Dominick’s vampiric call to battle was strong enough my headache was back, but otherwise, I could ignore it.
Both Lula and Variance had gone into that eerie stillness and silence only a supernatural could attain. It was taking a lot more concentration and will for them to refuse that call.
Franny pulled the car onto the shoulder outside the city limits. Amarillo was still a ways off, sparkling in the distance.
A barbed-wire fence ran along the side of the road. Beyond that stretched dry ranch land dotted with scrub.
There were lights out that way, in a configuration that indicated they were from the ranch house. Other smaller lights around that cluster had to be outbuildings.
“I think I should go in with you,” Franny said.
“No, you absolutely should not,” Variance said before any of the rest of us could chime in. “There are already too many of us going—too many chances we’ll be seen or caught. You’re our way out, Fran. Our best way to get Rhianna home quickly and quietly.”
I saw the conflict on her face, but she sighed. “I knew you’d say that. And you’re right. You’re right, Vari. I brought this in case she needs it to remember.”
She pulled a little stuffed toy out of the door pocket. The palm-sized, lumpy beige thing might have once been an elephant, but it had been worn until it had lost an ear, a leg, the tail, and an eye.
Variance seemed to soften slightly, then he tucked the toy into his pocket. “Don’t stay after dawn,” he said. “If we’re not back in two hours, go home, Franny. Get safe.”
“I’ll be right here when you come back. I’ll be fine. We’re bringing her back this time, Vari.”
A flashlight beam flickered beyond the fence, three quick blinks, then three long ones.
“That’s your inside man,” Franny said. “Find Rhianna. Bring us Dominick’s blood. Be careful. I love you.”
Variance was out of the car before any of us had unbuckled our seat belts.
We quickly followed, but he wasn’t waiting.
He’d already stepped over the section of fence conveniently broken and lying on the ground, and was making his way across the field, aiming toward where we’d seen the flashlight beam.
Abbi, with Hado in man form, bounded ahead of both me and Lula. We were right on their heels.
The flashlight flickered again, and Variance readjusted the angle of his approach.
The taste of dust kicked up by our boots filled my nose and mouth along with the pitchy scent of juniper and mesquite.
It wasn’t just my headache. Everything about this mission made me queasy.
“How bad is it?” I asked Lula.
She knew I meant the vampiric call. “I can handle it.”
“Are we trusting their inside person? Are they, like, a spy?” Abbi asked as she trotted to keep up with Variance’s long stride.
“Only one way to find out,” Lula said.
A figure walked our way. A man, I thought. Familiar.
He stopped a couple yards away from us, and we stopped too.
“Fuck, no,” I growled.
The man—the hunter, Hatcher, who Lula had been sneaking around with— smiled. “Well, look at us now.”
“The Hunter?” Abbi asked.
“The asshole,” I answered.
