“Look,” she snapped irritably, “if he’d told me he expected me to pass all of this on, I’d have done it sooner.”
“We didn’t ask and he probably assumed we would,” Tom said soothingly. “The vampires aren’t upon us yet. Just tell us what you know.”
Ruby nodded. “Once the first group of vampires is dealtwith, stay alert. If Asil doesn’t kill Alvarez, we should expect a second attack. We’ll know when Alvarez is dead because these two”—she tipped her head toward Mari-Brigid and Bobby—“will feel it.”
“Three hours last Wednesday,” Mari-Brigid said thoughtfully. Then she smiled—an expression filled with sweetness. “I concede the field of honor, Ruby. I think he must have fallen pretty hard for you on your date.”
Ruby shouldn’t have felt relief that someone else thought that, too.
“Maybe,” Ruby conceded, stifling the impulse to touch her lips where the memory of Asil’s end-of-date kiss still lingered. “But why do you think so?”
“He could have sent this information to the werewolves who are guarding us now. They are the ones who need it. But there wasn’t much time—and he only wanted to communicate with you. It is really very romantic.” Her smile changed slightly and became less happy and more ironic. “Trust me, I’ve read a lot of romances.”
Asil had wanted to communicate with her. Ruby hadn’t thought of it like that. But this wasn’t the time to moon over it.
A sharp whistle rang through the air. She wasn’t a pack member, but that sounded like a signal that their enemy had been seen.
“Don’t get cocky, Tom Franklin,” Ruby said when that wolf turned to go. “These are all old vampires. Asil told me you can’t count them dead until their remains are in the sea.”
“I hear you,” Tom said, and he was gone. The front door shut in his wake.
VII
Asil’s wolf’s pelt was perfect for disappearing into the shadows of a stormy Seattle night. Dark brown, he blended into the mud and foliage even better than he would have if he’d been gray or white. He pulled pack magic over himself to make that cover even better as he settled into the lee of one of the boxcars of the nearly life-sized animal train that lined the outside of the meadow.
He had no intention of hiding from the White Angel—the blood the vampire had taken rendered that useless. But none of the other vampires had fed from him, and if the Angel fought true to form, he’d send his other vampires out first, hoping they would wear Asil down—or even kill him.
Given the same provocation, Bonarata would have come by himself and fought his own battles. Asil sometimes thought that he could like Bonarata, if it weren’t for all the other things the Lord of Night had done. The Angel tended to view his vampires as weapons that he wielded, part of himself rather than beings in their own right.
After a while, longer than Asil had expected, two cars pulled into the parking lot beside the BMW. From his hiding place, Asil had a clear view as six vampires got out of the cars—four in one and two in the other. None of them was the vampire he expected.
Cold chills crawled down his spine. He’d left Ruby to deal with the Angel.
And Angus, his wolf reminded him, sending a collage of times when they had fought beside the Scottish wolf.Angus knows how to kill monsters, and he has a pack to help him.
They watched from their hiding place as the vampires swarmed over the fence. A peacock called a warning, then erupted in ungainly flight that was more of a glide to another part of the zoo.
Do not underestimate our Ruby, his wolf advised even as the tide of battle gave his voice a rough edge.
The wolf gave him a picture, a snapshot of a moment in time, of Ruby, her eyes black with power as her hair floated around her as if levitated by a wind of magic. The ghost of a dead boy clung to one of her legs.
Asil took the hope that his wolf had gifted him with and tucked it deep into his heart. He could not afford fear about events out of his control. He had six old and powerful vampires to kill.
He killed the first one as she walked past him, the older woman who had put her hand on his leg. She hadn’t even bothered to change out of her silver gown, though she’d tied it up to keep it out of her way. Of all the vampires he’d seen at the charity ball, this was the one he had feared the most because she was as smart as she was deadly.
Arrogance led to her death, his wolf said as they fled her body before any of the other vampires noticed Asil had begun the fight. Asil heard the warning in the wolf’s voice.
I have no doubt that any of these vampires could kill us if I am stupid, Asil told his wolf.Let’s not be stupid.
Vampires were inherently selfish creatures. A proper seethe was nonetheless capable of fighting like a pack, because they owed their allegiance, their life, to the Master Vampire who had made them. But older vampires like these, who had come together out of greed, serving the Angel because itwould get them something—those vampires fought as individuals.
Had any three of them banded together, Asil would not have been able to kill them. And the last pair, who figured out what was going on only after Asil had killed his fourth opponent, nearly did.
Even so, ten minutes after the first vampire climbed the fence, they were all dead. Asil was not unwounded, but his ribs and broken jaw—wounds gathered from killing the second vampire—were already functional again.
Panting, Asil stood over the unmoving body of the last of the six as the rain washed blood from his coat. He shivered from the chill and from icy pain because the dagger the last vampire had dug into the meat of his hip had been silvered. His wound would heal, but it would take days, not minutes.
He needed to let his battle rage go. Then he should change to human and gather all the vampire remains—a miserable task with the rain soaking everything. Then he needed to take them to the BMW and dump them in the salt water, where the magic that kept vampires animate would wash away. Otherwise, vampires as old as these would mend themselves, and he didn’t want to fight them again.
