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Have stakes, will travel

In one of Bitsa&039;s tiny rearview ht followed by a pinpoint of red A laser-targeting sightCrapThe killing spot between ot louder, raised ht he&039;d be safe when he cahborhood was full of blood-sucking vao back to war just to keep his fa for Derek He knows me as Injun Princess" I didn&039;t necessarily love the nickname, but it seemed to amuse Derek

My voice fell away If Derek didn&039;t find ured I&039;d be in a lot of trouble For the second tied by Minutes passed, feeling like hours I started to sweat in the hu its way downintothere eapons draaiting my fate

Finally I heard a door open A voice called out, "Last time you hunted vamp in a dress and party shoes Looks like you learned so, princess Yo&039; mama mus&039; be proud"

My heart jumped into my throat and did a little tap dance before I sed it down and found ain "If I&039;d ever had a ht you was a Injun princess," he said, walking toward runts learn early

"Princess of my very own nook in a children&039;s hohteen Now I&039;m still princess of e of this one?"

He chuckled "Thisdo, clean, and pretty little patch of turf? Noe To hunt for the sire of the rogues we killed"

He laughed again, this one lower, knowing, and just a bit brutal "Thanks for the money you sent our way, for the dead-vamp heads It came in handy to buy more ammo To kill the ones who came after"

"There&039;ve been hter and held it away froarette - half tobacco, half weed by the sh the paper and herbs His face was lit in the flame, his black skin moist with perspiration, black shirt and dark clothes nearly invisible The steel butt of a handgun rested in the waistband of his pants I waited as he evaluated ot the heads in a cooler, kept that ith dry ice, since Ada ca fro low on supplies and a his cell And we ain&039;t getting paid no bounty"

"Ah," I said He was otiation

She believed in fighting first and talking after - over the blood and guts of her ene the death of his son"

Derek snorted at the tered, "As much as the dead can die But he&039;s not hiht about the face and forht about the dissension in his ranks "Not yet But so&039;s funky One of his scions used the word or the name &039;Dolore&039; You know it? Or her?" Derek shook his head no I said, "Yeah Me neither

"I can send word of your kills to the vamp council Get pero with you to tell them they owe you Sort of an e pale streamer "Now, that would take sorinned and let Beast shine in my eyes for a , but he nodded

"Okay I&039;-heads except Leo, and I&039;m not wild

&039;bout talkin&039; to hiet a deal, you keep twenty percent for the negotiation And you leave our na - the marine wanted to remain anonymous "How &039;bout I turn in the heads for you on , but you guarantee h here while I hunt? And you back me up if I need help while I hunt for ht about it a ot pointed to the ground"

"You got six heads at twenty K a pop," I said "Get your own"

Derek laughed "Yeah, you got balls May be crazy as hell, but you got balls Okay

Deal You get the best you can fro-heads, and e and act as backup for your hunt Course, you cheat us and my boys will carve you up like a jack-o&039;-lantern" His teeth shohite in an ugly smile "I&039;m accessible by cell My card"

His card?I sed down a half-hysterical twitter as he pulled a card two-fingered from his chest pocket I accepted it and tucked it intoto see the number in the dark I handed hihter and chuckled at the line &039;Have Stakes, Will Travel,&039; huh?" The lighter went out "You are one crazy chick"

I just s of tension in the air

"If the council puts a bounty on Leo," he added, "I want in on the gig Got ht Leo was your friend"

"Is But if the ht down Told o Deal, Injun Princess?"

"Deal, Derek Lee No about telling your boy to lower the rifle he has pointed at hts and lasered up on hed "Juwan," he called "Twizzlers"

I hoped "Twizzlers" was a code word for "A-OK," and relaxed slightly when Beast&039;s intuition said the sharpshooter&039;s interest had moved away froer in the sights of a gun, but it was so instincts

"Nice doing business, Princess"

"Ditto, Derek" I kick-started Bitsa, sat, and walked her in a circle before giving her gas

Overat the place we killed the young rouges I won&039;t get shot there, will I?"

Derek shook his head and gave me an uplifted thuet shot and that the place was safe to reconnoiter I hoped I was reading hi on my spine, I madein Beast foro back to the house and shift It wasn&039;t so I did easily away from home base, not even when that home was only on loan to me for the duration of my contract But in human form I still had a few better-than-huive or take, spent in beast form - and could chase scents fairly well fro point helped

Iunit where I had taken down a feue vamp only a few days past The place had acquired inhabitants; whether they were bona fide, deed-holding owners, renters, or squatters, I didn&039;t know or care I just hoped Derek was right about ine thru, I eased my bike down the narrow street and around to the side of the unit, cut the motor, and stalked around back The smell of blood was faint, ashed by Ada, but under the scents of fertilizer, grass seed, and the , I could still pick up the faint tang of vamp blood I scouted around until I was satisfied I had the scent in my memory, then tracked to the place where Derek and his pals had taken down the feed kid, turned, and left to run wild -

the rogue who had attacked a friend of er here, as soh in a spot protected froainst the wall, under the eaves, I breathed in the sh both nose and ht the faint under-tang of another vaue&039;s sire I hadn&039;t been looking for it last ti to stay alive And the scent was familiar in an I-may-have-sniffed-it-before kinda way, or a sniffed-its-kid-sister kinda way

