lucky led the way to the front door, speaking over his shoulder to us. “My wife, she make me park where my coonass huntin’ truck can’t be seen by de neighbors. Not for her, I be living in trash, I know.”

  The front door opened and the woman standing there was, well, also not what I had expected. Blue eyes, nearly black hair with just the slightest hint of red when the sun hit it, petite and curvy and pretty. And not dressed like a country singer at Mardi Gras, all bling and fringe, but in suit pants, a fitted shirt, and a business jacket. Except for her height, which was far too short for a successful model, she could have walked out of a fashion catalog.

  “Lucky, bring your friends right on in. I got cold sweet tea with mint or lemon and some tasty lemon cookies. They’re store-bought, but you’d never know it. You’re that Jane Yellowrock woman, aren’t you?”

  “Who?” The word hammered at the air from inside. “If that bitch is here I’ll kill her! This is all her fault!”

  Shauna Landry Doucette raced around her mama and out the door, fast as a vamp. Her mama caught her in both arms and held her in place, magics sparking all around them both. Lucky snapped his fingers, and a portable protective ward went up around him. It was too small to hold us too, and I grabbed Eli, pulling him down behind the ward. “Get down!” I shouted to Alex. He hit the dirt behind the bole of an oak. Uncontrolled magics sparked in the air, burning on our skin. Eli jerked and whispered a curse.

  “You hurt me,” Mrs. Landry said, holding her daughter tightly, “and I’ll be seriously unhappy with you, young lady. And if you turn your magics on me, I’ll send you to your grandmother in a heartbeat.”

  The word grandmother must have been an awful threat because Shauna burst into tears. The painful magics faded.

  Her mother shook her hard. “This is no one’s fault but yours and that blood-drinking husband of yours. You don’t think. You don’t plan. Marriage isn’t roses and chocolate and candles and great sex. Most of the time it’s hard work and pain and forgiveness, on both sides. You marry a blood-sucker and you got to plan for a whole lot more forgiveness than most.”

  Shauna sobbed on her mother’s shoulder. The girl was gorgeous, even with the twenty extra pounds of baby fat and her pale, anemic skin. Alex, rising from his undignified crouch behind the tree, took a sharp breath at the sight of her before retrieving his gear from the ground. Even Eli, with his dedication to Syl, couldn’t help a spark of interest.

  A trace of fatigue in his voice, Lucky said, “My wife, Bobbie. You know my girl, Shauna. Sorry ’bout dem fireworks. Shauna not herself.”

  “Shauna needs vamp blood,” I said, “and not from her husband.” And that got their attention. I stopped at the bottom of the steps, crossed my arms, and stared up at the women on the narrow front porch. “Her husband is starving. Do you know what happens to vamps when they starve? The pain is physical, a raging in their blood. The blood hunger is so intense that they often go insane. He needs human blood. You’re anemic, Shauna. You need some blood to heal, and Gabe doesn’t have enough to spare. Your blood isn’t enough to keep you healthy, let alone a young vamp. They need more blood than older vamps. Didn’t Gabe tell you that before you married?”

  Shauna ducked her chin and averted her eyes from all of us.

  “Shauna,” Lucky barked. “Dis lady done come long way to help you. You answer her question.” His expression darkened. “Or you gran’-mère be here for real. You mother and me, we give you to her. Together.”

  Shauna’s mouth opened and I had the feeling that she had been playing one parent against the other. “I asked you a question, Shauna,” Lucky all but growled. “Did Gabe warn you?”

  Bobbie’s hands tightened on Shauna’s arms and Shauna nodded jerkily. “Yes. He told me. But I thought . . .” Her pale face flushed with embarrassment. “I thought the sex feeling was just for me. I didn’t know it was for every feeding. I thought I was the only one who would be in that . . . position. . . . When I found out it was for everyone, I . . . I lost it. And I saw that bastard laying on top of Margaud. I should have . . .” She broke down again, without telling us what she should have done.

  “Shauna, your husband can be taught to drink without sexual feeling. He probably never thought to ask if it was possible, and if Clermont Doucette is like most men of his generation, he probably never thought to tell his son.” Shauna’s face lifted, her mouth open again, like a pale pink rosebud. I’d never seen a mouth so small and perfect. My own was wide and straight and showed a lot of teeth. I frowned and went on. “Gabe isn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but he was starving himself to death to make you happy. Then Margaud spiked his drink, called you, and set up a feeding. I’m not saying that Gabe doesn’t deserve some kind of punishment for his lack of control, but you can solve this. You need to get yourself help. And starting a vamp-and-witch war isn’t going to help anyone, including your baby.”

