Faith Hunter: Blood Cross

A floorboard creaked from upstairs. Thank God. Molly must have seen the flames. She would be bringing up the wards, something defensive that would burn vamp flesh, maybe. I could hope. But it would take time. Maybe too much time.

Leo stepped to the front of the small group that circled my house, his eyes holding mine. His fangs were snapped down, white in the early night; his pupils bled black in bloodred sclera. The silver cross and capering flames reflected in his pupils.

“You killed my son,” he said, eyes fixed on me.

“No. I killed the creature that took his body.”

His lips pulled back, exposing his teeth, a killing grimace. “You,” he whispered. Vamps didn’t need to breathe much except to talk, but he took a breath, deep and slow. “Killed.” Anger built in him. I could smell it, strong and sour. “My son !” he roared into the night.

Beast lifted my own lips, exposing my human teeth. Change , she demanded.

But it was too late. A dozen possible reactions and scenarios buffeted me. I could attack, but they’d set fire to the house. I could run inside, but they’d set fire to the house. I could—

“Hi. My name’s Angelina.”

The vamps froze, an unearthly stillness in the fluttering flames. The stillness of death. His head moving slowly, Leo looked up, from me to the veranda above.

“I like the fire. Can I come play?”

Leo breathed in, scenting her. Scenting child and witch. His body tensed. Held.

The eyes of Leo’s scions flickered to their blood-master, then to me. I saw uncertainty, worry. Clearly they hadn’t signed on for killing a child. Two vamps retracted their fangs with little snick s. The one with the open kerosene container looked at it, then back up at the little girl, deliberate and measured. His pupils contracted and he swiveled his head to Leo. Waiting.

“What’s your name?” she said, her footsteps pattering out to the edge of the veranda, directly above my head. “Are you Aunt Jane’s new friends?”

“Angie, go inside,” I said, striving for calm and not succeeding. My heart raced like a doe in flight. Like prey. I knew they could smell my terror.

Leo pulled in another breath, his chest rising, then falling, the sound of the breath whispering through his fangs. We were balanced on the blade of a knife. Leo could go either way: kill his son’s murderer and the witches he now smelled in my home, or withdraw and save the child. The Vampira Carta prohibited the killing of children, even witch children, and killing a witch could revoke the unstable peace between the races. But his grief was out of control. Had been for days now. And witches were the sworn enemies of vampires, though I didn’t yet know why.

“Are you a vampire?” Angelina asked, for once ignoring me.

The torches flickered in a sudden gust, bringing her scent down from the upper porch. Bubble bath and the warmth of her skin caught in the humid night breezes, swirling down to the ground to mix with vamp pheromones and smoke. The vamps with Leo each took a step back. “Mama says you eat people.”

Leo swallowed. “We do not eat people,” he said, his voice carefully neutral, laced with his refined, formal French accent. “And you may not play with fire. It is dangerous. We . . . we will return to visit at a later time,” he said.

He looked at me, his hatred so bright it burned in his black eyes. “This is not finished. My son will be avenged.”

“I already avenged your son,” I said. “I killed his murderer. I paid his blood debt and left you the body of your enemy.” I had said the words before—the last time he’d visited me, insane with grief. They had worked then. I could hope they worked now.

Leo blinked. The fire in his eyes seemed to flicker and die. Something else filled the void, a hint of some softer emotion—confusion, uncertainty, perhaps—swimming through the grief. He met my eyes, held my gaze with that hypnotic focus the very old ones have.

And he was gone. Just . . . gone. Air currents swirled hard after his passage. The vamps stared up at the child on the porch above.

“Come inside, Angie,” Molly said from overhead, her voice rough with fear. “You too,” she said to me, though she couldn’t see me from her position. I heard boards creak, and the door to the veranda closed.

“He would have led us to murder a child,” a female vamp said.

“He didn’t know,” another said, closing the kerosene container he had opened.

“He is the master. He should have known,” the female vamp insisted. “He should not have led us here.”

“Dolore,” a third vamp said. I didn’t know the word, but there was a hushed reverence in her voice that lent it importance. “We must decide.”

“I will not chain my master,” the fourth vamp said. “I will not. I warn you now. There will be war.”

The four vamps looked from one to another. Then, as a unit, they turned to me. And stared. I felt the weight of their eyes, holding me in place, my cross held high.

“We will uphold the Vampira Carta,” the woman said. “It is law.”

The pressure in the small yard drained away fast, as if a stopper had been pulled and the tension and anger sucked down. Much more slowly than Leo, but still faster than any human, the vamps left. Their scents weakened, dissipating on the erratic winds. Down the street, I heard a car start, the sound low, like a powerful growl. Headlights cut the misty dark as it passed my freebie house, and vanished into the night.

I swiveled on a bare foot and went inside, pulling the door shut behind me. I leaned against it and remembered how to breathe, hearing my heart pound in my ears, an uneven pain in my chest. I dropped the cross around my neck, swept my hair out of the way, twisting it up high, and shoved the stakes into a makeshift bun. My fingers were quivering in the aftermath of near battle.

A moment later, I felt the wards snap on over the house, the feel of magic a soft buzz on my skin. I knew Molly would be beating herself up for not activating them sooner tonight.

I hadn’t been ready for attack. I would never have thought that Leo would make such a public, violent move. Which was pretty stupid in my twenty-twenty hindsight.

I went to my room and weaponed up, putting blades through their respective loops in my jeans and strapping on wrist and calf sheaths, checking and adding a new handgun in its shoulder holster, laying the shotgun across the foot of the bed. It wasn’t overkill. It was necessary to cool my fear. Though the wards were back up on the house, and Molly and the kids were safe, I couldn’t banish the vision of Leo, vamped out.

If I’d been properly weaponed earlier, I might have had a fighting chance against the vamps in my yard. Well, I’d still likely have died, but I’d have taken a few of them with me. I’m good. Real good. Arguably, the best in the business. Just not good enough to take on a whole blood-family of vamped-out master monsters alone. Monsters with fire. Hands shaking with the aftershock, I made the decision that I would go rogue hunting that night. If it wasn’t too muggy, I’d wear a skintight skullcap, but that wasn’t gonna happen. I used the hair as a weapon holder instead, shoving in stakes that looked like hair sticks, making sure I grabbed silver-tipped ones for maximum damage. I felt better with each weapon, calmer, more secure.

The kettle on the gas stove emitted a soft, steamy whistle, the precursor to the piercing one that would push through soon. It seemed like aeons since I had put it on. I stopped a moment, bracing a hand on the closet door. I closed my eyes and half prayed a single word of thanks. That had been close. I returned to the kitchen and turned off the gas, pouring the water over the tea leaves in the strainer, into the white enamel pot beneath. I stared at the steam rising from the tiny hole in the whistler spout as shock boiled up in me like the steam in the kettle.