Molly shooed Angie to silence and started a Disney movie, listening as Eli explained all about the situation with Edmund and his new, forced position in my life. Things were happening behind her intent expression, thoughts caught in her silence, reflected in her expression before she turned to me. She took a chair beside me and propped her head on her fist, her elbow on the table, red curls flopping over to one side, a little longer than the last visit, but still far shorter than I was accustomed to. “A fanghead primo isn’t a bad idea,” she said.
I nearly suffocated on a half-chewed globule of beef. Eli’s happy smile faded away. I choked the beef back up and said around it as I chewed, “Whatchu mea’?”
“I’ve been studying the Vampira Carta in my spare time,” she said, offhand. “Well, the twins and I have. And Lachish Dutillet.”
Lachish was the head of the New Orleans coven, the woman leading the Witch Conclave, and she was in charge of vamp/witch reconciliation. She was a stout, stern middle-aged woman who looked like someone’s grandmother, but was really a magical force to be reckoned with. The twins, Elizabeth and Boadicea, were two of Mol’s remaining witch sisters and were always in trouble. Or making trouble. Or stirring up trouble. Despite which, I liked them both a lot.
The Vampira Carta and its codicils contained the rule of law for the Mithran vampires and it contained protocols and rules for proper behavior between vampires, scions, blood-servants, blood-slaves, and cattle—the demeaning term for the nonbound humans whom vamps once hunted, sometimes for sport. The Carta provided proper procedures and conventions for everything, including challenging and killing each other in a duel called by lots of names: the Blood Challenge, the Sangre Duello, and the Blood Duel, to name three.
“A Blood Challenge,” Mol said, her eyes squinted, unblinking in thought, “Enforcer-to-Enforcer, or primo-to-primo, for first blood, is a common proper protocol for visiting vamps. It’s one acceptable first step to one master issuing a Blood Challenge to another. But if the first blood challenger loses on the first pass, they usually don’t offer formal challenge to the death.”
A fight to the death, with a sword, was a challenge I was destined to lose, which reminded me of the scar. I reached up under my arm and pressed the flesh there. I felt a ridge of tissue, but it was no longer sore or tender. The healing in the sweat house had given better results than I had expected, short of a true shift to another form.
“Having a primo makes you a master,” Molly said, “while still being Enforcer to Leo. It would put the challenger in a difficult place protocol-wise. A primo or an Enforcer can fight that first battle for any master. Is Edmund any good?”
“Yes,” Eli said. “Better than his position would indicate. He’s a former Blood Master who lost his position to an inferior fanghead, inferior in terms of vampire power, compulsion, and fighting ability. We’ve always thought he gave up the position instead of fighting for it, for reasons that have never made sense to us.”
“Interesting,” Molly said, picking at the pile of pineapple and onion and peppers I wasn’t eating. “One has to wonder why he fell so low, and why he’s still so low. Machinations, maybe? Leo doing what Leo does best?”
“Plans within plans,” I said.
“And this fanghead primo. He has no place to sleep? How about the bolt-hole/safe room you turned into weapons storage?” She was referring to the long narrow room under the stairs, hidden by a bookcase in the living room.
“We secured the entrance from under the house, but I could unsecure it,” Eli said. “I could put a lock on this side of the bookcase opening so he couldn’t get in through there. That would leave the house safe from him. There’s enough room to put a cot there, but no place for his belongings.”
“You are not seriously considering having Edmund stay here,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Big Evan would have a cow.”
“There is that,” Molly agreed. “Evan has cows often.” She pushed away from the table and wandered into the living room, where the kids were watching some animated, improbable movie, where the girls were all wimps, waiting to be saved by a prince.
Angie Baby was telling her little brother what was wrong with that scenario. “The princess would have a sword and lots of magic spells and point her magic wand and the bad man would go ‘poof’ and be gone.” And it made me smile. Angie would never be a wilting violet, waiting to be rescued.
