Faith Hunter - Blood Cross

I waited an hour, which was no surprise. I’d waited longer on a previous visit. I drank two more Cokes and raided the kitchen for food, putting a hurting on a plastic container filled with cookies and crackers. It was near two a.m. when the door opened. The WWF-looking security guy nodded me out and took off down a hallway. I figured he wanted me to follow, and grinned at the mental picture of his expression should I start opening doors and peeking inside instead. He glanced back and frowned as if he could read my mind and didn’t like what he saw. Meekly, I caught up, my head bag on a strap over my shoulder.

WWF Guy took me to the second floor, knocked, and opened a door; the herbal scent of vamp wafted out. WWF stood back for me to enter. Inside was a library, books on shelves and piled all around, and leather chairs with small side tables. Because it was a vamp room, there were no windows. A fire burned in the fireplace with the snap and scent of real wood. An air-conditioned breeze cooled the room. Ambience achieved at the cost of the vamp carbon footprint. Vamps weren’t into being green.

In a chair near the fire, a book open on her lap, sat a vamp I knew, the second in command at Clan Arceneau, Dominique—blond, pale-eyed, and at least two hundred years old. The last time I saw her, Dominique was chained, tortured, and suffering from excessive bloodletting and silver poisoning. I had threatened her and then saved the life of her clan blood-master. I had no idea if she would want to thank me or suck me dry in revenge. After all, I had left her chained. In silver. But she just looked me over as if I were a horse she might buy, or a slave. Dominique’s family had owned a plantation before the Civil War—I had done my homework and knew a lot about the most important and powerful New Orleans vamps.

Her nostrils widened, and I knew she smelled blood. And dead vamp. She went deeply and utterly still. Before I spoke, I too took a careful breath, to see if I recognized the scent of the vamp who had made the young rogue. Dominique wasn’t the sire. The tension went out of me. Not certain of protocol, I said, “You look . . . well.”

“Your boots are dirty,” she said, her voice as smooth as watered silk.

“Yeah,” I said, handing her the bag. “The head of the vamp I just killed.” Her eyes tightened, an infinitesimal flicker. “A young rogue,” I said. “I’ll collect the bounty later, but I need the cleanup crew sent to the New Orleans City Park to dispose of what’s left of her.”

Dominique opened the bag and stared at the face in the baggie. “She was young. Her fangs are not yet full sized.”

I had thought her fangs were just small, not that they’d get bigger. Interesting. “I watched her rise from her grave,” I said. Dominique lifted her gaze to me. “Her first rising,” I said, to clarify.

Dominique closed the flap. She pressed a button on the small table beside her. WWF opened the door fast. “Take this. Tell Ernestine that a bounty check should be drawn up for Ms. Yellowrock. Retrieve the head and return the satchel before she leaves. Ms. Yellowrock will also provide you with a locale. Send a sanitation team in to dispose of the body before morning.” Dominique looked at me. “Is that all?”

I thought about Derek Lee and the heads he was keeping. For some reason he didn’t want me to negotiate with the council in his name. “I have six more heads in a cooler. Young rogues.”

This time Dominique’s eyes did widen, surprise on her face. WWF shifted on his feet and looked at me, his gaze traveling up and down me, reassessing. A different expression raised his brows. Amusement and maybe respect. Which I didn’t deserve since I hadn’t killed the vamps, but now I was stuck in the sort-of lie.

“Six more?” Dominique asked. When I nodded, she said to WWF, “See that a retrieval car is sent for the heads at a place and time of Ms. Yellowrock’s choosing. Once the fangs are verified as young, instruct Ernestine to write an additional check to Ms. Yellowrock.”

To me, she said, “Will there be anything else, Ms. Yellowrock?”

“Nothing at the moment,” I said. Remembering manners, I added, “Um, thank you.”

Dominique inclined her head, very regally. “You may go.”

I hated that about vamps, especially the old ones. Everyone was an inferior, a servant. They always kept you waiting and then dismissed you, which ticked me off. But then, I was on their territory, not my own. Holding my tongue, I followed WWF out of the room.

In the hallway, he again studied me, this time as if looking for proof of my vamp-killing prowess. He gestured with his hand for me to follow him. “Six more?” he asked as we walked to an intersecting hallway.

Since he didn’t ask if I had actually killed the six, I nodded.

“Damn. George said you were good.”

“George Dumas?” I murmured. WWF nodded and I allowed myself a smile. George was Leo’s blood-servant, first in command of Leo’s household security. The guy was seriously cool. And he had a nice butt, which I might not mind seeing out of his jeans, someday.

“He says you call him by a nickname, him and Tom, Katie’s blood-servant, but won’t tell us what they are.” Katie was the vamp who had done my employment interview, owned Katie’s Ladies, the house of ill repute that backed up to mine, and was the title owner of the house where I was living. She was currently in an honest-to-Bella-Lugosi coffin, drowned in mixed vamp blood, healing from a near-true-death experience. And her bodyguard, Troll, was talking about me? I wasn’t sure I liked that, but I wasn’t about to tick off the security of the vamp council. I shrugged and didn’t enlighten him.

“Do you give us all nicknames?” When I shrugged again, the tiniest bit, he said, “What’s mine?”

I looked him over, feeling mildly self-conscious.

“No. Really. What’s mine?”

I sighed. “WWF.”

After a moment he said, “World Wrestling Federation?” I nodded and he laughed, the tone appreciating. He ran a hand over his bald dome, considering. “WWF. I like.” He stopped at a doorway and knocked before opening it. Inside was a small room, an even smaller desk, a huge safe, its thick black door open to reveal stacks of money and papers. Sitting in a leather desk chair was a shriveled, wrinkled crone of a human, whom I instantly and tritely nicknamed Raisin, for obvious reasons.

“Ernestine, this is Jane Yellowrock,” WWF said.

The woman stared at my boots and lied. “Charmed, I’m sure.” Her accent was British, maybe Welsh, and I put her age at over one-fifty. Blood-servants lasted a long time, extended longevity being one benefit of letting vamps drink your blood and use you as they wanted.

WWF said, “Ms. Dominique said to cut her a check for twenty thou, and make funds available for a hundred twenty more, bounty money, to be paid on proof of death of six young rogues.”

Raisin’s eyebrows went up nearly to her hairline, pulling lines out of her eyelids and depositing them onto her forehead. “Six? Well.” She looked me over and for some reason I couldn’t explain even to myself, I felt the way I had as a teen, when I was called to Mr. Rawls’s office for a discipline breach. Discipline in a children’s home is swift and unyielding, especially for fighting, and while not corporal punishment, it was unpleasant. For a variety of reasons I used to get into a lot of fights, and clearly, if I had taken down seven vamps, I had been fighting, hence my discomfort. “Six,” she repeated, sounding mildly surprised. She pulled a book of checks to her and lifted a pen. “Quite remarkable.”

I didn’t quite know what to say to that, so I stood mute, looking over the office, memorizing vamp party dates on Ernestine’s calendar, categorizing everything I could identify in the safe, and staring at the electronic brain of a security system as she wrote a check, making a lot of curlicues and flourishes with the antique-looking pen. She blew on the check as if the ink took a while to dry and scooted it across the desk to me, along with a card. Her name with the initials CPA was centered on it, a phone number beneath. “There you are, my dear. Next time, please call ahead. I’ll have a check ready, and will leave it at the front desk.”