He dropped her arms and walked away from her. "I don't understand. That is not our way. Cast the runes again!" Yonnie looked at her hard and then stared at the divination on the floor. "We always replace territory, immediately. You're wrong." The sweepers made sense. Level seven didn't have to come up for a basic vamp dispute. A new master would be made to bump him off. What the f**k did Rivera do?
Gabrielle carefully gathered up the stones while everyone in the room remained silent, waiting for her to get a second opinion. Again, she flung the stones against the pile of ash. "Your own chairman did this," she said in a faraway voice. "You were made by Rivera, and he's purging the entire zone of all he made, of all that could ever be made by his line."
"I know that!" Yonnie shouted. "Tell me about level seven and this damned succubus you claim-"
"You mean Lilith?" Gabrielle said coolly, her eyes studying him as he began to pace.
"That's bullshit," Yonnie whispered. The mention of that name chilled him. He backed up, studied the sky, his focus divided between the facts before him and Tara. "I have to go," he said, sure now that the transmission cover that he'd provided Tara hadn't held.
"We are now sworn enemies of the vampire nations, and level seven," Gabrielle said, picking up each rune stone one by one and kissing away her sister's ashes as she replaced them in the velvet pouch. She clutched it in her soot-covered palm.
"Good," Yonnie said, holding her gaze, "because, now, so am I."
"She's his lover."
Yonnie stared at Gabrielle. "She's the devil's wife? Get serious. Him, you don't f**k with."
"Your chairman."
Again, Yonnie just stared at her for a moment. "Now Iknow you're crazy."
"Am I?" she asked coolly, looking him dead in the eyes.
It was so treacherous that he couldn't speak. What could Carlos have done to make the chairman risk sure extinction? There had to be more to the puzzle than blowing a shot at the Neteru. "If you're lying, I'll kill your ass. If you're right, I owe you."
Gabrielle cocked her head to the side, wrestling with the proposed alliance.
"Obviously, my chairman hasn't been able to take all my powers back-for some reason. But if he did this hit with her..."
Gabrielle nodded, joining hands with her remaining sisters as the fourth platinum-haired sister entered the room and covered her mouth. "You'll swear allegiance to help us avenge Susan's death?"
"If you'll swear allegiance to help me avenge my councilman, Carlos Rivera's abuse."
The four sisters spoke in unison. "Done."
"My transmission was compromised!" Tara yelled as Yonnie entered the basement lair. "Where were you?"
"You got through?" Yonnie spun on her as he sealed the door against approaching daylight.
"Yes, and-"
"Save the drama about where I might have been. Talk to me!"
She stared at him. "Yonnie, what happened?"
"They torched a turn of mine-while she was in my arms, Tara!" He walked a hot path across the concrete floor. "Sonofabitch just-"
"You were actually going to turn an innocent? Get out!" Tara shrieked. "Get out before you-"
He waved his hand and knocked the wind out of her, making her fall to the bed. "Shut up and listen!" He raked his fingers through his hair, his eyes wild. "It was a willing witch, not an innocent. A barter; so these barriers aren't compromised. The only thing keeping us alive is whatever your people laid down here." He walked over to the walls, feeling them for the approaching heat of dawn. "I don't know if they'll hold, though. The Guardian compound had to have a better seal than this hovel, and black lightning struck it and the heat from that caused the brush fire. You saw that with your own eyes."
Tara swallowed hard and stood, going to the walls, testing with Yonnie for heat. "He's so weak," she whispered. "I tried to give him the code, and he had to write it down."
Yonnie froze. "What do you mean he had towrite it down' ? Stop playing, woman! I had to form an alliance with a weak-assed coven in order to watch our flanks. That's what we're dealing with, and now isn't the time to let some jealousy corrupt your logic. We have a major crisis to-"
"It was himand he had to use pen and paperlike a human ," she said slowly, succinctly, cutting off Yonnie's question while her even tone stoked his horror. "While you were out getting your swerve on, dawn fractured my ability to hold onto the connection." Tara locked and trapped Yonnie's line of vision within hers. "He was so weak I was ashamed for him."
Yonnie shook his head and backed away from Tara, tears rising in his eyes as he pointed at her. "You He!"