by Faith Hunter
“In case the big bad ugly is still in his brain. Gotcha.” I lifted the wooden round and carried it to Ed, where I tucked it under his armpit. His flesh was icy. Dead. I removed my hand perhaps a little too fast.
Molly chuckled, the sound wry and darkly amused. I could almost hear her say, “Big bad vamp hunter can’t stand the touch of a harmless vamp.”
“Gee,” I said. “Talk to us about arcenciels. About the problem or war or whatever is going on in their world or their relationship with each other.” When he didn’t reply, I said, “Soul isn’t calling anyone back. So far as I know, she’s never gone dark before.”
Gee tightened his arms and legs, as if trying to preserve body heat or as if trying not to be noticed by a predator, shrinking small. The tiny striped snout stuck out of his collar, the winged lizard, curious. “There is a war,” he said, “between Soul and the other arcenciels on this plane. Since you killed Joses Santana, the elder Son of Darkness, the younglings have fallen away from guidance and counsel and wisdom. Soul has battled this past week to bring them back to the true path. The pressures of leadership have driven her into lack of control, into foolish acts. Her mistakes have cost the goddesses greatly.”
“Why would me killing the Flayer of Mithrans cause a war between the arcenciels?”
“I do not know.” Which was ominous.
Molly’s cell rang and I saw the name on the speaker face. Amelia, her sister. “Hey, sis,” Molly said, “what’s—Wait. Let me put this on speaker.” One-handed, she shifted the cell and pressed the SPEAKER button on the face. “Say that again so everyone can hear.”
“We’re under attack,” Amelia said. “Regan and I were working late at the Seven and got stuck here by the storm. We were on cots with lanterns lit when fangheads attacked. We initiated the building’s defenses and we’re armed, but the bad guys are not going away.”
Amelia and Regan were Molly’s human sisters. The Seven was Seven Sassy Sisters, the family restaurant. The defenses were probably some form of hedge of thorns around the building, one that could be released by a simple command or a touch to an amulet, by a human. Last time I checked in with them, the human sisters carried concealed and were always armed, which was smart for anyone working late in an isolated location, and doubly smart for a member of a witch family anywhere. Amelia kept a twelve-gauge behind the counter. Regan carried two very different semiautomatics with matte black grips—an H&K with silver-laced nine-mils for vamps, and an S&W loaded with hollow points for humans and robbers. The Everhart family was not rich. They’d be out of vamp-killing ammo fast.
“Hold tight,” Shaddock said. “I got a few scions laired not too far from there. Providing they can get the snowmobiles running, reinforcements will be there in ten. Maybe fifteen with the storm.” He pressed his own cell against his ear and turned away to talk.
“Who was that?” Amelia asked. I heard breaking glass. Someone had gotten through the outer defenses. Gunfire followed, punctuated by the piercing ululation of a vamp dying. “Again. Who was that?” she demanded, shouting.
“Lincoln Shaddock,” I said, loud enough to be heard in her gunfire-damaged hearing. “The Master of the City of Asheville. He’s sending reinforcements. Don’t shoot the rescuers.”
Amelia said some very unladylike curse words. Molly laughed and patted her baby’s back, burping Cassy.
Beast was deeply interested in the infant on Molly’s shoulder, her entire body language protective and covetous. Mentally, I stroked the head of my other half and she thought at me, Kit in danger from injured vampire Edmund?
I thought back, Molly is a death witch who just drained but didn’t kill some vamps. I think she’s got it in hand. Aloud I said, “You got stakes? Holy water?”
“Stakes, if it comes to that,” Regan said from farther away. “I’m boiling water. A good scalding hurts no matter if the flesh is dead or not.”
“Undead. Not dead,” Thema said from her position feeding Edmund.
“Yeah? We can arm-wrestle over that distinction if I live through this,” Regan said. Then she challenged, “Whoever you are.”
“I am Thema. I am a Mithran. We will arm-wrestle. If you win,” Thema said, readjusting Ed’s head against her throat, much like Moll readjusted the baby’s head against her breast, “I will part with a small gold statue of the Buddha that I stole from a temple over two hundred years ago. What will I gain should I win over your puny human arms?”
