by Ally Shields
“Mary was beating me at poker, when he just suddenly appeared.” Claris’s voice was clear despite the sound of running water. “Before I even said anything, he sprayed us with some kind of mist, and I blacked out. Something like chloroform, I guess.”
“So how’d the chair get broken?”
The water stopped.
“I’m not sure. There wasn’t time for a fight.” Claris exited from the shower with a towel wrapped around her. “I suppose one of us knocked it over as we passed out. The next thing I knew I woke in a motel room. Mary and I were alone, but tied and gagged. He didn’t come back until dark, then mostly paced, ranting to himself, and hardly said a word to us.”
“I felt as if we weren’t real people to him.” Claris continued getting dressed. “He was obsessed with getting revenge against you.” She shivered and met Ari’s gaze. “He’s a horrible person, and I’m not sorry he’s dead.”
Ari nodded her understanding of what Claris hadn’t put into words. Justice for Brando. Both Kirsch brothers responsible for his death had paid with their own lives.
Ari and Claris returned downstairs to find Mary in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on the soup and hot chocolate that Ryan and Andreas had started.
While Ryan and his mother fussed over Claris, Ari slipped an arm around Andreas’s waist. “Shall we go?”
He looked at his wristwatch. “Lilith should be out front with the Lexus about now. I called her fifteen minutes ago to have it waiting. Don’t you want to eat first?”
Drained by the emotional rollercoaster of the last forty-hours, her body felt too heavy to keep going much longer. She shook her head and leaned against him. “I just want to go home.”
* * *
Late the following afternoon, Claris and Ari visited Brando’s grave. Lilith, still on guard against the bounty hunters, waited near the car.
When they reached the grave of their childhood friend, Ari brushed the snow from the headstone, then took Claris’s gloved hand. They let a moment pass in silence.
“It’s done, Brando. The last of your murderers is dead.” Claris placed a bouquet of flowers from her greenhouse on the headstone. The blooms wouldn’t last more than minutes in the bitter cold, but Brando wouldn’t mind.
Afterward, they went to Claris’s two-level apartment, five rooms at the rear of her herbal shop. She’d moved back home that morning. Once again Lilith gave them some space by remaining in the car.
Hernando, Claris’s white Siamese, was back in his usual perch in the greenhouse, seeming content to be home. Ari gave him a pat as they walked through.
Claris pulled on her hand. “I know you can’t stay long, but come upstairs. I have something to show you.”
She led Ari into the small bedroom and pulled open the closet, lifting out a white garment bag. She unzipped it and pulled out a silky, pale-green gown, floor-length, empire waistline. A faint smile trembled on her lips. “You were a little worried about the color of the bridesmaid dress last fall, and we didn’t get around to the fitting so you could see it…but I would never have put you in pink. Green is your best color.”
“Oh, honey, it’s beautiful.” Ari swallowed hard, but the tears she’d held back for the last hour spilled over. That brought on a fresh round of tears from Claris, and they sat on the bed hugging and crying. It wasn’t their first cry in the last three months.
Ari, Claris, and Brando had been friends since second grade, then three years ago Claris and Brando had fallen in love. A wedding had been planned for last November, but Brando had been killed while trying to free the Riverdale vampire compound from a takeover by Gerhard and his brother.
Ari sat up and smiled apologetically. “I love the dress, but I can’t wear it. Not now.”
“I understand.” Claris glanced at the closet where the garment bag with her wedding dress hung. “I couldn’t bear to look at any of the wedding things until now, but when I came home this morning, everything seemed different. So I went through them all. Then I called around town, and one of the bridal shops has a program for low income women. I’m going to donate everything.”
“That sounds like a perfect idea.” Ari gave her one last hug. “Are you going to be OK if I leave you?”
“I will now.” Claris wiped the last of the tears away. “Thank you for being with me today.”
“Where else would I be? But I should get home now. Killing Gerhard doesn’t eliminate the rest of our problems.”
