the flesh, biting, biting, sucking in the blood. Lincoln slid his arms around Ed, his voice hoarse from the fangs so near his larynx, saying, “I gotcha, bub. I gotcha.”
Tears filled my eyes and I said to the Master of the City of Asheville, “Thank you.”
“No problem, Queenie. It’s my job.” As master of a city, it truly was, and I inclined my head. Shaddock added, “Invading vamps in my city. Injuring a Mithran without my leave. Didn’t even bother to present themselves to me? I got me lotsa cogitating to do on just how to react to this’un, and how I’ll take his head,” he said.
Ed gulped and gulped, sucking down blood like a starving man. There was no sanity in his eyes. I had seen Leo blood-starved. Leo had tortured me after he was drained. I fought down the memory-fear and the old horror. The effect on vampires’ brains wasn’t pretty, and sometimes vamps didn’t come back from that precipice. Neither did their victims. I steadied my breathing before the nearby vamps caught the scent of yesterday’s fear.
“He has been deeply traumatized,” Gee said, his eyes fastened to the two in the tub. The Mercy Blade was perched on the closed toilet seat, his posture much like that of a big bird, his arms tucked up and his knees beneath his chin. In the white tub, Lincoln was smeared with thin blood and Edmund was breathing in and out, an almost inaudible whine with each breath.
From beside the tub, Kojo said softly, “The Son of Shadows is a dark cloud. His mind eats at the brain and the heart with fangs unlike any other. His magics slice the skin from our bones. I still carry his scars on my soul.” He shook his head, his scalp beneath his short-cropped hair catching the light. “I cannot feed one who has been a vessel for the shadow.”
“Why?” I asked, just as softly.
“For fear the darkness will find its way to me again through my blood.” That sounded like black magic and demon possession all at once. I knew blood demons existed, but my understanding was limited. Maybe demons could pass through shared blood as well as familial bloodlines.
Thema called for Shaddock’s human blood-meals on her cell. She asked for six. That meant the rest of the vamps would be more hungry than usual. When her call was over, I asked, “Is there a chance that Edmund’s brain is tied to Shimon’s? That the SOD can hear everything we say?”
Kojo shrugged, an odd, disconnected movement of his shoulders, as if those muscles were out of sync with the others. “Your Edmund is very powerful. But there is nothing upon the face of the Earth like the Flayer of Mithrans and his shadow when one is possessed. Anything is possible.”
That was an unconventional way of phrasing it. The smell of Edmund’s blood on the air was so strong that I only realized Molly was walking up behind me when she spoke. “Edmund swore loyalty to me,” she said, “and to Angie and to my family.” She let a small breath go, shifted her position closer to my side. She was nursing, rotating slightly, swaying slowly side to side, Cassy in a sling. The scent of baby, mother’s milk, and the purity of earth magic was intense. Her darker power was back under lock and magical key, and Molly’s relief at being with her children seeped through her pores, strong and clean. “It’s an Everhart responsibility to protect him. I have some shielding workings I can try, to protect his mind and to guarantee that we have privacy.”
Kits. Keep kits safe, Beast thought at me.
“Are you sure?” I asked, seeing the small head at the crease of her upper arm, barely visible beneath a cloth diaper she had placed over herself to nurse. Smart, considering that some vamps were evil dark creatures and I didn’t know where Lincoln’s newest stood on the sanctity of children. Then I remembered the death magics Molly had used at the Regal, and the vamps falling. Moll was not in danger.
She looked up at me as if hearing my thoughts and led the way back into the living area of the cottage. “They weren’t dead. They’re drained. The vamps back at the hotel,” she clarified softly. “And yes, I’m sure. It’s what a Glinda does.”
I chuckled at the name. She was talking about Glinda the Good Witch, from The Wizard of Oz. I peeked back into the bathroom