We were weaning her off the cream, sugar, cinnamon, and sage drink that had made up the bulk of her diet until recently. The book on woodland gargoyles said she was ready for her secondary food stage—ground meat with herbs and vegetables twice a day, and the drink—which simulated mother gargoyle milk—once a day. Eventually, we’d bring her mice to hunt and teach her how to fend for herself.
Iris offered Maggie the lamb again. This time, the calico fuzzball scooped up a handful of the ground meat mixture but instead of eating it, she sent it sailing my direction, hitting me square in the face.
“Thank you,” I said, grimacing as Iris handed me a towel. I wiped the meat off my face. “Trolls on a stick, why don’t we just give her the bowl of cream? We can’t let her go hungry, and it’s obvious she’s not going to eat her dinner tonight.”
“No,” Camille broke in. “She’ll be perfectly fine if she misses one meal, and she has to learn how to eat meat. She needs it to support those growing bones and wings. She can just go without her dinner tonight.”
Iris sighed. “You’re right. I’m going to take her into my bedroom and put her down for the night.”
As Iris left the room with the wailing Maggie, Camille and I sat down at the kitchen table. “Where were we?” she asked.
“You were going to tell me about this Harold fellow mentioned in the diary. Do you think he had anything to do with the elf boyfriend?”
“Oh, that’s right! No, not in any way, shape, or form. Harish, her boyfriend, is apparently over here on a long-term assignment for Queen Asteria. He’s a technomage learning all he can about Earthside technology so he can take the information home and find a way to make it mesh with the elfin magic.”
“You think he’s still around?” I leaned my elbows on the table and reached out to play with one of the toothpicks sitting in a crystal container.
“I can find out.” Delilah poked her head into the kitchen from the hallway. She slipped in and opened the refrigerator, pouring herself a glass of milk and slicing off a piece of apple pie. “Sorry about that back there,” she said with a grin. “Your head’s just a whirlwind of temptation to a cat, you know.”
Camille pulled out a chair for her. “Yeah, we know.”
“As I said, Tim and I can comb the Supe Community rolls and see if we find any mention of a male elf named Harish. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes using the search function.”
“Good idea,” Camille said. “If that fails, we’ll ask Morgaine if she knows of any. The Triple Threat keep an active eye on the local OW elf and Fae population.”
Delilah let out a snort so loud that milk sprayed out of her nose. “One of these days they’re going to whip your butt for that. And you’re not gonna be able to grovel low enough or fast enough.”
Some time back, Camille had begun referring to the three Queens of Earthside Fae as the Triple Threat. So far, Titania, Aeval, and Morgaine hadn’t caught wind of it.
“Eh, if they do, Camille can just send a lightning bolt their way using the horn of the Black Unicorn. That’ll fry them,” I said, slapping the table. “Come on, time’s wasting. I don’t have long during the summer, so let’s get busy.”
Just then, Iris reappeared. “She’s down for the night. I hope.” She glanced at the clock. “I’ve got a date tonight, so I won’t be home to watch her.”
“Bruce?” Camille asked.
“Oh yes, he’ll be here in an hour or so.”
I cleared my throat. “You really like Bruce, don’t you?”
She blushed. “Yes, I do. He might be a leprechaun, but he’s a good soul. Even if he does have too much blarney in him. We’re celebrating tonight.”
“What, did a new beer come out?” I liked Bruce, but I had to admit, I wasn’t all that happy that Iris had a life on the side. If she ever decided to run off and get married, I didn’t know what we’d do.
Iris flashed me a withering stare as she finished putting the dishes in the dishwasher. “No. And don’t you go being so snide about my boyfriend. Bruce got hired on by the University of Washington. He’ll be teaching Irish history and Celtic mythology. It’s temporary—one semester only, starting in the fall. Their usual professor is taking a mini sabbatical to have a baby.”
Delilah swallowed the last of her pie. “You think you can be a little nicer to the guy? He’s a sweetheart, and funny as hell.”
“I get it, I get it,” I said. “And I’m sorry. I just keep thinking you’re going to elope and move out. And trust me, none of us want that.”
