Licked Alex’s Head
Halfway up the stairs, I had to breathe and sucked the gas into me. Beast threw herself at me in a panic, her claws ripping at me. “Fine,” I said to her between coughs. The Gray Between erupted out of me, my skinwalker energies started healing me, and I slid into the place where time slowed. The poison mist around me developed visible layers, much more pale and gauzy at the top of the stairway where the concentration of the heavier-than-air mist was beginning to clear. I managed not to breathe until I reached the second story, but I still went light-headed when I sucked in the breath.
I stumbled into Molly and Big Evan’s room, opened the windows here too, and grabbed Mol’s arm, rolling her into a fireman’s carry, to stagger across the hallway, through Alex’s room. Once again, I rammed the door with my shoulder, breaking the window glass, which started to fall as I shoved past, then hung in the air, as the Gray Between followed me through the broken door, between the striating energies of the wards, and out onto the second-floor gallery. If we survived this, there would be a lot of repairs.
I let go of the time change and alerted Edmund, by coughing, that Molly was on the way down. When he looked up from where he was washing the children’s bodies with the garden hose, I tossed Molly through her own ward. In a pop of displaced air, Edmund was suddenly below her and caught Molly. She was not going to be happy when she woke up naked in the backyard, but I could live with her anger as long as they all lived.
“More coming,” I managed, and bubbled time again, as I staggered back, into Alex’s room. The taste of acid and cooked blood was instantly nauseating, but I bent and pulled him over my shoulder too. I stood and carried the heavier-than-expected teenager out to the gallery and threw him off. He hung in midair just as Edmund started to look up and I knew the vamp would catch the Kid. Fangheads are fast.
I staggered across the porch to Eli’s room and tried the door handle. It was unlocked and why not? Why worry about security? The wards were up. I pulled the elder Younger up and over my shoulder and out to the gallery, where I propped him over the railing. I let go of the time bubble and focused on Edmund below me as he caught Alex and laid him on the ground beside Molly.
“Next,” I said, and let Eli go.
Eli windmilled, arms and legs flailing limply, but Edmund caught the much heavier man like a baby and laid him on the grass, but Edmund didn’t have to strip him. Eli slept commando. Who knew? Beside him on the grass, Angie Baby and EJ were coughing and shivering, waking up, cold and crying.
I pulled the Gray Between of no time back over me and nearly hit the floor as pain cut through me like a dozen blades all at once. Limping back inside, I coughed so deep I thought my intestines might be involved. The pain of bending time started there, low in my belly, that hot, churning misery and the taste of my own blood rose up my throat. I had never gone back and forth between real time and no time so many times in succession, and it wasn’t helping my digestion. The pain sliced deeper, and I was having trouble drawing a breath.
I pulled on Beast and she flooded my system with adrenaline and pain-relieving endorphins as I made it back to Molly and Big Evan’s room. The big guy was six feet six inches tall and weighed in at an easy three fifty. I was strong, but . . . I bent my knees, grabbed his left arm, and put my shoulder into his middle. I let his own weight roll him over me as I squatted low to the floor and took his mass onto my back and shoulder. I barely made it to my feet and when I did, I felt something tear in me, a long, linear pain down my abdomen, from the bottom of my ribs, down along the right side of my navel. Acid rose in my throat, tasting of sour, cooked meat, of blood seared in stomach acids. I staggered across the wide hallway, seeing a glimpse of someone near the front door. I made it to the gallery before letting the Gray Between snap away. I rolled Evan’s butt to the top of the railing and was absurdly happy he slept in boxers as I let time go and watched him fall toward Edmund.
The vampire grunted as he halfway caught the much bigger man, but momentum allowed Evan’s leg to whack on the ground hard, twisting his knee. He’d have an injury. I caught my belly, feeling the twisted agony of torn abdominal muscles beneath my fingers as I turned to go back inside and Edmund called up, “That’s all of them.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, and returned to house.
“Jane!” he shouted. But he was outside the ward.
There was a slow breeze blowing through from the opened windows and doors, and the gas was nearly gone on the upper floor. I was coughing but I could breathe.
