Dark Heir

“Jane has told me about her injuries and the way she was healed,” he said, his eyes on me and the words feeling weighted, as if they carried more import than appeared on the surface.

Not quite as gently, Eli said, “Yeah. About that. Jane? Why did you go get the blood diamond and the iron discs out of the bank?”

The house went silent, Alex in the living room, suddenly standing at the opening to the kitchen, all three men unmoving, watching me. I hadn’t told Bruiser about that yet. I put down my mug and pushed my hair behind my ears and over my shoulders to hang down my back, using the opportunity to think through how I wanted to respond.

“Jane?” Bruiser asked.

“Something about Santana’s attack,” I said, long after I should have spoken to fill the silence, “reminded me of the blood diamond, back when the Damours used it.” For the Youngers, who hadn’t been with me then, I said, “Adrianna was there the night of the fight with the Damours. She was part of the blood-magic spell that they were trying to invoke. The night they tried to kill Angelina and Little Evan.” My godchildren. I had nearly gotten them killed.

I held out my right hand, fingers spread, and studied it. It looked normal. But it still felt off. Just a little. Just a very, very little. “On sub-five, Adrianna and Mario had scratch marks at neck and wrist, as if something had been ripped off each of them during Santana’s escape.”

I could almost feel Bruiser’s mind work, thoughts clicking into place. Softly, he said, “I remember that night, not long after you first came to work for Leo. You fought the Damours and killed them.”

“All except for Adrianna, who Leo saved. Nutso, insane, psycho vamp, and he still won’t let me kill her.”

“In that fight,” Bruiser said, “did your blood touch the blood diamond?”

Staring at my right hand, I made a fist, watching as the muscles bunched and tightened, remembering the tracery of black magic through my skin. I nodded, a jerky motion, up and down. Eli cursed. The Kid’s eyes went wide.

“How did your blood come in contact with the blood diamond?” Bruiser asked. “Walk me through it, step by step.”

“One of the Damours—I called him Baldy—was holding the gem in one hand. I had a cut on my cheek from a branch, from running through the woods in the dark. I know. Idiot civilians,” I said before Eli could. “He was trying to kill me and I was trying to kill him. He touched the diamond to me.” I touched my cheek, remembering, fear crawling up my spine like slithering snakes, sinuous and cold, swallowing my strength. “Into the cut, into my blood. And he spoke a wyrd, activating the spell.” The feeling, the pain, had been so very similar to what had happened when the Son of Darkness attacked. I lifted my cooling tea and sipped, but it did nothing for the dryness of my mouth.

“When I was in the baptismal pool”—I opened my hand again and turned it over, seeing my palm with its three deep, smooth lines and myriad tiny ones—“I was able to remember the fight with—let’s call it skinwalker clarity. Santana was wearing a bracelet when he came up from the elevator shaft. It had a setting crafted for two stones.” I stopped and took a breath. “But one was missing.”

Alex swore softly. Eli pursed his lips, staring at my hand.

“I went to the bank and . . . when I held my hand near the blood diamond, I could feel the magic in it. I could feel Santana’s spell on me. In me. Even now.”

Eli said, “If the blood diamond was once part of the bracelet worn by the Son of Darkness, and if the diamond still in the bracelet is magically connected to the blood diamond, then you might now be connected to the bracelet. Possibly even accessible to the Son of Darkness himself. He could find you through the gems’ attraction to each other and to you. Through your blood.”

I nodded again, more slowly, knowing what he was going to say. It wasn’t prescience. It was just knowing my partner and the way his mind worked. The way my mind worked too.

“Bait,” Eli said.

“No! I forbid it,” Bruiser said.

Which was such an old-man thing to say that it made me smile. “You can’t stop it,” I said, setting down the tea mug and rubbing my right hand in remembered pain. I recalled the strange sense of being spied on earlier, that awareness between my shoulder blades. “The holy water and the shift may have mostly healed me, but I think—” I stopped abruptly, knowing how weird this would sound to anyone not in the room. “I think the bracelet knows where I am. Maybe not all the time, but—” I stopped to reconsider. “If it recognizes my blood, it could be used to track me. Meaning that I should put it back in the safe-deposit box, I know that, but if I do that, then . . .” I can’t use it. No. Not what I wanted to say. I changed it to “. . . we can’t use it ourselves to lure him to me or to track him with it, you know, in case the witches have that ability.”

Bruiser set down his empty coffee cup and asked, “Can you track him? Can you feel him with or through the diamond?”

“I don’t know. I think it would be stupid to try all on my own. Which is one reason why I want the intro to Lachish Dutillet. She could put up a protective circle or something witchy.” I waved a hand to indicate there were a lot of things magical that could be done and that I had no idea what might be involved.

The doorbell rang, and I jumped up to answer, feeling, literally, Saved by the bell. It was a delivery of pizza from Mona Lisa’s, ordered by the Kid while we chatted about ways to capture a killer and my magical problems. Bruiser kissed me on the top of the head and left while I paid the delivery guy. Even in the midst of people dying and my body being eaten up by spells, I could appreciate the view from the back side, and Bruiser had a veeery nice backside. He turned as he stepped into the street and smiled at me. It was one of those special smiles that people in relationships offer each other, smiles that say so much more than the movement of lips and face. Bruiser’s said he’d had fun in my bed and would be back in it soon.

* * *

While we were eating, my cell vibrated. I opened the Kevlar-backed cover and started to say hi. I never got the chance.

“Why didn’t you call me?” My best friend sounded mildly annoyed with me, and whether quietly seething or furious, an angry Molly was dangerous, because her earth-witch gift had gone wonky and started killing things. I ran through what I might have done this time, but no member of her family was in danger and I wasn’t bringing problems to her door. And though Molly was powerful, there was no way she could know that we had been talking about the night I nearly got her children murdered in a blood-magic ceremony. So, for once, there was no reason why she should be upset with me.