The question of price got postponed before we reached the cash register.
Mama Samm and the Gator-man arrived just as I was starting to resist Volpea on the public side of my cabin door.
At least I'm pretty sure I was starting to resist.
I did end up losing my clothes and getting a thorough going-over. Just not the one I had been promised a few minutes earlier. In fact, Volpea departed early in the process with a look that said we had unfinished business.
I spent the better part of the next two hours out in the salon getting poked and prodded and asking when I could get dressed again.
The Gator-man was a Cajun traiteur—a backwoods "treater"—who had performed preternatural surgery on Lupé and myself when we had been shot six months back. Since Lupé was a werewolf and I was—what? Growing less human every month? We couldn't very well present ourselves to the local ER. Imagine trying to join an HMO and having to list preexisting conditions. So my health-care options were severely limited. The arcane properties of my necrophagic virus kept me away from traditional doctors and these untold millions of microscopic machines in my bloodstream screwed up any hoodoopathic alternatives.
Even the preternatural options available via the demesne system were severely constrained. I was lucky to have worked out an arrangement between Pagelovitch and Laveau for the use of Dr. Mooncloud's services but I couldn't actually visit any existing clinics, myself.
Staying healthy was going to be a very iffy proposition from here on out.
The Ggator-man couldn't "read" any conjure marks on me from my stay at the underhill Hilton. "But I do not know if these Hillfolk are kin to the mound dwellers that I know, me," the old Cajun said.
"How about the silver load levels, Alphonse?"
He shook his head and his ivory moustache bristled as he pursed his lips. "You got more, you. Should be less but metal is not leaving your bones."
"Wait a minute," I said. "How can I have more silver now than I did when the bullets first dissolved in my body? I think I'd know if somebody shot me again."
"Obviously his body is hoarding all of its Ag atoms so it can create defensive weapons when he's under attack," Mama Samm mused. "Could these tiny machines be building Ag atoms out of junk protons and electrons?"
"Have you touched or handled anything silver, you?" Alphonse asked me. "Maybe you be absorbing silver molecules through skin contact."
"What? The nanos are sucking silver out of my pocket change and off of my grandmother's flatware?"
The traiteur lifted my arm to show me. "Look, you: skin is more dark, yet shiny. And eyes . . ."
I sighed. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Mirrored sunglasses would be redundant. But what does it mean?"
The outer door flew open and Camazotz stood in the entryway with an armload of containers. "It means," he announced in a shockingly girlish voice, "that his nanobots have kicked into high gear and are now running new programming and subroutines!" He stepped into the salon and then we could see that it was Dr. Taj Mooncloud, standing behind him, who was speaking. "And, if we don't find a way to reverse the process, he'll develop a full-blown case of Argyria!"
It was like tag-team medicine in sudden death overtime now. Taj and Alphonse were both short, round, and brown. She was both a shaman and a medical doctor with long black hair, a heritage from her Amerindian father and East Indian mother. He was a Cajun homeopath whose coloring hinted of exotic Creole bloodlines that dramatically set off his white bristle of a moustache and shock of ivory hair. Between the two of them they poked and prodded, consulted and argued while mutually lecturing me on aspects of depression, latent death wishes, and self destructive tendencies.
Argyria, I learned, was a condition where silver compounds deposited in body tissues reached critical levels. One of the side effects was a transformation in skin pigmentation to blue or bluish gray.
No wonder I was feeling a little "blue" of late.
Except: "I'm not turning blue, I'm turning brown," I protested.
"Once you go 'black,'" Mama Samm called from the galley, "you won't want to go back!"
"Black and shiny," Zotz commented, passing through with a spool of wire, "super-fly!"
"No one says 'fly' anymore," I grumped. "And Ron O'Neal would roll in his grave."
Mooncloud chuckled. "I'd say the nanites are augmenting his melanin to provide extra protection—if not invulnerability—to solar radiation. I wouldn't be surprised if they figured out a way to turn his skin green if it meant saving his life."
I groaned.
During this time Fenris arrived and left again, taking Volpea with him. Zotz made multiple trips around the boat, trying to install the transducers for the fish finders without damaging the hull. More than once he tracked bilge water across the carpet and gave me a look daring me to say anything about it. In the end, he picked up the phone and bribed someone from the marina to come out in the morning and do a professional install.
He wasn't off the hook. Shortly after getting the new gear stowed, the spear guns cached, additional weapons cleaned and checked, and a quick rinse in the semi-operational shower, he was pressed into mess duty under Mama Samm's watchful eye. By the time I was allowed to put my clothes back on, the sun was down, and Zotz was getting instruction on how to properly clean fish in the galley. Regular fish, that is; not the giant mutant bipeds we tussled with earlier.
"How's he coming along?" I asked as Mama Samm came toward me, wiping her hands.