Sick and trying to die, I went back to the children’s bedroom and the strange thing that shouldn’t have been there. Brute and the grindylow, stretched out on the floor near EJ’s bed. There were claw marks in the wood of the floor between the doorway and where the werewolf lay. The werewolf had been trying to claw his way to the bed. To save the kids? Yeah. He had waked Angie and sent her to get the cell phone and then had come back for EJ, Angie following, talking to me.
I tucked the neon-green baby grindylow beneath an arm, grabbed Brute by his back paws, and dragged him down the stairs. His head bumped each time I took a step, and I knew he’d have a headache, but no way could I lift another three-hundred-plus-pound anything over the railing.
I plucked the cat off the back of the sofa, hoping her nonfamiliar magics had kept her alive in the heavier, denser poison, and pulled Brute to the side door, which was hanging off its hinges, and out onto the side porch. “More,” I said, my voice breathless.
“I am not giving mouth-to-snout resusitation,” Edmund said, sounding prudish.
I managed a laugh, two syllables of amusement that ended up in a cough so deep it sounded as if my lungs were coming up in chunks. And I threw up. Blood went everywhere. I fell, the wooden porch floor rising to meet me with a wallop. I succeeded in saying, “Yes. You will. Dog and cat both. Your word.” And everything went sparkling gray as Beast reached into me and forced me into the change. My tendons snapped, my bones popped and broke. Pain cut through me like razors flaying sinew from joints. All I could think was It’s about dang time. Because if this wasn’t changing in extremis, nothing was.
The change was swift, but I caught a glance of Angie Baby, standing in the grass, wrapped in a silk sheet. She reached a hand out to Edmund and placed her fingers in the gash on his wrist, taking away bloody fingertips. “As you have sworn, so I swear to you, fanghead. I’ll take care of you for as long as I live.”
No! No! But the words didn’t come. And the shift took me as the wards fell.
* * *
It was daylight. I am Beast. I am Beast all day.
“I am done,” Edmund growled from the shadows of the gallery porch. “They will all live.”
I, Beast, yawned, showing killing teeth to Edmund as he raced inside, his skin smoking with the rising sun. Stinking vampire skin smoke. Does not smell like food. Smells of rotten meet from old kill. I followed vampire to see where he would lair.
Edmund shoved open the shelf door, rushed into weapons room, and pulled it closed behind him. He did not take lower entrance to vamp-lair as Jane had ordered. Jane would be mad. But he had saved witches and humans. Vampire had earned access through inside of house, through weapons room bookshelf door. Vampire had become litter mate. Litter mate would make Jane mad too. Beast chuffed with humor.
Beast stretched, from front paws, along front legs and with deep dip of spine, through hips and back legs to back paws, scratching with claws on wooden floor. I shook pelt, feeling it slide over bones and muscle. Beast padded outside to Brute. Brute was on ground, licking vampire blood off jaw. Smell of Edmund was strong in yard. Vampire had fed each of them. Vampire had given much blood. Vampire is good hunter and good mother to kits.
Inside us, Jane laughed. I’ll be sure to tell him that.
Beast walked to face Brute and reached out with front paw. Patted dog on nose. Leaned in, nose to nose, and breathed his breath. Shared breath with Brute. Breathing. Breathing. Bonding. Brute made sniffing noise. And licked Beast nose. Tongue tasted of vampire blood. Stupid dog. I sneezed, sharing snot with dog. Dog licked Beast snout. Not dog. Wolf. Brute was good . . . wolf. He licked cat snot off his nose and licked Beast nose again. Brute tried to save EJ. Was part of litter mates now. Did not like werewolf being part of litter mates. Would have to think of this.
Lay down on wet grass beside Brute and stared at Molly. All litter mates were wearing sheets, sheets that smelled of Edmund. Looked to Edmund’s car. Trunk was open.
Edmund used his sheets. Silk sheets, Jane thought. Very expensive silk sheets, to cover them. To give them a sense of privacy.
Better to have pelt, Beast thought.
