Unbound

“Too right I can,” Bones growled, crossing the same distance in an aerial leap. He reached inside his sleeves, grasped two more knives, and rocketed them at the vampire.

The knives landed in Ralmiel’s chest, but he’d jerked back in a life-saving microsecond that meant the difference between them piercing his heart and burying less harmfully into his sternum.

“Sacre bleu,” Ralmiel swore, yanking them out and toss-ing them off the roof. Then he smiled at Bones. “Close, though, non?”

Bones reached in his sleeves again—and came up empty. Right, he’d given his coat to Becca, and it held the rest of his knives.

Ralmiel aimed his crossbow, then gave a snort as he saw that he, too, was out of silver.

“Normally it takes no more than four arrows, mon ami. I wasn’t expecting you to be so quick. We’ll have to continue this another time.”

Bones jumped onto the church’s roof. “We can settle this without weapons. Come on, mate, afraid to only use your hands in a death match?”

Ralmiel had an odd grin. “I think I will let you live to-night and kill you tomorrow. Or the next day. I get paid the same either way.”

Bones let out a short laugh. “Decided to take one of the many contracts out on me, did you? After I kill you, mate, I’ll be curious to see what your corpse is worth.”

Ralmiel sketched a bow, squeezing something in his hand. “I think not.” Then he vanished in front of Bones’s eyes.

Bones stared at the spot where Ralmiel had been. What kind of trick was this?

Since they were in New Orleans, the heart of magic and voodoo, perhaps it was a sort of spell. The few other times Bones had run across Ralmiel, he damn sure didn’t have the power to dematerialize on his own. Bones didn’t figure he’d hide such an ability, either.

Though that begged the question of why Marie would allow Ralmiel, a known hit man, in her city to hunt the hitter she’d hired. If Bones was dead, then he couldn’t take care of her problem with the LaLauries, could he? He’d have to inform Jelani of this. Perhaps Marie wasn’t aware of Ralmiel’s presence.

But now to find Becca, and erase from her mind all the things she’d just witnessed.

5

The next day, Bones went out of the Quarter to a shop titled The Swamp Rat, noting with amusement the layer of ground brick sprinkled across the threshold of the door. It was a voodoo defense barrier, supposedly capable of keeping out anyone who meant the shop owner ill. Pity it didn’t work against people who didn’t believe in voodoo. Or vampires.

As soon as he stepped inside, Bones flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED and locked the door behind him. A wizened little man behind the counter glanced up, blinked…and then, of all things, tried to run.

Bones was across the room and over the counter in less time than it took the elderly shop owner to clear his seat. He chuckled as the man let out a spate of Creole that cursed Bones, his parentage, and several of his ancestors.

“Remember, Jean-Pierre, I speak Creole, so anything you say can and will be held against you and all that rot.”

“Debil,” Jean-Pierre said in English with a hiss. “I ’oped I’d seen the last of you years ago.”

“Now, mate, you’ll hurt my feelings. Don’t know why you take such an aversion to me. Your grandfather and I got along splendidly, and I know I’m glad to still find you here.”

Jean-Pierre’s eyes flicked around the shop, but it was empty of anyone but Bones and himself. No surprise there; the wares he had on his shelves were ugly, shoddy T-shirts and other miscellaneous gimmicky items, all in questionable condition and priced higher than most of his competitors.

But Jean-Pierre’s real business was voodoo. The shops along the Quarter were for the tourists or the uneducated. Jean-Pierre supplied genuine ingredients for the practiced, discerning buyer, and his family had been in the business since almost the inception of the city. He was someone who knew many of the city’s darkest secrets. And because Jean-Pierre had inherited the family trait of being immune to vampire mind control, Bones couldn’t just use his gaze to glare information out of him, more’s the pity.

“Now then, what did I want to ask you about? Ah, yes, redheaded bloke who goes by the name Ralmiel. Vampire, ’round my height, and has the most amazing new trick of disappearing into thin air. What do you know of him?”

From the expression on Jean-Pierre’s face, he did know something about Ralmiel, but he didn’t want to share the information.

Bones didn’t lose a fraction of his smile. “Need me to bash you about a bit before you answer? No trouble at all. Just let me know which bone you’d like broken first and I’ll get to it straightaway.”

“Debils,” Jean-Pierre hissed. “Nothin’ but grave walkers, the both of you, ’cept even the earth don’ want you.”

Bones waved a hand. “Yes, right, we’re all wretched blokes forsaken by God and Mother Nature herself, now get on with it.”

Bones really had no desire to start beating on the little man. That would take too long.