“Ow.”
“Yeah. Right,” she said. “Short, postdelivery mama hurts the big bad vampire hunter. You listen to me,” she practically hissed, stalking close, her face only inches from mine. She reeked of power and fury and I barely stopped myself from backing away.
Over her head, Big Evan was slowly shaking his head no. Whatever Molly had planned, he wasn’t in agreement with it. But he wanted me to be one to tell her no.Great. Make my life easy, why don’t you.
“I could kill the Flayer of Mithrans with my death magic, but yes, it’s hard to stop. However, I could drainthem all a little bit, and then Bruiser could take out the leader. Between an Onorio’s magics and mine, we could take them all down.”
Evan continued to shake his head. Stopping instantly when Molly looked around.Coward.
I asked, “What do you do with the excess undeath/unlife energy when you pull their magics to yourself?”
“What?”
“You have to put the energy somewhere. Where does it go? Where did it go when you drained the vamps in the Regal?”
“I—I—What do you mean where did it go?” Molly demanded. And then her eyes cleared. “Son of a witch,” she swore. Her hands tightened; her eyes went wide and unfocused. She spun around as if looking for the missing magics.
Speaking slowly, I said, “Molly?” She whirled back to me, eyes wild. “That was a direct, face-to-face confrontation.” I continued. “Shimon has his own Onorio who nearly killed Bruiser. If they took out Bruiser, they could try—” I stopped. Bruiser had been wallowing in misery and guilt and that was not normal at all. Was my honeybunch spelled? I held on to that thought and returned to the discussion at hand. “If Bruiser was out of the picture, the Onorio could turn her attention to draining Edmund. And Ed might have had his brain rewired by the Flayer when he was being possessed and flayed. Our options are limited.”
“Okay. Options. Right,” Moll said, her eyes still too wide. “I’m listening.”
And she was. Sorta. “Edmund could challenge SOD Number Two to Sangre Duello. Or I could challenge him to the kind of fight I had with Titus and fight him outside of time. Shimon was a witch before he was turned, so magic would be allowed. But that might kill me before I killed him, because if he has timewalking magic, and I think he has some, he might be way better than I am. Or... we could just kill him in his sleep. Assuming he sleeps by day. Assuming we could find him. Or maybe the arcenciels can be convinced to attack and bite him all atonce. I’ve negotiated for eight arcenciels to help us, the way they were supposed to in the fight against Titus, but I haven’t heard back. If Shimon has an anode nearby, he might be able to capture them. In fact, that might be what he wants. Or worse, maybe the time circle he’s had going somewhere is being powered by trapped arcenciels rather than witches. Arcenciels who’ve been trapped for so long that they don’t know about the new spell that frees them. And maybe his plan is to rule over time forever with the arcenciels under his magical thumb. And maybe he knows a counterspell and can keep them trapped. Shimon’s been around two thousand years. This might be a brand-new way to use arcenciels, to ride them through time.”
“You’ve been thinking about this.”
“Yeah. I have. Thinking is all I’ve had to do while I was trying to die. Thinking the long game, the way Leo used to, is hard. It’s like 3-D chess with four sets of pieces—white, black, red, and green. I suck at it. But I can see part of the boards. And all of them are deadly. And honestly, I can’t see how we’ll win against him.”
“We’ll win,” Evan said, sounding too confident.
Molly agreed. “In a direct confrontation with fangheads, with time to prepare, witches always win.”
“His brother could walk through time. Probably Shimon can too,” I said. “Time always wins when pitted against magic. And I can’t promise I’ll live through another timewalk long enough to kill him.” They still looked unconcerned. “He has witches at his disposal, or maybe even arcenciels. In a time circle.”
“And we’ll save them once we finish with the mustache twirler.”
“The what?” I asked.
“The evil horror,” Molly said placidly, “who wears a black hat, twirls his mustache, and saysmwahahahaha, as he dips the good guy in acid or in a tank filled with hungry alligators.”
I frowned. The Son of Shadowswaslike that. Pure evil all the way. The creature had no redeeming qualities at all. Even Hannibal Lecter had been erudite and intelligent. Dexter had only tortured the bad guys. All bad buys hadsomething or someone they loved or something they were passionate about, even if it was only their own bodies and needs. But Shimon was allowing himself to be altered, giving himself an exoskeleton that would likely be awfully ugly, awfully quickly. But... names. The names of the Flayer all meant something. I felt a chill, knowing I had missed something. Something important.
“What?” Molly said. “What are you thinking?”
“There was the dark blur with the flash of red in the background at the Regal.” I texted Alex to go over the tapes, see if he could spot the dark blur and identify it. I got back one line.
I’m like, 30 feet away, you know.
The kids are sleeping,I texted back.
As I read his reply, Molly got a phone call. And staggered. “Are... Are you sure?”
Big Evan tapped the cell onto speaker, mouthing,Our neighbor.
“Everything is burning, Molly. I’m so sorry. I called the fire department as soon as I saw the smoke, but... your house was mostly gone by the time they got there.”
CHAPTER 17
I Don’t EatFamily
