Shadow Rites

Leo’s voice came over the speaker system. “Girrard DiMercy. The Enforcer is now present. She has seen the proof of your treachery. All have seen the evidence of your deception and disregard for my rule.” The screen blanked and a new scene appeared, of Leo’s office. Gee was on his knees with his arms behind his back. I couldn’t tell from this angle, but he looked bound. Hog-tied. Gee’s head was down and his pretty black hair was hanging forward, against his cheeks. His clothes were bloodstained with red blood, but I knew that, without glamour, his blood was a different color entirely and evaporated instantly upon contact with the air. Ergo, the blood wasn’t his. Some vamp had fed him, ensuring his healing, and left traces on his clothing. It had been a messy feeding, suggesting that Gee DiMercy had been in trouble of dying from the feeding as much as from the shooting.

Leo said, “As Master of the City, I have seen all the evidence and heard all statements except for the victim of your betrayal. I myself was at the scene and was a witness to the altercation and the grievous injury suffered by my Enforcer, Jane Yellowrock. Jane, do you choose to speak to the attack or to the assailant before a ruling is made against him, before I pronounce judgment on this accusation of crime against my Enforcer?”

I looked around for a microphone, and the man at the mass of security camera screens waved me over. I didn’t know him. There were so many here whom I didn’t know now. It disturbed me on various levels. Mostly because it was dangerous. The man at the security console handed me a tiny mic, the size and shape of a bendable straw with a foam pad on the end. “Yes, I have something to say,” I said into the foam piece. “This is Jane Yellowrock, Enforcer to the Master of the City.” Full titles, because this was a trial, and with suckheads, trials usually ended in death. “I don’t know what’s been said or deduced while I was healing, but Girrard DiMercy, the Mercy Blade of New Orleans, was spelled. Look at his eyes in this screen.” I pointed, and the man at the console put that one up on the main screen. “Then back up to the footage before Eli Younger, of Yellowrock Securities and my partner and my second in battle, shot Gee DiMercy. His eyes are glowing blue before. They aren’t after.”

The footage backed up and appeared on the screen. The still shot was cut out and placed side by side with the other one. “He was spelled. We need to talk about how he was spelled, but I have a feeling that the attack on me wasn’t his fault, but was the result of something else.” Like his blue eye of seeing on my palm, which turned green later. I didn’t really know what had caused the attack, but I didn’t want Gee punished if he had been under the influence of a spell. “That’s all I have to say.” I handed the guy the mic and stepped back.

Leo shoved his fingers through Gee’s hair, lifted his head, and leaned in. I heard him sniffing the bound captive. “I smell . . . nothing. No magic. Were you spelled, Mercy Blade? If so, by whom?”

Gee shook his head side to side as best he was able, with Leo’s fingers gripping his hair. “I have said. I do not remember what was shown on the footage. I remember only a training session. I am not innocent of the attack. I have seen that I tried to kill your Enforcer. But I am . . . not certain of anything else. Except that I am consumed by guilt and self-loathing, my master. Something took my goddess magics and”—he shuddered—“something happened that I do not understand.”

Leo dropped the captive’s head and said, “Girrard DiMercy, we have all now spoken. Following the attack, you did scent of error and fear. Following the attack you did appear shocked, fearful, and anguished with sorrow. When you were fed by my secondo, he did read pain and disbelief in your heart and mind. The security images—the footage,” Leo corrected himself, “upholds my initial impression. I rule this, as my new security team calls it, accidental ‘friendly fire,’ the result of magical interference.”

Leo himself stepped in front of the camera, his eyes on Gee. He was holding a curved knife, small, easy to conceal. He bent over Gee and cut downward through the bonds. Gee’s body slumped forward. Leo stood, the steel knife resting on his palm, like an offering.

I had an instant of memory, a single vision, of a hand holding a knife of similar shape, but of different construction—knapped flint set into a curved deer antler hilt and tied with a hide thong. Unlike the one in Leo’s hand, the one in my memory was bloodied.

My father’s knife. Too large for my small hand. As I cut into a man’s arm.

My heart tripped and raced. The image vanished.

Leo set the knife on the desktop and lifted Gee to his feet. Someone had beaten the small man. I narrowed my eyes and looked at Eli, but his attention was on the screen. “You are free,” Leo said. “No one will harm you for fear of my judgment. Go. Find sustenance.”

Gee asked, “Is Jane Yellowrock . . . ?”

“She is in the conference room. She is well.”

“Tell her I am deeply regretful.”

“You may tell her yourself, when next you see her.” Leo turned to the camera eye and said, “That will be all.”

The scene vanished, to reveal a static view of Gee and me on the floor. I said, “Let’s see the rest of it.” I let an Eli-worthy smile touch my lips. “I want to see how many suckheads got shot.”

For a moment the silence in the room was absolute. Then Derek started chuckling. Then the whole room was laughing, including Eli, who was wearing a wry face.