“Don’t tell anyone, okay?” I said as I got up. It was better. Somehow it was getting better, and I wavered only slightly as David and Edden rose as well, standing beside me and safe in my circle.
My lip curled as Ayer sauntered out of the dark with about twenty men, all dressed alike with those damn little caps. How could I have ever thought he looked like Kisten? Ayer’s soul was ugly. He was nothing like Kisten. Careful, I thought, not wanting to get the mystics riled up and out of control, but a small part of me was halfway to letting them have their way. Humming, the mystics darted in and out of me with little zings of power. We’d found common ground. I didn’t understand why, but they were finally listening to me.
The Free Vampires stopped eight feet back with Ayer coming a few feet closer. He motioned for his men to start laying a thick electrical cord in a circle about us, and I stifled a shiver. We were safe in my mystic-born circle, but it was a trap. I’d managed to gain control of this small fraction. I’d lose it if he took them from me.
“Looks like you’ve got a handle on it, Morgan,” he said, and I tried to flatten my hair. Trent’s hair floated when he did magic. I’d always thought it was because of the ever-after energy, but maybe it was mystics.
“Then you’d be wrong,” I shot back.
He turned. “Bring her down,” he said as he walked away. “Kill the rest.”
“Sir?”
“You want them to talk?” he shouted, clearly disgusted. “Kill them!”
Edden shifted his weight, his hand on his pistol. “They can’t do anything if we’re in this circle, can they?”
A howl split the night, bringing Ayer’s expression to a frozen stiffness. “That was supposed to have been taken care of,” he said, and the man next to him fidgeted as David began to smile.
“We got the mystics out, but Smith hasn’t checked in, sir.”
More howls, this time closer. It was my pack, a fact I knew for certain thanks to a wandering mystic bringing me back an image of my tattoo.
“This was supposed to have been taken care of!” Ayer raged as his men began retreating, one by one and in pairs. For all their bloodlust, vampires did not make good soldiers. Shaggy hunched shadows were padding out from the abandoned homes and rusted cars, pushing them along. A low growl and a bark made one man fall, and he scrambled to his feet, backing up fast.
“I never thought I’d be happy to see a mob of Weres.” Edden drew closer as a thin man in jeans and an open shirt eased confidently out of the dark. No gun, no weapon, and tattoos everywhere, he came up to Ayer with a confidence that couldn’t be faked.
“Leave, or you will have to fight for your life,” the man said. Behind him, the sound of harsh panting became obvious.
Ayer moved, and suddenly his last few men were surrounded by not panting wolves, but snarling ones. “Some of us will fall, but all of you will die,” the man said, without even a glance at me, but David was grinning, eyes bright in pride. “Leave. Now.”
“Look what’s in his back pocket,” Edden whispered, and I relaxed. It was a wilted dandelion.
I think it was my relief that turned the tide, and with a snarl, Ayer took three steps back, spun on a heel, and stalked off, looking neither to the right nor the left, passing within feet of the snapping Weres without flinching. His men followed with less confidence, almost running to keep up.
David exhaled, and the alpha male smiled at me before turning to a Were on four paws. “Follow them. Don’t let them back into that house. Get them out of my hills.”
The Were huffed, tail waving as he padded off.
I dropped my circle. The mystics were slipping from me again, but since they weren’t trying to kill anyone, I let them. It was the caps the Free Vampires were wearing, I suddenly realized. They’d focused on the caps as a signal of who to trust and who not to.
Suddenly shy, the thin male who had spoken to Ayer fumbled for the dandelion, extending it to me as he minced across where the circle had been as if it were holy ground. Two gray Weres descended upon the downed vampires, whining. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” the man said, nodding to David. “Both of you. Can we be of any help?”
“I told you half the city was looking for you,” Edden said, and I took the flower.
“Thank you,” I said, thinking I didn’t deserve this. “Does anyone have a phone that works out here?”
Twenty-One
The heavy weight on my feet vibrated, the audible growl of discontent becoming obvious as it gained strength. My eyes opened, and I stared at the familiar patterns of dim light on my ceiling. Ivy was talking to someone at the front door with the terseness she reserved for news crews and siding salesmen. I was betting it was the former.
“Get off my stoop, or I’ll send pixy kids to play in your van,” came faintly, and the rumbling at my feet ceased.
My head rose and I smiled at David, even as I shoved at him to give me more room. I hadn’t been pleased last night when he’d insisted I wasn’t to be left alone, but you don’t argue with two hundred pounds of wolf—you make room.
“Let’s go,” an unfamiliar voice said. “We can get what we need with the telephoto lens.”
“I wouldn’t,” Ivy threatened them. “I really wouldn’t.”
The door thumped shut, and I sighed. Head flopping over, I looked at the clock. Eleven. I should be rested, but I wasn’t. Sleep had been elusive and so mixed up that I wasn’t sure it had happened. After the initial confusion over dreaming, most of the mystics had left, returning periodically to color my dreams with what they’d seen, giving me a skewed vision of what had been happening within the nearest ten miles or so. I hoped much of it was simply my imagination, because what the mystics had been bringing back for me to decipher was dismal.
Ivy’s steps were soft as she padded by my door. “Jenks, go send your kids to do something bad, will you?” she said.
“Sure, why the Turn not? Jumoke?” Jenks said, and then their voices became quiet—apart from the ultrasonic cheer that seemed to go right through the walls and into my head.
Maybe if I just rolled back over, I could catch a few more Z’s.
Z’s have to be caught? a mystic asked, and a handful of others drowned it out with their superior knowledge that Z’s were dreams, which only caused more confusion that some dreams were not sentient and an uproar ensued in the back of my head.