Shadow Rites

Brandon and Brian lay on the sides of the pit and reached in to support the two. Behind them, in the shadow of the lights, something else yellowed and broken appeared. I knew what it was even before the shapes came clear, what they had to be. Skeletons. Human skeletons. Chained as Ming was chained. The bones had been broken, splintered, torn apart. Even across the distance, it was clear that the bones had been gnawed, the marrow sucked clean. Ming, if it really was Ming, had killed humans and eaten them, which meant she would be mad, insane with rot. I’d seen it before, the madness that came to a vamp from eating dead flesh. It was bad. Really horrible.

Beside me I felt movement and turned from the screen to see Katie, Leo’s heir, and all I could think was speak of the devil . . .

Katie had eaten dead flesh. And while she was the most powerful vamp in the land—for entirely different reasons—she was also officially nutso. She leaned to me and whispered, “I have tasted of the darkness of death, and I lived. So shall Ming Zoya of Mearkanis.”

“Ummm. Yeah,” I breathed. “Okay.” I eased away from her vibrant energies, but she gripped my upper arm in taloned hands, too close to the unhealed scars. I felt the cutting edge of her claws through my clothing. I dropped the empty teacup; it hit the carpet and rolled. So much for feeling safe in a room full of blood drinkers.

“I will feed my old friend of the massed blood that is mine from the gather. Together we will find the cursed fools who did this. And we shall hunt and destroy them.”

Which made no sense at all.

Leo said, “Katherine, my love. Come to me.”

Instantly Katie let me go and practically slithered into Leo’s arms. Across the way, Grégoire, Leo’s secundo heir, watched the two, his face impassive. I had no idea what was happening between them; the ménage à trois had never made any kind of sense to me.

On-screen, Bruiser was trying to remove the brooch pinned to Ming’s flesh, but the slightest touch caused her to writhe and rave in pain and madness. Bruiser stopped attempting to remove the ornament and stared at the nearest camera as if searching out Leo. The Master of the City leaned into a mic and said, “Bring her home. And bring the chains that bound her, that I might scent of them.”

And in that moment I accepted how dire things might really be. If a witch had done this, Leo would know. If a vampire had done this, Leo would know. If a were-creature, Leo would know. And there would be vengeance and retribution. No matter who had imprisoned Ming, nothing good would ever come of it. New Orleans vamps had been through one war already, a war that had resulted in the destruction of half its clans. There was no telling what might happen if there was another vamp war so close to the Euro Vamps arriving. Or if the vamps and witches went to war. Whoever had done this had been brilliant. Sadistic and brutal, but brilliant. Everything I had hoped for, worked for, sacrificed for, to keep my godchildren safe, to keep the human population of New Orleans and the greater Southeast safe, to keep all the witches in the U.S. safe, was about to unravel all at once.

Plots within plots, schemes within conspiracies within intrigues. The vamp way. And I had little hope of figuring it out and stopping it in time.

Something sharply angled appeared at the top of the screen and was lowered into the pit. It was the wooden box that looked way too much like an oversized coffin for my comfort. To keep from saying so, I picked up a donut, stuffed it into my mouth, and chewed. When the transport box settled into the muddy bottom, Bruiser lifted Ming in his arms and placed her inside. Then he climbed inside with her, holding her like a lover, as a winch lifted the big box slowly out, the pseudocoffin wanting to swirl and twist, but held steady by the Roberes.

When the box rested on the churned-up land, lying flat in the mud, the twins rinsed the two figures with clean water from blue five-gallon bottles, the kind people drank from in doctors’ offices and in places where clean drinking water was scarce. The rinse water drained between the slats of the boards until it ran nearly clean. When they were finished, the boys handed in what looked like a foam mattress pad and pillows and blankets, tucking everything around the woman as Bruiser, his wrist still in her mouth, eased his body out. He whispered something to Ming of Mearkanis and she released his wrist. Quickly a human crawled into the box and settled beside her, offering his wrist. Another human crawled in on the other side.

No way would I have done that. No freaking way. Humans were crazy.

“How long, George?” Leo asked, his voice deceptively soft. “How long has Ming of Mearkanis been in the pit?”

Bruiser gestured off to the side, and the pumps went silent. One generator went dead, leaving only one to speak over. He tapped a mud-crusted earbud I hadn’t noted and repeated, “How long?” He looked at the camera and leaned into a mic held by the operator, the screen falling off to an uneven angle as the human operator did double duty. “I would say perhaps two years. No more.”

Leo shook his head and the scent of anger grew again, spiking high in the overcrowded room.

“Dominantem civitati—Master of the City and Hunting Territories of New Orleans,” Bruiser said, his words and tone formal and low. “It is unlikely that the witches who attacked your Enforcer are responsible for this horror. Not alone. Not without help. Even with magic, two strong people would not have the physical strength to accomplish this: Digging a pit. Reinforcing it with concrete and magic. Kidnapping a Blood Master and putting her here. This was done by heavy machines and a group of people, humans and witches, working in concert, over time.”