Mercy Blade (5 page)

I checked the map on my fancy cell and rode on, past a Monsanto plant and what looked like petroleum refineries, and then away from the river into the countryside, into the middle of bottomland and farms. An hour outside of New Orleans and the city was forgotten. Bayous, a distant stink of swamp, and agricultural equipment had replaced the now-familiar smell of the French Quarter.

The sun was a red ball on the horizon when I finally found the place Leo wanted me to go. It was a biker bar. Go figure. Booger’s Scoot, slang for gross stuff and a motorbike, was brand-new, the Grand Opening banner hanging limply in the airless dusk. A former gas station and car repair shop, the place had been remodeled, repainted, replastered, and freshly stuccoed in white with bloodred trim, but the new look kept the original design of a Spanish hacienda, arches at every opening, even the repair bays, which were now filled with window glass and flower-planted window boxes.

The old gas company sign was still up, the ESSO legend faded but legible. A twelve-foot-high chain-link fence was to one side, enclosing bike parking and camping, a place where customers could leave their expensive rides while they drank, played pool, and socialized, and rent one of the tents or the small cabin to stay overnight. The lot was paved, the camp-ground striped with fresh sod, and there was even a shower house in back. I’d stayed in places like it when I traveled. They were cheap, usually safe, and sometimes clean. Booger’s was pristine, with signs posting the rules and a warning to clean up after pets. Booger had done a lot of work, and the number of bikes in the fenced area this early said a lot about his service and his food. The bikes were hard-core, chopped, one-of-a-kind beauties with skulls and crossbones, wild animals, and American flags as part of the paint jobs.

I checked the setting sun and knew I had a half hour to reconnoiter before any vamp might show. For safety’s sake, I elected to park in front with the pickups and the one car, facing Bitsa toward the road for a quick getaway if needed. Sitting astride, I let Beast rise in my mind, and wasn’t surprised when the first thing she noticed was the scent of food: fried fish, fried shellfish, fried chicken, fried potatoes, grilled beef, and onions floated over the scent of gasoline and high performance machines. She approved of the menu and sent me an image of an oyster po’boy on a thick French-bread loaf. She licked her snout happily and I shook my head. I had a feeling I’d better eat first, before my contact arrived, because Booger might not want to serve me in the carnage of after. And with vamps, I always expect carnage.

I strapped my helmet to the bike and adjusted my leathers and weapons. Beast warned me that I wasn’t alone, and so I didn’t jump when a voice from the shadows said, “Nice ride. What is she?” My radar went up because he didn’t step from the dark for a better look. Bike lovers are usually drawn to Bitsa; she’s a sweet little lady. But this guy was talking from safety, only his cigarette giving away his position. White smoke drifted on the windless air from the side, near the chain-link fence. Something about the smell of the guy was odd, not clean, as if he hadn’t bathed in a couple of days and had a sinus infection or something. I quested with my other senses and didn’t see or hear anyone else. It was just the sickly-smelling guy and me, which should have relaxed me, but it didn’t.

Without letting him see what I was doing, I tucked the derringer up under my braids and checked the slide of the stakes for easy removal from the bun as I answered. “She’s your basic pan/shovel, put together from two old bikes, and updated by a Zen Harley Master up in Charlotte.”

“Is that a Mikuni HSR-42 carburetor?”

The guy knew his bikes. I put his accent as a vaguely familiar west Texas, but his scent was unknown, and if he wasn’t standing on a ladder, he was a good six feet six. I hummed an affirmative. “And the lifters are updated hydraulics to eliminate maintenance and help keep the noise down.”

“Why would you want to do that?” he said, laughter suffusing his words.

I faced his spot in the dark. “Not everyone wants to advertise or annoy.”

“Walk softly,” he asked, his tone changing from jocular to something else, something with a hint of a growl in it, “and carry a big stick?” He took a drag off the cigarette, the red ember brightening his face for a moment, ruining his night vision. He had slick, freshly shaved cheeks, ruddy skin, hair pulled back from his face, bushy brows, dark eyes. “Or better still, a shotgun and enough weapons to start a small war.”

“Way better than a stick,” I agreed.

“You gonna start a war in Booger’s?” The tone dropped to a basso threat.

“I’m not planning on it. I’m just here to talk to a vamp. Maybe eat a po’boy, drink a beer, and play a game of eight ball.”