It hit me that Thema was distracting the humans until help could arrive. It made me want to kiss the vampire, but I figured she needed blood badly right now and I might get bitten for my trouble.
“If you win, I’ll give you an amulet made by my sisters. It lets you see witch magic three different times,” Regan said. “That’s worth more than gold.”
“I will not argue with this,” Thema said. “Done.”
The outer door opened and humans filed into the cottage, slamming the door after, shutting out the storm. I knelt at the fireplace in the main room and coaxed the wood to light. Shaddock, now wearing a shirt, directed his humans to feed my Edmund, who had become calm and controlled enough to not attack and kill. The MOC checked his watch. Made another call. There were more gunshots over the cell connected to the store. Then the boom of the shotgun. No vamps screamed this time. I could hear the human sisters breathing hard, ragged.
I realized what I had just thought. My Edmund. I was thinking and feeling about Ed as if he belonged to me, just the way Leo had said, “My Jane,” claiming me. That started an itch under my collar, but before I could deal with that, Molly called out, “Jane. Call Carmen. She’s trying to get through and I’m betting my nursing blanket that she’s under attack too.”
I dialed Carmen Miranda Everhart Newton, one of Molly’s witch sisters. “Jane,” she answered. “Are you with Moll?”
I put her on speaker. “Yes. She’s safe. So are the children.”
“I’m at Mama’s, spending the night through the storm, and we’ve got four dead vamps outside the house. What the hell am I supposed to do with them?”
“Dead-dead or some other kind of dead?” I asked.
“Burned to a crisp. Mama has some a-maz-ing wards,” Carmen said.
Lincoln paused in what he was saying into the phone and looked my way, interested. “Burned?”
“Mama’s good,” Molly said, pride in the two words, and maybe a smidge of warning for any future plans the MOC might have to harm local witches or to seek vengeance for the death of the attacking vamps.
Lincoln raised one hand in peace and smiled, showing no fangs, but listening in without shame. “My territory has been invaded,” he said. “I owe the attackers no fealty. If they attack my cattle, and my cattle kill them, I got no problem with that.”
“Not your cattle, Shaddock,” a different voice said over my cell.
“An alliance with me would give you protection,” Shaddock said, his voice sliding into warmer tones.
Over the connection, Bedelia chuckled, a knowing laugh not far removed from a TV evil witch cackle. Bedelia used to be the Everhart coven leader. She had kept multiple witches alive through puberty. She was powerful and canny. “That would be a mighty unfair alliance, Lincoln, darlin’. You need magic. I got no need of fanghead blood.”
“The offer remains open, leader of the Everhart clan of witches, as always.”
My eyebrows went up. So did Molly’s. Bedelia and Lincoln Shaddock knew each other? The local witches and vamps had clearly made arrangements in case of paranormal problems, and had done so without me having to issue a direct order. Why couldn’t more Blood Masters make nice-nice with the other paras in their territory? Then I remembered the fact that before I killed her for summoning a demon, Evil Evie Everhart had attacked Lincoln and had mucked up the talks between Leo and the Asheville vamps. Maybe Lincoln and Bedelia had good reasons to make political agreements.
“The witches of Asheville may not be aligned with my clan, but they are under my protection,” Shaddock said, his tone letting us know he was still talking to Bedelia, “part a my territory and land. Let my enemies burn with the sun.”
Bedelia laughed again, less cackle and more knowing. Yeah. These two had a history I wanted to know about. She asked, “Molly, have you heard from the twins? Are your sisters safe?”
Boadacia and Elizabeth, aka Cia and Liz, were the youngest witches, the most adventurous of the Everhart clan, and I was suddenly worried. “No. I’ll call. But we need to maintain an open line of communication. Okay if I give Shaddock your number?”
“I’ve got Bedelia’s number,” Lincoln said, “I’ll call.”
