A long moment later he said. “We have to go after them. Today. Before they need to feed again.”
“Why not just seal them up in the mine till tomorrow after dawn,” I said, turning into my driveway, steering carefully around the tricycle and set of child-sized bongos left there. “Go in fresh, with enough weaponry and men to overpower them. The vamps would be weak, hungry, and apt to make mistakes.”
“Good Golly, Miss Molly,” he said, his face transforming with a grin at the chance to use the old lyrics. I rolled my eyes. “We could, couldn’t we? Where was my brain?”
“Thinking about dead kids,” I said softly as I pulled to a stop. “I, on the other hand, had forty-two minutes to do nothing but think. All you need is a set of plans for the mine to make sure you seal over all the entrances. Set a guard with crosses and stakes at each one. That way you go in on your terms, not theirs.”
“I think I love you.”
“Stop with the lyrics. Go make police plans.”
Unfortunately, the vamps got out that night, through an entrance not on the owner’s maps. They killed four of the police guarding other entrances. And then they went hunting. This time, they struck close to home. Just after dawn, Brax woke me, standing at the front door, his face full of misery. Carmen Miranda Everhart Newton, air witch, newly married and pregnant, and her husband, had been attacked in their home. Tommy Newton was dead. My little sister was missing and presumed dead.
The attention of the national media had been snared, and more news vans rolled into town, one setting up in the parking lot of the shop. Paralyzed by fear, my sisters closed everything down and gathered at my house to discuss options, to grieve, and to make halfhearted funeral plans.
I spent the day and the early evening hugging my children, watching TV news about the “vampire crisis,” and devising offensive and defensive charms, making paper airplanes out of spells that didn’t work and flying them across the room, to the delight of my babies and my four human nieces and nephews. I had to come up with something. Something that would offer protection to the person who went underground to avenge my sister.
Jane sat to the side, her cowboy boots, jeans, and T-shirt contrasting with the peasant tops, patchwork skirts, and hemp sandals worn by my sisters and me. She didn’t say much, just drank tea and ate whatever was offered. Near dusk, she came to me and said softly, “I need a ride. To the mine.”
I looked at her, grief holding my mouth shut, making it hard to breathe.
“I need some steak, or a roast. You have one frozen in the freezer in the garage. I looked. You thaw it in the microwave, leave your car door open. I shift out back, get in, and hunker down. You make an excuse, drive me to the mine, and get back with a gallon of milk or something.”
“Why?” I asked. “I don’t understand.”
Her eyes glowing a tawny yellow, Jane looked like a predator, ready to hunt. Excited by the thought. “I don’t smell like a human. The older one won’t be expecting me. I can go in, find where they’re hiding, see if your sister is alive, and get back. Then we can make a plan.”
Hope spiked in me like heated steel. “Why would the vampires keep her alive?” I asked. “And why would you go in there?”
“I told you. Witches smell different from humans. You smell, I don’t know, powerful. If he’s trying to build a blood-family, and if he has some ability to reason, the new bloodmaster might hold on to her. To try to turn her. It’s worth a shot.” Jane grinned, her beast rising in her. Bits of gray light hovered, dancing on her skin. “Besides. The governor and the vamp council of North Carolina just upped the bounty on the rogues to forty thou a head. I can use a quarter mil. And if you come up with a way to keep me safe down there, when I go in to hunt them down, I’ll share. You said you need to replace that rattletrap you drive.”
I put a hand to my mouth, holding in the sob that accompanied my sudden, hopeful tears. Unable to speak, I nodded. Jane went to get a roast.
I slept uneasily, waiting, hearing every creak, crack, and bump in the night. If we smelled differently from humans, would the vampires come after my family? My other sisters? Just after dawn, the phone rang. “Come and get me,” Jane said, her voice both excited and exhausted. “Carmen’s still alive.”
I called my sisters on my cell as I drove and told them to get over to my house fast. We had work to do. When I got back with Jane, my kitchen had three witch sisters in it, each trying to brew coffee and tea, fry eggs, cook grits and oatmeal. Evan was glowering in the corner, his hair standing up in tousles, reading the newspaper on email and feeding Little Evan.
Jane pushed her way in, ignoring the babble of questions, and took the pot of oatmeal right off the stove, dumping in sugar and milk and digging in. She ate ten cups of hot oatmeal, two cups of sugar, and a quart of milk. It was the most oatmeal I had ever seen anyone eat in my life. Her belly bulged like a basketball. Then she took paper and pen and drew a map of the mine, talking. “No one’ll be going into the mine today. Count on it. The vamps killed four of the men watching the entrances, and the governor won’t justify sending anyone in until the National Guard gets here. Carmen is alive, here.” She drew an X. “Along with two teenage girls. The rogue master’s name is Adam and he has his faculties, enough to see to the feeding and care of his family, enough to make more scions. But if he dies, then the girls in his captivity are just another dinner to the rogues. So I have to take him down last. I need something like an immobility spell, or glue spell. But first, I need something to get me in close.”
“Obfuscation spell,” I said.
“No one’s succeeded with that one in over five hundred years,” Evangelina said, ever the skeptic.
“Maybe that’s because we never tried,” Boadacia said.
Elizabeth looked at her twin, challenge sparkling in her eyes. “Let’s.”
“But according to the histories, a witch has to be present to initialize it and to keep it running. No human can do it,” Evangelina said.
“I’ll go in with her,” Evan said.
My sisters turned to him. The sudden silence was deafening. Little Evan took that moment to bang on his high chair and shout, “Milk, milk, milk, milk!”
“It would have to be an earth witch,” Evangelina said slowly. “You’re an air sorcerer. You can’t make it work, either.” As one, they all turned to look at me. I was the only earth witch in the group.
“No,” Evan said. “No way.”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s the only way.”
At four in the afternoon, my sisters and Evan and I were standing in front of the mine. Jane was geared up in her vamp-hunting gear: a chain-mail collar, leather pants, metal-studded leather coat over a chain vest, a huge gun with an open stock, like a Star Wars shotgun. Silvered knives were strapped to her thighs, in her boots, along her forearms; studs in her gloves; two handguns were holstered at her waist, under her coat; her long hair was braided and tied down. A dozen crosses hung around her neck. Stakes were twisted in her hair like hairsticks.
I was wearing jeans, sweaters, and Evangelina’s faux leather coat. As vegetarians, my sisters didn’t own leather, and I couldn’t afford it. I carried twelve stakes, extra flashlight, medical supplies, ammunition, and five charms: two healing charms, one walking-away charm, one empowerment, and one obfuscation.
Evan was similarly dressed, refusing to be left behind, loaded down with talismans, charms, battery-powered lights, a machete, and a twenty-pound mallet, suitable for bashing in heads. It wouldn’t kill a vampire, but it would incapacitate one long enough to stake it and take its head. We were ready to go in when Brax drove up, got out, and sauntered over. He was dressed in SWAT team gear and guns. “What? You think I’d let civilians go after the rogues alone? Not gonna happen, people.”