“Nicolle!” I shouted.
Everything stopped. And then Nicolle leaped at me, totally vamped out. I raised the gun and fired. Mid-center body mass. She didn’t die but she did scream, that awful ululation of a vamp dying, or thinking they are. She dropped to the ground, landing in a three point balance, a tripod, both feet and one hand. When she thrust herself up, I stabbed low, into her belly, hitting her descending aorta, or whatever passed as such for vamps. She fell. Lay there, paralyzed, leaking onto the wood floors. If our house was ever a crime scene, the cops would think the place had been the home base of a couple dozen mass murderers.
Ed and Eli fell back, exhausted. Ed pushed off his perch almost instantly and went to Eli. “Let me heal you.”
My second set his weapons on the kitchen table for cleaning and pulled off his T-shirt. His dark chest was scored with talon marks and too much blood. Ed sliced his fingers with his blade and went to work healing the bleeding mess. Neither man looked at me.
“Somebody want to tell me what’s happening?” I asked.
Edmund huffed softly through his nose. I was pretty sure he was breathing to make up for the battle and hisown blood loss. “She came in through the back. Over the brick wall. From Katie’s.” Fear slammed through me. I turned that way and Ed said, “Dion called. Everyone is fine. He locked the girls in the kitchen and threw holy water on Nicolle.”
I toed her over and spotted a scald on her shoulder and neck. Nicolle glared at me. It was all she could do with the ash wood in her belly. That and leak.
“And she wanted...”
“To kill you,” Eli said. “Natch.”
Natchwas my word and I shook my head at him.
“She was dropped off at Katie’s by a dark SUV,” Alex said. “Plates reported stolen an hour ago.”
I shifted my body forward to see him and Bodat coming out of the laundry room where they had taken shelter. The Kid was armed with a handgun. Bodat was carrying a broom and was more pasty than usual. He also stank of fear.
“No way to track her back to the enemy,” Alex said.
“Is there always this much blood?” Bodat asked, his voice shaky.
“This is nothing,” Alex said, his voice light but his eyes hard, maybe remembering his own near-death.
“Alex, please call for the Council House’s cleanup crew.” Ed bent and lifted Nicolle into his arms, which must have shifted the position of the stake in her belly because she swiveled her head to me in one of those not-human moves that’s a lot more like a lizard or a bird than a mammal.
“George is mine,” she whispered, the smell of the lie on her breath, leaking from her with her blood and the scent of lemons. “We love each other. We have been lovers for weeks.” When I didn’t react she shouted, “He’s mine!”
“She’s been turned by Des Citrons,” I said. “We need to know where they are. How many they are. What their plans are.”
Edmund hesitated as if weighing my unspoken command to drink her down. “I will discover all that she knows, my mistress, assuming that she knows anything atall.” That sounded as if he agreed with my unspoken request, so that was good. “Rosanne Romanello has decided not to participate in the Sangre Duello. Therefore, I will have Nicolle shipped to Sedona at sunset.”
Nicolle screamed, “Nooooo!”
Ed carried her deeper into the living room, where he opened the hidden door into his sun-protected hidey-hole and slipped inside. The shelving unit closed behind him, cutting off her scream.
“Eli?” I asked.
“I’m good. Coulda used a few more minutes with the fanged healer, but it’s after sunrise.” He looked out the window at the drenching rain before he started up the stairs. I followed, taking in his back. In the human world he would have needed stitches. Maybe a lot of stitches. In the ranger world and the world of vamps, not so much. “What?” he said to me, as if he could tell I was staring at his wounds.
“Ed missed some. You need an urgent care center.”
“Whyn’t you just put pressure on it all and tape me up. Ed can heal me tonight. It’ll be more expedient than a trip to urgent care.”
Expedientwas Eli’s word, used whenever I wanted him to get medical care. Home remedies were moreexpedientthan drugs. Pressure and butterfly bandages were moreexpedientthan stitches. “Dumb man,” I said.
Eli shrugged, which made him bleed faster, and led the way to his bathroom.
• • •
I pulled the covers over my head, hearing rain scudding against the windows. Not thinking. Not feeling. But I rolled back and lifted the boxing gloves off the bedpost, snuggling with them under the covers. Breathing deeply of Onorio scent. Wishing I could tell Bruiser about the sweat house and the revelations of my past. Wishing he was here with me, holding me.
Dreams dragged me under.
