Always the Vampire

Lia glanced at me, then did a double take. Her brows rose in surprise, and her lips twitched. I held out the bag to forestall a comment.

“Here are your clothes and pouches, Lia.”

“Thank you. Now scoot on into the bathroom and change. I’ll be supervising the three of you tonight, and we have a great deal to do.”

“Did you make that sketch of Starrack for us yet?”

“I’ve begun, but not completed it. Healing work has taken most of my time.”

“So your location spells haven’t panned out, either?”

“No, and we feel like old dogs following a muddled scent.”

“We surmise,” Cosmil added, “that Starrack is using a cloaking spell. He excelled at those, as I recall, and before you ask, Francesca, yes. We have added our own cloaking spells to the other protection we have cast on all of you.”

I doubted the cloaking would help if Starrack already knew our physical addresses, as we suspected he did. But, hey, the more spells, the merrier.

“Cosmil,” Saber said, “you told us you might have been able to track the Void to Starrack if the Veil hadn’t been closed.”

“I did.”

“Then what about using Void residue in your spell? The Void may not have typical DNA, but it must’ve left some foreign material on Legrand’s remains. Have the forensics lab rush a tissue sample to you.”

A smile bloomed in Cosmil’s eyes, and Lia beamed.

“Brilliant, Saber,” she praised. “Cosmil will make the call while we train.”

As I squeezed past Triton on the way to change clothes, he barely glanced at me. Man, he did have it bad. Pandora, though, in her hefty-house-cat form, lifted her head to meow a greeting from the foot of the bed.

When I was ready, my ponytail resecured, I stowed my costume in the truck and joined Lia, Saber, and Triton in the yard.

“We’ll be running through several exercises tonight, then we’ll work with the amulets. We’ll start with telepathy, but you’ll be sending information via pictures rather than words.”

She handed each of us a magazine and tiny flashlights like I’d see at the dollar store.

“All right, pick any page and project it as a whole but with as many details as you can. Cesca will send first. Gentlemen, raise your hand when you first begin receiving an image, but don’t speak what you see until I ask.”

I opened the decorating magazine to a kitchen-remodel photo and mentally sent the image. Saber and Triton raised their hands almost simultaneously and accurately describe the photo. Saber took the next turn, and his image of a meadow with a background of snowcapped mountains came to me a few moments before it did to Triton.

“That’s to be expected, Triton. Cesca is more bonded to the two of you, than you men are to each other. Proceed.”

Triton’s image of a shipwreck came, and I saw it first, but Saber mentally read the name of the ship in the photo legend.

“Very good.” She clapped her hands, and the magazines and flashlights disappeared. “Now, you know that every living organism has an energy signature, down to each leaf of each tree. You recognize a rose by its shape, color, fragrance, yet every rose on a bush resonates with its own vibration.

“Saber, sight is your most enhanced preternatural sense. Smell is yours, Cesca, and Triton has the sharpest hearing and the gift of echolocation even in his human form.”

I snapped my gaze to his face. “You do?”

“Cesca, attend me please. Using your unique talents and skills, your next task is to find Pandora.”

“Do we spread out or stay together?” I asked.

“Follow your instincts.”

Triton found Pandora first. He blasted sound high and low in every direction, and let me tell you, it was freaky hearing him make dolphin sounds with a human head. Yes, the clicks and whistles were different from those he made in dolphin form, but they did the job.

Pandora moved locations, of course. Saber spotted her on the high branch of an oak tree where she’d sat perfectly still. I tracked her scent to scrub brush.

“Excellent. We’re moving right along,” Lia said. “Next you will locate Pandora only by her energy signature.”

It was easy for Triton to simply not use his echolocation, and for Saber to close his eyes. Lia made me stuff rolled gauze doused in rosemary oil up my nostrils. I felt like an utter dork.

The bad news, none of us found Pandora by her energy alone. The good news, the rosemary did wonders for my sinuses.

At midnight, when the guys and I were dragging, Lia lectured us on stamina. “You must stay awake, alert, and aware. Enemies strike the hardest when you let down your guard. Here.”

She passed the Mu amulet to me, the Atlantean one to Triton. The symbols immediately shone in my skin.

“As you know, the amulets may be used to hurt or heal. Cosmil told me you all had a lesson in these properties before I arrived.”

“Yeah, when Cesca blasted me across Cos’s living room. Do I get to return the favor?”

“Triton,” Lia said repressively.