“Where are you?” I asked. She told me and I said, “Okay. Half an hour.”
Jane swore and hung up. She had warned me about her mouth when she was hungry. I poked my hubby and when he swore too, I said, “I’m heading out to the old Partman place to pick up Jane. I’ll be back by dawn.” He grunted again and I slid from the bed, dressed, and grabbed the huge bowl of oatmeal, sugar, and milk from the fridge. Jane had assured me she needed food after she shifted back, and didn’t care what it was or what temp it was. I hoped she’d remember that when I gave it to her. Cold oatmeal was nasty.
Half an hour later, I reached the old Partman place, a turn-of-the-nineteenth-century homestead and later a mine, the homestead sold and deserted when the gemstones were discovered and the mine closed down in the 1950s when the gems ran out. It was grown over by fifty-year-old trees, and the drive was gravel, Jane standing hunched in the middle. Human, wearing the lightweight clothes she carried in the travel pouch, along with the cell phone and a few vamp-killing supplies.
I popped the doors and she climbed in, her long black hair like a veil around her, her thin clothes covering a shivering body, pimpled with cold. “Food,” she said, her voice hoarse. I passed the bowl of oatmeal and a serving spoon to her. She tossed the top of the bowl onto the floor and dug in. I watched her eat from the corner of my eye as I drove. She didn’t bother to chew, just shoveled the cold oatmeal in like she was starving. She looked thinner than usual, though Jane was never much more than skin, bone, and muscle—like her big-cat form, I thought. Criminy. Witches I could handle. But what Jane was? Maybe not so much. I hadn’t known shape changers or skinwalkers even existed. No one did.
Bowl empty, she pulled her leather coat from the tote I had brought, snuggled under it, and lay back in her seat, cradling the empty bowl. She closed her eyes, looking exhausted. “That was not fun,” she said, the words so soft I had to strain to hear. “Those vamps are fast. Faster than Beast.”
“Beast?”
“My cat,” she said. She laughed, the sound forlorn, lost, almost sad. “My big hunting cat. Who had to chase the scent back to their lair. Up and down mountains and through creeks and across the river. I had to soak in the river to throw off the heat. Beast isn’t built for long-distance running.” She sighed and adjusted the heating vents to blow onto her. “The vamps covered five miles from the McCarleys’ place in less than an hour yesterday morning. It took me more than four hours to follow them back through the underbrush and another two to isolate the opening. I should have shifted into a faster cat, though Beast would have been ticked off.”
“You found their lair?” I couldn’t keep the excitement out of my voice. “At the Partman place?”
“Yeah. Sort of.” She rolled her head to face me in the dark, her golden eyes glowing and forbidding. “They’re living in the mine. They’ve been there for a long time. They were gone by the time I found it. They were famished when they left the lair. I could smell their hunger. I think they’ll kill again tonight. Probably have killed again tonight.”
I tightened my hands on the steering wheel and had to force myself to relax.
“Molly? The lair is only a mile from your house as the vamp runs. And witches smell different from humans.”
A spike of fear raced through me. Followed by a mental image of a vampire leaning over Angelina’s bed. I tightened my hands on the wheel so tight it made a soft sound of protest.
“You need to mount a defensive perimeter around your house,” Jane said. “You and Evan. You hear? Something magical that’ll scare off anything that moves, or freeze the blood of anything dead. Something like that. You make sure the kids are safe.” She turned her head aside, to look out at the night. Jane loved my kids. She had never said so, but I could see it in her eyes when she watched them. I drove on. Chilled to the bone by fear and the early winter.
• • •
Jane was too tired to make it back to her apartment, and so she spent the day sleeping on the cot in the back room of the shop. Seven Sassy Sisters’ Herb Shop and Café, owned and run by my family, had a booming business, both locally and on the Internet, selling herbal mixtures and teas by bulk and by the ounce, the shop itself serving teas, specialty coffees, brunch and lunch daily, and dinner on weekends. It was mostly vegetarian fare, whipped up by my older sister, water witch, professor, and three-star chef, Evangelina Everhart. My sister Carmen Miranda Everhart Newton, an air witch, newly married and pregnant, ran the register and took care of ordering supplies. Two other witch sisters, twins Boadacia and Elizabeth, ran the herb store, while our wholly human sisters, Regan and Amelia, were waitstaff. I’m really Molly Meagan Everhart Trueblood. Names with moxie run in my family. Without a single question about why this supposed human needed a place to crash, my sisters let Jane sleep off the night run.
