Blood Trade

Bobby had a five o’clock shadow, I noticed suddenly. Bobby had a beard he had to shave. Bobby was all grown up. I felt the surprise flutter through me. “Misha—” he stopped, as if putting together Misha’s being missing with also being fallible. His tone wavering, he finished, “Misha said so.”



“Yes,” I said. “Misha said so.”



“But Misha’s missing,” he whispered.



“Yes. But we’re Misha’s friends and we’ll do everything in our power to find Misha and keep Charly going until Misha is back and safe. Right?”



“Right.” But I could hear the fear in the single, dejected word.



“Perhaps I can help?”



I turned to see Soul in the hallway, silhouetted in the light, all curves and all woman. I’d never have her shape or her sex appeal. Rick’s cat might want me, but Rick would surely want Soul. “How?” I asked, my tone giving away nothing of my inner thoughts.



“If you have some of Misha’s things, I might be able to use them to locate her general whereabouts,” Soul said. “Nothing specific, mind you. Nothing like a GPS or an address, but some general direction?” She ended with an uncertainty, the last words rising in question.



“And you wait until now to offer?”



“It . . . It is not an easy thing for me to do.” She pressed her fingers into her upper thighs, as if worried. Or afraid. I didn’t know if it was true fear or something she wanted me to think of her—some game with a purpose I couldn’t follow, but at this point I’d take anything. I stood and went to the closet where I’d stuffed Misha’s things, the valuables I’d taken from the hotel suite that was still in her name, in case she came back there.



Thinking that Soul might need something biological to focus on, I handed her Misha’s hairbrush. Soul pulled three hairs from the brush, inspecting to make certain that she had root as well as shaft. “This is good. We need a quiet place.”



Bobby said, “There’s a little room with a table and liquor downstairs.” He looked at Charly as if to make sure she was breathing. “I’ll go take a bath and put on my pj’s. Then I’ll make sure Charly is still okay. Okay?”



“Okay,” Soul and I said together. We stood in the hall as Bobby went to his room and closed the door. Within seconds we could hear water gurgling through the old pipes in the even older house. Without discussion, we went to the wet bar on the lower level, as if Bobby’s word had made it so.



The bar was more walk-through than actual room, with doors on all four walls to the dining room, butler’s pantry, wine closet, and billiards room. The walls were antique wood with a patinated copper bar, soft lighting, modern fridge, blender, ice maker, and bottles, bottles everywhere, and not a drop to drink, as far as I was concerned. For me, liquor was no flavor and all burn, and since the alcohol did nothing for me intoxication-wise, it had no value at all.



Soul closed the doors and lit a candle on a small round table tucked in a corner between two doorways, and sat in a chair. I slid a hip on a bar stool and poured a large glass of water, drinking it down fast. I had no idea when I’d last drunk anything, but it had been before we left for the hospital. I poured another glass as Soul settled herself and turned off the lights, leaving only the single flame as illumination. I went still as she closed her eyes, not wanting to distract her.



I focused in with Beast-sight, and though they were weak, I saw her magics. They were a soft, mutating glow hovering almost out of sight, as if contained beneath her skin, and leaking only the barest minimum to the surface. They were more an iridescence than the intense hues of Molly’s magic. Whatever she was, Soul wasn’t a witch. Her magics were more like the magics of the outclan priestess, Bethany Salazar y Medina. Bethany was a black-skinned shaman from Africa, and was an accomplished healer for humans and blood-servants and vampires, and I’d take Misha to her before I’d let the child die, no matter what Bruiser’s data on ALL had said about the healing power of vamp blood on leukemia. Bethany was nutso, but she was powerful.



The candle wavered in the small room, moving with Soul’s breathing, in and out, back and forth. The shadows seemed to thicken in the corners of the room, and the glow seemed to thin and lift from Soul’s flesh. Her lips were moving, but no sound emerged, and she kept her eyes closed as she raised both hands to the candle flame. “Where?” she breathed, and she dropped in a hair. The flame raced up from root to tip with a sizzle of sound, a flare of brightness, and an awful stench. “Where?” she said again, and repeated the action, adding to the reek in the room. “Where?” She burned the final hair.



Her magics rose from her skin to coalesce into a single thread, twining up with the stinking smoke, straight for the ceiling twelve feet overhead. But three feet from the copper-coffered ceiling, the smoke angled hard right and shot out of the room.



“Your friend is alive,” Soul said without opening her eyes. Pointing, she said, “That bearing. Within ten miles.”



