Death's Rival (3 page)

He grinned. “This tin can is a Bombardier Learjet 85, valued at over fifteen million
dollars.”

I gulped and tried not to let my shock show. By the way Tory laughed, I knew I hadn’t
been successful. Tory was mid-thirties, not bad looking, standing about five-ten,
with a lithe and wiry build, big thighs, like a cyclist, and it was clear that he
found me amusing. It had to be the flight nerves.

“If you need anything just press your call button.” He disappeared behind the closed
door and I looked around. I was pretty sure most Learjets were not laid out like this
one. The cabin was decorated in muted shades of white and taupe. It held four, fully
adjustable, heated leather seats, with a galley and full bath between the seating
area and the casket in back. Well, not really a casket, and I had been careful not
to call it that out loud; vamps didn’t care much for the fictional assumptions that
they sleep in caskets filled with dirt from their homeland burial grounds. But the
back portion of the cabin was a cramped bedroom with no windows and stacked bunks.
It slept four—six in a pinch—strapped in to the single bunks, in perfect security,
allowing vamps to fly by daylight, safe from sunlight, the doors and hatches sealed
on the inside. But still. Fifteen million dollars. “Crap,” I whispered.

I went back to my reading, trying to ignore the bumpy ride. Fifteen minutes later,
at Tory’s polite request, which I interpreted as orders, I yanked the seat belt again,
cutting off the circulation in my legs, and grabbed the armrests as tightly as I could.
The small jet dropped—this time on purpose, as the pilot descended for the landing
at the private airport outside Sedona.

As a skinwalker—a supernatural being who can change into animal shapes, provided I
have enough genetic material to work with—I’ve actually flown, and I far prefer wings
and feathers to engines and metal. I knew what it felt like and what it took to land,
in terms of wing feathering and variation, flight-feather positional changes, reaching
out with front clawed feet, back-winging, tail feathers dropping, and I was relatively
certain that the tin can—no matter if it was worth a rather large fortune—did not
have the ability to do any of that. Or if it did, a human—a being never designed to
fly—was in charge, which was doubly frightening. I’d rather be feathered and in charge.

Deep in the darks of my mind, Beast huffed. Beast didn’t like it when I took the form
of an animal other than hers—the
Puma concolor
—the mountain lion. She especially didn’t like it when I changed mass into something
smaller, because she didn’t get to hang around for the ride, though I was pretty sure
she had made strides in that regard. After a century and a half—give or take—Beast
was evolving, something that might have been helped along by access to an angel named
Hayyel not long ago. Long story.

Moments later we touched down. Hard. My teeth clacked together. Relief washed over
me like a wave. I took a deep breath, released the armrests, and pushed at the leather
upholstery that was now twisted and dimpled by my fingers. They didn’t move back into
proper position.
Permanent damage to Leo’s toy. Crap
.

As we taxied to wherever the Learjet was going to hang out while I did Leo’s bidding,
I pulled the laptop to me again and sent Reach a text. “Still waiting on Seattle financial
info.” It was a nudge that he didn’t need, but needling Reach to speedier work wasn’t
something I got to do often, and was not about to pass up now.

Reach sent back a series of dollar signs by way of an answer. “$$$$$$.”

“Funny guy,” I muttered. “Charge Leo all you want.”

I texted back “What about the CS canisters?” The CS canisters were a potential new
weapon in the war on rogue-vamps, pressurized colloidal silver water. Vamps didn’t
breathe often, but in combat they did sometimes take a breath. If the air had a mist
of colloidal silver vapor, the vamps would inhale the poison. It wouldn’t kill them,
but it would slow them down. Maybe. And the poison might kill them later. It would
certainly hurt them, even maybe burn their skin. I could hope.

Reach immediately sent back “Done. Untested. Delivered to your place soonest.”

An e-mail beeped into my in-box, and I frowned, suddenly feeling helpless and useless.
It was from Adelaide, the blood-servant daughter of Dacy Mooney. I opened it and read
the short message. It was the same as the last three I’d gotten from her. “Any word?
Any cure?” I typed back “Not yet. Will know more by morning.” Of course, her mother
and the other vamps in Asheville could die anytime, bleeding out from the new vamp
disease. Just another reminder that time was of the essence.