Big Evan was upstairs, arguing with Alex about research. The Kid’s room had become a library filled with things we borrowed from the sub-four storage at HQ. Journals, newspapers, letters, diaries, vamp and human histories that were being scanned and, where possible, automatically added to our ever-growing database. I could smell the Kid’s frustration from here. He wasn’t used to anyone butting in on his methods or trying to change his organization. Currently he was updating info on the Mings, specifically chronicling their vamp connections through the last hundred years, hoping to find a clue on who might have taken Ming of Mearkanis. From the snippets of conversation, Evan wanted him to concentrate on the witch aspect, and right now, not later.
I transferred my attention to Eli and said softly, “Now, why do you think Molly would be so agreeable and then walk off like that?”
Eli chuckled, the sound grim and admiring all at once. “So she can declare innocence when we do this thing. So she can lay the blame cleanly at your feet and Big Evan can get mad at you, and you can find a way to make it work without her being at fault.”
I swiveled my head, watching my BFF scooch onto the couch between her kids. “Dang. Molly’s sneaky. And maybe a genius.”
“Sylvia assures me that all women are geniuses that way. Except you. She says you ‘think like a man and don’t give a good damn who you piss off,’ ’scuse the language. Mostly she’s right.”
I was pretty sure the quote was an insult. “I think like a cat, not a man,” I said, but otherwise she had me to a tee.
Eli’s cell made a burbling sound. He flipped the Kevlar cover open and said, “A text from Edmund Hartley.” He chuckled as he read. “He’s delivered all his unused furniture from his room at headquarters to a storage unit.” Eli glanced up from his cell, “According to Alex, Edmund actually owns the storage unit facility, and he personally has access to ten units. Alex thinks they’re full of stuff left over from being a clan Blood Master. Or weapons of mass destruction. Or dead bodies in fifty-five-gallon drums. Or gold bars. My brother has an imaginative and warped mind.” He went back to the texts. “Edmund is on the way here. He wants to know where to park his vehicle.”
From the street, I heard the high-pitched roar of a four-cylinder car. To a road enthusiast, most four-cylinder vehicles sound like vacuum cleaners, but this one sounded different. Powerful. I stood to look out the window and saw a bronze-poly-toned sports speedster gleaming in the dark and the streetlamps, a car to rival my Harley Bitsa for style, design, and sheer kick-ass-ity. “What is that?” I breathed.
“That,” Alex shouted down the stairs, “is Edmund’s Thunderbird Maserati 150 GT. It’s one of the few 1957 prototypes still in existence.” He smacked down the stairs in his flip-flops and out the side door. The rest of us followed to see him throw open the side gate to the tiny alley between my house and the one next door and rush into the street. “Yes!” He pumped his fist. “That is a one-of-a-kind car called a little rocket because of its incredible power-to-weight ratio. One like it fetched more than three million at auction a few years back.”
“Three mil? I thought Edmund was broke.”
“Methinks Eddie lied,” Eli said.
“Is that Brute in the passenger seat?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Alex shouted over the sound of the engine echoing off the narrow walls as the little rocket eased into the tight alley and into the side yard, between the barbecue grill and the brick wall. “Ed’s bringing Brute. Leo kicked him out of HQ for reasons
unknown. I’m guessing the werewolf peed in his shoes or ate his Barcalounger.”
“This is getting ridiculous,” I said. I felt an itch between my shoulder blades, as if someone had a laser scope on me, a high-powered rifle aimed at a kill site. I was breathing too fast, heart beating too fast. Crap, crap, crap. I didn’t like this at all.
Too many people in our den, Beast thought, panting hard. Shift into big-cat and run. We find new den. Alone.
The car went silent and Alex said, “Can I drive your car, dude?”
“No,” Edmund said as he stepped from the Maserati 150 GT. The three-hundred-pound white werewolf leaped from the passenger seat and landed on the ground with a faint grunt as Edmund closed the door. The car door met the body of the car with that distinctive dead sound of the perfectly machined, airtight work of art. Edmund said, “Only my mistress-to-be may drive my car.”
