“Jane?”
I ignored the warning question in Jo’s tone. The smell of spiders hit the wind. Laz laughed at whatever he saw in my eyes, and suddenly he smelled like many animals all at once. Skinwalker? I lifted the blade that had pierced his neck and sniffed the traces of his blood on the steel edge. No. Not skinwalker, Beast thought at me. I do not know what it is.
“I don’t know what you are,” I said, stealing Beast’s line, my pitch still half-growl, “but you stink something not-quite-right. And whatever you are, Beast really wants to gut you now and be done with it all.”
“What does he smell like,” Jo asked carefully.
“Like wolf and spiders and snakes. And now like raccoons and nutria and swamp water full of crawly things. He can change his scent at will and he’s playing with us.”
Jo said, “Jane, look, he—” She stopped, exhaled noisily, then muttered, “Look, let me try something, okay? I’m a shaman, right? You’re okay with that?” She waited an instant for me to nod, then nodded in return and said “Keep your nose open.”
Her eyes went gold as she spoke. Mine were gold all the time. Hers were green most of the time, but I could practically smell her pulling power down, and with the pull came the color change.
And a scent change. It was like she was pulling Beast, or something like Beast, into her. She smelled of snakes, all of a sudden, and then of coyotes, and for half a second I even got an avian smell off her. Not a bird I knew. Something huge. Something dangerous. Her skin shivered a little, but she didn’t change into any of the things I smelled. They were still part of her, right under the skin.
After a minute she let the magic go and wheezed a bit. “Okay, that was horrible. I don’t usually do that. But—look, did my scent change?”
I gave a wary nod and Joanne’s shoulder’s dropped. “And does that make you want to stick a knife in me?”
“Maybe a little bit.”
She snorted a laugh. “Great. No, see, my point is we’re obviously all three coming from different magic backgrounds. Laz looks like a witch to me. Connected to the earth on a really deep level, and hooked up to some kind of god on the other side. My witches don’t do shapeshifting, but I bet your shamans don’t carry coyotes under their skin either.” Her eyebrows went up challengingly, and I had to nod an agreement. “Okay,” Jo said again. “So can we get past the pig-sticking impulse and accept that Laz’s magic isn’t like yours any more than mine is? We’ve got to find out what we’re all doing here, Jane. We might very well need all three of our talents to do that.”
Beast huffed and stepped back, claws sheathed. “Not my world,” I grumbled, slamming the weapon back in its sheath. “Looks like my world, smells like my world on the surface, but the magics are turned all inside out and upside down.” I eyed Laz, “And it stinks. Let’s go.”
“Where?” Jo asked, with that careful tone still in her voice.
“To Vamp Mojo, the vampire bordello that, in my day, was a rock-n-roll, jazz, dance club, and bar. Any place that smells of blood and sex that strongly has to be central to our being brought here.” I saw Jo shrug and Laz grin. I really hated that grin. It was too pretty by half, and pretty boys were dangerous any way you looked at them. But the other two seemed to think my killing Laz was not a good idea. Which totally sucked.
I turned and led the way, keeping an eye on Laz and Jo in the windows of storefronts as we passed. As we walked, I talked and braided my hair, which had come back loose and straight as it always did after a shift. Then I twirled the braid up into a bun, and arranged my weapons in it, the stakes working like hairsticks, and my derringer hidden underneath. Insurance, just in case. “In my world,” I said, “Amaury, assuming it’s the same guy, is dead. He was the former Blood Master of New Orleans. Powerful. Old.” The other two considered that as we walked.
Vamp Mojo was nothing like the bar from my own world. We walked in the front door and were met by two blood-servant bouncers, one a big, former special forces soldier with a bald head and muscled biceps the size of my thighs, and one a small, lithe, Asian guy with cold eyes and hard hands. I leaned slowly in and whispered in the former-soldier’s ear, “Evangelina sent us to talk to Amaury.”
“Not with the weapons,” he whispered back, “I don’t care if the Devil himself sent you as a present.”
