Black Arts jy-7 Page 27

  I studied her, trying to read her body language, trying to understand what she was saying. Her eyes glowed yellow and fierce and her claws extruded, piercing the floor of the niche. Simultaneously, I felt them pierce my mind, painful and cutting, holding me in place like prey. Don’t you want to be free? I asked her, flinching away, only to be caught by the claws and held down.

  Freedom is death now, she said, her breath hot on my face. Freedom was lost to me/us long ago. Long before last litter. Long before Jane became human again. Now I alone am no more. We have become we/us, I/we. Together.

  We’ve . . . merged, I thought. Become one thing. And if I cut you free anyway?

  I will die. And Jane will be killer only. She blinked at me, her eyes closing and reopening slowly. Beast . . . wants to live.

  Sucking a breath, I woke. Gasping. Shuddering. And I met Aggie One Feather’s eyes across the dying embers of the fire. “Your eyes glow with pain and excitement,” she said softly. “You have learned something.”

  “Yeah. I have.” My eyes burned, as if I had forgotten to blink, and they had dried out. “Yeah,” I said again, breathing as if I had run for miles. If I wanted, I could be a skinwalker only, a shape-changer with only one soul, and no Beast soul, no big-cat fighting to be in charge of my future and my life.

  “Do you want to talk about this?” Aggie asked.

  “I . . . I want to think about it.” I had never told Aggie about Beast, about the unintentional evil that had bound Beast’s soul with mine. It was the most foul black art, according to my memories of skinwalkers, according to the things I remember Edoda teaching me before he died.

  I had been without Beast once before and it hadn’t been fun. It had been difficult, a time when she was lost or hiding somewhere inside me, in the dark places of my soul. It had been troubling and lonely; I had hated the experience of not knowing where she was. Deep within me, Beast said, as if trying to convince me, I/we are better and stronger and faster than Jane is alone. Better than Puma concolor is alone. Better than mountain lion. Better hunter. Better. I/we are more. Beast is more. Angel Hayyel made us even more than we together were before.

  Yeah, I thought back. Yeah. I looked at her, at her golden eyes, so like my own. Slowly, I reached out a hand and touched her face. The hair there was smooth and dense, softer underneath, near the skin, thicker and coarser near the surface. I scratched her face, up behind her jaw, and she leaned into me, rubbing her head into my palm. I scratched the base of her ears and stroked down her side, my hand closing on her thick tail, and running its long length. The tail was warmer than I expected. Beast retracted her claws and the headache eased. She released me and I stood, looking into her eyes.

  “Water?” Aggie offered, holding out a glass to me. I pulled from the dream that wasn’t a dream and looked at the glass. It looked like clear water, but with Aggie one never knew.

  “More drugs?” I asked.

  “No. You have sweated out the toxins of hate and troubles. You need liquid to be restored.”

  I took the water and drank it down. It tasted wonderful, like mountain spring water, or glacier melt. Fresh and perfect, and I could practically feel my body soaking it up. “More?” I asked, and Aggie refilled the glass from a pitcher. “Thank you, Aggie One Feather, Egini Agayvlge i in the speech of Tsalagi. Thank you for the sweat. For the cleansing. For the memories and the wisdom you share so freely.”

  “The memories are your own. Wisdom is there for any who seek.”

  “Seek and you shall find?” I paraphrased the Bible.

  Aggie smiled slightly. “Yes. Knock and it shall be opened to you. The gift of wisdom can be found, if one wishes to search for it, and is willing to be altered by it. It is not a gift given without cost or transformation, nor one to be used lightly.” Her eyes twinkled for a moment and when she spoke, her words sounded as though she was quoting, though I didn’t recognize it. “Stand in the crossways and look, Jane Yellowrock. Search for the old and ancient pathways. These are the good ways. Walk in them, and find peace and wisdom. This is old philosophy. Ancient teaching.” She shrugged slightly. “I changed them a little. You have done well, Dalonige’i Digadoli. But I sense you have questions.”

  “Yeah. One. Earlier, you—or maybe it was your mother—used the term War Woman. And once you called me War Woman. In the history of our people, what does War Woman mean?” At her puzzled look I said, “What were their—our—duties?”

