Shadow Rites

  What did I do to be surrounded by so many weepy humans? I backed out of the elevator and caught sight of Scrappy, Leo’s new secretary, and Del, Leo’s new primo. I hadn’t seen much of Del recently and we exchanged nods. “She was Leo’s pet for a while?”

  Del’s mouth hardened in a line as she looked over the girl. Except for the height, they were dead ringers for each other. “Before my time.”

  I thought about Grégoire. And Katie. Blondes. “Leo has a type?”

  “It’s fluid. Currently he is chasing blondes.”

  “Get someone to bleed and read her and send anything pertinent to Alex and Eli.”

  “I’ll see to it, Enforcer,” Del said.

  Yeah. My order, sanctioned by the authority given me by the man who had hurt this poor pitiful girl. Who would likely slide into more blood and sex slavery. “See if you can find someone with a lot of finesse. And then see if they can break her addiction.” When Del looked at me in amusement, I added, “Try,” making that an order too.

  * * *

  I entered Leo’s limo and a security person closed the door. “Problems?” Bruiser asked.

  I frowned at Leo. “One of his castoffs was working with the Nicaud witches. You really need to keep it in your pants.”

  Up front, Wrassler made a choked sound. No one spoke. Leo’s eyebrow rose, just the one. There were multiple emotions in the elegant gesture—amusement at me, a trace of anger at the woman’s betrayal, a steely-eyed promise of retaliation at my lack of proper etiquette. “Keep it in my pants . . .”

  “Yeah. Your need to tap everything that moves causes nothing but problems.”

  Leo said stiffly, “I have taken your recommendations under advisement.”

  Which said and meant absolutely nothing. I just frowned back at him before looking around the limo. “Everyone got your anti-DNA charms?”

  “We all have them,” Leo said, sounding almost snappish.

  The motorcycles pulled out in a roar and Leo’s limo followed them, turning right. Ming’s turned left, and Grégoire’s turned right and then pulled away from us, each limo taking a different route.

  As my worries increased, we drove through the streets of the French Quarter and down St. Charles Avenue, toward the Elms Mansion and Gardens. All three limos arrived without incident. All the motorbikes arrived safely. Even the traffic cooperated and not a single motorcycle came near any of us, except the ones ridden by Leo’s security as they zigged and zagged through traffic, keeping watch. Everything was perfect.

  Heck. It didn’t even rain. When the other shoe drops, it’s gonna be a kicker. Ha-ha, I thought as we reached the Elms. Wrassler, driving the limo that Leo and I were in, pulled into a parking space on a side street, one guarded by a police officer in charge of traffic cones. There was no press. In a city like New Orleans, a gathering of two hundred unknowns was nothing, and Leo’s appearance hadn’t been publicized.

  I gave Bruiser a communications headset before I slid out of the limo. I rearranged the stakes in my bun from travel-position to higher, into a tall silver, garnet, and ash-wood halo, adjusted my weapons, and wished there had been time to oil and wear my slightly squeaky leathers for a month. But a girl can’t have everything. With Beast-sight, I took in the house and the surrounding area. Everything glowed with witch magics, reflected in windows across the street, in the paint jobs of the limos. Here, where we needed it just as much as, or more than, under the porte cochere, there was no phalanx of armored shields. No. Such precautions would have made Leo look weak. My unease grew.

  The motorcycle escort pulled in and dismounted fast. They lined up, providing a passageway of bodies for Leo to walk through. If someone shot at Leo, they’d more likely hit one of his humans. Which ticked me off, but that was the ugly truth of the blood-servant life.

  Bruiser followed me, and together we flanked Leo’s door as he slid, elegant and graceful, from the leather seat. Leo breathed in my scent, which let me know how much he liked the trace of alarm that was coming from my pores. I thought about smacking him, but this wasn’t the time or place to depend on snark.

  Ming slipped from the next limo, petite and delicate and powerful, to be flanked by the Robere twins. “I feel nothing,” she said to Leo across the short distance. “No taste of the magics used against me.” Which meant the enemy witches were probably saving whatever attack they were planning for when we were all inside and had no room to maneuver whatsoever. Just ducky.

