Death's Rival

Leo, I hadn’t been notified. I looked at a clock and discovered it was now after five a.m., Pacific time. Maybe the letter meant midnight tomorrow. Or next week. The new moon was days away.

Smells like vampire, Beast thought again. Is important.

It was the first time she had taken such an interest in my life in weeks, and I couldn’t help my internal smile. Okay, I thought back at her. But why? She didn’t answer. Big help you are.

I debated calling Bruiser and asking, and I decided it could wait. This vamp threat would be contained in the Vampira Carta or its codicils, which I had on file on my own laptop back in New Orleans and could access soon enough.

Old vampires are patient hunters, Beast thought. Like snakes, lying on rocks all day in the sun. Not moving until a rabbit—or a puma—comes by. Then striking, fastfastfast with killing teeth. Even if snake is too small to eat its prey.

Sooo. The vamp attacks me, I thought back, in the cities he’s conquered. Like a snake. Sneaky. That’s part of his war on Leo?

Again, Beast didn’t answer. Dang cat. I didn’t want to use Reach for this. Maybe it was nothing, but he’d known about each of my stops on this little excursion. Maybe my best research help was also my new worst enemy.

I pulled out a throwaway cell and considered calling Derek Lee. I thought about how he had been Leo’s ally first, then mine through a process I wasn’t sure I understood, except for the money. I had made sure he was paid for his kills of rogue-crazy-nutso-vamps, and he had backed me up on several gigs. Money created either honorable bedfellows or cheating partners, one or the other. And then there were his new guys—who might be safer and more trustworthy than his older, dependable guys. Or not. There were too many new faces to keep track of.

“Derek Lee,” he answered, succinct.

I smiled into my beer. Took a long slurp, so he could hear it, and said, “I need some intel.”

“Legs,” he said, using the nickname he and his men had given me. “And I should help you, why?”

“Because I keep life interesting,” I said. He snorted. “And because I have money and something else you want, although you haven’t figured out what, yet. No questions asked.” Derek Lee went quiet at that. I had just offered a future favor, whatever he needed, whenever he needed it. “I need intel on Ramondo Pitri, a made man, of Corsican descent, if I remember right, out of New York.”

“That’s the guy you shot in your hotel room,” he said, his interest sharpening.

“Yeah. Turns out he was the Enforcer of an unknown vamp, who intends to challenge Leo soon. He thinks I need to die along with Leo.”

“Damn suckheads. Uh. Sorry.”

The men knew I didn’t curse and that often made them uncomfortable, as if they had mistakenly said a bad word in front of their grandma, in church. I laughed, the sound curt and bitter. “My sentiments exactly. One of your guys, Angel Tit, if I remember right, is from New York. Maybe he has contacts there he can use to dig up some history that isn’t on record.” Angel Tit was the nickname of Derek’s electronics guy, a hacker as good as Reach. Well, nearly as good as Reach.

“What? A black guy from New York should know the mob?”

“He can ask his buddies and they can ask around. That’s all I’m asking.”

I heard Derek talking in the background, the sound muffled. “He says okay, but his guys are scattered. He doesn’t know what he can find out. It’s gonna cost you, Legs. Money to grease the way.”

“It always does, Derek. It always does. Before you hang up, I need some specialists. I want an intel guy and a security guy on retainer, to meet me at dusk, at my house. The security guy needs to be someone with Special Forces training, but doesn’t have to be a marine or SEAL. Army’s fine.” He snorted his opinion of the army. “I’ll give you a finder’s fee, but they’ll belong to me.” I put delicate emphasis on the word. “Not you.” A silence stretched out. I waited, knowing that I had insulted him by saying the men I wanted had to belong to me and not him, and knowing that most people would have said something—anything—to end the silence. I didn’t.

“Money talks,” he said at last, the words almost spitting. “I’ll send you some guys. I can’t vouch for them personally, but they have good records.”

“That’s all I can ask.”

“Legs, you ask everything of a man.”

The connection ended and I had no idea what he meant.

* * *

I arrived back at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport at ten a.m., exhausted, sleepless, and shaky from lack of food. Peanuts don’t go far when one is stuck on a plane for hours. I dragged into my freebie house and stared longingly at the stove. I wanted food, but I needed something else. I divested myself of anything that might be considered a weapon—including the two hair sticks and the magic amulet, the pocket watch I’d stolen off the blood-servant in Sedona. I tucked it into the Lucchese boot box I use for jewelry. The box wasn’t pretty, but it did the trick.

After a quick shower, I pulled on clean jeans and a tee and checked my e-mail. I had a succinct one from Reach. It read “Subjects on video at airport are not identified. Not in any database.”

“I can’t get a break here,” I muttered. Irritated, I took off on Bitsa. I had things I needed to know, things that might be stuck somewhere inside me, like grease and hair in a drain, or trees in a creek, backing things up. I was frustrated and tired and wanted to hit something. Not a good way to be when I needed to think clearly.

I made my way out of the city to Aggie One Feather’s house. Aggie was a Cherokee elder, and I thought her mother might be a Cherokee shaman—sha-woman?—of sorts, not that I knew enough of my own heritage to say for sure if that was even possible. But Aggie had been working with me to find my past, the memories that were stuck so far deep inside me that they had become part of the framework of who I was, rather than separate moments that helped to shape me. And while I didn’t like a lot of the things that had shaken loose inside me, I was learning stuff I needed, and, as she put it, freeing up my spirit to continue on its journey.

In the Lake Cataouatchie area—which is mostly mosquito-infested swamp—I pulled into the shell-asphalt street, smelling smoke, and onto Aggie’s white crushed-shell driveway. The house was small, a 1950s gray, asbestos-shingled house of maybe twelve hundred square feet, with a screened porch in back. The house was well kept, with charcoal trim and a garden that smelled of tomatoes and herbs in the morning warmth.

At the back of the property was a small building, a wood hut with a metal roof—a sweathouse—and smoke was leaking from it, smoke that carried the scents of my past, herbed smoke infused with distant memories, all clouded with fear and blood. Smoke that spoke of the power of The People. Tsalagiyi— Cherokee, to the white man.

I turned off the bike and set the kickstand. Propped the helmet on the seat and walked up the drive, shells crunching under my feet. Not much stone in the delta; they used what was handy, shells. I took the steps to the porch, and pushed the bell. It dinged inside. Almost instantly, a slender, black-haired woman in jeans and a silk tank opened the door. Her face was composed, her eyes were calm, but she didn’t speak. She just looked at me. Waiting. “Egini Agayvlge i,” I said in the speech of The People. “Will you take me to sweat?”

For a long moment, she said nothing, studying my face, reading my body language, which always gave away too much to her. “I have taken one to sweat today already. I am tired. Come back tomorrow.”

She started to close the door and I said, quickly, “Please.”

Her eyes narrowed, but the door stopped closing. “Dalonige i Digadoli, Golden Eyes Golden Rock,” she said with something like asperity, “you have hidden yourself away from the eyes of your own spirit, hidden yourself away from me, so that I cannot help you. What do you seek?”

“To know why nothing matters but finishing a job. To know why I’d compromise everything to see through to the end of a responsibility I accepted, even when it hurts me and the people I love. To see why I remember an image of a bearded man, tortured and hanging from antlers.”

“You killed a man in your hotel room,” she accused, her tone without heat. “You killed the sister of your friend. I saw it on TV.”

I closed my eyes, weariness making me sway on my feet. “Yes.”