“Baptized in a river when I was a teenager. I go to church most Sundays. My favorite Bible verse is ‘Jesus wept.’”
“Because it’s the shortest?” He almost smiled.
“No. Because it says that Jesus knew what it meant to grieve. He’d just let his best friend in the world die of illness when he could have gotten there in time to save him. I’m thinking he was between a rock and hard place, and the hard place let his friend die. He grieved. Then, when he could, he went and raised his friend from the grave, and he knew that if he did that, he’d die himself.”
“That is a very complicated scenario.” His smile was wider now, and his shoulders had relaxed. “And do you pray?”
This man was an elder. He was asking me questions, and one did not lie to an elder. I blew out a breath and tried to find an answer to his question. “I think about God. I confess. A lot. But at the same time, it’s been a while since I . . .” I shrugged, uncomfortable, “since I got on my knees.”
“I have never met a Christian warrior such as yourself.”
I opened my mouth and closed it. I had no idea what to say about that and no desire to debate it either. “Here’s the deal,” I said. “I want to use the church’s baptismal water to flush out the vamps,” I held up the empty vials I had bought from Walmart. “and I don’t have time to play word games. But it isn’t like I can steal the water.”
“And you want me to help a witch,” he clarified.
I shrugged and settled on, “People of all faiths are responsible to help the weak, the downtrodden, the sick, and the helpless, especially children. And of all the religions in the world, Christians are the only ones that are commanded not to judge, yet we do every day—gay people, ethnicities different from our own, people in mixed relationships, people with gifts they were born with, power they were born with, genetic mutations they were born with, illnesses of the brain and body. I’ve got a little girl’s mother to save, and, yes, she’s a witch. Are you gonna make it possible for me to save her?”
Herman Hosenfeld’s face wrinkled up in a smile. “Of course. How do we do it?”
“We?” My voice squeaked just a tad on the word.
“Of course. I’ll be there for prayer support, and”—he held up a hand to stop my reply—“I promise to stay out of your way. There are no other options, young lady. I have a daughter who is a lesbian and married to her witch partner for the past fifteen years. My wife and I lost her years ago through misunderstanding and judgmental attitudes and sheer, blind stupidity. I am no longer so foolish to think God sees her lifestyle with greater ire than he does my judgments.”
“The name is Jane Yellowrock, I am not young, and I am not a lady. And you are not what I was expecting.”
“You are a surprise in my day too.”
We had a small parade of vehicles all idling in front of an empty lot, wasting gas. It had started to rain again, spats of sprinkles hitting the windshield, making the cars behind us waver through the Earth’s tears. Eli opened the driver’s door and climbed in. He was slightly damp, and his hands were empty. He turned on the wipers and said, “Canisters discharged. But without a better idea of the cubic feet of space—”
“I know,” I interrupted. “I understand.” There hadn’t been time to do the necessary research, even for whizzes like the Kid and Bodat. We had no floor plans or maps of the lair under the house. Most important, we were even guessing that Big H was still in his Clan home, having based that assumption on the fact that I had given him the plague vaccine at dawn and he would have been too tired the following night to move to another location. Guesswork and assumptions. Crap. Eli tilted his neck to the side and his cervical spine made a rapid series of cracks. “How’s it going?” I asked over my shoulder.
The Kid and Bodat were in the backseat of the SUV, computers in hand, monitoring everything from police and emergency responsiveness to the weather, and keeping eyes on the inside of the house we were about to attack. “Piece of cake once we drilled into Big H’s security system,” Bodat said. “The vamp has cameras all over the place.”
Excitement sparked down my nerves and worry pulled at my mind. This could go wrong in so many ways—not least that my theory about the copper necklace was wrong and the pendant was something else.
Or that the holy water wouldn’t work. I rearranged the vials of holy water attached to my jacket. I had it in plasticized glass, so I didn’t risk them cracking or shattering. But it still sloshed. I had never carried so many vials before.
I checked the gun in my lap again. It was a U.S. model M32, a lightweight, six-shot, 40-millimeter launcher that could be a grenade launcher or a riot gun. It was loaded with six rounds of rubber bullets and, while it was a pain in the butt to reload, it gave me a chance of keeping my promise to Soul to not kill humans. I adjusted the military combat helmet with ear protectors and the built-in com unit. It felt weird on my head.
“We are live,” the Kid said into the headset he wore. “Flash headlights if you can hear me.” Lights flashed behind us. Eli and I raised our hands, thumbs up.
