been tortured, healed, and tortured again, my fanghead friend.”
“I’ll live.”
“Not really. Undead isn’t alive.”
“I’ll take what I can get until my mistress and my sworn family are safe.”
“Yeah?” She stepped around the wall, her hands fisted and a sprig of rosemary in her left. “You’ve been the prisoner of a mad vamp, possessed by his madder witch spirit. I’m guessing he left a little something-something inside your head. You gonna let me take a look?”
“I’ll die true-dead before I give up the sanctity of my mind again. No. You’ll have to trust me.”
“Trust?” She chortled as if he had said something witty. “Again. Not happening, Eddie. Not now, not until the Flayer is dead and eaten, though if we find a few days free, I could maybe create a detection working that might give us warning if you get a brain visitor.”
“Yes. Thank you. Should you find time,” Edmund said.
That shut Molly up. I could tell she hadn’t expected him to agree.
Deep inside, Beast purred. She liked Ed’s scent and Molly’s scent and the words they volleyed back and forth like gunfire. I walked backward into the TV lounge, studying my primo as I went. Ed was silent, his footsteps following me, his eyes on Molly.
Ed was wearing black from head to toe, the clothes not fitting well, the sleeves and pants legs rolled up. I recognized Eli’s wardrobe. Someone had given my heir and primo some of Eli’s clothes to wear. He did look like crap, his hair lank, his neck a patchwork of scars that looked like a burn victim’s. Edmund moved without that sliding grace of the Mithran as he stopped in front of the TV, his hollow, empty eyes on the screen that was replaying the scene at the Regal.
Before we reached the TV room, Molly said from the kitchen, “Witches don’t need your help. You know that, right? My magics are the certainty of that.”
Gently, Ed said, “If you use all your magics, Witch of Death, you may well kill everyone, human or para, in a twenty-five-mile radius.”
I glanced back. Molly looked as if someone had slapped her, face pale and shocked, bright spots on each cheek. Witch of Death sounded like a very nasty title in my primo’s world. Shimon had been in Ed’s mind when the SOD Two recognized what Molly was. Witch of Death. Dang. I led Ed into the office.
Evan and Molly followed us both and the big guy stood behind his wife, in the doorway. They moved together, like magnets attracting. Evan asked, “How do you know?”
Edmund said, “Any Mithran would know your power, Witch of Death. Even if I had not known before, I felt death at your call in the hotel main room.” He pointed at the screen where the event played over and over. “There and then. When the first two Naturaleza fell as if true-dead. It was not a spell calculated to bring down the Mithrans, but pure, raw death magics.”
“Do you think the FOM knew what they were?” I asked, sitting on my recliner.
“Once I would say yes, absolutely. But he has changed. He has developed a . . .” Ed chuckled, the sound not real laughter, but not fear and death either. “. . . a thick skin.” Ed was talking about the exoskeleton. He was making a joke, even so soon after rescue. “He is darkness and shadow, and nothing but a close-in detonation of a large-scale bomb or being burned in a cremation chamber may take him into true-death now.” Ed slid a glance my way. “Or being eaten by an angel-touched white werewolf. The only good thing about this change and the magics he is now using is that the Flayer of Mithrans has lost the ability to detect some other forms of magic.” His eyes moved to the Everhart-Truebloods on the sofa. “Except for death magics, it seems. I do not know why.”
Before the two witches decided to test out their secret-not-so-secret weapon on Ed, I said, “Why didn’t you take over as emperor? Why didn’t you announce my resignation to the vamp world?”
Ed looked back at the screen, where the two videos were showing in loops. “Grégoire and I discussed it. We called a meeting of the Mithrans who received word of your resignation. We watched all the video footage of the Sangre Duello. We decided that you would make a grand figurehead. That we should both, Grégoire and I, seize territory in your name and hold it, until