If we had come earlier, we might have saved some people. Guilt hammered through my blood.
A dozen scenarios went through my mind: if we do this, then this will happen, but if we do this, then this will happen. Aknowingsettled on me, one with too many unpredictable outcomes. I released EJ’s hand and tapped my ear-patch. I said, “Into position. We go on the afterbeat at my count of three.” Three humans melted into the darkness, leaving EJ and me alone but for PeeWee and Raccoon, who stood guard, weapons in each hand, pointed at the two vamps.
“Shiloh.” I put more power into the word. Our cousin, who had been tracking the guard unit as they disappeared into the night, swiveled her head to the windshield again.
Moving slowly, as if I had no cares in the entire world—as if I weren’t in the middle of an ice-covered city with a vamp crouched on the hood of my car holding a bloody sword, and an insane vamp to his side, both with quicksilver eyes—I stepped from the vehicle.
Move slow. Breathe slow. Never let them smell your fear.Lessons learned at Karson’s home in those last dreadful months, months I’d told no one about, surrounded by vamps.
My boots crunched on the ice and threatened to slide from under me. I palmed two amulets in my right hand. My magic was still tied to EJ’s. “Shiloh.” I held out my left hand. Imperious. “My staff.”
“And if I keep it?” The mercuric sheen melted over Shiloh’s eyes and thinned to the sides. The elixir. Also, something wild. Something violent. Something feral.Wolf. The witch wasn’t shielding what she was, as if she had forgotten how. Or no longer cared. Le Vampire Sauvage.
“If you keep my staff,” I said, “I’ll reject you as unworthy, as a thief, and ask the queen to have her guards collect you and haul you home for better training and lessons in honor.”
Shiloh’s lips curled back in a display of gold-plated fangs. Two inches long, max, and that was with the gold caps extending the length. Young vamp. Control at a minimum. Was she truly as feral as she looked?
Shiloh didn’t hand over my staff.
I tossed the first amulet. While it was still in the air I flipped the second. The first amulet cut through glamour. When it hit Shiloh, the glamour on her face and flesh vanished, leaving ared-haired girl with manic eyes, standing in the snow. My staff was at her side.
The second amulet—as long as they weren’t expecting it—immobilized a vamp into utter stillness for a full second. In that moment, EJ, moving faster than I had ever seen him, took the staff from Shiloh’s hand. Walked away.
The effect wore off. Shiloh growled. Walter growled. I laughed.
Both vamps focused on EJ, who swiveled around, standing too close to both. Insouciant.
“I can’t help that you were kidnapped and abused and changed against your will,” I said to my cousin. “That your family and blood-coven moved on while you were in devoveo, and when you came back, were…less than comfortable around you. I can’t change whatever happened to you when you went after the insane werewolf. I can’t help the things that happened in your life.
“Walter?” I continued, “I can’t help you resolve or wipe away your past either.
“But we, EJ and I, can offer you a home here.Home…” My voice trailed away, because…that was why Aunt Jane had sent Shiloh to us. Because our crazy-ass cousin needed family. And so did we.Crap. To quote Aunt Jane.
The silver gleam vanished from Shiloh’s eyes. She took a breath and let it out. Looked at Walter, who still crouched on the hood of the car, indenting it beneath his weight. “What about you, Walter? You accept me here too?”
“I’ll be in my new clan home. Protectingmy territory.” The two words were bitter as wormwood. “My apartment can be sublet.” The last sentence had been the voice of a cool, composed businessman. Maybe the Walter we knew was gaining control.
“Just like old times, eh?” Shiloh asked.
“Unfortunately.” His tone was crisp, as if the mad-eyed Walter had never been.
Well, hell.I tossed each vamp a bag of amulets, even my witchy cousin, who probably had her own, but no one can have too many magic gewgaws in battle. I gave one bag to Raccoon, one to PeeWee. Each contained three short-termhedges, threehealingamulets, oneblood-clottingamulet, and onetrackeramulet. I said, “Positions.”
Walter slipped into the night like a snake. A moment later, Shiloh vanished.
EJ extended my staff and I took it. The wood was cold beneath my gloved hand. “What was that about just like old times?” I asked.
“No idea. Something missing from their dossiers? We’ll haveOjoscheck into it someday. For now”—he took a steady breath—“vampires invadedourcity and killedourpeople.” They were ritual words. They were a declaration of war in the queen’s tongue, as if EJ spoke like the royal he technically still was. “They declared war on the Dark Queen and her clan members and godchildren.” EJ chuckled, the tone humorless. His next words were our world and our choices. “Let’s go kick some vampire, witch, and demon ass.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Angie
Walter stepped away from a broken window at the side of the mission church. “Silent inside. They finished feeding. I hear only one heartbeat, shallow, very slow.”
“The Naturaleza are in the back, at their circle,” Shiloh said. “We have to boogie. I don’t sense wards in the churchy part. Angie?”
I nodded my head.
