He nodded thoughtfully, his gaze moving from mine to thedeath hedge. “You’re seeing the futures, like Soledad did, like you used to.”
I nodded slightly.
“If I go in, I die, but you live,” he stated, as if he could see my futures just as I did. “If I stay out here, you win, I live, but you die. Right?”
“Not exactly. It’s not so simple,” I muttered.
Though maybe it was. In all the futures I could see right now, Bruiser and my team would live and I’d be carried out in pieces. I was breathing in them but in all of them, I’d lost a limb, or the top of my head, andle breloquewas a warped crushed twisted knot of gold, tangled and dangling from my open skull and bloody hair.
Bruiser didn’t promise. I hadn’t really expected him to. His brown eyes softened on me. Warmth lit them. “You’re my love. I’m your Consort. I go where you go. I promise to stay alive.”
But he couldn’t. No one could promise to stay alive.
I knew what to do next. I pulled my small blade, rolled up both sleeves and pricked both inner arms, then touched the blood with the fingers of both hands and wiped it on my crown. Dang thing went blazing-hot. I needed to pad the inside rim. Why hadn’t I thought about doing that in all these months?
Leaning over, I tugged the stake from Leo’s gut. It made a really awful sucking sound. Leo rose to sit upright, and I shoved my left arm against his mouth. He grabbed my wrist and latched on. Fortunately, his fangs were still tucked away in the roof of his mouth, so it was just human lips and teeth and dead-cold tongue.Yuck. “One vamp up.”
Gently, careful of Leo’s fangs, which were still too close to my flesh, I pulled us over closer to Koun. I maneuvered my right arm over Koun’s face and down to his mouth. My blood dripped in. I thought about my crown, the power it gave me, and IcalledKoun. Willing him to wake, to come back to me. Nothing happened.
We held our positions for what felt like forever, but was likely less than a minute, before Koun stirred, licked his lips, and swallowed, taking in my blood. His eyes opened wide and he found me in the dark. He looked... Ecstatic was how he looked.Crap. I had bound him even closer to me. “Mistress. My Queen,” he said. Smoothly, he lifted his head and sucked my blood away, healing the flesh as he did so.
“Two vamps up,” I said. “Mainet is inside the church, which has been desecrated with death and life runes. I’ve seen potential futures and the only way we all live is if we get inside before Lachish is killed and if we all go in together. But the details are pretty murky and I don’t know if I can take the potential futures with me, so I might lose something.” I could lose everything.
“Yes, My Queen,” Koun said. He stood and helped me peel Leo off of my arm.
The former master of the city was smiling in drunken bliss when he looked at me. “My Jane.”
“Crap.” Had I bound Leo to me too? I hadn’t seen—
I stopped. The blood on the crown had been intended to allow me to make them safe. Instead they were kinda besotted, drunk, and happy. I could deal with binding them to me later. Right now, I had to keep us all alive.
“She’s going in,” Eli said calmly.
“Jane! No!” Bruiser said. “Don’t risk yourself.”
“If I don’t go in, I die anyway. I love you.”
Bruiser closed his eyes for the length of a single breath. “I love you too. Are you sure this is the only way?”
“Yeppers.” I grinned at him in the dark, but when I spoke again it was to Eli. “Keep Molly away. Tie her ass up and shackle her feet.”
“Son of a witch on a burning switch. You willnothandcuff me.” But Evan, standing behind her, nodded once. He’d keep her here long enough to prevent several of the worst futures.
I knew zip-tying her would only slow her down, but that was time I needed to get everything else done before she showed up. “When Longfellow comes back, give Bruiser the Mughal blade and protective lenses from the SUV. Moll has to be secured before that happens, you hear? Then Bruiser cuts thehedge—” I stopped as pain scorched and pierced my chest like shark’s teeth made of molten iron. “Eli, you and a team meet me inside,” I managed. The stench of my burned flesh was acrid. The burn went to bone. My knees wobbled where I stood. I gave him the names of the humans and vamps who needed to be there.
“You left out me,” Quint said.
“You aren’t going in,” I said calmly. I had seen two possible futures for Quint. Dead, bisected by a closinghedge, and alive, in the SUV. “I need you positioned to take out anyone leaving the church who isn’t one of ours. It needs to be silver-lead rounds. Clean head shot. The distance and lack of light means it has to be Eli or you. Eli will be with me.”
Quint cursed.
“Too many will die if you don’t do what I say. I’ve seenit in the futures.” It was a partial truth, but close enough. I flicked three futures away and more appeared in the air around me. All of them were bad. Like, really bad. I had to fight to stop my tears. My breath shuddered when I drew it. Eli moved closer to thehedge. His calm spread around me, coating the air I breathed like fog. “And even with everything I’m doing”—I found another breath and flashed a tight smile at Eli as I pinned the flying lizard to the leather flap on my armor where the null sticks hung—“I still might fail.”
I dropped the ring in a pocket and sealed it shut. Drawing on the crown and the Glob, I forced healing into my hands. I wasn’t good at it yet, but I had seen myself in a future healing my hands, and remembered using their magic once for healing. Sorta. The pain did decrease. If I didn’t do this just right, Bruiser or Eli or Leo or Aya, and some not even on site yet, would die. Or any combination of them. I needed my hands. I flexed my fists. “Good enough.”
Tex said, “Jermaine, when we get inside, you stay at the entrance and take down anyone who gets by us. You’re first line of defense. Quint, per Jane’s orders, when she can access thedeath hedge, you are our last line of defense.”
“Will do,” Jermaine said.