“And if Booger said to leave the weapons at the door?”

“I’d have to respectfully disagree.” I smiled. “Are you Booger?”

“No. Not Booger. Not a vamp. Interested observer. What’s the message?”

“The vamp gets to ask me that. No one else.”

The man dropped the cigarette. Beast’s enhanced night vision picked out his body as the dim light fell. He wasn’t on a ladder. He was built like a fire truck, a solid giant of a man. When he ground the butt out, I heard metal on the pavement, steel on the soles of his boots. But when he moved into the darker shadows, it was silently, hard for a big man with metal on his soles. I heard a door open and noise poured out, a country song on a jukebox, voices, the clink of glass and the smell of beer and grease, and something musky and slightly rank underneath it all. The door shut. He was gone.

“That went well,” I mused. Full night had fallen. I hadn’t gotten inside before dusk.
Drat
. I glanced at my bike, taking in the faint glow of the witchy locks protecting Bitsa from casual interest or more nefarious intent. I opened the door, and went inside.

The no smoking laws had forever changed the face of drinking establishments, and the air inside was clear. The bar was straight ahead, bottles against the obligatory mirror, and the food ordering station was a bar on the left, with a dry board above it listing menu and prices. Between them was the jukebox, new but looking old-fashioned with neon all around and lots of shiny metallic paint. There were tables scattered between the door and the bars, seating people with food and drinks in front of them.

The floor was concrete, painted navy. Easy to clean. Color scheme was navy and red the color of blood, vamps’ favorite shade. Ceiling was fifteen feet over my head, with exposed vents, pipes, and wiring, painted black. On the front wall, the bay doors’ arches were windowed with seating. To my right was the pool area, with three pool tables. No one was eating or drinking or playing. Everyone was watching me. I took a breath and the musky undertone of the scents raised Beast’s hackles. Deep in my mind, she growled, as if recognizing the odor. She crouched close and looked through my eyes, her paws and claws milking my mind, the sensation unpleasant.

I followed the scent to seven guys and a girl standing in the pool area. One of them was the fire truck-sized smoker from outside. But they weren’t vamps, so not my target. I moved across the floor to the bar, taking position on the far left of it where no patrons sat on bar seats to obstruct my movements. I angled my body, keeping everyone in sight, leaned one elbow on the bar, and placed one booted foot on the raised footrest that followed the bar’s shape. The position looked relaxed but also gave me leverage if I needed to push off fast. I fished a card out of a pocket and slid it to the bartender. He was a little guy, maybe five feet four with a potbelly and tattoos of birds of prey up his arms. His name tag said BOOGER. I hoped it was a nickname and not his mama’s idea of a joke. Booger picked up the card and looked at it.

It said JANE YELLOWROCK in small caps, and below that, the motto: HAVE STAKES, WILL TRAVEL. Vamp-hunter humor. He looked from the card to me. “So?”

“Leo Pellissier sent me to chat with a vamp—average height, slender, black hair. Pretty.”

Booger tucked the card in his T-shirt pocket. “Can’t help you. My place ain’t fancy enough for the fangheads.”

Which was very true, now that I thought about it. But ... Leo hadn’t actually said I was meeting a vamp. The only term, beyond the general description, was a persona non grata. Crap. I’d
assumed
vamp.

“Course, there’s others he mighta sent you to
chat
with.” He nodded to the pool area and hit a red button under the bar mirror. Clanking overhead startled me and I stepped away from the bar as a metal wall, shaped like a garage door, but made of short lengths of chain formed in squares, rolled down and hit the floor. It was a security device, like mall stores draw down at night to protect their wares. Another wall did the same in front of the food bar. Two more slid down over the windows in the arched insets. I tensed to sprint into the night, but it wasn’t a cage. The doors to Booger’s had no obstructions. The people sitting at the tables got up and left, letting the night air in. The jukebox went silent. No. Not a cage. A fighting ring. But with a way out if I wanted to take it.

Beast growled low inside. She sent a thought picture to me. A pack of wolves against a snowfall, a full moon overhead.

And I got a real bad feeling.

