“At first, yes. Then he changed his mind. Why. Do. You ask?”
I closed my eyes. “I ask because Evangelina had you spelled and open to suggestion. She set this whole thing in place, to get Leo here, in her hometown, where her coven gave her power to draw on. And she thought you could force the issue.” The main reason Leo had agreed to the parley was because of the location of her coven, though he never knew that.
I heard Bruiser’s slow intake of breath. I almost felt his shock through the airwaves. My cell beeped. It was Molly’s number. “I’ll get back to you.” I cut Bruiser off and said, “Hi.”
“I’m sorry,” Molly said. Before I could reply she went on. “For not believing you about my sister. For not trusting that you knew what you were doing. For not standing up to Big Evan when he was an ass about you.”
I heard Evan in the background, say, “Hey. No fair.”
“Jane is my friend. You were an ass. Don’t let it happen again,” Molly said, her words muted, her mouth turned away from the phone. I heard Evan grumble in the background. To me she said, “The ass says he’s sorry.” I didn’t believe that Big Evan had apologized, but I would accept it.
“My sisters and I are meeting at two p.m. at Evangelina’s to take a look at the demon she trapped, and bind it back to darkness if we can. Evangeline is teaching a cooking class at the Biltmore House all day, and won’t be back until after dark. Big Evan analyzed the photos you sent and he thinks that daylight is the best time for us to neutralize the working. Can you be there?”
I thought about taking Derek and the boys to take Evie out, and about all the collateral damage that might result if she fought with demon-backed witch spells. I discarded the idea. “I’ll be there at one forty-five,” I said. “And Molly? I used Evangelina’s hair and one of her scarves to get inside without the spell taking me over.”
A long silence followed before Molly sighed into the phone. “I still can’t accept that she used blood magic,” Molly said. “But if you got in with her genetic material then, well. Oh hell.” Her voice was clotted with tears. “See you soon, Big-Cat.”
Satisfied that I had done all I could, I set my phone to wake me by twelve thirty, pulled the covers from the foot of the neatly made bed and fell asleep. Hard.
I sat on Fang under the blazing sun at Evil Evie’s and sweated, smelling the stench of old blood, sickly sweet and rotting. The early cold spell had melted away into Indian summer, and the jeans and denim jacket were too warm for the high eighties and humidity, but were much preferable to the riding and fighting leathers I would have needed for a vamp hunt. I wasn’t sure what Evangelina’s witch-magic problem would require, but protection from vamp fangs wouldn’t be one of them.
I hadn’t wanted anyone to be able to track me, so I left the cell and the SUV with their GPS locator devices at the hotel. I had no idea how the sisters would banish the demon in the basement and free the weres and Lincoln, but it would involve lots of magic, and I wondered if there would be anything left of the old homeplace when they were done.
I studied the odd lines inside the garden’s witch circle. The blood-splattered rocks looked like broken alphabet letters, something archaic. It hit me. Runes. Evangelina was using runes. I felt really stupid. Lots of witches used runes; their ability to craft raw power into something useful had some special reliance on runes. So if I took a tree branch and batted away the rocks that made up her circle, and knocked the runes out of place, it might—
Molly’s van pulled up beside me before I had a chance to try it, which was probably a good thing for my state of health. Witch magic that got interrupted might go bang. I pulled off my jacket, tossed it on the seat, and set Fang’s kickstand. Boots crunching on the gravel, I stood by Mol’s open window. Her face was grief stricken, her eyes on the witch circle with its coating of dried blood. She took a breath, and her throat tissue quaked audibly as she swallowed, tears in her eyes. I patted her shoulder through the window, knowing the gesture was not nearly enough.
“Blood magic,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Son of a witch on a stick.” Visibly, she gathered herself and opened the van door. From the passenger seat, she handed me a heavy wicker basket covered with a kitchen towel. I held it while she climbed from the van, her face now set and resolute. When the van door closed, she tilted her head, the motion reticent. “Evan told me about Shiloh. About how she was kidnapped in New Orleans. I think . . . I think I knew it, already. I think Evangelina told us when she spelled us all.”