  “In Tsalagi society, before the white man changed who we were and are with their God and their ways, women were of great value in the tribe. We owned all property. We farmed and were in charge of all commerce. All arts and crafts. All children. Men were for use in hunting and battle and war and husbands when the winter was cold, and for as long as they amused or satisfied us. But War Women”—I could hear the capitalization of the words, the importance of them—“War Women were more. They were Beloved. Wise. Stern. Gentle. Demanding. They sat on the council of men as equals, voted in council, fought in wars with their husbands, took their husbands’ place in battle if they fell. They were strong. Fierce.”

  I nodded, her eyes holding mine. And in her words I saw the promise. The memory. The equality of women in the tribe.

  “In war,” Aggie said, her voice going softer, “it was important that the losses in battle be compensated. If warriors of the tribe were killed, no matter if our people won a battle or lost, those warriors had value that had to be replaced in some way. After a battle, the Tsalagi would take the same number of prisoners, scalps, or lives that they lost.”

  Aggie paused, watching my face. Even more gently, she said, “Women led in the execution of prisoners. In the torture of prisoners. In the buying and selling of prisoners as slaves to recoup the financial cost of war. In the adoption of prisoners into the tribe. Such was the right and responsibility of women. As mothers. As widows. As warriors in their own right.

  “There was no one more fierce than a woman avenging her husband or son.”

  I closed my eyes. Understanding. Finally understanding. I felt again the hilt of the knife as my grandmother put it into my hand, too large, hard to hold. I saw the blade, bright gray steel, the same blade Edoda had used on the fish when he gave me gall to taste. I saw my hand as I reached out and made the cut in the white man’s flesh. Watched as he bucked. Heard the strangled sounds he made as my grandmother, a woman of another age, another culture, a War Woman in every way, started to train me for my life’s work—to avenge the losses of the tribe. And then I remembered the feel of the hilt in my hand as I killed Evangelina, her blood a hot flood over me.

  Evangelina, who had once been something like a friend, a woman I had always respected. And who had died because she . . . had killed the innocent. Was trying to kill others. Who had broken all the laws of her own kind. No one else could have killed her in time. Had I not acted, many more might have died. I knew that. But my soul still held on to the grief and guilt, because I wanted there to have been something, anything, different that I could have done.

  Hot tears coursed down my cheeks. Burning.

  I hadn’t forgiven myself for either death. Not yet.

  Aggie went on. “Our women celebrated the capture of prisoners. They sang and danced and joined in the torture of their enemies at the stake.” I nodded, closing my eyes, understanding, remembering, and Aggie’s voice softened yet more. “Women had the right,” she insisted, making certain that I heard and understood what my grandmother had been doing when she led me to torture and kill, “and the power to claim prisoners as slaves, or adopt them as family and kin, or condemn them to death, ‘with the wave of a swan’s wing,’ as the old words go. The right.” Her fist struck the clay floor. “And the responsibility. Sometimes . . . ofttimes . . . it sat heavy upon them.”

  “Oh,” I said. I opened my eyes and wiped my cheeks, to see Aggie patient, drenched in sweat, her hair plastered and salty. She needed nourishment and electrolytes and water. And I knew that somehow, Aggie One Feather had come to
know what I was some time ago, without me saying anything. She had discovered that I was a killer, a rogue-vamp hunter. And she had taken me in anyway, because the duties of a War Woman, a woman of the Cherokee culture, were not so dissimilar to my own. My eyes burned, but my tears had stopped. I was too dry, too empty for crying.

  “Ghigau,” Aggie said, and repeated the word again, so I could learn it, “Ghee ga hoo. She was wise and full of knowledge, a person of great respect and value to a clan and to a tribe. War Woman. Beloved. You are all of these things.”

  “Maybe not wise,” I said, a hint of humor in the words.

  “But learning. Growing. Such things are precursors to wisdom.” Aggie gestured to the door and I led the way, out into the dawn. The air was nippy and the sky overcast with rain clouds. I looked up and a splatter of rain spat over me, icy and sharp, pelting. But the rain stopped, as if the microshower was a promise of more, or maybe a warning. Or maybe Mother Nature was bored and teasing.

