Black Magic Bayou (33 page)

“Aww, man. You seem mad. Are you mad?”

He roared at me.

One of the vampires slammed into me, knocking me to the floor. The air escaped my lungs in a hard
whoosh,
and I gasped, trying to get my breath back. The vamp’s fangs were out, gnashing wildly, and he was pressing my gun hand down with his full weight. As I scrambled to get my fingers around the knife in my boot, he bit down.

Pain seared through me, the place where his teeth latched down on my clavicle burning like it was on fire. When he tasted blood, he shook his head like a frenzied dog, tearing my shirt and skin both in turn. He pulled back, and his face was soaked with red, a tattered piece of my linen button-down dangling from a fang.

I drove my knife into his temple.

For a second his eyes widened and his mouth went slack in shock, then his body went limp, the full weight of him collapsing on top of me.

“I liked this shirt,” I grumbled.

The last of the minion vamps didn’t even wait for me to get the dead vampire weight off me. He fell on top of his former friend, snarling and snapping, crazed from the exposed blood he could probably taste in the air.

“Fuck off.” My gun hand was free again, and in spite of the searing pain it caused to move my bitten arm, I got the weapon up and pulled the trigger.

His head exploded.

And now there were two dead vampires on top of me.

“You
bitch
,” the vampire in the robe shouted.

“I’ve been called worse.” The air was being slowly crushed out of my lungs, but I somehow managed to wriggle myself out from under the stack of bodies. The front of my once-white shirt was red, both from my blood and theirs.

The master vampire was in front of me in a flash, moving with a speed that couldn’t even be registered by the human eye. One second he was across the room, and the next he had my wrist in his hand, squeezing so hard I was forced to drop the Sig.

He shoved me face-first against the wall, holding my hands behind me, the way a police officer might hold someone they were about to cuff. When he pressed his mouth against my ear, his fangs were so sharp the point of one grazed my earlobe. I shuddered.

“You have taken my flock from me.”

“Guess you weren’t much of a shepherd, then.”

He pushed my face hard against the stone wall, and I could practically feel the bruise blooming across my cheek.

I guess all those warnings I’d heard in my youth about there being a time and place for sass were right. If I hadn’t figured out when to shut up by now, I’d probably never learn.

“You took their lives, and now I will have you to start a new church. You will be my disciple, and I will show you the true face of God.”

He adjusted his grip on my hands, and my fingers brushed the open zipper of the pouch on the back of my belt.

I had a
really
bad idea.

I twisted in his grip, feigning like I might try to fight him. Instead, as he strengthened his hold on me, I was able to get my fingers around the little metal egg in my bag. I inched it up into my palm, my heart hammering a mile a minute, praying to any
other
gods present that I wouldn’t accidentally pull the pin.

As soon as the grenade was in my palm, I let out a tiny gasp of relief.

“If you’re going to bite me, the least you could do is look me in the eye.” My pulse was going a mile a minute. This all depended on him letting go of me just long enough that I could move my arm.

“You want to look death in the face?” His tone was cocky, confident. This guy was definitely sure he had me beaten, and that only pissed me off more.

“Yes please.”

“So be it.” He released my hands and spun me around, slamming me against the cavern wall. He showed me his fangs, and if I’m being totally honest, they were pretty scary.

My grenade was scarier.

I shoved it into his mouth so hard his front canine cracked, and then I pulled the pin.

“When you see the real God, tell him I say hi.”

I was barely up the cave incline when the explosion knocked me off my feet.

Bits of rock and debris rained down from above, clattering really aggressive hail. Dust settled on me, leaving a thick coating of grime all over my skin. I staggered to my feet, shaking off the stone, and held my breath.

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. Maybe that the whole cave would collapse in on me, burying me alive? Or that the vampire had somehow managed to get the grenade out of his mouth—which he’d been trying so desperately to do he’d let me go.

In the silence that followed the explosion, neither now seemed all that likely.

I made my way back to the low-ceilinged entrance, but found my legs were too wobbly to crouch, so I got on my hands and knees and crawled out to the front. Whenever I put any weight on my left arm my open wound screamed in protest, and by the time I reached the mouth of the cave, I could no longer support myself on it.

Cool, damp air greeted me like an old friend, washing over my face and turning the layer of dust into a coat of wet muck. That, combining with the blood on my shirt, turned me into a walking nightmare-creature that would send laundry maids into fits.

My poor shirt.

I took my cap off—which had remarkably weathered the whole ordeal with only a few blood splatters and a layer of dust—and wiped my face as clean as I could using my filthy arm.

When I got to the edge where the waterfall gave way to the narrow path back to where I’d rappelled down, my body said
nope
. There would be no cliff hugging. No rock face climbing.

I sat on a rock, the mist from the waterfall soaking me, and the skies overhead opened up. The threatened storm had arrived, and now the rain fell in sheets so thick I could barely see the top of the cliff where Eduardo had parked the jeep.

I could make out my Bolivian escort though, standing at the edge, waving.

Guess I’d announced my exit pretty loudly.

“Ms. McQueen, are you okay?”

I put my cap back on, protecting my eyes from the falling rain, and suddenly I was laughing.

I laughed so hard I had to catch my breath before I could reply.

“I’ll live.”

Thanks for reading
Black Magic Bayou
! I hope you enjoyed the continuing adventures of Genie McQueen. Genie and her crew will be back next spring (along with some old friends and enemies) so stay tuned.

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, or stop by my Facebook page at
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Think a friend would enjoy
Black Magic Bayou
? It’s lendable through the Kindle lending library, so share it with a friend!

Can’t wait to start another Sierra Dean book? Keep reading for a sample chapter of
Thunder Road
, the Tallulah Corentine Rain Chaser series. Book 2 comes out February 2017.

