Shadow Rites

I followed him in. My mouth watered and my belly cramped—with hunger, not the sickness of the Gray Between time shifts. I used a lot of calories shifting, and shifting so many times had left me little more than skin and bones. I hadn’t weighed, but my pants were hanging on my hipbones.

“Edmund will be fine,” Eli said. “He’s at HQ, being pampered, vamp-style.”

Which meant with blood and wild and bloody sex. Ick. “Oh. Good.” Worry slid off me like water down mountain stone, and I slipped into my chair as he placed three pancakes on my plate and poured on the syrup and melted butter. I sniffed first. I couldn’t help myself. It was heaven. Digging in, I ate everything on the plate, and then three more platefuls. And bacon. A pound of bacon. And the entire pot of tea, with extra sugar and lots of heavy fat cream.

Out front, a motorcycle roared by. Moments later it returned at a much slower pace. I lifted my head, listening, as the sound of the engine again faded. I was either paranoid or I wanted my bike back. I hadn’t known Bitsa was so ruined when it was damaged last. Dang it.

Need Bitsa, Beast thought. Nose in air. Good smells.

The bike didn’t return and I went back to eating.

When I was finished, my belly was rounded against my pants and I felt marginally better. I checked Eli out, and saw that he was fully dressed, even down to the combat boots and weapons. Neither one of us had slept, but it looked as though he was ready for more fun and games.

“What did you learn?” Eli asked.

“Not much that relates to the witches, except that according to the scent patterns, they’re mother and daughter. Lachish said she didn’t know who the witches were, but she had to be lying. A mother-daughter team in the city, in her coven? She knew. And she didn’t tell us.”

“Lachish lied,” Eli said, laconic. “Surprise, surprise. Probably thought she could handle it in-house and not have to turn it over the Enforcer of the vamps.”

“It also opens up the possibility that Lachish is secretly working against the conclave.” I gave a halfhearted shrug. “Not likely but we can’t completely discount it.”

Eli made gesture that said, People are strange.

“If you’re up to driving,” I said, “I’d like to go to vamp HQ and talk to Ming. The one in the cage, not the other one.”

“I’ll clean up the dishes,” Alex said, “and then hit the sack.”

I looked at him in surprise and then at his plate. He’d eaten like the still-teenaged boy he was and I hadn’t even noticed. But he was acting like a grown-up. I said, “Cool. Thanks.”

He shrugged. “The ward is up and you won’t trigger it going out, so—” His tablet dinged and Alex snatched it up. “Oh yeah. Hang on. I got the witches’ names.” He keyed on three different tablets at once. “Oh yeah. Piece of cake. I got names and social media pages for a mother-daughter team who were at the witch circle where you were struck by lightning. I’d still like Lachish to verify, but until then, I sent the photos to your cells.”

“Names?” I said.

“Tau and Marlene Nicaud.”

I was tired beyond belief, but a fierce victory shot through me. We had IDs. And maybe a relationship that would lead us to motive. And then to stopping the witches.

“You done good, Kid,” Eli said. And he scrubbed Alex’s head in a noogie, what looked like true, if painful, affection.

Alex gave an abbreviated nod and looked away, but I could smell the pleasure in his scent. “I’ll keep digging and send the info to your cells. Go on. Get stuff done.” He made a little shooing motion with his fingers.

“SUV is at the curb,” Eli said, leading the way to the door. Silently I followed.

The city that never said no to a party was still going strong, musicians on street corners, artists trying to attract the loitering tourists. More motorcycles sounded in the distance, like a whole club of them heading for Bourbon Street. I kept my eyes out the window and said, “Would you be so kind as to update me about my time as a dog?”

Eli said nothing for a long stretch of time, during which we passed a silver space rocket on the sidewalk, in front of a bar. Riding the rocket as if it were a bar bull was a half-naked woman, long purple wig hanging down her back, most of her boobs hanging out of the top part of a black corset, with garter straps on the bottom part of the corset, holding up golden-glittered fishnet stockings. She was also wearing a red sequined thong, and shaking her backside at the street while a bunch of drunk college boys applauded and a biker in a Saints helmet wolf-whistled. A local cop shook his head. Only in New Orleans.

Then Eli started talking, and as he did, the memories of the time as Beast and as a hound dog came back. I chuckled at the parts where I sniffed people’s crotches, but really, it wasn’t funny. It was scary. I had lost myself and Eli knew it. But I knew my partner. He wouldn’t let me stay in dog form that long again.

And it was possible that all the shifting from species to species had helped with my healing. I ran my hands over my belly and down along my right side. No pain. No tenderness. No nausea. For a gal who had just nearly lost her mind into the olfactory sense of a bloodhound, I felt pretty dang good.

He finished the story with “And that is the story of Jane in bitch form.”

I slanted a look at him without moving my head. “You’ve been waiting all night to get the chance to say that, haven’t you?”

Eli’s lips twitched. “Yes, I have. I also brought along pieces of one of the icons I shot, in case we need a vamp to sniff them.”