Artemis lit her e-pad to find our next grid, pale skin glowing in the backlight beneath her hooded mask.
“Five blocks south,” she said. “Residential. See you on top of the corner house.” She swirled into mist and floated up and away. She’d been quiet all evening, making me wonder what else was going on. I dropped off the building and flew after her, wondering if this was even a good idea. Maybe the Wicked Witch couldn’t see us, but her minions might. Then she’d send her flying monkeys… I’d had issues with America’s Favorite Musical as a kid. Follow the yellow-brick road, my assstra.
Ten minutes and another completed grid later, I joined Artemis on top of the narrow three-story home she’d settled on.
“Nothing.” I shook my head. “We don’t even know what my sensitive range really is for this; I could feel Villain-X at maybe thirty feet, but I didn’t feel anything back at The Fortress when Nemesis started shooting.”
“It beats waiting around for Blackstone and Lei Zi to roll out their Big Plan,” Artemis said. She had come loaded for war—elasers in her shoulder holsters and .45 automatics on her hips.
“Maybe. So are you going to tell me what’s got you quietly wigged?”
Her lips twitched. “Wigged?”
“Since you got back from New Orleans you’ve…” I waived a hand. “You’ve been softer, less angry. A little less fiend-of-the-nightish. But you’re not exactly here, either…and right now you’re looking totally guilted. What’s going on?”
She sighed.
“I did more down south than stake fellow bloodsuckers. I met family.” And she told me about her grams, Mama Maria Bouchard, Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. I was trying to wrap my mind around the stunning news of my determinedly Not-A-Goth girlfriend being voodoo royalty when she dropped her bombshell.
“So I’m going back,” she said, “as soon as we bury this witch.”
“You—” Sometimes my brain does work faster than my mouth, and it reached down and strangled can’t before the word escaped.
She heard it anyway, and smiled. “Family. And a job I don’t suck at half the time.”
“You don’t—”
“Please.” She grinned, showing teeth. “I may not be instant flambé with the twinkle of a sunbeam anymore, but most of the time I’m as useful to the team as a D Class Ajax-type—most of our fights go down during the day. But the Big Easy… they need a sane vamp down there to keep the nut-jobs in line, and being a daywalker who’s not religion-intolerant makes me a supervampire instead of a wimpy superhero.”
I tried to think of something to say that wasn’t a cliché. I even understood her timing; Shelly was back, so now she could leave; I didn’t need my big sister anymore. She couldn’t be more wrong, but…family. “Think Mama Maria will like me?” I asked, trying on a smile.
Her grin turned feral. “She’s going to love you… what?”
I tapped my earbug, eyes on the building down the street. “Dispatch? Detective Fisher, please.”
“Astra?” Fisher asked. “Have the two of you found her?”
“I— don’t think so.” I said. “How close to our location were the bodies found?”
“You’re one block west of one location. Why?”
“Because I think we’re on the wrong end of the trail. If Hecate is driving her hounds till they die, won’t they be dropping dead out hunting?”
I got a moment of thoughtful silence.
“Shit. Sorry, kid. And sorry for wasting your time.”
“It wasn’t a waste. How bad do you want Kitsune?”
“Truth? Not that bad right now; he’s not the one scattering bodies around. Garfield wants him, but he’s not my priority. Do you know where he is?”
“…”
“Astra?”
I stared at the white-walled, peak-roofed building down the street; Chicago’s Midwest Buddhist Temple. Red wooden gates—tori—were for Shinto shrines, not Buddhist temples. That much I knew, but my dream hadn’t been literal and to a Japanese shapeshifter holy ground was holy ground, a safe place for hiding from demonic powers.
I opened my mouth, closed it. The way he stressed know flashed warnings in my head. “… it’s a stupid idea,” I said finally. “But what I meant was, where did the victims go missing from? Where did Hecate get them?”
“Hold on, I’ll check.”
Artemis followed my line of sight while we waited, and she took a breath. I shook my head.
“Astra?” Fisher returned. “You might be on to something. No knowing with our John Doe, but for the other two, one was a homeless guy, the other a gang member. Public nuisance and drug dealing charges put both inside a one mile radius in South Side during the