She sighed. "All too well. Apparently 'skinning' and 'disemboweling' are second nature to demons." She turned her attention to Dr. Mooncloud's latest row of colorful concoctions in the test tube rack on the table. "How about him?"
"There's not a whole lot I can tell without an electron microscope or an x-ray machine," Taj answered. She stared at the latest color change wrought by reagents in a small flask bubbling over a portable Bunsen burner. "But there's little doubt that the nanobots have activated in his body."
"They weren't wholly dormant before," I pointed out.
"True, but there's a vast difference between tissue repair, silver reprocessing on a passive, background level and then jumping up the process to redistributing mineral and bone deposits—perhaps even migrating, replicating, and daisy-chaining in sufficient quantities—to create projective claws and arm blades."
"But not out of silver," I argued. "Whatever popped out of my fingertips was hard enough to slice through limestone substrate. Silver's too soft."
"I'm sure your nanites are working with a number of different molecular source materials, producing alloys to fit whatever tasks they deem necessary," Mooncloud mused.
Now that was creepy on more than one level. "At this point we've entered the comic book realm," I said, repressing a shiver.
"The preferred term is graphic novel," Zotz called from the galley.
"A rose by any other name and no way I'm gonna wear spandex," I growled.
"And you never found any scuba gear that would account for your underwater revival?" she continued, ignoring that last comment.
I shook my head. "But someone was helping me down there. Someone who looked a lot like Suki."
"One mystery at a time," she said. It was the third time she had changed the subject when I had invoked the Asian vampire's name. Apparently when the Doman of Seattle says that someone is "dead to him," he not only means personally but everyone who works for him, as well.
"For now, I want you to consider another theory," she continued.
"I'm not going to like it, am I." It wasn't really a question.
"The blood and tissue samples we took just after your return from Colorado by way of New York—before all the Domans agreed to place you on joint quarantine status—showed evidence of an evolutionary trend in your nanite technology. There were several different types of nanomachines found in your tissue samples. Yet, they fell into two functional classifications. Those that repaired damaged tissues on the cellular level. And those that repaired and replicated the other machines.
"Over the course of time we observed that some of the nanites evolved into machines with different functions as the tissue samples aged and withered. The very nature of their purpose was challenged as a piece of tissue removed from its larger component no longer functions the same—if at all. The machines seemed to adjust their programming to deal with changes in environment, oxygen levels, hormonal flux—"
"You're saying that these itty-bitty bots built me some kind of breathing apparatus? An artificial gill? In a matter of minutes? That's nuts!"
"I dare say," she replied calmly, "along with vampires, werewolves, demons, and fish people."
"But how do they know—?"
"You want a wild guess? Or should I dress it up fancy and offer it as a theory? Maybe these things are programmed as a collective consciousness, a sort of hive-mind. And their cybernetic imperative seems to be to sustain life. Even to proactive extremes, it would appear. When you were threatened with physical violence, they improved your abilities to defend yourself. When you were denied oxygen, they found another way for you to extract it from your changed environment. In fact I'd be surprised if they're not already working on two fronts: separating oxygen molecules from your CO2 and recycling. They're adjusting your parameters so you can evolve as your circumstances change."
The thought of a million microscopic machines inside me made my skin crawl. Sadly, that was probably more than just a metaphor. "So what are they doing now?"
She shrugged.
"What got them activated? How do I turn them off?"
"As to the first question, has anything happened to you that falls outside of your normal routine, recently?" she asked.
I considered my recent stay at the Fairyfield Inn and the weird tingle from Fand's miscast spell. "Maybe," I allowed. "How about 'I've got you under my skin, part deux'?"
"Turning them off?" She looked nonplussed. "Why would you want to? Mengele obviously programmed these microscopic machines to keep their host hale, healthy, and hearty under the most extreme conditions—in other words, your typical operating environment. Why look a gift horse in the mouth?"
She had a point. And I knew that my reaction was largely emotional rather than rational. "But these things have been practically dormant for the better part of a year," I argued. "One little run-in with Tinkerbell's big sis and suddenly I'm Christopus of Borg—I will be assimilated! Every six months or so I run up against something far more scary than a faery faux shrink! Tell me this isn't going to go somewhere dark or disgusting down the road."
She just sat there and stared at me impassively. Perhaps not the most descriptive of terms as there was something at the back of Mooncloud's eyes that was anything but passive. "What do you think I can do? All of the medical facilities best equipped to diagnose these latest changes to your physiology are now off-limits. Why? Because you've pissed off every Doman in the known demesne system." The impassive look became a glare. "Do you realize they may not let me back into the New Orleans enclave because I have had contact with you?"
"Not to worry," I answered as Fenris and Volpea made a return entrance. "The Wonder Were-twins are here to make sure all returnees are Cséjthe-free ere they depart."
