Missing her jacket and boots, Jane decides to go up near the house to see if Molly hears her outside. Molly comes on the porch, thanks Jane for everything (she and Evan had not expected Angie’s powers to manifest until puberty), and over tea Molly swears undying friendship to Jane, and Jane tells Molly she is a skinwalker—the first time she has ever told anyone that.
Haints (in Have Stakes Will Travel): Molly Trueblood, earth witch, has been called in by a local coven to check out what seems to be a haunting of an older house being renovated into an office. For support and assistance, Molly’s friend Jane Yellowrock has joined her to examine the place. Molly is reminded of Jane’s “secret” as she observes her friend’s catlike behavior while she goes through the rooms. Jane states that she smells both witch and vampire, but not anything dead as Molly feels there is. When prompted by Jane, Molly senses a very old ward and a keep-away spell, and also learns that Jane can now sense witch magic since being around Molly and Evan.
When Molly concentrates, she can see that the spell is protecting one corner of the room where there is a cloth covering other items. However, as soon as she says out loud that she needs to get through the spell in order to find out what talisman might be causing it, she is overcome with feelings of dread, which she realizes is due to the spell. Jane reports that a ladder started to move when Molly said she needed to go have a look at the corner, so Jane decides she will be the one to go exploring. Jane finds an old stethoscope, and Molly sees green tendrils of magic going up Jane’s arms until she drops the spelled item and then smacks it, neutralizing the spell. Molly now is able to more closely examine the stethoscope/amulet, but as she does so, Jane shouts to her as a headboard comes flying down the stairs and straight at Molly. Jane tells Molly to leave the house, which she does, dodging items as she goes. Jane informs Molly that a vampire owned the stethoscope.
Later that evening, Jane joins Molly and Evan at their house to share what she has learned about the house’s previous inhabitants. There was a doctor named Hainbridge in the town in 1870, 1910, and 1940, and from the hand-painted portraits she found, it was obviously the same man—the vampire she sensed. The doctor had a human son who contracted leukemia in 1845, and his father’s efforts to treat him resulted in madness. Since other approaches didn’t work, the doctor turned the son—a forbidden practice. The two disappeared from the area at the time of the Civil War, but returned in 1870, involving witches from a local coven.
Molly, Jane, and Evan know they need to figure out what type of spell is active in the house, and Jane insists that the two witches should get paid for their work. After Evan negotiates with the lawyer doing the renovations, with some prodding from a demonstration from the “poltergeist,” a satisfactory financial arrangement is reached. After spending the day researching past owners of the house, one a witch who had disappeared, Molly, Jane, and Evan head over to the place to try and ascertain what they are up against.
Through various preparations and workings, the three observe what Molly decides is a bubble or pocket universe, where actions get repeated over and over again. The group observes a woman being attacked by the vampire child, her stabbing the boy with knitting needles, and the vampire doctor attempting (unsuccessfully) to save his child while letting the woman die. Molly knows the vampire looked right at her, so it seems he must still be alive in there, and both Evan and Jane conclude that blood-magic got mixed in and has caused the spell to run in a loop. Jane decides that the vamp has to die when Molly breaks the spell, so the decision is made to call in a local cop to serve as witness.
Detective Paul Braxton retired to the Asheville area, but got bored and wanted to go back to work. After meeting with Molly, Jane, and Evan the next morning, he agrees to their plan. That evening the group of four breaks the spell, which frees the vampire, and Jane kills him. Jane worries that Molly will feel differently about her after seeing her in killing mode, but Molly assures her that is not the case. A few weeks later, one evening at dinner Angie Baby announces that Molly is going to have a baby (which she didn’t even know herself yet), and Jane confirms this, saying she thinks it will be a boy.
Signatures of the Dead (in both Have Stakes Will Travel and the anthology Strange Brew): At the house of Molly Trueblood, earth witch and best friend of Jane Yellowrock, Detective Paul Braxton (Brax), Evan (Molly’s husband), Jane, and Molly have gathered to consult about a recent killing of the McCarley family in the area. The deaths are clearly vamp attacks, but owing to Molly’s special talent of sensing death, Brax is asking her to come to the scene to determine how many vamps were involved, where they are holing up during the day, and says he needs a protection spell for when he goes after them. Despite Evan’s protests, Molly agrees to go to the house, and she asks Jane to accompany them.
Jane and Molly meet Brax at the house. Before going inside, Molly calls upon her power, and closes her eyes so as not to experience the physical world through her heightened senses. Once they go in the house, with Molly’s hand on Jane’s arm, the barrage of horror hits Molly—she knows exactly what happened to each family member. Jane carries Molly out of the house, plopping her on the ground. Molly reports that there were seven vamps, all crazy except for the sire, also young for a vampire. Outside, Molly senses the path the rogues took on their way out, but also that they played around on the swing set before doing so. Molly distracts Brax with a few other details so that Jane is able to remove a piece of cloth snagged on a bush.
Molly knows Jane’s secret—that she is a skinwalker whose other persona is a Puma concolor, and that Beast can track the vamps using the cloth. That evening, Molly records Jane’s shift (at Jane’s request), and gives Beast a ride to the McCarley house so she can find and follow the vamp trail. At four a.m. Molly gets a call from Jane, telling her to meet her at the old Partman Place and reminding her to bring food. When Molly arrives, Jane tells her that the vamps have been living there in the mine for a while.
While Jane sleeps on a cot in a back room of the shop Molly runs with her sisters, Molly takes Brax out to the Partman Place so he can look it over. When he asks how she knows the vamps are there, she tells him she used a tracking spell. Brax relies that the NCIC database does not have information on any such thing, and Molly gets upset that her family is being exposed. Brax assures Molly that her name has not been used in any way, and that he shields her as much as he can. Once Molly calms down, Brax goes to check out the mine. When he returns, the two hatch a plan to seal the vamps up in the mine for the night, and to return in the daytime with more people.
Unfortunately the plan does not work, and results in a situation that hits close to home: Molly’s pregnant sister, Carmen, is missing and her husband dead. With the family in an uproar and trying to deal with the news, Jane tells Molly that if she gives her a ride to the mine, she will go in as Beast and ascertain where Carmen might be. Jane suggests that the vamps may be holding Carmen in order to possibly turn her later, given the power that witches possess. Molly agrees, and Jane reports back that Carmen is indeed alive, and so are two teenaged girls. After working on spells with her sisters and discussion with everyone, the decision is made that Molly, Jane, Brax, and Evan will all go to the mine, under the cover of an obfuscation spell.