“I have to stop,” I said aloud.
“No,” Marlene said, jiggling my dislocated fingers.
My throat made a strangled noise of pain. “Then I’ll die, right here.” I let myself fall to my knees again. They were taking a beating tonight. “I have to stop...” I paused, thinking through what I was going to say, knowing it had to be something that didn’t let them start to figure out how to bubble time. No way could I let these two figure out how to do that. So I lied about one thing on my person that I could do without, lied to gain us some time. Lied to keep my secret. Lied to give Leo access to the one thing I could offer. The one thing I had refused to offer, ever. Until now. “I have to stop using the gorget. It only gets an hour of time per person. It needs... um... sunlight to replenish it.”
“What dis gorget is?”
“On my neck. The gold-and-citrine necklace. It’s what lets me change time. It has to spend time in sunlight to stay... charged.” Charged? I was so lame.
Marlene yanked the gold gorget, forcing me forward and down to my knees again with the violence of the ripping. The clasp broke and scored the nape of my neck. Blood welled to the surface of my skin. An offering, if Leo could figure that out. I felt Leo slowly lift a hand and wipe my blood. I knew he was licking his fingers. And for once I wasn’t irritated that he took my blood. I didn’t have much strength left and I needed him to be fast and strong. A master vamp who got the drop on a witch could bend her mind so fast she’d never see it coming. Leo took some more blood and I turned our bodies away from the witches so they wouldn’t see.
Deep inside, Beast growled, a low vibration of warning. I felt Leo’s mind near mine, a shadow in my soul home. My first thought was that he was trying to bind me again. My second thought was a realization that he was stealing power from my soul home. He had been there once, not that long ago, chained to me. And maybe that allowed him access to the spiritual power stored there. Or maybe the mere fact that I offered him my blood gave him access, the same way blood magic worked when the sacrifice was willing. The cavern space went dim and the flames in the fire pit lowered, growing cold.
I could feel Leo growing stronger. He tasted my blood again. I thought about telling him to stop, but... the bolo spell was trying to kill me. His fingers tangled in the bolo spell and loosed it from my torso. I managed a single full, deep breath. Relief flooded through me.
Leo took a drop of my blood. Funny how anything that saved my butt was okay, even things that had only recently repulsed me. Leo with some of my blood. A vamp knocking out some witches.
“Dis t’ing got no magic in it,” Marlene said. “But I sell it and make us some money.”
“I have to stop,” I whispered, the warning to Leo. And the Gray Between slid to the side and disappeared.
Leo struck.
I felt him push off me, vamp-fast. Before I could even blink, he had both witches, their throats in his fists, his fangs in Tau’s. Neither one moved. Neither one protested. I fell over onto the sidewalk, landing with a slight bounce. Tau smiled and sighed, sexual arousal in the tone, and leaking from her pores. She wrapped her arms around Leo’s shoulders. Onorios cannot be bound, but blood-drunk, clearly, was another matter.
Marlene simply stood there, gazing off into the night. This was why the witches had not taken over the world and killed off the vamps. The vamps might have little recourse against their magic, but the witches had absolutely no defense against the mind-blowing compulsion of a master vamp. In a way, they were evenly matched in this war that been going on for millennia. If Leo got the accords signed after this massive snafu, he’d have a huge edge over the EVs.
“Drop the rope working you have upon her,ma chérie. The woman is no danger to us.”
The bolo fell away with a soft sizzle of sound. I closed my eyes, not wanting to watch Leo bind Marlene against her will. Making Tau love him and desire him. Forever. It was illegal. It was immoral. It stole their free will. But I just couldn’t care about two people who wanted me dead.
Through the ground I felt the vibrations of people running toward us. Eli and Bruiser and the two Onorios reached us first. Bruiser slid his arms under me and lifted me. “Get her home. To the rock garden,” he said. He kissed my forehead, his lips burning hot. And he passed me to Eli. My head lolled on my partner’s shoulder, the stink of fear and relief so strong in his pores it was rank.
An SUV pulled up, a short distance away, the headlights visible through small buildings. We were no longer on St. Charles Avenue, but just off Loyola Avenue, in an area of town where cemeteries were on either side of the street. We were actually inside one cemetery, however, and I caught a glimpse of the mausoleum belonging to H. Meyer. The crypt was constructed of brick covered withcement, shaped to look like stone. There were once-white marble architectural elements and a pediment on top. If the concrete parts of the burial place had ever been painted or whitewashed, the pigments were long gone. Low beds of white clover grew everywhere between the resting places of the long dead, and taller weeds pushed through the broken concrete walks. Bracken and more weeds grew from the walls and roofs of even older crypts. Neglect and decay and useless decadence. There was no one to keep the place of the dead nice, not anymore. It was falling to ruin.
Eli carried me past the Haynes’ resting place, the O’Haras’, and eventually on to Sixth Street. He strapped me into the SUV, which smelled of Youngers and Truebloods and home. He got in, started the engine, and I let my head fall to his shoulder.
When I woke, the sun was nothing more than a gray shadow, still to rise, a promise of heat and humidity. I was in my own bed, with Angie Baby curled into the curve of my totally human body.
Kitsss,Beast thought. AndDen. Safe den. Want kitsss.
Eli opened the door and said, “How did you get away from the guards?”
My godchild giggled and snuggled closer to me, her arms around my neck. “Aunt Jane needed me. She feels better now.” Later, I felt Molly lift Angie away, and I smelled breakfast on the air. But I was too tired to care, even about food. Alone in my bed, I rolled over and let sleep claim me.
***
Much, much later, Eli came to my room again and cleared his throat. Then again. And then over and over until I grunted that I was awake. He said, “The witch/vamp accords were signed this morning before dawn. Leo has his deal.”
I grunted again, hoping he’d go away so I could go back to sleep, but then I remembered I had a question. I grunted again, something might have been “Nicauds?”
Eli said, “In court with a full coven of the more powerful witches in the U.S. They broke enough witch law to see them confined somewhere for decades. Or to have their magic stripped forever.”
“They can do that? Take magic?” I asked, though it came out scratchy, sounding like a cat with dry heaves.
“I overheard some stuff. So I think so. Not sure.” I didn’t reply, and he said, “We got paid.”
Which was good. I grunted one last time, “Ducky. Go away.”
