The Jane Yellowrock World Companion
Page 16

Katie Ate Dead Meat: Peter, the coroner, says he needs to do an autopsy on Safia to definitely rule on cause of death (though Kemnebi steadfastly refuses), but was able to ascertain some facts through his exam. Safia was shot, but there is no exit wound, meaning the bullet is still inside her. Peter believes that what actually killed her was bleeding to death from her neck being torn up. One of the techs tells the group that a hidden entrance into the room has been found—a fact Leo had neglected to share. She also mentions that a shell casing was found that may have bearing on another case. In a private conversation with Jodi, Jane learns that Jodi’s unit received a tip a few weeks earlier, which resulted in them reexamining a cold case from the ’sixties. Two of the suspects in those deaths are Leo and Bruiser, news that does not please Jane. Calling her cabbie, Rinaldo, to come pick her up and take her home, Jane mulls over the complete silence from Rick, feeling both anger and frustration. Woken from a deep sleep, Jane finds Bruiser at her door. It seems that his fingerprints have been found on the shell casing in the room with Safia’s body, and he asks Jane if he can lie low at her house for a couple of days. Reluctantly agreeing, but not believing Bruiser guilty of Safia’s murder, Jane tries to sleep. When she cannot relax, she picks up Girrard’s business card and catches a scent that she knows she also smelled during the gathering. When she talks to Girrard on the phone, he is less than helpful.
I Intend to Make You Regret That Decision: When Jane arrives back at the house, Bruiser greets her, striking her as despondent. They discuss dinner, and decide to grill some steaks. Jane asks Bruiser if he knew that Leo was going to offer her up to Kemnebi, and Bruiser says he did not. At that point, Bruiser suggests that he and Jane occupy themselves in her room, which she declines. Beast, however, really likes Bruiser, and comes to the fore, allowing Bruiser to get closer than Jane feels is safe, since she does feel an undeniable attraction to him. After a short time Jane does get Beast to retreat. While the two are grilling the meat, Bruiser asks Jane about the boulders in the yard—the ones she needs for shifts that require extra mass, ones that she included in her contract. Jane gives an answer that has some of the truth, but not all. Jane then asks how old Bruiser was when he first sampled vamp blood, and learns he was seventeen. The price Bruiser has exacted for his answer is a dance, which is getting too hot and heavy when Evangelina thankfully arrives, with Tyler, Leo’s second, in tow. After an exchange in which it becomes clear that the two men do not like each other at all, and Bruiser learns that Leo still has a few tasks for him, Jane retires, only to be woken by a noise.
And He Ripped Off My Shirt: On the floor by the front door is an envelope that someone sent through the mail slot. Jane sees someone running down the street and gives chase. Ending up on Jackson Square, Jane knows she has lost the person she was chasing, but just as she scents him, Leo attacks her. Jane smells old blood on him—Katie’s—which seems to have affected him, and though he injures Jane, Leo suddenly takes off. When she gets home, Evangelina tells Jane to go wash off all of the vamp blood with hot water. Bruiser carries her up to the shower, and after he douses her really well, the two end up in a compromising position, once again interrupted by Evangelina. Once she gets downstairs and determines that the delivered envelope does not contain explosives (but does smell like Girrard), Jane takes it outside to open it. Inside Jane finds three photos: an old one of Leo and Bruiser standing over a dying, partially shifted werewolf, one of Magnolia Sweets, and the third a sheet of four shots—all of them of Rick with another woman in very intimate poses—Safia. While fighting back her pain at Rick’s betrayal, which she feels regardless if it is for work or not, Jane shows the photo taken of him and Leo to Bruiser. Since no one else was there at the time, Bruiser wonders who took the picture, and Jane responds that it has to be someone who wants her to help them figure out the rest of the puzzle they are trying to solve.
Good Nose on Ugly Dog: Determined to distance herself from both Bruiser and Evangelina, and needing to shift to heal from the wounds inflicted by Leo, Jane heads out on Bitsa to find a good location, stopping for a bucket of chicken on the way. Since she wants an extraordinary sense of smell to examine Safia’s body in the morgue, Jane takes along her fetish bone necklace and shifts into a bloodhound. Beast, never pleased when Jane shifts into any other form besides hers, nonetheless grudgingly admits that the dog does indeed have a good nose. Managing to sneak into the morgue, Jane-as-a-bloodhound finds the room where Safia’s body is kept, and opens the drawer with her paws. Jane scents a number of people and creatures on the body: Kemnebi, the female werewolf, Girrard, Katie, and Rick. After narrowly escaping detection and subsequently returning to human form, Jane goes home to look over the files from the woo-woo room at NOPD, discovering one she had never seen before discussing speculations as to the history of weres. She also finds what appears to be a page from a journal, mentioning Magnolia’s disappearance and Leo’s state afterward, but there is no indication as to whose journal the section came from, though they describe themselves as “once Christian.” When she goes online to learn more about the Cursed of Artemis, Jane reads that skinwalkers may be extinct—something that hits home to her, since she may have killed the only other one. One theory also states that the weres and skinwalkers (the weres’ forebears) may have been in conflict. This leads Jane to suspect that Leo knows more about her than she would like.
