Faith Hunter - Black Arts

To the Hubby for the newly remodeled writing room, kitchen, floors, windows, and the generous loving spirit (while I wailed about how long it took . . .). You truly are my Renaissance Man.

I want to thank:

Mud for poisons and continuity.

The Beast Claws for being such a fantastic street team. GO, CLAWS!

Lee Williams Watts for being the Claws primo, and for offering constant encouragement, assistance, and friendship.

A certain gentleman for the name of one of the Bad Guys, Jack Shoffru, and the lizards name, LongFellow. Excellent names, by the way!

Misty Massey for bits and pieces of pirates. Errr . . . pirate info. Not pirates themselves. That would be very messy.

My new PR team, Mindy and Audrey at Lets Talk! Promotions.

Most importantlymy editors, Jessica Wade and Jesse Feldman.

The crash shook the house, sounding as though the front wall had exploded. I whirled as my front door blew in, icy wind gusting with hurricane force. My ears popped. The bed skirt blew flat beneath the bed. My Beast rammed into me, the light going sharp and the colors bleaching into greens. Beast-fast, I grabbed two nine-mils from the bed, off-safetied, and chambered rounds into both. Raced into the foyer.

The door was open, the knob stuck into the wallboard, the hinges bent. The glass of its small window was busted all over the floor. Again.

Gale-force winds rushed through the open door. No one stood there. Icy air whirled through the house with a scream. I heard windows breaking in back. My ears popped again. A table in the living room tumbled over. Daylight patterned the wood floor off the foyer and reflected off broken glass shoved by the wind into the corner. Not vamps, I thought. But Id been a target for blood-servants and scions for months. This wasnt the first such attack, but it was the first that had gotten this far. And then the frigid cold tingled up my arms, blue and golden, flecked with darker sparks of frozen force. It smelled like the air over a glacier, fresh and full of suspended, preserved power. It circled over me, tried to latch onto my skin.

My Beast rose and batted the spell away. Magic, she thought. Air magic. Angry, like storms rising on the horizon. Witches.

I advanced the few steps from my room to the front door, the frigid squall pushing against me. In my peripheral vision, I saw Eli at the top of the stairs, his hunting rifle in one hand, a blade in the other, a small subgun on a sling over his back. The former Ranger was wearing boxers, his dark skin slick with shower water.

There was no music in the attack, no wind instrument, no whistling, no singing, none of the usual methods air witches used when they attacked. And the wind seemed random, blustery, not the tornado of might from a focused attack. More like wild magic, the kind teenaged witches might toss when their power first fell on them, out of control and turbulent. I danced into the doorway and back, getting a glimpse out. Despair pelted over me, sharp and burning as sleet, as I identified him. Sorcerer Evan Trueblood, my best friend Mollys husband, was standing in the street, attacking my home.

Eli raced halfway down the stairs, his bare feet placed with rooted precision, his wet skin pebbled from the cold.

No guns, I shouted to Eli.

Are you insane? he shouted back.

Probably, but insanitys not the point. Its Evan.

Understanding dawned in the set of his shoulders and Eli raced back up the stairs. I turned my full attention to the open door. Whaddaya want, Evan? I shouted.

The wind receded marginally.

I dont want to fight you, I called out. I know Id lose. Maybe. Possibly. Okay, not likely, not with Eli and Beast on my side, but why stir a frozen pot? My big-cat huffed with agreement. Talk to me, Evan! Please!

Tell Molly to come out and Ill leave your house standing.

My eyes went wide. I hadnt seen Evans wife, Molly, in months, not since I killed her sister. Instantly I felt my hand on the knife as the blade slid into Evangelina. Hot blood gushed over me. I blinked away the unexpected tears that the cold wind stimulated and the memory evoked. I had killed her. Id had no choice.

The police in Asheville had cleared me. There had been a hearing two weeks ago, attended by me, my lawyer, Adelaide Mooney, two local vamps, the PsyLED hand of the law, Rick LaFleur, and lots of press.

Molly hadnt come to my hearing. None of her sisters had come. Id kept glancing to the back of the courtroom, hoping. But they hadnt come. I had only seen two of the Everhart witches while I was in Asheville, and that was because of vamp business, not friendship. Mollys friendship had died. And why not? I didnt deserve to have a relationship with her.

Despite, or maybe because of, the media coverage of Evangelinas dying, Id been cleared of any wrongdoing in the same way anyone would have been cleared, anyone who had stopped an armed killer from talking more lives. But the feeling that Id managed to hide from in the months since I killed Evangelina had roared up like hot flame and taken me over. I couldnt get rid of the feel of her blood, hot and sticky on my hand. Even now, I wiped the back of my hand on my jeans, feeling the cooling blood, long gone, but as real to my flesh and nerves as if it still coated my hand.

I had survived the distance from New Orleans and my accidental binding by Leo Pellissier, Master of the City of New Orleans, but only by hours. Id flown back on Leos private jet, the fastest transport available to me. And retched the entire way home, sick as a dog because of my Beasts inadvertent binding to the MOC, one that put a deadline on how long I could be apart from him, and also how far away from him I could go, even for short time periods. Getting my legal problems settled had made me deathly sick, but maybe the nausea was only partly from the binding. Maybe the rest of the sickness had been because Molly hadnt been there. Hadnt returned my fifteen million phone calls to her cell.

Send her out! Evan shouted, and a burst of wind hit the house. It creaked under the pressure. Evan wasnt attacking my house on purpose. He was losing control. He was so furious that his magic was operating on its own, ripping free.

Molly . . . I stopped as my voice cracked. I took a slow breath, bent, and set the nine-millimeter semiautomatics on the floor in the open doorway where he could see them. The rushing air nearly froze the skin on my hands. I stood and crossed my arms, putting my hands under my armpits to warm them. Mollys not here. I havent seen her, I shouted to him. Why would you think shed come to see me? If Molly ever really forgave me, she would have called. Answered my calls. Texted me. Something. I laughed shakily. She didnt. My voice dropped. Though why that would surprise me, I have no idea. I havent been able to forgive myself.

Moments later, the wind slowed to a trickle. Something in my bedroom overbalanced at the change in pressure and shattered to the floor. I glanced back to see the bed skirt dropping down and a lamp on the floor. I shivered in the cold. Over my head on the landing upstairs, I heard a faint click. Eli readying a gun. I looked up and saw the barrel of the rifle angled down from the floor. Eli was lying prone, aiming into the doorway. Put it away, Eli. When he didnt move, I stepped into the doorway, standing so hed have to shoot me first, before any attackers. He cursed softly behind me.

I stood in the doorway, the suns glare hiding Evan from me, except for a silhouette. A huge bear of a silhouette, six-six and more. Squinting, I made out his red hair and beard, fire-bright, his flannel plaid shirt and jeans. Boots laced up.