  Grégoire and the Mercy Blade stepped lightly from the third limo and joined us. Both of the narrow-waisted men were dressed in silks and satins and leather thigh-high boots, Gee in a gold-color brocade that looked vaguely familiar, and that contrasted with his hair. Grégoire wore black, something like what Zorro might have worn, though without the demi-mask, to contrast with Gee’s. And then I got it. They were wearing each other’s clothes. They had shared. How . . . cute. I kept my lips in a neutral position, not allowing my face to show my amusement, which would have been a good way to get sliced and diced. The two made a fetching set of bookends—deadly, dangerous, lovely book ends. The witches would swoon at the sight of the pretty, pretty boys.

  I had worried that since Gee had been spelled once before, he might be again, but Molly and Evan had given him an extra trinket, Christmas-tree-shaped, that was pinned to his lapel. If he was on the bad end of a magical attack, all the little Christmas tree lights would light up. That and the anti-DNA charm were good enough for me. I wanted his ability with a sword tonight, and if his tree lights lit up, I’d just bonk him on the head and knock him out. I had mad skills that way. I had no Christmas tree charm, but I wore a charm like the others, my leathers were spelled to withstand all sorts of magical attacks, and with my Beast Early Warning System I had enough protection. Totally enough.

  Bruiser and I, with Leo between us, walked through the line of security toward the front of the house with its unarmored, stained-glass-windowed front doors. Our cadre didn’t look like a show of force to non-Mithrans, but it was. We were dangerous enough to defeat most any attack. Or so I had told myself.

  Evan was standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the lights within. The witches must have been watching for us to arrive, because the ward dropped with a shower of black, silver, and crimson motes of power, and a falling rush of flaming energies. The conclave witches had to lower the ward so that we might enter, and this was the best time of all to attack, when the defenses were down and people were in motion. But nothing happened as we filed in and our outside security took up their places. No green magics. No explosions. No iron and water scent. No warning from Ming. Nada.

  My black-helmeted backup precautions took their places on the porch and nodded to me as we passed. They didn’t appear to be armed, but they all were. Heavily.

  The door closed behind us all and the ward went back up with a prickle of magics that would have made my hair stand on end if it wasn’t braided so tightly and plastered to my head. The magics rising over the house and grounds made me want to sneeze. The Elms was warded so completely that looking at the crisscrossed energies was like looking at a scarlet sun. Even humans could see the magics.

  Evan bowed to Leo. “Welcome to the National Council of Witches, sir. The council has passed all of the accords.”

  “Ahhh,” Leo said. “A momentous day indeed.”

  “Yes, sir. This way, please?” He extended an arm to show us the way, and I moved out in front. As I passed Evan, I presented him with a leather booklet containing a single written page, the titles of the vamps to be introduced. Under cover of the move, he pressed something into my right hand. I looked down and saw a lump of clear yellow, amber, and brown. A sticky note was stuck to it. I pocketed it for a later read.

  Waiting still for that other shoe, I led the way into the ballroom, where the witches would hear the vamp trio’s titles announced. The smells hit me first. If I had hoped to tease out the one s
cent of the Kawasaki-riding senza onore witch, I was sadly mistaken. The stink of magic burned my nasal passages, mingled with the awful mashed-up scents of perfume, scented body sprays and lotions, fabric softener in their clothes, hair spray, sweat, bad breath, toothpaste, and the food odors from their lunches. I managed not to gag or wrinkle my nose at the blended stench, but it was a near thing.

  We filed in and onto the low dais in the ballroom corner, across from the entrance, where the speech-giving was taking place. No one jumped us. No one threw magic. No one even looked dangerous. Mostly they looked like middle-aged women of various cultures and ethnic backgrounds, most of whom could have used a fashion makeover centered on what not to wear. Ever. But they looked uniformly pleasant, if tired. No one even frowned at us.