"And we depart tonight," Fenris announced abruptly. "We've been recalled." He turned to Mama Samm. "You must be ready to leave with us within the hour if you still wish to visit New Orleans with Laveau's blessing."
Mama Samm looked at me. "Olive will need help with Jamal while I'm gone."
I nodded. "Don't dawdle and I'll baby-sit nights." I turned to Zotz. "Think you can manage the day shift?"
He nodded solemnly. "I do not sleep. And the boy is better company than some. . . ." He cast a meaningful glance back at his nemesis.
"Fine," Mama Samm said, ignoring him. "Then I am ready to go, now. My bags have been packed for days and are out in the car."
Fenris turned to Dr. Mooncloud. "You must depart, as well, Doctor. How long before you are ready?"
Taj considered the sprawl of equipment. "Ten . . . fifteen minutes, tops."
"Please begin packing up. It is imperative that we return as soon as possible." He turned to me. "Domo Cséjthe. No disrespect to you is intended but we have our orders. We must ensure that you have no opportunity to infect any of our charges. I must ask that you return to your cabin and remain there until we depart."
I flexed my hands, my fingers, willing my battle claws to pop out. Just as well they didn't: taking him down wouldn't have accomplished anything beyond scratching an itch.
And New Orleans' security would just ramp up to impossible levels.
With apologies to E.A. Poe, suddenly there came a tapping—as if someone gently rapping. But not upon my chamber door.
I crossed my cabin and peeked behind the blackout blinds covering the window (I refuse to call something that isn't completely round a "porthole") over my bed.
Volpea stood on the narrow side deck running the outer length of the boat. She put a finger to her lips and gestured for me to open the window.
"Still want to go?" she whispered as I knelt on the bed and slid the glass aside.
I hesitated then nodded. The catch on the window was easy; the catch on this deal might be a lot more difficult . . .
"If I give you access to my body, do you promise to leave me in control and respect the privacy of my own thoughts?" she asked.
The "access to my body" phrase started to trigger that other voice in the back of my head but I told it to shut up and let me think.
I don't like to make promises I can't keep. So I generally avoid making them to people I don't know who have motives I don't fully fathom. Volpea took a half step back when I didn't answer: my window of opportunity was narrower than the physical casement I had just opened. And it was going to close in another moment.
"I promise," I said too quickly to sound anything like sincere.
She gave me a searching look. "I'll have to trust you. And hope that you will not betray me."
Ditto, I thought as she stepped forward and reached through the small window. Cupping her hand behind my head, she leaned in and kissed me. Deeply. Hell, she tried to tickle my tonsils with her tongue! Which—big surprise—seemed to have a piercing of its own.
And then I tasted blood.
She had bitten her own tongue to give me my opening.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on the "gateway."
Leaving my own body and entering another's through their blood is always a bit disorienting. A little more so this time, as I hadn't had time to prepare. I suddenly found myself holding on to my own body!
We had a hold of me by the collar.
Slowly, we lowered my body onto the mattress. I don't know if the solicitude was for my unconscious comfort or an attempt to prevent the thump of a collapsing body from alerting Fenris. I did know that somebody needed to cut back on the doughnuts. In any event, my carcass ended up sprawled on its side, looking less asleep than passed out at the end of a three-day drunk. A certified Kodak moment.
Unexpectedly, I began to snore.
Lovely.
The next ten minutes were a blur as Volpea hurried back around to finish loading Dr. Mooncloud's medical supplies and keep Fenris distracted from the sounds of a slow-motion buzz saw originating from my bedroom.
I was working very hard on not doing anything.
It's very disorienting to find yourself in a whole new body.
Even more so when your arms and legs are moving and engaged in tasks that you have nothing to do with. Imagine your own reaction if your body suddenly took off of its own volition and began doing things without your say so. It's sort of like having a very organized seizure: the urge to take back control of your limbs is overwhelming.
But I'd promised Volpea I'd stay in the passenger seat. And the last thing I needed was for an alpha-male werewolf to be treated to the sight of his partner flopping around on the floor because her body couldn't figure out who was running the show.
So I worked very hard at not doing anything. I was even concerned that too much thinking might distract my host at a critical moment. Instead, I concentrated on the sensations of a change of flesh.
My previous sojourns in female bodies were fleeting—with the one exception of a headless corpse, so that didn't really count. Everybody is different and, in like manner, every body is different, so gender differences aren't necessarily as obvious as one might first imagine. Obviously there were changes in the plumbing. And such physical alterations as height, lower center of gravity, and having bosoms meant posture and locomotion were slightly different, now. Hopefully, I wouldn't have to run for my life without a little practice, first.
And a good sports bra.
As for the endocrine system, it was a little too early to compare hormones.
Though there were these little tingly spots that I'd never encountered in other people's flesh and rarely in my ow, ow, ow—holy crap, I now knew the locations of all of Volpea's silver piercings!
