Faith Hunter - Have Stakes Will Travel

Lucky nodded. “Sorry bout dat, I am,” though he didn’t sound very sorry, and proved it when he added, “Ruin me a good batch of my special spice mixture.”

Yeah. Funny guy. I grunted and sat up slowly, holding my head with one hand. It was pounding like a bass drum interspersed with clanging cymbals, sharp pain in every pulse. “What do you want?” I snarled when I could, though it came out more like a whisper.

“I tried to call Leo Pellissier. Him no take my calls. I want you to call him and ask him for help.”

“No.”

Lucky’s eyebrows went up and he smiled. But this time the genial Cajun butcher was gone, and a powerful witch smiled in his place. I could feel the power crackle in the air. Male witches were very rare, most of them dying in their youth of childhood cancers. I thought about that for half a second until Beast informed me that Lucky had divested me of my weapons. My leather jacket was hanging open, and my holsters and blade-sheathes were empty. Nary a gun nor a knife nor even a stake was still on me. Which really ticked me off.

I let a bit of Beast flow through me, and knew that my eyes were glowing gold. Beast was an ambush hunter herself, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be ambushed. Lucky’s body tightened at what he saw in my eyes, and he made a little swirling motion with one finger, not hiding that he was preparing a magical defense.

Tension stretched between us, pulling like a rubber band. The door in the bay was open and the night poured in, smelling of night-blooming flowers, the stagnant water of swamp, the fresher scent of a recent rain, and the herbal tang of vamp. I heard a car passing by outside, the engine noise muted, the tires loudly splashing through a puddle.

I had met a few male witches in my life, way more than most people ever met. But as a traveling rogue-vamp hunter, I tended to end up with the supernats of any town I visit. My best pal was earth witch Molly, or had been until I killed her sister. Long story. Anyway, her husband was a witch, still in the closet, still hiding what he was. Her son was a witch, and I’d seen a third male witch die at the hand of a sabertooth lion. Another long story. My life was practically full of them. Now this dude with spell-flames licking up his arm.

“No,” I said again. “I’m not calling Leo. And if you hit me with a spell, I’ll make you regret it.”

“Make me?” He sounded mildly incredulous. Then his mouth pursed in thought. “Some spell you gots on you? To do combat wid me? Some witch spell like dat charm on you bike? Keep away/don’-steal charm?” His finger stopped swirling and the tension in the air seemed to float out the window into the night.

I had no spell, no real defense against magic, but I did have Beast, and I had seen her neutralize spells meant to harm me in the past. So I kept any trepidation I was feeling stowed deep inside, my eyes almost lazy, and I let my lips lift just a tiny bit on one side.

“Okay,” Lucky said. “Why you not call Leo for me?”

“I’m not a deal broker.”

“Mebbe you change you mind when I tell you rest a my story.”

“Skip a few centuries to the part where I rode into town.”

Lucky nodded, lounged back in the chair, and pointed to my side. “Aspirin and water for you headache.”

I didn’t usually take drugs, but I did drink the water while Lucky got to his point.

“Suckhead coonass clan, Clan Doucette, in bayou, gots my daughter.”

I nearly choked, blinked, set down the glass, and shifted into a more comfortable position. “Okay. That I didn’t expect.” Coonass was an insulting word for Cajun, and it was interesting that Lucky, a Cajun himself, called another Cajun coonass. “Okay,” I said again. “I’m listening.”

“When Leo and Amaury Pellissier kill off de blood-master of Clan Chiasson, dey leave suckheads in swamp. No trainin’ dey gots. No law. Some insane for decades. Suckheads and witches in dis town not get along, not never. Now dem suckheads got my girl, stole her dey did. Kidnap.”

Beast shifted her claws in my brain and said, Kit? We will save kit . I nodded, as agreement to Beast and as a signal to the witch in the chair to continue.

“I want her back. Word in de street is Clermont Doucette boy gone turn my girl and run wild with her, or mebe chain her up in he attic for ten year.”

I blew out a sigh and felt part of the pain in my skull decrease. Skinwalkers healed a lot faster than humans, even after getting whapped over the head with a hunk of rock. I touched the sore place on my head, thinking. “Is your daughter a witch? Dumb question,” I answered myself. “Daughters get one of their two X chromosomes from their father. The trait passes on his X chromosome and so of course she’s a witch. Got it. Witches don’t take well to the turn. They sometimes stay in the devoveo for forever.”

“She is witch, yes. Devoveo? Dis mean insane ? Insane forever ?” Lucky snarled. “Not my girl. No. I kill dem all firs.’”

“Yeah, yeah. I got that you’re ticked and wanting to stake every vamp in sight. You shoulda said all this in the first place, not coldcocked me. Understand that I am not happy and this is not over. But okay. I’ll call Leo.”

Lucky tossed me my throwaway cell, an unlisted one I had purchased at RadioShack. I’d had no calls on it in the last week, not one, because no one knew the number and I hadn’t called anyone to share my new contact info. I hadn’t even stopped at a library on the road to update my website and check for potential jobs, because I knew certain of Leo’s contract employees could tell if I had done so, determine which town I had updated from, and come looking for me. The only way to be invisible these days was to stay totally and completely off the grid. And even then it was hard.

I had to call Leo anyway. My retainer had run out, and I needed to make sure the vamps had received my resignation papers and clarify that I was done working for and with the vamps of New Orleans. The last job in Asheville had done a number on me in lots of emotional ways, and I’d had enough. My retainer had run out two weeks past, and I had mailed back all the electronic devices that tied me to the MOC of New Orleans. In the packet, I had included a letter of resignation, as well as an “intent to vacate” the premises to my landlady.

I had hit the road, sightseeing in the Deep, Deep South in preparation for heading back to Asheville. My belongings were packed in boxes back in my freebie house, ready to be shipped out. It was past time to make sure the chief fanghead understood that I was really going away. Getting him to man up and take over this vamp problem left by his power-crazy uncle back when he was the man in charge and Leo was only his heir would be a suitable and satisfying going-away present. I had been putting off this phone call for days.

“So?” Lucky said. “You gone call?”

“How old is your daughter?” I asked.

“Twenty-two. Firs’ college graduate in our family ever, she is.” His lips twisted into a lopsided smile, one with tears close to the surface. “Her my baby.”

“Name?”

“Shauna Landry.” The tears gathered. Crap. I hate it when people cry. “Black hair like mine, blue eyes from her mama. Beautiful from de day she born.”

I opened the cell and dialed Leo’s number at the Clan Home. The call was answered by an unknown voice, likely an upper level blood-servant I hadn’t met, and I said, “Jane Yellowrock for Leo or Bru—George Dumas.”

“One moment, please. I’ll see if Mr. Dumas is available.”

I figured I’d sit on hold forever, but the line was picked up in less than five seconds. “Jane.”

I couldn’t help the way my heart lightened at the sound of my name on his voice. “Hiya, Bruiser.”