  Evan opened the booklet I had given to him. Vamp titles were always too long, too complicated, and boring to anyone but them, so the fangheads had agreed to trim the titles that would mean nothing to the gathered witches anyway. He cleared his voice as he scanned the page, and I checked out the hidden cameras and the positioning of the exits, the mansion and gardens so heavily warded that no one and nothing could get in or out. I hoped that we didn’t have a fire.

  Evan introduced the vamps in order of importance, from least to most significant, “Ming Zoya, former Blood Master of Clan Mearkanis, currently third in line to the position of Master of the City of New Orleans.” Which was news to me. Ming might have been elevated because of something about the vamp war, or Leo had promoted her to make her look more important to the witches gathered here. There could be a dozen overlapping reasons for her promotion. She was sniffing the air, searching out the witches, but from her body language, she was having less success in finding the senza onore than I had.

  Evan went on, reading from the small booklet. “Grégoire, Blood Master of Clan Arceneau, of the court of Charles the Wise, fifth of his line, in the Valois Dynasty. Second in line to the position of Master of the City of New Orleans.”

  Grégoire bowed and smiled and looked for all the world like a fifteen-year-old boy dressed up for cosplay at a local faire or for a part in a school play. Pretty. Vivacious. But the sword at his hip was real and he wasn’t afraid to use it. While he was being charming, I pulled the small thing that Evan had given me. It was about the size and shape of a goose egg, lightweight, with a faintly resinous scent. I put my right hand behind my back and explored the lump with my fingers as Evan continued.

  “Leonard Eugène Zacharie Pellissier, Mithran Blood Master of the City of New Orleans and the Southeastern United States, with the exception of Florida.” All three bowed and Leo’s bow was the least deep. It all meant something to the vamps, but nothing to the witches. In fact, the vamps might be insulting the witches to pieces and they would never know it. The Onorios stood to the sides, the Roberes on one end, at the windows, Bruiser with me.

  I spotted Eli in his new leathers, looking spiffy, eyes intense, his jacket unzipped for easy access to the weapons he was wearing beneath, but his body appeared relaxed and easy. As if everything was okay.

  It had never occurred to me that there would not be an attack. But . . . I had to consider the possibility that the senza onore witches had planted all the magic they had in the yard, and that once it exploded, they were out of witchy firepower. I managed a deep breath at the thought. It was possible that we’d blown up all they had up and that everything was going to be hunky-dory. That possibility had never seriously crossed my mind.

  Leo lifted his head from the bow, took a breath that made his nostrils move, inhaling the mingled scents. “Many thanks for allowing me to speak with your gather. Our species have been divided, and divided again, with war and discord and fear, when we Mithrans came from witches and owe our magic to them. It is my hope that the Witch Council of the United States of America will heed my plea and accept my offer of reconciliation and peace. I know you have been presented with my offer of resolution and restitution, and have had an opportunity to discuss it. I am here now to answer any questions . . .”

  Yada yada yada.

  I took another breath that didn’t hurt and only then noticed that I’d been holding myself ready for battle. I put my hands together, shielding the thing the thing Evan had given me with my left, and glanced down. It was a lump of yellow, brown, and rusty-iron-colored stuff, a vaguely ovoid blob of nothing much at all. The note said:

  Lump of burned iron-dust from two of the icons.

  Encased in melted frankincense.

  Mixed with an Everhart-Trueblood spell.

  These three things encase the brooch that was in the pit with Ming.

  Holy crap. It didn’t feel like magic, but it had to contain some pretty major hoodoo.

  A small arrow at the bottom of the note suggested that there was something written on the other side. I flipped the small paper over to see smaller print.

  This will get three beings through the wards.

  Once out, they can’t get back in.

  It may do other things against the ones who used the brooch on Ming.

  We inserted a . . . a backatcha working in the frankincense.

  It hasn’t been tested. It hasn’t flown.