Inside me, Beast stopped panting, her dread stopped in its tracks. Her ears pricked up, her attention moving from the wolf to the two-seater. Hunt cow in car. Fast car. Faster than cow. Faster than stinky dog-wolf. Car has no head. Can leap from car to cow. Want to hunt!
“Edmund,” I said, resisting the lure of the sportster. “You will be keeping Brute with you. You both will be sleeping in the weapons room. There is one bed. There is no room for your clothes or your belongings. And I don’t care, so don’t bitch at me about it. The only entrance to your room, available to you, is under the house.” Edmund’s eyes flared, the white sclera going scarlet, though his pupils stayed almost human small and his fangs didn’t snap down. “Right,” I said, stepping closer until my arm shoved against his. I towered over him. “Understand me, fanghead,” I said, prodding, pushing. “You and the wolf will not be sleeping in the house with my godchildren.”
“Isn’t that racial and species profiling?” Edmund asked, deliberately goading back.
Yeah. He was pushing this. I had to wonder why he was picking now to challenge me, but I didn’t really care. I was suddenly in the mood to hit something, and the vamp was available. I leaned in and sniffed him, picking out the floral reek of the undead and the stink of lies, secrets, and underhanded vamp crap. I blew out, my breath ruffling his hair, letting my anger grow, letting the stink of it fill the backyard. And I started to growl, low in my throat. Molly grabbed both kids and backed away slowly. Eli took Alex by the arm and pulled the teenager away, back to the porch. Molly and Eli were smart. Edmund, not so much. He turned his eyes up to mine, meeting my challenge.
“Vamp profiling? Could be,” I said, showing teeth in a smile that had no humor in it all. “Not that I care. I don’t dislike you, but I don’t want a vamp here. I don’t need a vamp here. I don’t want a primo or an Enforcer or the responsibility to take care of and for another being. I have too many people I have to take care of as it is. I am not adding a fanghead and a werewolf stuck in wolf form to the list of people I have to protect and can’t.”
The backyard went silent.
After the sound of the words died away, I actually heard them.
Beast snorted, Jane is stupid foolish kit.
I saw Eli and Alex on the porch. Eli looked severely ticked off, eyes narrowed, mouth a forbidding line. Alex looked scared. Molly and Evan stood in the open back door and Molly was mad, her eyes spitting sparks. Evan was gathering power, witch power. I heard it in the low hum of the basso note that came from his throat, a note so low it was little more than a vibration, making his red hair and beard stand out around his head in a corona of energies like something Tesla might create. Molly took his hand and her curls lifted, swirling in a breeze that wasn’t there. “Ummm. That’s not quite what I meant,” I said.
“Yes, it is. That’s exactly what you meant and what you believe,” Molly asked. “In some sick little part of your stupid brain, you believe that we come here to be protected. That you are responsible for us all.” She dropped Evan’s hand and strode out of the doorway, pushing past the Youngers, her energies gathering, her anger growing. “I’ll have you know that Evan and I are perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves and our children, born and unborn, against all comers. We are capable of taking down Leo and his entire council. Just the two of us. We don’t need you, you stupid cat. We love you and want to help you. Or I did until you said that load of horse hockey.”
I turned away from my friend and looked at the ground. I didn’t know what to say. But Eli did. His anger falling away, he said, “Not horse hockey. Somewhere, deep inside, Jane needs to take care of the people she loves. But her family is growing too fast and it’s creeping her out.”
Molly considered that, the magics sparking into the air easing off. She said, “Because they get murdered or raped or killed or disappear into snowstorms. Or they take off with a cat in heat and leave her alone.” I felt the heat magic dissipating. “Well, da . . . ang. I get all that, big-cat. I do. But we’re a team, not your dependents. Not your parents. Not your kittens. Not your housemothers or the children you protected from bullies at the children’s home growing up.”
I looked up at that one.
“Yeah. We all know about that,” Alex said. “Reach got hold of your records from the home and I . . . kinda shared them. You know. Once we met Misha we sorta kinda knew anyway.”