She Was Wearing a Red Thong

I recognized the smell now, like wet dog, but rangier, wilder, feral. Them. The pack. All but one of them male. The girl was watching me from the shadows, her bottom lip caught in her teeth, her eyes excited and gleaming and possibly not quite sane. She was a tiny, blond thing with a deep tan, her skin catching the light with a sheen of perspiration. She was loaded down with bling-style jewelry, dressed in a skirt with a tight, spandex waist that left her pierced navel bare, the short skirt belling out around her hips. With it she wore a tight tank and no bra and red platform sandals with four-inch heels. Reaching behind, she gripped the pool table and levered herself up, her feet swinging, sandals flying off and into the darkness. She was wearing a red thong and made sure I knew it. Oh joy.

As the wolf-bitch moved, she stirred the air, and I caught the reek of sex hormones. She was in heat. No wonder she was so demonstrative.

The men I could see all wore jeans and T-shirts. And except for Fire Truck, were barefooted or wore flip-flops. Which was weird until I spotted the boots lining the wall near the side door. I sniffed one last time, scenting them. I had never met a werewolf, but I was meeting them now. Leo hadn’t sent me to meet a vamp and send him packing. He’d sent me to meet a pack of wolves. Without warning and without backup.

These guys didn’t ride down from Wyoming today, which told me the interview footage from this morning—the one where a wolf had accused Leo of the murder of a man named Henri—had been taped, suggesting the wolves had been here longer than a few hours. They’d marked territory and were willing to fight for it.

One of the wolves stepped forward, his feet bare and silent on the painted concrete. I recognized the angry werewolf from the TV. The strawberry blond leader who cussed so much. His movements were graceful, feral, deadly. Around him the others fanned out, starting to form a semicircle. Fire Truck stood in the back, pulling off his boots.

“Jane Yellowrock. Rogue-vamp hunter,” I said to the leader, loosening my knee joints and adjusting my balance. “I was sent to deliver a message. But none of you matches the description.” Pretty wasn’t a term anyone would use for a werewolf.

He slowed his advance at the words and his men stopped dead—not quite the dead immobility of vamps, more like the unmoving quiet of hunting predators. “Rogue-vampire hunter? I have hear’ of such. Human who are licen’ by the bloodsuckers to hunt down those they cannot.” His accent was Cajun, a robust version, words full of harsh Rs and shortened or missing Ts, so that when he spoke it came out, “Rrroguevampirrre hunterrr.” And, “hun’ down dose dey canno’.” An intriguing, rumbling growl. The taped TV interview this morning had been so full of bleeped cussing that I’d had no clue of an accent.

He smiled and I could see the wolf below his skin, all teeth and canine ferocity. “Roul Molyneux,” he said, introducing himself. I had a feeling I was neck deep and sinking fast in vamp politics. Leo had sent me into this, whatever this was. “I am alpha, pack leader of the Lupus Clan of the Cursed of Artemis, of the United States of America.”

Roul wasn’t a big guy—not like Fire Truck, standing in the back of the room, lighting a cigarette despite the no smoking laws—but he was well built, with that full mane of hair and blue eyes, his looks enhanced by the sensation of power that surrounded him, a charismatic command-mode power, something all his, over and above the wolf magic and pack energies. An alpha wolf.

I took in the others at a glance, various mixtures of humanity—wolfanity?—and I wanted to laugh, but figured I might end up dead real fast if they thought I was making fun of them. There were two black guys, the wolf-bitch, two white guys, Fire Truck, a mixed-race block of muscle who might once have been human, and Roul, who was more gorgeous in person than on TV. Three other men appeared in the side doorway, limned by the security lights outside, and there were likely even more I hadn’t seen. Considering the number of bikes parked outside, I was guessing twelve to twenty wolves, all in human form. Not good odds if this went beyond chatting. I had seven shells in the M4, ten rounds in the H&K and one in the chamber, and another six in the ankle holstered gun. The derringer would only make them laugh. I had extra magazines, but if I needed them I was probably dead anyway.

“Vampire hunter don’—” Roul’s eyes narrowed and he sniffed in quick bursts, wrinkling his nose, his neck outstretched like a dog on a scent.

“I smell catamount, I do. An’ ... owl.” He breathed slowly, his face hardening. “And Leo’s blood in your veins. He has fed you to heal, yeah, and his pet shaman too, I’m thinking. You stink of magic, sundry kind.” He sniffed again. “You not human. Yet, you not were, no.”