It was crappy directions, but it was better than we had before. I spotted a pencil under the bar and marked the spot on the wall where the smoke disappeared. “All we need now is a compass,” I muttered.



And maybe for me to transform into a bloodhound again.



Ugly dog. Good nose, Beast thought instantly. Good nose for finding mother of sick kit. Which was high praise from Beast for any other animal. She hated it when I shifted into other creatures.



From upstairs at the back of the house I heard a thin wail start, the scream of a terrified child. “Nononononononononono!” It was Bobby, not Charly. I snapped open a door, hearing it ram into the wall, and raced to the second floor.



CHAPTER 12



The Idea of You Shackled



and Bound Is Appealing



Bobby was standing in the middle of his bedroom, dressed in superhero red, white, and blue pajamas. His eyes were open but unfocused, and his wail rose and fell like a metronome, not sounding even remotely human. He was reaching toward the window, the fingers of both hands pointing into the dark. I raced there, but when I looked out, there was nothing except the ground below and the twisting limbs of an old live oak. The night had clouded over and rain had started to fall, a melodious patter on the winter-hard ground and in the stiff green tree leaves.



In the night-dark window I saw Soul reflected, her silk clothing the blue of the ocean, her silver hair like storm clouds. “What did your friend say about Bobby?” Her voice cut through the wails as I turned to her. “That he was a divining rod?”



“Dowsing rod,” I said, over Bobby’s unbreaking scream. He didn’t pause in the awful sound, not even to breathe, but continued the wail with each inhalation as well as the exhalations. I reached for Bobby but paused before I touched him. I didn’t know what to do. His doorway filled with the others, Eli and his brother, Bodat, Esmee in her nightgown, and, in the shadows, Rick, wearing all black, like the cat he was.



I turned to Soul. “What do I do?”



She shook her head, but said firmly, “Whatever feels right.”



I completed my reach and took Bobby’s hands in both of mine. A shock detonated through me, intense magical energies throwing me to the floor. Beast batted my mind with a paw, claws extended, catching the magic that coursed through me and tossing it away. The breath I took ached as if I had breathed fire. My eyesight cleared and I realized I was on my knees, Bobby’s hands still in mine. He was watching me, his gaze full of trust. “Thank you, Jane,” he said. “It hurts when it happens.”



“What,” I croaked, coughed, and tried again. “What happened? What was that?”



“It was magic calling. It wakes me up sometimes.”



“Of course,” Soul breathed. “Dowsing rod. He pivots toward magic; he followed my spell. I am betting that we will discover that the finding flame I used and Bobby’s hands both point to the exact direction. The direction of Misha.”



I forced myself to my feet and hugged Bobby. “Get in bed, little man. You have babysitting duty tomorrow.”



“While you rescue Misha?” he asked, hope pulling his face up in childlike joy.



“I hope so. That’s the plan as it stands now.” I pointed to the tall bed in the corner, the sheets and linens folded back like at a fancy hotel.



Bobby ducked his head in understanding and crawled in, closing his eyes. “Night, Jane.”



“Night, Bobby,” I said.



None of us had slept, and there would be no rest tonight either. We needed to follow up on the few clues we had—and I needed an update on it all.



I entered the dining room, where an impromptu meeting was in progress, my favorite kind of meeting, one with mounds of food. There was thinly sliced rare beef; some kind of fowl carcass with a smaller mound of bird meat that had been pulled from the naked bones; a plate of pale, smoked, thinly sliced cheese; interwoven avocado and tomato slices; varieties of lettuce, pickles, and assorted green sandwich fixings. Even hot peppers and two kinds of onions, which, by the smell in the room, were huge favorites of the Kid and Bodat. Suddenly I craved all the green stuff, a decidedly weird feeling until I remembered that I hadn’t shifted into my Beast in ages. My human body required a more green-based diet than my animal one did. I smeared mayo onto rye bread and stacked the avocado and tomato, pickles, lettuces, and the bird meat, which turned out to be smoked goose. I constructed and listened as the Kid recapped what we had so far. I even put fruit on my plate.



I also ignored Rick and Soul, concentrating on my own people, or tried to. But Rick was dressed in black jeans and a long-sleeved tee, sitting in a corner chair, one leg drawn up and his bare foot hanging off the chair seat. Bare feet. I loved a man’s bare feet. They held such promise. I leaned against the wall, sandwich in both hands, and bit into it. I moaned softly, closing my eyes, seeing Rick on the dark of my lids, spread out on my bed, his abs clinching as he laughed at something I’d said. He—and the sandwich—were both totally delicious.