The local MOC had the number of the Everhart Clan mother? I so needed to hear this story. Once my friends were done being attacked. “Lincoln Shaddock will call and keep the lines open.” I pressed END and called Cia’s number. She answered.
“It better be good, Yellowrock,” she said, crabby.
I chuckled sourly and said, “Does a vamp attack at Seven Sassy Sisters and a vamp attack at your mom’s sound good enough?”
“Son of a witch on a switch,” Cia said. “Calling Liz on the laptop line and checking the perimeters.” A moment later Cia said, “My place is safe so far, but on the security cams at Seven, I count two vamps, dead, or nearly so, and three more still active on low-light. And I see two humans sneaking up in back. Liz, your wards up? Because I see two vamps on your back deck.”
Over the connection, I heard Liz say, “I see ’em. Take that, you thrice-damned bloodsucker.”
“Oh. Nice work, sis,” Cia said. To us she added, “She just tossed a magical frag and singed two vamps so bad they aren’t getting up.”
“Magical frag? Singed?” I asked.
“A magic bomb we’ve been working on. And singed as in burned them to charcoal.”
Shaddock chuckled softly and muttered, “I do love the Everhart women.”
“Ah hell,” Cia said. “Tell Molly her place is getting dinged.”
“I felt it,” Moll said. “No fanghead is getting through our wards. Not to worry.”
Cassy burped, a soft, sweet sound, and Thema’s eyes landed on the diaper-covered baby in Molly’s arms. For half a second or so, a faint human smile appeared on her face; then her expression returned to vamp-scornful. If I had blinked, I’d have missed it. As if she were patting a baby, she patted Ed’s head. “All is well, young one. You are safe,” she said, though I wasn’t sure if she was speaking to the baby or to my primo. Or both. “There are humans here now, Edmund Hartley. Feed.” She stepped away from the tub and a human woman pulled off her shirt and climbed in. She was wearing a halter top under the shirt, giving him access to a broad expanse of human flesh.
“My people are approaching the restaurant,” Lincoln said. “They’ll take down the human attackers first and then the Mithrans. Try not to shoot my people,” he added wryly. The information was passed along. Then everything went silent. Minutes crawled by.
Lincoln’s cell dinged. “Yes?” he answered. Smile wrinkles creased his face. “Good work, Holly, Gerald. See about making the building secure from the storm. Then if the women want to go home, you will provide escort. Or keep watch there. Whichever the ladies decide to do.” He stopped and listened. “Of a certainty. I’ll make sure that Molly knows you are present.”
Before he could hang up, Molly called out, “Holly! Gerald! Thank you! And tell my sisters about the teapot. They’ll know who you are then.”
“Teapot?” I asked.
No one answered. All the callers had signed off. I inspected Edmund, whose flesh was showing signs of regenerating, a pale white membrane covering muscle and tendons.
Molly, whose baby had clearly done a stinky in her diaper, patted Cassy’s back and said, “I’m heading back to the main house. This cottage is too small for all the humans and paras.”
I was about to assign her an escort, when Alex buzzed through the cottage’s modern-day version of an intercom. “Janie,” he said. “Trouble in New Orleans. Get in here.”
“Well, dang,” I muttered. I had to go back into the storm and I had just gotten the snowballs under my toenail pads thawed. I glanced down. At some point I had chipped my pretty toe-claw polish.
“The responsibilities of leadership,” Lincoln said. “I sympathize.” But his tone said he didn’t, at all.
I trudged from the relative warmth of the cottage, Molly at my side, to the back door and mudroom of the inn. I kept a hand under her elbow and wondered what the baby thought when she looked up at me. Would the nebulous memory of my Beast-face stick in her deep unconscious brain somewhere, to come back as nightmares in her future?
“What’s that?” Molly asked, pointing to the west. I followed her finger and spotted the colors and light show of a magic working. I remembered the earthquake and bright lights Beast had thought were white-man lights.
Something tugged at the back of my mind, like a fish on a line, vital, as if I knew it was important. The lights looked like a bright witch circle. Then I remembered the exoskeleton on the SOD. Ah. Yeah. “Moll, could there be a time circle there?”
