I took a breath and smelled the scent of big-cat and blood. Beast rose in me, fast. I opened my mouth and scented the air across my tongue with a soft screeee of sound. Because even bleeding and shamed, Rick was still the prettiest man I had ever seen. We had been at odds for so long, yet at least part of him still wanted me. I blew out the breath.

In the mirror, Eli shook his head. "You two have the strangest mating rituals I've ever seen."

I ignored that. "I feel all better now," I said. "Thanks for the dance."

Eli snorted and led the way back outside and down the stairs. "Dance. Only woman I know who thinks combat is dancing."

I kicked him in the b.u.t.t and looked at him from the side. "If you dance with me, you take your life in your hands."

"G.o.d, woman. I didn't know you could flirt."

"I can't."

"You might wanna rethink that." Eli almost looked like he was blushing, which was ridiculous.

But ridiculous or not, I did rethink it and decided he was being stupid or making a joke I couldn't follow. "I have a thought," I said. "It's convoluted, but hear me out. I think if we concentrate our research on the vamps who disappeared the witches we might find Misha. If she stumbled into the Naturaleza as part of her research, and the Naturaleza are the ones holding the witches, then she became a part of the food chain for them and she'd end up close by in a closet or the attic or-"

"Buried out back."

I stopped on the last step and grabbed Ranger Boy by the neck, digging in my fingers. "She is not dead." I shook him. "You hear me?"

"I hear you." He swept his arm up and around, knocking my grip loose. "Do that again and I'll hurt you for real."

"You got the drop on me once. Don't think it'll happen again."

"You gonna put on your big-girl panties and fight with the boys, now?" He looked over his shoulder as if he expected me to blush or something.

"Who says I wear panties?"

I was certain that he flushed red this time. Laughing, I left him shaking his head and went on inside to find the Kid. We had work to do.

Charly looked even paler when I checked on her, and Beast pressed down on my brain, holding me still, looking the child over, scenting her illness. Sick kit. Smells like death soon to come. Protect from predators. Needs milk and mother's body heat. Warmth of den and litter mates.

Yeah. But her mom is missing, I thought back.

Find mother. Soon.

Which was really good advice. But until then, I pulled my file of official papers and called Charly's medical doctor. It took a bit of work and one out-and-out lie before he would talk to me. On the advice of the Kid, I claimed that I was Misha's sister. Which worked. When the oncologist did call me back, he didn't bother with pleasantries. "How is Charly?"

Relieved, I described Charly's condition, and he said Misha and I should bring Charly to the Natchez Regional Medical Center for tests, that he'd pave the way with the Emergency Department doctor. I checked my watch, agreed, and hung up, shouting for the Kid to get me directions to the hospital, and Eli to drive.

The rest of the day was spent with me pretending to be Charly's mom; signing papers in her name; taking care of Charly, who needed tests; consultation between emergency doctors, medical doctors, and her oncologist; and a transfusion of blood and some meds to make her own body create blood cells faster than normal. Bobby stayed with Charly every single moment, as dedicated to her as he might have been to a baby sister, and as long as he held her hand, Charly was calm and relaxed and willing to be stuck with multiple needles. Far as I was concerned, Bobby was a saint. And I was a liar, but in a good cause. I wondered if that was any less of a sin.

It was night when we drove out of the hospital parking lot, and we were all exhausted. One might have thought that we had wasted the day as far as our primary goals-finding Misha and killing Naturaleza vamps-but the Kid made a lot of progress on three fronts in the ED. The most surprising one was when he located Charly's bio dad. Misha had good taste, I had to admit, finding a man who was rich, now a senator, and vaguely Kennedy-esque in looks. I took the info but held off on contacting the man for now. I intended to find Misha. She could do her own meet-and-greet later if she wanted.

The Kid got the rest of his new info when a World of Warcraft buddy met him in the waiting room. He was a local who knew everything about Natchez's vamps and witches, and, best of all, Bodat was for hire. The Kid and Bodat-which had to be a nickname, though he didn't offer more-sat in the back of the SUV on the way home to Esmee's, comparing notes and updating our database with lots of local facts. Bodat smelled like teenage boy and garlic and onions, with a strong underscent of sausage-pizza, the go-to meal of teenagers everywhere. He and the Kid were taking the data and creating a plan of action, which made Eli smile, that twitch of lips that meant he thought his baby brother was cute and clueless. Probably true.

Bodat did offer one bit of information that I knew had to fit in somewhere, somehow. "Yo, Indian chick," he said to me. "You do know that Esther McTavish was tight with Silandre. Right?"

"Tight how?" I asked.

"Like, they were singing partners back in the day, that opera stuff. And even then, they were doing it like rabbits. Lesbo rabbits," he added, elbowing the Kid, who laughed with him.

"Children present here," I said, rolling my eyes, as Bodat snickered and whispered something to the Kid, who dissolved in laughter. Teenage boys and their humor. Not.

"Can you find out if they hung out with Narkis and Zoltar?"

