Chapter Thirty-Five
“Priestess.” Mezareau closed the door behind him, shutting out the light. “It’s a whole new world for you today, isn’t it?”
I could do nothing but stare at him. I’d suspected he wasn’t dead, yet still it was so strange to see him.
He appeared just as he had in Haiti—linen shirt and trousers, dark hair combed just so, green eyes far too bright in his semidark face. The only differences I could detect in him were his shoes—sandals— and his turning up alive.
“Wh-why? How?”
“Your questions will soon be answered.”
He smiled, and I was struck again by his precise and numerous teeth. I ran my tongue over my own.
Were there more today than yesterday?
“First, Priestess, I have a question of my own: Where’s the diamond?”
“I don’t have it.”
He backhanded me so hard I flew into a shelf of bottles and bones. Everything shattered but me.
“I know you have it.”
I shook my head. Nothing rattled. Except for the glass in my ass, I was good.
“I don’t.” I wasn’t going to tell him Murphy did, though I was sure he’d figure it out quickly enough. I needed to stall. “Go ahead and look.”
Mezareau tore the place apart, and I let him. Though I wasn’t sure how I could stop the man, and really what difference did it make? As he’d said, today my world was new, and in it I doubted I’d be able to continue as a voodoo priestess in the French Quarter, even if I managed to escape Edward’s wrath.
The knowledge saddened me. I’d liked it here, when I could forget why I’d come.
“I tried to raise a zombie,” I said.
“Let me guess.” He smashed the glass on one of my display cases and tossed things hither and yon.
“Your zombie wasn’t quite right.”
I remembered the voodoo queen’s steadily disintegrating face. “I’ll say.”
“Only under a full moon at midnight, during a ceremony performed by a wereleopard, can the living dead be raised.”
“No other type of shifter will do?”
“We are a select club.”
No kidding.
“I was a shape-shifter,” I said slowly. “I just didn’t know it.”
“No, you were not a wereleopard yet. The first transformation takes time. Didn’t you notice the small alterations that came about bit by bit?” He waved a careless hand at my eyes.
I didn’t bother to answer; I wasn’t blind, although I had been a bit dumb.
“Until the midnight moon, when your first complete change occurred, you were not truly one of us and you did not have the power to raise a living zombie.”
That made sense—or as much sense as anything else did lately.
“So, full midnight moon—” I held up one finger. “Ceremony performed by a wereleopard—” I flipped up another. “That’s all there is to the spell?”
“That and the fucking diamond!”
A chill passed over me. “We need the diamond?”
“Why do you think I care so much?”
“It’s expensive?”
He cast me a withering glare. “Considering I can raise the dead, do you think I lack for money?”
Good point.
He crossed the distance that separated us so fast I didn’t see him coming until he was there. “Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
This time I was ready, and I caught his hand before it smashed into my face.
“How did you do this to me?” I shoved him, and he stumbled back several feet.
He was strong, but now so was I. Being a wereleopard had its uses. If it weren’t for the need to commit bloody murder, I might like it.
“Why so angry?” He circled me like the beast he was. “You came to me. You asked me to share my secret.”
I wasn’t blameless. However, I did think it was common courtesy to tell someone before you turned them into a wereleopard.
“What, exactly , did you do?”
“Just a little curse.” He tilted his head, the movement more canine than feline. “Nothing to be so upset about.”
“I don’t remember a curse.”
Of course, after I’d drunk the kleren, I didn’t remember much.
“More of a potion really.”
Aha. That explained why I’d gotten loopy after drinking his rum and stayed sane after drinking my own.
“What was it?” I demanded.
“A secret passed down from my ancestors.” I could tell by his smirk he wasn’t going to give me the recipe.
“Are there more wereleopards running around somewhere?”
“Not yet.” He leaned in close and took a deep breath. “You smell so good,” he purred. “Perhaps we can create more of our kind in an intimate way.”
“Yeah. That’ll happen.” I shoved him in the chest. This time when he fell back, he stayed there.
“You will change your mind.” He licked his lips as his gaze wandered over me. I suddenly felt the need for a scalding hot shower and a bar of lye soap. “The longer you are a shifter, the more of a shifter you become. Soon you will be like me in all ways. The thrill of the chase, the excitement of the kill—it’s better than sex.”
His words made me shudder as I recalled dreams that hadn’t been my own. “I remember things that haven’t happened.”
“I can walk through your dreams, Priestess. If you wish, you can walk through mine.”
“I don’t feel evil,” I whispered.
He smiled. “You will.”
“I killed a man.”
“Last night? No. I did. But next month you may have the pleasure.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
“We must partake of human blood on the night of the full moon or go mad.”
“But I didn’t!”
“You did. You just don’t remember.”
I thought of how I’d woken up—blood on my hands, my face. I suspected he was right and I wanted to throw up again, but I didn’t have the time.
“We may shift any night we wish,” he continued. “On those nights, the hunt is just for fun.”
“So we are like werewolves.”
“I know nothing of werewolves, nor do I care.”
“Silver doesn’t kill us.”
“Nothing can.”
Somehow I doubted that, but I’d come back to it.
“Why a potion and not a bite?”
“We aren’t diseased,” he snapped.
“Just cursed.”
“I prefer to believe I’m blessed.”
“You would.”
I considered what he’d told me. The shift wasn’t the result of a virus, which meant Elise couldn’t cure me, just as she hadn’t been able to cure Henri.
When had I begun to consider a cure? Probably from the moment I’d seen the blood beneath my fingernails. Really, once I raised Sarah, I couldn’t keep turning into a leopard under every full moon.
What would the neighbors say?
“I didn’t shift when the moon came up,” I pointed out.
“Just as the sun is at its peak at noon, the moon is at its peak at midnight. The first shift requires such power. From that point onward, the power is in you.” He brushed his hands together. “Now, the diamond.”
“I thought we were all-powerful beings. Why do we need a stone?”
“The diamond focuses the moon and the magic. It was found in the motherland.”
I frowned. “Germany?”