Free Have Stakes Will Travel: Stories From the World of Jane Yellowrock by Faith Hunter

overtook me and I put out my other hand. Jane caught and steadied me, her leather gloves protecting me from skin-to-skin contact that would have pulled me back, away from the death in the house. After a moment, I nodded that I was okay and she released me, though I still didn’t open my eyes. I didn’t want to see. A buzz of fear and horror filled my head.
    I stood in the center of a small room, the walls pressing in on me. Eyes still closed, I saw the death energies, pointed, and said, “They came in through this door. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven of them. Fast.”
    I felt the urgency of their movements, faster than any human. Pain gripped my belly and I pressed my arms into it, trying to assuage an ache of hunger deeper than I had ever known. “So hungry,” I murmured. The pain grew, swelling inside me. The imperative to eat. Drink . The craving for blood.
    I turned to my left before I was overcome. “Two females took the man. He was surprised, startled, trying to stand. They attacked his throat. Started drinking. He died there.”
    I turned more to my right, still pointing, and said, “A child died there. Older. Maybe ten. A boy.”
    I touched my throat. It wanted to close up, to constrict at the feel of teeth, long canines, biting into me. The boy’s fear and shock were so intense they robbed me of any kind of action. When I spoke, the words were harsh, whispered. “One, a female, took the boy. The other four, all males, moved into the house.” The hunger grew, and with it the anger. And terror. Mind-numbing, thought-stealing terror. The boy’s death struggles increased. The smell of blood and death and fear choked. “Both died within minutes.”
    I pointed again and Jane led me. The carpet squished under my feet. I knew it was blood, even with my eyes closed. I gagged and Jane stopped, letting me breathe, as well as I could in this death-house, letting me find my balance, my sense of place on the earth. When I nodded again, she led me forward. I could tell I was in a kitchen by the cooking smells that underlay the blood. I pointed into a shadowy place. “A woman was brought down there. Two of them. . . .” I flinched at what I saw. Pulled my hand from Jane’s and crossed my arms over me, hugging myself. Rocking back and forth.
    “They took her together. One drank while the other . . . the other. . . . And then they switched places. They laughed. I can hear her crying. It took . . . a long . . . long time.” I blundered away, bumping into Jane. She led me out, helping me to get away. But it only got worse.
    I pointed in the direction I needed to go. My footsteps echoed on a wood floor. Then carpets. “Two little girls. Little. . . . Oh, God in heaven. They . . .” I took a breath that shuddered painfully in my throat. Tears leaked down my cheeks, burning. “They raped them too. Two males. And they drank them dry.” I opened my eyes, seeing twin beds, bare frames, the mattresses and sheets gone, surely taken by the crime scene crew. Blood had spattered up one wall in the shape of a small body. To the sides, the wall was smeared, like the figure of angel wings a child might make in the snow, but made of blood.
    Gorge rose in my throat. “Get me out of here,” I whispered. I turned away, my arms windmilling for the door. I tripped over something. Fell forward, into Brax. His face inches from mine. I was shaking, quivering like a seizure. Out of control. “Now! Get me out of here! NOW!” I shouted. But it was only a whisper.
    Jane picked me up and hoisted me over her shoulder. Outside. Into the sun.
    I came to myself, came awake, lying in the yard, the warm smell of leather and Jane all around. I touched her jacket and opened my eyes. She was sitting on the ground beside me, one knee up, the other stretched out, one arm on bent knee, the other bracing her. She was wearing a short sleeved tee in the cool air. She smiled her strange, humorless smile, one side of her mouth