The Jane Yellowrock World Companion
Page 21

And If the Fangheads Kill Them? Jane goes to the café owned by Molly and her sisters, and find Amelia and Regan, the two humans in the bunch, working. Jane warns the two women to watch out for the werewolves who may be attempting to turn witches, and they respond by pulling out a shotgun and two handguns, all loaded with silver. Jane opts to not tell Regan and Amelia about the situation with the rest of the sisters for now. When leaving, Jane gets a call from Rick, asking her to join him at a local restaurant. When she arrives, Jane scents werewolves but can tell they left a while ago. Local law enforcement, whose chief of police is not particularly fond of Jane, joins her and Rick at their table, and Rick tells them they have permission to watch the security footage. Jane recognizes Fire Truck, one of the werewolves she tangled with in New Orleans, and the second one is the other she left for the cops. The chief worries about Rick’s status after having been tortured by the werewolves, but Jane assures him that the Mercy Blade took care of the werewolf taint. Jane tells the police chief to call her if his officers spot the werewolves, and she will call the vamps to come and take care of them. Jane goes back to the hotel and finds a spot on the map that hasn’t been searched yet. Grabbing her go-bag, Jane heads to an area down the mountain from Molly’s to shift. Beast surprises Jane by opening the door of the SUV with her paws, to put away Jane’s blanket and necklace and to get to the meat Jane forgot to leave outside. Beast finds the scent of the wolves, and the site of a recent deer kill. The Beast scents Molly and Angelina.
Molly Can Kill Cow? Beast checks the perimeter of Molly’s house, ensuring that all are safe and snug inside. Satisfied, she once again follows the werewolf scent, going by Molly’s sisters’ houses, all protected by wards, smells the grindy, and Evangelina. Ending up at a big house, which Jane guesses may be the Everhart family home, Beast/Jane sees Evangelina come outside, naked, with a bowl, full of blood that smells odd, and the blood diamond. Jane guesses that the blood is spelled. Beast sneaks into the house while Evangelina is engaged in her ritual, and finds a room upstairs with a dead body in a rug, the pictures from the vamp-witches that Jane had given Evangelina to destroy, a summoning circle with a creature Jane fears is a demon, and a room with two werewolves in cages—the same two who have been on the rampage. The werewolves have cuts that haven’t healed, and Beast also smells Lincoln Shaddock. Beast sneaks away while Evangelina is now sleeping, and Jane says she needs to research demons.
Want to Play? Back at the hotel Jane calls Evan with her new information, and he gruffly tells Jane to stay out of it. Jane then does some research on demons, trying to figure out how everything ties together and what Evangelina may be trying to accomplish. While asleep, Jane has a very nice dream about Rick joining her in her bed. When she wakes up, she discovers she isn’t dreaming. Rick wants to “play,” though he can’t have intercourse because he would pass on the were-taint. After a round of fun, Jane notices the Rick’s cat tattoos are imbued with magic, and he explains how the witch Loriann was forced to use the magic (story told in “Cat Tats”) by an unbalanced vampire. Jane says that may be why he has been unable to shift, and Rick replies that he agrees, and he is worried that if he does, he will be bound into cat form. Later, Kemnebi calls and asks if Jane would like him to go along to the grindy’s lair, which Jane believes she has located. While getting ready for the hunt, Jane sees she has received three messages from Angelina but does not check them, as Evan told her to stay out of the situation. Rick arrives with Kem-cat, and he and Beast (within Jane) do not care for each other but manage to not get into another scuffle. When they arrive at the spot they are looking for, they smell rotten dead meat and old blood.
Get Your Own Damn Shoes: Two miles later the trio find themselves at a cave, inside which they discover the grindy and several babies, and the protective mother gets upset enough that they all back off. Outside, Kem-cat takes off to hunt, and Jane and Rick wait for him to return. When the big cat comes back, he is dragging a bear carcass with him, which he takes into the cave. Jane is surprised at Kem-cat offering the grindy assistance, given that he is so angry with it, but Rick replies that he believes there is some sort of metaphysical connection between the two species. When Kemnebi returns in human form, he says he had no idea the grindy was even female, let alone pregnant. When he tries to order Rick around, Jane tells Kemnebi that Rick is not his slave.
Back at the hotel, Lincoln is once again a no-show. Jane gets a call from Bruiser, who tells her she needs to go and help out at Lincoln’s home, and explains to her how her rash behavior of claiming she is Leo’s Enforcer could be a problem. Adelaide then calls, telling Jane that someone let out the chained scions, who attacked Sarah, a young human woman. Jane opens her door to leave, and Grégoire is there, with Brandon and Brian, and he has a gift from Leo—a replacement for Jane’s silver mesh collar that was destroyed by the werewolves in New Orleans—silver, which Grégoire, like Leo, is able to touch. After an uncomfortable interchange, during which Grégoire demonstrates his power, he also reminds Jane that she has not yet brought him the witch who spelled Lincoln. Jane wonders to herself why Grégoire is not MOC in New Orleans, and how she is going to get out of presenting Evangelina to him.
