The service started off simply with a call to prayer, and I lowered my head. Beside me, Charly took my hand and bowed her head and closed her eyes. I watched her through the prayer, and she listened to the preacher with a focus that was unusual in one so young, her lips moving with his words, her head nodding in agreement.

After the prayer, the Lord's Supper was given, and we took the unleavened cracker and the grape juice, even though I wasn't sure I should. I'd been taught I should be right with G.o.d to take it, and . . . I wasn't. Not at all. Uncertainty crawled through me on slimy little feet. I shouldn't be here. I don't deserve to be here.

After the ritual, I relaxed back against the wooden bench and let my thoughts meander, not listening. Until I realized that Charly was up and moving to the front of the church, Bobby trailing behind. "Charly!" I hissed. But she was already at the front of the church, and I shuffled around in my brain for the last thing I'd heard before the kids moved. Preacher Hosenfeld had called for prayer needs. "c.r.a.p," I muttered under my breath, frozen in my seat.

The congregation shifted and strained to see. This was something out of order and unexpected, and they were intrigued. Many of the curious looks fell on me and I lowered my head, keeping an eye on my charges. What was I supposed to do? Having no idea, I stayed put, my eyes on the children as Charly pulled the preacher down and whispered into his ear.

Hosenfeld's face changed, and he nodded, dropped to one knee, listened, spoke, and listened again. Then he raised his eyes to the congregation and said into the mic, "This little girl is a visitor in G.o.d's house today, and she has a need. I'd like her to say it to us all."

"c.r.a.p," I muttered again. I put one hand on the pew in front of me, ready to pull myself to my feet and grab Charly back to her seat.

"My mama is missing," Charly said, holding the mic like a pro. "We think she's been kidnapped by vampires. And I have leukemia and my hair is falling out, and I need to be healed. So you got to pray. Thank you." She handed the mic back to the preacher and pulled Bobby back down the aisle by the hand.

Preacher Hosenfeld blinked back tears. "Let us pray," he said. Charly and Bobby retook their seats and Charly took my hand, her other one still holding Bobby's. Her fingers were icy and ashen and a tremble quivered through her like a cutting pain, her pearl ring sliding around her slender finger. Getting up in front of the church had taken too much out of her. I removed my shawl and wrapped her up in it. Then pulled her on my lap and dropped my head into her hair. No more was loose. No more clumps. But I could see patches of her scalp through what was left.

The preacher's prayer was heartfelt as he addressed his G.o.d for the sick and needy in his church. When he reached Charly's requests, his voice lowered, softened. "Almighty G.o.d."

And I remembered Miz Esmee's words at the front door earlier.

"Heal this little girl," he said. "And bring her mother home safe from the clutches of the blood-drinking evil in our town. In his holy name. Amen."

I was glad it wasn't one of those long, flowery prayers full of thees and thous and names of G.o.d. This one felt real and somehow potent. It was how I prayed-just talking. And I realized I had been praying with him, for the first time in a long while. I took a ragged breath.

Charly was exhausted, fighting to stay awake, and I shifted her on my lap to cradle her better, and stood. As I walked out of the church, the preacher told the congregation that there was to be a baptism in the font at the front of the church immediately after the service. I smelled water, then, and knew it was to be an old-time dunking.

My eyelids were glued together when I woke in the afternoon, and I knew someone was in the room with me. I sniffed and smelled . . . Rick. And he smelled like cat. Too much like cat. I mentally reviewed the time until the three days of the full moon and realized we had only a little more than twenty-four hours. Inside me, Beast woke and stretched, yawning and showing me her teeth.

Black leopard big-cat. Want as mate, she thought.

You said you wanted Bruiser, I thought back, still smelling him on my sheets where he'd sat as we chatted.

Want more. Want both. She parted her lips and panted at me. Want Ricky-Bo.

And the full moon was nearly here, a time when Beast was more in control than I wanted. Not good. Rubbing my eyes, I managed to open them, pushed up in the bed against the pillows and headboard, and found him sitting in the corner, in a beam of slanted sunlight that had made its way between the blinds. He had been there a while.

