Free Easy Pickings by Faith Hunter, Ce Murphy Page A

got power,” she spat. “I pray to Papa Legba, the gatekeeper, I pray and I ask for help, and I open a rift so maybe something stronger than me comes through, but it’s too much stronger and I can’t keep it in my hands.” Her fingers clutched together like she was grabbing at water, and then she looked at each of us, me while I wolfed down her food and Jo and Laz as they listened in silence.
    “You,” she said to all of us. “I called you through, and if this big man here couldn’t shut down my magic easy as pie then none of you would be any help to me at all. I donno what you are, but you came here and you gotta help me now.” Her bravado suddenly fled and she shrank in on herself, all big eyes and fear once more. “You’ll help me, yes? You’ll save my bebe, Lissa?”
    “Of course we will,” Joanne said, and Beast forgot her hunger long enough to rumble approval deep inside my head.
     

     
    I didn’t look at Jane to see if she agreed. Laz was on my side already, and frankly, we were going to help Serena find her kid if I had to stay in this Somebody Else’s World for a month, because let’s face it. Threatening children is about as low as it gets, and that was without my own personal monogrammed set of baggage on the matter.
    I did look at Lazarus. I didn’t have a name for whatever he was. The earth magic he connected to said witch, but the witches I knew needed a coven to pull down the kind of earth power he’d been throwing around so casually. Maybe he was a warlock. I had the vague idea that, traditionally, warlocks didn’t work with covens, though also traditionally, warlocks were men and I’d met a fair number of male witches. Of course, as far as I knew, warlocks were also traditionally bad guys, but Laz was doing a pretty convincing impression of being one of the good guys. Even Jane had softened up when he went all protective and daddy-like with Serena.
    The thought that I might just not get all the answers I wanted crossed my mind. I dismissed it with a snort, then scrubbed my hands over my face. “I don’t suppose you know where he’s keeping your baby, Serena.”
    I knew the answer before I even asked, though. The kid was back in New Orleans at that blood bordello. All that stood between us and the kid was one vampire channeling every drop of magic in the Big Easy, and all his vampirey minions. No problem. “I don’t suppose,” I said mostly to Lazarus, “that you can use that funky earth magic of yours to fake a love spell… .”
    Jane coughed on her oatmeal. My ears turned red. “Okay, okay, no, not really. I’m not getting some other poor sap involved in this, not even long enough to be used as a distraction. I just, y’know. Nevermind. How do you stop a vampire?”
    “You kill him.” Jane sounded like her Beast had found a human voice, all snarls and deadly business.
    As mildly as I could, I said, “I don’t know how to kill a vampire,” but really, I’d known that answer was coming. Amaury wasn’t going to give up his grip on the Big Easy’s magic without giving up his grip on life. Even without Serena’s baby in the picture, it wasn’t like I could really go home again knowing I’d left dozens or hundreds of adepts in magical slavery. Amaury had been a dead man walking since we’d crossed into this world.
    Well of course he’s a dead man walking a snarky little voice said in the depths of my skull. I smacked myself in the temple and muttered, “Oh, shut up,” aloud.
    Jane banged her bowl down—I’d never seen somebody eat that much oatmeal at once, nevermind so quickly—and stood up with the lithe movement of an angry cat. “I do,” she said. “I get paid for killing vamps. She’s coming with us.”
    She pointed her spoon at Serena while my brain stuttered over get paid for killing vamps. I didn’t get paid to do magic. The idea kind of gave me the creeps, actually, and I wondered how Jane lived with it. Then I shook it off, because of the various