Faith Hunter - Blood Cross

“Hunt tonight,” Molly said. “Go running. End up at the Cherokee shaman’s place and let her sweat you. You’ve been promising.” She looked down and finger-combed Angie’s curls. In sunlight, the baby-fine hair almost glowed with honey blond and strawberry highlights, but in the dimness of the storm, it lost its vibrancy. Angie smiled and closed her eyes, soothed by her mother’s hand. It was nap time, and even a storm was powerless against the sleep compulsion Mol was thrumming through her elder child. “You might learn something new about your past,” she added. “About skinwalkers.”

“Yeah, like that they were all a bunch of crazed killers, and it’s only a matter of time before I go nutso too.” I had been trying for humor, but I could smell the tang of worry in my own words.

“You are not a killer, nor are you crazed. You are my best friend in the whole world.” The faith on Molly’s face when she looked up was absolute. “I’d trust with you with my life and with my children’s lives any day of the week, Jane.”

My heart turned over. I’d never had a best friend growing up, but I’d lucked out when I met Molly. She’d welcomed me into her small family and introduced me to the larger family of her sisters’ coven without a single qualm. Her husband, Big Evan, wasn’t so sanguine about me, but he was in Brazil, which was why Molly was visiting me for several weeks, despite the possible threat of trouble from Leo Pellissier, Blood Master of Clan Pellissier, the Blood Master of the City and head of the vamp council. “I’ll think about shifting,” I promised, knowing I was lying.

I looked over at Evan and found him asleep under the chair, his ball in his pudgy hands. I scooped up the baby and Molly gathered up Angelina, and we carried them both upstairs to their room. With the storm as protection, and the wards off, I could enter, settling the baby into his bed, placing the ball in the curve of his arms. I wasn’t maternal, not at all, but I loved Molly’s children.

Beast reared up in me, fierce and violent, her maternal instincts vastly different from any human ones. Will protect kits.

“I know,” I said too softly for Molly to hear. Louder, I said, “Cards? Or a nap?”

Molly yawned. “Nap for me. See you in an hour or so, Big Cat.”

I nodded, and as the storm outside died down and passed and the evening drew in, I went back to prowling the house and worrying. I didn’t know much about my own heritage or my own past, except for the Cherokee stuff Aggie One Feather was teaching me, and that didn’t include her knowing what I was: a skinwalker. The only other skinwalker I had ever seen was dead now, at my hand. He had killed, and taken the place of, Leo Pellissier’s son Immanuel, maybe decades earlier, and then gone even further to the dark side, killing and eating humans and vamps. I still didn’t know why. I worried that it was the nature of skinwalkers that we all went crazy eventually. I’d killed Immanuel’s walker, and gotten myself into the predicament of being on the hate list of Leo Pellissier.

I’m Jane Yellowrock, traveling rogue-vamp hunter, skinwalker-in-hiding, and occasionally muscle-for-hire. I know how to fight, how to protect myself, and how to use the array of weapons that were currently under lock and key in my bedroom, safe from the attention of the children. I wasn’t so good at understanding humans or witches or vampires, and I sucked at social situations, but this gig in New Orleans was giving me a chance to learn a lot about all that. And about myself.

My contract had been extended by the council, to hunt down and kill—true-dead—a master vamp who was turning scions and setting them free, feral, before the years they needed after the change to be “cured.” The sire was releasing the young rogues on the populace with empty minds and unchecked desire for blood that made them crazy killing machines. I’d fought and killed two only a few weeks before. The council had asked me to get to the root of the problem, so I’d signed on the dotted line. And, though my beast was ready for mountain heights and rushing streams and deep valleys, I was beginning to like it here in the city that was made for partying.

Here, where vamps and other supernats had been for centuries, I might even discover another skinwalker. I was coming to understand that it wasn’t likely, as not even the oldest of the vamps had ever smelled anything quite like me, but I could hope.

As I filled the kettle to make tea, I stilled, breathing deeply. Something smelled . . . wrong.

Between storms, New Orleans’s air is heavy and wet, pressing odors against the ground, making them linger, but as the sky had cleared, the air had seemed fresh and salty. Until now.

Closing my eyes, I flared my nostrils, taking in the scent, sharp and biting. It was vamp, pungent and tangy. And more than one. Above the vamp-scent rode the stink of kerosene. And smoke.

Beast rose in me. Fire!

My heart rate bounded and my breathing sped. I looked up. Outside the kitchen window, light flickered. It all came together fast. Because of the fear of lightning, Molly hadn’t woken the wards back up yet. Leo Pellissier was out to get me. The hurricane had knocked out electricity, phone, and cell towers for most of the city. I couldn’t call for help.

Crap.

Flames glimmered and sparkled against the antique window glass, visible through the sheer covering. I moved with the speed of my kind, sprinting to the door overlooking the back and side yards. A chair clattered to the floor behind me. I pulled a silver cross and chain over my head and two stakes from my hair. Ripped open the door. Raced out to the covered porch. As I moved, my hair swung forward, getting in the way, and I slung my head backward, clearing my vision. I counted four torches, widely spaced. Fear shot through me. I should have gotten the guns.

I slid to a stop on the wet porch. Vamps stood in my yard. Unmoving—that dead-body immobility they do. Waiting. Holding torches. Time slowed, growing thick and viscous, the night taking on richness and depth. I absorbed the scene through my senses all at once.

There were four vamps that I could see, fangs descended, fully vamped out. At their feet were five-gallon containers, hazard signs painted on the sides. The scent of several more was carried on the fitful wind. One vamp was opening a container. The smell of kerosene rose.

The breeze was restless, the might of Ada coiled in its currents, but aimless now that the storm had passed. The sky was dark with fast-moving clouds. It was still drizzling; misty drops hit the flames and sizzled. The sound shot pulses of electricity through me. Other than that, the silence and dark of the early night were absolute. No cars, no music, no human noise at all.

I forced down my fear, knowing they could smell it, knowing their excitement would grow. Bravado was my best weapon, and I held the cross high. It glowed bright in my hand, the silver reacting to the presence of vamps. But they didn’t recoil. They held their places, which meant they were old vamps, every one. The wind whipped once and went still. Shadows and torchlight flickered over them, harsh and unforgiving on their skin, pale no matter their original race. My heart rate sped. What were they waiting—

A black silhouette stepped out of the shadows, lithe and elegant. Leonard Pellissier. In evening attire. Here to . . . visit. The most powerful vampire in the city had dressed to kill. A titter started in the back of my throat and I forced it down. Would not be smart to laugh right now. Would not.

Beast rose in me, taking over my reflexes, ready to move, ready to fight. Ready to rush away, back inside to save my guests. If I could. Kits , Beast murmured, protective instincts fighting to get loose. I held her down, but close to the surface. I needed her strength and speed.