“You’re still hurt.”
“I got a sip from the new emperor. He’s tasty. I’ll do. You didn’t take any blood. Drive.”
Bruiser climbed in behind her, his weapons out. He met my eyes in the rearview and smiled.Thatsmile. The one that warmed me all over.
The smile that told me whatever we currently faced, we faced together.
***
I drew up short when I entered the oversized dining room in Yellowrock Clan Home. The room was crowded. In a chair, facing me, was Soledad Martinez. Angie was sitting in her lap, her arms around the ancient vamp’s very young-looking neck. How the heck had Angie gotten here from HQ?
Soledad’s throat was healed. Her eyes were closed, pale pink tears sliding down her face. At her side, Florence licked her own wrist, closing her wounds where the Infermieri had provided healing blood.
Molly looked pissed. She and Big Evan were sitting to the side, holding hands so tightly Molly’s fingertips were blue, as if she were dangling over a precipice and that grip was the only thing keeping her safe. Or the only thing keeping her from casting a death curse at Soledad. Watching her daughter in the lap of the crazy vamp. Or a once-upon-a-time crazy vamp.
Soledad was wearing fresh clothes, a rose-colored dress the old nun would probably never have worn had she been able to access her own things, which were stillback at the estate. She looked far more sane than the last time I saw her. Calm. Peaceful. Unbloodied. Had drinking from humans who weren’t stoned to the gills on weed over the last weeks possibly given her a clear mind?
Gee DiMercy was standing in the corner, the red flying lizard on his shoulder and a trace of blood on his sleeve. He hadn’t been in a battle, so I figured he had helped in some way to heal the old vamp. Had he restored some of her mental stability?
Soledad’s hand stroked Angie’s hair down her back, a soothing gesture, and she said, “I heard you in my mind, little one. I never lost hope, even when my new humans...” Her voice trailed off and she looked at me. “They killed my people. The humans were sworn to feed and protect me, and I them.” Her eyes bled to black as she slowly vamped out. “We will destroy the Heir of the Sons of Darkness and rescue the trapped one.”
Trapped one. Hayyel?I stepped closer. The gold Jesus in my pocket heated. A warning? Or a recognition of its previous owner? Because, yeah. The SOD, Joses Santana, had the crucifix made for Soledad. A cross made for a vamp, with the blood of an extraterrestrial creature. It had never made sense.
I stepped around the table until I was standing with my back to the wall and beside Santiago Molina, the journals he had been working on spread before him. His eyes were on Soledad with what looked like joy. I remembered that Soledad had been his patron when they were part of the clan of Ming of Mearkanis. So much history to remember. So many people to protect.
The door opened. The room beyond was packed with humans and vamps. Eli and Liz elbowed their way through, Cia and Carmen on their heels. Leo Pellissier walked into the opening to the dining room, across from me. Brute and the grindylow were at his side. Leo’s beautiful face was creased with pain. He seemed to be having problems walking, as if his legs and body pushed against a strong current. His desire to be here was stronger than his compulsion to stay away. The door shut, cutting out the murmur of voices and prying eyes.
Soledad stood, went to Leo, and they embraced, AngieBaby between them. Angie twisted and transferred an arm to Leo’s neck, hugging him into the pile. Molly’s hand jerked out as if to grab her daughter away, but Evan cradled her in place. “Let’s see what she says,” he murmured. “We may learn something about herbetweens.”
“Good. You’re together now,” Angie said. She pushed Leo back a step and touched his cross. “I found it, just like you said, Uncle Leo. Ant Jane has it.” Angie swiveled in Soledad’s grip and she looked at me. She gave a four-fingeredcome heregesture.
Feeling Molly’s and Evan’s heavy scrutiny, I crossed the room again to Angie and the vamps. Leo unlatched the gold chain, removed it from around his neck, dropped the cross in my palm, and released the chain, leaving it dangling and swinging. “If you put it together,” he said softly, “it will fortify the life and blood of the Mithran who wears it. It will strengthen his powers.” He looked at Soledad. “Or hers, as was intended by Joses, the Son of Darkness, when he trapped and stole the blood of an arcenciel for its making. And the making of the other implements.”
Implements made with arcenciel time-hopping blood. I put it together fast and a lance of worry pierced through me. Because there was some missing arcenciel blood—Storm’s blood, collected when she was murdered—and I hadn’t thought about that in too long.
We needed more privacy than we had. “Everyone out except Molly, Evan, Angie, Leo, Soledad, and Eli. Yes, Quint,” I said, before she could object, “you too. Alex, private channel between Koun, Bruiser, and us, encrypted.” Meaning only we four could listen in.
“Roger that.” I heard a faint clicking in my earbuds as the ambient noise decreased.
“Alex, is anyone in the other room using their cell?” I murmured. “If so, who are they and who are they calling?”
“On it.”
“Koun.” He looked his question at me. “Don’t let anyone leave. Talk to Alex. Anyone who called or texted, separate them, then bleed and read. Fast. Bruiser, we request your assistance,” I said in my queenly vernacular.“If you are willing, we need you to help find the traitor out there.”
“Yes, My Queen.” Bruiser and Koun left the room together, the Onorio who could bind vamps and my clan chief strategist who, I feared, had few morals except to protect me. The door closed behind them. “Alex, I’m going dark.” Together they’d find and stop this traitor. They didn’t need me.
“Okay.” I glanced at our small group, gathered in the Yellowrock Clan Home. To Soledad, I said, “You had a natural ability to see the future, a sort of prescient gift.” Like Angelina. But I didn’t say that.
“Not a gift. A curse,” Soledad said. “The Son of Darkness demanded the... use... of me from Amoury when he came on procession to New Orleans. He insisted that I wear the icon to bed at dawn so that it might make my visions stronger.” Her face crumpled and Leo put a hand on her upper arm in comfort. “I always saw only dreadful things that might happen, and only for a few moments, but they were one horror layered upon another, like playing cards shuffled together at every sleeping and every waking. I called it thebetweens, as it always happened between waking and sleeping.”
Angie had always called it that too.Crap. I was guessing that Angie had been in mind-touch with Soledad for a long time.
“The cross made that ability stronger?” Eli asked.
“The curse of seeing all the futures.Si.” She propped her chin on Angie’s head. “And the terror and death and horror. Only that. With each rising, Joses drank from me, drank deeply, and shared the memories of the visions of thebetweens. I was forced to relive them all, one by one, to study the horrors. Within a year of wearing the cross, it had burned my flesh into a scar that even blood will not heal.” She pulled the collar of the rose dress to the side, revealing a cross-shaped scar. “Even now, the scar burns, every night when I wake, every moment until dawn, it burns as if the Holy Cross is still against my flesh. The scar will burn for all of my undead life.”
She looked at me and then away, patting Angie’s backas if to soothe her. Across the room Molly looked like she might Hulk out at any moment, her eyes glaring, and her earth magic barely leashed. She wanted her daughter back.Now.
