Far more intense than it should have been. Both twins gasped. “Come to mama,” Cia murmured, delighted. “Oh . . . yes . . .”
Liz took a breath; the moon power flared against her lungs and out through her fingertips, into the ground and the stones below. The mountain seemed to sigh with satisfaction. “What was that?” she whispered, shivering with the might of it.
Cia didn’t answer, just let her head fall back so the moon could bathe her face with its power. The circle was strong and heavy, more like what a full-moon circle had been back when they’d had Evangelina to center them and direct their gifts to a specific purpose. The power was so unexpected that Liz might have worried, but the circle was steady, with no indication of problems, like flares or weak spots. She shook off her momentary apprehension.
Night fell around them, gray with newness and soft with the coming spring. The air cooled and the updraft winds of nightfall blew across the clearing, lifting their red hair. It was peaceful, and if they hadn’t needed to work, they could have stayed like this for hours.
“Feels good,” Cia murmured.
“Yeah. I can tell. Just don’t get moon-drunk. We have work to do.”
“Mmm. I’m good. Put the boot in the inner circle.”
Liz put the boot in place and Cia touched the inner circle. Her moon power flared and enclosed the boot. Liz put her hands into the soil and said, “Evelyn Janice McMann, a lorg.” The words a lorg formed the name of a working that had been in their family for centuries, a working holding the power for a seeking spell in the simple syllables.
“Evelyn Janice McMann,” Cia said, “taken by blood and darkness and death most foul, we seek you. A lorg.”
“A lorg,” Liz repeated. “We seek to know your place. Show us where you are.”
In the center circle the boot slid to the side, up against the slightly piled earth and the ring of energy. Liz opened her mouth in warning. Before she could get the single word out, the boot slid out of the powered circle. Which was not supposed to happen. Liz reached into the earth, pulled might from the buried, stony heart of the mountain, and sent more power into the inner circle, firming it.
Cia’s brows came together as she felt the imbalance and the resulting change of the power levels. “What’s happening?” she whispered.
There was a pop, like the sound of displaced air. And the inner circle was suddenly crowded, two people lying in the small space. Liz blinked. And the figures were still there. “Oh. Oh. Ummm, Cia?”
Cia opened her eyes and looked at the circle. She made a little breath of surprise. “Well. Would you look at that.”
That was a black-haired woman in a black nightgown, an older version of Layla—without a doubt her mother—and another woman, a copperskinned woman wearing a dress from the previous century. Or maybe the one before that. They were curled up on a blanket like two puppies, asleep.
“She’s wearing a bustle,” Cia breathed. “And the left boot we just called for.”
“And she has fangs. Big vampire fangs.”
The bustled vampire opened her eyes. Looked lost for a moment. And then she screamed. Cia lifted her hands to the moon and shouted, “Hedge of thorns!” The inner circle glowed red with silver motes of power. The warding sank into the earth, deep as the mountain’s heart, as Liz drew from the depths and pumped more power into it. The hedge drew in overhead, a long oval-shaped ellipse of power, as Cia wove it closed with moonlight.
The vamp dove at Liz, but struck the ward. She bounced off and screamed again, this time a high-pitched keening that hurt their ears. Then she saw the right boot—the Christian Louboutin, its five-inch spike heel angled away, its black suede toe not quite touching the hedge. She dropped to the ground, her hands pressing against the earth, and leaned forward until her nose nearly touched the hedge. “I want. Mine!” She tried to grab the boot and screamed when her hand came into contact with the hedge, its gray/silver sparks jumping out at her.
She looked at Cia and her fangs snicked back into the roof of her mouth. Her pupils stayed wide in scarlet sclera, however, and Liz thought she remembered that vamped-out eyes were a bad thing. Lack of control? A case of the crazies? A case of uncontrolled and unfulfilled hunger? Something bad, whatever it was.
“It bit me,” the vampire said, pointing to the hedge. “Make it stop. Make it go away.”
Cia moistened her dry lips with her tongue and swallowed. “Can’t,” she said softly.
The vampire pointed at the boot. “My shoe. Give it to me.”