  Shauna broke into a crying fit. From inside the house a baby started wailing too.

  Eli chuckled softly. “Way to go, Yellowrock. You just made a sick woman and her baby cry. You gotta win points for that somewhere.”

  “Shut up,” I said. To Lucky I added, “Can we go inside now and chat. It’s hot and miserable and the air’s wet and I need tea.”

  “Come on in. Her mama and me, we spoil her so when she a child, her so pretty and all.”

  I realized that was both confession and apology. “Uh-huh,” I said, starting up the walk in Lucky’s wake, Eli and Alex behind me.

  Once we were in place in the spacious living room with iced tea in hand, Shauna in a rocking chair with her back turned, nursing her baby, I asked, “What can you tell me about the wreath?”

  “My family be leaders of coven here in Bayou Oiseau, my mother and my sister, Solene. Solene can tell you what dem learn.” Lucky punched a number on his cell and when the call was answered, he said, “Jane Yellowrock back in town, her sent by Leo Pellissier to fix things here. You talk to her? Tell her what you learn? Yeah. Dat fine. Come now is good.”

  Lucky ended the call and said, “Solene on de way. She talk to you.”

  “Just in case, I’m hiding behind you when she gets here.”

  Lucky laughed. But I was serious. Ticked-off witches were scary.

  • • •

  We drank tea, made uncomfortable small talk. Shauna made me hold her baby, and then laughed when I made a panicked squeak and the little boy screamed. I blushed and the Youngers laughed with her. It was mortifying, a word my housemother Brenda used to use instead of embarrassing. Previously, the usage was confusing, but for the first time ever, I totally understood the connotation. It came from a word that meant killing or putting to death, and I surely wanted to die with the baby in my arms. The last time I held a baby it was my godchild Little Evan, and that had been a long time past.

  Beast, however, was totally at ease and she shoved me out of the way, purring over the child. Kit. Human kit. Want kit.

  Yeah. No. Later.

  Beast growled and milked my mind with her claws, long sharp claws that gave me a headache, while forcing me to lean down and sniff the little boy, who smelled of lotion, baby powder, urine, poo, milk, and witch, from his mother. I was still holding the baby when the witch magics shuddered through me. The sink of roiling energies filled the home even as the door opened and she walked soundlessly inside. It was the Amazon. And she was fully powered up, angry and expecting trouble. And me with my hands full of baby.

  Behind her, just o
utside of her range, two ogres followed, Auguste and Benoît, Margaud’s brothers, ugly as homemade sin and twice as big. Margaud’s brothers each weighed in at an easy three hundred pounds, hirsute, sour with last night’s beer, and both smelling of fish and gator. Their last showers were weeks ago. Maybe months. Maybe never and the men thought wading through a bayou was the same thing as a bath. The men wore matching T-shirts, this time in subtle shades of orange, or maybe that was just the expanded sweat rings under old-fashioned bib overalls; on their feet were unlaced work boots that might have been brown once upon a time. I set the baby on the couch and stood, motioning Eli to stay put. I stepped in front of him, allowing him opportunity to ready weapons. The brothers were human and taciturn, even by my standards, with expressionless faces. The only active thing about them was the stink, and it might have walked around the house all by itself. The silent Cajuns glowered as they crowded inside.

  The witch was huge, six feet tall, and outweighed me by more than I had thought, all muscle and attitude. Dark hair and eyes, packed into T-shirt, jeans, and running shoes. Breasts like beach balls. I had a quick image of a blue-painted, tattooed, Celtic queen going into war buck naked, a knife and spear her only weapons, with the bones of her enemies tangled in her hair. She was surrounded by a haze of power that made my own bones ache. She extended a hand to activate a preprepared magical working.

  Lucky grabbed his small family and snapped up a ward. Leaving the boys and me at the hands of the witch, me with access only to mundane weapons, which I’d never use in the confined space. So I went with my best talent, my smart mouth. “I know ogres eat human flesh. I have to warn you, I’m older and stringier and harder to kill than I look.” I pointed at Eli. “Military.” I pointed at the Kid. “Underage. Be nice!”