Cold Reign

“Right. I’ve got some maritime people I can talk to,” Eli said, “without going to the authorities. Yet.”

“And when it reaches the point where we need the authorities?” I asked.

“Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and multiple branches of the U.S. military can be at the dock on the Mississippi River in no time, to stop them from coming ashore,” Eli said, satisfaction edging his voice, as if he was looking forward to a battle: U.S. government lawyers, law enforcement officials in suits, and uniformed military with things that go bang, versus royal, self-important suckheads. Since Eli was more a boots-on-the-ground kinda warrior, I knew who he was rooting for in that contest. Guns blazing all the way.

“Excellent,” Leo said, drawing conclusions even faster than Eli and I. “Should that occurrence appear to become likely, I’ll see that the lovely Carolyne has prior notice.”

“Carolyne?” I asked.

“The reporter from the news channel. I found her delightful.”

I sighed. Leo’s sex drive was over the moon, but then, all vamps had supercharged libidos. “I have one more question,” I said. “The vamps who rose as revenants. How did they get from Europe to New Orleans originally, during their undead unlives?”

“They escaped the French court and came to the Americas, where they swore to Amaury Pellissier. My uncle.”

“That same uncle who pinned the Son of Darkness to the basement wall? The Son of Darkness who turned Hugh Capet and the dynasty that included Louis le Jeune and Le Bâtard? In the French court?” I clarified.

“Indeed,” Leo said, pouring himself more champagne. “It is a complicated situation. Tiresome in the extreme.”

“Tiresome. Yeah. That’s the word I’d have used too,” I said, thinking of the dead sailors.

Leo totally missed the sarcasm. “With my people, there is always a threat of armed conflict, of battle in the streets,” he said, unperturbed. “You will prepare for that eventuality. I shall address the political aspect. And we shall meet again to discuss potentialities.”

The rain hit like a thousand fire hoses as we turned onto my street, and I muttered, “Just in time. It’s like I have a rain djinn.” New Orleans in early winter was an evil creature, usually warm, with highs in the sixties and low seventies. But when storm fronts came through, the temps and rain and wind could change instantly. Like this storm. And me without an umbrella.

The limo stopped in front of the house, and my partner and I dashed from the car to the front porch, where we huddled under the front gallery for another half second while the Kid opened the door for us. The air inside was warm and dry and wonderful. We had been unprotected for less than three seconds and were wet to the skin.

This storm was the worst I had ever experienced in New Orleans: colder, lashing, and it was almost angry feeling, though that was anthropomorphizing the weather patterns. I had enough problems without a sentient climate.

As the Kid closed the door on the squall, lightning shattered through the air. Thunder boomed close by. I had yet to get over being hit by lightning. I faked it pretty good, but that ozone smell in the air and the prickles of electricity that meant a big storm still got to me. “I’ll be in a hot shower,” I said, disappearing into my room.

CHAPTER 3

You Offer Me Your Blood? Freely?

I dropped my gear bag and gobag on the small rug at the foot of the bed and my soaked clothes on the bathroom floor. The shower in the attached bath—what my honeybunch called an en suite—wasn’t huge, but the hot water was plentiful and the water pressure was glorious. One great thing about New Orleans was the water. It was everywhere, surrounding the city, wrapping around it, trailing through it. There was no shortage that ever meant conserving what was a precious commodity in most parts of the world. Well, except after hurricanes, when water surged in from the Gulf of Mexico and the city’s supply was contaminated. During and after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, potable water had been in short supply and shower water had been nonexistent for weeks. Months in some parts of the surrounding area.

I laid my forehead against the shower wall, the tile cold under my forearms, and let the water beat down on my head and back. Looking down. Studying myself. I was too skinny again, legs more sticklike, belly too flat, no hips. Not much in the boob area. Muscles too defined to be truly healthy. Females needed more body fat than males to keep our estrogen cycle steady. Or so said Aggie One Feather when I last visited her. Aggie was the Tsalagi—Cherokee—elder I visited for advice, information, and spiritual healing. Aggie knew me well enough to notice things like weight loss and had become mother-hen bossy. I had lost a few pounds since the lightning event. I had developed new scars, traceries of lightning that weren’t visible unless water was pouring down me, like now. Then I could see the old burns. No one else had been in a position to see them but me. I’d kept Bruiser out of my shower since I first saw them. Eventually, after I shifted shapes enough, my skinwalker magics would heal me. If everything went as usual. I wasn’t sure how big an if that was, yet.

I flexed my hands and relaxed them. They worked great. No residual problems from the strike that had fused the flesh together, trapping foreign objects in the scorched tissue. No problems at all except the ones that were left in my brain. And I was dealing with that situation. Mostly.

Eli had recognized that I had a problem when he caught me flexing my hands over and over. He had quietly asked what other symptoms of delayed-onset PTSD I was experiencing. Post-traumatic stress disorder. We had been sitting at the dinner table eating steak and potatoes when he broached the subject, and all sorts of things had come tumbling out of my mouth. Things I hadn’t even known I was feeling. Eli had made me talk about what had happened, the night I was struck by lightning, talk about every single detail. Over and over. He shoulda been a shrink. Maybe I’d buy him a couch for his birthday and see how long it took him to get the joke.

However, all jokes aside, it had helped to know that what I was experiencing not only had a name but was suffered by others. Including him. The condition had a lot of symptoms, a lot of variables. Learning that had been helpful. And he hadn’t told Bruiser yet, though I knew he wouldn’t keep my secret much longer. Secrets were dangerous to mental health. He had assured me of that, which was odd considering how many secrets the former Ranger was keeping, like the source event of his own PTSD.

I was expected at Aggie One Feather’s soon to be taken to water again, in an ancient Cherokee ceremony of purification and healing. That would help too. And I’d eventually get around to telling my boyfriend about my condition. Maybe. If it didn’t go away fast enough.

What I hadn’t told Eli was that he was going to water too. Aggie had secured the services of an old Choctaw man to take Eli to water, since women and men had differing ceremonies. And since it meant being naked. No way was I comfortable being around Eli naked. Just . . . wrong. So Eli’s ceremony would not be the Cherokee version, but Aggie thought the Choctaw ceremony would do. Would help. We’d see.

I turned off the water, dried with an oversized bathsheet that Eli had ordered from some high-end store, oiled my skin, and toweled my hair but left it down rather than drying it. I’m not a girly kinda girl, but I have great hair, or so said Bruiser, black as night, straight as good bourbon. Unbraided, it hung down below my butt, and it would dry faster if I left it loose and long. I pulled on layers: a long-sleeved silky undershirt, long-sleeved cotton tee, fuzzy sweatpants, and wool socks and joined the boys in the main room.

Eli had showered in his usual ninety seconds and was already lying on the couch, taking up the space of three people. Alex was playing some international war game on his computer, the werewolf Brute at his feet. Pea, or maybe it was Bean, since I couldn’t tell the grindylow littermates apart, was curled on Alex’s shoulders, her steel claws grooming his hair. Which looked horribly dangerous. And Edmund was coming in the side door, wearing a rain-wet, dark suit, a glimpse of his gorgeous collector car, parked in the narrow lane. The smell of storm and vamp blood mixed on the breeze close behind. His knees buckled. He fell forward.

“Ed!” I shouted.