Raisin's eyebrows went up nearly to her hairline, pulling lines out of her eyelids and depositing them onto her forehead. "Six? Well." She looked me over and for some reason I couldn't explain even to myself, I felt the way I had as a teen, when I was called to Mr. Rawls's office for a discipline breach. Discipline in a children's home is swift and unyielding, especially for fighting, and while not corporal punishment, it was unpleasant. For a variety of reasons I used to get into a lot of fights, and clearly, if I had taken down seven vamps, I had been fighting, hence my discomfort. "Six," she repeated, sounding mildly surprised. She pulled a book of checks to her and lifted a pen. "Quite remarkable."
I didn't quite know what to say to that, so I stood mute, looking over the office, memorizing vamp party dates on Ernestine's calendar, categorizing everything I could identify in the safe, and staring at the electronic brain of a security system as she wrote a check, making a lot of curlicues and flourishes with the antique-looking pen. She blew on the check as if the ink took a while to dry and scooted it across the desk to me, along with a card. Her name with the initials CPA was centered on it, a phone number beneath. "There you are, my dear. Next time, please call ahead. I'll have a check ready, and will leave it at the front desk."
So I wouldn't have to bring my muddy-booted, bad ol' fighting self inside. Got it. "Thank you," I said, taking the check and folding it into a pocket. WWF backed from the room and I followed. At the front door, I weaponed up and gave a two-fingered salute to WWF as I left.
Out on the street, the muggy wind in my teeth, I shuddered hard. When I went into vamp headquarters and came out alive, I felt as if I had fought a battle and survived. Not won it. Just survived it. And for some reason that I couldn't name, this trip had been worse than the last.
CHAPTER 3
Golden eyes, my daughter
Back at home, I slipped through the ward, which was keyed to me in some arcane way that Molly had tried to explain one time and which I had totally not understood. After locking away the weapons so the kids couldn't find them, I stripped, showered, and fell into bed. Beast had wanted me to shift so she could roam until sunrise, but I needed sleep. Once on the mattress, however, I couldn't relax, seeing again and again the tiny fangs hinge down, like baby teeth in a human. Most of the time it was easy dispatching a rogue, but watching this young rogue rise in her stained party dress, and then seeing her eyes bleeding back to humanity as she died, had left a bad taste in my mouth; I felt shaken by the experiences of the night, dirty almost. I needed . . . cleansing. I rolled over on the mattress, knowing it was time to do something I'd been putting off for a long while.
At five thirty I crawled from the bed, bleary eyed and groggy, stumbled into jeans, T-shirt, and Western boots. As ready as I could be for this experience, I left the house again without eating or waking Molly or the kids.
Bitsa sputtered when I started her, but pulled into the dark street and went up to speed quickly enough. On the far side of the river (all directions in New Orleans are in relation to Lake Pontchartrain or the Mississippi River, upstream or down), I took the necessary turns and straightaways, and finally veered into a white-shell, dead-end road and the tiny house at the end. The smell of wood smoke was sharp on the air, the scent denser as I pulled into the drive.
The air was graying with light when I pushed the bell, and I started when it opened instantly. The slender, black-haired woman inside was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. She smiled at me as if she had known I was coming--which was impossible, wasn't it?--and when she spoke, her voice was soft and breathy, in the way of the speech of the People. "Gi yv ha," she said, and held open the door. "Gi yv ha" was Cherokee for "Come in."
I nodded formally, almost a bow, and said, "Thank you, Egini Agayvlge i--Aggie One Feather." I wished that there was more of the People's tongue in my memory, wished that I was a speaker, as the People said of the few who still could converse in Cherokee. But the words were scattered and broken, mostly lost, in my damaged mind. I had spent too long in Beast form and had forgotten the ways and tongue of the People.
"Are you ready, Jane Dalonige'i, Jane Yellowrock, or Jane Gold, in the speech of the white man?" Aggie asked. Her voice was soft, melodious, the gentle voice of dreams and nightmares both. When I nodded, she asked, "Did you fast today?"
"I did." Beast was hyperalert, but hunkered down, deep inside me, watchful and silent.