“The security system is in my hands,” the Kid said, his voice all business.
“Alarm system is off,” Bodat said. “Elevator is shut down.”
“Feed is now being sent to your cell phones,” the Kid said into the headset, “so use them if you get separated. Doors to the basement stairs are unlocked and will not alarm.” His fingers clacked on the keys of his tablet, and he took a breath that hissed into my earpieces. “Totally cool underground escape passageway is sealed. No one can get in or out through it.”
“Eli, time?” he asked his brother.
Eli, his eyes on his chrono watch said, “Now. Air should be clear.”
Alex shouted into his mic, “Go, go, go, go, go, go, go!”
Eli rammed the transmission into drive and took off with tires spitting debris, even with the extra load and the rain.
We pulled up to Big H’s fancy-schmancy house outside of town, but we didn’t stop at the curb. We squealed into the drive and then straight up to the front door, ruining the vamp’s perfect green lawn and squashing a patch of azaleas.
Moving fast, Eli and Bruiser met at the back of the SUV while I pounded up the steps and into the house. I paused in the middle of the ornate foyer and took a quick, exploratory breath. I could smell fumes, but nothing we couldn’t handle.
A man in a gas mask raced through the dining room opening, a shotgun in one hand. But he experienced a moment of indecision. Was I there to save his master? Or was I there to do him harm? In that single heartbeat of indecisiveness, I coldcocked him. He fell like a sack of potatoes, and I dodged the gas mask as it flew off but caught the human.
Deep inside me, Beast huffed with laughter and milked my brain with her claws. Fun, she murmured.
“Sorry, Clark,” I said, as I eased him down to the floor. “I promised Rick’s Soul not to kill humans. I didn’t promise not to hurt a few.” I picked up his shotgun and broke it open, tossing the rounds and laying the gun on the nearest white couch.
I raced for the stairs and paused in the entrance, looking back. Behind me, Bruiser secured Clark with heavy-duty zip strips, pushing the body out of the way. Behind him came Eli. Framed in the doorway, back at the street, a figure stood in the rain. It was Herman Hosenfeld, his eyes closed, his hands half-raised in prayer. He was shivering in his cheap suit, a cold wind blowing and icy rain pelting him. Beside him stepped a woman wearing gauzy greens, her clothes whipping around her, looking already drenched. Soul. She spread her fingers, her lips moving. She was speaking a warding of some kind. Hosenfeld paused, looked at her, and smiled before going back to his praying.
A dark form sped in through the door. Faster than any human. Rick, his eyes glowing greenish. I cursed into my mic and the Kid said, “Sorry,” into my earpiece. Rick was beside me in an instant, his cat musk strong in the air. There wasn’t time to argue, and arguing with a big-cat is a waste of time anyway.
Eli looked up from the equipment he was readying. “I called him. We needed manpower.”
I snarled and told Rick, “Put in your music spell.”
Rick snarled back but put the earpieces in. He didn’t have a helmet and wouldn’t be able to hear the com channel, but if I kept him close, it shouldn’t matter. I dropped the CNB—the communications nexus box—at the top of the stairs and aligned it, pointing it down. The tactical radio system being run by the Kid was designed to work in places where physical or electromechanical interference was high. When we went through the doors and lost direct radio signal, the Kid would switch to the UCU—underground com units. It wasn’t the way I had envisioned using the set, but it was a handy thing to own when fighting vamps.
“Ready?” I asked Eli and the Kid.
“On your mark,” Eli said.
“We are in the house’s intercom,” Alex said.
I nodded to Bruiser. He pushed a button on his mic mouthpiece and said, “Attention, all Mithrans.” The sound of his voice rang through the house, echoing through the intercom and sound system. “I am the Enforcer of the Master of the City of New Orleans, here for the Naturaleza, the breakers of law, the drainers of blood, the takers of lives. Leo Pellissier has the pledge of Hieronymus. Leo Pellissier has the right of might and of law and of the Vampira Carta. We have your lair. Give us your hands, and no one will die. Fight us, and all will suffer. I have spoken.” He switched off the mic and nodded to me.
I handed the M32 to Rick and said, “Rubber bullets.” It took a moment for understanding to enter his eyes, but he nodded once, a downward jut of his chin, his eyes going darker and more human. He took the weapon and checked it for firing. Braced it against his shoulder. I pushed open the door to the stairs leading down to the lairs. Rick fired three shots, hitting three humans, one with each shot. Cat reflexes, one; blood-servant reflexes, zero.