Hunter's Trail

Jesse glanced at Scarlett, who appeared to be as confused as he was. Kirsten looked suddenly unsteady on her feet, her alabaster skin paling further. Hayne stepped up beside her with concern on his face, placing a hand gently on her arm. She seized it and hung on, tilting her head way up to see Hayne’s face.

“Bring them up, Teddy,” she said quietly. “Bring them up here and Scarlett can wake them. I swear on my craft that you won’t be blamed.”

There was a moment of silence in the living room, punctuated only by the sound of Will pacing back and forth in front of the patio door. Finally Hayne nodded. He turned on his heel and left the room.

They left a long, terrible silence in their wake, and then Scarlett let out a choking sound. “Scar?” Jesse asked, concerned. She made the sound again, and Jesse realized she was laughing. “What?”

She chortled. “His first name is Teddy?”

Chapter 27

It took me a little while to stop laughing, but only because of the law of inertia—once I started, it just seemed easier to keep going. Teddy. What a stupid name for such an enormous man.

Eventually I calmed down and remembered that Jesse and I still had no idea what was going on. The Luparii . . . that name jangled in my brain, and I closed my eyes, trying to remember. Olivia had been telling me stories about the European Old World. I opened my eyes and looked at Kirsten. “They’re the boogeymen for werewolves, right?” I asked Kirsten. My voice came out thin and sober.

“Something like that.” Kirsten looked suddenly tired. “I’ll tell you all about it, but it’ll be easiest if we wait for them,” she said firmly. I shrugged and went to sit down in one of Dashiell’s nice padded chairs.

Minutes ticked by. Part of me was ready to take a handful of Advil and go to sleep right there, but at the same time my stomach was thrashing around like a shark on a boat deck. Hayne may have been the one actually moving him, but I knew Dashiell was going to blame me for resurrecting him during the day. Besides, completely apart from the fact that I wasn’t supposed to wake him without permission, Dashiell hates being near me. I don’t blame him, really. If you spend a couple of centuries becoming the most powerful creature in a hundred square miles, the last thing you want to do is be near someone who can immediately relegate you to the bottom of the food chain, which is what humans are. He gets in my radius every once in a while just to prove he isn’t afraid, but he always looks twitchy when I’ve foisted humanity on him. And now I was going to do it without his permission or foreknowledge? It just seemed like the pickle on the crap sandwich of my week.

Hayne brought Beatrice and then Dashiell to the hallway outside the living room, and then called for Will to help. The werewolf went out and collected Beatrice’s limp form, and the two of them carried the vampires into the room, a sober procession that was only somewhat tempered by how ridiculous Dashiell looked in a fireman’s carry on Hayne’s shoulders.

When Hayne took the last step into my radius, Dashiell exploded with sudden life, taking in an enormous breath and struggling to disentangle himself from Hayne. Beatrice, right behind him, got her feet under her without much trouble, but Dashiell looked undignified and silly for a second, flailing around to get himself oriented without his usual vampire grace. And thanks to the world’s most reliably terrible luck, when he finally got his feet under him, the vampire was about six inches away from me with murder in his eye.

Before anyone could speak, Dashiell raised his palm to slap me—but Will had anticipated this and darted forward, grabbing his hand. “Stop,” he roared at the vampire, and Dashiell froze in surprise. I had never heard Will—or anyone, really—talk to Dashiell like that. “It’s not her fault; I made her,” Will said in a quieter tone. You know things are bad when the unhinged werewolf is the most reasonable person in the room.

Then Will added, very simply, “The Luparii are in town.”

The word hit Dashiell like a blow. He seemed to suddenly forget all about me as he turned around as fast as a human can, managing to arrive at Beatrice’s side just in time to catch his wife as she fainted dead away. No pun intended. Jesse looked at me with his mouth open.

So. That happened.

It took a few minutes, but Hayne got everyone seated and more or less calm. I stayed in my armchair, mostly because it was so overstuffed that I wasn’t sure I could get up by myself. Dashiell and Beatrice were on the adjoining sofa, which was still in my radius. Bea looked pale and shaky, and I suspected that she was only sitting upright because she was leaning on her husband. Will took the hard-backed chair on the other side of the sofa from me, and a wary Jesse had simply sunk down on the floor to my right. I knew he didn’t want to be too far from me in case everything went to hell again, but I didn’t exactly mind. Hayne brought in a chair for Kirsten, who set it between Will and Jesse so we formed a loose oval around the coffee table. Hayne stood guard at the door.

Between the Luparii and Beatrice fainting, Dashiell seemed to have forgotten he was furious with me—although every once in a while he shot me a suspicious look that I didn’t at all like.

When it seemed like we were more or less settled, I jumped in. “Olivia talked about the Luparii once,” I ventured. “I don’t remember her exact phrasing, but I had the impression that they were magical imaginary villains, something older werewolves used to scare new wolves into silence. Like the Loch Ness Monster or something.”

Will frowned at me from across the coffee table. “Oh, they’re very real, unfortunately. And technically they’re witches. A family of witches.”