Raven Cursed: A Jane Yellowrock Novel Read online

  Praise for the Novels

  of Faith Hunter

  Mercy Blade

  “Fans of Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock novels will gobble down Mercy Blade, the third installment in this series, which has all the complexity, twists, and surprises readers have come to expect . . . a thrill ride from start to finish. . . . Hunter has an amazing talent for capturing mood.”

  —SF Site

  “There was something about the Jane Yellowrock series that drew me in from the very beginning. That hunch was solidified with each book I read into a feeling of utter confidence in the author. . . . Mercy Blade is top-notch, a five-star book!”

  —Night Owl Reviews

  “I was delighted to have the opportunity to read another Jane Yellowrock adventure. I was not disappointed, but was somewhat overwhelmed by the obvious growth in Faith Hunter’s writing skill.”

  —San Francisco Book Review

  “A thrilling novel . . . Fans of suspenseful tales filled with vampires, weres, and more will enjoy this book. Jane is a strong heroine who knows how to take charge of a situation, and kick butt if necessary.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “Faith Hunter has created one of my favorite characters, ever. Jane Yellowrock is full of contradictions. . . . As with the other books in the series, good and evil are far from clear-cut, with sympathetic villains and many fascinating characters with shades of gray. Highly recommended.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  Blood Cross

  “Mystery and action are at the forefront here, but the romance from the first book continues to build slowly. Readers eager for the next book in Patricia Briggs’s Mercy Thompson series may want to give Faith Hunter a try.”

  —Library Journal

  “In a genre flooded with strong, sexy females, Jane Yellowrock is unique. . . . Her bold first-person narrative shows that she’s one tough cookie, but with a likable vulnerability . . . a pulse-pounding, page-turning adventure.”

  —Romantic Times

  continued . . .

  Skinwalker

  “Seriously. Best urban fantasy I’ve read in years, possibly ever.”

  —C. E. Murphy, author of Walking Dead

  “A fantastic start to the Jane Yellowrock series. Mixing fantasy with a strong mystery story line and a touch of romance, it ticks all the right urban fantasy boxes.”

  —LoveVampires

  “Stunning . . . plot and descriptions so vivid, they might as well be pictures or videos. Hunter captures the reader’s attention from the first page and doesn’t let go.”

  —SF Site

  “A fabulous tale with a heroine who clearly has the strength to stand on her own . . . a wonderfully detailed and fast-moving adventure that fills the pages with murder, mystery, and fascinating characters.”

  —Darque Reviews

  “A promising new series with a strong heroine. . . . Jane is smart, quick, witty, and I look forward to reading more about her as she discovers more about herself.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  Host

  “Hunter’s world continues to expand in this highly original fantasy with lively characters where nothing can ever be taken for granted.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Hunter has created a remarkable interpretation of the aftermath of Armageddon in which angels and devils once again walk the earth and humans struggle to find a place. Stylish storytelling and gripping drama make this a good addition to most fantasy collections.”

  —Library Journal

  “Readers will admire [Thorn’s] sacrifice [in] placing others before herself. . . . Fans will enjoy reading about the continuing end of days.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “With fast-paced action and the possibility of more romance, this is an enjoyable read with an alluring magical touch.”

  —Darque Reviews

  Seraphs

  “The world [Hunter] has created is unique and bleak . . . [an] exciting science fiction thriller.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Continuing the story begun in Bloodring, Hunter expands on her darkly alluring vision of a future in which the armies of good and evil wage their eternal struggle in the world of flesh and blood. Strong characters and a compelling story.”

  —Library Journal

  “This thrilling dark fantasy has elements of danger, adventure, and religious fanaticism, plus sexual overtones. Hunter’s impressive narrative skills vividly describe a changed world, and she artfully weaves in social commentary . . . a well-written, exciting novel.”

  —Romantic Times

  Bloodring

  “A bold interpretation of the what-might-be. . . . With a delicate weaving of magic and scripture, Faith Hunter left me wondering: What’s a woman to do when she falls in love with a seraph’s child?”