I remembered to unplug my cell from the jet’s battery chargers. That reactivated the
cell’s GPS tracking device and gave Leo the ability to track me, my calls, my e-mails,
and texts all in real time. For all I knew, it gave him the power to listen in on
non-phone-call conversations. But the guy was paying me
very
well, so I wasn’t complaining. Much. And I had two throwaway cells in my luggage
for my private calls.

I tossed my go-bag on the seat as the small jet taxied and slowed. I wasn’t going
to be in Sedona long enough to get to shift, which ticked Beast off. She knew most
everything I did and that meant she knew that mountain lions had been sighted near
here. Two large males, probably litter mates, as they had learned the unlikely ability
of pack hunting. Instead of going solitary, they were taking down prey together. Like
African lions.

Good hunters. Need strong mate,
she sulked. Which she had been doing a lot lately.

They’re too dangerous. They’re being hunted. They’ll be dead soon,
I thought at her.

Beast growled in anger, but there wasn’t anything I could do about two wild big-cats
who had learned a new trick. Not a dang thing. Snarling, she retreated into the depths
of my mind, silent, distant, as she had been for weeks, since that accidental run-in
with the angel Hayyel.

When the plane finally stopped and the engine whine decreased, Tory appeared in the
cabin and opened the door to the outside. The smells of the world blew in on a hot
gust. I stopped. Lips parting, eyes closing. On top of everything was the reek of
petroleum products, heated plastic and metal, rubber, exhaust, and asphalt, but underneath
that was a blend of subtle scents all fused together, unknown trees, flowers, hot
sand, minerals I didn’t recognize, herbs still carrying the heat of the day.

Beast rose fast and took over, holding me down, her claws in my mind, painful. I held
on to the seat arms again, breathing in through mouth and nose, smelling, tasting,
parsing the scents. It was . . . amazing was too trite a word. Too overused. I had
no word for the aromatic mixture. It was yellow like sunlight, and red like iron-rich
earth. It sang of scarlet and sun and iron, with rare blues and greens, and the land
stretched out farfarfar. Magic tingled on the air, the magic of the earth itself,
still alive here in this place. Beast wanted to
Hunt! Now!

With a hard shove, I pushed Beast back down and unbuckled the belt. Stood. Pulled
on my boots—Lucchese western dress boots, dark green snakeskin with a four-inch toe
and a three-inch heel—seriously cool boots, the color matching the green vest I wore
over the black silk button-front shirt that was unbuttoned to show off a bit of chest.

I unlocked the weapons cabinet where my weapons—both edged and handguns—had been secured
for the trip and did a quick but careful check of each. They had thumped around a
bit in flight, but nothing had been damaged. I strapped on the shoulder harness for
the Heckler & Koch nine-mil under my left arm, checked the .32 six-shooter in one
boot holster, and slid a two-shot derringer under my braids. All the guns were loaded
for vamp, with silver—which worked well on blood-servants too. I’d checked the weapons
exhaustively in New Orleans, and I’d check them again in the car. It wasn’t obsessive-compulsive
disorder. Really. It was survival instinct, honed over the years.

I adjusted a new vamp-killer in the sheath of my other boot, carefully and deliberately
not recalling the way I lost the old one. That was one of the memories I tried not
to think about. The blade was half knife, half small sword, with a deep blood groove
along its eighteen-inch length and heavy silver plating except for the sharp, steel
cutting edge. Strapped to my waist, under the vest, went two more silvered blades
and three backup silver stakes in sheaths and loops. I was going armed to the teeth,
into the clan home of a vamp who had once been loyal to Leo and now was under the
control of another. A sick vamp. Vampires were unpredictable at best. As Leo’s self-proclaimed
Enforcer
—which was going to cause me trouble, I just knew it—I was expected to be armed. Everywhere,
everywhen.

Normally, half a dozen silver crosses were around my neck, my waist, and tucked into
my clothes, but at the moment, there was no reason to cause pain to my hostess on
my unexpected and unannounced visit. I carried only one, sterling, in a lead-foil-lined
vest pocket. I twisted my tightly braided black hair into a fighting queue around
the derringer, and slid four silver-tipped, ash-wood stakes into the bun as hair sticks.
I hooked the silver-over-titanium collar around my neck. Protection against vamp-fangs,
vamp-hunger, and vamp-anger. Into a pants pocket I tucked a mountain lion fang. I
had begun to carry the fetish I used for emergency shifting more often, as my job
working for vamps, rather than just staking them, seemed to result in more life-threatening
violence, not less.