My limited experience with body-swapping was pretty much limited to humans and the undead. Vampires, as a rule, are inhumanly strong. But their strength is cold and machinelike. If Volpea was any example, lycanthropes were vigorous, powerhouses of raw energy, surging and thrumming just beneath their skin. In a cage match, I might bet on the vampires but it wouldn't necessarily be a sure thing in every instance.
Other than the fact that she could probably kick my ass.
Her hearing was very sharp, too. More acute, apparently, than her male counterpart's. Volpea's ears were picking up my snoozy noises just fine. Even Camazotz Chamalcan kept throwing suspicious glances at my cabin door.
<Ask him to help you with something outside,> I told Volpea. <He's going to say or do something unfortunate if we don't tell him. And he needs to know since he'll be babysitting for two, now.>
It was almost too easy.
Fenris went outside to perform a final check on both vehicles and Volpea gave the demon a quick sketch of how things stood.
Then it was time to go.
Nice, easy, uneventful, and we were on the road five minutes later with no one apparently the wiser.
Dr. Mooncloud had driven up in one of those trucks badly disguised to look like a car. Mama Samm rode shotgun with her. The werewolves had arrived a few days earlier in a '68 AMC Gold Rambler Rebel. Yee haw. I spent the first few minutes wondering how they got the parts to keep this antique running. Then Fenris spoke.
"Did you have another opportunity to press our cause with the Bloodwalker?" he asked.
"Yes. In spite of too many interruptions," my own ride answered from the passenger seat.
"And would you say he was . . . receptive?"
"Receptive might be just the word to describe the progress of our present stage of negotiations," she said.
Tall, dark, and hirsute nodded and hunched over the steering wheel. No more words were exchanged which left sufficient silence for me to take up the conversation.
<Hey. I thought I was pretty clear back at the boat: not interested in joining any overthrows right now. Especially when my friends and family are smack dab in the middle of the Boston Commons!>
>The Boston Commons?< she queried, confused over the real estate reference.
<Tiananmen Square, then, and tanks for your concern. The only deal on the table is you take me to see my people and I respect the privacy of your thoughts.>
>Well, if you want the plan to go smoothly, I'll need to say whatever it takes to keep certain people happy and unsuspicious. Or would you rather I default to complete honesty and let the chips fall where they may?<
I started to raise mental hands in surrender but stopped as soon as I felt Volpea's hands twitch. <Okay. I overreacted. Sorry.>
"What's the matter?"
We both looked over at the driver. "What?"
"You look like you're in pain," he said.
"I have a headache."
<Nice.>
>Should I mention it seems to be heading south?<
< >
"I need to stop for gas. I'll grab coffee and aspirin, too," he offered.
"Thanks."
Maybe I had misjudged Mr. Grumpy-fur. He was a real gentleman. Gassed up the car, bought two coffees, three different kinds of analgesics, and snagged extra creams, sugars, and napkins whilst V and I were in the ladies room.
This was a new experience for me. I'd never hung around long enough to try out any of the pages in the owner's manual. And you'd think a lady would be kind of shy about company in the can. But I guess it couldn't get any more intimate than we already were—at least not without a little mind mingling. So I did my best to "look" the other way while the essentials were taken care of. I am, after all, a gentleman.
Just not a "perfect" gentleman.
Back in the car, back on the road, it was obvious that we had taken a detour.
"What about Mooncloud? And the juju woman?" Volpea asked between sips of lousy truck-stop coffee.
"Mooncloud didn't require an escort to get here," Fenris answered. "Our job was to make sure the Bloodwalker wasn't inside anyone's head who returned." He turned and looked at us. "They're clean, aren't they?"
We swallowed. And almost gagged. Bad! Bad coffee! Down, boy, down!
"Of course," she choked over the last swallow. "I checked on him, myself."
"Sorry." He turned his attention back to the road.
"What?"
"About the coffee. It's pretty bad." He gestured with his own cup. "But we need something to keep us awake until we get home. Cream and sugar help kill the worst of the taste."
"What's the hurry?" she asked. "We could have caught a few hours sleep; returned in the morning."
Fenris shook his head. "The call came from Pantera. She's hearing the Voices, again."
"That's not good."
"It gets worse. She's built another altar."
"And?"
"He wouldn't say. But it sounds very bad. Worse than any of the other times. He wants us back tonight!"
To say the conversation waned after that would be an understatement. Silence fell in the car like a cold, hard vacuum from the ass end of the universe. It was even still and quiet inside Volpea's head.
<Marie Laveau is building altars?> I nudged.
>It has been forbidden,< she answered slowly.
<Why?>
>Because it always leads to something dark and terrible happening.<
<And who has forbidden it? Pantera?>
>Marie, herself. When she is sane . . . <
I thought about that.
