I studied the fetishes, thinking, undecided. For once Beast had no comment to make, hunched deep in my consciousness, silent, watchful. If I hunted as Beast, scent-tracking would be working against her natural abilities. Puma concolors—mountain lions—are sight trackers, ambush hunters, and I needed something better suited to scent-tracking. Like the bloodhound I had tried once. Excellent nose. But a bloodhound could get so involved with a scent it would forget to eat, drink, or change back before dawn. And no bloodhound had the weapons to fight werewolves if I got lucky and found them. I set the mountain lion fetish in the bag and replaced the box. I unzipped my go-bag, checking clothes, throwaway cell phone, and cash. I picked up my Bible. It felt foreign in my hands. The gun in my boot did not. Something was seriously wrong with my life for that to be so, but I could think about that later. After this job was done.
I called for the valet to refuel and bring around the car I had used last night and then stepped from my tiny bedroom. I stopped and placed a hand on one hip. A chair had been dragged from a seating arrangement and now blocked the exit. One of the twins was sitting in it, dress shirtsleeves rolled up, pants with a razor crease. There was no mole at his hairline, IDing him as Brian. His arms were on the chair arms, one ankle on the other knee, facing my door. Blocking my way out. And one hand held a trank gun.
My thoughts went into overdrive. I hadn’t brought any tranks on this job. Tranquilizers were Derek’s specialty. Seems like my right-hand man had been thinking on his own, and Grégoire’s two right hands had been sharing his equipment. I didn’t know how my metabolism would react to a tranquilizer. I’d never dosed myself. Some things I hadn’t thought I’d need to know. And so far, neither of the twins knew about me being a skinwalker. He hadn’t fired. Yet. I smiled, showing teeth, not trying for sweet. Moving slowly, not taking my eyes from the twin, I set my go-bag and Bible on the surface nearest. A bureau by the height. “Brian. You got something to say? Or do you want to fight me, ’cause it’ll come to a fight if you think I’m staying in tonight.”
“I know you’re not staying in. I don’t intend to fight you. I just want to make sure you listen to me.” His New Orleans accent dropped in, thick as warm honey, the words slow, the emphasis wrong, like the way a Southern gentleman might have spoken a hundred years ago. Polite, despite being implacable.
“I’ll listen better without the trank gun.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Today you killed a man.”
My flinch was internal. It didn’t show. “And?”
His words took on the lilt of that same old Southern man telling a story. “I killed my first man when I turned forty. A priest and two of his laymen came after Grégoire with a stake and holy water and a necklace of garlic; with kerosene and a pistol for me. It was Brandon’s day of rest, and at the time we kept only one blood-servant with him. There hadn’t been trouble for decades. We had become lazy.” He gestured with the trank gun. “Complacent.
“I was alone in the lair, when the priest cantered up on his piebald mare, the laymen, horsed, at his sides. The house was small, on a bluff overlooking a bayou. It had a hidden room under the floor, the tunnel entrance concealed by a rug. Grégoire’s lair.”
He shrugged slightly. “Some Mithrans sleep all day. Some don’t. Back then, Grégoire slept deeply by day. And the priest, he seemed to know that, he did. Seemed to know where Grégoire would be. To know my master would have only one blood-servant to defend him. I don’t know if one of the blood-slaves had told the priest, or perhaps the church tortured it out of someone. But the priest, he had no qualms, not one. He had come to kill a devil and a devil worshipper.”
I looked away. Tension I hadn’t known I was carrying seeped out of my shoulders. I blew out a breath and took the nearest seat, a corner of the couch. I sat with my elbows on my knees, my hands close to the boot holster. If Brian tranked me, I’d shoot him before I went under. If I went under. But I wanted to hear this.
When I was settled, he went on. “The laymen splashed kerosene over the front porch and walls. I panicked. Killing humans is against Mithran law, and against Grégoire’s personal edict. But I had to protect him. I stood beside a table, facing the door, three pistols and a sword at my side, and waited, sweating like the house was already on fire, my heart a thunder in my chest. The priest threw open the door and strode inside.
“I don’t know if they got their signals wrong, or it might have been an innocent mistake, but the laymen struck their match too soon. Flames billowed up. The priest fired. I fired. He missed; I didn’t. He fell, with flames leaping behind him. He wasn’t dead. He crawled for the door, screaming for help. But the house, it was old, the wood like dry tinder. I pulled up the iron trapdoor and crawled through the small opening, onto Grégoire. I curled there, as the heat rose, and the roof crashed down and the priest, screaming, burned to death.”
I said nothing, knowing now that he didn’t intend to kill or trank me. Knowing that this was a form of intervention, an act of compassion. Some confessions are just that—acts of kindness.