Midnight Curse

Kirsten’s eyes widened. Dashiell was glowering at me, and although he wasn’t human at the moment, I could easily translate his expression. This better be worth it, or you’re dead. I just hoped he didn’t mean that literally.

Dashiell rose from his chair and turned to address the restless audience. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, in a tone that left absolutely no room for argument or complaint, “there is a matter which requires my immediate attention. We will take our break early, and resume in ten minutes.”

A rustle of dissatisfaction ran through the crowd, but no one dared contradict Dashiell in any direct way. The vampire leader strode across the stage toward me, and Kirsten and Will followed.

Five minutes later, the five of us were congregated in the same soundproofed dressing room where Kirsten had prepared her spell materials. Dashiell was fixing a laserlike stare on Jesse, as if he might x-ray him and see the truth. “You’re saying they took Hayne, who’s still alive, but you don’t know how to find him. Do I have that right?”

Jesse nodded. He’d already explained stealing the witch bags and his difficult trip through the wards and the guards. The vampire at the front door had recognized Jesse from a previous trip to Dashiell’s house—three years isn’t much in undead time—but the werewolf had tried to restrain him physically, hence the torn pant leg. Jesse claimed the wolf didn’t break skin, but he’d also been smart enough to steal one of the witch bags that protected the wearer from werewolf infection. Of course, now that he was close to me, all his protections had shorted out. I had already decided not to let him out of my sight while we were at the theater.

“The only thing I can’t figure out is, why Hayne?” Jesse continued. “In theory, Hayne could let this guy into the mansion, but you and Beatrice are both here, so what could he hope to gain? And it’s not like you’d trade Hayne for Katia, right, because he’s just a human.” Jesse seemed to hear how shitty that sounded, because he winced. “I can’t believe I just said that—uh, Kirsten?”

I looked at the head witch. Her lips were pressed in a tight line, but her skin had gone red and fat tears were rolling down her face. She was practically shaking with the effort to keep it together, and I could feel her magic flex involuntarily inside my radius.

Jesse shot me an uncertain look. “Hayne and Kirsten are more or less back together,” I muttered under my breath. “They don’t live together, but they have a toddler.”

“Oh. Oh,” Jesse looked exactly like I’d elbowed him in the stomach. “I’m so, so sorry, Kirsten. I didn’t mean to sound so crass—”

She lifted a hand, cutting off his apology, but she couldn’t handle speaking yet.

Will was looking at Dashiell. “Would we?” he asked quietly. “Would we trade this boundary witch to get Theo back?”

“We would undoubtedly pretend that we were willing to exchange the hostages, in order to get close to this vampire,” Dashiell said without hesitating. “Which is why he won’t ask for a trade, especially considering how much we outnumber him.”

Jesse blew out a breath, frustrated. “Well, unless he’s just trying to kick us in the nuts, I’m right back to having no idea why he took Hayne. Um, Theo,” he added, with a glance at Kirsten.

When it hit me, I stupidly clapped a hand over my mouth, because it was so fucking obvious and yet I didn’t want to be true. They all turned to look at me.

“Scar?” Jesse asked.

“I know why,” I whispered, forcing myself to put my hand down. “They don’t want Hayne. They want Molly.”

Chapter 31

The four of them erupted into discussion, or questions, or something, but I wasn’t listening. My thoughts were racing.

This had always been about Molly, really. Count Asshat had wanted to frame her, turn her friends into vampires, and watch her be killed by her own community, preferably in that order. I’d thrown a wrench in his plans by showing up at Molly’s last night. Now, to make sure his original plan succeeded, the Count would make it look like Molly had broken out of Dashiell’s mansion and disappeared.

It would be a disaster in so many ways. The whole Old World would think Dashiell had been in on it, because how else could anyone sneak out through his security system? They’d definitely believe I was involved. Faith in the Old World leaders, and the Vampire Trials themselves, would be completely destabilized.

And, of course, Count Asshat would kill Molly.

But only if he could get in. Would Hayne really give up the code to the gate, and show Count Asshat and his thugs how to dismantle Dashiell’s wards? I just couldn’t see that happening, even if the vampire pressed Hayne. I’d always heard you couldn’t press a human to go against their core self, and Hayne’s loyalty to Dashiell ran as deep as his blood. Maybe if the bad guys had Kirsten or Ophelia, their daughter, at gunpoint, but Ophelia was on a weeklong trip to Sweden with Kirsten’s cousin Runa. The arrangements had been made months ago to make sure Kirsten would have time to concentrate on the Trials. I seriously doubted Count Asshat had found a way to abduct Ophelia from the Swedish witch clan.

“Abigail,” I said out loud, and the others stopped talking. Whoops. Thinking with my mouth again; never a good idea. “That’s how they’ll do it,” I said to the others. “Abigail’s on duty tonight, right? They’ll stand at the gate with a gun to Hayne’s head until Abigail lets them in.”

Kirsten’s already-pale face went a shade whiter. “Will she?” she whispered.

“Yes,” Dashiell said shortly. “The security people would only sacrifice their lives for either Beatrice or me. Abigail knows that. She’ll trade Molly for her brother.”

Suddenly I didn’t feel like calling him Count Asshat anymore. “Call Abigail,” I said to Dashiell, but he was already touching the screen of his phone.

“No reception,” he said, annoyed. At one point, the lack of cell phone service in the theater had seemed like a huge benefit to the Trials—we’d figured it would be an excellent way of keeping the proceedings quiet and orderly. But now I would have given an awful lot of money for us to be doing this anywhere else.

“There’s a landline!” Kirsten said, already spinning, her skirts swirling around her, toward one of the makeup stations. I hadn’t even noticed the small filing cabinet sitting unobtrusively under the counter. Kirsten yanked open the drawer and pulled out a dial telephone that had probably been designed in the 1990s. There was a long cord attached to it, and a phone jack next to the filing cabinet. “I saw it when I was looking around,” Kirsten added, dropping to her knees to plug in the cord. Her usually nimble fingers were trembling. Jesse took a step toward her to help, but she got it plugged in and began to dial. Her back was to us, and I squirmed from the suspense. “What about the Trials?” I asked Dashiell quietly. “Do we cancel tonight?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but Jesse spoke first. “If you do, they will know for sure you’re on to them,” he said.

“How?” Will asked.

“They got Frederic to join them, by pressing him or just corrupting him,” Jesse reminded us. “They could have gotten to any other vampire before we got Katia. They must have a spy here.”

I thought of the swollen crowd. There were plenty of Old World people present, and we hadn’t exactly made sure every one of them had an LA County address. I didn’t think the Count was actually in the building—he would need to communicate with the MC guys who had Hayne, and there was the bad reception working for us again—but Katia might have pressed anyone into service, pun intended, before we’d captured her.

Dashiell’s eyes were locked with Jesse’s, which would have been really scary if he hadn’t been human at the moment. “He’s right,” Dashiell said, his voice heavy.

“Abby, slow down!” came Kirsten’s voice from the corner.

The four of us turned to look. Will and Dashiell’s faces had taken on the grave stoicism of someone expecting bad news, but I was a female, and therefore didn’t need to project emotional fortitude if I didn’t feel like it. I rushed over to Kirsten and crouched down. Her eyes met mine, and they were wild. I felt her magic push against me again, and although it wasn’t actually a physical force, I was almost knocked on my ass from the strength of it. “Is he alive?” Kirsten said into the phone. Her knuckles were white where she held the handset.