A hundred and fifty years ago, before she had been turned by a vampire, Marie Laveau had been a Voudon priestess of great renown and power. So much so that when her daughter took up the practice of Santeria, it was widely believed that she was the original Marie Laveau, immortalized by the loa, themselves. Mother and daughter did share a common interest in voodoo but, the original Marie found that her powers were now limited: she could no longer go about in the day and the "right-hand" path had begun to close as her vampiric nature became ascendant.
According to Mama Samm, the elder Laveau was wise enough to back away at that point, lest the darker, "left-hand" path consume and destroy her. She was content to stay in the shadows, offering advice and tutelage to her offspring so that her daughter eventually surpassed her in power and knowledge.
But not longevity.
The mother did not share the Dark Gift with her daughter. She was still sane enough to recognize that immortality carried too great a price. So Marie II lived a full life and passed away, full of years and, she hoped, went into the Light at the end of her days.
But wisdom does not always grow when it marches in an endless parade of days. As the years then decades then generations passed, Marie I would make occasional attempts to reinvoke the powers and blessing of the loa. Time and again, Mama Samm once told me, the former voodoo priestess had to relearn that the Dark Gift had forever distorted the pathways.
Bad things happened.
Marie Laveau retreated into solitude to nurse her disappointments. And, it was rumored, fight off the madness that whispered from the shadows and haunted her dreams.
New Orleans became an "open demesne" where individuals and gangs vied for turf and, occasionally, supremacy. Marie had her cotillion of undead sycophants and servitors but had not taken a serious interest in power plays for over a century. As far as the other undead factions were concerned, she was a myth, a legend, a boogeyman story the older vamps trotted out to keep the young fangs in line when they got a little too ambitious. But being undead wasn't enough. Unseen and unheard over time pretty much added up to unimportant for the latest generation.
Until she took a consort a few years back.
That's when everything had gone to hell in South Louisiana for a time. Or so I've been told. This was before my time, back when I had a family and went to sleep at night, blissfully unaware that there really were things that went "bump in the night."
The gossip about her new "Latin lover" was sparse and contradictory. The parts that did agree had the Pantera family coming up from some remote place in Central or South America—the stories varied on the finer details—and doing the tourist thing in the New Orleans. It was around the changing of the millennium, during one of the Mardi Gras.
The thing about tourists is they don't know safe territory from the hunting grounds. And they don't know at what hour the boundary lines move and the territories shift. The Panteras had found themselves too close to the wrong alleyway on the wrong street at the wrong hour of the night.
Worse, what preyed upon them was not a pickpocket or a mugger or anything human.
Jorge Pantera lost his wife and son that night. And his own mortality. Only his daughter emerged unscathed—though there are quiet disputations about that, too. Conjecture and supposition; it's all gossip, come out of a city that elevates gossip to a high art form. What was known is that Marie Laveau avenged his family's murders and took father and daughter under her personal protection.
Then it got complicated.
Once upon a time, Marie Laveau had been the "Queen of New Orleans." The return of her libido coincided with her return to that throne. That, in and of itself, would have ruffled a few feathers. She opted for maximum political turmoil by elevating a stranger—a foreigner—who had no experience, no wealth, no power—worse, no history—to rule the Crescent City at her side. To say that this arrangement did not sit well with many would be a vast political understatement.
Much closer to the statistical truth to say it didn't sit well with any.
Still, the survivors of the internecine wars that erupted soon thereafter learned to accept it. Those who didn't, well . . . didn't.
Survive, that is.
Even Sammathea D'Arbonne, who doesn't take crap from anybody, shows the Queen due respect. She doesn't like her or trust her, but neither is she dismissive or careless.
Me? I'm a lot shakier in the "care" and "respect" departments but Laveau and Pantera were giving shelter to my people so I was more inclined to mind my manners.
Right now I needed to mind the scenery: I turned my attention to looking at the passing landscape through Volpea's eyes. I hadn't been carsick since I was a kid but the creeping nausea in my gut suggested that I'd spent too much time on inner contemplation. The key to avoiding motion sickness, I remembered belatedly, was to go with the flow.
Unfortunately, we were off the main road and down some rural back road where there weren't enough lights so show any scenery: looking out the window did little to placate the pit vipers of nausea coiling and uncoiling in the pit of our stomach.
And now our head was starting to pound while feeling curiously light and airy at the same time.
"I don't feel so good," Volpea croaked.
It was true, she really didn't. I didn't feel so hot, myself, for that matter.
"What's wrong?" Fenris asked.
"I don't know. I feel nauseous . . ."
"Carsick?" he asked. "Are you going to hurl?" The turn signal went on. Fenris had to be an import: Louisiana drivers don't use turn signals—I suspect they don't even know what that stick on the steering column is supposed to do. "Crank your window down! You're not blowing chunks all over the interior!" We decelerated and drifted over onto the shoulder. "Do you feel like you're going to pass out?" We rolled to a stop and he opened the driver's door and jumped out.