"Give us an hour," Bodat said. Did I have a good team or what?

When we got back to Esmee's, I left the guys talking about our next move and carried Charly up the stairs to her room, Bobby on my heels. The little girl was exhausted and never woke up when I tucked her in. Bobby and I sat on the edge of her bed, staring at her in the dim light. I saw clumps of Charly's hair on my shoulder and gathered them up, clenching them in my hand. She was so fragile. Yet her doctors thought that she was well enough not to admit her as an inpatient.

Sick kit. May die, Beast murmured inside me, sorrow lacing her internal voice.

"She's going to get well," Bobby said firmly, and I looked at him hard, wondering if he'd heard my internal monologue, and decided not. He was staring at Charly, his fists clenched at his sides, fear engraved on his face like grooves on a tombstone.

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 s.e.x 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 c.r.a.ppy 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 compa.s.s," 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 carca.s.s 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 a.s.sorted 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.

I was in so much trouble.

"We have a general direction for Misha and indications that she's alive," Eli said, bringing me back to the room. I focused on his words and chewed, paying no attention to Soul's intense scrutiny. "As the distance from this house increases, the directional arc of error increases, but close in, it isn't too bad." He laid a paper Natchez city map on the table; it was marked with a red triangle, the apex at Esmee's house. The triangle widened to include most of the old uptown, the riverfront, and, oddly enough, most of the city across the river: Vidalia, Louisiana. I looked up at Eli and he inclined his head, agreeing that it was a coincidence worth investigating if my clues in Natchez continued to be staked.

"Yeah. My bro, the ace Ranger, has a direction based on Soul's spell and Bobby's dowsing. Bodat has contacts in county records that point us in the direction of properties that were owned by Silandre and her cohorts in the past, under different names, and then were inherited"-he made little bunny-ear quotations in the air around the word-"prior to the sixties, when the vamps came out of the closet. We'll narrow them down to locations within the arc that Bobby and Soul established in their direction hunts."

Eli took over. "The properties were pa.s.sed on through the inheritance laws to Silandre herself, of course, but under different names to protect the vampire ident.i.ty. The different names opened up an entirely new set of research opportunities, and the boys have been compiling and cross-referencing the names."

"Which," the Kid hesitated and glanced up at his brother, revising whatever he'd been about to say. "Which revealed past-" He stopped again, and finished with, "Past relationships between Silandre and that Esther vamp." I figured he'd been about to say something cra.s.s about them in bed together. Again.

Bodat said, "Yeah, she went both ways, dude-AC/DC. Girls and guys." I wanted to slap the back of his head, but Eli beat me to it. "Bodat reared back in his chair. "Dude, what was that for? Whadid I say?"

"Stop with the comments. Dude," Eli said. "Ladies present."

Bodat looked at me and shook his head in confusion, clearly not putting the word lady into the same column as me. And then he looked at Esmee and said, "Oh. Like, sorry, uh, ma'am. Sorry." He looked over his shoulder at Eli and said, "You coulda just said, dude."

I hadn't really paid attention to Bodat except for registering his pizza scent, and I wasn't surprised that he was pudgy around the middle, with soft arms and droopy flesh, old before his time through lack of exercise and improper diet. On the other hand, the Kid was toned and fit, his arms showing muscles through the T-shirt material-the result of being forced into an exercise plan and better diet by his Ranger brother and his depressed housemate (me) for several months. "Anyway," Bodat said, "we also looked into them hanging with Zoltar and Narkis, and we got nada. No such luck. Other stuff is more interesting, like a relationship between Silandre and Leo Pellissier."

"Silandre and Leo?" I asked around my sandwich, trying to cover my mouth.

"Yeah," the Kid said. "Silandre and Leo had a . . . a thing before the Civil War, and she ran a . . . a brothel"-he smiled his delight in finding a word other than wh.o.r.ehouse-"here in Natchez for his uncle Amaury. When Leo took over as his uncle's heir, he gave her the house."

"Our city was rife with prost.i.tution back in the day," Esmee said, sounding almost proud, crossing her ankles and lacing her fingers around her belly. "By some counts there were over a hundred catering to the plantation owners, the dockworkers and bargemen from the north, and visiting Yankees. Quite the moneymakers, they were. My great-great-grandfather owned such an inst.i.tution in Under the Hill. I should look this up in the family histories to be sure of the address. I do believe it might still be standing."

Eli's brows went up at the pride in her voice.

Esmee added, "Oh yes. Early travelers described our fair town variously as 'a gambler's paradise, a sinkhole of iniquity, and a resort of the d.a.m.ned.' That is a quote, though I don't recall who said it, precisely." She preened. "My children are horrified at the histories. But the young tend to be such ninnies. Don't you agree?"

Smothering a grin, I chewed, thought, and decided not to reply to the question. "Hmmm. Vamp squabbles and wars and romances can go back for dozens of human generations, practically lost in time. But for them it's all like yesterday and they still get mighty unhappy about past slights and fights and betrayals. Okay. Soooo. Leo may know stuff about Silandre."