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If it was possible, the warehouse looked worse than it had earlier. Scorch marks blackened the walls and the debris of battle littered the area. In the center of it all, Adam and Lavinia squared off. I’d never seen my grandmother looking so haggard. She had a gash on her forehead and her hair stood up in weird spikes, as if she’d stuck her finger in a light socket.
Adam didn’t look much better. He had scratch marks on his cheek and he’d lost a shirtsleeve, which revealed gashes on his arm. The good news is it looked like one of the keys had worked and he was able to use his magic. But he was practically swaying from exhaustion, even as he raised his arm to deliver another spell. A weak flash of energy zigzagged across the space and missed Lavinia’s head by mere inches.
She laughed and started toward him, her lips pulled back to reveal her fangs.
“Stop!” I yelled without thinking.
Grandmother skidded to a halt a couple of feet from Adam. Her mouth gaped open as she stared. Adam turned his head slowly and smiled. He didn’t look surprised so much as relieved. After all, he was the one who sent Giguhl to test my immunity to the forbidden fruit. How he’d thought to test me for that—and why—were questions for another time.
“About time you joined us.” His voice wavered, and I have to admit I felt a little shaky myself. Our eyes met and held for a moment—an intense look shared between two beings uncomfortable with strong emotions.
“Lilith protect me.” Lavinia’s whisper caught Adam’s attention.
Despite the sudden urge to burst into tears, I managed a shrug. “I try.”
Lavinia’s shrill voice broke into our little bubble. “Why aren’t you dead and burning? I made sure the stake went through your heart.”
I took a tentative step forward, not quite trusting my strength yet. The movement caused my grandmother to take a step back. I placed a hand over the healing wound over my heart. “Oh, you hit it, all right.”
“Then how?”
“It appears I inherited more than magic from my father’s people.” When she still looked mystified, I said, “The forbidden fruit has no effect on me.”
Her mouth gaped open, and for a moment, I reveled in my ability to shock her. Finally, she recovered enough to say, “You’re an abomination!”
I shrugged. “I guess I am.” I glanced at Adam, who winked at me. I had to struggle to keep a straight face. Despite the acid churning in my stomach and the weakness from my wounds, it felt good to have the upper hand with my grandmother for once in my life.
“What should we do with granny now?” An undercurrent of steel in Adam’s voice contradicted the casual wording.
Lavinia’s chin came up. “I’m not afraid of death.”
“Oh, we’re not going to kill you,” I said.
“We’re not?” Adam said.
Grandmother’s expression turned mocking. “Some assassin you are. You always were weak.”
I stepped forward and got in her face. “As much as I hate you right now, it’s taking a lot of strength to not kill you.”
“Talk to me, Red.” Adam sounded worried.
“We’re not going to kill her. She doesn’t deserve an easy out.” I never took my eyes off hers as I spoke. “No, we’re going to let her live so she can see me destroy everything she holds sacred.”
“What is this nonsense?” She sneered but the corner of her eye twitched.
I spoke slowly, so she’d not miss one word of my vow. “I will not rest until you are alone, powerless, and hunted by those you ruled.”
“I’ll find you,” she said. Her eyes burned into mine. “And when I do, you’ll regret you were ever born.”
“I’ve wasted enough of my life doing that because of you,” I said. “Instead, I think I’ll return the favor.”
Before she could respond, Adam chanted something in Hekatian. A flash of yellow light engulfed Lavinia. In a poof of smoke, she disappeared.
I rounded on him. “Hey!”
“Sorry, I just thought you might enjoy having the last word.”
I glanced at the space where she’d stood, deciding he was right. “Where’d you send her?”
“Siberia. Lovely this time of year. A bit remote, I’m afraid. Might take her weeks to find a town and even longer to arrange transportation back to the States.”
My lips quirked. I didn’t feel like laughing, but the image of my half-millennium-old grandmother trudging though snow was kind of funny. “You’re sick, you know that?”
“What can I say? I thought a cold-hearted bitch like her would feel at home in the tundra.”
I looked around at the warehouse. Spilled wine, which spread like pools of blood among the ash of the dead, coated the concrete. A shiver passed through me as I realized tonight’s battles were merely the early skirmishes in the larger war to come.
“So what now?” Adam asked. His voice had lost all traces of humor as he too surveyed the aftermath of violence.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Adam limped over to Vinca’s broken body. In death, her throat had healed and her body had taken on an iridescent cast. She looked like a wax statue instead of a corpse. Adam lifted her, cradling her body against his own.
“We’ll find her family,” he said. “They’ll want to bury her in a sacred spot.”
Gritting my teeth against the tingling of awareness threatening to rush back in the form of anger and tears, I followed him out of the warehouse. Together, we marched through the now-blackened vines, littered with bodies of winery workers. Frank and his men had obviously been busy.
When we reached the van, Adam gently laid Vinca’s body on one of the rear benches. He closed the back doors of the makeshift hearse. His face was grim, but his eyes told the real tale. Through them, I could see his soul had aged.
He took his cell phone from his backpack, which he grabbed before closing the doors. After pressing a few buttons, he lifted the phone to his ear. Without a word, I watched him talk to someone at the Hekate Council. His voice caught as he described the scene in the lab, where the bodies of his comrades lay. I walked a few feet away to give him some privacy.
I looked up at the night sky. The same stars twinkled in their constellations. The same moon hung low in the sky. Yet nothing was the same. Nothing would ever be the same.
Adam hung up behind me. “They’re sending a team to retrieve the bodies. I should probably stay to help.” When I turned to look at him again, I didn’t know what to say. I knew I should offer to stay and help, but I knew I couldn’t go back in there. Adam must have read my thoughts. “Can you handle taking Vinca to her family on your own?”
