These worse. These are rank with witch blood and witch magic, like rotten meat and crawly things.
Gave Jane a glimpse of maggots as I went to side of street, to empty lot where building had burned. Witches had gone there. But without kits. I smelled where witches walked, bleeding. On next street they did magic. Car came. They left.
Hungry. Home. Jane's hunt now. I padded back to Jane's den and jumped over fence, landing on rocks. And changed.
I came to myself, naked on the rocks, my stomach in agony of hunger. I touched my face, feeling the flaccid skin, the hollowed cheeks. I hadn't been fair to Beast or to myself to shift without food. And the calorie loss was at a dangerous level. I gathered up my clothes and limped inside. I drank a gallon of water, my throat tissues so dry they ached with each swallow. I ate a pound of jerky and opened a box of Cheerios and spooned it all down with sour milk. My stomach ached with the amount of food.
Still naked, I turned on the lights and got a bucket, spray cleaner, and a roll of paper towels. I cleaned Molly's blood off the floor, the cleanser burning my nostrils and the skin of my hands. I let it burn, the pain another penance.
Lonely wasn't something I ever felt--not ever--but the black hole inside me was so empty, so deep, it was a caving in of my soul, imploding like a mountain falling in on itself. A separateness that might be loneliness. As I worked, tears fell from my eyes and wet the bare floor.
When the floor was clean, the paper towels bagged on the side porch, the blood scent hidden under the chemical reek, I wiped my face and answered Evan's call from Brazil, and then another from Molly's elder sister Evangeline near Asheville.
Evan had already booked a flight to the States. I'd have to find a safe place to put him. Not at my house. It wasn't safe for anyone anymore. The master of the city was gunning for me. Witches had gotten in, along with something Beast had described as a vamp-witch. I thought I'd never heard of such a thing before, but then I remembered what Bethany had said at the hospital--that she was a witch and one of the cursed, aka a vampire. They should have been hated enemies.
Evangeline was coming as well, her tone hard and biting. She blamed me. I couldn't disagree. She was right. It was my fault. I called the hospital and found that Molly had gone to a private room. The charge nurse said she was sleeping; her vital signs were normal. Relief fluttered through me like butterfly wings, gossamer and diaphanous in the dark core of my twinned souls.
Filthy, I stood under a scalding shower and let the blood drench off me. I was getting used to seeing scarlet-tinted water swirl around my feet.
I was standing naked, damp, and chilled in my bedroom, staring at my new leathers, when the remaining wards on the house shuddered and spat. An electric banshee wail sounded, Molly's alarm when something magical attacked.
My front door vibrated with a massive thump I could feel through the floor. Then I smelled vamp.
CHAPTER 15
Hedge of thorns
In one move, I pulled the shotgun and a vamp-killer, blade back for in-close street fighting, and advanced to the front door, planting my feet with care, balanced and ready. My heart sped, my breath went deep and fast. Beast's claws tore into my belly, ready to fight. But the front door was closed. No one had broken through Molly's ward.
Barely heard over the howl of the alarm, the side door creaked. Where the ward was broken. I whirled.
Leo stood inside, fully vamped out, eyes bled black in scarlet sclera, fingernails like talons. His shoulders were hunched, his clothes windblown, shirt open to the waist. Like most vamps, he was slender to the point of emaciation, his chest thinly haired, ribs stark and muscles like cords, no fat on him at all. He was staring at the place where Molly nearly died. His nostrils flared as he scented her blood.
I remembered Bruiser saying that he'd been at Immanuel's grave. He was probably deep in Dolore, on the edge of madness again. Bruiser had told me to keep crosses nearby. I had a moment to wonder which of my many sins Leo was here to kill me for. I adjusted my grip on the Benelli.
Leo sniffed, short, quick inhalations, animal-like. Cocked his head to the side, the motion not mammalian, but snakelike. It made my flesh crawl. My fingers tightened on the vamp-killer. He sniffed again and closed his eyes, holding the breath in. He let it out with a quick plosive breath and snarled. Beast reacted with a shot of adrenaline to my system and a soft growl from my own lips.
Leo's eyes flew to me, to the Benelli M4 Super 90 in my right hand. His gaze traveled from the shotgun, up my arm, and down my naked body. It wasn't the leisurely perusal of a lover, but the calculated evaluation of a predator. Of a killer studying prey.