The vamps on the monitor screens didn’t move, not so much as a twitch. They were paralyzed. Or maybe more dead than undead. Couldn’t think about that possibility just now. Koun reached for the door handle.
I practically leaped to the back of the Suburban and grabbed his shoulder, digging in with my claws. “No. You will stay with your queen.” His shoulder twitched away but he remained in the car as I crawled back to my seat. “Eli, get our vamps to safety. The witch prison is on its own.”
“Roger that, ma’am. On tactical screens.” To his teams, Eli said, “Human units. Two-man teams, one to cover, one to stake the vamps. Do not—repeat—donotget close to their faces or fangs. Use all caution. Wood stake in the belly, grab, and drag them to cover. These are not sleeping beauties. Move, move, move.”
On the tac screen, the vamps were dragged back as fast our humans could run. On the overhead drone video screen, I studied the six witches in the circle. Butterfly Lily and Feather Storm were slumped in a tangled heap, looking far less perky than the last time I saw them. Sabina/Gramma was standing unmoving but not vamp-still. She hadn’t mastered the vamp ability to not breathe, and her human self still felt the fear of not drawing in air. Her long robes moved slightly with each breath and as she shifted her feet for better balance. I hadn’t loved Sabina. But no one deserved to be eaten alive piece by piece.
Sabina is inside Jane’s ancient family woman?Beast asked.Same way Jane is inside Beast?
Actually, Beast is inside Jane, but whatever.
I got a sensation of Beast turning away, cat insulted.
I glanced at the single screen dedicated to Soledad and Malita’s house. The team was approaching the estate house, but they were there and I was here and they had no witch to help. The estate team would have to take care of things themselves. I swept that view to the top of the screen and out of the way.
On the center large screen, the three witches twirled up a second death magic ball, whirled demon energies into it, power I could see coming through the portal. Threw the ball of power. Another boom shook the air, rocked the armored van, and singed along my pelt.
Liz said, “Death magics and demon energy confirmed. They have a demon at least partially under their control. Evidence sent to the witch council of the U.S.”
Big Evan’s hand clenched on Molly’s arm. “Moll?”
“Jane,” Molly said. Her tone was full of warning. Her hand on my jaw had gone cold. In my Beast-vision, a mist of darkness puffed out of her mouth with her breath, slid along her body, a coat of smut across her energies. Whatever the witches were doing, it was doing more than just raising the hairs of my pelt. It was attracting Molly’s own secret death magics, the energies that would get her killed if others knew about them.
“I’ve just received a notification signed by the entire witch council of the U.S. A death sentence has been issued for the three witches,” Liz said softly, staring at her cell. “It was ready and waiting, apparently after the reports of the previous attack.” She took a breath that sounded rough and painful. “Kill on sight.” She opened her door. “I’m going in.”
Cia opened the door on the other side of the vehicle and stepped into the street.
Molly lifted a hand as if to follow, but her energies were wrong. Very wrong.
“Evan?” I said, a warning. He wrapped his arms around his wife, holding her in place.
I covered my mic and said to Quint, “Get us out of here.” Quint gunned the motor and whirled the wheel, circling the twins and putting on a burst of speed. Evanstarted to sing, just the notes, no words, a soft and soothing melody.
“Evan, who takes point with the witches?” I asked.
“Liz,” the big man sang in the midst of the song.
Into the mic I said, “Eli. Evan says Liz has witch-point.”
There was the faintest of hesitations as Eli processed that he’d be working with his girlfriend fighting death magic and demon power. She would be in danger. And they did not have sufficient witch backup or any reliable vamp backup. “Roger that.”
I watched Molly’s own death magics roil and shimmer across her flesh as we zigzagged through traffic on St. Charles Avenue, a sole oversized van with two witches, a tattoed vamp, a skinwalker, and a sociopath driving like a bat outta hell. And Evan sang, lots of minor notes.
If Molly released and used her death magic, she would be sentenced the same way as the witches in the circle. And possibly her children would be taken out too, in case they carried a gene that allowed them to draw the life out of living things. Death magics were considered dangerous to the life of the very Earth itself. There would be no quarter given.
On the vehicle’s tac screen, back at the prison, the vamps showed in low light from the RVAC cameras. They had been stacked like cordwood between two SUVs. The humans and witches had spread out, Liz near Eli, Cia to the side, in the street, where the moonlight would hit her full on, amplifying her moon magics. Carmen—when had Carmen gotten there?—stood in the shadows of an alley across the way.
“Sabina was the best of the outclan,” Koun said quietly as Quint took a hard right. “She was the keeper of many secrets. She was wise and full of the goodness of the earth. She spent many years seeking redemption for all of us, even such pagans as myself.” A trace of a smile softened his mouth as he spoke. “She searched for our souls, for what happened to them when we died our first death, and for what happens to us when we die true dead.”
I thought she also searched for and collected a lot of magical amulets that were still in my closet and in the weapons room at the freebie house. If Sabina was still conscious inside Gramma the way Beast was in me, then Sabina knew about the talismans. Most of them I had no idea how to use. Sabina had wanted them all and Gramma would have no shame in killing us all to take them from me.
Molly’s cell rang and she took a cleansing breath before she lifted the phone. Her death magics, while still close to the surface, were under control, not trying to erupt like a volcano out of her flesh. Evan’s voice trailed away. “Lachish,” Moll said, instead of hello. “I’m sorry. We had to pull back. The death magics took out half of our team and were attacking us too. We left a human team and my sisters there, but I doubt they can stop the attacking witches throwing death magics and demon power. And once the death magics stop, enemy vamps will likely attack, moving too fast for the human team to provide much protection. You’re on your own.”
A massive boom sounded over comms. The neighborhoods behind us went dark, block after block losing power, spreading out and around. Electrical transformers exploded everywhere. Booms sounded and lightning shot into the sky here and there.
Molly relayed Lachish’s words, “The wards are down.” There was a burst of white noise on comms and on the cell. Moll stared at the screen, her fingers swiping once. “Call dropped.”
On the RVAC and tac screens, we watched as Butterfly and Feather and Sabina disappeared through the transport circle in a flare of delicate magics like sparklers. The enemy humans rushed the prison. Enemy vamps came through the witch circle in groups of three. Our human team fired at the vamps as they appeared but were human-slow and didn’t stop any of them. One shooter targeted Ursula, Fiona, and Endora, but their death magic wards held. At blurred vamp speed, the enemy vamps rushed the house.
