I felt Angie waken, a slight change in her breathing, a speeding of her heart rate. “You came,” she whispered.
I wanted to kick myself. I said, “When I agreed to be your godparent, I made a lot of promises to your parents, and I made you some too. I promised to take care of you if something happened to your mom and dad, to raise you the way they wanted, and I promised to be there if you needed me. I promised to keep you safe. Yesterday and tonight, I wasn’t there for you. I broke my promises.” Angie took my fingers in hers. There was blood under my nails; I hadn’t noticed it in the bathroom. “I’m sorry, Angie Baby.” My voice was breathless, weak with unshed tears. I took both of her small hands into mine. “I promise on my honor, that will never happen again. From now on, I’ll take your calls no matter what. If I miss a call, I’ll call you back the moment I hear the message. I’ll be there for you. I’ll do a better job of being your godmother.”
“It’s okay, Aunt Jane.” My heart did a twisting backflip of shame. It wasn’t okay. Angelina stood on the couch seat and put her arms around my neck, leaning her small body against mine. “I love you.”
I hugged her to me.
“Here. Watch this one too,” Amelia said, dropping Little Evan on my lap.
I couldn’t help my gasp and her eyes were drawn to my thigh. “You’re bleeding all over Big Evan’s couch,” she said, taking the toddler back. “You are dead meat.”
I looked up as a shadow darkened the doorway to the kitchen, Big Evan standing there, filling the opening, scowling. Thankfully wearing pants. “I tried to find Evangelina to make her take the hex off Molly, but she’s gone to ground, like she vanished off the face of the earth.” His voice dropped in pitch, “Did she spell my whole family?”
I nodded once, slowly. His glower darkened. Likely trying to find a way to make me responsible.
Regan said, “You mean she spelled the whole family? Siphoning your power and using your gifts against your wishes?”
“That’s against witch law,” Amelia said. “Against every protocol witches have.”
I shrugged and Angie’s fingers tightened around my neck.
“Tell them everything,” Evan said, nodding to the sisters, “from the beginning.”
I started with the hedge of thorns-like spell and the werewolves trapped in Evangelina’s basement. Leaving Regan to take mental notes, Amelia took the children to bed as I talked, rightly thinking that they were too young to hear all this. I finished just as Molly joined us, her hair wet and braided down her back. “And there’s something dark, a shadow with wings, trapped in the hedge.”
Molly drew in a horrified breath. Evan’s face darkened. “My sister-in-law is consorting with demons.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Bloody, Damaged Jeans
and Nefarious Intentions
“Can you take photographs of the spell in Evangelina’s basement?” Molly asked. “That will tell us what kind of spell—”
“And what kind of demon,” Evan interrupted.
“—she’s using,” Molly finished. “And yeah, that too. You should be safe enough from the demon as long as you don’t set it free.” My eyebrows went up.
“Just keep back from the ward containing it,” Evan said.
“Uh huh. Ducky,” I agreed and headed out, having learned one important thing before I drove away from the Trueblood house—never kick a hornet’s nest. The witches and their human sisters were making battle plans, gearing up to rescue the other members of their witch family. Once everyone was safe from the power-draw, they would meet to discuss what to do about Evangelina. Battle by committee. It would take forever. The girls still didn’t want to believe that their elder sister was the cause of the sleeping spell, but with Big Evan on my side (and hating every moment of knowing I was right) and the other witch sisters not answering their phones, they were coming around.
First I had to shift and heal the wound in my thigh. The pain was now a constant throb, and I was feeling light-headed from blood loss. I needed to shift and heal, hunt, shift back, get some food into me, and check in on Grégoire, Rick, Kem, and Derek—a lot to do in the few hours left to me before dawn. I didn’t like it when my personal life and my work life overlapped; it just complicated everything. But there it was, a perfect description of my life—complicated—and Evil Evie was using my job of guarding the parley to make it worse.