Feeling no overt threat, my eyes traveled over him, my mouth opened to take in his scent. Beast leaned close and studied her former and prospective mate. One knee was up, Rick's jeans as black as the coat of his were-animal, his feet bare in the shadows. His eyes were glowing softly greenish gold, his black hair falling over his forehead, far longer than when I'd first met him, and forming ringlets at the ends that nearly brushed his shoulders. He was shirtless, his chest that wonderful olive shade from his French and Cherokee heritage, marked with a perfect triangle of fine black chest hair trailing down into the low-riding waist of his jeans. His mangled tats no longer looked like a mountain lion, a bobcat, and mountains, the scarring of his torture by werewolves twisting them into shapeless ma.s.ses and white scars, all except the four glowing gold spots of cat eyes. I knew if I touched the eyes, the golden tats would be hot beneath my fingers, part of the spell that was still working in his body, the spell that kept him from changing into his were-cat form, and might keep him forever in cat form if he did ever shift. My fingers curled into the covers to keep from reaching for him.

Rick closed his eyes, taking in my scent. Minutes trickled by like sand through a gla.s.s. He didn't attack. He didn't do anything except breathe, until he said, "I see the way he looks at you. I smell his scent in this room. Have you taken him as mate?"

I flinched. "What do you care? You have Monica." My tone was childish and laced with hurt, and I wanted to cringe. It also sounded as if I'd slept with Bruiser, which I hadn't.

He opened his eyes and a smile pulled at his lips, a real smile, not a heated or resentful one, as I'd expected. "Monica? You mean Monkey?"

I looked away, trying to place the name. And then I remembered. Monkey was one of Rick's sisters, the only name I'd ever heard him call her. "Monica is Monkey? Oh, c.r.a.p," I breathed.

Rick's smile spread. "Yeah. You are jealous of my baby sister," he said, sounding pleased. I wanted to crawl under the covers and hide. "Do you remember a talk we had about boyfriends, the morning after the first night we were together at my place?" he asked.

Instantly, I did. It had seemed important even then. And might be vastly important now. Bruiser had called, we had chatted, and I had hung up on him, rudely.

"That your other boyfriend?" Rick had asked.

Shock had zinged through me and I rolled back on the bed on top of him. I remembered the swish as I slung my hair out of the way. "Other boyfriend?"

"If you want to call me that."

"I'll think about it. But if I had a boyfriend, there'd be only the one."

"Hmmm," Rick had murmured. The vibration had rumbled through him like a big purr. "Wonder if he knows that."

"I remember," I said now, hearing the insecurity in my voice. Which I hated. "I haven't slept with Bruiser."

Rick looked down, his lips going soft. "Good. Selfish of me, under the circ.u.mstances, but good." He looked back up, meeting my eyes, his with the golden-greenish glow of his cat. "We can't be together right now. Not like you and Bruiser can. But eventually I'll find a way out of this were problem. And then . . ." He let the words trail off.

I swallowed, my throat dry. Beast peered out of my eyes, purring deep in my mind. "Then what?" I managed.

"Then if you're sleeping with him, I'll kill him and take you."

Electric shock blasted through me and I caught my breath. Rick just smiled, showing his teeth, and made a huff of amus.e.m.e.nt, all cat. He stood with the grace of his leopard and strolled to the door. He opened it and left the room, the low light playing across his skin. The door closed silently, and I felt more than heard him stalk away. "Holy c.r.a.p," I whispered.

A knock came on my door and I called, "Just a minute." I rose, pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and my sweater, and opened the door. My knees were still knocking.

The Kid stood there, his mult.i.tudinous electronic gizmos in hand. "I think I found something," he said, "about Silandre and Hieronymus' heir, Lotus, and-" He stopped and waved his hand as if wiping away everything he'd just said. "Eli's in the breakfast room. Come on."

I went. My personal life could wait. Like, for years.

"Esther and Silandre were pals back in the eighteen hundreds," the Kid said. "Bodat found out about this photographer dude, and he got a pic of the women together in front of a wh.o.r.ehouse that catered to Union soldiers and sympathizers both during and after the War between the States. And to me it looks like the front of Silandre's Saloon."

"Dude. We did it together," Bodat said from the kitchen door, where he stood, a chicken leg in one hand. The unmistakable scent of Popeye's fried chicken filled the air.

"Yeah. We did," the Kid said. "And the best part? Lotus is in one of the photos."

Something warm and antic.i.p.atory danced along under my skin. Eli and I bent over the back of the Kid's chair. The sepia-tint photocopy was faded, with a slightly fuzzed focus, but it was clearly of three women, two Caucasian, and the third Asian. The house in the background might indeed have been Silandre's Saloon. "Lotus, Esther, and Silandre. They look mighty chummy," I said. "Wonder if one of Esther's pals turned on her and beheaded her."

"Backstabbing vamps?" the Kid asked. "Say it isn't so. I also found these."