Grindylow crawled from Brute to Beast and groomed Beast’s back. Felt good. Needed cow meat to eat, but grooming felt good. Looked at car. Wanted to hunt cow in car, but Edmund would not wake until dark.
Molly said words and ward fell in shower of sparks. Molly said other words under breath so kits did not hear, but Beast heard, and chuffed with laughter. Molly turned to kits and saw Angie with blood on her face, blood on her hands. Hissed like mother big-cat. “What have you done?” Ran to Angie, holding sheet under arms. “Angie. What did you do?” Molly turned Angie face to light of morning sun. “Son of a witch on a switch,” she said.
Beast studied Angie Baby. Angie had blood across face in lines. Beast could count to five. Angie had five lines of blood. Vampire blood. Angie swore to vampire.
A blood vow. Holy crap in a bucket, Jane thought. Molly is gonna kill me.
* * *
When all humans and witches were awake, Beast was more than hungry. Was dying of hunger. Eli was thawing cow meat in little noisy box that made meat run in circles like stupid cow-prey, around and around. Big Evan, still wrapped in sheet, went to front of house and out into street. Beast followed Evan, to watch from front porch. Fog stretched in long streamers, moving like water in street, hiding Beast from human eyes. Evan went to far side of street and bent down, big butt in air. Looked like prey, backside of bull, but was litter mate. Remembered litter mate. But was hungry. Smelled cow on air.
Bruiser was with Evan. Both looking at ground.
Walked out of house to Evan and Bruiser. Not stalking. Not stalking. Not stalking big not-cow-butt. Walking. Sat near Bruiser’s feet and looked at ground where Evan looked. “What do you think, Jane? These small patches of ground that have been disturbed. Shall I dig in it?”
Beast sneezed. Am not Jane.
I’m here. And I see it too. Jane lifted paw and placed it over spot in ground where grass had died. Magic stung Beast like bee. Jumped back. Beast growled at bee that was not bee. Was dirt. And magic. Shook paw. Hurt!
“Be careful,” Bruiser said. “I smell magics still working.”
Jane thought, I forgot about Bruiser when I went through the ward. Molly needs to cue them to him so he can get through, though I guess he might be dead now from poison if he had gotten inside. There is that.
Beast ignored Jane, watching Big Evan dig in stinging ground. Smell of magic grew, like smoke from white man’s fire that got away, into woods, into downed trees. Big Evan jumped. Was saying words Jane did not like, but Jane laughed. Yeah. It hurt us too, she thought.
“I think these might have been here since the first attack, the scan Janie told us about. The magic is still active, painfully so. Arrrg!” He cursed and swore and Jane laughed again. Bruiser stepped away from the digging. Bruiser was smart. “Yeah,” Evan said. “These have been here awhile. They were buried several days ago. Which means for certain that the attack tonight was brought about by the two women who scanned you earlier, Jane.” He pulled something green from the dirt. It looked like leaves, but it smelled like iron. Iron and salt.
Evan shouted to Molly and she came into street. Was dressed in Molly clothes, but still smelled of Edmund blood and stink of poison. “What in heaven’s name are you doing in the street in a sheet? Wait. What’s that? It looks . . . It looks dangerous.”
“It is. And if I’m guessing right there will be another one down there,” Evan said.
Beast trotted down street, nose to ground like stupid dog. Found witch magic stink and sat, front feet together.
“Yeah. Good girl, Janie,” Big Evan said.
Snarled at Big Evan. Am not Jane. Am Beast. Am hungry.
Big Evan dug in earth and pulled another iron magic thing from ground near Beast feet. This one was green, and stank like blood. Like blood of human. Evan made strange noise, like kitten. Dropped sheet. It slid to the earth, leaving Big Evan standing naked.
“Evan?” Molly said running over. “What—” She saw what Big Evan was holding. Molly raised doubled fists into air. Hit blood-magic iron and it fell from Evan’s hands. She pushed Evan away. Wrapped sheet around him.
Evan touched blood-magic iron, Beast thought.
He’s spelled, Jane thought. Not good. Big Evan dropped to ground and head bounced on grass. Molly shouted for Eli. Jane and Beast trotted close and sniffed iron thing. They’re shaped like ovals—carved like scarabs, like the center gem of the brooches.
