That was more lovey-dovey talk than we had said to each other ever. Preceded by BACON complementary mugs, that was, like, practically the magical three words. Almost, I love you. Or maybe even better, because the magical phrase was just a statement of fact without qualifiers. This was more than bacon.
I sipped my tea. He sipped his. He loved me more than bacon. I loved him more than bacon. He wasn’t disappointed with me for binding Edmund. He didn’t worry about me out in Beast form hunting killer vamps; he knew I had the skills to take care of myself. He made me tea and cookies and cute little sandwiches just because.
Life couldn’t get much better than this.
? ? ?
Around 3:30 a.m. Bruiser took a call and kissed me on the cheek before he left my house. I checked on Eli, who was sleeping with a happy smile on his face. He didn’t wake when I walked up the stairs. He didn’t wake and shoot me when I leaned over him to check his breathing. The former Ranger was out cold, sleeping deeply, with good dreams, for the first time since we met. This seemed like a good thing. I should make him drink vamp blood more often.
Because I was the only protection tonight, which felt odd after so many months with the Youngers living here, I checked the house doors, made sure there was a round in the chamber of the weapon by my bed, and crawled between the sheets. The warm scent of Bruiser on his boxing gloves lulled me into dreams.
? ? ?
What felt like only minutes later, I woke to the echo of a deep, reverberating growl. I took a slow, still breath, parsing the scents. Someone was in the house. In my room. Two someones. I smelled werewolf and Anzu: Brute, the white were stuck in wolf form, and Girrard DiMercy, who looked human but was not. And magic. I pulled on Beast-speed. In a single move I rolled from the mattress, throwing off the sheets, picked up the nine-mil, and bent my knees into a shooting stance. The sheets were still in the air when I off-safetied and pointed the weapon at the location of the scents. The entire move took maybe half a second.
They stopped, frozen in place like a bizarre tableau in a wax museum. Gee was holding his sword to the werewolf’s throat. Brute was snarling. My closet door was open. So was the side door, and a fine rain was blowing in, filling the house with icy, wet mist. Both doors had been closed when I fell asleep.
Beast’s night vision turned everything into bright silvers and greens and whites. More than enough to see that Gee was wearing all black, with a black kerchief over the lower part of his face. And a brimmed hat. And a black lace shirt with cuffs that hung dripping. He was dressed like a cat burglar/sword master from some Renaissance romance novel. Dramatic, as always. But the sword, that was real. And he knew how to use it.
“It’s loaded with standard ammo. Lead won’t kill you, Gee,” I said, my voice casual, “but it’ll hurt.”
Gee slowly turned his head to me and pulled down the kerchief to expose his face. Brute kept his predator’s stare on the small, pretty man and growled again, a deep, low vibration that I could feel through the floor and the soles of my bare feet. The wolf wasn’t sopping but wasn’t totally dry either. He’d been here a while. The soaked man was the interloper. “So here’s what I think happened,” I continued, taking in the condition of the house beyond my door. “An hour or so ago, Brute came in through the wolf-door panel Eli installed, because Brute belongs here. Sometimes. Gee does not, but you came by anyway. And then you cast a sleepy-time spell of some sort over the house and walked in. Brute, who for some were-taint reason didn’t succumb to the spell, caught you walking into my house and going through my closet.”
“You have that which belongs to me.” He was talking about a magical item I had confiscated from a big honking witch-versus-vampire fight in a little town west of New Orleans. It looked like a laurel-leafed crown, and it was a powerful amulet. That was about all I knew, but that was enough for me to keep it out of the hands of anyone who wanted it.
“Nope. It may belong to the Anzus as a group or to one or the other of you, but le breloque is mine until I discover its true and full provenance and powers. Put down your pin sticker and step away from the closet. I really don’t want more blood on my floors tonight. I intend to collect on that boon you owe me from way back and don’t want to fritter it away by accidentally killing you.”
“This storm,” he insisted. “It is fed by ancient magic. If you give le breloque to me I can end the storm. I can save your people.”
It could be a pathetic attempt to bargain for what he wanted. Except that the only times anyone wanted le breloque was when there was a storm overhead. Interesting. Did its power increase with storms? Give the wearer control over them? Allow the wearer to gain power from the storms? It was all conjecture; without answers, birdman was getting nothing. “Still no.”
Gee slashed the sword up, around, into the sheath in one single flourish. My finger, which had begun to compress the trigger with the movement, relaxed. Gee said, “I bring a message from Sabina, the outclan priestess of the Mithrans.”
“I’m listening.”
“You are not going to put away your weapon?”
“Nope. Talk.”
“Sabina has had a vision of the bubo bubo. She says, ‘Purify yourselves. Be ready. The time has come.’”
With the storm blowing in, it was chilly in the house, even with the warm, fuzzy nightclothes I had worn to bed. I shivered at the prophecy. Sabina had an in with the spiritual world that I didn’t understand at all. She knew things. She knew I was a shape-shifter. She associated some ancient vamp prophecy with the bubo bubo, the Eurasian Eagle Owl, which I had once turned into so I could pry into secret vamp ceremonies. Yeah. This was from Sabina.
Ancient people purified themselves before battle, or before some great life change, and Sabina wanted me pure. Not good. Not good at all. I wondered how much of this had to do with the girl earlier tonight, the one the vamps drank down and drained and left dead.
“Message delivered,” I said. “Get out of here. And next time you break into my house, I’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”
“As you said, it will not kill me. Rounds are lead.”
“As I said, it’ll hurt like a mama. Get out the way you came in. And shut the door behind you.”
Gee vanished, almost vamp-fast, and the door closed as he left. I slid the safety on and set the weapon on the bedside table, angled for quick access. “Thank you,” I said to the wolf.
Brute tilted his head to me and his tongue lolled out of his mouth, comical in the dark.
“Lemme guess. When you came in and found that the door to the gun safe was closed, you trotted your wet, dog-stinky-self upstairs to the Kid’s bed and made a nice damp nest.”
Brute grinned at me. It was a doggie grin, showing teeth.