She was afraid they were going to find out.
“It was a flicker,” Amaliya explained. “I saw Bianca for just an instant. She looked like she was in distress.”
Cian rubbed the whiskers of his goatee between his fingers as he listened to Amaliya speaking. They were in Jeff’s kitchen, the crew scattered across the room. Some were eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, while others were sipping hot chocolate. His daughter kept giving him apologetic looks that didn’t help his mood. He wished adamantly that she hadn’t slipped and revealed who she was to The Summoner, but he also knew it was only a matter of time before their enemy would have sorted it out. He was hungry and tired. The attack had come early enough in the evening that he hadn’t been able to feed yet. It had been a deliberate ploy and a smart one to catch him when he was weak.
“Did she look tied up?” Eduardo asked, then shoved an entire sandwich in his mouth.
Amaliya gave the coyote a disgusted look.
“Eduardo thought maybe The Summoner had Bianca tied up while he astral projected so she couldn’t escape,” Jeff explained.
“Oh. No, she didn’t. But would she? If she was out of her body, too?” Amaliya gave Benchley a quizzical look.
“Well, probably not. It would have been a projection of her body, but not her actual state,” Benchley decided. He was busy helping his sister make an obscene amount of sandwiches. The battle had exhausted everyone and they were cramming calories to recover the energy they had burned.
Cian wished he could eat a sandwich and replenish himself. He craved blood and his veins were starting to burn.
“Anyway, she appeared just for a second. Right there.” Amaliya pointed to a spot near the back door. “Then I heard Samantha screaming outside.”
“That’s when they were assaulting the ward.” Samantha was peeling the crust off her sandwich like one long ribbon. “Alexia and I were going over all the emails from the stupid Assembly when they started hitting the ward. It was really loud. We rushed outside to make sure it was holding and that’s when we both saw him down in the street. I’d recognize that asshole anywhere.”
“He was scary and creepy in a handsome way,” Alexia added. She licked the peanut butter off the butter knife before tossing it in the sink. It clattered loudly.
Benchley did a little hop, startled.
“Shark Boy, you okay?” Samantha asked.
“A little rattled about the big bad showing himself,” Benchley admitted.
“Why do you call him Shark Boy?” Baptiste leaned one elbow on the kitchen table and slanted toward Samantha. “I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“Peter Benchley wrote Jaws.” Samantha shrugged her shoulders. “I’m random like that.”
“Ah,” Baptiste said, though he sounded a little mystified.
Cian listened to the people around him prattling on, but his thoughts were concentrated on the trouble at hand. The incursions into his city were growing more numerous. Cian was certain that The Summoner was trying to ascertain exactly how much firepower Cian had on his side.
“There were a lot of vampires tonight,” Benchley continued, his attention on Samantha. “They were really young, hungry, and out of their heads.”
“It explains all the missing people, doesn’t it?” Alexia took a seat at the table and tapped on the map she had laid out. Red dots showed the locations of all the people who had gone missing in the last few weeks. There was no real pattern to discern.
Cian knew that the human girl had been working on trying to locate The Summoner’s haven in San Antonio using police reports and news articles. Aimee couldn’t penetrate the massive black magic spells coating the city. San Antonio was in chaos. The crime rate was escalating while earth tremors made the authorities and inhabitants nervous. Though the media joked about the ground shaking was a sign of the coming 2012 apocalypse, Alexia took it very seriously. Earthquakes were not common in the region.
The cabal chattered on, but Cian didn’t pay them any heed. The night’s events had revealed something very important and he wanted to use it to his advantage. Raising his eyes, he saw Amaliya staring at him with curiosity. They were more connected than ever, intertwined in a way that was thrilling and comforting. She settled back in her seat, flashed a grin, and played with her pack of cigarettes on the table. Apparently, she had overheard his thoughts.
“It’s time to make a move,” Cian said at last, and the conversations around him fell silent.
Part Five
Trap
Chapter 19
November, 2012
Amaliya watched Samantha eating the hamburger and fries with a look of utter distaste on her face. It had been eight months since the vampire had eaten actual food and staring at it now did not make her miss it. It looked disgusting and smelled even worse. Yet Samantha happily dunked the potato spears into ketchup and wolfed down the juicy burger.
“That’s so fuckin’ gross,” Amaliya said at last, her lip curling with distaste.
“Look, bitch-face, you dragged me all the way to Waco, so the least you can do is let me eat my supper in peace, okay?” Samantha gave Amaliya wide, fake smile, then took an obscenely large bite of her burger.
“Do you have to eat it so...messily?”
Rolling her eyes, Samantha shoved another fry in her mouth.
Seated inside the Denny’s on the outskirts of Waco, Texas, the two women were awaiting the arrival of two emissaries from the vampires who ruled over Dallas and Houston. The restaurant was attached to a big truck stop that catered to the long distance drivers. A few weary-looking families were clustered around tables and a young teenage couple flirted outrageously in one corner. Two truckers sat at a corner table nursing cup after cup of steaming coffee.
Though it was Thanksgiving Day, there were already Christmas decorations on the walls. A year ago Amaliya would have been sitting in her father’s living room watching TV while recovering from a massive feast of fried turkey and all the traditional side dishes. This year she was steeped in the middle of vampire politics, a supernatural war, and considered dead to her family.
Tilting the brim of her black straw cowboy hat, Amaliya glanced out into the darkness filling the world beyond the windows of the restaurant. Her necromantic power slithered out of her, tasting the night. The dead tucked into the graveyards in the town stirred in their graves, but Amaliya left them to their rest. She didn’t sense any vampires lurking, but in the last few months she had learned that she wasn’t always able to detect supernatural creatures.
“Roberto says it’s all clear,” Samantha informed her. She dabbed the remains of her burger into a blob of ketchup before shoving it into her mouth.
The mere mention of the ghost Samantha used as her personal assistant brought a frown to Amaliya’s face. She didn’t like Roberto in life and definitely not in death.
Folding her arms on the table, the heavy studded leather bracers on Amaliya’s wrists clunked against the surface. “Tell him he better keep an eye out for black witches. We don’t need to get jumped by them again.”
“He heard you. He’s not deaf,” Samantha reminded Amaliya. “You know, I can make it so you can see him.”
“I have an idea. Why don’t you touch him and make him solid so I can punch him in the face a few times.” Amaliya flashed a wide smile.
The blonde flinched a few seconds after Amaliya’s comment.
“Did he just say something?” Amaliya demanded.
“Kinda.” Samantha made a big show of drinking her soda.