He handed me a stack of old photocopies. The top one was a deed to a four-hundred-acre piece of property just outside Natchez proper. It was owned by Lotus in the year 1801. The page beneath was a copy of a page from a legal ledger, a list of signatures for marriage licenses. Circled in red were the names H. E. Hieronymus and Lotus Song Hieronymus in the year 1802. The names were close; they belonged to the same people of today.

The Kid pointed. "Next in the stack is a death certificate for H. E. Hieronymus and wife, lost at sea in 1820, followed by the posthumous sale of the original property to a couple named D. L. Hieronymus and his sister, Lotus Hieronymus. And then here"-he pointed to another page-"they died again and the property was inherited by them later, with different names. This was one way vamps got around the inheritance laws and kept their property through the ages. You know, from before they were out of the closet and could just keep their real holdings in perpetuity if they wanted. It was old-fashioned real property and wealth management."

"Up until the nineteen forties," Bodat said, "when Hieronymus didn't let Lotus have the property back. He kept it all in his name."

"He cheated her," Eli said. My head was spinning with all the names and times, but I agreed.

"Right," the Kid said. "Instead of the property going back to them both, Big H bought it and kept it. The next page is a court ledger, listing legal claims. One is a claim of misappropriation of inheritance filed by Luminous Song, claiming to be the daughter of Big H and Lotus. She tried to get it back. She wasn't successful."

"It's convoluted," I said, "but it's motive."

The Kid leaned over me and flipped pages. "I marked the pages for the good stuff." There were properties all over the state listed in versions of the names Silandre, Lotus, and Esther.

"They were business partners?" I asked. The Kid nodded.

Bodat wiggled his eyebrows in what I took to be an affirmative. "They formed a corporation called Lotus Blossoms, which ran brothels Under the Hill."

"And then Big H cheated them out of about half their ill-gotten gains," the Kid said.

"So why didn't they just offer a Blood Challenge and get it back the vamp way?" Eli asked.

"Those are mano a mano, which any of them would have lost, not three on one, which they might have won," I said, thinking. "They took the long view and waited until a stronger vamp came along and showed them a better way. Maybe when they heard about Lucas Vazquez de Allyon, Esther left Natchez and swore to him. When Death's Rival made his move on other cities, Esther probably worked a deal with him and her old business partners to take over Natchez territory."

"And then you cut off de Allyon's head," the Kid said. "Kinda spoiled their big plans."

"Yeah." I breathed out, putting the stack of papers on the table. "But knowing all this really doesn't help us find the missing humans, witches, or the BBV."

"It narrows the focus," Bodat said, "which means we can create an algorithm to find-"

I held up a hand, stopping him. "You guys did good work. Really good. Narrow down the list of properties we need to search to ones with bas.e.m.e.nts only. We're spinning our wheels right now." I held up the poor-quality photo of three bawdy women, corseted, wearing large hats and stacked heels, with their skirts thrown up to reveal a lot of stockinged legs. Photos of vamps were nearly impossible to make until the era of digital photography. The original might be worth a small fortune.

"Okay," I said. "Eli, let's weapon up and check out Silandre's Saloon again by daylight. Maybe we missed something."

CHAPTER 20.

I'll Get Well Later We were back at Silandre's, the place looking more garish by daylight than it had by night, and that was saying an awful lot. Buddy and Bubba's ATV was still there, parked near the kitschy plastic flamingoes. I stepped from the SUV, feeling again that strange tingle of magic I had noticed Under the Hill, but it pa.s.sed over and was gone. It left me feeling unsettled, but I had no idea why. Shrugging to relieve unexpected tension, I turned my attention to the saloon.

The white-painted board siding had so many coats of paint on it that it looked nearly flat, rippled instead of stacked. The windows were mostly old blown-gla.s.s panes, the few replaced panes having a different refractivity and clarity than the older ones. It hadn't shown in the dark, but the gaudy pink paint on the woodwork was two-toned. Bleagh. But, then, I'm not a girly kinda gal and don't care for pink, especially the bright, bra.s.sy shades Silandre had chosen.

The front door was unlocked, and when we entered, a bra.s.s bell over the door rang with a tinkling sound. It hadn't been there the last time we were here. Someone had been moving things around; the front room was no longer overcrowded with kitsch and there were no fanged dolls at all. However, the place was so filled with commercial scents that I couldn't smell anything but the floral-fruity-lavender-cherry-spice combo. I holstered the nine mils I hadn't even known I'd drawn and pulled the M4, cradling it in my arms.