I started removing the weapons, setting them on a table to the side. It was an impressive pile when I was done. Then I assumed the position, palms flat on the wall and feet spread. The small guy did the pat-down and while his hands cupped my breasts and got a little friendly below my waist, I ignored it. For now. When I picked my weapons back up, it would be a different matter. The muscle ignored Jo and Laz, as if my obvious weaponry was all that mattered. Which was odd, as they had magic that might put my guns to shame. With the hairsticks and derringer under my braids, we walked into Vamp Mojo.
The place stank of blood and sex, and was mostly in shadow, lit by gas lanterns, the flames protected from drafts by glass globes. The bar ran along the back, serving the usual beer and liquor, but also coffee, tea, and blood. The vintages sat on stools inside the bar, every one of them pretty and mostly naked. Every one of them with half- healed bite marks on their wrists and the inside of their elbows, every one of them severely anemic and blood drunk, happily stoned on sips of vamp blood.
There was a dance floor and a stage to the side, but set up higher, about three feet off the floor, and there were brass poles with totally naked dancers mounted on each. Laz leered. Jo rolled her eyes. I followed the scents on the air conditioned breeze to a booth in the corner. The stink of unknown vamp and power, and also the familiar—Leo Pellissier.
Leo was debonair and pale-skinned, his long hair pulled back into a queue, tied with a black silk ribbon. He was wearing black pants and a black silk dress shirt open at the throat, and he looked strangely diminished here, less powerful, less commanding. He looked oddly anguished.
There was a woman on his lap, blonde and delicate, his fingers tangled in her hair. Katie Fonteneau, and a half dozen other names. She was different in this world. Coarser. She was wearing a scarlet bustier, garter, and panties, with black stockings, and that was all. And though Katie was on Leo’s lap, another vamp was drinking from her.
He was not as pretty as Leo, his skin duskier, his hair a bit coarser. And he was sucking on Katie’s neck while one hand massaged her breast. Cute. Katie was moaning, but I could see her face and she was not enjoying the attention. She was being abused by someone in power, which just got all over me. Despite that fact that Katie was half nutso in my world, I liked her.
“Careful,” Jo whispered in my ear. “He’s got some magic in him. Like a sorcerer again. Jesus, what is it with sorcerers in this place?”
“Great.” I rapped on the table and said, “Hey, fanghead. You got visitors.”
Amaury went deadly still at the insult. So did Leo and Katie, and nobody does immobile like a vamp. It’s that not having to breathe thing that makes it so effective and so spooky. Slowly, he opened his eyes and stared at me over Katie’s head. Katie rolled her eyes back at me, afraid, and I had never seen her afraid. Only Leo did the expected—sat back in his seat and quirked up a brow, all old-world hoity-toity. He looked me over carefully and thoroughly, taking note of the silver hairsticks with a little quirk of his lips, before turning curious attention to his uncle.
Amaury withdrew his fangs from Katie’s throat with a little click. He lifted her by her head, up into the air, and placed her across Leo. It was an amazing feat of one-armed strength, spoiled when there wasn’t enough bench seat for her and she nearly fell to the floor. Jo caught her by the arm until she got her feet under her, and helped Katie off toward a door behind the stage.
I stared at Amaury, maintaining a half-smile and attitude until Joanne got back. Then I said, “I understand we have to talk to the chief suckhead of New Orleans.” When in doubt, go for crass.
Amaury leaned back in his seat, arms out to his sides, his shirt billowing open to reveal a chest with sparse hair and a gold chain, the disco kind they wore in the seventies. He was typically Frenchy, like Leo, with black hair and black eyes, and the scent of his power was like static electricity on the air, tickling my nose, making me want to rub it. Jo’s eyes went gold and if she was a cat I’d have said her hackles stood up. She got stiff and still, and watched Amaury like he was the Devil himself.
“I am the one you seek. You will show me proper deference.” He raised the fingers of his left hand and did a little twisting motion. The scent of power grew stronger, harsher, like bees buzzing on the air. “Kneel.”
His power landed on my shoulders like a weight, and I locked my knees. I pulled on Beast’s energies, and could see from my peripheral vision Jo doing something to maintain control too. Laz just looked amused. I let Beast flow into me, her claws kneading my brain painfully. No way was I gonna kneel to this guy. He’d been dangerous
