Sure enough, the first text informed me that Mud was going to Mama’s for supper, and expected Sam to bring her home around seven p.m.
Occam wasn’t back from work; he must have caught a case.
They were safe.
But if vampires could indeed feel the magic of Soulwood, Esther and the twins were in danger. If I hadn’t been home for the day…
Yummy, with her vampire night-vision and strength, leaped off the top landing and was out the front door while I was still finding my ammo bag and gear bag.Vampires. On my land.
I checked my weapons and called Occam at the same time, telling him what was happening. He was stuck in Friday rush hour traffic and couldn’t get here for at least half an hour, even with lights and sirens. I called it in to HQ, but no one in the field was anywhere near me. And human law enforcement had no weapons for fighting vampires. They would simply die.
Yummy, Soulwood, the Green Knight, and I would have to face this alone.
I went outside and closed the door softly. I hadn’t seen Cherry or the cats and figured they were out back. There was a pet door at the back of the house, opening to the enclosed space of the shed-roofed porch and the fenced area set up for them.
Yummy was standing on the top of the front raised bed. It was no longer raining and the temperature had dropped and felt as if it was still dropping. Clouds raced overhead, throwing moon shadows, catching the vampire’s pale face in its glow. Before I could go back for a coat, Yummy said, “Tell your land I heard your call. I fight beside you.” She sounded vamp-formal, serious and…maybe deadly. Even in the fluctuating light her face was different, manic, and more…human? “I fight with you and with this land. This land is mine to protect now. I am your Warlord.”
It sounded like a vow. That was different too. “Okay. Why?” My breath blew out, a cloud of winter cold.
“Because, youidiot woman. I woke smiling tonight, for the first time indecades. Your land pierced me and took my blood and now I’m…I’m fuckinghappy.”
Which didn’t sound happy at all. The words should have been angry. But Yummy didn’t look enraged or dangerous. She looked blissful, ecstatic. Gleeful. Almost mad with life and joy, like a religious convert caught in the spirit.
“Point me,” she said. “You drive down. Lights off.”
I pointed. Yummy took off on foot.
My new car had autolights, which would give my position away, so I got into John’s old truck, set the weapons on the floorboard, and backed out of the drive. Once the hill’s gravity had me, I put the truck into neutral, turned off the motor, and rolled down to Esther’s on the old winter tires, steering by pure muscle, breaking by willpower and liberal use of the handbrake. As I rolled, the Green Knight pushed into my mind. It was harder for the knight to reach me without my hands in Soulwood dirt, with my body on rubber and steel and composite materials, but he made it work. Somehow.
He was dressed as he had been before my nap, his horse armored, but this time there was no sword. He carried a war ax. Across his back a mace had been secured, the head sticking out at his elbow, wicked and barbed and, oddly, black as real iron. He showed me six vampires near Esther’s house.Six. Not two.Four were watching from the center of the road that led to my drive. Two were trying to cross the tiny lawn to the Tulip Tree House, close to where Yummy had stood the previous night while patrolling. While carrying the fresh scent of the Blood Tarot.
In the dark around the two vampires, vines and thorns were whipping the air. Slapping at the vamps, slicing them with thorns. Trying to trap them. The vampires cut them with swords, one long blade, one short. There was plant blood all over the vampires—white, green, and ruby red. Not just the vampire tree’s blood, but also the blood of the tree that had mutated just for Esther.
Esther’s tree and the vampire tree were fighting together.
I rolled around the curve and the four vampire watchers turned to me, barely visible in Esther’s security lights.
Yummy stepped into the yard. She raised her blades into the air and screamed a challenge. “I am Yvonne Colstrip, the former scion of Ming of Glass, now Warlord of Nell Nicholson Ingram, protector of Mindy Nicholson, Esther Nicholson, Noah and Ruth Nicholson, and guardian of Soulwood! I offer blood challenge to you both!”
Oh Lordy Moses.That was bad.
Using all my strength, I stopped the forward momentum of the truck and jammed it into park.
Yummy raced across the land and engaged the vampireclosest. Steel clashed on the night air. Sitting in the uncertain safety of the truck, I pulled one of my toys and my cell phone out of the ammo bag and turned the one-hundred-thousand-lumen flash on. It lit up the watching vampires like a torch, blinding three of them. The fourth watcher had looked away in time.
In the first instance of the flash, I got a good look and a dozen pictures in burst mode. They had been standing there, the three watching Yummy and two unfamiliar vampires fighting in the yard. The sixth one was watching me. None of the watchers moved except to turn their heads from the light. I kept half an eye on the fight and sent the photos to HQ.
I turned off the lamp. The vampires returned to standing in what looked similar to military “at ease,” hands clasped in front. They each wore a tunic dress, leggings, a hoodie, and gloves. Swords hung by their sides. Medieval-type clothing, like something the Crusaders might have worn.
From Esther’s land echoed the clanging of steel and the rare grunt of breath. Yummy was fighting one vampire as the other fought the vines.
I shoved my Glock into my waistband and stepped out of the truck, my feet on soil claimed by the vampire tree and Soulwood. Instantly I knew that neither of the attackers had bloody wounds. Again I aimed the lamp at the vamps who were watching the fight. Flicked it back on. In the brilliance of the flash, the ground between us looked as if it was crawling, the dirt and rock quivering and shaking. The vampire tree was about to destroy my road,dang it.
The back door opened and Esther emerged, raised a shotgun to the sky, and fired.
Everything stopped except Yummy.
Faster than my eyes could focus, she stabbed the vampire she was fighting in the heart with a shortsword. Whirled and took his head. Her body still spinning, before the other combatant moved, she took his head.