“Isn’t it possible the O-Seven will decide to leave you alone now that their warlock’s dead?”
Ari shook her head. “That won’t stop them. Besides, I’m not sure they knew he was here. You should have seen how the elders treated him and his brother in Germany. They wouldn’t rely on him to get the job done.” She frowned. “Geez, I hate to prove the elders right on anything. But the point is, they’re so powerful they didn’t need Gerhard. I think he was a new, shiny toy. A novelty. His loss will mean nothing to them.
She shrugged off trying to figure out what motivated the elders. “If they come here, everyone around us will be in danger. So…I won’t be seeing you for a while.” She raised a hand when Claris started to protest. “Look what already happened. I can’t deal with the vampire elders and the bounty hunters and worry about my friends too. I want you far away from the fight, and that means away from me. Ryan can be our go-between.”
“I don’t like it, but OK, if that’s what you need. Please don’t do anything too risky.”
Claris looked so woebegone that Ari hugged her again, then headed for the door. At the last minute she turned back and forced a smile to her lips. “Love ya, girlfriend.” Just in case.
* * *
When Ari and Lilith arrived at the mansion they heard voices in the study. Following the sound, they found a war council huddled around the conference table. Andreas stood on the far side of the table. Across from him sat weretiger Samuel, his house security officer, and werelion Russell, his club security officer. Daron, the vampire prince of Toronto, and his security chief, werewolf Mike, were on the other end of a conference call discussing the impending visit of the O-Seven.
“Is this a private conspiracy or can anyone join in?” she asked dryly.
Andreas smiled at her and walked around the table. “We were having a preliminary discussion while waiting for Gabriel and the others to join us. I knew you would be home soon.” He reached her and bent his head close. “How did it go?”
“Good. Better than I expected.”
He kissed her temple. “You can tell me about it later. Now, the reason for this meeting—Daron has been told that the O-Seven are leaving Germany soon.”
“Yeah, Gerhard implied that too,” she said. “He said after he killed me, the O-Seven wouldn’t let you live long enough to mourn.”
“Bad call on his part.”
The corners of her mouth turned up. “Yeah, it was. Let’s see if we can make the O-Seven just as sorry for messing around with us.”
Daron’s deep chuckle rumbled from a phone speaker. “I admire your confidence, Arianna. Congratulations on eliminating the troublesome warlock, but the elders will not be as easy.”
Troublesome warlock? She sighed. “I suppose you’re right. So where do we start?”
Andreas’s hand on her back steered her toward the table. “Lilith, pull up a chair. I had hoped Gabriel would…ah, I think that is him now.” He walked toward the door, and Ari took a seat with the others.
He returned, ushering his two lieutenants before him, and spoke toward the phone. “Daron, if you are ready? Gabriel and Oliver are here now.”
“Very good.” Daron’s gruff voice filled the room. “I have received a message by courier that two of the elders are coming to America, and it suggested I divert them by inviting them to Toronto for negotiation between their court and mine. By mine, they included the Canadian courts who stood with us last year during the confrontation with their enforcer, Ursula.” He paused. “The Riverdale court was also in
cluded. The elders appear to be under the impression that we have formed a conspiracy to bring about their downfall. How we handle this could be the difference between an uneasy peace and all-out war. Inviting them to Toronto is an intriguing proposal, but I am not convinced this is the way to go. Offering to negotiate might simply bolster their belief we are uniting against them. Thoughts?” The phone stayed silent this time.
“We’re caught between hell and a hard place.” Gabriel slumped back in his chair. “If we don’t negotiate, don’t we run the risk of them concluding we think we’re strong enough to defy them? They might attack now, without warning, to destroy us before we become stronger.”
No one else spoke for a moment.
“Same source as before?” Ari asked.
“Yes. It was Bastian.” Daron’s voice held no inflection.