Misha was an untrained witch whom I had defended from bullies in the Christian children’s home where we both were raised. I closed my eyes. “Oh, crap.”
Molly said, “We’re also not your responsibilities to worry over or provide for. We’re your friends. Your family.”
“Ditto,” Eli said. “And if you need reminding, I can still kick your butt when I have to. Admittedly I have to cheat to do it, but I can.”
“And we can deal with the fanghead and the wolf,” Big Evan said. “If he tries anything, Mol can drain his undead, unlife-force so fast he’ll be true-dead on the floor before he knows what hit him.”
Edmund tilted his head on his neck in one of those birdlike motions they usually try to hide, a gesture that proves they aren’t human anymore. “You can try, witch,” he hissed.
“This. This is why I don’t want you here, Ed,” I said. “I can’t deal with your silly, vamp lack of emotional control.” Good. Direct the attention off me and my big mouth. “And I know you can take care of yourselves,” I said to Molly and Evan. “It doesn’t stop me from feeling responsible for you and your kids and your sisters and every witch in the world, including the sister I had to kill to save you.” And the effect her life and death had on me. Which might include the flower that morphed into a snake head in my soul home. Evangelina’s scent and favorite flower had been a rose. Something to worry over later, when I had finished trying to destroy or save my relationships. I wasn’t sure which I was actually doing.
“And you?” I said to Eli and Alex. “You’re my baby brothers. Get used to being protected. It’s what big sisters do.”
Edmund, who looked human again when I slanted my eyes at him, seemed to be thinking, his gaze holding a faraway stare. Without warning, he dropped to one knee and said, “Jane Yellowrock, Enforcer to the Master of the City of New Orleans, rogue-Mithran hunter, bravest woman I know. I, Edmund Killian Sebastian Hartley, do hereby swear fealty to you and to yours, to your entire extended and many-peopled and many-creatured family and Yellowrock Clan. To provide, protect, care for, fight for, and to die true-dead as you may need. I place all my needs second to yours and to theirs. I place my hunger second to yours and to theirs. I place all that I am and all that I can be and all that I can do at your disposal, into your hands, for the duration of the next nineteen years. I am yours in life and undeath and in true-death.”
Yellowrock Clan? I opened my mouth to stop this, but he swiveled his body, the knee on the ground at my feet grinding in the grass. “And I swear fealty to the Everharts and Truebloods, for as long as Jane Yellowrock is yours and you are hers, one clan, placing my own well-being beneath your own, and with t
he promise that I shall protect your children and your children’s children unto the laying down of my own undeath.” He turned back to me. “You no longer must protect me, my mistress. My blood is yours to spill.”
“Holy crap in a bucket,” I said.
Primly he said, “The correct response is ‘I accept your fealty. In return I offer you a place at my side, to share my life and my holding, and the promise of a true-death most glorious.’”
“Good by me,” Eli said, his equanimity dropping into place like a veil over his real emotions. “Say it, Jane. Because if you don’t, then I will for you. As your second and your brother according to the Tsalagi, I have the right to go to war with you.” When I stared at him and then around at the group in my tiny yard, he said, “Say it,” in a tone of command.
Something weird and heated flared up in me, something unexpected. Something that felt like a healing when I hadn’t known I was sick or broken. It roared through my body and out my mouth. “Fine,” I shouted. “I accept! You still sleep in the weapons room with a werewolf!”
“Agreed,” Edmund said. “Accept my service.”
I repeated the words “I accept your fealty,” and a strange frisson of trepidation crawled beneath my skin and through my bones, accepting Edmund’s service in the vampiric way. Fealty. Dang it.
“So witnessed?” Ed asked.
“So witnessed,” Eli and Evan said together.
“Coolio!” Angie said from behind her father’s knees. “So witnessed!”
“Coweoo. Sho eness,” EJ said.
“What just happened?” I asked, fighting tears that made no sense at all.
“You just adopted a vampire and werewolf,” Eli said, “to go along with your brothers and your witches.”
“We need a bigger house,” Alex said.