her jaws, baring fangs and a long, writhing tongue that was pink with black spots. Her all-black eyes were ablaze with fury.
Shadows shifted as a pale blue light began to grow nearer, and the woods suddenly rang out with Mouse’s triumphant hunting howl. He had found my scent—or that of the vampires—and was closing in.
Esmerelda hissed again, and the sound was full of rage and hate.
“We mustn’t!” Esteban snarled. He dashed around me with supernatural speed, giving the glowing pendant a wide berth. He seized the little vampire woman by the arm. They both stared at me for an instant with their cold, empty black eyes—and then there was the sound of a rushing wind and they were gone.
I sagged onto the ground gratefully. My racing heart began to slow, my fear to subside. My confusion as to what was happening remained, though. Maybe it was so tangled and impossible because I was so exhausted.
Yeah. Right.
Mouse let out a single loud bark and then the big dog was standing next to me, over me. He nudged me with his nose until I lifted a hand and scratched his ears a little.
Thomas and Molly arrived next. I was glad Thomas had let Mouse do the pursuit, while he came along more slowly so that my apprentice wouldn’t be alone in the woods. His eyes were bright silver, his mouth set in a smug line, and there was broken glass shining in his hair. The left half of Molly’s upper body was generously coated in green paint.
“Okay,” I slurred. “I’m backward.”
“What’s that?” Molly asked, kneeling down next to me, her expression worried.
“Backward. ’M a detective. Supposed to find things out. I been working backward. The more I look at it, the more certain I am that I have no idea what’s going on.”
“Can you stand?” Thomas asked.
“Leg,” I said. “Ribs. Might be broken. Can’t take the weight.”
“I’ll carry him,” Thomas said. “Find a phone.”
“Okay.”
My brother picked me up and carried me out of the woods. We went back to the car.
The car’s remains.
I stared dully at the mess. It looked as though something had taken Thomas’s white Jag and put it in a trash compactor with the Blue Beetle. The two cars, together, had been smashed down into a mass about four feet high. Liquids and fuel bled out onto the street below them.
Thomas gingerly put me down on my good leg as I stared at my car.
There was no way the Beetle was going to resurrect from this one. I found myself blinking tears out of my eyes. It wasn’t an expensive car. It wasn’t a sexy car. It was my car.
And it was gone.
“Dammit,” I mumbled.
“Hmmm?” Thomas asked. He looked considerably less broken up than me.
“My staff was inna car.” I sighed. “Takes weeks to make one of those.”
“Lara’s going to be annoyed with me,” Thomas said. “That’s the third one this year.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. I feel your pain. What happened with the big thing?”
“The fight?” Thomas shrugged. “Bullfighting tactics, for the most part. When it tried to focus on one, the other two would come at its back. Mouse did you rather proud.”
The big dog wagged his tail cheerily.
“Paint?” I asked.
“Oh, the thing threw a five-gallon bucket of paint at her, either trying to kill her with it or so it could try to see her through the veil. Worked for about five seconds, too, but then she fixed it and was gone again. She did fairly well for someone so limited in offense,” Thomas said. “Let me see if I can salvage anything from my trunk. Excuse me.”
I just sat down on the street in front of the car, and Mouse came up to sit with me, offering a furry flank for support. The Blue Beetle was dead. I was too tired to cry much.
“I called a cab,” Molly said, reappearing. “It will meet us two blocks down. Get him and I’ll veil us until it arrives.”
“Yeah,” Thomas said, and picked me up again.
I don’t remember being awake for the cab ride.
27
Thomas supported most of my weight as my injured leg began to buckle, and settled me in one of the chairs in the living room.
“We can’t be here long,” he said. “Those two Reds know he’s injured and exhausted. They’ll be back, looking for an opening or trying to pick one of us off when we’re vulnerable.”
“Right, right,” Molly said. “How is he?”
He crouched down in front of me and peered at me. His irises