Gabriel sat forward again, his eyes narrowing. “Why would Bastian do that? If he’s not lying to trick us, is he speaking for the elders or for himself?”
“I do not know the answer. I have many theories, but no basis for favoring one over another.”
Ari schooled her face to hide her shock. Only a handful of people knew that Bastian was Daron’s sire. In fact, Daron was a First Son, the designation given to the first male vampire sired by each of the O-Seven elders. It was usually a position of honor, but Daron and Bastian had been estranged for centuries due to Daron’s democratic ideals. When Daron split from the elders’ court, Bastian had offered him protection for life if Daron never linked his name with Bastian’s again. Both vampires had stuck to their bargain for hundreds of years. So why had the elder taken such a sudden interest in him now?
Daron continued. “This is the third time in a year that Bastian has contacted me. That is somewhat unique. He has an agenda and envisions some reward for his helpful efforts, but I have not yet fathomed what that might be.”
Ari couldn’t ask the questions she wanted without revealing Daron’s secret relationship, so she changed the subject. “Assuming Bastian is one of the two coming, who is the other?”
“Porbius.”
She shot up straight in her chair. “But that’s the guy who voted to kill me.”
“Unfortunately, that is true.” Andreas had been present in the elders’ court when Porbius had made his recommendation. “He is aggressive, impulsive, and the intellectual inferior to a majority of the elders. It makes him a poor choice for a negotiator.”
Ari chewed her lip. Of the two, Bastian seemed more reasonable. If it hadn’t been for his intervention, Porbius’s recommendation might have been accepted. Yet Bastian’s help had been incidental rather than intentional, hadn’t it? And surely he’d been part of the psychic attack on Andreas just hours after their escape. His major vampire ability was mind control.
“This is bad. Really bad,” she muttered.
Gabriel leaned over to whisper. “Yeah, love, I think I already said that.”
“What have the other Canadian princes said?” Andreas sat on the corner of the table, one leg over the edge.
“I have only talked with Raphael and Bolivar, because I wanted to discuss it with you first. They think most of them will follow our lead.”
“Whatever that might be,” Gabriel grumbled.
As they continued to discuss the pros and cons of various responses to Bastian’s proposal, Ari kept thinking about the vampire elder. He was only average-looking, but he had broad shoulders and great presence. Even among the powerful elders, he had stood out. He’d pretended boredom and indifference, but his watchful eyes had taken in everything. His championing of Andreas hadn’t been an accident, nor was his offer to Daron. He had a scheme of his own. They just needed to figure out what it was.
What would a vampire who had everything want? More. But more what? Not money, not property. It had to be power. Did he want to assume control of the O-Seven? How could anything from Daron or Andreas further his ambitions?
Andreas’s voice brought her attention back to the discussion. “How do you vote, Arianna? Should Daron issue the invitation or not?”
“I vote…yes. The quickest way to figure out what they want—or what Bastian wants—is to talk with them.”
“Gabriel?”
The blond vampire considered Andreas then smiled at Ari. “I love how you can’t resist jumping right into the middle of things. But why not? They’re not going to go away, so I also vote yes.”
Oliver, being the only conservative vampire present, voted no. The security personnel were split two to two, Lilith and Russell affirmative, Mike and Samuel the dissenters. Andreas voted yes, with a caveat. “I want to know that the other princes are with us on this, and that the Magic Councils in Toronto and Riverdale are in agreement or at least kept informed.”
Daron argued against involving the Toronto Magic Council. He was still in the process of building a relationship with them. The council had been so poisoned by his predecessor that they had little trust for vampires. He agreed only after Ari offered to be the go-between by contacting her fellow guardian Zoe Vesper with the Canadian council.
The moment the meeting was over, Ari collected Russell and Lilith to make her nightly patrol of the Olde Town District. She skipped the restored 1800s market district, where brick streets and quaint shops brimmed with shoppers during the tourist season, and she bypassed Goshen Park. Until the weather improved, both were unlikely trouble spots. With the exception of the vampires and the reptilian species, most of the supernatural races were susceptible to the cold and stayed inside the bars and strip clubs at night. But even those establishments had been sparsely visited lately. The bitter cold had slowed life all over Riverdale.
