mother used it against a vampire . . .”
“Blackwood?” asked Asil. Blackwood had been eliminated, but he had ruled Spokane for a long time. Even other vampires had stayed away from him.
She nodded.
He had killed wyrms before, though only a handful. In his experience, people held in thrall sometimes died when their enslaver died. If Tami could break that bond before he killed the wyrm—maybe Joshua’s mother would live.
“Then you should come with me,” he told Tami.
He gave the car keys to Joshua. “Start the car and turn on the heat. If you get scared, drive to your home. Don’t wait around for us.”
“We’ll be here when you come back out,” Joshua said stoutly.
Asil turned his attention to other matters. He asked Joshua, “If this hoard had a heart, where would it be?”
The boy opened his mouth, hesitated. “The basement.”
“And what,” asked Asil, “is the best way to get to the basement?”
* * *
—
There was an outer entrance to the basement along the side of the house—the side Asil had not yet seen. When the house was built, the entrance would have allowed ice and coal to be delivered. Now, Joshua had told them, it was kept secure with a sturdy padlock and chain.
“What about their mom, Helen?” asked Tami as Asil started to dig through the snow that had accumulated on top of the slanted doors.
“What about her?” he asked. He grasped the chain and shook it, dislodging more snow and revealing the latch.
“She isn’t going to be in the basement,” Tami said, a hint of exasperation in her voice. “We need to get her out.”
“She’ll come to us,” Asil told her. “It will call her as soon as it views us as a threat.”
He broke the chain, dropped it into the snow, and pulled the doors open. The inner stairs Joshua had described were nothing but a pile of rubble on the basement floor. As he watched, they crumbled further in a drift of wyrm magic.
“It knows we’re after it,” Asil said. “Wait a moment. Let me go first.”
He opened his case and drew out his sword. It was a fine weapon, a gift to himself that he’d purchased a few years ago. Its modern steel was better than his old Spanish steel blade, as much as he hated to admit it. Sword in hand, he made a diving roll over the wreckage and came to his feet on the far side.
This room of the basement was almost empty—it made sense that the wyrm would keep an escape route clear. But there were a few garden implements hanging on the wall. A shovel would have been ideal, but there were none. Asil used a hoe to clear away the stairway debris.
The second time he pushed it into the mass of rotting wood there was a sharp noise, and an old bear trap closed its jaws on his hoe. A closer look found another bear trap and a wolf trap, rusty jaws agape. He triggered those as well before clearing a space where Tami could drop safely.
“Can you tell where the wyrm is?” Tami asked.
He raised an eyebrow. “Can you?”
After a moment she shook her head. “No. It feels like it’s all around us.”
He nodded. “Smells like that, too.”
There were running footsteps from outside, and he pulled Tami away from the open doors, shoving her, not ungently, behind him.
“Thieves,” accused a shrill voice. A woman—Helen, he presumed—jumped into the basement. She landed in the middle of the stair rubble, scrambling awkwardly to her feet.
“Killers,” he corrected absently.
She was not what he’d expected. She looked younger, for one, far too young to have a son nearly grown. She was tiny, less than five feet. Her hair was cut short and she wore fuzzy pajamas with purple unicorns dancing on them. Her feet were bare and she was unarmed.
“Tami?” he asked politely.
“Mine,” agreed Tami. Her magic swept over him and engulfed the smaller woman.
He stepped out from between