More slayers—dressed in fatigues and tactical gear—piled out of the cars, carrying bags of equipment.
“Jade O’Neil?” called a short, wiry woman leading a crew of slayers wearing the Patel slayer crest.
“Yes. That’s me,” I said.
The woman saluted me. “The Patels are here and ready to be briefed in and receive orders.”
“So are the Coopers!” shouted a tall, lanky man dressed in street clothes but wearing a slayer mask and hood. He was flanked by two similarly dressed slayers.
Most of the night shift task force had assembled on the sidewalk behind Sarge, watching with dropped jaws and bulging eyes.
Brody stared at a slayer toting an expensive drone. “What’s going on?”
Peri gave my teammate a boyish grin. “Why, it’s a Slayer Stake!”
It didn’t take longfor the slayers to set up a standard command center in the assembly hall.
It began with setting up five projectors—all of which were pointed at the assembly hall’s back wall, which was conveniently white and great for display.
Individual slayer families then unpacked their laptops and tablets to get them hooked up to either portable hotspots or the Curia Cloisters’ Wi-Fi.
The Patels set up a row of portal printers while both the O’Neils and the Carters organized the still arriving slayer families, assigning a section of seating to each family in themassive room, which faintly resembled a theater with its many balconies raised high above the main floor.
It was about time to start the briefing…which was entirely on me since Ihad called the slayer stake.
I focused on connecting my phone to the projector Aunt Erin—my dad’s sister—had set up on the wall directly behind the small dais I would stand on to give the briefing.
Panic had my heartbeat pounding painfully, and it felt like it might leap into my throat, but I refused to give in.
The slayers are my best bet for locating Considine. I must give them a thorough—and understandable—briefing so they have all necessary information and can find him as fast as possible.
There was another lingering fear hiding in the back of my mind, one that was so frightening I didn’t want to even acknowledge it.
The truth was, I had to do a good job in the briefing, because I had to impress on the other slayers thatIwas the leader.
If I didn’t, they’d walk all over me.
I didn’t actually care how much they respected me, but I was asking them to track an elder vampire andnotharm or attempt to kill him—which was our only job as slayers.
While Considine could survive whatever they threw at him, the slayers could get injured in the process. That would affect the vampire-slayer relationship for decades to come.
The slayers had to follow me. There was no other option.
However, I wasn’t going to make the same mistake I’d already made in holding back from telling Considine how I felt, and push off speaking so I could practice what to say or prepare some more.
Considine.
The ache of his absence made breathing hurt.
It’s okay. The slayers will help me find him.
I was going to do this, even though I was scared out of my mind.
My fingers shook with my inner turmoil as I connected to the projector and my cellphone screen was displayed on the wall. I pulled up a map of Magiford and fought to control the panic that was turning my tongue numb.
“You doing okay there, my wondrous jewel?”
I sucked in a deep breath, then peered up at Sunshine, who was standing on the dais. (She’d offered to stand with me and look official, wearing a white lab coat and a pair of eyeglasses she didn’t need pulled down to the end of her nose to sell her role.)