While my sisters worked around the cot and ran the business without me, I went driving. To the Partman place. With Brax.
“You found this how?” he asked, sitting in the passenger seat. I was driving so I could pretend that I was in control, not that Brax cared who was in charge as long as the rogue vampires were brought down. “The dogs got squirrelly twenty feet into the underbrush and refused to go on. It doesn’t make any sense, Molly. I never saw dogs go so nuts. They freaked out. So I gotta ask how you know where they sleep.” Detective Paul Braxton was antsy. Worried. Scared. There had been no new reported deaths in the area, yet I had just told him that the vamps had gone hunting last night.
There were some benefits to being a witch out of the closet. I let my lips curl up knowingly. “I had a feeling at the McCarleys’ yesterday, but I didn’t think it would work. I devised a spell to track the rogue vampires. At dusk, I went to the McCarleys’ and set it free. And it worked. I was able to pinpoint their lair.”
“How? I never heard of such a thing. No one has. I asked on NCIC this morning after you called.” At my raised brows he said, “NCIC is the National Crime Information Center, run by the FBI, a computerized index and database of criminal justice information.”
“A database?” Crap. I hit the brakes, hard. Throwing us both against the seat belts. The wheels squealed, popped, and groaned as the antilock braking system went into play. Brax cussed as we came to a rocking halt. I spun in the seat to face him. “If you made me part of that system, then you’ve used me for the last time, you no good piece of—”
“Molly!” He held both hands palms out, still rocking in the seat. “No! I did not enter you into the system. We have an agreement. I wouldn’t breach it.”
“Then tell me what you did,” I said, my voice low and threatening. “Because if you took away the privacy of my family and babies, I’ll curse you to hell and back, and damn the consequences.” I gathered my power to me, pulling from the earth and the forest and even the fish living in the nearby river, ecosystems be hanged. This man was endangering my babies.
Brax swallowed in the sudden silence of the old Volvo, as if he could feel the power I was drawing in. I could smell his fear, hear it in his fast breath, over the sounds of nearby traffic. “NCIC is just a database,” he said. “I just input a series of questions. About witches. And how they work. And—”
“Witches are in the FBI’s databank?” I hit the steering wheel with both fists as the thought sank in. “Why?”
“Because there are witch criminals in the U.S. Sorcerers who do blood magic. Witches who do dark magic. Witches are part of the database, now and forever.”
“Son of a witch on a switch,” I swore, cursing long and viciously, helpless anger in the tones, the syllables flowing and rich. Switching to the old language for impact, not that it had helped. Curses had a way of falling back on the curser rather than hurting the cursed.
I beat the steering wheel in impotent fury. I was a witch, for pity’s sake. And I couldn’t protect my own kind. Rage banging around me like a wrecking ball, I hit the steering wheel one last time an
d threw my old Volvo into drive. Fuming, silent, I drove to the Partman place.
The entrance, once meant for mining machinery and trucks, was still drivable, though the asphalt was crazed and broken, grass growing in the cracks. The drive wound around a hillock and was lost from view. Beyond it, signs of mining that were hidden from the road became more obvious. Trees were young and scraggly, the ground was scraped to bedrock, and rusted iron junk littered the site. An old car sat on busted tires, windows, hood, and doors long gone. The office of the mining site was an old WWII Quonset hut, the door hanging free to reveal the dark interior.
Though strip mining had been the primary means of getting to the gems, tunnels had gone into the side of the mountain. The entry to the mine was boarded over with two-by-tens, but some were missing, and it was clear that the opening had been well used.
