Black Arts by Faith Hunter
My cell buzzed and I didn’t recognize the number. “Yellowrock Securities,” I said.
“Ms. Yellowrock, this is the concierge at the Hilton on St. Charles Avenue. Ms. Bedelia Everhart has trusted me with a missive for you. Would you prefer to have me mail it to you or would you like to pick it up?”
It took a moment to put the name with Molly, and when I did I stepped away so no one could read the expression on my face. “I can be there in a few minutes.”
“It will be waiting for you at my desk, ma’am.”
I clicked the cell shut. Eli and the Kid and I shared glances. As if covering for me, Eli said, “Windows for the back of the house come today. We’ll have them installed by one.”
“Well,” I said with fake-sounding cheer, “I’ll make a trip back to the hotel to see if anything new has happened, and then I’ll be researching at NOPD.” Mostly talking to Jodi at police department central. Asking if she knew anything about Molly or vamps out of Texas, or people in vamp society who wore gold earrings.
“Woo-woo room?” Eli asked.
“Yeah. No cell signal. If you need me, call Jodi.”
“Will do.”
I pulled on a pair of green Lucchese boots and left my house, hopped on the back of Bitsa, and took off to research—the tedious part of being in the security business.
• • •
When I got to Molly’s hotel, I stopped at the concierge desk. “My name’s Jane Yellowrock,” I said to the slender, white-haired guy behind the desk. “I understand that Molly—Bedelia Everhart left me a message.”
“Ms. Yellowrock, yes,” he said, his smile professionally courteous. He extended a legal envelope. “She left it this morning.”
My heart jumped into my throat. I smiled back, took the envelope, and found a seat in the lobby. Mostly because my knees were shaking.
I slid a nail under the flap and opened it, to see a piece of hotel paper and a room card key. The handwriting was Molly’s. She had written two very short lines.
I’m safe.
Tell Evan I’ll be in touch soon.
Mol
“Holy crap,” I whispered. And then I closed my eyes. Molly is safe. Tears pooled under my lids and I squeezed them tight to keep the emotion and the waterworks under control. When I thought I could read without bursting into tears, I reread the letter.
And then I sniffed it. And I smelled blood. Molly’s blood.
It was faint and fresh. And it made my heart stand still. Blood is composed of proteins, and as it ages it breaks down. Like with any other biological product, unless it’s preserved, it starts to stink. Old blood has a sickly sweet smell. This was fresh blood. Maybe as little as four hours old. And mixed with the faint trace of blood were pheromones, the kind humans exude when they are blood-drunk, when they’ve been bitten and drained and the vamp was compelling them to become happy and docile and addicted.
I also smelled a vamp I almost recognized. I closed my eyes and sniffed. Slow and steady, then in little bursts of breath that I pulled over my tongue with a small scree of sound. Almost familiar. But not quite. As if maybe this vamp and some other vamp I’d been in contact with over the years had been kissing cousins. Or had been made by the same sire. Not enough to go on. The tears that had gathered when I first smelled Molly trickled down my cheeks. I slashed them away with the back of my hand, yanking brutally on my flesh. I would not cry. I had too much to do. I took three deep breaths and pulled out my fancy-schmancy cell phone.
I didn’t want to call Big Evan. Not with this. But I had to. I dialed his number. “What?” he answered.
“Molly’s alive,” I said. “Or she was a few hours ago. Someone claiming to be her dropped off a letter at the hotel. If it really was her, then she’s in the city.” I steadied myself, a hand on the chair where I sat. “But you need to know that she’s been fed on by a vamp. So nothing in the letter is necessarily real or true.”
I read him the letter and listened to a prolonged silence as he digested the meager words.
“So where is she?” he asked. His voice sounded hoarse, as if he forced the words out through strangling emotion.
“Don’t know yet.”
“Who has her? What did she come here for?” he asked.
“Again, I don’t know yet. I’ll call back when I know more.” Big Evan swore and ended the connection. I headed for the elevators, stuffing the letter back in its envelope.
