“It is still daylight. You can find Hieronymus’ lair and take the necklace. Find a way to undo the working. But you don’t have much time if we are to save that one,” she pointed at the woman whose face was nearly under the sand.
“Yeah, sure,” I said, baiting her, herding her where I needed her to go. “All we need is the location of his lair. Easy-peasy. We’ll torture his primo, Clark, for the location. And then I’ll break and enter and steal the necklace.”
Soul’s face underwent a change as she got what I was saying. “I will not give up the lives here,” she said fiercely. “And, yes, I’m willing to turn a blind eye to stop them from dying.”
Soul’s eyes latched onto me with claws, the feeling of being under her regard much like the feeling of Beast’s claws in my brain. “You have a plan.” Again it was more an accusation than a statement.
“Maybe I do,” I said. “But to make it work and not go to jail, I need PsyLED to stay out of my way for a while. Maybe keep the local cops away.”
“Are you going to kill anyone?” she hedged.
“Not if I can help it. At least no one human. And I’ll have the Master of the City of New Orleans’ approval for it.”
“Legal papers signed with Leo Pellissier’s official seal?”
“Eventually.”
Soul looked at the woman whose head was nearly buried by the sand. As if memorizing the witch’s features and her expression of total horror, Soul said, “I can do what you are asking. I can look the other way. But I do not think that Rick LaFleur will allow you to go without him.”
“We’re not gonna tell Ricky-Bo.”
“I think that is wise. His attachment to you is deep. As is his pain.”
“Ummm . . .” I stopped. That was all I had. And I had no idea what kind of pain Soul was talking about. Rick had a lot of pain every day of the full moon, but I didn’t think that was what she meant.
“Do you love the primo?” she asked.
Shock zinged through me at the question. “Bruiser held me down while I was forcibly bound to Leo Pellissier.” My words hung on the air like a bell rung in an empty tower. Soul’s eyes were appalled at the violation. I sucked in a painful breath. “We done here?”
“Yes. Go break the law, Jane Yellowrock. But be careful. If you kill humans, all bets are off.”
“I plan to kill only the ones trying to kill me.”
“That is difficult and will result in far too much paperwork, but it is acceptable.”
“Are we bonding here?” I asked.
“I would love to have tea with you sometime, when lives are not in danger and when I am not doing something that goes against all the rules of law that I hold dear.”
“Ditto. Café au lait and beignets at Café du Monde. Except that we’ll have tea.”
Soul’s eyes traveled around the witch circle, her body flowing in a balanced pirouette. “Excellent. I’ll follow you out soon.”
I pulled my weapon and, hoping I wouldn’t be transported to some distant place, I bounded up the steps and closed the trapdoor. My stomach wrenched at the transition. Happily, I landed back where I started.
• • •
I called Eli from the refrigerator in the old bar. “We’re gonna deplete your store of sleepy-time bombs. And we need some antiriot rubber bullets and a riot gun.” I told him what else I needed, and Eli Younger started chuckling.
“It might work,” he said. “What are you going to be doing?”
“I’m going to put on dry clothes, run by Walmart for supplies, and then go talk to a preacher.”
CHAPTER 25
Cat Reflexes, One; Blood-Servant Reflexes, Zero
I buzzed the secretary from the security door, staring into the security camera and asking to speak to the preacher. She didn’t want to let me in, this motorcycle mama in leather, with dark circles under her eyes and a look of death and danger about her, but I told her to tell Preacher Hosenfeld that the little girl with leukemia needed his help. Moments later, I saw the older guy coming down the hall to the door. He was wearing a cheap suit, white shirt, and tie, even on a weekday, his gray hair combed back with some kinda goop like they wore in the fifties, though he couldn’t be old enough for that style to have been around in his formative years. He studied me through the windows before I heard several locks click and the door opened. “I hope I’m not being foolish opening the door to you, young lady.”
“I kill vamps for a living, including the one who has Charly’s mom. I intend to get her back.”
“Charly. That is the little girl from Sunday,” he said, hesitant.
“Yeah. A vamp put her mother, Misha, into a charmed circle and it’s killing her.”
Hosenfeld looked confused. It cleared up fast. “A circle. She’s a witch, then, this woman you want to save.”
I felt my heart shrivel. A lot of Christians felt witches were of the devil. “Yes,” I said tersely.
“Are you a Christian?”
“Baptized in a river when I was a teenager. I go to church most Sundays. My favorite Bible verse is ‘Jesus wept.’”
“Because it’s the shortest?” He almost smiled.
“No. Because it says that Jesus knew what it meant to grieve. He’d just let his best friend in the world die of illness when he could have gotten there in time to save him. I’m thinking he was between a rock and hard place, and the hard place let his friend die. He grieved. Then, when he could, he went and raised his friend from the grave, and he knew that if he did that, he’d die himself.”
“That is a very complicated scenario.” His smile was wider now, and his shoulders had relaxed. “And do you pray?”
This man was an elder. He was asking me questions, and one did not lie to an elder. I blew out a breath and tried to find an answer to his question. “I think about God. I confess. A lot. But at the same time, it’s been a while since I . . .” I shrugged, uncomfortable, “since I got on my knees.”
“I have never met a Christian warrior such as yourself.”
I opened my mouth and closed it. I had no idea what to say about that and no desire to debate it either. “Here’s the deal,” I said. “I want to use the church’s baptismal water to flush out the vamps,” I held up the empty vials I had bought from Walmart. “and I don’t have time to play word games. But it isn’t like I can steal the water.”
“And you want me to help a witch,” he clarified.
I shrugged and settled on, “People of all faiths are responsible to help the weak, the downtrodden, the sick, and the helpless, especially children. And of all the religions in the world, Christians are the only ones that are commanded not to judge, yet we do every day—gay people, ethnicities different from our own, people in mixed relationships, people with gifts they were born with, power they were born with, genetic mutations they were born with, illnesses of the brain and body. I’ve got a little girl’s mother to save, and, yes, she’s a witch. Are you gonna make it possible for me to save her?”
Herman Hosenfeld’s face wrinkled up in a smile. “Of course. How do we do it?”
“We?” My voice squeaked just a tad on the word.
“Of course. I’ll be there for prayer support, and”—he held up a hand to stop my reply—“I promise to stay out of your way. There are no other options, young lady. I have a daughter who is a lesbian and married to her witch partner for the past fifteen years. My wife and I lost her years ago through misunderstanding and judgmental attitudes and sheer, blind stupidity. I am no longer so foolish to think God sees her lifestyle with greater ire than he does my judgments.”
“The name is Jane Yellowrock, I am not young, and I am not a lady. And you are not what I was expecting.”