Things Had Just FUBARed: Jane arrives at Lincoln’s to find Sheriff Grizzard and another officer, Sheriff Scoggins of Madison County, both there to help. Jane gives them both blades to use, and they all go inside. Jane explains that she will not kill any of the young vamps if Sarah is able to be turned and does not die. She wants the vamps immobilized with stakes in their stomachs, also using silver mesh nets to capture them. A flash grenade gets thrown in first to stun them, and then the melee begins. Jane gets badly injured in one leg but plans to shift soon and heal. Adelaide figures out that once scion got away—Thomas, who is unfortunately a Naturaleza, one who believes that vampires have the right to hunt and kill humans. Leo calls almost immediately, which Jane assumes means he has cameras there, and after taunting her over the Enforcer situation, he tells her that she has his permission to execute Thomas, though he is not technically a rogue, an act permitted under the Vampira Carta.
You Are Dead Meat: While driving, Jane calls Reach to ask him to look up everything he can find on Thomas Stevenson, and after she hangs up she gets a call from Angelina from Molly’s phone. The little girl says her parents are sleeping and can’t be woken up, and she and Little Evan both feel bad. Jane says she will get there as quickly as she can. Keeping Angie talking, Jane learns that Molly’s earrings, a gift from Evangelina, are the spelled items causing trouble, and Angie says she knows not to touch them, because her angel told her not to. Jane tells Angie to get Little Evan and wait in the van for her to arrive. After trying to reach Molly’s sisters by phone, she is unable to get through to anyone until she tries the two humans, Amelia and Regan. After she explains briefly what is going on, Regan and Amelia agree to meet Jane at the house. Though she has no powers of her own, Regan believes she can remove the spell, set with blood, by using some of Molly’s blood again to counteract it. While waiting for the spell removal to take effect, Jane holds Angie and tells her that never again will she put off listening to her messages or answering her calls. When they are awake, Evan asks Jane to tell Molly and the other two sisters everything, and Evan confirms that Evangelina is indeed involved with demons.
Bloody, Damaged Jeans and Nefarious Intentions: Molly and Evan ask Jane to take pictures of the demon and the ward, cautioning her to stay well away from it while doing so. Jane agrees to do as they ask, but she shifts first to heal her leg wound. While eating a big post-shift breakfast, Jane gets a call from Bruiser, learning that Evangelina had been banished from the witch/vamp parley talks in New Orleans when Leo learned that she had been working with the werewolves (information gathered from a captive werewolf that no one had bothered to tell Jane about, a plan put in action with the help of Derek).
When arriving at Evangelina’s house, Jane briefly contemplates injuring Evangelina and then taking her to Grégoire, but while she is considering it, the witch comes outside, gets in her car, and leaves. When she goes up to the house, Jane feels a strong compulsion to enter. Realizing that she is feeling the effects of a spell, Jane goes back to her vehicle to get the scarf with Evangelina’s hair in it, hoping to counteract the spell. This approach works, and Jane makes her way downstairs, where she finds the demon much more clearly materialized, and looking like a bird/human hybrid. The demon has been feeding on the two werewolves (in human form) while they are still alive, now inside the ward too. Jane makes the mistake of talking to the demon, who seems to know an awful lot about her—things she does not remember herself. With Beast’s help, Jane backs away to a safe distance. Before she leaves the room, Jane hears Lincoln’s voice, asking her to tell Leo he is sorry, that when the moon is full Evangelina plans to sacrifice him, bind the demon, and come after Leo. Lincoln does not know why, but has heard the witch say “Shiloh.” Knowing she needs help but not knowing which colleagues she can really trust, Jane heads back to the hotel.
After a call to Aggie One Feather about the demon, who says she will consult with her mother, and perusing her Bible for comfort and inspiration, Jane looks at the files Reach sent her on Evangelina. The witch’s daughter, Shiloh, ran away at age fifteen, to New Orleans, and was last seen being pulled into a car, presumably killed by the witch-vamps. Jane figures that Evangelina holds Leo responsible, and that the missing husband, Marvin, who hasn’t been heard from in years, may be the body in the carpet Beast discovered in the house. Jane sends Evan the information about Shiloh, leaving out her suspicions about Marvin for the time being.
Eat Humans When They Go to the Dark Side: Jane calls Bruiser, and learns that it was him (under a spell, Jane thinks) who suggested that Lincoln’s request for MOC status should be entertained, all part of Evangelina’s plan to kill Leo. Molly calls and asks Jane to meet her and her witch sisters at Evangelina’s house, as she will be out all afternoon teaching a cooking class. The sisters get the spell around the house down and then go downstairs with Jane. The demon has killed the smaller werewolf, and when the sisters try to bind it, the demon breaks the circle in an effort to get out. after making them all leave, Jane shifts into Beast, who uses some of Lincoln’s blood (he is laid out on the floor) to repair the fissure in the circle. Jane wonders how Beast knew what to do to close the circle back up when she herself did not, and why Beast wasn’t pulled into the circle that affects the two-natured. When Beast goes outside, Jane’s identity as a skinwalker gets revealed to the sisters. When they all hear a car, Molly states that Evangelina likely felt the disruption of the garden circle and is coming home early.