  I held in a smile. When Molly created a new spell that flunked when tested, she folded it into a paper airplane and few it across the room. “It hasn’t flown” was an attempt at humor. I pocketed the blob and turned my attention back to the rest of the ballroom. Evan was standing near Eli. The witch caught my eye and I nodded once, very slightly. His beard, which he had trimmed short after the burning, moved, suggesting that he might have smiled back.

  The Q and A had started and Leo was answering with as much honesty as I had ever heard, though anyone who had ever listened to vamps dicker could hear the places where he fudged or talked around or answered a different question from the one that had been asked. Of course, he was so charming that he got away with it most of the time. As long as he didn’t try to compel them, we were all good and they wouldn’t fry him into a strip of vamp-flavored jerky.

  Things moved from boring toward conclusion pretty fast. Until a witch asked, “We understand that a Mithran contingent from Europe is expected soon. If we sign your accord, how would their presence in the city affect us?”

  Leo actually offered a small bow to her, in recognition of one who got the political implications. The woman nodded back. She was short and middle-aged, with broad hips and hair dyed in strips of pink, burgundy, cerise, and purple. The hair was braided and hung long, maybe longer than my own. “Madame is wise and politically astute with her query,” Leo said. “There are many ways to consider such a question, and I wish to be perspicuous and candid with this issue, so forgive my verbosity. Such wordiness is frowned upon in these modern times of hashtags and sound bites, but I must offer a complete answer.

  “The Mithrans of Europe have no love of witches. The Parisian War between our species in the third century AD left the remaining Mithrans with . . .” Leo smiled. “. . . anger issues.”

  The witches tittered.

  I had to guess the vamps had lost that battle.

  “There are Parisian survivors among the Europeans,” he continued, “and if they still cherish violent intentions against witches, there might be . . . difficulties. And if they come with violent intent against the Americas-based Mithrans, instead of peaceful ones, there is the possibility of . . . shall we say, more than verbal discord?” Leo paused and clasped his hands behind his back. He dropped his head, his posture so professorial that it was disconcerting. I had to wonder if Leo had been an actor in his earlier life. Or a professor. “If they choose violence here, war between the European and the New Orleans Mithran factions becomes more likely.

  “It has been my purpose,” he said, staring at the dais and his patent leather shoe tops, shining black in the ballroom lights, “and my intent to keep the humans and witches of this city safe from all discord bet
ween the factions.”

  “Not safe from the Damours who killed our children?” the woman asked, her soft voice carrying through the abruptly silent room.

  “This requires a tale not oft told, of the world as it was in the days of slavery,” Leo said. “And the slave revolt in Saint Domingue, what is now Haiti, and an evil clan of Naturaleza vampires who were also witches.”

  An explosion sounded, juddering through the floor. The vamps were instantly holding bladed weapons. Eli was holding a handgun, and his head snapped to me. Bruiser sprinted to the front door, the other Onorios spilt, one Robere twin to the Chaperone’s Alcove and its entrances to the back and side of the house, and the other to the doorway to the Louis XVI Room. Eli tilted his head, listening to the aftershocks and echoes, and said, “Outside the ward. Within a block. Similar to the ones in the yard.” Belatedly the witches began to stand.

  “That was outside the ward,” Lachish said. “We are utterly safe.” She looked down her nose at the vamps and said, “Put away your weap—”

  Something clattered and thumped upstairs. Overhead. As if falling and landing on the floor. “Alex,” I said. Alex had set up his equipment in a small room off the stairway. I was halfway up the stairs, moving at Beast-speed, when Leo and Bruiser passed me, their bodies pops of air and blurs of color.

  Leo was kneeling at the Kid’s side, fingers pressed to his neck at the carotid. My heart plummeted. “He is not dead,” Leo said, “but I smell his blood.”

  “Alive,” I shouted down the stairs to Eli, who was standing halfway down, guarding access to the front entrance, the ballroom, and the stairs, weaponed up like a ninja in his new spelled leathers. Guarding our exit, knowing that we were better able to help Alex right now than he was, when he had to want to be up here with his brother. “Out cold,” I added, watching Leo’s medically proficient examination. His fingers came away bloody. “Head wound, but it doesn’t appear major.”