The Reluctant Vampire Page 0,83
snow, reaching back to snatch an arrow from the quiver and slinging the crossbow around at the same me. She was prac ced enough at the task that even blind she managed to arm the crossbow in a heartbeat. The problem then became where to aim the damned thing, but she lifted the weapon and strained to hear any sound that would give away the person's location.
When Drina turned in the general direc on of the side of the house, or what she thought was the side of the house where the cornered skunk had been or s ll was, there was a sudden flurry of sound that definitely wasn't the skunk. Whatever made it was big, human-sized big, judging by the thud of footsteps as they fled in what she thought was the direction of the gate.
Drina followed the sound with her crossbow, and when her ins ncts screamed to release it, loosed her arrow. She heard a grunt, but the footsteps didn't slow, and she cursed under her breath, suspec ng she'd only winged whoever it was.
Drina sighed, but rearmed the crossbow just in case and listened blindly for another moment before she heard approaching sirens.
"Fire trucks," she mu ered, beginning to shuffle backward on her bu in the direc on she thought the stairs were, using one hand and her legs to move herself. The en re me, she con nued to point her crossbow blindly in the general direction of where she thought the yard's front gate was.
"Well, they put out the fire," Teddy Brunswick announced wearily, stomping his feet on the mat as he entered his kitchen and began to remove his coat.
Drina glanced to him from the stool Anders had silently set beside the back door for her . . . as far from his own posi on at the far end of the a ached dining room as he could get her without s cking her outside. Her vision was s ll blurry, but she could see well enough to make out the way the police chief's nose wrinkled as he caught her scent. She also didn't miss how quickly he scooted out of the kitchen and into the dining room, straight across the room to the desk against the far wall, where Anders was busily punching away at Teddy's computer keyboard. He was searching the Internet for sugges ons to remove skunk spray from a person.
Sighing miserably, Drina glanced toward the ceiling, wondering how Harper and Stephanie were. They had been placed in one of the two bedrooms upstairs in this ny, two-floor house of Teddy's. Dawn, Leonora, and Alessandro were tending to them. Tiny had been moved to the second bedroom, with Mirabeau and Edward continuing to oversee his turning.
Teddy had arranged to have them brought here to his home while the fire trucks were s ll working on pu ng out the fire at Casey Co age. It had taken two ambulances and his deputy's car to transport them. Everyone else had gone in the ambulances, and Drina had been the only one in the police car. While she hadn't yet been able to see at that point, she was sure she'd heard the deputy making muffled sounds that could have been either gagging or weeping. Either was possible considering how she smelled, and the fact that the deputy had been in such a rush to get her where he had to take her that he hadn't thought to put anything down on his seats before ushering her quickly into the back of his car. His car could very well carry that horrible smell forever for all she knew. Drina could certainly understand if he'd been sobbing over that.
It turned out the sound of breaking glass they'd heard had been a rock crashing through one of the windows in the second-floor porch. It had been followed by a Molotov cocktail that had sha ered just inches from the blanket. The fuel inside had splashed across the blankets, pillows, and Harper and Stephanie. The two had apparently come staggering out of the room in flames. Edward and Anders had heard their shouts and were the first to reach them, with Teddy, Leonora, and Alessandro hard on their heels. They'd somehow doused the flames ea ng away at Harper and Stephanie, and then - afraid the fire would move through the en re house - had go en everyone out, along with as much blood as they could grab.
Drina had been the