Faith Hunter: Black Arts

“Yeah. No.” I swatted him on the back of the head for the rudeness. “My friend, his wife, we’ll ask as much as we want.”

“Whatever,” he grumbled, sounding like the teenaged boy he was. My plate was still on the table, covered in plastic wrap. I picked up a fork and my own electronic tablet and carried them, my cell, and my plate to the stairs, far enough away to not be bothered by the sound track of Lucy roping Ethel into some kind of mischief, but close enough to keep tabs on my extended family.

I shoved in a mouthful of cold steak, chewing while I opened a file and typed in the pertinent info on the case, which I listed as KATIE’S GIRLS. When it was all in and documented, I located Reach’s name under contacts on my cell. I hadn’t called the intelligence specialist in months, not since we got back from Natchez. The reprieve had been good for my pocketbook, and with the Younger brothers as my new partners, I wouldn’t be needing his services nearly so often. But somewhere inside, I had missed Reach’s snark. I pressed the SEND button.

“Speak to me, oh Mistress of the Dark,” he answered.

I let my mouth curl into a smile. “Mistress of the Dark? You used to call me Money Honey.”

“You went for a much Younger man.”

I chuckled at the play on words because it was expected, not because it was funny.

“Alex isn’t as good as me, but he isn’t bad,” Reach said.

“Well, the Younger man is tied up in a search. Are my rates still current?”

“Vamp search rates?”

“No. Two missing twentysomethings, working girls who didn’t come home from a party that was most likely a totally human sex party, but could have been a sex-and-blood party hosted by vamps. I have no data on that yet.”

“Your rates on nonvamp stuff is good. Give it to me.”

“First girl is a witch in hiding, Ailis Rogan, aged twenty-four, looks fourteen, street name is Bliss, Caucasian with black hair and blue eyes. Sending her DOB and numbers via e-mail.” I double-checked the data from Troll’s piece of paper and my tablet as we talked. “Next girl is Rachael Kilduff. Twenty-two. A new tattoo and multiple ear piercings. I’m expecting pics of both girls shortly. I’ll forward them when I get them. The party was at Guilbeau’s.” I spelled it for him. “They called for their driver at exactly two twenty-two this morning. When their driver arrived four minutes later, there was no sign of them.”

“Yeah? Nice place. Five stars and just as many dollar signs. Your party host had money, lots of money if it was a large party.”

“Good to know. I’ll check out the place tonight. Gotta go.” I tapped the END icon and closed the cover. It was one of the newer models, part cell, part tablet, part movie theater, part reader, with more computing power than I would ever need, and with a built-in armored shell, designed by a tech company owned by Leo. The cell was designed for the military, but it came in handy for other violent lifestyles too—like vamp hunting.

I scooted over as Big Evan carried his two children upstairs to their room. Over his shoulder he said, “You can come up for story time.” It was a grudging offer, but it was better than anything else I had from him lately. I sent the e-mail file to Reach and scraped the last of my cold supper off the plate and into my mouth.

“Yeah. Thanks,” I said, satisfied that he didn’t sound more irritated or tell me to choke myself, and followed him up the stairs. Whether he liked it or not, he needed my help, but that didn’t make Evan Trueblood like me much. I settled onto the foot of Angie’s bed, shoving the guns I still wore back and out of the way, and waited while the children said their simple nighttime prayers. After the “Amens,” Evan pulled a padded wingback chair between the beds and sat, opening a thin copy of Little Red Riding Hood . The book looked ancient, the corners bent and worn, and the cover real leather, embossed and stained and dyed decades ago. And the author’s name on the cover was Eldreth Everhart. Dang. An Everhart had translated Grimm’s Little Red Riding Hood. How cool was that?

“Once upon a time,” he read, “a little girl lived in a pretty village near Derbyshire, close by the forest, on the edge of a flowing stream. Her name was Philomena Everhart, but because she wore a red riding cloak, everyone in the villages nearby called her Little Red Riding Hood. One morning, while the dew was still on the roses, both red roses and white roses, Little Red Riding Hood asked her mother if she could visit her granmama Theodosia Everhart, because Theodosia had been visiting the queen for a long while, and Philomena had missed her granmama.”

“Daddy’s a wolf-ees!” Little Evan shouted and giggled.

Wolf? Beast asked. Hate pack hunters. Thieves of meat.

This wasn’t the first time the toddler had called his daddy a wolf today. Just to be on the safe side, I took an exploratory sniff. No. Big Evan hadn’t been bitten by a werewolf. He smelled witchy. I curled up around Angie Baby’s feet as Big Evan continued to read.

“‘That is a splendid idea,’” he read, in a high-pitched voice, “her mother said. Philomena’s mother packed a nice lunch basket for Little Red Riding Hood to take to visit her granmama.”

The children giggled, and I laid my head on my arm, listening. No one had read me stories as a child, so this was . . . amazing. Really amazing. Big Evan reached the line about Granmama. “The wolf crept up to the door, lifted the small latch, and raced inside. Poor Granmama screamed, but the wolf gobbled her up!”

“Our gramma woulda put a spell on him!” Little Evan said.

“She would turn him into a frog!” Angie Baby said.

“A spider!”

“A ant!”

“Shhhh,” Big Evan said, sounding stern, but with poignant laughter twinkling in his eyes. I knew without asking that the poignancy was because Molly was missing.

Both children giggled and some foreign, incomprehensible emotion bubbled up from deep inside. I batted tears from my eyes. When had I become so freaking weepy?

“The wolf burped, a full and satisfied burp, and patted his tummy where Granmama poked and pushed and kicked in his hairy belly,” Evan said.

“He burped!” Angie said. Little Evan made a fake burping sound, long and gross-sounding. And I laughed through my tears, caught in the good humor of my favorite people in the entire world. And knowing it was up to me to find their mother.

“But the wolf was wily, and he knew that Little Red Riding Hood would never come inside if she saw a wolf. So he looked through Granmama’s chifforobe to find a nightgown and bed jacket that he liked. He added a lace sleeping cap to hide most of his ears and, to hide his wolfish scent, dabbed Granmama’s lavender perfume behind his pointy ears and under his paws.”

“’Cause wolf-ees stinks!” Little Evan shouted.

“Yes, they do,” his father said. “Wolves smell stinky like wet dogs and rotten meat.” Which wasn’t far wrong for the smell of werewolves.

Big Evan went on reading and reached the last line. “Little Red Riding Hood and her granmama opened the basket packed by Philomena’s mother, and shared a lovely lunch with the huntsman. And then they had a long chat.”

Little Evan looked at me said, “He vomicketed her up. Buuurrrpurp.”

“Yes, he did,” I agreed. “Gross, huh?”

“Gross. Night, Aunt Jane.”

“Night, Little Evan.”

“Mommy and Daddy call me EJ.”

“Short for Evan Junior,” his father explained.

“I like EJ,” I said. “It’s a big boy’s name.”

EJ rolled into the curve of his arm and mumbled what sounded like “I’m a big bo.” And closed his eyes. He was asleep. That fast.