With a laugh as clear as a mountain stream, Iris shook her head. “Oh my stars, is that why you always ignore Bruce? He thought you didn’t like his kind! Menolly, you most of all should know that you girls are my family now. If Bruce and I get married, we’ll just have to build a little cottage out back and live here. I’m pledged to fight at your side in this war against Shadow Wing. I won’t let you down.”
Touched by her loyalty, I felt like a heel. “I’m sorry. Truly. Please, give Bruce my apologies. Go out and celebrate. We’ll find a babysitter for Maggie.”At that moment, the polished spikes of quartz that formed a circle on a side table began to glow. It let out a loud hum that made me cringe, it was so grating. Camille’s wards had been breached. An intruder was on the land—one who wasn’t looking out for our best interests.
“Shit, we’ve got trouble,” Delilah said.
“Oh for Pete’s sake. This would happen now, just when I need to get ready,” Iris muttered, glaring at the crystals. She yanked off her apron.
Camille jumped up. “Who’s going out to check? Morio and Smoky are both out, and I have no idea where Roz and Vanzir disappeared to.
“You wait here, we’ll let you know if we need you. I’ll go first,” I said, “since I can move silently. Kitten, you want to shadow me in cat form?”
As I made for the door, Delilah quickly shifted form and padded along behind me. Camille headed into the living room to grab her silver dagger, along with Delilah’s, and stand ready. Iris took off for her bedroom to sit with Maggie.
I softly opened the back door, leaning out into the warm night. The stars were glowing overhead, and the Moon was still visible in the sky, waxing and golden. The trees swayed in the lazy breeze, their dark silhouettes fluttering against the indigo sky. I listened, letting the night flow around me, sorting out what was normal and what didn’t belong.
Our home was an old Victorian, three stories high, not including my basement lair, on a patch of acreage in the Belles-Faire District of Seattle. Our property was wild and overgrown, and a path through the woods led down to Birchwater Pond, where we held midnight rituals and sunrise rites on the holy days. The house proper was in an open patch, with a few huge shade trees around it, and gardens dotted the large meadow-like yard: Camille’s herb garden, Iris’s kitchen garden, and several heady flower gardens that I could never view under the light to see the true color of the blooms.
As I stood there, waiting, a noise caught my attention. Barely audible at first, it grew as we waited. It was coming from the path leading to the pond, and I slipped down the steps and through the shadows, heading in its direction. Delilah followed me in her cat form, blending into the low-growing bushes so well that the only way I knew she was there was by the heat coming off her body.
I wove through the yard, wishing that my ability to turn into a bat was in full order, but I hadn’t mastered it yet, no matter how hard I tried. Once I was in the air in the mouse-angel form, I tended to waver and get caught on the updrafts and gusts that swept by. The power was more of a hindrance than anything.
As I approached the trail mouth leading into the trees, the noise took on shape and form. A rustling of leaves, the sound of gnashing teeth. One with the trees, I passed like a shadow myself, barely grazing the ground as I hurried along.
The noise grew; it veered to my right, off of the path in the forest proper. I gauged the undergrowth. Vampire or not, I could still break twigs and limbs if I stepped on them wrong. I leapt up to one of the firs, clinging to the trunk. I’d been an acrobat when I was alive—a spy who could cling to ceilings, who could find any foothold in the wall as long as my human heritage didn’t kick in and send me sliding to the ground below. Most of the time, it worked. The one time I needed it to work, it didn’t, which was why I was a vampire now. But becoming vampyr had honed my skills.
I slipped from trunk to trunk, easily skimming along branches, leaping from tree to tree. The woods here were tightly interwoven, the trees grew close to one another, and it was easy for me to make my way toward the noise while avoiding the forest floor.
A clearing ahead promised to reveal what had broken through the wards. Or at least I hoped I was on the right track and not just chasing down Speedo, the neighborhood basset hound. As I clung to one of the giant cedars that overlooked the grassy opening, my worries about being on the wrong path vanished. But what I saw wasn’t what I hoped for.
