“Mmmm. Do I havta?”
Eli’s lips did that twitchy thing that passed for a smile. Or gas. Or cramps.
“Fine. Speaker,” I said. Alex tapped on the screen and the speaker came on. “Yellowrock here,” I said.
“E-igido. Dalonige’ i Digadoli,”he said in the speech of The People. “I have received your message.”E-igido. My sister.“I have also spoken toUni Lisi, our grandmother. She wishes toNuwhtohiyada gotlvdi.”Make peace.
I thought about the memory of the longhouse and theold woman and the outclan vampire. I started to reply and stopped. There was so much to learn. To remember. My silence went on too long.
“You cannot avoid family and clan forever,e-igido.”
“Whatever. I’ll just avoid you all as long as you avoided me.” I sounded snarky, like a teenager with few social skills and less wisdom. And I didn’t care. My gramma might have evil ends in mind. It wasn’t like she had ever baked cookies for me. Not by a long shot. I smiled, knowing it wasn’t a pretty one. “That means I can ignore you for a few years.”
“Perhaps we deserve that. But your anger will eat at you from the inside,e-igido. I know this. I have dealt with my own anger. My own loss.”
Littermate wishes to teach Jane.Beast was stretched out on a ledge in my mind, in the alcove that was her den in our soul home. Her tail snaked slowly back and forth, the gesture amused and irritated all at once, as only a cat can be.Jane is Beast. Beast is best hunter. Beast does not need male littermate to teach.
I upended a liter of Gatorade, crushing the bottle with a crackle of plastic, forcing the liquid down my throat. It was empty in two seconds. I tossed the plastic in the recycle bin, where it rattled.“Usdiga,”I said, in Tsalagi, using a term I hadn’t known I remembered, one that meantbaby boy, orlittle brother, a word that could be kind or insulting depending on circumstances and tone. Mine made it a faint insult. “I don’t have a lot of time right now. Family reunions will have to wait until I live or die. You got my message so you know the Son of Darkness Number Two, aka the Son of Shadows, aka Shimon Bar-Judas, aka Shimon Bar-Ioudas, aka the Flayer of Mithrans, is on his way to Asheville. You know I’ll likely have to fight him.”
Ayatas didn’t answer right away. Maybe I was on hold. Maybe he fell asleep. I was ready to hang up when he replied, his tone all business, no longer family oriented. “PsyLED is tracking this vampire, as are a number of state and federal agencies and departments. The Flayer of Mithrans will not be a problem to you, my sister.”
“Sure. Because they’ve done such a bang-up job so far, protecting the humans and me from the big bad uglies. I’m betting that with the exception of you, it’s a humans-only tracking team after Shimon, and not one single witch or vamp in the group.”
“He will not concern you,” Ayatas ground out. “Stay out of this.”
I rubbed my forehead, feeling a headache coming on. “I’m safe. Everyone is safe. The gov’ment is gonna protect us all. Forgive me if I have little confidence in any of you.”
Ayatas sighed through his nose, a Cherokee breath that could mean so many things in different contexts. It brought an unexpected, but short-lived, sense of comfort to me. He said, “You do not have clearance for anything I might know.” He hesitated. I waited. “However, I know a great deal about the creature called the Son of Shadows. One of my units has done some digging and we believe a core group—or a splinter group—of his people have been in the States for some time. Several of my people are quietly tracking him.”
Onscreen, the footage replayed, two vehicles pulled up in my driveway and the blond vamp ripped out the throat of my scion. They had known where I lived. I shared that insight with Ayatas and added, “You may be right that there are splinter groups here, or antagonistic groups here.” They had bled and read Shiloh and she had told them everything because she was weak and unprotected. I had left her weak and unprotected, when she could have been safe with Amy Lynn Brown and Clan Shaddock. She was part of my clan and she had been tortured on my watch. “They know where I am,” I said softly.
He was silent, and I wondered if he was multitasking, not really paying attention. He asked, “Is your home defensible?”
“Now, that was a good question,usdiga. I’m impressed. It isn’t defendable against rocket launchers or tanks, but we aren’t sitting ducks.” And one group of vamps might think we have two of their people, who might actually both be true-dead from Eli’s silver-shot. Didn’t say that.Nope. “Shimon officially arrives in town tonight at dusk for parley. I plan to do all the talking and chitchat at...” I stopped. “At an agreed-upon location, one where all the humans have been sent away, so no locals will become collateral. If there’s a war, with blood and guts and casualties, it’ll take place out here, at the winery, far from the tourists.”
“Tell me where he will be. I can help. In my official capacity.”
As opposed to his brotherly capacity. He was speaking in the voice of PsyLED, not whatever another option might be. And I knew that if the government was involved, they might just bomb the hotel and to hell with any human casualties. Or Edmund. I nearly whispered, saying, “No. If it comes to a fight, better hope I win, because if I die, he’ll become your official problem,little brother. And it won’t be fun and games, like the Sangre Duello. It’ll be war. You might want to have the National Guard on standby with rocket launchers and tanks just in case.”
He didn’t reply to that one. And it let me know I had been right about the kind of help that was being offered.
“Where is Soul?” I asked.
“You haven’t heard from her?”
Which wasn’t an answer. I hated it when people played games. It made me want to claw them, maybe draw a little blood, make a point.
Beast is best hunter. Want to hunt with littermate. Track and eat big deer.
I thought you were ticked off with him. And not right now,I thought back at my other half.
“Soul took some vacation time, and she’s due back. She hasn’t checked in with HQ yet, which is unlike her. The director fears that something has happened to her.”
I put his comments together and said, “You think she’s been taken by fangheads? Kidnapped?”Along with Edmund and Tex and Ronald and Derek, which I didn’t say aloud. Ayatas didn’t answer. Soul in the clutches of the Flayer would be bad. Very,verybad. Soul was the only creature keeping the arcenciels in check from changingthe timeline. I remembered the visions of war I had seen in my soul home.
I shifted my gaze to Alex. On his laptop, he was already tracking Soul through credit card use and cell phone. I did not want to know how he had that access.
“I... do not know,” Ayatas said slowly. Which, again, was not an answer.