Destroy iron things and spell will stop? Beast thought.
They are focal icons—things that carry witch power—that can be used to harness energy and power for spells, Jane thought, trying to make sense of it all. Iron is abnormal for a spell-power focal item, but . . . I don’t know. Something’s hinky here. These have been used in ways similar to a permanent witch circle. Jane looked up and down street.
Beast thought, Sun is rising. Want cow meat.
In a minute. Jane watched Molly, Bruiser, and Eli roll Evan onto large board and drag Evan across street to house. The focal items are set to magnetic north and east of north, with the house at south, the front door in a perfect ninety-degree triangle. The mathematics are excellent. Yeah. We need to tell Eli to try and burn them. Destroying them was a good idea.
Beast is good hunter.
Yes, you are. Jane pushed Beast to feet and trotted to house. Now let’s see how good you are at writing.
Beast cannot write.
Wrong-o, Jane thought. Jane led us to Alex. He was sitting at kitchen table, eyes closed. We stared at young human male. He looked bad. Like sick prey, ready to die. Took Alex hand in teeth, gently, like Beast carried kits, and pulled toward living room.
“Whaddaya want?” he asked, trying to pull hand free. Tightened teeth. Alex yelled, “Ow! Stop that!”
“Do what Jane wants,” Eli grunted as he and Molly pulled Evan through open front door on wood. Bruiser pushed from other side.
Bruiser is strong. Good mate for Jane.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever.
“What?” Alex stood, smelling angry and afraid, but let Beast pull him to desk in living room. Pushed Alex to chair. He sat and Beast butted Alex with head, stood up on back paws. Licked Alex’s head.
“Gross. Okay. I’m awake. What do you want?”
Stayed on back paws and hind legs. Put front paws on table-desk. Scratched gently at keyboard. Alex frowned, using big brother’s frown. Jane tapped keyboard with claws again.
Alex’s eyes went wide and heart thumped into fast speed. “You want the system on so you can type something?”
Jane dropped head and raised it. Alex pulled keyboard out and system came on. Jane thought, We did this once before, at Leo’s house, before it burned to the ground. Jane pushed Beast away from alpha. Extruded claws. Touched key with claw. Another key. Another.
Alex shouted, “Eli! Jane’s typing!”
Not Jane. Beast. But Alex did not hear.
Eli read over Beast shoulder, “Burn focals with fire. Torch.” Eli bent close to Beast face, met Beast eyes, but not in challenge. “Burn the metal things with a torch? Welder’s torch?”
Beast dropped head in human nod. Jane typed. “Hot.”
“Will that stop the spell on Evan?”
Molly said, “That’s genius. Yes. It should stop it. You have a welder’s torch?”
“Acetylene. Best I can do on short notice.” Eli patted Beast shoulder and said, “Steak on your plate. If this works, I’ll take you hunting.”
Want to hunt cow in Edmund car. But Eli did not hear. Padded to kitchen, place where Beast ate cow meat. Steak was hot and stringy on outside and cold inside. But cow meat was good. Ate all of steak and licked plate clean. Satisfied, Beast trotted out broken door and into yard. Jumped into Edmund car. Car chairs were made of cow skin. Would hunt for more cow with Edmund and Eli, but would eat cow skin, not make chairs.
Turned around one time. Lay down. Closed eyes. Dreamed of hunting in car, chasing cows, many, many cows.
* * *
Beast woke up when bad burning smell stung nose. Stretched in cow chairs and slowly padded from cow-hunting car. Day was cool, good day to lie on rocks in sun. Padded around Eli to Jane’s rocks in back of house and climbed to top. Jane and Beast watched Eli with fire, burning iron. Eli in strange hat.
“It isn’t going to be hot enough,” Molly said.
“You want hotter temperatures, we need a two-tank system, oxygen/acetylene,” Eli said. “Ambient air is less than twenty-one percent oxygen. Pure O² burns hotter.”
