“Oh, yes, we are,” Taran shot back, right before she put me to sleep.
CHAPTER 9
The villager called the nest El Hogar del Diablo. The devil’s home.
Taran’s spell had knocked me out for the entire trip. I woke cranky as hell and ready to make evil my bitch. And yet the young woman’s fear gave me pause. I may have been residing with vampires, but she was living among monsters.
Emme’s face blanched at the name despite the choking heat and humidity. I tried asking the young woman more, but she shook her head and hurried away. The residents of the small Nicaraguan town knew of the evil lurking in their forest, but they were too frightened to speak of it. I pulled my out-of-control curls into a ponytail and nodded my head toward an approaching male. Maria smiled and licked her lips. You didn’t need a GPS with a vampire around.
“Can I eat him? He looks so tasty.”
I held up a finger. “One bite. That’s all you get.”
The man led us to the nest with a big grin on his face and his eyes swirling from Maria’s hypnosis. We had formed a plan, one I wasn’t happy with. The vamps thought it best to split us up, but I refused to leave my sisters alone. My sisters sided with the vamps, feeling we needed to attack strong from all sides in order to emerge victorious. I suspected they didn’t trust them and felt they needed to be kept in check. Regardless of the reason, we needed to act fast. My group would be the first to go in and the others would commence an assault from different sides.
Shayna especially made me anxious. She tossed the hilt of her new sword back and forth between her hands as we bustled through the dense vegetation in the back of a pickup. She wasn’t able to return Taran’s necklace to its original form. Taran told her to consider it her birthday gift for the next thirty years.
“I want to be the one to make the kill,” Shayna told us. “I want to be the one to kill the Tribemaster.”
Taran and I exchanged glances. “Son of a bitch,” Taran snapped. “Are you out of your mind?”
“You and Celia have both done it,” Shayna protested.
“Yeah, and almost died in the goddamn process!” Mini bolts of blue and white sizzled from Taran’s fingertips.
Shayna veered on Taran. “Did you get eaten alive by demons?”
Taran answered her with a scowl.
“Did you, Celia?” Shayna asked, turning back to me.
I stopped drumming my fingers against the rim of the truck bed. No. I’d been bitten and I’d been tortured, but my injuries paled compared to what those damn Tribesmen had done to Shayna. If it hadn’t been for Koda’s attempt to turn her wolf, we would have lost her. She couldn’t change, yet she’d received enough of Koda’s essence to heal her ravaged body.
I leaned forward. “What’s going on?” Her hands shook and that terrified look returned to her face, just as it had the day we’d fought the giant maggot. “Shayna?”
Shayna released a shaky breath. Then another. And another. She spoke very softly, likely so Emme couldn’t hear her in the cab of the truck. “I dream every night that I’m being devoured by demons. I wake up screaming. Koda’s freaking out.” She glanced back to where Emme was sitting up front. “I’ve asked Emme to use her healing touch to tend to my emotional wounds, but it’s not working. I think I’m losing it, Ceel.”
Blue and white sparks sizzled above Taran’s head. “Celia, tell the vamps to turn around. She shouldn’t freaking be here.”
“I’m better since the fight with the last Tribemaster,” Shayna insisted. “It’s like it helped knowing I could still fight and protect myself. I think . . .” She swallowed hard. “I think killing one of these things will be the ultimate therapy.”
I watched her closely. I knew revenge. We were the best of friends and the worst of enemies. But Shayna wasn’t asking for a chance at vengeance. She wanted to feel safe. It’s not something I could grant myself. Yet maybe I could gift it to her. “We’ll see what happens. Just don’t do anything stupid.”
My sisters and I prayed before leaving the pickup. The Catholic schoolgirls kept their distance from us. Unlike some vampires who were devout Catholics—bizarre, considering they didn’t possess a soul—these she-vamps embraced the uniform and very little else. It’s not that a Hail Mary would have killed them; it’s just that it probably made them nervous. In becoming vampires, they’d ceded the opportunity for heaven or hell. An eternity on earth was the only thereafter they’d know. If ever killed, they’d simply cease to exist. After all, you can’t move on without a soul. That’s what made Misha so powerful. He simultaneously balanced life and death.
We separated into our groups. My team and I moved silently through the area and stopped when we spotted the main entrance to the compound. A gangly man hauled a whimpering young girl to the gate. The gate opened and a vampire stepped out. I could scent his aroma of sex and chocolate from where we huddled.
“Aquí está mi hija,” the man said. “Dame el dinero que me prometiste.”