In the clearing, leaning over a log, was a squat, short man. His skin was leathery, the color of old mold, and it sagged in folds on his face. His face was covered with carbuncles and pasty white nodules that threatened to burst with every motion his jaw made. He was chewing on something, and as I squinted, narrowing my focus to get a better look, I realized there was a dead possum on the tree trunk. Mr. Ugly was ripping at the slippery flesh with jagged teeth, broken and yellow.
A ghoul. My stomach turned. We had a ghoul on the property. Which meant that somewhere near here there had to be a necromancer raising the dead. Not exactly the most desirable neighbor we could hope for.
Ghouls were tricky. If you didn’t destroy them entirely, they’d keep fighting until they were so much mush. Fire was good, but I didn’t use fire. I could knock him down in seconds flat, but until we found a way to permanently put him on disable, whatever was left would just keep coming at us. And worse, the necromancer would be able to track his abomination to our land.
I glanced down. Delilah was hiding in the bushes below, staring at the ghoul intently. She glanced up at me. I slowly shimmied down the tree, making certain not to attract the ghoul’s attention.
“Delilah,” I whispered, so low I wasn’t sure she’d picked up on it till she nodded her head. “Go back and tell Camille and Iris we have a ghoul out here. Camille should bring the horn—if she still has firepower in it. We need to fully burn every piece of this creepshow once we take him down. I’m going to stay and keep an eye on him. Maybe try to pin him.”
Again, she bobbed her head, then took off toward the house. I turned my attention back to the ghoul. Play time, I thought, as the sickening sound of his jaws ripping at the possum’s sinews bombarded my ears. My hearing was exceptionally keen, and I could tune out noises when I wanted, but right now I had to keep myself alert and focused.
I gauged the distance between us, then gathered myself and sprang. The ghoul didn’t hear me until I landed about two feet behind him. He jerked up his head as I arced my leg to the side and whipped it across his back, sending him sprawling as well as leaving a nasty cut from the heel of my boot. Granny boots were handy in more ways than one, I thought, especially high-heeled granny boots.
The ghoul grunted—most couldn’t talk, let alone scream—as he lurched forward over the trunk and landed square atop the possum’s corpse. I couldn’t really kill him. He was already dead. But maybe I could knock him out of commission till Camille got her butt out here with that unicorn horn.
He started to get up again. Ghouls, like zombies, would keep on going and going, until they were destroyed. Kind of like a demented Energizer Bunny. However, the real problem with ghouls was that, unlike zombies, they still had some sort of reasoning going on in their heads. They weren’t brilliant, but they were aware enough to take orders. I wasn’t sure what caused the distinction—it had to be some twist to the magic used to raise them—but there it was. This dude wasn’t just going to be a pile of shambling flesh.
As he pushed himself to his feet, I kicked him in the backside again and landed atop him, grimacing at the smell that wafted up. Overripe, by about a year, I’d guess. I grabbed hold of his head and twisted, breaking his neck. It wouldn’t kill him, but the more limbs I could disable, the harder it would be for him to attack us. And then it hit me—he’d still function without a head, but he wouldn’t be able to see us. Or at least it should work that way.
I twisted, hard, not wanting to have to use my teeth to sever the flesh, but if need be, I’d do it. I was stronger than he was, by a long shot, so even though it might take a little while, I could rip him apart, limb from limb.
Unfortunately, as I was focused on carving up our new friend, I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on behind me. A hefty kick to my back knocked me off balance.
I went down but immediately tucked and rolled, flipping onto my feet again à la Bruce Lee. As I whirled around, I found myself staring into the face of a tall man wearing a leather jacket. He was sporting a bushy head of hair down to his shoulders, and an even bushier beard. Think ZZ Top, only muscle-bound and not so friendly looking.
Fangs extended, eyes crimson and burning, I dropped into fighting stance, ready to take him out.
He smiled softly and pulled out a long wooden stake, pointing it directly at me. “You really want to take me on? Fight me, and I’ll dust you so fast you won’t have time to blink those beautiful bloody eyes of yours. Now, step away from the ghoul, or you’ll find yourself a pretty shish kebab. Your choice. What’s it going to be?”