“Tell me everything you know about the spell,” he snarled.

And so I did, starting with de Allyon, adding in Kathyayini’s riddle, the bloody iron discs, the crosses and spikes, and ending with witches on the points of the clock. Evan asked succinct questions and listened without further comment. When I was done, he went silent. After a long moment, I heard him take a breath. “Why do you always end up with death magics to undo?”

“Just lucky?” But that wasn’t what Kathyayini had said. She had told me that I was the root cause of everything. Just like Evan had said. Which could be casual cruelty, or a way to teach me something about myself or make me face some hidden flaw. Or it could be the simple, unvarnished truth. Either way sucked.

“At least now I know why Leo hired me,” he said.

“Hired—?”

“I got a gig at the Darkness Is Forever Bar in Mobile, Alabama,” Evan interrupted, “paying me a small fortune to do an update on the lighting and sound systems. I had no idea Leo owned the joint until yesterday. He knew I wouldn’t hang around to help you, so he kept me close in case you needed my help. And because the MOC is paying me so much money, I did what he said.” Evan snorted softly. “I’m a bigger whore than you are, taking money from the chief fanghead of the U.S. Arguably,” he added. “I guess it’s possible that the MOC of New York has more scions, but not as much territory.” He fell silent, seeming to have run out of things to say on that odd note and leaving me to understand that the arguably did not refer to whether I was a whore. But I held in the snarky comeback.

“I have to study on this,” Evan said, “and make some calls. Don’t discuss us with PsyLED officials.” He disconnected.

I closed the phone when I heard something bump overhead. “There’s a handle in the floor. Pull it up,” I shouted. And only then remembered that someone other than Soul might arrive. Adrenaline rushed through me, and I shivered with reaction. I can be so stupid sometimes. I pulled a vamp-killer and a handgun, then put away the gun. I might hit one of the witches.

But when the trapdoor opened, it was Soul’s hand I saw and Soul’s feet. She had tiny feet in tiny little black boots. I put away the blade, shone the flash onto the stairs, and waited as Soul slowly descended the steps.

“Oh,” she breathed softly as she turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. “Are they wearing iron?”

“The clocks on their chests each contain an iron disc coated with blood. I’m guessing it’s de Allyon’s blood,” I said, not adding the part about skinwalker blood being in the mix. I wasn’t going to share unless I had to. “The blood-donor vamp is very, very dead. Does that make a difference in breaking the spell?”

“Even if he were here, I have no idea how to break such a powerful spell. But without his blood, I fear we are hamstrung.”

“Maybe this will help. ‘Long years past,’” I quoted Kathyayini, “‘was cold iron, blood, three cursed trees, and lightning. Red iron will set you free. Shadow and blood are a dark light, buried beneath the ground.’”

Soul’s eyes went round. “Where did you hear this?”

“An old tribal woman said it to me. She also said, ‘The one you seek is bound to the Earth. She didn’t mean to be bound, but she cannot get away now.’ Neither riddle made sense at the time. But now we have the blood-iron discs, possibly made from the iron spikes of Golgotha, and the buried witches.” I stopped, remembering the scene in Big H’s house, all that white and fancy furniture and silk and satins and one butt-ugly necklace around the neck of the blood-master. He had dangled it outside his clothes, as if proud of it, though it didn’t mesh with anything around him. He wore it as if he wanted it to be seen. By me. As if drawing attention to it.

“And the Master of the City of Natchez wears a copper chain on his neck with something made of corroded metal, wrapped in copper wire, hanging from it. I thought it was just ugly jewelry, but why would he display jewelry so different from anything else in his taste? What if it’s the same iron?” I tried to find sense in it all, but it was like trying to untangle a snarl of copper wire or a skein of yarn after a cat had played with it. And so much for Evan’s order to say nothing to PsyLED.

“I don’t know if he’s bound like the witches or took it as a trophy or using it now himself. But—I know you said it had to be something big, like a boulder or a tree—but what if the necklace is the focus we’re looking for? The amulet.”

“It should be something large,” she started. “But this is something I’ve never heard of before. I shouldn’t base my conclusions on old experience,” Soul said.

“I think the thing Big H is wearing is something from de Allyon, the maker of this circle, and Kathyayini’s riddles were meant to light a path into a possible future. I think he’s wearing blood iron.”