On the way up, I pulled the envelope to sniff it again, confirming that she had been coerced to write the note. Molly had handled the paper. Her scent was fresh, though weak on the page. There were hints of fear on the note as well as . . . desire. And an undertang of vamp. I sniffed it again and remembered where I’d smelled it before. This vamp had been in her room the first time I went in. A vamp had Molly, was feeding on her. Anger was a low hum deep in my bones, but I breathed deeply, controlling it.
The card key worked and I stepped inside, noting on the way in that repairs had been made to the door. Inside, her scent was fresh. Molly had been back, and had left only a few hours ago. She was unharmed, if the scent signature was anything to go by. The underlying reek of blood was no more than would be left after a vamp-feeding. I detected only a faint trace of anguish, or fear, and far more blood-drunk pheromones. I stood in the entryway, breathing, scenting, studying the room with all my senses before I went farther, then quartering the room, starting with the bath. She had showered, and recently, if the damp, cream-colored towel and washcloth were indications. I sniffed the towel, and determined that she was okay. Healthy. Not stressed by a beating or some other horrible . . . indignity was the only word I could think of, and my mind sheared away from rape, settling on Molly not being freshly wounded. Her toiletries bag was missing. Her toiletries, including the birth control pills that I still hadn’t mentioned to anyone.
Some of her clothes were missing from the closet, and her suitcase was gone. The covers were thrown as if her bed had been slept in at least once and she hadn’t let housekeeping in to make up the sheets. There were indentations on one of the cream-colored pillows and the other was off to the side, and both pillowcases smelled strongly of Molly. The white sheets and coverlet were rumpled at the foot of the bed. Something in the room bothered me, but I couldn’t figure out what. My nose said everything was . . . not fine, but not deadly horrible.
I remembered my thoughts when I had discovered the birth control pills. Was Molly having an affair? I went to the bed and bent over the sheets. No scent but Molly’s. No humans, no witches, no vamps, no one but Molly had been in the bed. Beside the bed, the flowers that had been slightly wilted before were dry and crackling, brown as if they had dried in a desert. In the corner, two vamps had stood, waiting on Molly as she showered and gathered her things. A male and a female.
I closed my eyes, trying to find something, anything that would tell me who they were and where she was. There was nothing here. I had no leads. No ideas. Nothing except the stink of the vamps I’d scented the first time I came to the room. I stopped and sniffed again. No. Not Adrianna. Not one of the Arceneau Clan that she had been left in charge of. It had been stupid to think that in the first place. My cases were not interconnected.
I knew only this: Molly was in trouble. Someone didn’t want her found. She was blood-drunk and didn’t know she was in trouble. She had left me a note—or someone else had.
I had no conclusions other than to keep looking for Molly. Except that I’d used up all my own sources.
And that meant that I was going to have to ask Leo for help and soon. “Crap, crap, crap,” I muttered. I hated to involve Molly with the MOC. Hated it. But unless I found something new in the woo-woo room, I might have no choice.
• • •
The woo-woo room was in the basement of NOPD Central. The first time I’d come here, it was dank and mostly unused. Then I’d discovered that witches had gone missing in New Orleans for decades, maybe centuries, and neither human nor vamp law had done a dang thing
I’d made a stink about it all. Things had started to change. Jodi got a promotion of sorts, which was really intended to be a career killer, by NOPD powers that be. She became the head of the woo-woo squad. Not the squad’s real name, but one of the many names that I called them. Under her leadership, the woo-woo room had expanded into space for three offices and a conference room, carved out of the bowels of the cop dungeon. Unlike the upper reaches of the building, it was quiet and conducive to the kind of cold cases Jodi excelled in. Unfortunately it had no cell signal at all.