Brax rubbed his mouth, looking over the place, not meeting my eyes. Finally he said, “I would never cause you or yours trouble, Molly Trueblood. I do my best to protect you from problems, harassment, or unwanted attention from law enforcement, federal NCIC or otherwise.”
“Except you,” I accused, annoyed that he had apologized before I blew off my mad.
He smiled behind his hand. “Except me. And maybe one day you’ll trust me enough to tell me the truth about this so-called tracking spell you used to find this place. I’m going to check out the area. Stay here. If I don’t come back, that disproves the myth that vamps sleep in the daylight. You get your pal Jane to stake my ass if I come back undead.”
“Your heart,” I said grumpily. “If you actually have one. Heart, not your ass.”
He made a little chortling laugh and picked up the flashlight he had brought. “Ten minutes. Half an hour max. I’ll be back.”
“Better be fangless.”
• • •
Forty-two minutes later Brax reappeared, dust all over his hair and suit. He clicked the flash off and strode to the car, got in with a wave of death-tainted air, and said, “Drive.” I drove.
His shoulders slumped and he seemed to relax as we turned off on the secondary road and headed back to town, rubbing his hand over his head in a habitual gesture. Dust filtered off him into the air of the car, making motes that caught the late-afternoon sun. I rolled the windows down to let out the stink on him. We were nearly back to my house when he spoke again.
“I survived. They either didn’t hear me or they were asleep. No myths busted today.” When I didn’t reply he went on. “They’ve been bringing people back to the mine for a while. Indigents, transients. Truant kids. There were remains scattered everywhere. Like the McCarleys, most were partially eaten.” He stared out the windshield, seeing the scene he had left behind, not the bright, sunny day. “I’ll have to get the city and county to compile a list of missing people.”
A long moment later he said, “We have to go after them. Today. Before they need to feed again.”
“Why not just seal them up in the mine till tomorrow after dawn?” I said, turning into my driveway, steering carefully around the tricycle and set of child-sized bongos left there. “Go in fresh, with enough weaponry and men to overpower them. The vamps would be weak, hungry, and apt to make mistakes.”
“Good golly, Miss Molly,” he said, his face transforming with a grin at the chance to use the old lyrics. “We could, couldn’t we? Where was my brain?”
“Thinking about dead kids,” I said softly, as I pulled to a stop. “I, on the other hand, had forty-two minutes to do nothing but think. All you need is a set of plans for the mine to make sure you seal over all the entrances. Set a guard with crosses and stakes at each one. That way you go in on your terms, not theirs.”
“I think I love you.”
“Stop with the lyrics. Go make police plans.”
• • •
Unfortunately the vamps got out that night, through an entrance not on the owner’s maps. They killed four of the police guarding other entrances. And then they went hunting. This time they struck close to home. Just after dawn, Brax woke me, standing at the front door, his face full of misery. Carmen Miranda Everhart Newton and her husband had been attacked in their home. Tommy Newton was dead. My little sister was missing and presumed dead.
The attention of the national media had been snared and news vans rolled into town, one setting up in the parking lot of the shop. Paralyzed by fear, my sisters closed everything down and gathered at my house to discuss options, to grieve, and to make halfhearted funeral plans.
I spent the day and the early evening hugging my children, watching TV news about the “vampire crisis,” and devising offensive and defensive charms, making paper airplanes out of spells that didn’t work, and flying them across the room to the delight of my babies and my four human nieces and nephews. I had to come up with something. Something that would offer protection to the person who went underground to revenge my sister.
Jane sat to the side, her cowboy boots, jeans, and T-shirt contrasting with the peasant tops, patchwork skirts, and hemp sandals worn by my sisters and me. She didn’t say much, just drank tea and ate whatever was offered. Near dusk, she came to me and said softly, “I need a ride. To the mine.”
I looked at her, grief holding my mouth shut, making it hard to breathe.
“I need some steak or a roast. You have one frozen in the freezer in the garage. I looked. You thaw it in the microwave, leave your car door open. I shift out back, get in, and hunker down. You make an excuse, drive me to the mine, and get back with a gallon of milk or something.”
