“Did I hurt you?” She didn’t look very upset about the possibility.
I touched my cheeks and jaw. “Not bad. But Eli’s been teaching you some martial arts moves and you’re starting to pack a punch.”
“Yeah. Ant Jane, are vampires evil? They live in the night, and sunlight makes them sick and die. They drink blood. Evil things do that. Andin between? There’s a dead vampire with my angel.”
Dead vamp. Sabina.
Crap.She’d had a vision similar to mine. Andgreat. I was going to have to give the whole “nature of evil and good, darkness and light” talk. “Vampires, just like humans, are capable of good and evil. They have choices.”
“So Naturaleza are evil and our vampires are good?”
“More or less.”
“Beast eats people. Is Beast the evil part of you? ’Cause I love Beast and I don’t think she’s evil.”
Kit,Beast thought, longing bursting up within her, stealing the breath I had almost caught up on.
“Beast is a predator. But Beast is way more than a normal cat. Like vampires, Beast can think and reason and choose.”
“Like people? Like she chose to take care of me when my magic came on me and I called the storm?” She tilted her head up at me. “I don’t remember it because I was a baby, but Mama told me how Beast saved me when I couldn’t control my magic.”
Crap. She wasn’t supposed to have to control magic at all at this age. I slid an arm around her and hugged her close, remembering the storm Angie had called that had destroyed her home and nearly killed her and her parents. Angie had been a toddler then. A baby for real. She was what, now? Eight? “Yes. Like that. Beast saved you all on her own. She thinks of you and EJ and Cassy as her kits.”
Angle made a surprisedharrumphing sound. “Are you and Beast gonna save the angel?”
“If we can, yes. First we have to find out where the angel is.” Which, if my dream vision was correct, was either in the physical manifestation of my soul home or in Evangelina’s basement, one of which was lost to history, the other back in Asheville. Or, if Aggie One Feather’s pessimistic idea was right, he was in a church, cathedral, or graveyard somewhere in Europe.
“He’s that way.” Angie pointed at the wall. In awindowless room it was hard to tell which direction she pointed, but my laptop was on the bedside table. I quickly booted it up and engaged the compass, discovering that it was nearly dawn. “Show me again. As close as you can. Which way?” I asked her.
Angie closed her eyes and thought a moment, then pointed. Adjusted her aim a fraction. “There. Exactly.”
I lined up the GPS and compass on my laptop with the map of New Orleans. If Angie was right, Hayyel wasn’t in Appalachia, or in a church in Spain or France or somewhere far away, he was between HQ and the deep blue Gulf of Mexico. “Close or far?” I asked.
She wobbled her head in indecision. “Close? Maybe?”
Take kit in Ed’s car for ride,Beast thought at me.Kit can find place of angel trap.
Angie whispered, “Brute can help sniff my angel out.”
I looked at my godchild, who should not know that the white werewolf was bound to the angel who had saved him from being a meal for a demon. I said, “I don’t know how to get in touch with the werewolf. He just shows up when he wants.”
Beast said,Brute guards Leo den. Beast has been there.
And you didn’t think to tell me?
Are many things Beast does not tell Jane.
I thought a very bad word.
“Brute is on his way,” Angie said. With that, she slid off the bed and walked calmly out the door, her footsiesshushingon the floor. In the wake of her colorful jammies, I saw the guards shaking themselves alert and trying to stand. Her mama and daddy were gonna have a fit. And guard duty outside my bedroom was gonna require hazard pay.
I called security and when Wrassler answered, he demanded, “Are you okay, Janie?”
“Yeah. Are you manning the cameras? Because I’d like to know what just happened outside my door.”
“Until ten seconds ago, your security detail was standing guard. Now they’re on their knees and unable to stand. They look like they’ve been drugged. What happened?”
“Angie happened. I think she knocked them out and looped the security feed.”