You Like the Boy Toy: Jane wakes to a call from Sloan Rosen, one of the other cops working in Rick’s section. He asks Jane if she has seen or heard from Rick, as he hasn’t checked in for over twenty-four hours, though he is supposed to twice a day. Jane realizes that the call is Sloan’s way of telling her to look for Rick, as he must be in trouble. Jane then receives a call from Leo, telling her that Kemnebi’s request that no autopsy be performed on Safia has been granted, and Leo wants Jane to find the killer. Realizing she needs help tracking down Rick, Jane calls Reach, an excellent but very expensive hacker, to locate Rick’s cell, as well as to try to determine where the photos of him were taken. Jane arrives at vamp HQ, and at breakfast gets a whiff of the waiter, sure it is Girrard, glamoured, and takes him down. She demands he take back the face she is used to, guesses that he is an elf, and wants his word he will answer questions. Girrard says he does not know who killed Safia, but that it wasn’t Leo or Bruiser. Jane, Girrard, and Wrassler watch the security feed from the night of Safia’s murder, and by slowing down the feed they see Safia come and go through a hidden place in the brick wall outside. The three then see the face of the man she was with—Rick.
When she leaves HQ, Jane finds an envelope on Bitsa’s seat, which she sticks in her bag without opening. Thinking over her relationship with Rick, Jane realizes that just as Leo owns Bruiser, the NOPD owns Rick. The envelope contains photos—of Roul standing over a dead werelion, and others with a human baby and Safia with kittens, and also a copy of Leo’s edict in 1916 banishing the werewolves from New Orleans. Suddenly Girrard appears in Jane’s room with a sword.
You Belong to Me: With Beast’s aid, Jane takes a few flying leaps, but Girrard (or Gee, as Jane thinks of him) is by that time sitting in the chair in her room, and tells her he is impressed. He asks if she likes the photos he sent, and Jane asks if they are fake, stating that his presence and that of the werewolves at the same time is too coincidental to be real coincidence. Gee explains the role of the Mercy Blade: to bring death to the rogues or scions who cannot move beyond devoveo, and their blood (that of the Blades) aids in bringing the suffering parents out of dolore. This arrangement began with the Sons of Darkness. Gee says he has gone to see Katie. When Jane asks what the reward for the Mercy Blade is, Gee responds that being around the vampires allows his kind to open a passage between worlds—a gateway to their own. Gee says Safia’s lover (he means Rick) likely saw her killed, and that Bruiser didn’t do it. Before he disappears, Gee tells Jane that she is goddess-born.
Jane calls Bruiser, asking questions, and surmises that clan members who had been with Leo since before 1915 would have knowledge of who needed to be killed so it would look as though Leo was trying to remove everyone loyal to his uncle. Jane decides that Tyler may be a good candidate for setting up Bruiser, so she goes to the clan home to search his room when he is not there. Jane hits the jackpot, finding spent shell casings and a gun hidden in a guitar case. Taking photos of the evidence, Jane e-mails them to Jodi, and then learns from Nettie, the housekeeper, that Tyler used to be head of security for Clan Rochefort, coming over from France with Leo’s son’s fiancee, Amitee. When leaving, Jane calls Sloan, who has not yet heard from Rick, but he lets her know that Jodi received her message and has a plan.
Hoping to spot Tyler out on the town, Jane heads over to the Royal MoJo Blues Company. Though she doesn’t see Tyler, she does see Katie, who appears sane. When they talk, Katie tries to hire Jane to kill Leo, for having deprived her of all of the power she gained from the blood of the vamps she was healing in, and when Jane refuses, she also suggests to Katie that she ask Leo to name her his heir.
Woad: After one more dance, Jane leaves the club, feeling clearheaded and slightly relaxed, though disappointed that she didn’t catch sight or scent of Rick or Tyler. Jane thinks about the spell that Gee put on her, and decides that he and Tyler are at the heart of whatever is going on. When she arrives back at the house, she walks in on Bruiser and Evangelina playing what appears to be a very cozy game of Parcheesi—so much so that the pink of the woman’s shirt casts a glow over the two of them. Jane tells Evangelina she needs her help in finding and removing the spell Gee put on her. Evangelina agrees, gathering her tools needed for the ritual, sending Jane into a type of trance. Taking Jane into her soul home, Evangelina tries to get Jane to tell her what she is, especially after Jane says there are always two of them together, but Jane refuses. After discovering the type of spell Gee used, a woad, at the same time as trying to disperse it, Evangelina attempts to attach her own to Jane, which results in Jane destroying both spells with fire.