Black Arts: A Jane Yellowrock Novel (43 page)

“Track your brother’s cell. A fanghead took him.”

Alex cursed like the brother of an army Ranger, low and fierce, but he didn’t waste time. I heard tinny clicking sounds in the background. “His cell’s off,” the Kid said.

“Oops. That was your brother’s idea.”

“Sometimes my big bro is an idiot,” he spat. “How bad off was he? What are the chances he’ll turn on the cell?”

“Uhhh.” How did I tell Alex that his brother was bleeding like a stuck pig and tossed over a vamp’s shoulder like a sack of feed, the last time I saw him? “I don’t—”

“Got him!” Alex said. Relief fluttered through me and I closed my eyes. If the cell was back on, then Eli was alive and functioning. The Kid went on. “Got Eli’s and two more cells in what looks like one location, moving together.” More tapping, more silence followed. “Yeah. They just passed a tower. One cell in use, three active. Starting searches on each one now. Old suckheads got no idea how easy it is to track them if they have a cell and the tracker has access to certain governmental Web sites.”

I didn’t ask what governmental Web sites. Alex might get arrested for using them. Eli might die if he didn’t. No contest.

“Hang on,” he said. “Merging with the other cells in close proximity.”

Katie looked at me and leaned over to push a button. We were in her bedroom. And I was in her bed, squished in with vamps and blood-servants like a pile of puppies. Ewww. Not something I wanted to think about just now.

Katie said, “I’ve waked my computer system. It’s top-of-the-line, and I’ve compiled a databank of all properties ever owned by any Mithran in this state for over three hundred years. Your Kid has my permission to merge our systems. The screens in the office are newer. Come.”

My eyes didn’t bug out, but it was a near thing. We all gathered in the office. Troll, who had been out picking up a girl from a “date,” went to work covering the windows with plywood that he had already scavenged from my house. My house. How weird was that? Maybe now I’d put up vamp shutters and do some more improvements, like install a hot tub for soaking.
I have a house
.

Time passed. Everyone got itchy, twitchy with unused energy. Waiting was never easy. My pain waxed and waned, my shoulder muscles and tendons healing, aching, moving under the skin as they rearranged and regrew. And it freaking hurt. Over the cell at my ear, I heard static and Shoffru say, “—will try to keep him alive until we get the diamond.” I jerked toward the sound, but it cut off. Eli? Was Eli the one he wanted to keep alive?

“Come on,” the Kid said, cajoling. “Come on, come on, come on.”

And I realized that Alex had lost the cell connections. I put the cell on speaker and set it in my lap as the reason for the loss occurred to me. “Alex, were you using your regular cell or a burner?” The Kid cursed and cut the connection. With my free hand, I rubbed my shoulder. It throbbed deep down inside, but as I rubbed, something else popped and the pain eased further.

Bliss brought me a tall glass of water and a wet purple washcloth. I drank the water down all in one gulp. Magic heals, but like any magic, it requires energy, and healing my shoulder had taken a lot out of me. When the glass was empty, I handed it back to her and scrubbed the dried blood off me. It stained the washcloth, but I figured that Deon knew all kinds of secrets for getting blood out of cloth. He had to, living here and taking care of the girls.

When I was cleaner, Bliss handed me a purple T-shirt and I spread it out on the bed. It was fuzzy, long-sleeved, with a dragon on it. Not a pretty dragon, but one of the eats-virgins types of dragons, with a body striped like a coral snake, its wings spread wide, covered with striped red skin and feathers. Weird. And so ugly the dragon was beautiful. Through my fingertips, I felt magics tingle over my hand.

I raised my eyebrows at Bliss, and she shrugged. “I figured it was time to see what my magics did. Turns out I have”—she shrugged again as if searching for the words—“some ability with healing. The shirt has a healing spell woven in it. Molly taught me how. I brought it from the lair where we were kept.”

“Yeah? Cool,” I said, trying for nonchalant. Bliss had denied her power and heritage for a long time, running away from it for myriad reasons. That she was embracing it was, well, yeah, amazing. Despite my worry over Molly and Eli, I nodded approval at her. She ghosted a smile at me.

I pulled off my tattered shirt. Big Evan turned away, closing his eyes, which made Rachael grin evilly, her silver earrings catching the light. Poor Evan. The former call girl would never take pity on him now. He was in for a difficult time if he hung around Katie’s for long. When I eased the shirt over my shoulder, I sighed with relief. “Nice,” I said to Bliss. My cell rang and I picked it up again.