“Not out in the open. Time circles need to be underground, in a cave or a windowless basement, someplace where the sun and moon can’t interfere.”
Beast thought at me, There was earthquake and brighter lights there, after.
Yeah. Lights were there before the earthquake, but dimmer. “Molly, is there a ley line near Evangelina’s old house in Hot Springs?” Evangelina was Moll’s sister, the opposite of Glinda the Good Witch. More like the Wicked Witch of Oz fame.
“Yes. Not a big one. But a line leading to a stronger one we can draw through. And not too far away is a liminal line, but we don’t usually draw power from that. It’s in the Nantahala National Forest, on land claimed by the Cherokee tribe, up near Robbinsville. Everharts are polite about borrowing earth power.”
“Do liminal lines lead to thresholds?” Liminal thresholds were locations where the borders between worlds were thin, where things could crawl or cross through. I wasn’t in the mood to fight some big bad ugly from another realm.
Molly yawned, her jaw cracking. “Sometimes. But there isn’t one near here.”
“Okay. So nothing magical over there.” I pointed.
Molly cast a seeing working with mumbled wyrd. “Probably a showy circle to impress human customers. A small clan of weak-as-well-water witches moved in over that way. The Shookers. They take human customers, put on a show with lots of lights. We checked them out. There are no indications of dark magic or blood rites on them or on their property.”
Molly knew her business, but I made a mental note to get someone to check on the Shookers come morning.
Walking into the heat of the inn/house was like being smothered by a heated blanket. Brute, who had not made the flight back with us, raced in between our legs, nearly toppling the two bipeds. I caught Moll and offered to pull her boots off. Baby at her shoulder, she sat on the small bench near the door and lifted a foot. I pulled off her boots and placed them to drip-dry on the rack.
“Thanks, Big-Cat,” Molly said, levering herself up before I could help. “I’m going to change a diaper, put all my babies into the bed with me, and get some shut-eye.”
“You sure you’re okay?” I meant with death magics, and she nodded. “Thank you,” I said. “I doubt we’d have made it without you. I like having a Glinda on my team.”
“Of course you do.” The rest of her words filtered back as she padded for the elevator. “Glinda had horrible fashion sense and awful hair, but she had good timing, and that ‘click your heels three times’ thing is legendary.”
With a cl
aw, I dug the snow and sleet out of my toenail pads and out from my foot fur, dried my pads, and pawed my way to the office. I needed to get out of the red armor, but I could stand it for a few more minutes. “What’s so almighty freaking bad in NOLA?”
“This,” Alex said. He hit a key. “Footage of Sabina.”
Sabina was the only outclan priestess in North America. She had been with Uni Lisi in my toddler memory of a war dance.
“I am badly damaged,” she croaked. On the recording, her throat made a horrible noise that might have been a cough as she tried to breathe. “Near true-death. The larger fragments of the Blood Cross are destroyed.” She coughed as if she was breathing blood. “My mausoleum is on fire. I dig through the earth . . . with the last sliver of the cross in the Americas.”
The audio cut off.
CHAPTER 11
Is That a Royal Decree?
“I lost the call,” Alex said. “Haven’t been able to get it back. I’m thinking Sabina’s underground. Or true-dead. And we have this.” He punched a key on the keyboard and three video feeds came up on his oversized monitor, but I had no idea what I was looking at. As I puzzled out the video, Alex went on, “Isn’t her mausoleum inside a church? And made of stone?”
“Yeah,” I said. “What am I seeing?”
“The vamp graveyard. It’s on fire. Everything is on fire. Every single thing. All the stone.”
“All.” I leaned to the screen, picking out the crypt where Leo was buried. It was in flames, fire licking up and down the stone, eating through the door. Tears gathered in my eyes. “Don’t let Bruiser see this when he gets back,” I said softly.
“Copy that,” Alex said. “I got Wrassler on cell. HQ was under attack too, but they’re handling it. The big problem is at NOLA PD, Eighth District. Bloodsuckers have attacked there too.”