I skipped down the stairs, my visitor’s badge bumping my collarbone, a box under my arm and a bag in the other hand, sloshing with my steps. I wandered the short hallway until I found Jodi, standing in the conference room, her jacket off, staring at a whiteboard. There were five whiteboards in the room, each and every one covered with photos of witch children. Some of the photos went back a long time, discolored with age, curling in, folded or creased. Knowing that there was nothing I could do for any of the victims, and feeling a sense of helplessness that curdled my stomach, I always tried to not look at the photos. Yeah. I was a coward.
The photo Jodi stared at, seeming mesmerized, was centered on the center board, with two other photos, file names, and numbers.
“Jane,” she said, without turning her head to me. “Haven’t seen you here in a while.”
“Yeah. My bad.” And here I was, not visiting, but bringing problems and asking for help. I needed to take this slow. “I brought peace offerings.”
Jodi looked at me, her eyes tracking to the stuff I carried. A slow smile spread on her face. “Café DuMonde. You are evil. What if I’m on a diet?”
I didn’t have the time, but I offered, “We can go for a run together this evening.”
She huffed a breath. “I’m on a case. But thanks.” Her eyes found mine. “Why do you have to be such a pain in the ass? Being friends with you is hard work.”
“I know. So. Beignets and coffee? They’re still sorta hot.”
Jodi pushed papers aside from the long length of tables and I set the box and bag in the clear space. “Gimme,” Jodi said of the coffee. I poured a cup from the travel box the café had put together and she took it, inhaling the aroma before she inhaled the coffee itself. “God, this is so much better than the swill we scorch here. I needed this.” A moment later she took a beignet and bit in. Through the powdered sugar and fried pastry she said, “So. What do you want?”
I followed her lead, took a beignet, and bit in. The taste was incredible. Sweet, hot, and perfect. Through the pastry I said, “I need info. And I have something to trade.” Jodi made a little “go ahead” gesture with her pastry and I said, “I need to know about any dark-haired male vamps or blood-servants who currently have short beards.” I demonstrated with a finger to show her the shape. “And who may wear earrings. Hoops.”
“Yeah?” Jodi watched me speculatively, and from the look in her eyes, she had something for me. “What do you have to trade?”
“Info on a vamp gather.”
“Old or recent?”
I popped the last of my beignet into my mouth and pushed it in with one finger. Chewed. Swallowed. Grinned. Letting her wait. “Planned.”
Jodi’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped. “No shit? Uh, sorry. No kidding?”
“None at all. And if you help, I’ll ask Leo if you can attend. He’ll probably say no, but it’s worth a shot.”
“I’d give my ex-husband’s left testicle to attend a gather. Actually, I’d give both. Wrapped up in a box with a bow.”
I chuckled. I’d only recently discovered that Jodi had been married once. It hadn’t lasted long and it had ended badly when the ex had tried to sleep with Jodi’s cop partner. Who was male. And not gay. “Like I said. I can’t promise anything. But I can tell you as much as Leo lets me about the gather, like date and time, info I’ll get tonight. I do know that it’ll be soon. Deal?”
“One of my sources spotted a new vamp in town. He goes by the name Jack Shoffru, and we have records on him back to the mid seventeen hundreds. Scuttlebutt from way back when, like ancient history gossip, says that he ran with Jean Lafitte.”
“The pirate?” I asked, startled, talking around the pastry and thinking about the gold earring. I had been thinking gay vamp, but the earring could certainly have been piratical. I kept my smile in and swallowed my bite of beignet.
“Yeah. Him. Lafitte made Louisiana his stomping grounds, until he disappeared in 1823.”
I stopped cold, another beignet halfway to my mouth. Disappeared was a vamp term, used when a vamp had lived too long unchanged and unaged in the human world. It also was a term they used when they were first turned and went into forced containment in their master’s scion lair for the necessary ten years or so of curing, the time and the condition of insanity referred to as the devoveo. “Sooo, are you saying that Shoffru actually is Lafitte?”
