Raven Cursed

 

A bump-and-grind Country Western number could be heard out in the street, even over the steady patter of rain, an oldie goldie about a funeral in a bar, the singer propped up by the jukebox, dead. Which fit a few of the people inside, some of whom weren’t breathing and had no heartbeat to speak of. When we walked in the door, the place was mostly deserted of normal human customers, but there was still a crowd composed of vamps and the hangers-on of the vamp community, blood-slaves and junkies. Oddly, there were no blood-servants. If I didn’t already have alarms going off in my head, that alone would have spelled trouble. The place smelled of cooked meat and the dry, herblike scent of dead meat. Vamps. I tucked my three silver crosses into my shirt as Beast rose in me and peeked out, curious.

 

Only one couple was dancing; it was a version of the two-step, but with way more pelvis action than the song or dance style warranted. Lincoln Shaddock and Evangelina Everhart had their legs entwined and their faces close together, whispering, laughing. I smelled vamp and witch blood and sex on them, heated from the dance. And the pink spell covered them both.

 

I already knew that Lincoln Shaddock had bitten her, leaving two constricted pinprick spots on her neck, but I didn’t know why. They had lived in the same area for years. Nothing in my research suggested they had been together before. So why now? Why was Evangelina spelling the region’s most powerful vamp? What exactly did the pink rosy spell do? As I watched from the shadows, I saw a red mote of spell-light flash out of Evil Evie and zip around the room like a bat out of a hellhole. It whipped around and disappeared into Shaddock’s chest. “Crap,” I whispered. I’d seen that before. To my muscle, I said, “Do you see a pink glow on them?”

 

“No, but they need to get a room or turn around so I can get a better view,” Derek said.

 

Before the witch noticed us, I pulled my men into a shadowed corner table. I’d had my share of booths with their restricted sight design and problematic body realignment options. We sat, my jeans stuffed into Lucchese boots with ash wood stakes exposed at the tops, each of us loaded with enough concealed guns, knives, and silver to bring true-death to every fanghead and human in the joint. I spotted Chen, standing at the end of the bar, his face like a slab of granite and eyes black as midnight. He inclined his head slowly, and moved toward the back, disappearing into the shadows. I figured that was tacit permission to do whatever I needed to his boss.

 

When a perky waitress came we gave cola orders so we could keep sitting at the table. “Drink nothing, eat nothing,” I said, thinking of knockout drinks to disable us, or poison to finish us off.

 

“Copy that,” Derek said.

 

I studied the scene. The vamps were all sitting, lounging actually, on long booth seats, one or two to a booth, their human blood-meals gathered at their sides. Blood-drunk slaves were smiling vacuously while being dinner or were working as security, cooks, waitstaff, bartenders, and busboys. Once they looked us over, they returned their attention to the dancers, a security lapse no blood-servant would ever make. One-handed, I checked the placement of my hair stick weapons: six wood stakes and a slender-bladed, sheathed knife. With my other hand, I pulled my cell and dialed New Orleans, ignoring the way my heart tripped when it rang.

 

The connection opened, and I heard R&B/island music in the background, the signature sound of the new house band at the Royal Mojos Blues Club, a bar and dance joint owned by the vamp master of New Orleans. “Good evening, Jane. How are you?”

 

I pulled in a slow, calming breath. “Hiya, Bruiser. I’m good. You?”

 

“Do you need me?”

 

I thought about that for a moment and decided to go with pretending there weren’t a dozen innuendoes in that one question. “I need you to run an errand for me.” I ignored his “Pity” and went on. “I need you to go to my bedroom and into the closet. I need you to pick or smash open the weapons cabinet in it, and look for a black velvet bag. If it’s there, I need you to open it and pour the contents out on a table. Don’t touch it. And call me. Will you do that?”

 

“Why?”

 

“I need to know if Evangelina stole something from me.”