“You trying to tell an air witch about burning things?” Evan grunted, a low growl in his voice. He was sitting in a chair, dressed in human clothes. He smelled like iron and salt and sickness. Was spelled, but he could talk and move. His face was red and his body smelled of frustration, like big-cat hunting with no prey in territory. “No one knows burning things like an air witch.”
Jane laughed inside. Beast did not understand why Jane laughed, but she sat back and let Beast stay alpha.
“No,” Eli said. “I’m suggesting we get a different system or take the iron focals to a welder or to a structural steel fabricator.” Eli pulled his hat off his head, took his cell from his pocket, and punched fingers across surface like Beast sliding paws across ice, with fish swimming beneath. “Thanks to the port, there’s more than half a dozen iron fabricators in New Orleans, most within an hour’s drive.”
Molly was sitting in rusty chair, cold glass of tea in one hand. “What if you just take a sledgehammer to them?” she asked.
The men looked to her, smell of surprise on both. “I could create a ward that would let the sledgehammer in but not let magical energies escape,” Molly said.
“Yeah,” Evan said, his words slow with thought. “That would work.”
Molly nodded. “Evan, you’d make a separate ward. Add filters to the ward to allow only oxygen through the filter. Increase the outer air pressure, forcing the O² into the ward. Scientifically it might work.”
Eli said. “You set the ward. I’ll get the sledgehammer.”
“You got a sledgehammer here?” Evan sounded surprised.
“Never know when you might need a good sledgehammer.”
Mr. Prepared, Jane thought. Let’s sleep. Things might get rough tonight.
Beast closed eyes and slept in sun, waking only to see Evan break iron into tiny pieces, and magic smash against ward like bomb going off. Fire, too bright to look at, was inside ward. Did not smell blood, did not smell iron or salt or Jane hair, even with men shouting and jumping around like kits. Silly men.
I rested and slept and ate raw roast and steak all day. Eli was best litter mate.
* * *
It was dusk when I changed back, hidden in my own room. I stretched, fully human, on the bed. While I was starving, needing to replace the calories used to power my shifts, I hadn’t felt so good in a long time. I had successfully shifted when my life was in danger, had stayed in Beast form all day, sleeping on heated rocks, had no new scars, and my old ones were faded to pale pink lines. And from beneath the door came the scent of the grill all fired up and loaded down with more beef. I dressed quickly in Bruiser’s wrinkled shirt and a pair of leggings and went to the table.
Eli had prepared me a fourth chunk of meat, this one a thick steak grilled to rare and bloody perfection, with beer-batter-fried onion rings, asparagus sautéed in bacon drippings, which was out of this world, roasted sweet potatoes, and green salad with crispy bacon on top and hot bacon dressing. “Holy moly guacamole,” I said, taking my seat and digging in. I was half finished with the steak when my hunger was satisfied enough to look up. And came to a total stop.
The whole family was eating together. Everyone but Bruiser was here. Tears filled my eyes and Eli passed me a bread basket, saying, “If you get all sappy and cry, it will ruin the ambience. Plus, all the girls will have to do a hug-hug, kiss-kiss moment and the food will get cold.”
I took three slices of Molly’s homemade bread and blinked back my tears. “No way am I stopping eating just to cry and hug my friends. But you know I love you all, right?”
They all spoke over one another: “Yes.” “Totally.” “Yes, Aunt Jane.” “Wessh A’ Ja’.” “Back atcha.” “Whiny girl stuff.” And Brute whuffed.
I stilled, turning to see the werewolf stretched out on the floor, two empty plates near his feet. One was Beast’s plate. One was new. I thought back through the day. I remembered the claw marks on the floor at EJ’s bed. And Beast making nice-nice with the wolf. And the grindylow grooming Beast’s pelt. Around the table, my friends and family were deliberately paying attention to their food and not to me or the wolf. “He’s moved in?”
“He’s my werewolf,” Angie said.
“He’s ma wrolf,” EJ said, waving an asparagus spear in the air.
“He tried to save my son,” Molly said, taking the green spear from Evan Junior.
“The grindylow seems to think it’s a good idea,” Eli said.
“No,” Big Evan said.