Lastly, I pulled on my summer-weight wool jacket and clumsily adjusted the fit. It
was a gesture I’d been taught to do by the woman who had designed the clothing. It
felt silly, but the small tug made my weapons hang right. Though it was November,
it was too warm for my silver-studded, armored leather, and I felt naked without it;
nothing protected against vamp claws and fangs like silver and leather. But, despite
the weapons, this visit was not a challenge, a hunt, or an act of war; it was a fact-finding
mission to discover who the enemy was. With the letter of introduction in my pocket,
I was supposed to be safe even without the armor. Not that “supposed to be” ever meant
anything in my line of work.

And while working for vamps is never smart, Leo’s money was too much of a lure to
do anything else just now. I did the little jacket tug again and felt everything fall
into place, which was what should happen when a jacket cost nearly five hundred bucks.
Way too much for a jacket, but it wasn’t my money, it was Leo’s. I was expected to
look good. It was part of my job description. I smeared on bright red lipstick and
dropped it into the same pocket as the official cell phone.

Satisfied, I looked up and met Tory’s gaze. He was staring at me, a singularly acute
and piercing look. Warmth rose up my neck. I had, effectively, just gotten dressed
in front of him. How stupid was that? “Your car is out front of the airport,” he said.
“The driver will have a sign in the window that says ‘JY.’”

First a Learjet, now a chauffeur. This felt downright weird. My life was not . . .
normal. Not anymore. “I’ll be back before dawn,” I said, and was surprised when my
voice sounded professionally polite and not schoolgirl-silly.

I slung the tote with the blood-collection vials over a shoulder and passed Tory on
the way out, looking down on his scalp and curly, deep-chestnut-colored hair. He was
average height, but in the boots, I stood six-three, bringing my boobs about even
with his face.
Right
. Smothering a sigh, I took in the small airport, or what I could make out from the
top of the ramp. The sun had been setting when we took off from New Orleans, and it
was only a bit later now than then, with the time changes.

I clattered down the steel steps and into the dusk. My boots made so much noise I
missed the sound of cloth moving on cloth, but the scent caught me as I stepped onto
the tarmac.

Blood-human-vampire,
Beast thought.
Guns. Upwind.

To my left.

I drew on Beast-speed and pulled the vamp-killer. Stepped right. Caught a glimpse
of a shadow in my path. I smelled the gun oil and the fear-stink. I cut out right,
hard. Impact jarred up my arm. A grunt. Reversed the knife and moved fastfastfast
forward. Whirled. Into the light. Blinding my attackers. Two. Only two. Blood smell
meant I’d hurt the one I’d cut at. On his blood I smelled vamp and something chemical.
But there was no time to examine the scent. They came at me together. Moving faster
than human. Nearly vamp fast.
Crap
.

I hit out, feinting, and leaped up, torquing my hips, rotating my body in midair,
midkick, at the uninjured one. My heel flew around, speeding up on the pivot point.
Time slowed into the consistency of cold maple syrup, each moment containing a snapshot
clarity. The bright light and black shadows danced beside and below me. My target
moved in the split second before the kick landed. My boot hit his shoulder.
Crap.
I’d been aiming at his chin.

I landed on my other foot, whirled, ducked, and struck out behind me with the knife.
My blade hit metal, the sound the dull clang of a gun, followed by an “
oof”
of pain. Both attackers were injured now. This one cursed. I managed to drop the
stupid blood-collection bag and pummeled the closest guy with a series of left-handed
punches and right-handed cuts. Blocked his strikes. Hit him again, this time knocking
the gun away. It spun in the air. Into the dark. I bounced back, fighting for balance
on the three-inch heels. I came away with his blood on my fist. A shot exploded in
front of my face, the muzzle flash blinding me. The ricochet echoed in the concussion.

I blinked hard, trying to restore vision. The first guy I had cut came at me out of
the retinal glare. Blinking, I dodged, cut, bent, and whirled away, biding my time
until my vision came back, moving fast to make a harder target of myself.