Double-Dead Bodies: The last night of the parley talks gets under way, with Grégoire’s decision being announced. Though denied MOC status (no surprise considering everything that happened), Lincoln is given permission to start three new clans, and in ten years he can reapply. When everyone is checking out of the hotel at sunset, Jane scents someone from the same blood-master whose servant tried to kill her in her room. She warns Derek and Wrassler, who stop the woman to talk. The woman steps back and takes aim, and she has two guys backing her up. Jane shoots the woman in the forehead, but learns quickly that the men are wearing vests. Beast speaks up and tells Jane to use claws, meaning knives. When the fight is over, Derek has been wounded but not seriously. Jane, overjoyed at Beast’s return, realizes that she actually enjoys her crazy life. The question is, what blood-master vamp just declared war on Leo?
Stories:
“Cajun With Fangs” (In Have Stakes Will Travel): Bitsa, Jane’s motorcycle, seems to be having engine trouble on her way back to New Orleans, so Jane stops in the small town of Bayou Oiseau before daring the trip across a long bridge. Having seen the sign for the Tassin Brothers Auto Fix shop on the interstate, Jane figures the place is at least worth a try. The town has an interesting conglomeration of restaurants, and a lot of windows and doors with crosses. When Bitsa dies, Jane realizes she has no choice but to stop, consoling herself with the thought of trying the food she can smell coming from Boudreaux Meats. Jane steps into the place with a shotgun pointed at her, and then identifies herself to the man holding the weapon. After the man is convinced Jane is who she says she is, he introduces himself as Lucky Landry and says he is a fan of hers. Pleased though also surprised to learn she has fans, Jane accepts Lucky’s offer of fried gator. Beast, who has remained very quiet since the episode with the demon and angel in Asheville, perks up at the mention of eating gator. Jane is disappointed to learn that the Tassin Brothers are off gator-hunting, meaning she isn’t sure how her bike will get repaired, but she gets slightly distracted by listening to the story Lucky tells, of how the town’s long-standing problems between witches and vamps began and has continued into the present. Jane is not surprised to learn that Leo’s uncle Amaury played a role by leaving loose a number of scions not yet out of the devoveo, though he did kill their master. Jane then realizes that Lucky himself is one of the witches, and when she says so, noting that he wants her to get involved, suddenly everything goes black.
When she comes to, in the room of the bed-and-breakfast Lucky got her a room in, Jane finds out that Lucky wants her to rescue his daughter, who has been captured by the local vamps. Somewhat hesitant to involve Leo, since her contract has run out and she has turned in her resignation from his service, Jane nonetheless realizes she doesn’t have much choice. Leo gives her authority, as his Enforcer (an idea and title Jane wishes she had never declared out loud back in Asheville), to execute anyone necessary to complete her mission, and he will make sure the required legal paperwork gets to her. Derek Lee and three of his men arrive the next morning, and they draw up plans for their approach, also making use of a few locals. Determining that they don’t have enough manpower for an all-out assault, Jane decides that she will go in to talk to Clermont Doucette, the head vamp, while Derek and the others sneak up in quieter boats. Jane also warns Lucky to stay out of it.
When she arrives at Doucette’s, she gets in to see Clermont after a brief skirmish, and after bonding over boots and tea, Jane learns that Lucky’s daughter, Shauna, and Gabriel, Clermont’s son, are in love. Jane mentions the problem of witches not being able to beat the devoveo if they get turned, Gabriel loses control and goes after Jane. After another bout of fighting that ends up with a few individuals getting hurt and Lucky butting in, Jane asks if both parties are ready to talk. They agree, and Lucky learns that his daughter is pregnant. When Clermont says that Shauna can be made blood kin, which will keep her alive for about two hundred years, without running the risk of turning her, Lucky agrees to a wedding. The next day there are two ceremonies, held outside in the churchyards, and that night a party with lots of dancing. Jane feels the satisfaction of a job well done that also resulted in her being well paid.
“Golden Delicious” (in the anthology An Apple For the Creature): Rick LaFleur, two months after being infected with the were-taint and his life forever changing, is now in the midst of training for a position with PsyLED. His mentor, Soul, an exotic woman of indeterminate origin (Rick’s pretty sure she isn’t human, though she looks like it), has taken Rick to a crime scene for him to evaluate it. With his werewolf-stuck-in-wolf-form companion, Brute, and his grindylow, Pea (on hand to make sure neither the wolf nor Rick passes on the disease to humans), Rick starts his assessment outside, which none of the other trainees have done. Inside, with Brute’s help, Rick determines that the scene contains a salt witch-circle where blood-magic was used, with a scorch mark in the center indicating a likely demon-summoning. Rick then says he is moving from his human senses to enhanced were abilities, and immediately smells werewolf. Getting his automatic panic reaction under control, Rick says that the werewolf present bit one of the witches, likely infecting her. Rick uses the psymeter, which shows nonhuman or paranormal activity, and believes that the reaction of the device means the working is still active. Rick asks for photos from the scene.
As Soul, Rick, and his companions are leaving, Soul gets a call from Mariella Russo, the instructional administrator for the school, who refuses his request to see photos. She says that what they really need from him is the name of the witch who made his music that keeps him from shifting and perhaps getting stuck in cat form because of the tats. Rick can hear the conversation with his enhanced hearing, and he starts at this request, primarily because the creator of the music, Evan Trueblood, is a very unusual and still-in-the-closet male witch. During their conversation, Russo relents and says Rick can have the photos.
Back in his room, Rick looks over the photos of the scene, as well as the files, and discovers that only four witches were found, refusing to give up their leader. One of them, a senator’s wife, died in a car accident two days after her arrest. However, Rick surmises that she was likely the witch bitten, and was probably removed to a secure location to try to get her help—the name of Rick’s witch.
The next morning, after being rudely treated by some of the other recruits, Rick gets invited to a table with two friendly women, both of whom really seem to like Brute. During their conversation, Rick says that Brute is a tame werewolf, made that way by an angel. After a long day of physical training and an evening of study, Rick and his two companions head to their room. Brute warns Rick of a problem. It turns out that someone was in their room, left some kind a of black dot on the touch pad of Rick’s laptop, and took his MP3 player with the music that prevents him from shifting. Soul brings a team to check out the room, and luckily Rick has his music on his laptop also, and he drifts off to sleep listening to it.
In the middle of the night, Rick’s cell rings, and Soul tells him that the black dot was LSD. She asks him to meet her so they can talk. On the way there, Brute catches the scent of the person who had been in the room, but Rick has made the mistake of leaving without his music, and feels excruciating pain, blacking out. When he comes to, Soul tells Rick she put his music on an old MP3 player of hers, so he should be fine.