I took a steadying breath and unlocked the door, stepping back as they filed in and stood in a semicircle on one side of the toy box. The witches stood ranged on the other side. Holly said, “May I present—”
The outer door slammed open and Angie Baby raced inside, strawberry blond curls streaming and tangled, face flushed and sweaty. She had run from . . . somewhere. She dashed between us, rammed the toy box open, grabbed the teapot, and screamed, “George is mine! He likes me, not you!” And . . . she stuck her tongue out at Lincoln Shaddock, the most important master vamp in the Appalachian Mountains.
We were all frozen, my sisters in horror, me in sudden, blinding fear for my child, Jerel with a sword half-drawn, Holly with a bemused smile on his face, and Shaddock in . . . fury. Utter, encompassing fury. His pale skin flushed with blood, his eyes vamping-out, the pupils widening, white sclera flaming scarlet as the capillaries dilated. And his fangs clicked down from the roof of his mouth, the snap the only sound in the dead-silent room. Then everything happened at once.
Lincoln pointed a long, bony finger at Angie and took a single step toward her.
Moving faster than I could follow, Jerel drew his sword with a soft hiss of steel on leather. Holly stepped toward Angie Baby. Both vamps put themselves between my daughter and the enraged vampire. Jerel pointed his sword at his master’s throat. Holly maneuvered, bare-handed, his feet rooted and knees bent, clearly much more dangerous than he appeared—a martial art master of some form or other. Or several. Bladed. That was what Jane called it. His body was bladed. He was primed to attack his boss.
Lincoln slowed but shouted, “Witches deal falsely! We will have our property!”
“Children are sacrosanct, my lord,” Jerel said softly.
“It would pain us to bring you harm,” Holly said, his red ponytail swinging.
“I am not ready to become the MOC, just yet, honey, but if you hurt that young ’un, I’ll let ’em take your head,” the blonde said, which identified her as the heir apparent of the Shaddock Clan, Dacy Mooney. And she too stepped between the vamp and the rest of us. I remembered to breathe and reached for Angie, pulling her close enough for Carmen to activate the ward we had prepared. It closed us in and closed the vamps out. “Take a good cleansing breath, Link,” Dacy said. “Relax. Or it will be the last time you lose your temper.”
Outside, my van squealed into the lot and stopped hard. The twins bailed out before the vehicle even stopped rocking, one holding two handguns, the other with a shotgun. “Son of a witch on a switch,” I cursed softly.
“I’m not here as the blood-master of my clan,” Lincoln Shaddock said with a strong Tennessee/Kentucky accent. “I’m here to regain what I lost.”
“We all want to regain what we lost when our humanity left us,” Dacy said, “but we got rules and limits. And memories. That has to be enough,” she finished, her tone telling how much she had lost and how painful memories could be.
“Children. Are. Sacrosanct,” Jerel said, his tone adamant, light glinting off the steel of his long sword.
The twins moved into the room and positioned themselves so they could shoot Shaddock and not one of us. Holly shifted so he could get to Regan and Shaddock both. His face was intent, focused, and troubled. He would kill if he had to. But he clearly didn’t want to.
Lincoln blinked and looked at my daughter, cradling a reddish and yellow teapot like a pet. His fangs clicked back into his mouth. His eyes paled and lightened, as did his skin. And he blew out a puff of breath as if he really needed to breathe for something other than talking. He looked up to me. “My apologies, ladies. I am . . . not myself tonight, I haven’t been myself ever since I felt the burst of magic. I raced to see if . . .” He paused and shook his head as if changing what he had been about to say. “But it was only the teapot. But the teapot was better than nothing. Better than the nothing that I had. I ask your forgiveness.”
And then he did the strangest thing. The fiercest fanghead in the hills dropped to one knee. The three defending vampires stepped slightly to the side so Lincoln could see us, but not so far that he could get to us if he still wanted. He said to Angie Baby, “I especially beg your forgiveness, little witch child. I was distraught and forgot how frightening my kind can be.”
“George is scared of you,” Angie said.
Lincoln smiled, a purely human smile, and said, “No. The dog was named George, not the teapot.”
Angie narrowed her eyes fiercely. “What kind of dog?”
Lincoln’s smile widened. “A basset hound. He was my best, my very best, dog. Ever. I gave him into my Dorothy’s keeping before I went off to war. He was ancient and toothless and fierce in protecting her when I appeared that night. Until he caught my scent. There must have been something still of the human scent about me. For he came to me when my Dorothy would not.”