Raven Cursed

At seven p.m., the sun setting late in the early fall, my cell rang. It was Rick. Guilt zinged through me like lightning. I opened the cell, “Rick.”



“Help,” a voice panted, groaning. Rick. In pain.



I swung my legs to the floor. “What’s happened?” I heard a voice in the background and the sound of the cell hitting something. I started to call his name, but over the open airwaves I heard Kemnebi’s voice, smug and satisfied. “The moon is full. It calls to your beast-nature.”



Tonight? No wonder I’d been so . . . whatever I’d been with Grégoire. The full moon and sex went together for Beast like— Beast . . . ? She didn’t answer.



“You will continue trying to shift but will not succeed. You will not survive. Not without my assistance.” Rick screamed. The phone went dead.



Beast had been right, that Kemnebi would not honor his submission, that he was a human in cat skin. Kem-cat wanted Rick dead. He’d be in the woods somewhere. Lotta help that was.



I threw on clothes, taking care with hiking shoes, backpack, weapons. Someone had retrieved and cleaned my gear—had polished the blood out of and off of my guns and silvered blades. I dialed as I dressed. Bruiser answered, warmth in his voice. “Jane! How are—”



“Fine,” I interrupted. “Three things. One, there won’t be a parley tonight. Shaddock is on the run with the witch who spelled him, so Grégoire can take the night off. Again. Two, I need GPS positioning on the number I’m sending you, assuming it’s in Big Creek National Park above the Pigeon River. Three, I need Leo to order Grégoire to send me there in the helicopter.”



“One moment.” I heard keys tapping and he said, “Yes, the call originated from that mountain. Sending you a topo map of the area. You’ll be there in half an hour. Meet the helo at the hotel’s pad. Parley is canceled, and all participants notified.”



I clicked the cell shut and burst through the door into the common area just as Brandon answered his cell. “She wants to go where?” he said. Pushing the B-Twins to speed, talking as we raced to the helo pad, I dialed Derek and put him in charge of security for the night.



Brandon powered up Grégoire’s helo. Over the engine’s high-pitched whine, I was informed that Brian and he were both qualified pilots, and their master, Grégoire, loved to fly. A vamp with a death wish. Go figure. Even the undead had to be crazy to fly in a flimsy glass, air (and maybe a half pound of steel) contraption with no wings and no glide power. If it broke, it would fall like a rock. Beast had refused to ride in the helo. My heart clenched. She wasn’t fighting me.



According to the B-Twins, chattering while they powered up and completed a checklist, the helo was a refurbished Vietnam Era Bell Huey. It had four permanent seats and gear for more, with heavy armament and black-out windows suitable for vampire travel. Like I cared. All I was interested in was its jet engine, functional weaponry slung under the carriage, and infrared tracker and laser-detection signalers. In case I had to track Kem and shoot him with a missile. The engine whine grew and I gritted my teeth, nodding where appropriate and finishing my texts.



At the last moment, a shrouded form leaped into the helicopter and slid the side door shut. The helo’s whine went up in volume as I stared at the dark shape, my phone forgotten, one hand on a weapon. I sniffed. Vamp-scent. Grégoire. Dressed in vamp traveling clothes—layers of robes, tightly woven, gloves and boots and a full-face toboggan with black glass sewn into the eyeholes. I nodded to him. He nodded back regally, or as regally as a vamp can in that getup. He set a wicker picnic basket on the floor. I let go my vamp-killer and went back to work, texting requests to everyone on my list. I sent Derek a terse note that Grégoire was with me.



My meat-lovers buffet rose in my throat as we lurched into the sunset. The rain had stopped, the clouds were breaking up, glowing golden in the western sky, but the unseasonable cold had come back, and the air was frigid. I was shivering in the thin, damp air, but at least my boots were on the correct feet and I had plenty of ammo, more than half silvershot, just in case Kemnebi tried to kill Rick and I had to kill Kem.



The helo angled into the sky. Beast, who hated the flying machines, said nothing.



We got to the campground in less than half an hour and set down onto a brand-new helo pad used to evacuate hikers, campers, and idiot paddlers who tried to take the Upper Big Creek in especially dangerous weather. Without waiting for permission, I leaped from the helo, ducked under the whirring blades, and raced down the mountain. Water fell in big, slow drops from the leaves of tall trees and landed with a heavy, icy punch that slammed through my clothes. From somewhere down the mountain and behind me, a dog howled, the frenzied sound fading as I ran. The helo powered up and lifted off, taking a path right over me, the thrum of blades like the fast heartbeat of a giant bird. Off to do another favor for me—to hopefully bring me the help I’d need to keep Rick alive.