“No. They hung together. A lot. Records suggest that he was a ship’s captain in Lafitte’s fleet and a partner in Lafitte’s warehouse in the city in 1805. Anyway, Shoffru has been gone for nearly two centuries, and is now a big-time MOC in Mexico, which was also a stomping ground for Lafitte. Now he’s back. I’ll e-mail you his file as soon as I nail down some particulars.”
“That would be great,” I said. “A pirate on Leo’s territory. Yeah. I need to talk to the MOC.” I stopped. “When did he get here? To New Orleans? And . . . do vamps have passports? How did he get here from Mexico?”
“My sources are still tracking that down and trust me, it should not be taking so long. No one is saying, but I have a feeling that either he compelled humans to let him in without papers or he snuck in over the border.”
I sat back on the tabletop, letting the formerly unmatched puzzle pieces find a few new empty slots. “So, does Galveston have a port where he could have come over?”
Jodi looked at me strangely. “Yeah. Why? What do you know?”
“Not a thing; just a wild guess. See if any record goes to Shoffru renting a limo in Galveston. If he did, then that would be the port he entered through, maybe, and the method he used to get here. And if my guess pans out, that would mean you would be willing to share all you have on him, right?”
“Deal. But right now I need info on the gather. Is security going to be a problem?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Shouldn’t. Maybe traffic problems the night of. I’ll keep you informed if we need traffic cops.”
“And if you get me into the gather I’ll be your biggest fan.”
“I’ll try to make it happen.” I nodded at the photos on the whiteboards. “Anything new on the cold-case missing witches?”
“Not much.” Her mouth turned down. Jodi’s mother was a witch, as her aunt had been. For her, missing witch cold cases were a personal issue. “So many lost,” she said. “So few bodies ever found. They have to be somewhere.”
“Or turned and chained in a vamp’s basement.”
Jodi spun slowly on a heel and looked at me, her eyebrows forming a slight V. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“My last bit of news is about witches,” I said, taking a breath to start on the real reason I was here. “Molly Everhart Trueblood came to New Orleans a little over forty-eight hours ago. And went missing. A vamp took her.”
I placed Molly’s note on the table beside Jodi. She studied it and said softly, “Her note seems a little terse for a wife talking to her husband, but it also suggests she went of her own volition. Like a guest and blood donor. I doubt the FBI would be concerned enough to la
“You want me to go to Missing Persons?” I said, my tone incredulous. “Are you kidding me?”
“No.” She lifted her eyes and met mine. “Her next of kin need to file it. And I’ll keep an eye out for her or any news about her. But there hasn’t been a crime committed. That’s all I can do at this point, until there’s more evidence.”
I shook my head, disbelieving, and heard myself say, “So when I find her dead, drained body, then you’ll take an interest?” Jodi pursed her lips as if to keep in words she couldn’t say to me. On one level I understood. She had a job description and bosses she had to account to for the use of her time. But still. “This sucks,” I said.
“Yes. It does. I’ll help if I can,” she said, soft and sympathetic.
Which was no help at all. Unwillingly, I said, “Her husband is in town helping me look for her. He’d be the one to file.”
Jodi nodded slowly and went to a box on one of the long tables in the room. From it she pulled a loose bunch of cards and shuffled through them, handing me one from the middle. “Here. Lou Redkin is currently over Missing. Tell him I gave you his info. He’ll help you work through the logistics. File the report as soon as you can. Meanwhile I’ll keep a lookout. I promise. And if you get something more than a note, I’ll push for an investigation.”
“Yeah. Thanks. I guess.” I felt blindsided by Jodi’s lack of help. I kept telling myself that I understood it. But it hurt in ways I wasn’t sure I comprehended yet. “Last thing,” I said, and Jodi gave me a little smile. I interpreted it as being because I came to see her with a laundry list of problems. I gave a “so sue me” shrug. “Two of Katie’s girls jumped ship after some vamp parties. It looks like they went of their own volition, but it’s odd that they haven’t contacted their friends, so I’m a little worried. I’ll send you the particulars.”