"Don't be silly," V was muttering as he came around and opened the passenger door. "You don't pass out from carsickness." She dropped the coffee cup from her nerveless fingers. "Uh, oops . . ."
I followed her eyes down to the floor. There wasn't enough liquid left in the paper cup to make much of a spill. <Uh, Volpea—>
"Come on," Fenris said, extending his hand. "Get out. I'll hold your hair."
We just sat there. "Um," my muddled host said after a moment, "my legs don't seem to be working . . ."
<Oh crap! We've been had!>
"Are you sure?" Fenris leaned in to take a closer look at our eyes.
"Um, yep; nothing's moving . . ."
<V! The coffee! It—>
Fenris shifted his stance, brought his other hand out of his pocket. "Sorry. I gotta make sure." The device in his hand looked like an old garage door opener. Except it made a stuttering, clicking sound and suddenly there were little arcs of blue electricity dancing between two metal prongs on the end.
He pressed the prongs into our side.
Correction: someone swung a sledgehammer into our side!
And the car flipped over and over and over and over and down into darkness.
<Hello?>
> <
<Anyone there?>
> <
It was dark. And hot. And I hurt like hell!
I'd say "we" hurt like hell but Volpea didn't seem to be in the same room.
Maybe there wasn't room for the both of us: it was tight and I was turned on my side, my arms cuffed behind me and my knees tucked up against my—um—tits. So, I had at least one point of reference for "where" I was.
I tried listening for additional clues. From the ringing in my ears I'd have to guess the bell tower of Notre Dame cathedral.
There was some kind of vibration, though I could only feel rather than hear it.
I tried fumbling behind me but my hands were numb from lack of circulation. Lucky them! The rest of me wished it could be. I was one, medium-sized, pretzeled bruise. My ribs felt like they were snapped where the stun gun had made contact. And my muscles were either stony lumps of petrified tissue or semiliquefied residue that puddled here and there under my sandpapered skin. Speaking of puddles, V had lost control of her bladder during her encounter with Ole Sparky. I didn't know what the big bad wolf had dosed the coffee with but stun guns are the next best thing to whoop-ass in a canister—talking 55-gallon drums, here, not 16-ounce pop-tops. The sensations were akin to being run over us with a car or beaten by a highly motivated chain gang.
At least we weren't dead.
But, considering the way I was feeling, it was a small blessing, at best.
Gradually I became aware of the floor beneath my body. It sagged. Beneath the thin support of carpeted pressboard I could feel the circular hump of a spare tire. We were cuffed and gagged and bound in the car's trunk.
So where were we going?
It was at least another hour before I got the answer to that question. In the meantime, I was on my own: Volpea remained unconscious and blissfully ignorant of how much she was going to hurt when she woke up. Maybe that was best. It wasn't my body and I could disconnect a bit from the pain. And what I was about to do was probably going to hurt like a sonofabitch. With apologies to my lycanthropic host.
It did hurt.
A lot!
Even if Volpea was flexible enough to pull it off under normal circumstances, her body was now a Gordian knot of bruises, contusions, and still twitching nerves and muscles. Even bent double, I had to dislocate a shoulder in order to scrape ass over cuffed wrists and bring our arms back up in front of us. It wasn't as difficult as you might think. From what I've observed, lycanthrope physiology is one step away from being naturally double-jointed: all those bones, sockets, muscles, sinews dislocate, migrate, relocate every time a were transforms from human to animal and back to human again. Of course it hurts like hell and the transformation unleashes a huge flood of endorphins to attempt to counterbalance the agony of each shift. Dislocating a shoulder while retaining human form: less easy and far more painful. By the time I was able to pop our shoulder back in place and pull the gag out of our mouth, it was practically chewed in half, anyway. Still, a stroll in the park compared to attempting the same contortions with a human-normal physique.
The blindfold came next, partially dislodging the earplugs, and suddenly I could see and hear. Not a lot to see: light leakage from the back of the taillights gave dim illumination to the car trunk's interior. And the sound of tires on old and poorly maintained pavement, told me we were off the main highway.
The handcuffs were tricky. Maybe Volpea could shape-shift and slip them off but something told me that Fenris had already anticipated that: there was a reason she was still out while I was all alert now and "enjoying" the tingly aftermath of 900,000 volts. If it wasn't for the miniscule amperage, Fenris would be transporting tailgate barbecue instead of a slightly singed hostage.
I tested the tensile strength of the anodized steel chain connecting the metal bracelets. Nope. Short of a hacksaw, key, or lock pick, my wrists were going to be treated to an extended period of propinquity.
My ankles and knees were a different matter. If Fenris had used professional leg restraints or even plastic "ties," I might've had a problem. Rope, even in a cramped, awkward space, was easier to work with and our legs were free in a matter of minutes.
