Beast-fast, I crossed the yard and leaped, catching the top of the brick fence with one hand and levering myself up and over, the flip-flops lost in the dash. As I was vaulting the fence, I saw a ladder leaning against the brick. It hadn't been there before. I snarled.
And took in a whiff of vamp. And of witches. The trails overlaid one another in a twisting spiral from Katie's Ladies to here. Instantly I understood the trap that had sprung. They had taken Bliss, then waited in the alley, hidden under a spell that had subtly encouraged me not to check around the entire house. When I went inside Katie's, they had simply climbed the fence and come here. Then they'd attacked.
I dropped into a defensive crouch inside the walled garden. There was no siren scream of anything trying to get through the wards. Had Molly not activated the perimeter ward? Had she forgotten after I left the house? I hadn't waited to see that she was safe.
The smell of blood hit me, rich and fresh. Molly's. I/we screamed.
I raced across the porch. A blaze of magics prickled across my skin. The wards are still in place. But they smelled burned, ragged. Someone had blasted a hole through them at the kitchen door. The edges fluttered, singeing the air with the smell of scorched earth and ozone.
Inside, the smell of blood was stronger. Bloody prints tracked across the floor. Beast-fast, I followed them. Molly lay in a spreading pool of blood at the foot of the stairs. Bleeding from everywhere. Her eyes wide with shock, her lips mouthing words. "My babies. He took my babies."
I wasn't sure what I did next. I know I called 911. I remember a fast vision of my hands grabbing clean towels from the folded clothes. Tying them over the wounds on her torso with clean sheets. I remember fighting to shift, Beast thrumming through me. I remember tears dripping from my nose and cheeks. I remember shouting to the 911 operator that Molly was hurt bad and the children had been kidnapped.
I remember the paramedics set off the ward at the front door. And I sent them to the side, the ward wailing. And I remember, so clearly, holding Molly's blood-slick hand in mine when she fought the paramedics who were trying to help her. And the fear on their faces when they looked into mine.
I remember knowing Mol was going to die. Knowing it. Smelling death. Screaming with grief and fear. Calling Leo's. Demanding help. Begging. But Leo wasn't home. I remember Bruiser promising to bring Bethany to the hospital. The hesitant sound in his voice; he knew he shouldn't be helping.
I remember grabbing the photos just taken of Molly and the kids. For the cops. For the AMBER Alert. Rushing with police officers into the street to follow the trail of the witches and the vamps who had invaded my home. Who had stolen the kits. The trail ended in a fading cloud of diesel and a booby-trap spell that sent me tumbling. Sitting up in the street, my palms bleeding from the fall. Jumping into the back of the ambulance.
But it was all mixed up in my head, like dozens of overlapping sound bites, like being in a foreign land, the language all jumbled, the sights alien. I couldn't save Molly, my only friend. I didn't know where her children were. Bliss was gone. I was crying and useless. Useless. While Beast screamed and clawed at my mind, trying to force the change on me.
Tulane University Hospital was the only one in New Orleans that kept paranormal medical experts on salary, medicos who dealt with the needs of the supernats and their injuries. Molly was unloaded and carted into the TUH Emergency Department. I claimed to be her sister, so they let me in back, but I had to leave her to sign papers and talk to the cops. Two uniformed cops and a plainclothes guy whose name badge read A. Ferguson.
Ferguson wanted to question me, the kinds of questions cops saved for suspects. I was covered in blood, so I understood the officers being wary, but there wasn't time to waste. And Beast was too close to the surface for me to find words for them.
I called Big Evan in Brazil, left him a voice mail. Then Molly's big sister in Asheville. I managed to call Rick. And Jodi Richoux. And Troll.
I coped enough to get my story out to the cops between calls, and Rick talked to one of them while I answered the doctor's questions and talked to a surgeon who was also an earth witch. I held it together by a thread, juggling answers, questions, information. Right up until Bruiser and Bethany waltzed into the ED.