“I’m back. Okay,” the Kid said into my ear, frustration lacing his voice. “I got an address for the cell billing, but it won’t do us any good. It’s in Galveston, Texas.” Where the limo had come from. All the pieces were coming together but were leading us nowhere. Unless we had an address for Eli and Molly, we were lost.

“Do you have a broad location?” Katie asked.

“I lost them near Belle Chasse, heading east.”

“Hmmm. . . . I’m sending you my databank file,” Katie said casually, keys tapping, as if she used and talked about computers all the time. “According to my records, a house, the kind I believe you call a McMansion, in Lakewood Golf Club is a rental, owned currently by the Damours’ estate while the property is in probate.” More keys clacked, both in the office and over the cell. “Of course, there are other properties, but I assume Jacques would prefer a large, ornamental house for his temporary clan home.”

“Got you, you bastard,” Alex muttered. I smiled. He could cuss and swear all he wanted right now. I just needed him to find Eli. “Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The car with the cells is heading in the general direction of the golf course. Yeah. Sending a map and a sat view to your cell.”

“We’ll head that way.” I closed my cell and looked at Evan. “Well?”

“I told him. He cut me off without a word.”

I closed my eyes. If Reach was working against us, we were really in trouble. I’d never find Molly or Eli. I pointed to the front of the house and asked Big Evan, “Are the keys still in Eli’s SUV?” He nodded. To Rachael, I said, “You know how to use a gun? A knife?”

She grinned wickedly. “How about a whip? A gorgeous calf-skin cat-o’-nine-tails with tiny sterling-over-steel blades in the ends. Christie taught me how.”

“I spelled them for her,” Bliss said. She shrugged when I looked at her curious. “One part of healing is to decrease the ability of blood to clot, for people having heart attacks or clot-made strokes. There’s a spell for that; Molly showed me how.” She looked down and then back up, holding me with her eyes. “If I push the spell a little, and put it on the metal barbs, then whatever it cuts won’t clot over. Instead it will relax and expand the vessels it cuts, making the person bleed out faster. Vamps would bleed out really fast unless I reversed the spell, or they had help from a master vamp.”

“How fast can you reverse it if needed? Like an instantaneous reversal?”

She nodded, knowing I was going to ask her to use her magic against another sentient being. But to have created the spell in the first place, she had already planned that. So I wasn’t leading a witch into dark magic, I lied to myself.

I pulled a throwing knife. “Can you do that with this too?” She nodded again, reaching out a finger to touch the blade. I felt the hilt go cold. The blade seemed to frost over, a spiderweb of power that vanished as quickly as it appeared. The hilt warmed again, as if it had never been cold. “Nifty.” I grinned at her. “I promise to use it only for good, and to the benefit of mankind.”

Bliss dropped her head, her black hair sliding forward, hiding her face, but I had the feeling that she was pleased with my promise, no matter how silly I had phrased it. “I have a passel of knives that need the spell. And when we get where we’re going, can you keep an eye out for anyone who isn’t trying to kill us as we rescue Eli, and reverse the spell if they get cut by accident?” She nodded again. “Good. And just in case,” I added, holding out a silver stake, “can you make this one already reversed, so I have it as needed?”

Bliss’ forehead crinkled, as she tried to figure out how to reverse a spell that wasn’t there yet. Then she just touched it twice. The first time, the sterling stake iced over and went cold; with the second touch, it heated, fast.

“I can shoot,” Shiloh said. “I used to hunt with my dad.” Her face closed off for an instant as she thought of her dad, who had been killed by her mother. That had to be a tough thing for a kid to remember, even a bloodsucking kid vamp. “Rifle,” she went on, “shotgun. But a rifle is better. I don’t like a shotgun’s kick.”

“Good. There’s probably a hunting rifle with a scope in the SUV. Let’s roll.”

“One little problem,” Shiloh said. “What do we do with the dead Mithran in Katie’s living room? We can’t decapitate her. It wouldn’t be right.”

Why not?
But I didn’t say it. Shiloh was still human enough to have morals, not a trait common to most vamps, and a quality I wouldn’t harm.

I looked at Katie, who said, “Such is not my responsibility. It belongs to the Mercy Blade.”