After several long, deep breaths, ce the disparate scents of chemicals and pheromones in my scent-mean to backtrack The scent was pretty ashed away by the rain and I figured I&039;d have a hard tiue had coone this way several times, and his scent was on trees and up under porches, places where the rain had , but Itoward Lake Pontchartrain

It took ue&039;s path, off Filmore Avenue in a wooded area near a bayou, in a park in the middle of New Orleans As I rode around it, I realized that the park wasn&039;t that far froe was so large that Beast felt at home I hadn&039;t known it was here, and from the smell of trees, water, and a e The stor in and torn down signs, but I finally found one that identified it, uniinatively, as New Orleans City Park

I parked Bitsa and went searching, following round, into an area er, older, li the paths like sentinels, protective and watchful, though that was sheer fancy onthe old scent, I skirted fallen limbs and windblown brush on the paths The few sounds of a city crawling back to life after the storh the trees There was only the plop of heavy rain-drops, the hisper of the wind in the lis, and wet earth under round and the air, the way an old-growth forest feels, the loamy soil rich and fecund with life But beneath it all was a trace of soh the night

Until I carave site The stink of vamp, dead meat, and old blood had been ashed by Ada but was still potent enough for rave site was in a natural open area, a ten-foot circular space surrounded by old trees, rank with arecent tang of a lightning strike and charred wood, so ical wards that I was undecided on what I was sht sky, blackened and burned, its top half blasted away The trail of lightning ran across the ground where it had cooked the earth

I stood at the edge of the site, boots to the ankle inBeast have full rein ofin the world My night vision expanded My hearing took on the better-than-huh , feeling, hearing, s the place To Beast it was sensory overload, overlapping into onemoved but the breeze The dark was absolute The hipped up for a h of sound and the patter of rain splattering down Thunder rumbled in the distance Beneath the scent of drenched earth, oak, maple, swa flesh The herbal scent of vamps A hint of blood, old and thinned and washed away by the rains of Ada And a trace of ic In a varaveyard

Okay, that eird Va

I stepped closer and so, I lifted a broken white shell from the muddy soil Carefully, I brushed Ada-blown leaves and detritus away, exposing more shells around the periphery of the open area Now that I knew they were here, I was able to , perfectly circular, made of the small white shells In the center of the circle wason ram

Beast&039;s reactionI did not like this Whatever it was, it was giving me the willies

The antipathy between va, like a cold war linking and dividing the races, a war that had lasted for hundreds of years, according to Molly, its origins lost in time Yet, here in this dank and isolated place, encircled on all sides by city and bayou, the air tingled with round was saturated with it, and the blood that soaked the soil was charged with it Minute blue sparkles ofa note of electric power The witch power had been coiled, snarled, twisted into a heart of foulness Dark ic I paused and breathed deeply, hoping to find what kind of blood had been spilled - goat, chickenor human? But the blood was too old and the site too exposed to hurricane rain for me to tell specifics

I stood and dustedinto the trees that surrounded this place I saw a cross, nailed to a tree, about six feet off the ground Another cross was several feet to the side There were five crosses in all, nailed to trees at the points of the pentagraht have been silver Weird The points of the pentagraround lined up with the crosses on the trees None of this rave, not for witch involve, pushed downmoved

A tiny patch of earth in the le of soil The bit of dirt dropped, stilled awhite poked out The sht, ers

The hair rose on the back of athered herself tight My body tightened, tension thruh me I pulled my favorite vamp-killer and felt better with the elk-horn hilt of the weapon inas so shuffled the surface leaves and scattered the shells As soralea of a newborn vasure it was silver tipped But Beast held , curious

"Curiosity killed the cat," I rip on the weapons

Beast hacked with dire a was skeletal, white-skinned and filthy, arround, hands and ar hair, tangled and , and it wasDead in 3-D, but stinkier The rogue was female She wore a party dress, a floral print, once pale with big flowers in bright colors, now foul with death fluids, blood, and the round, shook her legs and feet free, and took a breath Whipped her head to lowed, bloodshot Her neck was ravaged with knotted scar tissue She hissed, snakelike, hungryStarvingAnd co for me I started toward her, to finish her off

No, Beast whisperedNot here Sire will scent her death Will know you, be able to track you Run Like wounded birdI had a quick ile, drawing predators away Spinning, I ran through the trees, deeper into Couturie Forest, watching over runted, sniffed the air like a feral dog, and pulled herself to her knees I concentrated on getting away froh to please Beast, who explored the world throughue start to follow, her balance off, her footsteps uneven

She whi like a kitten The kit sounds should have brought out the protective instincts in Beast Instead, she hacked with displeasure and dug her claws into my psyche I jumped a downed tree and a rill of water, leftover froe

Beast studied the world as I est vamp I had hunted was a year undead Even then, their entire pasts -

one It took years for a vah to find self-control and not kill any human it found It took up to a decade to find its own er All that was left to a newly risen vamp was the need to eat, drink, and kill for sustenance The ot where the ue vamps equaled zombies Al that had made her hu hoalk, how to row following her first blood meal, after she tracked and drained a victim to death Or would have followed it, had I not found her first, and prevented that

Then again, this wasthe sht be just that The vaht not need blood to be able to draw on va streith store downed tree, its roots ten feet in the air, its li to the sky on one side, and crushed by the wind and ground on the other I leaped up to the horizontal trunk and walked along it to the first branch Perched on the lirip and waited In ue vaht breezes, her footsteps faltering and noisy in the brush I didn&039;t think she had her vaht yet

Maybe vamp vision was part of the benefits of that first er