Now Ka is back, along with others. Assuming Adan is back too.
Suggest torturing Gee to get answers. Just kidding. Not really.
I ignored the last part. Some of this was history, some of these dates had already been contradicted by Sabina and by my own grandmother, but there was enough that felt right for me to not sweat the small things. I remembered that the B-twins, Brian and Brandon Robere, had once commented to me that Ka N’vsita was a “good kid” and that she died in the twenties. The Roberes were old enough to have known Ka, but she hadn’t seemed to make much of an impression on them.
Gee had once mentioned that the old ones remembered things they had never written down. I tried to figure out who to ask about it all. Raisin, at HQ, was old enough to have been alive during this time frame. She didn’t like me very much, but if I brought her a pie or some beignets, maybe she’d talk about Ka.
Or Koun. He might be even better. I checked the time. He was still sleeping. I texted Koun, Raisin, and the B-twins for any info they might have. I didn’t have a number for Coreen, the oldest living blood-servant in the western hemisphere, and she didn’t take calls anyway, if I remembered right.
There were so many people in NOLA vamp history, so many threads of time and power and position. How did Leo keep up with it all: all the layers and threads and the depth of the tapestry that he had been weaving? And how did I unravel it enough to see the power brokers behind the scenes?
So many had died since I entered the picture: both Sons of Darkness, Le Batard, de Allyon, Louis VII, and Charles II of Spain—all VIVs—very important vamps. The heads of countries and masters of cities all over the world. Who had taken their places? Who were their heirs? Who was left?
There was always an heir. Almost always. Leo didn’t appoint Immanuel for around a hundred years, so Leo had been an outlier there. Most vamps appointed an heir the moment they came to some new kind of power or the moment the previous heir died true dead. There had to be someone to accept a vamp’s power, both magical and political. But not all heirs were able to handle the power or politics the way they needed in order to maintain a balance of power or gain more power. The life of an heir was often short and ended violently.
So what did the heirs who were causing problems want with time travel? Replacing vamps took only a decade, but replacing old vamps was impossible. Once ancient vamps were dead, they weredeaddead. A strange thought reoccurred to me, one I’d had before, but it hadn’t solidified, not so concrete. What if the vamp causing problems wanted to go back and change the original black magic working at the moment their kind was created? What if they wanted a way that would allow them to keep their souls and regain an afterlife? To daywalk and live like humans? Maybe to not have to drink human blood to live?
It was that same moment, that act of black magic, that arcenciels wanted to go back to also, but their goal was to destroy the Sons of Darkness before vamps could be made. War could be on the horizon as the two paranormal groups considered timewalking back to the beginning of vamps.
My mind circled back to the scene of Sabina watching as Bethany and Adan killed Ka. They had been standing in an iron witch circle. I flipped the current page of the timeline over and drew a sketch of the black square in a concrete floor and set it with the iron witch circle. To show dimensions, I added stick figures.
When I was done, I slid it to Bruiser. “Have you ever seen an iron witch circle like this? In a black square?”
His face pulled down in thought. “No. Maybe?” He rested his chin in his palm, elbow on the table. His sleeves were pushed up, and the fine hairs on his arm made Beast perk up.
Mate...she thought at me.
Bruiser said, “I vaguely remember seeing a section of a black marble square tile with a line of iron in it.Somewhere. But it was just the one tile. Not a whole circle. Is it important?”
“It might be,” I said.
His face pulled down more. “Let me think.”
***
I was feeling antsy. And bruised. And I needed something without knowing what it might be. Outside, the rain had let up. It was daylight, which was an impossible time to change into human shape, at least for me. But Beast had secrets and skills I didn’t have. She had changed shape in the daylight in the past.
I adjusted the gold nugget on my necklace and removed the cat tooth that hung there, just in case she wanted to get frisky and be a cat all day. Not that she usually needed it, but with my funky shape-shifting these days, I would remove any advantage she might have.
Inside me, Beast snarled and blew hard through her nose, a cat snort of disgust.
Suck it up,I thought at her.
Not caring if I got my clothes wet, I went out through one of the new narrow doors to the side porch. Bitsa, my bastard Harley, was on the porch leaning against the house. Beside it was Bruiser’s Indian. One of the boys had clearly seen that the bikes were delivered, because the last time I saw them was when Bruiser and I had taken a three-day, midsummer trip through the mountains, staying in cheap hotels, seeing my world. It had been wonderful.
I touched my bike. Freedom surged through me, the need for it, the desire for it. The certainty that someday I’d be free again, not have to be the DQ, but just a Master of a Clan, able to put my own people first. Maybe have a little fun.
I pulled my hand away. That day wasn’t today.
Walking into the yard, I studied the changes carried out at Bruiser’s orders. The gate in the brick fence into Katie’s backyard, the paved space to park a small car or turn one around. Katie’s fountain had been cleaned, and the bowl was full of rainwater. There were flowers planted everywhere along the fence walls in pots of all sizes. Fall greenery had been tucked into crevices of what was left of the boulders Katie had put here when I first came to NewOrleans. Most of the boulders were shattered or broken, used for mass changes when I needed them, but one was still mostly intact. Bare-pawed, I maneuvered across the rain-slippery rock, avoiding the plants someone had put so much care into, and sat on top.