Thunder Road (Rain Chaser #1)

Being Chosen was supposed to be a gift.

That’s what Tallulah Corentine’s parents told her when they handed her over to the Rain Chasers on her seventh birthday. It was an honor to be born with a destiny, to be hand selected by the gods before taking her first breath. She should be overjoyed.
 

Twenty years later, Tallulah is still waiting for the gift. She might have the power of the storm at her fingertips, but she’s spent her whole adult life living under a cloud.
 

A cross-country trip to find the wayward son of Seth, god of the storm, turns into a fight for her life when she dupes Death out of a valuable treasure. With only a wily con man, a dangerously handsome bad-luck priest, and a lot of lightning to help her, can she deliver the package and keep herself out of an early grave?
 

Or will Seth be looking for a new Rain Chaser before it’s all over?

Contrary to popular opinion, you
can
cheat Death.

She just doesn’t like it very much.

At the moment I wasn’t concerned about Manea or the grisly fate that awaited me if one of her goons caught up to me, however. I was too busy trying to keep all four of my Mustang’s wheels on the blacktop. Otherwise I’d be driving my way off a cliff and right into the goddess’s cold embrace.

No thank you.

When Manea finally came for me, I’d be damn sure it was the ending befitting someone of my status, and not some freak accident on a rain-slicked highway.

If anyone could drive in the rain, it was a cleric of Seth, the storm god. He would laugh over my grave if hydroplaning was what wiped me off the face of the earth.

I eased up on the brakes as my car skimmed weightlessly over the smooth surface of the highway. To my left was a sheer rock face that would crush the car like an aluminum can against a frat boy’s forehead. On the right was a drop so treacherous even the guardrail seemed to lean away from it.

Rock, meet hard place.

Hard place, meet Tallulah.

Story of my damned life.

I angled the car towards the rock wall slightly and took a breath through my nostrils. Behind me, three sets of headlights were edging closer, and it was only a matter of time before I didn’t have a choice of which direction to go. My pursuers would decide for me.

Three…

“Hang tight, Fen.” I jostled the buckle I’d fastened to the pet carrier in the passenger seat. A small
pip
of acknowledgment—or censure—came through the holes. The sassy little mongrel was getting smart with me. Some familiar he was.

Two…

Gritting my teeth so hard my jaw hurt, I flipped on the radio.

Chanting echoed over the building guitar line.

Thunder.

I grinned and felt a warm calm wash over of me as Brian Johnson’s high-pitched growl sounded through the Mustang’s speakers. The bass vibrated the seat beneath me, and as the chorus hit—

One.

I slammed my foot onto the gas the moment the curve of the road opened up.

Thunderstruck.

Damn right.

My wheels spun on the wet surface, sending up a rooster tail of mist in my wake. As soon as rubber found purchase a loud squeal threatened to deafen me and almost drowned out AC/DC, which wasn’t an easy feat. But as the Mustang shot forward at full speed I knew, for the first time all night, there was a chance I was going to get out of this alive.

“Thank Seth.”

Fenrir, who couldn’t resist getting the last word, chirruped noisily beside me.

“Calm your tits, furball. I’ve got this.”

One of the pursuit vehicles wasn’t prepared for my evasive maneuvers. He hit a patch of water and spun out of control, barreling straight into the rocks. Flame erupted from the shell of his car, blocking out my view of the other two pursuers.

Had they been human they might have stopped to see if he was okay. But Manea didn’t fool around with the living. Her clerics were all among the undead, with the notable exception of His Supreme Dickheadedness Prescott McMahon. A man so abhorrent only the goddess of death would spend time with him.

I gripped the steering wheel like it was the last life preserver on the
Titanic
and kept my foot pressed to the floor. There was a reason I drove a car that could go zero to sixty in fifteen seconds flat, and it involved an awful lot of running for my life.

You might think a lifetime commitment to serve a god would make you popular or at least offer a modicum of respect along with the title. You’d be wrong.

Human clerics were like walking complaint boxes for the gods they served. When things went well, folks said their prayers and sent their payments, thanking the gods directly. When things went wrong, though, the anger and frustration came right to me.

Tallulah Corentine, earthbound bitch to the god of the storm.

Thanks a heap, destiny.

The car sailed smoothly around another corner, like it had grown wings and could fly me right off this blasted highway. No such luck. If I went flying, a long date with gravity would greet me shortly thereafter.

I could only evade my pursuers for so long, and I certainly couldn’t count on all of them being such poor drivers. Sure, they were undead, but their reflexes worked just fine. If I wanted to make it out of this alive, I’d need to either get off the mountain or face them directly. Outside a steel box on wheels, there was a possibility I could take them down in hand-to-hand combat.

I wouldn’t feel too guilty about killing them since they were already dead.

Ahead of me on the side of the road was a sign for a runaway lane, a high, sloping hill that could be used for cars whose brakes gave out on the treacherous road.

It was also a great way to get me to a higher vantage point.

“Should I do something gloriously stupid, Fen?”

He pipped, as if suggesting this would be nothing new. Or maybe I was projecting.

The two remaining cars were gaining on me. I guess when a driver doesn’t need to worry about dying, they’re willing to take more risks. And here I thought I was plenty risky enough.

I said a silent prayer to Seth that the road would stay clear, and jerked my wheel to the left, sending me straight for the runaway slope like an arrow fired at a target. There was only one chance for me to get this right. Manea didn’t offer do-overs.

The Mustang lost momentum as I rose up the slope, just as I anticipated. I reached the apex of the hill and slammed my foot on the brake, making the car skid in the wet mud. I parked and listened to the engine purr along to the falsetto rock genius of “Thunderstruck.”

“Na-na-nanananana,” I said under my breath.

A magical incantation it was not, but it would do.