“Oh. Holy crap on cheese crackers. I am an idiot.” I should have known right then, the moment that Molly used her power for death instead of life, that there would be problems. “A total complete idiot.”
Eli might have laughed through his nose at my swearword, but maybe I was too sensitive. He pulled past the drive and shut off the SUV just down from the house. “No car in the drive. No lights in the house,” he said. He reached over the seat and pulled a low-light monocular forward. This was a new toy, which allowed him to see in the dark with one eye and keep his other eye safe should anyone turn on a light and blind him. “Looks empty. I’ll take the right.”
He slung a hunting rifle over his shoulder as he got out and readied the weapon. “Cells off,” he reminded me. We had agreed to drive unweaponed. Even in Louisiana, citizens might report armed and dangerous-looking drivers. So all the gear was stowed in the floorboards behind us.
Much slower, I turned off my cell and opened the door, the lights off in the vehicle. The night smelled of plants in the distance, water all around, some stagnant and some moving. I smelled a skunk somewhere far off, and something dead closer, something that had been left in the sun to rot. The dying smell of exhaust from the SUV.
The night breeze touched me with tenuous fingers. Hairs that had worked their way from my braid brushed my face. In the distance, a night bird called, but closer to us, nothing moved. I sniffed, smelling old, faint magic. Nothing fresh. No hint of Molly herself on the air.
The magic I smelled was different from anything I had ever scented. It was metallic and brittle, like heated steel and old bones. It smelled like a man’s magic, though why I thought that I had no idea. Evan’s magic was sexless, no more masculine or feminine than Molly’s or her sisters’.
From the backseat, I pulled my M4 shotgun and checked the load. Seven rounds ready to fire, six more in the ammo holder clipped to the weapon. A nine-mil went in my spine holster. I slid a fourteen-inch-bladed vamp-killer onto my calf-strapped sheath.
Eli had moved to the garage and stood to the side, dipping his head back and forth fast, looking in the windows with each forward move. He turned to me and held up one finger. A car was in the garage. From there, my partner crouched and moved right, into the shadows. I moved left across the front of the house. I was exposed, should anyone be looking out, say a vamp or two, with their near-perfect night vision. But nothing moved.
I circled the house, meeting Eli in the back as we both continued on our circuits. He pointed to the side door as the entrance he would use. I nodded and pointed back to the front of the house, miming ringing the bell. He flashed white teeth at me and moved on. He thought I was an idiot for announcing myself instead of busting in, but really . . . We had parked within sight of the house. There were alarm company stickers on the doors and windows. No way would we be able to enter undetected. Why get arrested for B&E when someone might just open the door and invite us in?
I climbed the short steps to the door, set the weapon on safety, and slung the M4 back around. I readied the nine-mil and held it in my left hand, down by my leg. I rang the bell. It chimed inside, three soft, soothing notes. I heard nothing else, but my Spidey senses went on alert. I took a slow breath and stepped back from the door just as it opened. The girl who stood there was willowy and pale, about five-seven, wearing khakis and a long-sleeved T-shirt. She smelled familiar. She was one of the vamps who had been in Molly’s hotel room.
We stared at each other, the night bird starting to call again from far away.
The girl smelled of vamp—leaves and wilted flowers and, oddly, desert air. She had red hair, long and straight, but it was lank and dull, unlike the lustrous hair of most vamps. Her brown eyes were yellowed and sunken, her skin sallow. She looked far more mature than the sixteen she had been when she disappeared. She looked old. But she had Molly’s mouth. Molly’s nose. And a wreath of magic about her head and on her hands, held in place with fingers that worked and braided the magic as I watched. She was a witch, like her mother and her aunts, and her magic smelled of roses with long thorns and the heat of the sun on stone. “Shiloh,” I said, the word a breath of sound. Shiloh took me in from the top of my head to my boots, lingering on the necklace at my throat before dropping to my hands. “Are you going to shoot me?” she asked, her voice a croak, her eyes on the gun at my side. “Because you might as well not bother. I’ll be dead before dawn anyway.”
“What? No. Not planning on it. You gonna try to drink me down?”
She ghosted a worn, wearied smile at me and stepped back from the door, saying, “Come in, Jane Yellowrock. What took you so long?”