  —Kim Harrison

  “Entertaining . . . outstanding supporting characters . . . the strong cliff-hanger of an ending bodes well for future adventures.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The cast is incredible. . . . Fans of postapocalypse fantasies will appreciate this superb interpretation of the endless end of days.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Hunter’s distinctive future vision offers a fresh though dark glimpse into a newly made postapocalyptic world. Bold and imaginative in approach, with appealing characters and a ­suspense-filled story, this belongs in most fantasy collections.”

  —Library Journal

  “It’s a pleasure to read this engaging tale about characters connected by strong bonds of friendship and family. Mixes romance, high fantasy, apocalyptic and postapocalyptic adventure to good effect.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Hunter’s very professionally executed, tasty blend of dark fantasy, mystery, and romance should please fans of all three genres.”

  —Booklist

  “Entertaining . . . a promising new series. . . . Steady pacing, dashes of humor, and a strong story line coupled with a great ending neatly setting up the next adventure make this take on the apocalypse worth checking out.”

  —Monsters and Critics

  “Enjoyable . . . a tale of magic and secrets in a world gone mad.”

  —Romantic Times

  ALSO BY FAITH HUNTER

  The Jane Yellowrock Novels

  Skinwalker

  Blood Cross

  Mercy Blade

  Cat Tales

  (A New American Library eSpecial)

  The Rogue Mage Novels

  Bloodring

  Seraphs

  Host

  RAVEN CURSED

  A Jane Yellowrock Novel

  Faith Hunter

  ROC

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

  Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2,

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  New Delhi - 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632,

  New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Stur
dee Avenue,

  Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, January 2012

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright © Faith Hunter, 2012

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—­MARCA REGISTRADA

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  To my Renaissance Man,

  who takes the Class IVs, lets me cry on his shoulder, and

  brings me chocolate

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My deepest thanks (in no order whatsoever) to:

  Mike Pruette, Web guru at www.faithhunter.net and fan.

  The wonderful speakers at www.irishgaelictranslator.com for the spelling translations.

  The Hubby, for the right word when my tired brain was stymied. And for the chocolate.

  Joyce Wright, for reading everything I write, no matter how “weird.”

  Adonna at the authorpro.com for all the help with PR! Love you guys!

  Dave Crawford of rapidexpeditions.com, Mike Kohlenberger at Wildwater, and Itty Bitty, for allowing me to use their names, monikers, and/or likenesses in the book. The realism you brought to the project was a huge help! Also to Mindy Mymudes for the biology realism.

  Misty Massey, David B. Coe, A. J. Hartley, Edmund Schubert, Stuart Jaffe, C. E. Murphy, Lucienne Diver, and Kalayna Price of www.magicalwords.net, my dear pals, for making this journey so much easier than it used to be. It’s wonderful to have you as my friends!

  Kim Harrison (fan girl squeal)—thank you for the wonderful blurb.

  My facebook fans at www.facebook.com/official.faith

  .hunter.

  Jane’s facebook fans at www.facebook.com/janeyellow

  rock.

  Beast’s facebook fans at www.facebook.com/pages/Beast/135860763157310.

  Lucienne Diver, for doing what an agent does best, with grace, kindness, wisdom, and forgiveness.

  Rosanne Romanello and Brady McReynolds at Roc for excellent PR support (waves).

  Last, but never least—my editorial team at Roc: Thanks to Jessica Wade, who loves the multisouled Beast in Jane, and who worked hard to bring the plot and conflict into a darker intensity. To copyeditor Karen Haywood, production editor Kathleen Cook, and Jesse Feldman (who came in at the end)—this book is far better for all of you.

  Y’all ROCK!

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  CHAPTER ONE: Lots of Things That Go Boom and Kill Bad Guys

  CHAPTER TWO: Vamp-Fang and Werewolf-Bite Scars

  CHAPTER THREE: You Fight Dirty

  CHAPTER FOUR: If the Vamp-Poo Became Airborne

  CHAPTER FIVE: Two Cups and You’re Done

  CHAPTER SIX: Leo Pellissier’s Right-Hand Meal

  CHAPTER SEVEN: Vigilante Law’s Got No Place in My County

  CHAPTER EIGHT: You Chasing the Big Doggies?

  CHAPTER NINE: Wrong Century, White Boy

  CHAPTER TEN: I Sleep with Vamps for a Living

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: Streams Talking Softly in Mountain-Water Tongue

  CHAPTER TWELVE: Who? Bit? You?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Tag Team Sex? That’s the Best You Could Come Up With?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: You’ll Be True-Dead.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Be Polite to the Nice Pussycat

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Is This a Proposal or Something?

