“I don’t think that we know everything that happened back then.” I pointed to the bier that held the Blood Cross. “I don’t think we understand everything that we think did happen or that we were told did happen. But there was power left in the cross and in the nails, the power of his blood. The Sons of Darkness just stole it and made it evil, as humans always make things evil. So . . . yes, ma’am. I believe.”

“Even though you are Chelokay?”

Chelokay was one of the ways that Cherokee had once been pronounced. “Even though,” I said. “The belief systems are not in opposition.”

“The white man’s Christ and his priests declared the skinwalkers to be the evil ones, the devils. Before Batildis’ Chelokay blood-servant was called the Devil, the skinwalker was the devil.” She cocked her head, sniffing, reading my face, my body language, my scent patterns. “And yet, you believe. Why?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. The hope of things unseen,” I paraphrased, “faith, that is. That kind of hope. I want there to be something bigger, something better than the rest of us.”

“And if there are many things bigger and better than humans?”

“Not my problem,” I said, suddenly tired. “I don’t care. There are bad guys, and demons, and horrible things that go bump in the night. Other things that are good, the kindness of strangers, angels on wings, messengers from above. Even a priestess in a vampire graveyard.”

“I am not good. I am not kind. I am a far worse devil than the human so named and now dead.”

“Maybe so. I still need the sliver of the Blood Cross. I still have to kill Peregrinus.”

“To save Leo Pellissier and his wanton lovers Katherine and Grégoire?”

“I’m between the devil and the deep blue sea. So to speak.”

Sabina’s chair stopped rocking. And it was empty. I didn’t even hear the pop of displaced air as she moved. She was standing by the stone sarcophagus. The lid weighed, like, four hundred pounds and she lifted it, opened it with one hand, casually, the way I might lift the lid of a jewelry box. A moment later she closed the lid, softly, gently, as if it were made of cardboard. Her back to me, she said, “You would use the cross made evil by Ioudas Issachar?”

“With your permission.”

When she turned to me, she was holding a small drawstring bag. “You know its worth. That this artifact is invaluable, irreplaceable. It has left my hands only twice before, in all the long years it has been in my safekeeping, the second time to you. Now you will take it from me yet again.

“Remember my warning. To prick the skin of a vampire with even a sliver of the Blood Cross will cause him to burn, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, unto true-death. This shard of the Blood Cross will destroy the descendants of the Sons of Darkness. All others of the dark will sicken and likely die, possibly including one who walks in the skins of beasts.”

I nodded. I had heard her warning before. And who knew what effect a black-arts, blood-magic device, one created to bring a dead human man back to life, would have on anyone, human or supernatural.

“You will return this to me when the Mithran Peregrinus is true-dead.” Sabina held out the small drawstring bag, silk velvet outside, padded within.

I took it and felt something inside it, long and slender, like a small stake. The sliver of the Blood Cross. Yeah. Priceless. I tucked it into my shirtfront, careful to place it so it wouldn’t pierce the bag and my skin and maybe kill me, and also so that I wouldn’t bend wrong and break it. That seemed like a bad idea.

“Thank you, Sabina. Oh. One more thing. Tonight, a white werewolf stuck in wolf form, one who met the angel Hayyel, ran up and bit the foot of Joses Bar-Judas. Should I be worried?”

Sabina burst out laughing. It sounded like a dying seal honking combined with a set of ancient gears scraping, unused and dried out and so very not human. Vamps weren’t supposed to be able to stay vamped out and laugh at the same time, but I had to wonder about Sabina, because the sound was nothing a human throat could make. It gave me the willies.

I realized she wasn’t going to answer me, so I nodded and backed to the door and out onto the porch. Her cackle followed me all the way.

Eli was waiting on the porch, a weapon in each hand. “What’s that noise?”

“The priestess, finding joy in my tale about Brute biting the Son of Darkness.”

“Yeah?” He leaped off the short rise to the path below and led the way back to the SUV. He took the driver’s side this time and I let him. As he cranked the vehicle, we could still hear her laughter. Eli said, “I can’t say why, but that laughter doesn’t inspire confidence.”

“Our situation could be pretty grim. Either Brute will turn into a vamp-werewolf or Sabina likes the idea of the Son being bitten. Or something much, much worse. I’m betting it’s the one behind door number three.”

“Not taking that bet,” he said as he drove out of the vamp graveyard. The gate closed behind us. It didn’t creak or groan. Sometimes vamps lose the perfect opportunity for scary ambience.

“One question,” I said as we drove into the sunrise. “The other priestess, Bethany, told me that, ‘Together we can ride the arcenciel.’ What do you think that means?”

“Rodeo?”

I laughed, the sound normal and human but tired. I was so tired. I yawned. And slumped in the seat. And fell asleep. Eli let me rest until we got back to New Orleans, waking me when we stopped at my house. I couldn’t remember when I’d last really slept, and I stumbled through the side window and to my bed, where I collapsed again into dreams.

•   •   •

I woke sometime later, still fully clothed, to see the weapons and the sliver of the Blood Cross on the bedside table—thank goodness not on me where I might have rolled over and shot myself in the butt. I had been dreaming of Bruiser. His image hung in my mind, an image remembered from his bedroom—shirtless, pantless, everything-less except the important bits. Beast purred in the back of my mind. “Stop that,” I said to her.

Bruiser and I still hadn’t talked about that day. I pulled out my handy-dandy bulletproof cell phone. I had messages, but nothing from Bruiser. Even knowing that Peregrinus or a human techie could trace any call I might make, I sent Bruiser a message that said, succinctly, Call me, dang it, and rolled back over into sleep and into dreams that left me both agitated with longing and satisfied. Some dreams are better than others, and as dreams went, these were excellent.