Scarlett gave the alpha a worried look, her brow furrowed with distress. She glanced at Jesse. He hated the expression on her face, like she was right on the brink of panic. “Will’s gone bye-bye, Scarlett,” he said solemnly. “What have you got?”
She flashed him a grin that pierced his heart. Before she could speak, though, the doorbell rang, a long series of notes that echoed through the house. Will said, “That’ll be Kirsten.”
Hayne looked surprised, and a little uncomfortable, and Jesse remembered that Hayne and Kirsten had been married once. What did Kirsten have to do with any of this? Scarlett looked as confused as he felt, like they were watching a disc that had skipped.
If the bigger man was upset about his ex-wife’s arrival, though, he kept it to himself, leaving the room to answer the door without a word.
Will wheeled on Scarlett. “You need to do it,” he said firmly. “You have to wake him up.”
Scarlett shook her head. “You know I can’t do that. He’s forbidden it.”
Jesse had never heard Scarlett use the word “forbidden” before, but it sure sounded like something Dashiell would say. “Hold on,” Jesse jumped in, stepping between the two of them. “Scarlett has worked for you guys for years. This has to have come up before, right? That you might get in a jam and need to bend the rules?”
“You were with me on the two worst situations I’ve ever seen,” Scarlett said, with a little more control in her voice. “And I don’t think we even discussed it.”
“Things were never this time-sensitive,” Will objected. He bared his teeth, adding, “I’m your employer too, you know. Anything Dashiell can do to you, I can do just as easily.”
“Hey!” Jesse began, stepping forward, but just then Kirsten walked through the doorway with Hayne at her heels. The semi-official leader of the city’s witch population was a blonde woman in her mid-thirties, wearing a tiered wool skirt, tall boots, and a white sweater with sleeves long enough to cover the second knuckles on each hand. The sweater made Kirsten look feminine and angelic, but Jesse knew better than to underestimate her. He’d seen some of the things she could do with magic.
Kirsten took one glance around the room and made a beeline for Will. “What on earth is going on?” she demanded.
His eyes latched on to her with sudden desperation. “They’re here, Kirsten,” he said, anguished. “The Luparii came to town.”
Jesse glanced at Scarlett, who appeared to be as confused as he was. Kirsten looked suddenly unsteady on her feet, her alabaster skin paling further. Hayne stepped up beside her with concern on his face, placing a hand gently on her arm. She seized it and hung on, tilting her head way up to see Hayne’s face.
“Bring them up, Teddy,” she said quietly. “Bring them up here and Scarlett can wake them. I swear on my craft that you won’t be blamed.”
There was a moment of silence in the living room, punctuated only by the sound of Will pacing back and forth in front of the patio door. Finally Hayne nodded. He turned on his heel and left the room.
They left a long, terrible silence in their wake, and then Scarlett let out a choking sound. “Scar?” Jesse asked, concerned. She made the sound again, and Jesse realized she was laughing. “What?”
She chortled. “His first name is Teddy?”
Chapter 27
It took me a little while to stop laughing, but only because of the law of inertia—once I started, it just seemed easier to keep going. Teddy. What a stupid name for such an enormous man.
Eventually I calmed down and remembered that Jesse and I still had no idea what was going on. The Luparii . . . that name jangled in my brain, and I closed my eyes, trying to remember. Olivia had been telling me stories about the European Old World. I opened my eyes and looked at Kirsten. “They’re the boogeymen for werewolves, right?” I asked Kirsten. My voice came out thin and sober.
“Something like that.” Kirsten looked suddenly tired. “I’ll tell you all about it, but it’ll be easiest if we wait for them,” she said firmly. I shrugged and went to sit down in one of Dashiell’s nice padded chairs.
Minutes ticked by. Part of me was ready to take a handful of Advil and go to sleep right there, but at the same time my stomach was thrashing around like a shark on a boat deck. Hayne may have been the one actually moving him, but I knew Dashiell was going to blame me for resurrecting him during the day. Besides, completely apart from the fact that I wasn’t supposed to wake him without permission, Dashiell hates being near me. I don’t blame him, really. If you spend a couple of centuries becoming the most powerful creature in a hundred square miles, the last thing you want to do is be near someone who can immediately relegate you to the bottom of the food chain, which is what humans are. He gets in my radius every once in a while just to prove he isn’t afraid, but he always looks twitchy when I’ve foisted humanity on him. And now I was going to do it without his permission or foreknowledge? It just seemed like the pickle on the crap sandwich of my week.
Hayne brought Beatrice and then Dashiell to the hallway outside the living room, and then called for Will to help. The werewolf went out and collected Beatrice’s limp form, and the two of them carried the vampires into the room, a sober procession that was only somewhat tempered by how ridiculous Dashiell looked in a fireman’s carry on Hayne’s shoulders.