“It is still daylight. You can find Hieronymus’ lair and take the necklace. Find a way to undo the working. But you don’t have much time if we are to save that one,” she pointed at the woman whose face was nearly under the sand.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, baiting her, herding her where I needed her to go. “All we need is the location of his lair. Easy-peasy. We’ll torture his primo, Clark, for the location. And then I’ll break and enter and steal the necklace.”

Soul’s face underwent a change as she got what I was saying. “I will not give up the lives here,” she said fiercely. “And, yes, I’m willing to turn a blind eye to stop them from dying.”

Soul’s eyes latched onto me with claws, the feeling of being under her regard much like the feeling of Beast’s claws in my brain. “You have a plan.” Again it was more an accusation than a statement.

“Maybe I do,” I said. “But to make it work and not go to jail, I need PsyLED to stay out of my way for a while. Maybe keep the local cops away.”

“Are you going to kill anyone?” she hedged.

“Not if I can help it. At least no one human. And I’ll have the Master of the City of New Orleans’ approval for it.”

“Legal papers signed with Leo Pellissier’s official seal?”

“Eventually.”

Soul looked at the woman whose head was nearly buried by the sand. As if memorizing the witch’s features and her expression of total horror, Soul said, “I can do what you are asking. I can look the other way. But I do not think that Rick LaFleur will allow you to go without him.”

“We’re not gonna tell Ricky-Bo.”

“I think that is wise. His attachment to you is deep. As is his pain.”

“Ummm . . .” I stopped. That was all I had. And I had no idea what kind of pain Soul was talking about. Rick had a lot of pain every day of the full moon, but I didn’t think that was what she meant.

“Do you love the primo?” she asked.

Shock zinged through me at the question. “Bruiser held me down while I was forcibly bound to Leo Pellissier.” My words hung on the air like a bell rung in an empty tower. Soul’s eyes were appalled at the violation. I sucked in a painful breath. “We done here?”

“Yes. Go break the law, Jane Yellowrock. But be careful. If you kill humans, all bets are off.”

“I plan to kill only the ones trying to kill me.”

“That is difficult and will result in far too much paperwork, but it is acceptable.”

“Are we bonding here?” I asked.

“I would love to have tea with you sometime, when lives are not in danger and when I am not doing something that goes against all the rules of law that I hold dear.”

“Ditto. Café au lait and beignets at Café du Monde. Except that we’ll have tea.”

Soul’s eyes traveled around the witch circle, her body flowing in a balanced pirouette. “Excellent. I’ll follow you out soon.”

I pulled my weapon and, hoping I wouldn’t be transported to some distant place, I bounded up the steps and closed the trapdoor. My stomach wrenched at the transition. Happily, I landed back where I started.

I called Eli from the refrigerator in the old bar. “We’re gonna deplete your store of sleepy-time bombs. And we need some antiriot rubber bullets and a riot gun.” I told him what else I needed, and Eli Younger started chuckling.

“It might work,” he said. “What are you going to be doing?”

“I’m going to put on dry clothes, run by Walmart for supplies, and then go talk to a preacher.”

CHAPTER 25

Cat Reflexes, One;

Blood-Servant Reflexes, Zero

I buzzed the secretary from the security door, staring into the security camera and asking to speak to the preacher. She didn’t want to let me in, this motorcycle mama in leather, with dark circles under her eyes and a look of death and danger about her, but I told her to tell Preacher Hosenfeld that the little girl with leukemia needed his help. Moments later, I saw the older guy coming down the hall to the door. He was wearing a cheap suit, white shirt, and tie, even on a weekday, his gray hair combed back with some kinda goop like they wore in the fifties, though he couldn’t be old enough for that style to have been around in his formative years. He studied me through the windows before I heard several locks click and the door opened. “I hope I’m not being foolish opening the door to you, young lady.”

“I kill vamps for a living, including the one who has Charly’s mom. I intend to get her back.”

“Charly. That is the little girl from Sunday,” he said, hesitant.

“Yeah. A vamp put her mother, Misha, into a charmed circle and it’s killing her.”

Hosenfeld looked confused. It cleared up fast. “A circle. She’s a witch, then, this woman you want to save.”

I felt my heart shrivel. A lot of Christians felt witches were of the devil. “Yes,” I said tersely.

“Are you a Christian?”