Now what? Try to pop the trunk lid and signal for help? Jump out of a moving car? Possibly into oncoming traffic? And if someone did stop to help, would they be equipped to deal with a werewolf enforcer who had already taken down his preternaturally powerful partner? I didn't like the odds. But then I couldn't think of one thing I had liked to far.
As I shifted position for the thirty-seventh time, I felt the thin flooring over the spare shift with me.
Perhaps there was another way to "retire" from this situation. . . .
By the time the car reached its destination, I was ready.
There was plenty of warning. First, we left the main road and went some distance on a gravel surface. Then another turn onto a dirt road. And, eventually, the ride turned so rough I had to assume we were off-road entirely. Given that a '68 Rambler Rebel is not an all-terrain vehicle, I knew that it wouldn't be long so I assumed the position.
I was right: we came to a stop in just under two minutes and the engine was turned off. The car resettled itself as the driver got out and slammed the door. I braced myself, waiting.
I waited a lot longer than I expected.
Eventually there were footsteps and voices approaching the trunk.
"You're sure she's completely neutralized?" a new voice was asking.
"She's been dosed with enough aconite to knock her out for forty-eight hours, Gordon," Fenris growled. "Even if she did wake up, she won't be able to shape-shift for at least a week and she's under restraint."
"Wolfsbane?" The new voice sounded horrified. "How did you calculate the dose for her?"
"You're missing the point," my oh-so-ex partner snapped. "She knew there would be risks. She volunteered anyway."
"For her version of the plan," the other argued, "not yours. But this new twist—"
"—is a simple practicality," Fenris interrupted. "If the Bloodwalker will not assist us in overthrowing the madwoman and that blasphemy she has set to rule over us, then we must turn this opportunity to our advantage. By destroying the Bloodwalker, we gain Laveau's trust and favor. Hell! We earn the gratitude of every bloodsucking Doman in the country!"
"But we are still slaves to the vampires."
"Perhaps. For a bit longer. But Laveau becomes less suspicious of our motives and loyalties. We earn better opportunities to rise up, strike back, and free ourselves from the fanged oppressors!"
"And do you think the other enclaves will sit idly by and allow one demesne's werewolves to overthrow the masters? They will have to crush us as an example to their own packs of shape-shifting servitors!"
"Perhaps they will be too intimidated," Fenris replied.
"Intimidated?"
"They have tried to kill the Bloodwalker many times and he only grows more powerful. I think they would hesitate to challenge those who accomplished what they, themselves, could not. And then there are the other packs. They should be more than willing to rise up and challenge their own masters once they have witnessed our success."
"It is a bold and dangerous risk that you propose, Fenris. The council must decide whether we are prepared to gamble on such high stakes. And I cannot help but wonder if Volpea would feel the risks were justified."
There was the sound of a key being inserted into the trunk lock.
"She was willing to risk her life in defying our vampire masters to join this rebellion. She was willing to risk her life to try and seduce the Bloodwalker into joining us. To even offer up her body and her mind, distasteful as it might be, so that he might hear our offer."
"Somehow I do not think he will be very receptive to anything you have to say after what you have put him through. And I doubt Volpea will ever trust you again, for that matter."
"She is a soldier. She will either understand that some things must be done or she is not worthy of the cause. Frankly, I do not believe that we can trust this creature, this half-vampire, to help us in any way even if he did want to. He is a liability at best and now, possibly, a threat to our existence just because of the little that he does know. No, the council can deliberate but Volpea and I are directly exposed and every were in Louisiana will be suspect if he is allowed to live."
"I see your point. This has not gone according to the original plan and, although your hand is heavy in its changing, she bears some responsibility, as well. Perhaps Volpea will vote to sacrifice herself given that there seems to be no way back. But she would know the mind of the Bloodwalker better than any if he resides within her. She should have a seat at the council and be given a say as well as a vote."
"There is no time for that! We are already missed and must return to the city or everything we've worked for will be undone!" The trunk lid came up and I got a glimpse of two figures: Fenris and a shorter, older, bearded man. "We must act tonight and Volpea won't be able to speak or vote, as you say, for another day or two!"
As I rose to my knees and cocked both arms back over my left shoulder, both turned to look down at where I was supposed to be, curled up and unconscious. By the time it was registering that something was very wrong, I was whipping the heavy tire iron around to smash into the side of my captor's head.
"Voting by proxy," I snarled as Fenris dropped like a sandbag from a scaffold, "Volpea signifies in the 'nay' category!"
I turned on the other guy who was starting to back up. "Don't move!" I bellowed.
He stopped.
"Keys! Check his pockets."
The beard looked down at Fenris and hesitated.
"Now!"
He bent and started riffling though the unconscious man's clothing. "This is all a big misunderstanding . . ." the guy called Gordon began.