The deserted streets made the six black and gray stripped werehyenas stand out the moment they erupted from the alley. Ari halted, her magic flaring, and she reached for her guns. These guys weren’t in town for a drink or they wouldn’t be in animal form.
Russell and Lilith tensed beside her, both with guns in hand. Although the local hyenas were an unfriendly clan, they weren’t likely to attack a guardian. And they were solid-colored. The stripes marked this pack as out-of-towners.
Ari and the werelions stood their ground as the hyenas began to fan out and move toward them. The worst thing you could do was run from hyenas. The second was to engage in hand-to-hand combat; their jaws were built to crush bone.
“Stop where you are,” Ari called. “What do you want?”
“Ari, behind us.” Russell’s whisper was urgent.
She glanced over her shoulder. Four more hyenas were closing in from behind. Both groups picked up the pace. “Cover the rear, Russell. Lilith and I will take the front.” She glanced at the lioness. “I’m starting with the guy in the lead.”
The hyenas broke into a run, and Ari fired her Walther. Her first shot struck the leader in the shoulder. He stumbled, but recovered and kept coming. She kept firing; Russell and Lilith picked off targets one by one. But kill shots were difficult in the chaos, and like most shifters, the hyenas’ healing rate and tolerance for damage was high, even from silver bullets. There were just too many, and close enough now to see the saliva dripping from their teeth.
Across the street, the bar doors flew open and werewolves spilled into the streets—her friend Steffan’s pack—and joined the fight.
Ari lost sight of the hyena leader until he leaped from among the snarling bodies and knocked her down. She landed hard, the hyena on top of her. She yanked her right hand free, shoved the gun against his head and pulled the trigger. Even the strongest shifter will go down with a head shot.
She shoved at the dead weight, and Lilith appeared, pulling from above. Ari was back on her feet in time to see the surviving hyenas break off the attack and run—straight into Andreas, Gabriel and Oliver. Psychic links could be a pain, but they were a terrific asset when you needed reinforcements.
The vampires dispatched three more hyenas, which encouraged the two survivors to run faster on their way out of town.
Andreas
came to her side, his eyes assessing her for damage, and he reached out to touch the scratch on her cheek. His gaze moved to the guns still in her hands, then to the rips in her coat, and he flashed a brief smile. “You are hard on jackets. Can’t I let you out of my sight for even a few minutes?”
“Just doing some target shooting with my new pistol. Nothing serious, thanks to all the help.” She put her weapons away and walked toward the wolves. Two of them nursed injuries, but no one appeared seriously hurt. She was thanking them when the squad car arrived.
“What’s going on here?” A Riverdale officer popped out, one hand hovering over his holster. “Guardian, it that you? Do you need assistance?”
“I think we’re good, but we should get the bodies off the street.”
Another cruiser pulled up. It was Ryan.
The patrolman’s shoulders relaxed. “I’ll call the coroner,” he said.
Ryan waved him off. “Already done. I called when I saw the first casualties up the street.” He walked toward them, a scowl on his face. “More bounty hunters?”
“Probably.” Ari’s tone was apologetic.
The wolves perked up with the mention of bounty hunters. Ari mentally groaned. It would be all over town by morning. She studied the strong faces around her. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to have their friends on the lookout for strangers.
Ryan seemed oblivious to their audience. “Any get away?”
“Two, but I doubt they’ll come back.” Ari swept her gaze around the circle of wolves and vampires. “I don’t think they liked our hospitality committee.”
Gabriel chuckled. The lighter moment melted the tension, but it didn’t change the fact that this had been another narrow escape.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The news of the bounty hunters spread as anticipated, and by six the next morning the council president was on the phone demanding to see her.
