Upstairs, the layout was nearly the same. The last two doors on the hallway opened opposite each other, and, from them, my Beast-nose recognized two scents. Familiar. Pungent. Fetid. Rank and rotten and all the filth of the world in the stench. Black magic skinwalkers.U’tlun’ta. Family. My grandmother, Hayalasti Sixmankiller. Across the hallway I smelled a distant cousin, Ka N’vsita.
A cold slither of fear wormed through me. The doors weren’t busted open. They weren’t closed either, but open a sliver. I pocketed the cell and drew a vamp-killer.
CHAPTER 5
I Was Not Now, Nor Had I Ever Been, Nice
I pressed a shoulder against the first door and it swung open. Null energies coated everything. Forcing myself to enter, I cleared the first room. Then the second.
The rooms stinking ofu’tlun’tawere empty.
Holy crap. They weren’t after just some witches. They freed theu’tlun’tas. What the ever-freaking heck could anyone do with insane skinwalkers?
Jane knew bloodline skinwalkers were here,Beast thought at me.Jane hid from skinwalker cages.
She was right. I had been both avoiding and moving toward these rooms from the moment the call for help had come in. And I had worked hard at not thinking much about the skinwalkers imprisoned here, hadn’t really believed that they would be taken.
Yeah,I thought at her.
Jane is not afraid. Why did Jane hide?
Relationships are complicated.
Humans are stupid kits,she thought back.
I can’t disagree.
I took pics as fast as I could and moved back into thehallway, putting together what I had seen. There was nothing personal in the last two rooms. No crafts. No books. TVs were off. No mess anywhere. Even their dinner dishes were scraped clean, the utensils placed across the plates. Their closets contained nothing, bathrooms clean and empty. These two rooms were cleaned out. They had known they were leaving. They had packed. Eaten well. Been ready to move out.
On the private channel, I reported my findings to Alex. He was silent for too long before he acknowledged my words, saying, “I got a bad feeling about this, especially with Reach possibly being a part of Mainet’s IT team, willing or otherwise.”
Because Reachcouldbe a captive of the Heir of the Sons of Darkness, Mainet Pellissier, Leo’s bloodline creator and master. Or he could be faking being a captive, to give him an out, should we win against the Heir. “Yeah? Why?”
He briefed me—the quick version—on Bliss, the local witch coven politics, the things I hadn’t known about Bliss’s and Lachish’s positions in the coven, and the steps the Roberes had already taken with the U.S. Council of Witches. Half politics, half gossip, but Alex needed to chatter, his nerves and worry over Eli clear beneath his words, but some of it explained why Bliss was here. Listening, I went back to snooping and made sure I had a good feel for the place, sending plenty of pics to Alex, just in case he needed them. Mostly I was waiting for Eli to emerge.
Before he did, Bliss walked down the hallway. The lady of the evening who once fed vamps had become a VIW—very important witch—and Lachish’s personal protégé. With Lachish in jail, I had assumed Bliss had fallen out of favor with the New Orleans coven and out of power. Except I had been wrong about a lot of things.
Bliss had nearly vamp-white skin, wore her black hair pulled tightly back in a bun at the base of her neck, and her face could have been carved from vamp flesh, it was so still and emotionless. Where once the witch-in-hiding seemed to slide among the shadows, avoiding notice, now shestrode, confident and radiating energy, even surrounded by the null workings.
I almost called her Bliss, but altered her name at the last second. “Ailis. Thank you for coming.”
She gave me a tight smile, as if she had seen my mouth make theBshape before I altered it to theAshape. “Jane,” she said, ignoring my change in status, reducing me to what I had been when she first met me. “I spoke to Lachish outside. You have the box?”
Holding my breath against the pain, I hefted the box in front of me. Bounced it a little. Her eyes followed the motion. “I have the heart of the Son of Darkness.” I smiled, showing my killing teeth, testing the woman who had been elevated to the high position of Lachish Dutillett’s protégé, and—now that I thought about it—likely heir apparent of the NOLA coven. Because Lachish hadn’t been demoted at all. She was still in charge. That meant Bliss had a lot of power. A freaking lot of power. I bounced the box again. “The witches were incapable of protecting it.”
“It’s still here. Therefore we were capable,” she said, her tone even and without inflection. She wore a high-collared blouse, tight black skirt, and a matching short jacket with black pumps. Pale makeup included a neutral pink lipstick. A large leather tote rested beneath her arm, the straps over her shoulder. She looked like a businesswoman in total control, a human CEO, unless you could see the energies tightly leashed around her.
With Beast’s vision, I could see a lot of what Bliss was now, the energies wrapped around her. After ignoring her magical potential for years, the witch had accepted her gifts, trained hard, had learned to command her magics, and had become much more powerful, all in the course of months instead of the more typical years.
I said, “The wards are totally down. The doors and windows are busted. Some of your prisoners are missing. Witches’ guards are dead. Doesn’t look very capable to me. This piece of organ meat was my responsibility. Looks like it is again.”
She said, “You need ahedge of thornsand a sufficient null space to keep it in stasis, and this prison is the onlylocation in NOLA where you have access to strong null energies. How will you keep it safe without wards?”
“I have an army,” I said softly. “And a portable null space.”
She pursed her lips, her expression speculative, as if thinking through all the potential permutations of this conversation. She said, “I’ve hired armed guards to patrol the grounds. I’ve called in backup to restore the wards and add extra layers of protection. Meanwhile, I beseech the Dark Queen of Mithrans for guards at this prison to repel any attackers who might make a second attempt tonight.”
That was an excellent move,I thought.Ask me for help. Nice.
