The Jane Yellowrock World Companion
Page 29

Make Ceremony With Me: In her room Jane looks over the photograph she removed from Esther’s house, and the style of the frame causes her to reminisce about the past. Owing to the binding he shares with Beast, Jane senses that Leo is about to call. He takes issue with the way Jane has redone some of the house in New Orleans—he particularly does not care for the silver now occupying his lair. After a brief conversation, Jane realizes that Beast had not gone all soft and gushy at the sound of Leo’s voice, which makes her realize that perhaps her cat has learned to withstand some of the magic used against her. The fear of the binding to Leo is what has prevented Jane shifting for months, and this new discovery leads to her decision to do so now. The first thing Beast notices is that Jane’s working out over the last few months has resulted in her becoming a bigger and stronger cat, and she is very pleased. The second thing she notices is that Bruiser watched the shift, and that he is now somehow different—no longer bound to Leo as he was. This amuses Beast. Wishing to head to the river to hunt, Beast catches a ride on the top of a truck. In order to get down to the level of the river, Beast jumps down by way of some trees, for which Jane chides her. After catching and eating some water birds, Beast smells smoke and sees a Native American woman sitting at a fire. Jane says that the woman is the one in the picture she found. The woman addresses Beast as Skinwalker, and says she must meet her at a church at dawn, in human form. When the woman disappears, Jane realizes she was never really there. Beast decides that it would be better for Jane to make the climb up the hill, so she makes the shift back. Once she is dressed and at the top of the riverbank, Jane calls Eli to come pick her up and to bring food. When they arrive at the church, Jane goes inside and meets the woman from her vision and the photograph, who introduces herself as Kathyayini. The old woman says her son married an Achee woman, the family of witches that was just abducted, and she tells Jane that she sees many types of magic surrounding her. She can also see the shadow of Leo in Jane’s soul house.
Try Not to Poison Me: Kathyayini gives Jane two riddles, which she does not understand, about cold iron, cursed trees, blood, red iron, and a dark light buried under the ground. When Jane wants to leave, Kathyanini tells her that they are in a place that does not exist here, there, or in between, but she throws Jane a coin. When she leaves the church, Jane walks into fog, and when Eli finds her, he wants her to identify herself. Apparently he saw two earlier versions of Jane that required staking, at which time they disappeared. On the way back to Esmee’s, Jane looks over the coin and discovers a dragon’s head. When they get back to the house, the Kid tells Jane what he found out about her coin, that it is a Greek sea serpent. While Jane and Eli were gone, the Kid has also gathered addresses of vamps on Jane’s kill list to see which were properties owned by either Silandre or Esther. When Rick and Soul join them in the dining room for breakfast, Rick receives a call from someone named Monica, and in spite of herself, Jane becomes jealous. Leaving the house to go outside, Jane pays a visit to Francis, but she doesn’t get much out of him other than that the leader of the Naturaleza would need to be able to communicate with the others telepathically. Jane leaves to take a shower, but when she gets out, Bruiser is in the bathroom. He and Jane have a much-needed conversation, during which Bruiser says he would even give up his freedom to keep her from being hurt, and tells her that she may ask him twenty questions. The first two: what does he mean about now having freedom, and what exactly is he now—he no longer smells the same—?
You’re a Gun Whore: Bruiser tells Jane that he is an Onorio, a being that has many of the benefits of being a vampire (long life, speed, seeing in the dark) but is not actually one. Most blood-servants do not survive the process, but he did, as well as Grégoire’s B twins. During their discussion, Jane muses over the state of the new, insectoid vamps: they were first transformed into vampires, became Naturaleza, then got the vamp plague, and somehow witches and magic got involved. Eli comes to get Jane for their search, and she gathers up her weapons. When she asks Eli to help her get some of the weapons adjusted, Rick happens to walk in, and Eli points a gun at him, not wanting a repeat of their last encounter. The grindy latches on to Rick, and Jane and Eli leave.
Maggots. I Hate Maggots. Heading back to Under the Hill to check out addresses the Kid provided them with, Jane and Eli find nothing at the first two, but the third, an old warehouse, proves to be a location of more dead bodies. After they both do a perimeter search of the building and meet up again, Jane states to Eli that she doesn’t understand why so many humans are being killed, given that they are the Naturaleza’s food supply. After Eli kicks the door in and drops a sleepy-time grenade inside, he surmises that perhaps this group does not have a typical vamp hierarchy to keep them in line. Jane also worries that the new vamps may have a higher rising-on-the-third-day-as-revenants rate, which can only be avoided by beheading, so she texts Rick and Eli texts Sylvia to let them know that the bodies they took need to be dealt with by that method. Jane and Eli hear thumps on the floor, as the gas begins to work, and Jane wonders if perhaps all of the new vamps are revenants of a sort. The search of the warehouse turns up many dead humans, but they do find a few alive that they plan to return for. Upstairs Jane and Eli find three vamps. After they dispatch the first two vamps, the third attacks Jane, tearing into her arm and breaking the bone. Eli kills the attacking vamp, and Jane goes into shock.