  Twenty-four hours ago, I had been attacked in the streets of the French Quarter, crashing my poor bike, and running away from a fight with an energy thing. Running away and leaving Bruiser there, wounded and hurt and bleeding, to fight alone. I had run away from people. I had spent the last day and night trying to find myself, and when I did, I was different from what I had always thought, always feared. Not necessarily better, but certainly stronger.

  I thought about losing Rick to Paka, to the magic of black-wereleopard heat. To the bristly and powerful magic of the African continent, and the were-taint, and the mating needs that had claimed him. And I smiled, my teeth baring with Beast’s fury.

  My mate, Beast thought. Mine!

  Oh yeah. Ours, I thought. I could tell by the way he fought against Paka. Not.

  But before I could deal with Beast’s claim and Ricky Bo, I needed to go discover what had happened to Bruiser, find Molly and the missing girls, Rachael and Bliss. And make sure that Beast understood that she and I were . . . the I/we of Beast.

  Yeah. That.

  Deep inside, Beast lifted her head and screamed, the shriek that planted terror in the hearts of the Tsalagi long before the white man came. I/we are Beast, she cried. This is our place! Our hunting grounds! Our mate for as long as we choose him!

  I heard a soft sound and turned my head as Aggie stripped off the unbleached linen and balled it up in a plastic container that smelled of other people’s sweat and a little of mold. Naked, she turned on the spigot and stood under it. I had figured out that, to Aggie, being naked in ceremony was not the same thing as being naked in public. Tsalagi had no shame of the human body in ritual.

  I stripped and stood beneath the other spigot. And as the water rushed over me, I at last discarded the guilt and the grief. I was a lot easier than I had expected. More a thing of letting go, releasing it, rather than cutting something foul out of my soul. I would grieve no more for Evangelina. No more for the death of my first human. No more for the loss of Rick. I was Tsalagi. I was washed in the blood of a redeemer and in the blood of my enemies. And I no longer needed to take back what had been stolen. I dipped my head beneath the rush of water and felt it sluice me clean.

  When we both were sweat free, Aggie handed me a towel and I dried off with it, then took another of the linen drapes and shook it out before wrapping it around me. This one was free of spiders, thank goodness.

  Aggie looked at me, curiosity on her face. “Where are your clothes?”

  “Last time I saw them, on Royal Street.” I met her eyes. “I was attacked by something. It was a coil of energy, like a snake, pulsing with power. It landed on me from overhead, though if it came at me out of the sky or had been waiting on a rooftop, I don’t know. It wrapped around me like a big snake, like an anaconda, and constricted around me. I’ve seen something like it before, but I still don’t know what it is.”

  Aggie’s eyebrows nearly met her hairline. “You didn’t think it important to tell me this before I took you to sweat?”

  “Do you recognize the thing I’m talking about?”

  “Maybe. How did you get away?”

  “I changed into my Beast, which should have saved me, but the snake followed me into the place of the change and kept squeezing. George Dumas was there, and he was pulled into the change. I ran away. Or rather my Beast ran away. I don’t remember it.”

  Aggie blew out a breath, pursing her lips like a bird’s short, thick beak, wrinkles around her mouth making her look older. “Jane Yellowrock went from telling me nothing to telling me more than I can understand.” She tied the fresh linen around herself with a jerk on the ties, gathered up her clothes, and canted her head, again like a bird, but not the weird bird-neck-twisting thing vamps do. She said, “I can find out what the elders know of such a creature. But it sounds as if you left a battle. You should deal with that first, Jane Yellowrock.”

  I let a smile pull up my mouth and it felt weird, the way it did when I hadn’t smiled in a while. “Thanks, Aggie. I will. Um. May I use your phone?”

  Aggie chortled and jerked her head at the house. “I smell coffee and bacon. Mama’s up and cooking. You come in. Call your people. Eat. By the time they get here, you will be full and ready to fight any battle you must. And Lisi might have a gift for you, something in that regard.”

  Lisi was her mother, and a shaman like Aggie, maybe more powerful and knowledgeable than Aggie herself. But—for reasons I had never been able to articulate—Uni lisi was much more scary. “Oh. Goodie,” I said, meaning Oh, crap, but one did not refuse the gifts of an elder.

