Part 13 (2/2)

Everyone but William was stunned into silence.

”What happened last night, Jack?” he asked. ”I put her under glamour like you said. Then I...did what I had to do,” I said, not able to put the awful truth into words. ”Then, while I was listening to see if she still had a heartbeat, I heard another one. A small one, and I knew. I sealed the wound, woke her up, and told her she got sick with the flu and pa.s.sed out. Then I told her she was dehydrated and started forcing her to drink fluids.

I stayed with her until just now to make sure she was going to be all right.”

”How could she possibly survive blood loss like that?” Tobey asked.

Travis, looking stonier than one of the carvings on Mount Rushmore, said, ”The Slayer's powers of healing will be as great as ours.

This is another sign that she is close to being activated.”

”How far along is she?” Melaphia asked.

”A few days is all.”

”How can you detect a life that small?” Iban wanted to know.

William said, ”Jack is a very sensitive creature. I've known it all his life. We all know about his power to feel out the dead, even reanimate. It seems he is also as sensitive to the presence of life. I doubt if any medical device could detect a heartbeat at this stage, but with his gift, Jack can.”

My sire and I just looked at each other. It was as hard to read William as ever, but I could swear I saw something like awe in his face. ”It looks as if Jack is much more special than even I understood. He has just fathered a child.” One corner of his mouth turned up in the barest suggestion of a smile.

”If all this is true,” Travis said, ”he has sired another vampire slayer.” Travis looked like he wanted to spit on the ground. ”How do we know this voodoo spirit has the interest of the blood drinkers at heart? Has she seen the slayers at work as I have?”

”She has your interests at heart because William made a pact with her a couple hundred years ago,” Melaphia said, lifting her chin.

”And sealed it with the gift of the blood.” Melaphia took any offense to the Maman personally.

”She's never let us down before. Remember who saved us from Reedrek not long ago,” I said. ”The voodoo blood has saved my bacon more times than I want to remember.”

I turned to William to see why he hadn't jumped to Lalee's defense, but he was looking worried, too, in a way I found unsettling for some reason. Finally, he said, ”I trust Lalee. Jack did the right thing by refraining from killing the Slayer, even though he may not have known why at the time.”

Travis was finished speaking, but he didn't look any happier. Everyone else looked uneasy, too, and they were staring at me.

None of them was familiar with the old religion that Melaphia practiced, although they'd seen a pretty good demo the night when we captured Reedrek.

”Maybe there's another explanation for this,” I said. ”Could there have been some kind of immaculate conception thing going on in the underworld?”

”That hasn't happened in more than two thousand years, and I don't think we should expect to ever see it again,” William said.

”I'm sorry, Jack, but somebody has to say it. Could Connie have had another lover?” Tobey asked.

For some reason that didn't make me mad. I guess because I understood that Tobey didn't know Connie like I did. ”No,” I said.

”No way.”

Travis said, ”I still don't like it. Nothing in my own culture's lore and writings indicates that a slayer should be allowed to live.”

”I don't know what to think at this point,” Tobey said, scratching his head. Suddenly my relief was gone. I was no longer sure that Connie was out of danger at the hands of these blood drinkers. She still needed my protection. I had to think of still another plan, dammit.

Melaphia, William, Travis, and the others started debating the relative trustworthiness of voodoo and Mayan and Celtic spirituality and prophecies. Melaphia said something about the word sire in some prophecy possibly having more than one meaning. Then they speculated on who Connie's vampire father might have been.

It was all too much for me. I hadn't slept any in the last day because of having to nurse Connie, and my head was starting to hurt. I went to the wet bar at the far side of the room to pour myself some blood, and while they were all talking at once, I backed out of the room and took the stairs up to the main floor two at a time.

I drove to the garage and saw through the window that the irregulars' card game was in full swing. It was kind of comforting in a goofy way. My whole life had been turned on its head the last couple of months. It was good to see that part of my world was still normal. As normal as a human, two shape s.h.i.+fters, and a faerie playing cards could be, that is.

Speaking of things kind of normal but really not, I heard the sc.r.a.pe of Huey's shovel as he continued to despoil his own grave. I went around back to see him laboring under the watchful eye of the same crow that had been there the other night. It seemed Huey had made little progress, but this activity at least gave him a purpose in life-that is to say, death-when he wasn't otherwise busy detailing cars.

I wondered if I'd done Huey any favors by accidentally raising him from the dead. He appeared to me as a ghost once shortly after Reedrek had murdered him, and he had reported that in heaven, he had all the beer he could drink. And it was good imported stuff, too.

Then I got drunk during a voodoo ritual and misapplied a prayer to the G.o.d of the underworld-and Huey was reborn, after a fas.h.i.+on. He'd dug his way out of his own grave with his bare hands, to my and Werm's drunken horror. Sending him back seemed too grisly to contemplate, so here he was, a sort of mascot of the business you might say. Besides, he was proving to be useful.

The next time he said he saw little blue men, I was going to sit up and take notice. He could speak shape s.h.i.+fter and see through fey glamour. Who knew what else the little guy could do?

”How's it going, Hugh-man?” I greeted him.

”All right, I reckon,” Huey reported.

”Haven't hit pay dirt yet?”

”No sir. I ain't seen no sign of that car.”

The crow made a screeching noise, startling us both. I looked at Huey sheepishly. A vampire and a zombie shouldn't be afraid of anything, much less a crow.

”It's tryin' to tell us somethin',” Huey said.

”How do you know?”

”It's been trying its best to talk to me all night. Just listen.”

The crow flapped its wings and made some other noises, and they weren't any sounds I'd ever heard come out of a crow before.

”Maybe it got ahold of some bad roadkill,” I speculated. My remark seemed to agitate the crow even more. It beat its wings furiously and fixed its beady eyes on me in a creepy fas.h.i.+on.

”My uncle Elroy had a crow that could talk like one of them talking birds,” Huey said.

”Like a parrot?” ”Yep. But only after Uncle Elroy had split its tongue with a knife.”

”Don't get any ideas,” I said. ”I don't want you picked up by the ASPCA.” I was glad Huey didn't have a penchant for getting in trouble with the law. If the authorities were inspired to examine him too closely, especially that loose eyeball, there'd be a lot of explaining to do.

”Naw. I wouldn't do that to a dumb animal.”

The crow probably had more IQ points than Huey, but I refrained from pointing that out.

”Ain't you going to join the poker game?” Huey asked.

”No. I had to find someplace to think.”

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