Dark Heir

“That was pretty obvious, Janie,” he said, sounding sullen and cranky and more than a little snarky. “I’m working on it. But were-blood isn’t easy to clean away from drives, and so far, I haven’t found which drive that history’s on. I’m still looking for the index file so I can figure out what’s what. You’ll get it when I get it.” He ended the call.

“That’s my bro,” Eli said, amused.

“That’s sleeplessness,” I said.

“Yeah. It is.”

Being sleep deprived was a problem for us all. Mistakes happened when people were sleep deprived. Tempers flared. We needed either downtime to regroup, or to end things and then take off a week to snooze and recover. Just trying to keep all the vamp relationships in place was enough to drain me mentally.

“So,” Eli said as we started down the last flight of stairs to the main floor. “What did you learn in there?”

“I learned that the bite of an arcenciel makes vamps insane, maybe forever, or maybe just for a century or so. I learned that drinking from a vamp bitten by an arcenciel makes them unstable, if not insane. I learned that a vamp who had been drinking from a skinwalker and then was bitten ends up like the Son of Darkness, raving and chained to a wall.”

I stopped and put a hand out to stop my partner so I could finish while still out of earshot of anyone else. We were still several feet above the main floor, looking down on everyone there. I tilted my head so no one could later read my lips on security camera footage.

“All this, all this mess, is because a skinwalker, someone like me, took DNA from a vamp’s body and blood, probably planned to kill him and eat him, so he could live longer, forever, in one immortal form, at the top of the vamp food chain. All this death and problems and vamp insanity is because a skinwalker—Immanuel—practiced black magic, blood magic, and then was bitten by an arcenciel. And those who had shared his blood at some point, and/or who were bitten by the arcenciel, they were affected too. So that means that . . .” I went silent.

It meant so much—it meant everything, or it meant nothing. Hope welled up in me. “There were no u’tlun’ta until the white man came. So that means that maybe . . .” I stopped again, unable to voice that rare unexpected hope.

Eli did it for me. “That means that becoming a flesh-eating monster is a communicable disease, the result of a bite from an arcenciel that then can be passed to others. And that disease condition affects different species in different ways. Vamps one way. Maybe witches another. Maybe skinwalkers another. So becoming u’tlun’ta isn’t a final, unavoidable, horrible way to die.”

I nodded. I might not become u’tlun’ta. I might be free.

“Fine. How’s that gonna help us locate Joseph Santana before he gets hungry again?”

That was the big question. And I had no idea.

CHAPTER 25

We Could Play . . . Strip Poker

As it turned out, I learned nothing from either address. Santana wasn’t there, hadn’t been there. No stink of burned vamp, no dead humans, no Dominique. I was fresh out of ideas until Bruiser called and Eli and I went to meet him.

* * *

“Remind me to never let you set the venue for a meeting again. There is zero shelter in the event of a firefight and zero security,” Eli said at his first glimpse of the vamp graveyard.

“The location wasn’t my choice. This is where she said to come,” Bruiser said. “One does not say no to the outclan priestess Sabina. Besides, we’re much more likely to be decimated by Molly’s death magics than by a hail of weapons fire.”

I wasn’t sure, but Eli might have shivered. Just a little. Bruiser parked the SUV and we got out, stretching our legs. I adjusted my weapons, my hand finding the hilt of Bruiser’s gift, the curved knife he had given me. The blade itself wasn’t as functional or as sharp or as strong as one of my modern vamp-killers, but it carried a prophecy of sorts that might save my life if it came to that. I was taking no chances and was carrying everything that might give me an edge, no matter how bizarre.

It was just after dusk, and we were the first to arrive at the vamp cemetery. The moon was not yet up and the sky was a vibrant red in the west, fading to purple overhead, and to twilight black in the east. The sun’s last rays glinted on storm clouds moving in. Far-off lightning flickered through the clouds. The mausoleums glowed white in the dim light, throwing black shadows, making broken patterns where they intersected the white shell pathways. The vampires carved to look like angels on top of the mausoleums looked almost real, as if they would lift wings and fly, swords raised in battle.

As per instructions, we moved to the center of the cemetery, where there was a small grassy area about thirty feet wide and vaguely oval shaped. Eli caught my attention and twirled his index finger. He melted into the shadows to check our perimeter. In the distance a night bird called. Nothing answered. Silence settled on the cemetery, the resting place for dead vamps. And we waited.

Lachish and Molly were late, traveling together, still going over the possible pronunciations of the wyrds of power, which was harder than it sounded. They had to sound out each part of the wyrds separately, giving each syllable its own space and not overlapping the vocal reverberations, which might activate the spell. Wyrd spells could be dangerous.

In the papers I had given him, Bruiser had found half a dozen of the ancient spells, all in Latin, none with proper directions, and all with dire consequences if not performed properly. The witches had narrowed the useful possibilities to three, one a summoning and two that created traps, like jails made of power. Snare of thorns was like Molly’s hedge of thorns, a spell that had saved my life on more than one occasion. Since the snare had failed to hold the SoD last time, the one the witches were using tonight was different. And probably a lot more dangerous. It was certainly more powerful.

But we three nonwitchy types weren’t depending on magic. We were decked out in our best leather vamp-fighting gear and were loaded to the nines with weapons. I even had my Benelli M4 Super 90 tactical shotgun.

The M4 was loaded for vamp with hand-packed silver-fléchette rounds made by a pal in the mountains. Fléchettes were like miniature knives, which, when fired, spread out in a widening, circular pattern, entering the target with slicing, lethal force. The fact that the fléchettes were composed of sterling silver decreased their penetrating power but made them poisonous to vamps, even without a direct hit. There was no way a vamp could cut all of them out of his body before he bled out or the silver spread through his system. And there had been nothing in my bargain with Leo about silver. Loopholes sometimes made me happy.