I pulled off the bracelet.
He took in the situation and popped something into his mouth. In an instant, he once again looked like the hunter. “I’ll take her.”
I had a slice of a second to make my choice. Did I trust him with the child? Would he hurt her, or would he take her to safety? He could just as easily betray us, betray the witches and Variance.
“I can run faster than you,” he said. “I can get her back to the car.”
“Where’s Variance?”
“At the car. Injured.” Hatcher glanced over my shoulder then back at me. “Badly.”
Had he been the one who injured Variance, or possibly killed him? Had he been the one to tell Dominick we were coming to get the child tonight?
Or was he telling me the truth and he could get Rhianna to safety?
He snarled at my hesitation, then plucked a hair. “Here.” He shoved the hair at me. “Now you have a piece of me. You will return it with my token. Go. Save her.”
I didn’t want to trust him. Everything in me said he was my enemy.
It would be easy to think he was working with Dominick and the vampires. That he wanted to kill Rhianna and send me in to fight the vampire so Lula and I would both be dead.
Trusting him might be foolish, but I could not leave Lula to die.
I tucked the hair in my pocket. Then I knelt, keeping my eyes on Hatcher, Rhianna balanced on my knee. I withdrew the spool of magic thread and tied it to her wrist.
“The Moon Rabbit is on the other end of this,” I said. “If you break it, if you hurt the child, or if she dies, the Moon Rabbit will destroy you.”
Hatcher shrugged. “I want my token, not a dead witch child.”
I stood and handed the girl to the ghoul. She resisted but was too exhausted to put up much of a fight.
Hatcher was surprisingly gentle with her and made soothing noises as he adjusted his grip.
“Good luck, Brogan Gauge.” He ran. Between one breath and the next he was gone.
The entire exchange had taken seconds.
Another explosion rocked the house. I braced my hand on the wall to keep my footing. How many bombs did Lula have? Five? Six? How many explosions had there been?
I slipped the cloaking bracelet on my wrist and lurched back toward the room. The oily perfume of crushed roses weighted the air, overpoweringly strong, burning my lungs.
The doorway that had been open moments before was now blocked by thick, dark vines studded with thorns.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Beyond the vines, I could hear the fight in the room, the labored grunts and thuds, the slap of boots on marble floor, the ringing of blades.
I pulled the vampire-killing knife and started sawing through vines.
With each slice of the magic blade, the vines shivered, cracked, and shattered like great glass icicles falling to the ground.
It took minutes, hours, forever, my thoughts white-out panicked, my breath wheezing as I begged powers that had never listened to me to let her be alive.
Let her still be alive.
Then, finally, I could see them.
Locked in a deadly dance, Lu and Dominick moved so quickly across the room, I could only make out their forms when they paused or caught the other in a hold.
