Shadow Rites

“I was mad. I drank as the Naturaleza drink, to the death. Of all of them. I killed.”

I said nothing. What could I say?

Ming’s unblinking eyes tracked to me. “I am free from Antoine. I drank from the girl, his daughter. Her magic was strong. Stronger than any I remember in all my life.”

Of course it was. Because Tau was the daughter of two witches, so she had a fifty percent chance of being a double-gened witch like Angie Baby. Crap. Crap, crap, crap. This explained why the spells she threw were so complex and powerful. Like Angie, she could likely craft with her mind, with a single thought, without the work and mathematics that other witches needed to craft a successful working.

Ming asked, “The witches. They are dead?”

“Antoine is. Tau, not yet, but soon. She no longer has the brooches and can’t trap another vampire. And I plan to . . .” Kill her? No. “To bring her to justice.”

Ming thought about that for a while, her eyes transferring again to Adrianna, who was lying back on the beanbag, her long legs up, feet propped on the mesh above her. Ming said, “You killed Antoine?”

“No. Leo’s son, Immanuel, killed him. And then I killed Immanuel.” Enough with the history lesson, I thought. “Would you recognize Tau and the other woman if I showed you photographs?”

Ming gave a single downward nod, and Eli held out his cell, with photos of the witches in question. On the screen were photos of Tau and Marlene Nicaud from social media. Ming turned away from Adrianna, and Ming’s blackened gaze fell on the cell screen. “Yes,” she said. Eli’s eyes flicked to me and back and he paged through the last ones. “Tau. And this one. Mother and daughter,” she said, her tone bitter. “They are the two who put humans in the pit with me. And to save myself, I killed the humans. Until then, I had never killed a human. Never.”

“Would you recognize her magics if you saw them again?”

“Her magics, her scent, her person. Yes, and forever. Why do you ask?”

“Your words have been most helpful,” Eli said.

“The trade was acceptable though dreadful, the memories harrowing,” Ming said. “But it was fair. My past is mine again, no matter how horrible. Go away. Find the girl. Bring her to Leo. You are dismissed.”

And for once I didn’t mind the send-off. I wanted out of there too.

The door thumped and sealed. I pulled my cell. Without telling Eli what I was doing, I called Bruiser. When he answered I said, “I need to see the pit. Can you arrange a helicopter to take Eli and me?” When he said yes, I added, “I’ll need to change into bloodhound form when we get there. I need to smell the pit.” I ended the call.

Eli said, “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Me neither, but we need to know what the girl was up to. Her scent is . . . I don’t know. Not right. Too strong, too angry, too something. I smelled it last night, but it’s all mixed up in my human brain. I need to shift. I need to figure out what I figured out last night and then forgot when I shifted. And if she was drinking from a vampire, then she wanted the blood to give her power to do more than what we’ve seen so far.” My fear was that she wanted to be able to control people—humans, witches, and especially vamps, all vamps—without sticking them with a pin.

* * *

I had changed clothes in the locker room and was wearing loose, baggy workout pants and a sweatshirt that would have fit Wrassler. I knew that for certain, because the shirt smelled like him. The big guy had lent me his own shift to shift in, which made me smile inside and out.

My bare feet were cold in the helo, and the lack of coms was isolating but gave me time to think. I grew even more chilled when the copter set down. The rotors were still turning as Bruiser opened the side door and the chilly fall night air, filled with helo exhaust, swept inside. It was still dark, though the eastern horizon had grayed slightly when I stepped out onto the half-dried black mud of the landing site. The police were long gone, the scents telling me that they had left only recently, driving out of the Waddill Wildlife Refuge through the two-rut dirt road that bisected the property. The land smelled of swamp and frustrated humans and animals and birds. It also smelled of the Comite River, which flowed nearby.

Eli and Bruiser and I stepped into a metal johnboat and Bruiser shoved off, calling to the pilot, “Wait for us.”

“Yes, sir,” the pilot replied, lighting a cigar. Normally I loved the smell of cigar, but not with my nose so sensitive and the cigar so cheap. Ick.

Bruiser pulled the small engine’s recoil starter, and the sputter filled the night, along with more exhaust, and I sneezed to clear my head of the foul stinks. As he steered us slowly through the wet hell of swamp at night, the air quickly cleared, leaving the swamp stink, of fish, gators, rotting vegetation, and stagnant water. When he finally turned off the small motor and beached us, the sky was lighting.

I had to get this done fast or risk staying in dog form all day. Not gonna happen. I wasn’t going to endanger my memory and identity. Bruiser tied us off, and by prearrangement, he and Eli stepped off the boat, leaving me on it, silent, neither one arguing about my choice, which I appreciated.

I took up the fetish necklace and let myself drop into the meditative state that was easiest to shift from, trying to ignore the men’s soft voices talking. I dropped down and down, and found the snake in the heart of the marrow. The genetic material from the bloodhound whose bones and teeth had been donated to the fetish necklace. Her accidental death had allowed me to use her RNA and DNA to assume her shape.