Black Arts: A Jane Yellowrock Novel by Hunter, Faith
To the Hubby for the newly remodeled writing room, kitchen, floors, windows, and the generous loving spirit (while I wailed about how long it took . . .). You truly are my Renaissance Man.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank:
Mud for poisons and continuity.
The Beast Claws for being such a fantastic street team. GO, CLAWS!
Lee Williams Watts for being the Claws’ primo, and for offering constant encouragement, assistance, and friendship.
A certain gentleman for the name of one of the Bad Guys, Jack Shoffru, and the lizard’s name, LongFellow. Excellent names, by the way!
Misty Massey for bits and pieces of pirates. Errr . . . pirate info. Not pirates themselves. That would be very messy.
My new PR team, Mindy and Audrey at Let’s Talk! Promotions.
Most importantly—my editors, Jessica Wade and Jesse Feldman.
CHAPTER 1
Insanity’s Not the Point
The crash shook the house, sounding as though the front wall had exploded. I whirled as my front door blew in, icy wind gusting with hurricane force. My ears popped. The bed skirt blew flat beneath the bed. My Beast rammed into me, the light going sharp and the colors bleaching into greens. Beast-fast, I grabbed two nine-mils from the bed, off-safetied, and chambered rounds into both. Raced into the foyer.
The door was open, the knob stuck into the wallboard, the hinges bent. The glass of its small window was busted all over the floor. Again.
Gale-force winds rushed through the open door. No one stood there. Icy air whirled through the house with a scream. I heard windows breaking in back. My ears popped again. A table in the living room tumbled over. Daylight patterned the wood floor off the foyer and reflected off broken glass shoved by the wind into the corner. Not vamps, I thought. But I’d been a target for blood-servants and scions for months. This wasn’t the first such attack, but it was the first that had gotten this far. And then the frigid cold tingled up my arms, blue and golden, flecked with darker sparks of frozen force. It smelled like the air over a glacier, fresh and full of suspended, preserved power. It circled over me, tried to latch onto my skin.
My Beast rose and batted the spell away. Magic, she thought. Air magic. Angry, like storms rising on the horizon. Witches.
I advanced the few steps from my room to the front door, the frigid squall pushing against me. In my peripheral vision, I saw Eli at the top of the stairs, his hunting rifle in one hand, a blade in the other, a small subgun on a sling over his back. The former Ranger was wearing boxers, his dark skin slick with shower water.
There was no music in the attack, no wind instrument, no whistling, no singing, none of the usual methods air witches used when they attacked. And the wind seemed random, blustery, not the tornado of might from a focused attack. More like wild magic, the kind teenaged witches might toss when their power first fell on them, out of control and turbulent. I danced into the doorway and back, getting a glimpse out. Despair pelted over me, sharp and burning as sleet, as I identified him. Sorcerer Evan Trueblood, my best friend Molly’s husband, was standing in the street, attacking my home.
Eli raced halfway down the stairs, his bare feet placed with rooted precision, his wet skin pebbled from the cold.
“No guns,” I shouted to Eli.
“Are you insane?” he shouted back.
“Probably, but insanity’s not the point. It’s Evan.”
Understanding dawned in the set of his shoulders and Eli raced back up the stairs. I turned my full attention to the open door. “Whaddaya want, Evan?” I shouted.
The wind receded marginally.
“I don’t want to fight you,” I called out. “I know I’d lose.” Maybe. Possibly. Okay, not likely, not with Eli and Beast on my side, but why stir a frozen pot? My big-cat huffed with agreement. “Talk to me, Evan! Please!”
“Tell Molly to come out and I’ll leave your house standing.”
My eyes went wide. I hadn’t seen Evan’s wife, Molly, in months, not since I killed her sister. Instantly I felt my hand on the knife as the blade slid into Evangelina. Hot blood gushed over me. I blinked away the unexpected tears that the cold wind stimulated and the memory evoked. I had killed her. I’d had no choice.
The police in Asheville had cleared me. There had been a hearing two weeks ago, attended by me, my lawyer, Adelaide Mooney, two local vamps, the PsyLED hand of the law, Rick LaFleur, and lots of press.