My GPS led me down and down, off the path into thick brush and dusky light. I could see nothing, and was forced to slow my mad rush. If Kem was planning to kill me and making it look like an accident, this was the perfect way. I could plummet over a sheer drop-off and smash at the bottom. But ahead, a campfire glowed through the trees. I raced for it, bursting from a laurel thicket into an open space, to find Rick lying in front of the flames on a silver foil, heat-retention, rescue blanket, naked and sweating. I skidded to a stop. His back was arched in agony, every muscle in stark definition, sweat puddling beneath him. His face was pulled with fierce pain, human teeth bared, white in the shifting light.



Kemnebi lounged in a camp chair, a beer dangling from his fingers. Empties had been tossed behind him and scattered across the ground, an open cooler at his knee. He was staring at Rick with a fixed smile. It never wavered as he drained the beer and tossed the bottle over his shoulder. It landed with a clink. “We are gathered here, on this auspicious night, to watch my enemy die,” he said.



I wasn’t aware I had moved until the drunken were-leader tumbled out of his chair. He landed with a pained whoof and I kicked him, his body muzzy in the red haze of my fury. “Rick LaFleur will not die tonight, because if he does, I’ll kill you myself.” I was suddenly holding one of the pretty red-gripped .380s and I fired point-blank into Kem’s knee. He screamed. “That’s just a taste of what I’ll do to you if he dies.”



“It is silver! You shot me with silver!” he screamed.



“Yeah.” I threw down my backpack, dropped down to my knees, and slid a silver-plated handcuff around Kem’s wrist. With a snap, I snaked out a length of line and secured it to the nearest tree. “Silver will keep you from changing shape to heal, even with the moonlight pushing at you when it rises. But if you help Rick, I’ll think about cutting the round out of your knee joint so you can shift. Up to you.”



He screamed at me, cuss words in his native tongue, I was sure. I holstered the weapon and went to Rick, kneeling beside him, moving to the side a pile of clothes I hadn’t noticed before. I kept my body at an angle, knowing Kem would kill me in a heartbeat now, if he could, so I wasn’t turning my back on him. “I’m here, Rick. I won’t leave you. And he won’t be killing you when you shift.”



He groaned, but he gripped my hand. The motion exposed the tattoos on his shoulder, the scarred and ridged tats of cats and mountains, mauled by werewolves. The golden eyes of the bobcat and mountain lion gleamed on his olive skin, glowing in the firelight. They looked hot, burning; I touched one and jerked my hand back. Scalding. The spell built into his skin was smooth as a stone, the glowing orbs glossy, like pieces of gold, the maimed cats watching me.



Once again I was hit with the feeling of destiny, as if someone up there had planned for us to be together but something had gone horribly wrong. Rick screamed again, his hand twisting mine, the grip so hard my bones ground. I held on, ignoring the demands and eventual pleading of Kemnebi, but kept my body angled so I could see him.



There was no water, but Rick needed something to replace the slick, greasy sweat that runneled his skin. He was dehydrating. When his cramps eased, I brought him three of Kem’s beers and opened one, holding it to his lips. I had no idea what alcohol would do to a were trying to shift, but it was all I had. He drank it gratefully. Another cramp hit him. He screamed and arched his back. It was like watching lightning thrust through him. The golden eyes of his cats glowed, even when he thrashed to his side, into shadow. Magic. The magic that held him in this form.



Each time the spasms eased, I fed him more beer. Once I scavenged for deadwood for the fire. Time passed. What felt like a long time. Hours. The moon rose in the sky, brilliant white overhead, almost perfectly round, marred only by scudding clouds. Kem had begun to gasp in pain as well. He was getting a taste of Rick’s torture, unable to shift with the silver in his knee and clamped to his wrist. He cursed at me long and hard in English and French as well as the liquid syllables of his mother tongue.



I looked up when Brandon and Brian walked through the thicket, carrying an assortment of cases. I knew they could see the naked hope on my face. But Grégoire stepped alone from the laurel behind them, the ancient vampire no longer shrouded in traveling clothes. He wore ironed jeans, thousand dollar hiking boots, and a silk shirt under a heavy cotton work shirt. His blond hair was tied back in a little tail. He looked like a male model on set for an L.L. Bean catalogue shoot, a metrosexual playing at being an outdoor guy. And he wasn’t who I needed tonight. The vamp knelt beside Rick, studying him like a doctor might, while my breathing went ragged and tears filled my eyes. He refused to come.



Long heartbeats later, Big Evan stepped from the laurel thicket.



CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE



Butchery Disguised as Surgery



Hope shot through me like buckshot, burning and hot. Big Evan looked at me, frowning. I had saved Molly’s life, maybe the lives of the whole family and coven, but it wasn’t enough to make him like me, not after losing the blood-diamond to Evil Evie. He was here because, otherwise, Molly would come. Evan would never again let his wife go into danger with me, which is why I’d sent my request to him, not his wife.