asked Blake, hobbling in on his sprained ankle.
“Hopefully, the baron will be kind enough to accept you and Janice as well.”
“Along with Armand and Nellie,” Tabitha informed them. “It’s going to be crowded.”
Laina glanced at Tiny, then Will. “Very crowded with these two along.”
It was tempting, so tempting. After what he’d been through in the basement of the still-burning Artifice building, Will wasn’t sure how he could be considering anything that might bring him face-to-face with yet more vampires. But he was. “Tiny and I won’t be joining you,” he told everyone.
No one said anything for a moment, and Laina in particular looked thoughtful. Lifting her chin, she responded, “Darla and I will come with you.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to be doing.”
Laina’s eyes grew stubborn. “I know you need help. Just look at you!”
Will ignored her. “How is the renovation going?” he asked Blake, moving over to face the man.
Laina tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m not done talking to you.”
Blake looked at him nervously, then glanced over his shoulder.
“I’m done talking to her,” said Will. “Tell me about the basement.” The look of alarm on the manservant’s face warned him, and he barely ducked in time to avoid Laina’s swing at the back of his head. He gave Laina an annoyed look and then took Blake by the arm. They moved away several feet.
His half-sister paused when she saw a spell forming in his hand, and before she realized what it was, he had surrounded Blake and himself with a force-dome. Smiling sweetly at Laina, Will slowly turned around, putting his back to her. “Now tell me what you were going to say.”
Blake shook his head in disbelief. “That girl is going to skin you alive when we come out of here.” When Will didn’t respond, he finally answered, “The basement isn’t finished. There’s still a lot of masonry to be done, but the cage is in already.”
“Cage?”
“It’s hard to anchor chains when they’re meant to hold something as strong as a vampire. The steel might be strong enough, but whatever you anchor them to has to be just as solid. In an earthen basement with only support pillars, there isn’t much that can provide the sort of strength you need. However, there was an exotic animal dealer in the city a few weeks back and I managed to secure a bear cage that was meant for him.”
“A bear cage?”
“It’s solid. The ends are all lap welded. It’s meant to be on a wagon, for transport, but with some work we were able to get it in the basement. I’m pretty sure that if you chain a vampire up inside it, he won’t be able to get free. If he did manage to break the chains, he’d still be inside the cage.”
Will nodded. “Good thinking.”
“As far as your workshop, that will probably take another couple of months. They’re still excavating, and that will take…”
He waved a hand. “I never asked you to do that, but thank you. By the time it’s done, this crisis will hopefully be over. I’ll have to use the laboratory at the Alchemy building for what I need in the present.”
Blake kept glancing over his shoulder and Will finally asked, “What’s going on?”
“I don’t think people are supposed to be that color,” said Blake.
Will turned around. Laina had turned an odd shade of red-purple and seemed to be speaking loudly in his direction. He could almost make out the words through the force-dome. Mark Nerrow was behind her, also shouting it seemed, though primarily at his daughter. Tabitha stood a good distance away, apparently enjoying the show. Oddly, Will felt jealous of them all. He and his mother had never really argued. What would it have been like to grow up in a raucous household with siblings?
He looked back at Blake. “How about the pig?”
“Already tied up out back. I’ll miss her. She’s been taking care of all the scraps since yesterday.”
Will winced. “You shouldn’t have gotten attached. You know the plan for him.”