  CHAPTER 18

  We Never Found the Body

  “What the—” I jumped back from the table, standing, knocking over my chair, sending it crashing to the floor, and nearly exposing myself to Aggie and her uni lisi in my haste. There were long bloody scores down my thigh, and something hanging from my linen drape. “What is that thing?”

  Uni lisi said, “Oh, you don’t be silly, lil’ girl. That’s just a tabby kitten.” With a gnarled hand, she reached over and removed the kitten still dangling from my sweathouse dress and cuddled it with the other, much bigger cat in her lap. “You a good kitten, ain’t you, KitKit? And you a good mama,” she said to the larger cat in her lap.

  To me she said, “KitKit is a adventurous li’l thing. Gonna be tiny, but smart. Good mouser. Already litter box trained. And goes outside most times.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. I knew a pitch when I heard one. “No.”

  “Oh yes. I see in a vision. You gonna take KitKit. She gonna save your life, she is.” Lisi tittered a laugh, happy as could be.

  “No.” I backed away from the table. “I leave home often, and she’d be alone. I don’t have a car. I can’t take her places, like the vet. And I don’t have mice. I do not want a cat.”

  The old woman squinted her eyes and met mine full-on. She was determined in the way only the old ones can be, and it was like being pinned on an insect board, steel through my wings and legs. I felt my shoulders draw in in defense. “Hmmpf. You taking this KitKit. You don’t fight it. She yours.”

  A knock came at the front door, and I raced away to answer it. Eli stood in dawn’s dark, blinking against the porch light, and I jerked the bag from him, hoping it was my clothes. “Wait out here,” I demanded, and slammed the door in his face. Buying time, I hoped. I was doing a lot of hopeful things, but I had a feeling things were not going my way.

  I raced to the tiny powder room and slammed that door too. It wasn’t the first time that Eli had come to my rescue with clothes and a ride, but it was the first time he’d been to the One Feathers’, and I’d just as soon keep them all separate. But I could feel disaster lurking.

  I shoved my legs into my panties and jeans and my old, worn black boots, not bothering with the socks in my haste. Yanked on bra and shirt and raced out. And was too freaking late. Eli was sitting at the kitchen table, the Kid to his left, chatting with the two women. And the dang kitten sat on Eli’s lap.

  “We do not h
ave time in our lives for a pet,” I said.

  “He’s cute,” the Kid said.

  “And one does not turn down the gift of an elder of the people,” Eli said, obviously quoting information he had just been given, and not bothering to hide his evil twisted grin. He stood, cradling the kitten in his arm. “Thank you for the gift, Mizez One Feathers. We’ll take good care of her.”

  I rolled my eyes; it was childish, but I couldn’t help it. Yet I still remembered my manners, the ones pounded into me at the Christian children’s home where I grew up. I forced out the proper words. “Thank you for the sweat and the dreams, Egini Agayvlge i. And thank you for the hospitality of your home and food, Uni lisi. You have been most gracious hostesses. And”—I plastered a smile onto my face and lied through my teeth—“thank you for the kitten.” If it sounded as if I was cussing instead of offering thanks, who could blame me?

  “You welcome,” Uni lisi said, standing, patting my face. “You a good girl.”

  • • •

  “You’ll need to buy a litter box and cat food,” I said as we crossed the Mississippi River on the way home. Rain splashed at the windshield, and Eli turned on the wipers and the heat. I slouched against the front passenger door and shoved the kitten off my thigh and into the backseat. “And don’t look to me to feed it or clean the box. I’m not gonna.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” the Kid said. “And hey, call Jodi.” He handed me my official cell, which seemed to have survived the accident. I checked my messages and saw that Jodi had called four times. I hit the button and the fancy cell dialed her private line at NOPD. I knew that Leo and any of his people would now know I was back in service, as he kept tabs on me through the electronics he paid for, but there was nothing I could do about that. Leo was like a big black spider spinning his web into everything, even my soul home.

  “Detective Richoux.”

  “Yellowrock here.”

  “So you aren’t dead.” She didn’t sound happy about me being alive.