I went back to eating, knowing that a family had to make tough decisions all the time and that, oddly, I wasn’t in charge.
“How much do you remember from today?” Eli asked, after an uncomfortable silence.
“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” I said. “I caught up on a lot of sleep today.” Which was how I heard what they had done all day, starting from the time Eli successfully beat the iron focals into small pieces and Evan’s working burned them to ash, releasing the last of the spell that was wrapped around Evan, which, fortunately, had been a simple knock-out spell, but had been geared to a human male, not an in-the-closet witchy man, allowing him to find consciousness and help with the spell-breaking.
Molly had done research on the witch names on her list. Alex had done research on Molly’s research. Eli had spent hours with Jodi Richoux, having missed the dawn conference call with Leo, and had made nice-nice with everyone on the security team, especially Derek and the men he chose to work with Jodi’s off-duty cops who would be on rooftops before, during, and after the Witch Conclave.
Evan and Molly had come up with what sounded like a contract with Edmund, to cover the blood vow given by their underage daughter to Edmund Hartley. I kept my mouth shut about that one, still bothered by the similarity to what I had done as a child, when I took a blood oath to kill my father’s murderers.
And they told me about the package that had come while I slept on the rocks in the back. They all seemed eager for me to open it, but until I finished the food, I was going nowhere and doing nothing. Because the food was OhMyGosh too good for words.
After dinner, while the sun was setting in a red sky, I let my godchildren drag the package to me across the floor. It was huge, big enough to ship a chair in, but weighed little by comparison to the size. The box was postmarked in Louisiana and it had a return address I recognized. I ran a hand over the cardboard, feeling a hint of icy magic from within, and smelling the scent of leather.
“I haven’t ordered anything from this company in ages,” I said, “and I feel magic.” I glanced at Molly and said, “You didn’t feel anything?”
Evan answered for her. “No. Neither of us.”
“Open a ward over me and the box?”
Evan and Molly stood to either side of me, at north and south, and Molly said, “Inverted hedge of thorns.” The magic snapped over me and the box with a sizzle of familiar energies. The inverted hedge kept magics inside, rather than keeping an attacker out. Which meant if the box blew up, the family and the house were safe, though my insides might be splattered across the ward like some kind of gross, bloody artwork.
Feeling uneasy, I slit the packing tape open and pulled out long lengths of big green bubble wrap. My uneasiness was warranted: the feel of magic increased with a tingle that burned and ached along my skin. Beneath the bubble wrap was an envelope. Below that, I could see black leather, the soft gleam of the leather itself suggesting that it was high quality. I peeled back some of the plastic to reveal a set of fighting leathers, far nicer than any I had ever been able to afford.
Before I removed the last layer of plastic and touched the leather I opened the envelope and read the paperwork. The leather was described as top-grain, armored with sterling silver-over-titanium chain mail and flexible plastic (to repel talons and fangs) and Dyneema (to repel blades), and it came with top-quality, heavy silk lining. More important, the leathers had been treated by the Seattle coven to repel magic. Just the jacket had to go for upward of two thousand bucks, and the box was way bigger than one used to ship a leather jacket.
There was a card with the paperwork and the leathers’ description. My trepidation growing, I placed the descriptions on the floor beside my knees and opened the card.
The leathers were from Leo, the card reading, “A gift for my Enforcer, that you may shine among the Enforcers of the Europeans, and that we might appear as worthy opponents.” And it was signed with Leo’s calligraphy-style siggie, all swirls and fancy curls.
This was vamp politics. Which meant I couldn’t say no to the gift. Not that I wanted to. Some girls want jewelry. I wanted stuff like this.
I peeled away the last layer of plastic. The leather itself put out an icy-cold magic, sparking blue and silver to Beast-vision. The texture of the magic meant the jacket was spelled for temperature control as well as being spelled against attack magic. I’d heard of such spelling. It was offered to the mundane world by the Seattle coven for mucho dinero. From outside the ward, Molly and Big Evan heaved oohs and aahs at the sight of the magic on the jacket.
