I reeled up the stairs. I had lost my vamp-killer. And a lot of blood. My pants were drenched. But I had enough of my wits to get inside and put my back against the wall beside the door. Hoping my eyes would align, my belly would settle, and I would adjust to the darker, warmer world of the inn. I pulled a nine-millimeter, hoping I wouldn’t have to try to aim. Lots of hopes in there.
Molly wailed.
I pointed the weapon at the floor, closed one eye, and followed the sound of her grief and fury to the suites in the right wing of the inn. Molly, now silent, was sitting on the bed holding a screaming baby. Big Evan sat beside her, silent. Completely silent, and very, very still, holding Angie in one arm, the other around his wife.
I looked around for EJ.
He was gone.
That was why Molly had been screaming. Her son had been stolen. Again.
I fell. A slow unchecked arc, to the floor.
* * *
* * *
“This is why the fangheads came. To get a witch kid. And an arcenciel.” It was Molly’s voice, her tone so full of fury it was vibrating. I tried to open my eyes, but the pain in my middle was too great. My eyes wouldn’t open. I was so tired. . . .
“They used a figment working,” Alex said. “Five of them were real; all the others, including the outclan priestess, were illusions. Really good ones. They mimicked the results I’d expect on infrared and low light. There was no way you could tell the reality from the fakes.”
Except for the missing exoskeleton. Shimon had looked human and I had missed the differences until my sword whipped through him.
“Jane is awake.” Bruiser. Voice soft. “Thank you, Edmund.”
“A little blood is nothing.”
“She would have died if not for you. So might Lincoln.”
“Would that I could lay down my life for my queen.” When Ed spoke again, it was a whisper, horror in his voice. “Would that I had protected your son. I am foresworn.”
“No,” Big Evan said, his words paced and tight, “not your fault.”
“Not your fault, my Edmund,” Angie said, her voice thick with tears.
I heard movement, but from my position on the floor I had no idea who was doing what. “How . . .” I stopped. Licked very dry lips. Tasted Ed’s vamp blood, salty and tart, which I had missed in the shock of waking. I managed to get my eyes open and tried again. “How did it happen?”
His voice a monotone, so like his brother’s voice when upset, Alex said, “Deconstruction of the attack: While we were being distracted in front and all around the perimeter of the ward by illusion vamps, two fangheads—the one you call Legolas and the ginger-haired one—came in by way of the creek and chained Soul in a crystal.”
Five vampires had done all this? Gotten in through the wards? Nearly killed so many of us? “They got Soul?” I asked, because that couldn’t be true. She could get free. She had a spell that could be targeted from inside, to break a crystal. “Where was Gee during all this?”
“Don’t know. And yeah,” Eli said. “They got her.”
Alex said, “Then they knocked out the power to the house.”
“I hadn’t had time to move it from a single power source to solar and battery redundancies.” Eli sounded cold and quiet and utterly furious.
“The Everhart sisters found what they’re calling a magical sonic drum near the north point of the hedge,” Alex continued, “some kind of a onetime-use device to break a hedge of thorns. Wouldn’t have worked on a small, tight personal hedge, but a bigger one, like the one over the inn, or over the Everhart homes, has weak spots. Even an Everhart hedge.”
Big Evan looked up at the Everhart witches, his arm still around his daughter, her face buried in his shoulder. “We have to find out how that device works and who’s building them. We have to find a way to strengthen our wards against them.” He sounded guilty, as if he had failed.
“Not your fault,” I said. It was mine. Every last bit of it was my fault.
“Shiloh’s a decent sniper. She took down a fanghead out front,” Eli said. “Silver-lead rounds. I sent Thema to decapitate him.” Eli paused, breathing slowly. “When the hedge fell, they came in through the back and cut Lincoln in half. Nearly killed him. If it