Gee tightened his arms and legs, as if trying to preserve body heat or as if trying not to be noticed by a predator, shrinking small. The tiny striped snout stuck out of his collar, the winged lizard, curious. “There is a war,” hesaid, “between Soul and the other arcenciels on this plane. Since you killed Joses Santana, the elder Son of Darkness, the younglings have fallen away from guidance and counsel and wisdom. Soul has battled this past week to bring them back to the true path. The pressures of leadership have driven her into lack of control, into foolish acts. Her mistakes have cost the goddesses greatly.”
“Why would me killing the Flayer of Mithrans cause a war between the arcenciels?”
“I do not know.” Which was ominous.
Molly’s cell rang and I saw the name on the speaker face. Amelia, her sister. “Hey, sis,” Molly said, “what’s—Wait. Let me put this on speaker.” One-handed, she shifted the cell and pressed theSPEAKERbutton on the face. “Say that again so everyone can hear.”
“We’re under attack,” Amelia said. “Regan and I were working late at the Seven and got stuck here by the storm. We were on cots with lanterns lit when fangheads attacked. We initiated the building’s defenses and we’re armed, but the bad guys are not going away.”
Amelia and Regan were Molly’s human sisters. The Seven was Seven Sassy Sisters, the family restaurant. The defenses were probably some form ofhedge of thornsaround the building, one that could be released by a simple command or a touch to an amulet, by a human. Last time I checked in with them, the human sisters carried concealed and were always armed, which was smart for anyone working late in an isolated location, and doubly smart for a member of a witch family anywhere. Amelia kept a twelve-gauge behind the counter. Regan carried two very different semiautomatics with matte black grips—an H&K with silver-laced nine-mils for vamps, and an S&W loaded with hollow points for humans and robbers. The Everhart family was not rich. They’d be out of vamp-killing ammo fast.
“Hold tight,” Shaddock said. “I got a few scions laired not too far from there. Providing they can get the snowmobiles running, reinforcements will be there in ten.Maybe fifteen with the storm.” He pressed his own cell against his ear and turned away to talk.
“Who was that?” Amelia asked. I heard breaking glass. Someone had gotten through the outer defenses. Gunfire followed, punctuated by the piercing ululation of a vamp dying. “Again. Who was that?” she demanded, shouting.
“Lincoln Shaddock,” I said, loud enough to be heard in her gunfire-damaged hearing. “The Master of the City of Asheville. He’s sending reinforcements. Don’t shoot the rescuers.”
Amelia said some very unladylike curse words. Molly laughed and patted her baby’s back, burping Cassy.
Beast was deeply interested in the infant on Molly’s shoulder, her entire body language protective and covetous. Mentally, I stroked the head of my other half and she thought at me,Kit in danger from injured vampire Edmund?
I thought back,Molly is a death witch who just drained but didn’t kill some vamps. I think she’s got it in hand.Aloud I said, “You got stakes? Holy water?”
“Stakes, if it comes to that,” Regan said from farther away. “I’m boiling water. A good scalding hurts no matter if the flesh is dead or not.”
“Undead. Not dead,” Thema said from her position feeding Edmund.
“Yeah? We can arm-wrestle over that distinction if I live through this,” Regan said. Then she challenged, “Whoever you are.”
“I am Thema. I am a Mithran. We will arm-wrestle. If you win,” Thema said, readjusting Ed’s head against her throat, much like Moll readjusted the baby’s head against her breast, “I will part with a small gold statue of the Buddha that I stole from a temple over two hundred years ago. What will I gain should I win over your puny human arms?”
It hit me that Thema was distracting the humans until help could arrive. It made me want to kiss the vampire, but I figured she needed blood badly right now and I might get bitten for my trouble.
“If you win, I’ll give you an amulet made by my sisters. It lets you see witch magic three different times,” Regan said. “That’s worth more than gold.”
“I will not argue with this,” Thema said. “Done.”
The outer door opened and humans filed into the cottage, slamming the door after, shutting out the storm. I knelt at the fireplace in the main room and coaxed the wood to light. Shaddock, now wearing a shirt, directed his humans to feed my Edmund, who had become calm and controlled enough to not attack and kill. The MOC checked his watch. Made another call. There were more gunshots over the cell connected to the store. Then the boom of the shotgun. No vamps screamed this time. I could hear the human sisters breathing hard, ragged.
I realized what I had just thought.My Edmund.I was thinking and feeling about Ed as if he belonged to me, just the way Leo had said,“My Jane,”claiming me. That started an itch under my collar, but before I could deal with that, Molly called out, “Jane. Call Carmen. She’s trying to get through and I’m betting my nursing blanket that she’s under attack too.”
I dialed Carmen Miranda Everhart Newton, one of Molly’s witch sisters. “Jane,” she answered. “Are you with Moll?”
I put her on speaker. “Yes. She’s safe. So are the children.”
“I’m at Mama’s, spending the night through the storm, and we’ve got four dead vamps outside the house. What the hell am I supposed to do with them?”
“Dead-dead or some other kind of dead?” I asked.
“Burned to a crisp. Mama has some a-maz-ing wards,” Carmen said.
Lincoln paused in what he was saying into the phone and looked my way, interested. “Burned?”
“Mama’s good,” Molly said, pride in the two words, and maybe a smidge of warning for any future plans the MOC might have to harm local witches or to seek vengeance for the death of the attacking vamps.
Lincoln raised one hand in peace and smiled, showing no fangs, but listening in without shame. “My territoryhas been invaded,” he said. “I owe the attackers no fealty. If they attack my cattle, and my cattle kill them, I got no problem with that.”
“Not your cattle, Shaddock,” a different voice said over my cell.