These were the best leathers I had ever seen. I lifted out the jacket and the pants beneath. And the custom-made, matching leather combat boots, ones with expansion seams on the sides, held in place with leather straps. The boots would not be water-resistant at all, but they would break outward on the sides if I shifted to my half-Beast form. I had no idea how much these fighting leathers might cost. Ten thousand dollars? More?
Beneath the black leathers came a magical glow, and I realized that there was more in the box. I placed the black leathers on the floor by my knee and removed more packing paper. Below the paper was another set of leathers. My breath caught. This set was of dark gold leather, the color of my eyes when I was human, an amber gold with darker striations, almost like a . . . like a pelt. I lifted out the jacket and the pants beneath. Instantly I could see the leathers worn with the fancy ornamental gorget Leo had given me. The boots beneath were black, exact copies of the other pair.
And there was more paper below that one.
“Holy crap,” I whispered. I pulled out the next layer of paper, to see a flash of red. The third set of leathers were scarlet, my favorite lipstick tint. The magical power signature on this set was brighter, hotter, and I knew without testing them that the magics in this set were particularly strong, maybe with double rebound magic, so that any attack spell that came at me rebounded on the sender. A third pair of boots was beneath the red leathers. In the bottom there were three sets of matching grips for my .380s and for the nine-mil handguns. There were also new stakes, wood, the handgrips burned with the new Yellowrock Securities logo, the tips all silver. The blunt ends of the stakes each had a cabochon gem in the end, blackstone, garnet, or citrine, matching the leathers, four stakes in each gem color, to wear like jewelry in my hair. Jewelry deadly to vamps.
But there was still more. In the bottom was a second box, this one sealed and marked with the name Eli Younger. I indicated that the inverted hedge could be dropped and I lifted out the box, holding it up to Eli.
He accepted it, standing over me and my pile of fighting finery. He knelt beside me and sliced through the sealing tape. Inside, wrapped in matching packing paper, was a set of leathers, matte black, as befitted a second.
From the living room Edmund said, sounding droll, “They match mine, which were given to me by Leo before he kicked me out. They are hanging in the storage room, in a garment bag. I do hope they aren’t in the way.” There was something snide in the last line, but I ignored it, my thoughts on the time schedule for ordering, measuring, cutting, sewing, shaping, and spelling so many sets of leathers in so many different colors and sizes.
There was a smaller, bright red cardboard box to the side, one I hadn’t even noticed. It had no address on it, and had been hand-delivered. I looked the question at the boys and Edmund said, “From George Dumas.” More snide, which I again ignored.
I opened the box and peeled back the tissue paper inside. And I lifted out the thing on top.
“Niiiice,” Eli said. “Custom Kydex holsters for all your gear.” He flipped a card over and handed it to me without reading it. The note said, “Jane. The gift isn’t roses, nor so valuable as a lovely Moghul blade, but they are practical and they match your new leathers. They are custom-made by the Green River Holster Company. George.” There was a business card attached that said GRHolsters.com.
I retrieved three weapons from my room and slid a fourteen-inch-long vamp-killer into a holster shaped like a blade. It clicked when it was seated, a soft snap that said the weapon was secure until I wanted to free it. The nine-mils clicked into place too. “Cool,” I said, knowing there was a silly girly smile on my lips. But a guy who knew how to buy the perfect present tended to bring on a lot of such smiles.
My cell rang and I instantly knew who it was. I met Eli’s eyes, and his squinted just a hint. It was his ticked-off face. He knew too. The time proved that we were being played, part of the vamp politics. I flipped open the Kevlar cover and said, “Leo.”
“You have received your gift, my Jane?”
Toneless, I said, “Yes. They’re beautiful. This stuff is for the Euro Vamp visit, yes? What are you planning? And for how long have you been planning it? And am I supposed to be dead when it’s over?”
Leo chuckled, that silken laugh they do that sends shivers over my flesh, that come-hither sound that makes them the apex predators. “I have known this was coming for a very, very long time, my Jane. I have planned this from the moment you killed my enemy, de Allyon, shifted into a puma in my limo, and shredded the seats with your claws.” The call ended.