I grabbed my cloak again and pulled it tight over Villetti’s coat, the null energies like a heavy weight on my soul. I took my staff in hand, in the event that a demon bomb was waiting on the other side of a false wall. “Stand behind my cloak,” I said to EJ.
I braced myself in front of the wainscoting, my injured thumb above the trigger of the staff. The white, frostbitten skin of my left hand glowed oddly in the energies from the staff’s capstone. Another thing to deal with later.
EJ stepped a little behind me, and though I didn’t look to confirm it I felt his frustration at being behind instead of in front. “Suck it up, little brother.”
“Reading my mind?”
“You always did run toward danger. Kinda funny when you were in diapers, toddling down the hall toward a marauding vampire.”
“We were never attacked by a marauding vampire. And you are clearly one to talk about running into danger.”
“Blow the note, baby brother.”
EJ blew the note. Nothing happened.
“That was anticlimactic,” I said.
Over the speaker on EJ’s unicom, I heard our father’s voice say, “High C. Hard and quick, like a bell clapper.”
EJ switched out flutes for a steel one and blew hard. There was a click. A panel in the wall opened.
Light spilled out. Two sets of eyes peered up at me from where they sat on the floor. Two mouths opened in shock. Beside them were children’s books from the Beatriz series, The Super Witch. It was open to a page where the witch was wearing a red cloak and carried a staff.
Oh no…
“See?” one kid said, the tone awed. “I told you the witch would save us.”
I swung the null cloak off my shoulders and over the dining room table again. But it was far too late.
The house was swarming with police, CSI, PsyLED, and PsyCSI. And two parents sat with two children on the sofa in the family room, the children telling the nice policeman and their grieving, yet joyous parents how Gramma had put them in the closet and told them a witch would come to save them from the bad men.
Holding the folded piece of paper I had ripped off the wall in the safe room, I stood in the corner, out of the kids’ line of sight, as they chattered about fictional witches. EJ stood across from me. Both of us watched Walter.
Our bodyguard didn’t express tenderness. His own youth had been a small piece of hell. But as he watched the two pampered, sheltered children, his face softened. I caught a glimmer of wistfulness, as if he was thinking about being allowed to grow up safe. Protected. Innocent.
Walter touched his cheek, his fingertips brushing over thebrand. It was glowing again, brighter now. His brows drew down as he stroked the rough, puckered, raised flesh.
Spinning away from the family room, Walter dropped his hand. Headed out of the house.
“Walter,” Villetti said from the kitchen. “Can we talk?”
I looked toward EJ. Our gazes met.
He nodded. Looked at my hand, hiding the paper. His head tilted in a question. His mouth turned down in anI’m interestedexpression.
Walter dragged in a breath, fighting for calm. Our usually staid vampire bodyguard was close to vamping out, and Villetti had a way of pushing anyone’s buttons.
“Walter?” Villetti asked.
Walter dropped his hand and breathed out the breath he didn’t need. Walked to the detective. “Can we talk? I am capable of both speech and listening. You seem to have the same abilities. We speak a few of the same languages.”
“I never took you for a smart-ass.”
Walter chuckled, the sound surprising, considering the tautness of his stance, and entered the kitchen.
EJ and I slipped closer, standing in the shadows. Listening. I glanced at my brother. His nickname growing up was Little Big Ears, because he had managed to hear everything. He hummed a faint tone, opening anobfuscationworking over us. We weren’t invisible, but we were as close to invisible as a witch could make us. I passed the paper to him. He tucked it in his pocket for later.
Villetti stood in the corner near the stove-oven combination, slouching against the cabinets. His trench coat was off, draped across the back of a stool, and he’d pulled his tie loose, his cuffs rolled up. Casual. Unthreatening.