I flipped open my burner cell again and dialed Leo’s new primo. When Adelaide answered I gave her an update and said, “Adrianna is close to being true-dead, but still has her head. Would you be so kind as to send the Mercy Blade to Katie’s to, uh, pick her up? You can have the Council accountant deposit my fee electronically.” I could almost feel Del’s single elegant eyebrow rise. “Just tell Gee DiMercy. He’ll explain it all.”

I closed the cell and looked over my small band of warriors, finding a smile somewhere inside and plastering it on my face. “Let’s go.” I grabbed up my weapons and headed for the car, not arguing when Big Evan shoved the driver’s seat back as far as it would go and turned the key. Not arguing when Shiloh and her vamp blood-servants piled in back. Not arguing about anything, as Big Evan and my coterie of fighters drove out of the city.

We were still on the east side of the river when Shiloh’s cell warbled a punk rock tune from the ’nineties. She looked at the screen, but rather than answer, she held out her phone to me. It was purple and studded with bling. A teenage vamp from the ’nineties. Go figure. I looked at the number on the screen. It was Reach’s number. I didn’t let my face change. I couldn’t. If I did, Evan would rip the phone out of my hand and crash the SUV.

“Hello?”

“Jane?”
Molly
. The connection was awful, but her tone came through anyway, sounding disbelieving, as if she didn’t really believe it was me. Sounding guarded as if she was expecting me to lash out at her. “How . . . ? Really you?”

“Yeah. It’s me.”

Molly laughed softly, sounding broken, even over the static. “Your voice is coming out of the intercom. I’m either crazy or . . . dreaming.”

“Neither. I have a tech genius who made it work.” I blinked back tears. “We don’t have long, so just listen and let me recap. I have the diamond,” I said. “Everyone wants it, including Jack Shoffru, who used to hang out with the diamond’s owners, the Damours. He scammed you, thinking you had it, and got you here. Then, when you didn’t come straight to me for help, he kidnapped you, found you didn’t have it, so then he took Shiloh, one of the Damours’ scions, thinking she could tell him where it was now that she was sane.” Or maybe vice versa. Whatever.

Big Evan’s face went tight as he realized I was talking to Molly. But he didn’t backhand me or accidentally drive off the bridge into the Mississippi, so that was good. Molly said softly, “How could he know I was in town? I didn’t call anyone. I thought I had time to put my head on a pillow for just a short rest before coming to you. And he was there before I even closed my eyes. I’m so stupid.”

“No. Not stupid. Someone was tailing your cell’s GPS, overriding it. And that same someone is letting you talk to me now.” I went on, outlining Shoffru’s actions. “Jack sent some of his people to look for the diamond at Leo’s the night of the
gather.
”

“I don’t know,” Molly said. “I’m handcuffed in a room in a house with steel shutters on the walls. And he keeps me . . . he keeps me blood-drunk,” she finished, and I understood. It felt good, so good, when a vamp drank, the lure of seduction, the chemicals in a vamp’s blood making it seem right and good to give everything he wanted. I didn’t know how far the seduction had gone, but I could hear the shame in her voice as she said, “Every time I try to get away, he comes in and he . . . he drinks from me.”

Another burner cell rang and Bliss opened it. “We have an address,” she said softly. “A house on that golf course. And according to Alex, the car with Shoffru is still en route.”

“He isn’t there now, Molly,” I said. “He’s in a car and he’s close. Can you get away?”

“I can’t.” Suddenly she sobbed, speaking through the tears. “I can’t break through the shackles without draining someone. I can’t. I can’t . . .” She stopped, her breath ragged. “I can’t kill—” Her voice stopped and I knew she was about to finish with “anyone else.” I figured it was the first time Molly had admitted to anyone, except Bliss, that her magic had gone bad, and she didn’t want to be talking to me now. She was drunk and ashamed and wanted to hide away until things miraculously fixed themselves or she found a way out of her troubles. Bad thing about that was, troubles didn’t just go away or get all better. They took work and effort and maybe some danger. And unfortunately she didn’t have some sweet, kind, gentle person on the line. She had me. And I didn’t have time to be figure out how to be nice.

I considered what I was about to do, and stared at Evan, telling him with my eyes to keep driving and stay back. “I know about the dead plants and the danger to your family,” I said. She took a harsh breath over the connection. It was a sound one might make while peeling back a bandage to see the wound beneath. “I have a feeling that Jack Shoffru has convinced you that the blood magic contained in the diamond might be strong enough to help you control your own magic. Might keep you from killing your husband and your children.”