“Why?” I asked. “I don’t understand.”
Her eyes glowing a tawny yellow, Jane looked like a predator, ready to hunt. Excited by the thought. “I don’t smell like a human. The older one won’t be expecting me. I can go in, find where they’re hiding, see if your sister is alive, and get back. Then we can make a plan.”
Hope spiked in me like heated steel. “Why would the vampires keep her alive?” I asked. “And why would you go in there?”
“I told you. Witches smell different from humans. You smell, I don’t know, powerful. If he’s trying to build a blood family, and if he has some ability to reason, the new blood-master might hold on to her. To try to turn her. It’s worth a shot.” Jane grinned grimly, her beast rising in her. Bits of gray light hovered, dancing on her skin. “Besides. The governor and the vamp council of North Carolina just upped the bounty on the rogues to forty thou a head. I can use a quarter mil. And if you come up with a way to keep me safe down there, when I go in to hunt them down, I’ll share. You said you need to replace that rattletrap you drive.”
I put a hand to my mouth, holding in the sob that accompanied my sudden, hopeful tears. Unable to speak, I nodded. Jane went to get the roast.
• • •
I slept uneasily, waiting, hearing every creak, crack, and bump in the night. If we smelled differently from humans, would the vampires come after my family? My other sisters? Just after dawn, the phone rang. “Come and get me,” Jane said, her voice both excited and exhausted. “Carmen’s still alive.”
I called my sisters on my cell as I drove and told them to get over to my house fast. We had work to do. When I got back with Jane, my kitchen had three witch sisters in it, each trying to brew coffee and tea, fry eggs, and cook grits and oatmeal. Evan was glowering in the corner, his hair standing up in tousles, reading the newspaper online and feeding Little Evan.
Jane pushed her way in, ignoring the babble of questions, and took the pot of oatmeal right off the stove, dumping in sugar and milk and digging in. She ate ten cups of hot oatmeal, two cups of sugar, and a quart of milk. It was the most oatmeal I had ever seen anyone eat in my life. Her belly bulged like a basketball. Then she took paper and pen and drew a map of the mine, talking. “No one’ll be going into the mine today. Count on it. The vamps killed four of the men watching the entrances and the governor won’t justify sending anyo
ne in until the national guard gets here. Carmen is alive, here.” She drew an X. “Along with two teenage girls. The rogue master’s name is Adam and he has his faculties, enough to see to the feeding and care of his family, enough to make more scions. But if he dies, then the girls in his captivity are just another dinner to the rogues. So I have to take him down last. I need something like an immobility spell, or glue spell. But first, I need something to get me in close.”
“Obfuscation spell,” I said.
“No one’s succeeded with that one in over five hundred years,” Evangelina said, ever the skeptic.
“Maybe that’s because we never tried,” Boadacia said.
Elizabeth looked at her twin, challenge sparkling in her eyes. “Let’s.”
“But according to the histories, a witch has to be present to initialize it and to keep it running. No human can do it,” Evangelina said.
“I’ll go in with her,” Evan said.
My sisters turned to him. The sudden silence was deafening. Little Evan took that moment to bang on his high chair and shout, “Milk, milk, milk, milk!” Which came out, Mea, mea, mea, mea!
“It would have to be an earth witch,” Evangelina said slowly. “You’re an air sorcerer. You can’t make it work either.” As one, they all turned to look at me. I was the only earth witch in the group.
“No,” Evan said. “No way.”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s the only way.”
• • •
At four in the afternoon, My sisters and Evan and I were standing in front of the mine. Jane was geared up in her vamp hunting gear, a chain mail collar, leather pants, metal-studded leather coat over a chain vest, and a huge gun with an open stock, like a Star Wars shotgun. Silvered knives were strapped to her thighs, in her boots, along her forearms; studs were built into in her gloves; two handguns were holstered at her waist, under her coat; her long hair was braided and tied down. A dozen crosses hung around her neck. Stakes were twisted in her hair like hair sticks.