Crap. As Aunt Jane might say.
I hooked my silver-plated steel gorget around my neck and drew a pair of shooter’s gloves over my stark-white hands, gloves that left the fingertips bare so I could work and feel. The skin wasn’t healed, even with the bloodbath Shiloh had given them and the healing amulets she had brought from Mama. The flesh wasn’t tender, the surface mostly numb except to pressure, but deep down, there was a persistent ache, a sensation of icy needles and stabbing pins, and the occasional sensation of being burned by hot embers. I turned to the mirror and picked up the tube on the kitchen table.
I drew on scarlet lipstick. I had learned early on that women warriors each had a special something that made an opponent hesitate. I had picked scarlet lipstick because Aunt Jane used it, this exact same shade. I twisted my strawberry blonde curls into a tight tail and tucked the low ponytail into the gorget.
“Hmmm,” I murmured, looking at myself, thinking I needed something. Just a little more…
“Can I at least watch you jump,cara?”
I tilted my head to the side and down. Lee had been watching me arm up, and his eyes were half lidded, heated, saying he’d rather I was taking the armor and gear off than putting it on. I ran a hand over my hip as if checking the position of my shortsword, though its placement was perfect.
His warm eyes followed the motion, as I intended, and he smiled slightly.
“Yes,” I said. “You can…watch.”
He chuckled at the double entendre.
My voice hardened just a bit. “But stay here. Please.”
Villetti flicked his fingers. “I understand political realities. There are no exigent circumstances that might allow me to enter. But if you happen to find a dead human or two in the stairwell, that changes my involvement. In such a case, you will call me, yes? And I will take the normal route, through the snow and in the front doorway.”
I laughed, picturing my cohorts and me leaping over dead bodies. Maybe I was a little wacko too. “Yes. I’ll call if I find DBs.”
Villetti made a soft hum in the back of his throat as he reviewed my words.
I walked to the kitchen area and stood over my black stone battery. From its surface, I chose three small amulets: a gold leaf, which I pinned to my lapel, a wooden disk with a tree of life carved into it, and a small bone I had found in the forest on the hill behind my childhood home the year Mama and I brought the forest back to life.
It was the thigh bone of a squirrel, killed by mama’s death magic. The bone carried a bit of that forbidden and deadly magic within it still.
I tucked the disk and bone into empty pockets.Yes…That felt right. I might need these amulets and the workings embedded and woven through them. Or I might not.
I blew Villetti a kiss, patted all my other amulets through the BOBB bag’s heavy fabric. Took up my staff. Just in case our target was possessed.
Please don’t let me have to use it.I didn’t pray often. This situation had appeared simple at first. Find a missing woman. But it had proved to be over my head and my skill set.
I tapped my unicom and the door opened. Not because anyone had requested entrance. But because a sliver of an image from my precog told me it needed to be open.
Raccoon and EJ walked from the elevator door, both wearing the queen’s armor, both weaponed up like battle bots. Both wearing climbing harnesses. My brother was carrying some kind of tuba, one that was nearly as long as he was tall. I didn’t ask. I wanted to. But I didn’t. Like my three amulets, itfeltright.
But atuba?
EJ said, “Follow the plan. If the shit hits, and Gertrude’s possessed, shoot demon rounds first, worry later.”
“Got it, boss,” Raccoon said.
“I’m no one’s boss,” EJ said, fast, his face cold in an instant.
Raccoon stood soldier straight. “You were the youngest LT in the Witch War,sir. I’m honored to serve under you,sir.”
EJ went utterly still, something I didn’t understand in his eyes. “If we didn’t have demons around, I’d tell you what I thought about all that, in language you wouldn’t forget,” he snarled.
“Stop it,” I snapped. Magic crackled through me. The top stone on my staff brightened with light, glowing, throwing water-like waves of blue and green light onto the green walls. I cast a smallhappy timesworking. “No bitching about the war. Let’s…” I lifted my head high. “Let’sparty.”
“And you call your first cousin Wacko,” Villetti said, still wearing that small smile. His voice dropped into a soft timbre when he added, “Have fun,amore mio.”
I wasn’t sure what personal qualities I’d had as a young college woman that would have led Lee to assume I would have fun invading the lair of a dangerous vampire.What had Aunt Jane told him about me? How much had I revealed of who I am now without realizing it?
But I liked that he didn’t ask anyone to take care of me.