I Know I’ll Have to Choose: When Jane regains consciousness, she finds Eli removing her boots. He has called Rick, who told him that Jane needed to shift in order to heal, and that she has to be naked to shift. Before shifting, Jane asks Eli if he took pictures of the dead vamps. Both Eli and Rick refer to Beast as Jane, which she does not appreciate. After eating the raw meat brought to her by Rick, Beast decides to have some fun and smacks Rick’s wolf partner in the nose with her paw, drawing blood. The grindy seems upset, but Beast thinks the were blood will not hurt her when it’s only in her stomach, and then wonders if it will hurt her at all, even in a cut. The angel Hayyel did something to both the wolf and to Beast—something Jane does not know, or anyone else. Since the mention of a leash does not elicit a positive response, Eli suggests that someone carry Beast down to the car, and she chooses Rick. Jane remerges in the back of an SUV with clothes that smell like Rick nearby. After getting dressed, she has a conversation with Eli about the two men who want her, and she explains that Beast actually wants both of them, not one or the other. Eli and Jane decide to go back to work after eating, and head to the morgue. On the way, Jane suggests that perhaps the insectoid, spiderlike vamps are Naturaleza revenants. When they arrive, they discover that Sylvia never received Eli’s text regarding beheading, and when they race inside to answer a distress call from one of Sylvia’s cops, they find two dead humans and a vamp who attacks Sylvia.
The Bad Men Are Gone: Jane and Eli fight off the first wave of vamps, without any damage to Sylvia, and after killing a number of vamps they manage to trap all but one in the cold room. Eli beheads the one remaining vamp, and Jane hears a sound. A little girl is hiding behind the body of a security guard. Before they leave, Eli tosses a grenade into the cold room to kill the trapped vamps, and shortly thereafter a woman from social services picks up the little girl. Beast’s reaction to the child makes it clear to Jane how much Beast wants children. Sylvia approaches Jane, taking her to task for taking crime scene photos so she could get paid. After a brief argument, during which Jane also assures Sylvia that she and Eli are friends and family only, the women part with a handshake and an understanding. Eli and Jane go to check out more of the addresses given to them by the Kid, but they don’t find anything. When they get back to Esmee’s, Bobby is waiting for Jane, telling her about a dream he had about a lion, and he thought it was her. When Bobby’s description of the dream changes to him telling Eli about how Jane protected him when they were younger, it occurs to Jane that they have never met Lotus, Hieronymus’ heir, but they should have. She also realizes that when Francis said that Hieronymus had been betrayed by those closest to him, she just assumed the vamp meant Hieronymus’ sons. Jane asks the Kid to look for more connections between the female vamps.
I Look Like a Well-Dressed Street Person: Charly wakes Jane up with the statement that it’s Sunday, and they need to go to church. Despite Jane’s initial protests, she agrees and borrows a skirt from Esmee, who tells Jane to go ahead and give some of the darkness she feels to God. The group arrives at the huge church, and Jane muses over the connection between Christianity and the creation of vampires. After communion, Jane’s thoughts wander, and she snaps back to reality when she notices Charly up front with the microphone. The girl tells the congregation her mother is missing, kidnapped by vampires, and that she has leukemia. After the service, they all return back to Esmee’s. When Jane awakens from a nap, she senses that Rick is there. During their brief conversation, Rick finds out that Jane and Bruiser have not slept together, and Jane finds out that Monica, the caller she was jealous of, is Rick’s younger sister. After Rick leaves, the Kid comes to Jane’s door and tells her to come to the breakfast room to hear what he found. It turns out that up until the nineteen forties, Hieronymus and Lotus owned property together, but that at that time Hieronymus chose not to include Lotus any longer. The female vamp went into business with Silandre and Esther, and Jane figures they waited until de Allyon came along to wrest control away from Hieronymus.
I’ll Get Well Later: Eli and Jane go back to Silandre’s, where they meet a young woman named Nostrana, who says she works for Silandre a few days a week. Silandre is not there, nor has she been recently, and while Jane is commenting upon the oddity of a witch (Nostrana) working for a vamp, the coin in her pocket suddenly becomes hot, as does the pocket watch, which also smells of old blood. After the heat dissipates, Jane and Eli leave to return to Esmee’s. Jane plans to go talk to Francis, as she believes he has something on his body that enables him to heal without ingesting much blood. She believes that this same type of focus powered by a witch circle may be what allowed de Allyon to operate as Naturaleza when other vamps were Fame Vexatum. After two minutes in the sun, Jane finds an amulet on Francis, which she confiscates. Jane decides to take Bobby for a ride to see if he can locate Misha. During their conversation, and while Bobby is scanning the area, Jane learns that Misha is a witch—as is Charly. They wear jewelry that holds spells to hide them from detection. However, Jane realizes now why Lisha was taken. When Bobby holds one of the pocket watches, it burns his hand. Soul suggests via text that Bobby should be placed within a circle with the watches so they can’t hurt him. Bobby insists they make a circle in the sand, and with the three watches, Bobby determines the house where Misha is being kept.