“What do we do with this?” I indicated the silver-charred pulp. “He’s still on fire.”
“Put out the fire?” Bruiser looked up at the sky, turning his face to the rain, which washed away his spreading blood. He’d taken a cut to his face, across his eyebrow and up into the widow’s peak of his hairline. He was holding his gut together with both hands, but already the flesh was knitting together. He might have some dandy scars, but he’d heal. Onorios—whatever they are—are hard to kill. Which looked to be a really good thing. He looked back at the body. “The rain doesn’t seem to be having a great effect on the fire.”
“Holy water might work.”
Bruiser chuckled, the sound exhausted and beaten.
He was staring at me, taking in my face, and a spark of something unknown lit his warm brown eyes. Something tender. An answering something turned over in me and murmured Ours . . .
Behind me I heard a growl and turned, lifting the vamp-killer, but it was only Brute. The white werewolf stood in the doorway, his hackles high, his canines glistening in the candlelight. He was wet and stank like dog.
“Too late, Brute.”
The white wolf walked slowly into the ruined house, his nose on the ground, sniffing. He stopped at the body of Joses Bar-Judas / Joseph Santana and sniffed. When he was convinced Santana wasn’t going to get up and do anything, he sat in the mud and looked up at me. His pale eyes seemed to be satisfied.
Thinking, I pulled out the diamond/sliver/iron thingamajig. I wondered if the doohickey would turn Brute back to human. Or maybe just kill him. I remembered the dream where someone—Me? Brute?—asked to be set free. Not worth the risk to prick either one of us, I guessed.
Humor stronger in his voice, Bruiser said, “What are you going to call your new toy?”
“I was going for Glob. What do you think?” I held it up.
“Simple. Catchy.” From his position in the mud, Bruiser kicked at Joseph’s left hand. It flopped before it fell motionless, blood and rain pooling in the palm. “I don’t know, Jane. It might make things worse for him.”
“Yeah?” I tracked the smoke that was coming from the body of Joses Bar-Judas and shoved the tip of the Glob inside the cold, bloody mass. All around the weapon I felt a frisson of something heated and icy as it passed from the weapon into the flesh of the Son of Darkness, but I saw absolutely nothing. Smelled nothing. And then there was a soft sizzle and the smoke died away. “Huh. It worked. How ’bout that?”
Bruiser shook his head in what looked like amused affection.
“Janie?” Eli called from the dark. “Janie, where are you?”
Had he tracked me via the cell? I touched a pocket. It had once held a cell phone, but it was gone now. Reading my mind, Bruiser said, “They used mine. I felt it vibrate during the fight.”
“I have Molly,” Eli shouted.
I tucked the Glob back into my bra, which was uncomfortable, but I didn’t have much choice, and shouted, “Over here! Bruiser’s hurt. He needs vamp blood.”
“And we need to haul a bleeding mass of meat to the Master of the City,” Bruiser added, softly, “before he heals enough to get away.”
Eli and Molly trudged through the softening rain, passed through the empty doorway, and walked inside the walls of the burned house. When they reached us, Molly’s mouth fell open. Eli’s eyes took in me, Bruiser, and the thing at my feet. “Looks like I missed all the fun. Not bad, Janie,” he said. “Not bad at all.”
“Got a plastic zip bag?” I asked, holding out the heart.
“Son of a witch on a switch,” Molly cursed.
* * *
Hours later, back at the house, Molly took a shower while I stared at myself in the mirror. I didn’t quite look like me anymore. Or Beast. Or even the half me, half Beast of my previous form. I didn’t have tusks in this form. My face had my human bone structure but was lightly pelted, with glowing gold eyes and longer-than-human canines. Very pointy canines.
I had rounded ears, perched too high on my head, ears that I could move to catch sounds better. And I had Jane hair, still wet, flowing down my back, long and lustrous black.
“I like it,” Bruiser said. I smelled truth coming off him. “But I think we’ll eat in tonight.”
“Afraid I’d scare the other diners?”
He grinned, his eyes resting lightly on me. “I couldn’t care less what anyone else thinks. But you might want to try eating in private first.”
I touched my tongue to my pointy teeth. “Eh. Maybe so. Could be messy.”
His face went serious. “Thank you for returning the body to Leo. He’s already sent word to the Europeans that he has recovered a wounded Son of Darkness and is healing him in his lair. If they were planning anything, they will stop now. At least for a time.”
“Before they show up here, I need to know how to make Leo fall in love.”
Bruiser’s eyebrow rose, just the uninjured one. The other had a new, sexy scar bisecting it. “With you?”
“No. Either Del or Katie. Or both.”
“I’ll get right on that,” he said, his tone wry. “Where’s the heart of the Son of Darkness?”
“In my fridge. Jodi will be here to pick it up in an hour or so. I also need to know what happened to Immanuel’s scions and blood-servants.”
“They were absorbed into Leo’s clan a century ago.”
“I need to talk to them.”
“That can be arranged. I think the new look will make them all talkative.”
“I don’t plan on keeping it,” I said. “Gimme a minute.” I sat on the floor and thought about my Jane-form. And changed.
When I was human again, I turned on the shower, twisting the knob to nearly scalding, stripped, set all my handy-dandy new magical thingamabobs on the sink rim, and stepped in. Bruiser wasn’t far behind me.
CHAPTER 29
I Don’t Give a Rat’s Ass Who’s Getting Pampered
Beast crouched on limb over edge of bayou, where slow stream curved like snake and doubled back on itself. Staring down at good, stinky water full of big fish. Jane called them cat-fish, but fish are not cats. Fish are food for cats. Fish are good to eat. Fish with whiskers like cat and spines to stick, like claws of cat. Jane was smart. Cat-fish was good to hunt and good to fight and good to eat. Like cat-fight, with fish-meat after.