and saw Shaddock tap on the tub, three times, like a TV wrestler asking for backup. Thema took his place, guiding Ed’s fangs out of Lincoln and to her throat.
Molly dug into her pocket, held out her hand, and dropped a small, carved amulet into mine. Everything went silent and my eyes shot open wide. She took it back and placed it on the coffee table at the foot of the sofa, restoring the ambient sound. “It’s a monkey ear charm. You know, like the monkey with his ears covered? Put it on Ed. He won’t be able to hear us strategize.”
“In case the big bad ugly is still in his brain. Gotcha.” I lifted the wooden round and carried it to Ed, where I tucked it under his armpit. His flesh was icy. Dead. I removed my hand perhaps a little too fast.
Molly chuckled, the sound wry and darkly amused. I could almost hear her say, “Big bad vamp hunter can’t stand the touch of a harmless vamp.”
“Gee,” I said. “Talk to us about arcenciels. About the problem or war or whatever is going on in their world or their relationship with each other.” When he didn’t reply, I said, “Soul isn’t calling anyone back. So far as I know, she’s never gone dark before.”
Gee tightened his arms and legs, as if trying to preserve body heat or as if trying not to be noticed by a predator, shrinking small. The tiny striped snout stuck out of his collar, the winged lizard, curious. “There is a war,” he said, “between Soul and the other arcenciels on this plane. Since you killed Joses Santana, the elder Son of Darkness, the younglings have fallen away from guidance and counsel and wisdom. Soul has battled this past week to bring them back to the true path. The pressures of leadership have driven her into lack of control, into foolish acts. Her mistakes have cost the goddesses greatly.”
“Why would me killing the Flayer of Mithrans cause a war between the arcenciels?”
“I do not know.” Which was ominous.
Molly’s cell rang and I saw the name on the speaker face. Amelia, her sister. “Hey, sis,” Molly said, “what’s—Wait. Let me put this on speaker.” One-handed, she shifted the cell and pressed the SPEAKER button on the face. “Say that again so everyone can hear.”
“We’re under attack,” Amelia said. “Regan and I were working late at the Seven and got stuck here by the storm. We were on cots with lanterns lit when fangheads attacked. We initiated the building’s defenses and we’re armed, but the bad guys are not going away.”
Amelia and Regan were Molly’s human sisters. The Seven was Seven Sassy Sisters, the family restaurant. The defenses were probably some form of hedge of thorns around the building, one that could be released by a simple command or a touch to an amulet, by a human. Last time I checked in with them, the human sisters carried concealed and were always armed, which was smart for anyone working late in an isolated location, and doubly smart for a member of a witch family anywhere. Amelia kept a twelve-gauge behind the counter. Regan carried two very different semiautomatics with matte black grips—an H&K with silver-laced nine-mils for vamps, and an S&W loaded with hollow points for humans and robbers. The Everhart family was not rich. They’d be out of vamp-killing ammo fast.
“Hold tight,” Shaddock said. “I got a few scions laired not too far from there. Providing they can get the snowmobiles running, reinforcements will be there in ten. Maybe fifteen with the storm.” He pressed his own cell against his ear and turned away to talk.
“Who was that?” Amelia asked. I heard breaking glass. Someone had gotten through the outer defenses. Gunfire followed, punctuated by the piercing ululation of a vamp dying. “Again. Who was that?” she demanded, shouting.
“Lincoln Shaddock,” I said, loud enough to be heard in her gunfire-damaged hearing. “The Master of the City of Asheville. He’s sending reinforcements. Don’t shoot the rescuers.”
Amelia said some very unladylike curse words. Molly laughed and patted her baby’s back, burping Cassy.
Beast was deeply interested in the infant on Molly’s shoulder, her entire body language protective and covetous. Mentally, I stroked the head of my other half and she thought at me, Kit in danger from injured vampire Edmund?
I thought back, Molly is a death witch who just drained but didn’t kill some vamps. I think she’s got it in hand. Aloud I said, “You got stakes?