"Yeah, yeah, I heard. Seduce the Bloodwalker. Try to convert him to the cause. Oh wait: here's a better plan. Let's kill him for the street cred. Too bad about Volpea. I'm sure she'd agree to sacrifice herself if we'd gotten around to mentioning it."
"This was Fenris' idea."
"Sounded like you were getting ready to sign on." I gestured with the tire iron. "That's the trouble with lots of exposition. Unless it's meaningless jabber designed to distract your opponent, it'll just come back and bite you in the ass before the end."
He produced a set of car keys. There was a handcuff key on the ring. "It isn't up to me," he protested. "It's a committee decision."
"Well," I said, "too bad they're not here."
He looked around. So I had to, too.
The poet Francis William Bourdillon wrote that "the night has a thousand eyes."
The songwriting team of Weisman, Wayne, and Garrett grabbed the line and turned it into a hit for Bobby Vee.
No one was likely to write poetry or top-40 hits about tonight's ocular statistics.
Perhaps thirty feet away, reflecting the pale glow of the automobile's trunk light, were two rings of eyes. There were maybe two dozen in all; a semicircle that might account for standing, human watchers and another that suggested the audience was crouching—though in what form I could only guess.
"Great," I said. "Let me guess. A quorum."
"I'm sorry, Volpea. I know this wasn't part of the original plan but what Fenris proposed does make a certain amount of sense . . ."
"Volpea isn't in, right now," I announced. "You'll be negotiating with the guy who trashed the New York demesne."
Apparently everyone was still playing mental catch-up. I didn't know much more about my bloodwalking ability than everybody else but I had discovered one little advantage while staggering around Mengele's fortress: I could take control of a dead body. So, not so much of a leap from a corpse to an unconscious corpus.
"The keys, Gordo."
He looked at me. And then back at the glowy eyes of our unseen and, so far, reticent audience.
I waggled the tire iron at him. "Uh uh uh! Here's how it works, Gordy. You do anything but hand me those keys within the next fifteen seconds, and I toss this thing. At you. Not hard enough to cripple you. Just hard enough to draw blood. Which opens the door and rolls out the welcome mat, if you get my drift? Then I don't need Volpea's body because you'll be my new bitch. At least until your committee, here, decides to kill you to get to me." I looked back at them. "Of course, anybody who gets within smacking distance runs the same risks . . ." And looked back at Gordon. "That's ten seconds, now, G: only five left. Four. Three."
He started to toss them to me.
"Uh uh uh. Hand. Not toss. You toss?" I waggled the tire iron again. "I toss."
He stepped toward me, the keys held out like they had a sputtering fuse protruding from the ring fob.
Stepping out of the trunk without falling on my face was a major accomplishment. My—our—hell, Volpea was still unconscious so they were mine for now—my legs were numb and wooden from hours of confinement and trying to hold a tire iron while your wrists are handcuffed doesn't permit much support work while extricating one's self from a car trunk and taking keys from the enemy while surrounded by a couple dozen more.
Fortunately, the element of surprise had not only served me well, but I was able to ride it into an additional two minutes of overtime.
"Now here's how we're gonna play this," I announced as I fumbled the handcuff key into the evasively tiny lock entry. "I'm no big fan of Marie Laveau but, for the moment, she has something that I want and I have no reason to upset her. Hopefully that will all be done, soon, and, as far as I'm concerned, what happens in the Crescent City, stays in the Crescent City." The cuffs dropped from my left wrist. "And since I have familial bonds with one of the furry folk, I can't help but see you all as family." The other cuff unlocked and my metal bonds dropped to the ground. "A somewhat dysfunctional and difficult-to-get-along-with family." I turned to Gordon. "Get in the trunk."
"Wh-what?"
"Get. In. The. Trunk." I waved the tire iron emphatically. Much simpler when your wrists are free to pursue separate trajectories. "I just want a little travel insurance." I turned back to the committee. "So, Volpea and I are going down to the Big Easy where I will check on things that are important to me. Mentioning peripheral issues like werewolf coups will not be important unless somebody decides to make it a matter of concern do you GET MY DRIFT!"
I heard murmurs that could have been interpreted as growing consent. Gordon was nodding his head. "Why," I asked him, "are you not in the trunk, yet?"
"I—I—"
"Look, I'm a reasonable guy," I said, lightly smacking his upper arm with the tire iron. "Maybe you don't have any experience in dealing with reasonable guys." I whacked him a little harder. "I'm not going to tie you up or gag you or knock you unconscious." Whap. "I'm just going to drive down the road a little ways and, once I see that I'm not being followed, I'll release you." Smack. "Okay?"
"I guess—"
"Now get in the damn trunk before I stop being reasonable!" I yelled, whacking him across the rear. The look in his eyes said I'd be sorry for that particular humiliation but, honestly, there's only so much crap I'll put up with in a single evening.
And there was a good chance that my borrowed body was PMSing.