Raven Cursed

I managed three insufficient breaths and stood. I needed out of here. “I’ll report back by sunrise.” They nodded, still confused, and I walked around the coffee table, the headless mannequin, and the golden collar, and out the door. Sometimes all a girl has is moxie, and when her knees are knocking and her heart’s racing and she’s sweating drops of pure fear, that’s a good time to draw on that feminine talent. That and prayer. Yeah. Prayer might be a real good idea about now.

Crap. Grégoire had handled pure silver. Just like Leo could. Had Leo been silver poisoned once? And he was fast. Maybe faster than Leo. So why was Leo the Master of the City of New Orleans, and not Grégoire? And how was I gonna get out of killing Evangelina if Lincoln was trapped in her basement with a demon?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Things Had Just FUBARed

I was at Lincoln Shaddock’s place in less than the time I had allowed myself. Unfortunately, so was Sheriff Grizzard and a strange woman. They both looked royally ticked off. He met me at my SUV and looked me over as I opened the door. As I climbed out, my eyes caught on the folded scrap of purple on the passenger floor. Someone had folded Evangelina’s scarf. I’d have to tip the valets well. They were going beyond the call of duty.

I closed the door and Grizzard took in the array of weapons, most illegal. The woman stood at his shoulder, her hand on a pistol grip under her arm. Cop. Rather than defend my weapons, I pulled a blade and handed it to Grizzard hilt first. I pretended not to hear his shocked breath at the sight of the naked blade glittering in the moonlight. He took the hilt and turned it to the dim light while I unstrapped the blade sheath. “It’s a vamp-killer. German steel overlaid with sterling, hilt and blade all one piece. The hilt is molded over with high impact, crosshatched plastic for a better grip. The blood groove is extra deep. Killing vamps is bloody business.”

“I hear their blood is like acid,” the woman said.

“Some of them. Some not. Depends on the bloodlines.”

“They’re talking about licensing these in Congress.” He looked up at me under bushy brows. “Talking about licensing vampire hunters too.”

“Congress is always talking.” I gave him the sheath and tucked my box of supplies under one arm. “The sheath attaches to your belt and upper thigh. Consider it a gift. Who are you?” I asked the woman.

“Loretta Scoggins, sheriff of Madison County.”

The drill-sergeant-sheriff who cussed like a sailor. I handed her a blade too, considering it a point of good PR. Leo could replace them. Grizzard and Scoggins started working on the straps and I led the way to the door. “Pickersgill tells me Lincoln is missing,” he said.

“Yeah. And I have to go save him from the wicked witch of the west. But first we have to restore order to the chained ones.”

“Is that gonna be hard?” Loretta asked.

I laughed, the sound too dry for real humor. “It can be.”

Pickersgill was standing at the entrance, the two and a-half inch steel door held open. Soft light filtered out, illuminating the shrubs at his side. He was a slight, nondescript man, not nearly as pretty as most vamps, which means he was brought over because he had something to offer his maker. With his history, that meant his military and political smarts. I nodded to him; he nodded back and shut the door behind us. “You came alone? Not with your boys?”

“You were insulting last time. How bad is it?” I asked.

“They tore into her. Drained her dry. I’ve called in all the help I could find on short notice—four Mithrans and a dozen blood-servants. I even tried to get Gertruda, the Mercy Blade, but she’s spending the night at the hospital, healing the humans of were-taint. Sheriffs,” he said, shaking their hands. He pointed to a security consol. On a screen was the scion lair. Blood was splattered everywhere, centered on a girl lying on the cold stone. She looked dead. Rogues were racing around the room, as if chasing imaginary prey. Others were standing in the corners of the room, immobile. All the cages were open. Pickersgill punched a button and said, “The human came in to feed them, and the Mithran came in behind her.” On the screen, the door opened and Sarah entered, a sweet-faced girl with balletic movements, as if she danced to songs only she heard. Behind her a tall vamp entered, moving fast, creating a fuzzed-out image on the low-quality video He hit the girl. She spun away, and before she fell, he had opened the first cell.

“Now all of them are unshackled,” Pickersgill said, returning us to the current feed, “and one is the blood relation of a Mithran who is here to help.” Translation—the vamp would resist if I had to kill his kin. Lucky me. More vamp politics, which I sucked at.

“I want to see the vamp who let them loose.”

Pickersgill frowned, but led the way down the stairs into the windowed room, our reflections moving like underwater undulations, the way they might look in bullet resistant glass. Last time I was here, I hadn’t realized they were bulletproof. Which translated to freaking expensive.

The place smelled of vamp and barbeque smoke, heavy on the sage. Someone had come straight from the restaurant. We reached the lower level and I looked over the vamps and blood-servants clustered in a sitting area. They were all dressed in jeans and leather. The servants were wearing silver chain mail armored vests with high collars, leather and silver cuffs over each wrist. Not bad, and totally unexpected in a vamp’s household.

At a gesture from Pickersgill, they parted, revealing a vamp curled in a fetal position on the floor. He had wood stakes in his belly, immobilized and bleeding onto a plastic sheet, which struck me as neat and tidy, or way too prepared. He had silver shackles on his wrists. And a pink glow all over him. Crap. Evangelina had spelled him to set the chained ones free. What was the witch doing? Trying to get herself killed? “Keep him shackled, but take out the stakes. I have a feeling he was spelled to set them free.”

“Evangelina,” Pickersgill said. It sounded like a curse. “My master has placed her under his protection. We cannot harm her.”

I sighed and lifted a shoulder. “Don’t worry,” I said. “Grégoire has ordered me to bring her to him.” A truly vicious smile grew on Pickersgill’s face. Grégoire outranked Shaddock. He could do anything he wanted to the witch. “Let’s get to work,” I said.

“They ain’t gonna be injured,” one of the vamps said. It still surprised me to hear a vamp speak with any accent other than European, and the country drawl was jarring, not that I let on. I acknowledged the heir and her daughter and looked at the speaker, an emaciated woman with collar bones sharp as plow blades. She looked stubborn. Angry. Desperate. I asked, “Is your true child one of the escapees?” Meaning born from her body in the traditional human manner.

Her head tilted, that birdlike or snakelike motion they do when they forget to act human. “Her name’s Roseanne,” she said, her expression full of resolve, eyes narrowing at me. I was pretty sure that determination was her intent to kill me if I tried to stake her child. I addressed Pickersgill. “Is there any chance the victim can be turned?”

“If there’s a spark of life left in Sarah, yes. But it doesn’t appear likely.”

I stared them down, sliding one hand into my surprise supplies. “If she can be turned, then it isn’t murder. If she’s dead, I don’t care what you want.”

The vamps swiveled to me almost as one, like pack hunters sighting prey. Grizzard took a slow breath as fear pheromones laced into the air from his skin. Scrawny’s eyes bled black in an instant. A young vamp touched her arm in warning. “Mom. Don’t.”

Without taking my eyes from Scrawny, I took in the young female. It was Amy Lynn Brown, the miracle vamp who came out of devoveo in two years time. I inclined my head at her and went on. “Any of the chained who get away from this house get staked when I catch them, even if the human woman can be turned, so it’s in your best interests to keep them contained. I won’t risk letting them kill a human. Another human,” I corrected.

Scrawny’s fangs snapped down. I stared down at her. “You have a problem with my methods, call Leo