A young woman stuck her head out of the middle room and called a cheery, "h.e.l.lo. I'll be with-" Her accented words came to a complete stop as she focused on the weapons. She had sounded vaguely Russian as she spoke, and now her eyes went wide with fear.

I held up a hand, fingers spread. "It's okay. We're here with Big H's permission."

"Hieronymus," Eli corrected.

"Yeah. Him. We're not here to hurt you or anything."

Moving slowly, the girl came out from the wall, revealing a slight frame, long, straight hair, and dark eyes. She looked like a child, willowy but tall for her age, the way girls look when they have grown a foot in a year, all k.n.o.bby knees and elbows below a pink shirt and plaid skirt. Much like I had looked during my first year in the children's home.

I had no idea what she was doing here or if Big H's people had cleaned up our mess in the back. We had left an awful lot of blood in the back room. "What's your name?" I asked.

"Nostrana," she said. Yeah. Middle or Eastern European.

"Have you seen Silandre?" I asked.

"No. She has not been here."

"How about the back room?" Which was a coward's way of asking if Big H's cleanup crew had gotten all the blood out.

Nostrana shrugged. "Someone purchased the entire set, I think. The room was empty when I arrived two days ago. I have been rearranging everything, making it into a doll room." She stopped, biting her lip, as if she had said too much.

"Nostrana," I tried to p.r.o.nounce it like she had, all liquid sounds and sophistication, but it came out sounding flat and Southern. "You work for Silandre?"

"Three days a week, and during the three days of the full moon and the one night of the new moon. It is odd schedule, but I am exchange student in university, so I can make it do."

"There's no university anywhere near," Eli said, sounding cold and hard and managing to call her a liar.

Nostrana's head came up and she firmed her lips. "I take cla.s.ses on Internet. And I take bus to campus three days a week."

"Long trip," Eli said, still disbelieving, this time almost snide.

"Is not your concern. What do you want?"

I smiled. Nostrana was no pushover. "To look around," I said, sliding the shotgun into the spine sheath and showing both hands open and empty. Reluctantly, Eli holstered his weapons, but he kept a hand on one. When Nostrana didn't object, I walked through the disordered room toward her. And felt the tingles on my skin. I stopped. This didn't make sense. "You're a witch."

Her eyes narrowed and she reached into a pocket. "Also not your concern."

"Witches are disappearing in Natchez. Have you been approached by anyone? Been followed?" I asked.

"No." Her left hand clutched something in the pocket.

"No need to use magical defense on us," I said. "We're going."

"Please. Quickly. And not to come back unless Silandre is here."

I jerked my head at Eli and backed away, stepping carefully to the front of the saloon/store and out into the meager sunshine without turning my back on her. I didn't speak again until we were back at the SUV. "Witches are missing. Vamps are turning into c.o.c.kroaches, and Nostrana is a witch working for a vamp."

"If she was telling us the truth," Eli said.

"She smelled of the truth." Eli gave me an odd look, one I've come to a.s.sociate with me admitting to being anything nonhuman. Like most of the other times, I ignored it. "I need to talk to Francis."

Without commenting, Eli started up the SUV and we rode along the Under the Hill streets and pa.s.sed by the old warehouse/bar where we had fought and survived. Once again, a surge of magic hit me, a sharp, bitter tang in the air. "Stop the car." Before Eli had come to a complete stop, I was out of the SUV and moving between buildings, following the scent. Within three steps, Eli was behind me. In my pocket, I felt something hot and I dug a hand in, pulling out the coin the tribal elder had given me in the church-that-wasn't. The silver coin was hot to the touch, the temperature variant a sure sign of witch magics. I reached into another pocket and touched the pocket watch. It too was heated. And stank of old blood.

"Here. It's here." I turned in a slow circle, holding the coin out before me, feeling the coin heat and cool, like a childhood game-"You're getting hot! Cooler. Cooler. COLD! Hot again!" Leading me toward the middle street . . . and as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone.

The coin was now neither warm nor cold and the watch was my body temperature. Maybe the change in temp had been my imagination. Maybe I'd been palling around with supernats for so long that I was starting to scent magics everywhere. I dropped my arm. Stuck the coin in my pocket. The old blood smell of the watch clung to my fingers. "c.r.a.p. Okay. Let's go home, Eli."

He raised his brows. "You'll tell me what this little jaunt was about later." It wasn't a request. More a command.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. Let's go." While he drove, I texted. A lot.