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: And if the Fangheads Kill Them?

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Molly Can Kill Cow?

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: Want to Play?

  CHAPTER TWENTY: Get Your Own Damn Shoes

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Things Had Just FUBARed

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: You Are Dead Meat

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Bloody, Damaged Jeansand Nefarious Intentions

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Eat Humans When They Go to the Dark Side

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: If He Moves, You Can Eat Him

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: Sharing the Moon-Call

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: Threw Her Over the Railing

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: I Was So Going to Hell

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: Butchery Disguised as Surgery

  CHAPTER THIRTY: The Blood-Diamond

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: A Marriage Ceremony with a Death Sentence at the End

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: Double-Dead Bodies

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  A lot of research went into this book, both to keep it factual, and to protect others. All mistakes herein are mine, and were not made by the kind people who helped me.

  The factual parts I worked so hard on were the kayaking and the scenes set in the Appalachian Mountains. The scenes in Hartford, Tennessee, were as perfect as I could make them, and if you drop by, be sure to say hi to Dave Crawford and Jedi Mike Kohlenberger. Yeah, they are real people, the bigger-than-life kind who simply have to go into a book to keep it real too. Itty Bitty (not her real name) has moved away, or you could meet her too. While you are in Hartford, go rafting, or take a kayak lesson at Rapid Expeditions. Take a zip-line trip through the trees at Wildwater. It’s a rush! Take a backcountry jeep tour. Hike up the mountain to the top. Go hungry, and eat in the Bean Trees Café. Have a day or three of fun! There is a lot to do for such a small place.

  To protect others—for instance, law enforcement officials—­I deliberately changed facts or left them out. A case in point—­the law enforcement center in Asheville looks nothing like it is portrayed here, to help, in a small way, to keep our cops safe.

  A scene involving a real search-and-rescue team, with K-9 and search dogs, was cut because the book was simply too long with it left in, but I’ll post it someday on the Web site.

  My thanks to all my fans, who are keeping this series in print. You have my everlasting gratitude.

  Faith

  CHAPTER ONE

  Lots of Things That Go Boom

  and Kill Bad Guys

  I rode into Asheville, North Carolina, for all the wrong reasons, from the wrong direction, on a borrowed bike, with no weapons, ready to work for the vamps again. It was stupid all around, but it was the gig I signed up for, and I was all about satisfying the client, keeping him safe, eliminating the danger, and finishing the job. Or staking the vamp, depending on the job description. “Finish the job” had become my second mantra, right behind “Have stakes, will travel.”

  I was not at all happy that I’d taken this gig, once again
working for the Blood Master of the City of New Orleans, Leo Pellissier, though this time was different. Of course, that’s what I always think—­that there’s a new and better reason to keep up a business relationship with the chief fanghead. Money counts, of course, and the MOC pays extremely well, but I’ve begun to think it’s also because I’m a masochist and curious—­as in, curiosity killed the cat.

  At the thought, my Beast chuffed with amusement. Not dead. Am good hunter. Smell cooked meat and running deer and mountains. Free flowing water. We are home.

  Yeah, we are. And that thought put a smile on my face, despite my misgivings. I’m Jane Yellowrock. I’m licensed and experienced in the security business but I made my street cred as a rogue-vamp hunter. I am, according to most, the best in the business. I am also a Cherokee skinwalker living with the soul of a mountain lion inside me, the one I call Beast. I may well be the last of my kind, since I killed the only other skinwalker I ever met when he went nutso and started killing and eating people. My occupation has a definite ick factor.

  The job at hand was to set up and provide security for the vamp parley taking place in Asheville, and it wasn’t likely that the location was accident or coincidence. Lincoln Shaddock, the most powerful fanghead in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, had been applying to Leo for sixty years for the right to become a master of the city. Leo—­who was a lot more powerful, territory-wise, than I ever guessed—­had turned him down, until now. Leo always turned down vamps who thought they deserved to be the master of a city, because he was power hungry and had a god complex—­that was nothing new. Now the chief bloodsucker of the South was willing to discuss a change in status for a vamp who wanted my home­town? No way was that a total fluke.