"What the?" Rydley didn't get to finish his question; Gavin held him by the throat. "You will be still and answer questions. No other words will pass your lips." Gavin's eyes were red and the tips of his fangs showed as he placed a mind-bending compulsion on three-hundred-year-old Rydley. Rydley could only nod his compliance; Gavin held his throat too tightly.
What about the human? Ashe asked.
The compulsion will die when Rydley does, Tony said.
That's not scary or anything, Ashe replied.
Kid, don't say scary to me. I have a whole new respect for you, now.
"Hmmph," Ashe responded aloud and crossed arms over his chest.
"Shhh," Tony whispered.
Ashe watched as Gavin questioned Rydley Huntington about his dealings in arms, who he'd sold to and what, which humans had died and which he still did business with. The list was long. Ashe listened with interest.
* * *
"You weren't gone as long as I thought you might be," Winkler remarked as Ashe wandered into the kitchen at noon the following day.
"Mr. Winkler, have you ever seen a vampire die?" Ashe opened the fridge and stared at its contents absently.
"Yeah. Several times. Killed a few of 'em myself. Why do you ask?"
"They just turn to ash. Dust. Whatever." Ashe shrugged.
"Yep. You can clean up an entire vamp with a hand vacuum." Winkler sipped the cup of coffee in front of him—he'd made a pot for himself.
"That's funny. And not funny. At the same time," Ashe hauled the milk jug from the fridge and pulled a tall glass from a cabinet. "Where's grumpy?"
"Grumpy?"
"Craig."
"Oh. Sent him to Amarillo this morning after breakfast. Grand Master needed help cleaning out the Amarillo Pack. Nick Robbins is no more."
"Too bad. He was involved in a lot of crime. Inadvertently sometimes, through Josiah Dunnigan. Didn't argue when he got paid, though."
"Weldon never did trust him. Nick tried to take down the Grand Master last night. Obviously that was a mistake."
"Yep."
"Kid?"
"What, Mr. Winkler?" Ashe gulped half a glass of milk quickly.
"Know anything about Peyton Miller?"
"He contact you?"
"Yeah."
"You should hire him."
"What?"
"He's mighty tired of Zeke Tanner. Might be willing to help fight off what Zeke sends our way."
"Kid, I've already talked with the Grand Master. He wants to question Peyton before executing him. This'll throw a wrench in the works." Winkler shook his head, his dark eyes focused on Ashe.
"I just saved the Grand Master's posterior. Maybe he'll cut me some slack on this." Ashe drained his glass of milk. "Who are you getting to replace Craig? Good move, by the way. He was prejudiced up to his eyeballs."
"I hired Amos and Florence Thompson this morning. She'll cook, and he'll help guard during the day."
"Another good choice. Mr. Thompson is cool."
"It's not every day you meet a white buffalo shapeshifter," Winkler flashed a grin. "They're even rarer as shifters. Almost as rare as unicorns and bumblebee bats."
"Don't dis the bat, man."
"Not dissing the bat," Winkler laughed.
"Who's dissing the bat?" Trace walked in and ruffled Ashe's hair with a large hand.
"Everybody," Ashe ducked his head to hide a half-grin.
"Heard you got into it last night," Trajan slouched into the kitchen and went straight to the coffeepot.
"Gavin and Tony, well," Ashe shook his head. He still found it difficult to believe how fast they'd moved. Six heads had been removed before Ashe could blink twice. And then there was so much blood—blood he'd had to destroy by turning it to sparks. If it hadn't been important to return the bodies to the Dark King, he'd have done the same with them. He found it nauseating to look at them afterward. Sighing, Ashe worked to get the visions out of his head.
"Kid, it's the nature of what we are. What the vamps are. And the way I hear it, those six were prepared to destroy Fort Arland. How many others would have died if they'd succeeded in their plan?"
"I tried to send a message to the Dark King. Tried to tell him his revenge against the humans is useless. He may choose another target to go after," Ashe muttered, pulling out a barstool at the island and sitting down. "Displacement."
"You mean choosing someone else to vent your anger on?" Winkler lifted an eyebrow while he sipped coffee.
"Yeah. Guess you had a chat with Gavin and Tony after we got back last night."
"It wasn't even one o'clock when you got back. Tony said it was the fastest they'd ever gotten anybody."
"I hope he doesn't expect that every time," Ashe replied, rising and going back to the fridge. "Anybody else want scrambled eggs?"
* * *
"Why can't the teachers get together and stagger homework assignments?" Dori was already complaining about the assigned paper in English, the math homework and the research required for a history exam. She and Wynn sat at a table in the new school cafeteria. She could see Adele Evans behind the serving line, talking with the two shapeshifter women serving lunch to the students.
"Our school is getting smaller," Wynn remarked, ignoring Dori's complaint. "We only have sixty-two students this year."
"There isn't a first or second-grade class," Dori agreed, watching as students went through the line to get trays of food. "You don't think the shifters and werewolves are dying out, do you?"
"You know," Wynn pointed her unwrapped straw at Dori before dropping it into her milk carton, "that sounds like a good essay to research and write at the end of the year."
"You think we can find that out? You think there's information out there?"
"I think Principal Wright might know a lot."
"You think he'll talk to us?"
"He might."
* * *
"I didn't expect to get visitors this soon." Bear Wright smiled at Wynn and Dori. His empty lunch tray lay before him—he'd eaten at his desk in order to get paperwork done during the meal break.
"We just had a thought," Wynn began. "When we were at lunch, talking about how there's no first or second-graders this year."
"And we were wondering if this is a problem everywhere, and not just here, in Star Cove," Dori added. "And we thought it might be a good topic to research for the end of school essay."