The back door slammed shut, and Sara’s father jogged down the steps. Carrying a baseball bat. “Kristos, you need to take your family and go home.”
“We haven’t done anything wrong.” Mr. Galanis held his head high. “We just wanted—”
Sirens wailed from down the street. From between the houses to the west, Rebecca saw flashing blue lights as a police car raced toward the party. The car slowed, then disappeared in front of the Coopers’ house. But the siren kept wailing.
Mr. Galanis turned a hurt look on Sara’s father. “You called the police?”
“No, I—”
“That was me,” Lawrence said.
“We’ll go home.” Mr. Galanis took his daughter by the hand and nudged his wife toward the open gate. “Sorry to have bothered you all.”
Lawrence drained his glass. “That option has expired.” He glanced toward the gate, and Rebecca turned to see two police officers step into the yard, their hands hovering over the butts of their guns.
“Kristos Galanis?” the cop in front asked, his focus narrowing on the family with flowers growing in their hair.
Galanis nodded. “We were just leaving, Officer. We don’t want any trouble.”
“I’m afraid it’s a little late for that.” The second cop pulled a set of handcuffs from his belt. “As of two hours ago, in a special session, congress voted to repeal the Sanctuary Act, effective immediately. You and your family are no longer considered citizens of the United States of America, and as such, you have no rights here. I’m afraid you’re going to have to come with me.”
Delilah
“So, why do you think bloodlust is just now starting, eleven months into my pregnancy?” Assuming it was, in fact, the baby’s bloodlust. “Does that mean she’s nearly done gestating?”
Gallagher actually smiled as he stared out the van’s windshield at the moonless night. He’d been in a good mood—or as close to that as I’d ever seen him—since we’d left the cabin, and the cause was clear.
Now that we were close to finding Malloy, I could actually feel his excitement.
“I honestly don’t know.” Gallagher blocked the glare from my phone with one hand, and I angled the screenshot of our map away from his face. “Since the war, I’ve seen only a few otherfear dearg, and never a female of my species. What few redcaps survived now exist as loners, as far as I can tell.” He shrugged. “For all I know, our child—though half-human—might be the firstfear deargborn in a generation.”
That thought sent a chill through me.
Fate had chosen me to right unrighted wrongs, and so far, that justice had taken a decidedly gory format. But could there be any wrong more worth righting than the extinction of an entire species?
“Which way?” Gallagher slowed the van with a glance in the rearview mirror.
I glanced at my phone again. “The neighborhood is up here on the right. About a mile down. It’s a wealthy neighborhood—all the lots are acreages—but there’s no gate.”
“Then the residents are either stupid or cocky.”
“Or they have top-of-the-line private security systems.” I watched the road for landmarks as we approached, and finally I spotted the well-lit neighborhood entrance sign—a black and copper plaque set into a bed of stones. “Turn here.”
We pulled into the neighborhood and drove around for a while, even after we’d found Malloy’s house, looking for an out-of-the-way place to park the van. On his own, Gallagher would have parked it a mile down the road, hidden by brush, and he would probably have jogged the whole way back in minutes. But I wasn’t in any condition to trek through a mile of wooded, uneven terrain in the dark so that we could come upon the house from behind.
Instead, we parked at the end of a cul-de-sac where the homes were unfinished. Thus unoccupied. The construction crew had left several large pieces of equipment parked overnight, and with any luck, our panel van would blend in with them.
We still had to walk half a mile from the construction site, but the sidewalks were flat and even, and well-lit, though we avoided as much light as we could.
Malloy’s house was set well back from the road, at the end of a broad, winding driveway. Large, amorphous flower beds butted up against the front of the house on both sides of the tall, narrow front porch and I could tell from the illumination of the floodlights that the place was probably stunning in daylight. And too big for a man with no spouse or kids.
Though his yard was well-lit with flood and security lights, all of Malloy’s interior lights were off, as far as I could see.
“Ready?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “How do we get in?”
“I don’t think I’d fit down the chimney, so...the door?”
