Witchy Power: Jane rides over to Leo’s, to kill the rogue—Immanuel, Leo’s son. Riding Bitsa inside the house, Jane comes face-to-face with the creature she has been hunting. When staking him doesn’t work, Jane realizes that what has happened is that a skinwalker/liver-eater killed Immanuel and took his place. In the midst of their battle, Jane and the rogue are both immobilized by a witch command: stop. Antoine and a woman come into the room. When Antoine approaches the rogue to kill him, one of Jane’s witch charms activates, negating Antoine’s spell. Freed, the rogue kills both Antoine and the female witch. He and Jane fight, with her the victor, but her arm is badly injured. Taking a picture of the dead creature, Jane leaves.
Untender Mercies of the Human World: Jane shifts quickly in order to heal her serious wound, and then convinces Beast to shift back after eating the steaks. After showering and eating, Jane calls Bruiser, who has a lot of questions. Jane carefully tells him as much of the truth as she can, without giving her away her own secrets. Jane tells Bruiser to search Immanuel’s room, and what kinds of things to look for, which he does find. Next Jane calls Jodi, inviting the detective to join her when she meets with the vamp council.
As she expected, some of the council members try to get out of paying her, since the rogue was not really a vampire, but when Jane tells them about the photographic evidence she posted on her Web site, suggesting that people may get the idea that the New Orleans council can’t be trusted, they agree to honor their deal. In fact, Jane gets asked to stay and investigate who is turning humans and then leaving them out on their own, like the two she faced with Derek Lee. Jane says she will think about it. When they are leaving, Jodi makes it clear she would like to get together over coffee sometime.
When she arrives home, Jane senses Leo in her house. She manages to reason with him, explaining the dead creature was not really his son. Though he backs down, Leo says she will pay for killing the rogue that wore his son’s face. Leo leaves.
A week later, Molly and the kids are on their way to visit Jane, and she is overjoyed.
Blood Cross, Book Two
I Like the Fire. Can I Come Play? Despite the inconveniences caused by Hurricane Ada, Jane is enjoying the visit from Molly and her two children, Angie and Little Evan. They have been there with her in New Orleans for a week, and even though nothing bad has happened, other than the storm, Jane is on edge, worried that Leo may come calling in his grief-stricken state over his son’s death, and how he will react to Jane’s perceived role in it. Molly tells Jane she needs to shift, knowing it’s been a week since she has done so, assuring her friend that she and the kids will be fine for a night. Molly also encourages Jane to go see Aggie One Feather to make use of the sweat lodge, and to find out more about her past. Jane worries that she won’t like what she hears about skinwalkers.
Thinking over her current situation, including the new contract for discovering what vamp is creating new progeny and then leaving them to fend for themselves rather than keeping them away from humans until they have settled out and become sane, Jane catches a whiff of smoke, and vamp. Jane goes out to her porch to find four vampires with torches and what might be kerosene containers. Leo appears at the front of the group, accusing Jane once again of killing his son. Suddenly the situation gets defused by the appearance of Angelina, who comes out to talk to Leo. After seeing there is at least one child in the house, Leo backs down. When he leaves, the vamps still there speak of the “dolore,” and that a decision must be made; then they leave, saying they will uphold the Vampira Carta.
Despite worrying about what Leo may ultimately do, Jane decides the best thing to do now is to get back to work on her current case so she can be done with it. She gathers her weapons and other gear and sets out on Bitsa for the part of town where she and a group of men took down the young vamps a few weeks earlier. When she gets to the location, Jane asks to see Derek Lee, and hears a shotgun being set into position.
Have Stakes Will Traveclass="underline" Jane knows she has a laser sight aimed at her, so she continues to loudly identify herself, and finally Derek comes outside. When he asks Jane what she wants, she says safe passage to hunt for the sire making the rogues. Derek thanks her for the bounties for the two young vamps they killed together a couple of weeks earlier. They discuss Leo’s situation (including the fact that he told Derek he wanted him to kill him if he ever went rogue), and strike a deal that Jane will get the money for the six young vamps Derek and his men have killed since the last time she saw him, but will turn it over to Derek, as he seems to want to stay out of any involvement with the vamp council. Jane leaves, going to the scene of a vamp kill she made a few days earlier, catching the scent of the sire.
Following the trail to the New Orleans City Park, Jane comes upon a scene of pentagrams and crosses, a place that smells of both witches and vampires, which makes no sense since the two races do not care for each other. While there, Jane witnesses a young female vamp’s first rising. Rather than kill it there, Beast encourages Jane to run out of the area. Jane does so, and kills the young vampire. Jane takes the head to the vamp council headquarters, both to collect her bounty and to let them know where to send a cleanup team, since they like to keep their own dead to themselves so as to discourage curiosity from law enforcement. Jane sees Dominique from Clan Arceneau, and meets a new blood-servant security guard, whom she dubs WWF, and Ernestine, the council CPA.
Golden Eyes, My Daughter: After getting home, Jane thinks over the events of the night, finding that she is having some difficulty with having killed the young newly risen rogue. Unable to relax enough to sleep, Jane gets up very early and heads over to see Aggie, finally taking the elder up on her offer of the sweat lodge. Aggie does not appear surprised to see Jane, asks if she is ready, which means ready to meet her spiritual self. What Jane hopes to gain is insight into her childhood, the time before she absorbed Beast into her being. Aggie begins the ritual, burning herbs, playing drum music, and offering Jane water to drink, then pouring the remainder on hot stones. As Jane’s consciousness drifts, she sees those she knows to be her father and grandmother. She hears her father list animal names, which she understands as him telling her the forms she can choose from, and he also uses her name, which translates as Golden Eyes. Aggie then wakes Jane up and asks about her parents. Since there are so few actual Speakers left among The People (the Cherokee), Aggie is very curious about Jane’s parents. Unwilling yet to let Aggie know her secret or how old she believes herself to be (she remembers the Trail of Tears), Jane broadly answers but leaves some specifics out in her reply. Aggie seems troubled, and Jane leaves.
When she arrives back at her house, Jane sees Bruiser out front. She goes in through the back, and then opens the front door to speak to him. He has a very official-looking document from Leo. Bruiser said he did not know anything about Leo’s visit the night before until after the fact, and that if he had known, he would have warned her. Jane opens the parchment, and it states that as soon as her current contract with the vampire council is fulfilled, she is expected to get out of town immediately, and if she doesn’t, she won’t be able to leave at all. Jane closes the door in Bruiser’s face, and Molly makes the observation that Jane likes him. Jane asks Molly to check with some of the local witches to see if anyone is aware of why there would have been witch magic at the vamp rising site, and also shares her Cherokee name with Angelina.