Shadow Rites

Big Evan was upstairs, arguing with Alex about research. The Kid’s room had become a library filled with things we borrowed from the sub-four storage at HQ. Journals, newspapers, letters, diaries, vamp and human histories that were being scanned and, where possible, automatically added to our ever-growing database. I could smell the Kid’s frustration from here. He wasn’t used to anyone butting in on his methods or trying to change his organization. Currently he was updating info on the Mings, specifically chronicling their vamp connections through the last hundred years, hoping to find a clue on who might have taken Ming of Mearkanis. From the snippets of conversation, Evan wanted him to concentrate on the witch aspect, and right now, not later.

I transferred my attention to Eli and said softly, “Now, why do you think Molly would be so agreeable and then walk off like that?”

Eli chuckled, the sound grim and admiring all at once. “So she can declare innocence when we do this thing. So she can lay the blame cleanly at your feet and Big Evan can get mad at you, and you can find a way to make it work without her being at fault.”

I swiveled my head, watching my BFF scooch onto the couch between her kids. “Dang. Molly’s sneaky. And maybe a genius.”

“Sylvia assures me that all women are geniuses that way. Except you. She says you ‘think like a man and don’t give a good damn who you piss off,’ ’scuse the language. Mostly she’s right.”

I was pretty sure the quote was an insult. “I think like a cat, not a man,” I said, but otherwise she had me to a tee.

Eli’s cell made a burbling sound. He flipped the Kevlar cover open and said, “A text from Edmund Hartley.” He chuckled as he read. “He’s delivered all his unused furniture from his room at headquarters to a storage unit.” Eli glanced up from his cell, “According to Alex, Edmund actually owns the storage unit facility, and he personally has access to ten units. Alex thinks they’re full of stuff left over from being a clan Blood Master. Or weapons of mass destruction. Or dead bodies in fifty-five-gallon drums. Or gold bars. My brother has an imaginative and warped mind.” He went back to the texts. “Edmund is on the way here. He wants to know where to park his vehicle.”

From the street, I heard the high-pitched roar of a four-cylinder car. To a road enthusiast, most four-cylinder vehicles sound like vacuum cleaners, but this one sounded different. Powerful. I stood to look out the window and saw a bronze-poly-toned sports speedster gleaming in the dark and the streetlamps, a car to rival my Harley Bitsa for style, design, and sheer kick-ass-ity. “What is that?” I breathed.

“That,” Alex shouted down the stairs, “is Edmund’s Thunderbird Maserati 150 GT. It’s one of the few 1957 prototypes still in existence.” He smacked down the stairs in his flip-flops and out the side door. The rest of us followed to see him throw open the side gate to the tiny alley between my house and the one next door and rush into the street. “Yes!” He pumped his fist. “That is a one-of-a-kind car called a little rocket because of its incredible power-to-weight ratio. One like it fetched more than three million at auction a few years back.”

“Three mil? I thought Edmund was broke.”

“Methinks Eddie lied,” Eli said.

“Is that Brute in the passenger seat?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Alex shouted over the sound of the engine echoing off the narrow walls as the little rocket eased into the tight alley and into the side yard, between the barbecue grill and the brick wall. “Ed’s bringing Brute. Leo kicked him out of HQ for reasons unknown. I’m guessing the werewolf peed in his shoes or ate his Barcalounger.”

“This is getting ridiculous,” I said. I felt an itch between my shoulder blades, as if someone had a laser scope on me, a high-powered rifle aimed at a kill site. I was breathing too fast, heart beating too fast. Crap, crap, crap. I didn’t like this at all.

Too many people in our den, Beast thought, panting hard. Shift into big-cat and run. We find new den. Alone.

The car went silent and Alex said, “Can I drive your car, dude?”

“No,” Edmund said as he stepped from the Maserati 150 GT. The three-hundred-pound white werewolf leaped from the passenger seat and landed on the ground with a faint grunt as Edmund closed the door. The car door met the body of the car with that distinctive dead sound of the perfectly machined, airtight work of art. Edmund said, “Only my mistress-to-be may drive my car.”

Inside me, Beast stopped panting, her dread stopped in its tracks. Her ears pricked up, her attention moving from the wolf to the two-seater. Hunt cow in car. Fast car. Faster than cow. Faster than stinky dog-wolf. Car has no head. Can leap from car to cow. Want to hunt!

“Edmund,” I said, resisting the lure of the sportster. “You will be keeping Brute with you. You both will be sleeping in the weapons room. There is one bed. There is no room for your clothes or your belongings. And I don’t care, so don’t bitch at me about it. The only entrance to your room, available to you, is under the house.” Edmund’s eyes flared, the white sclera going scarlet, though his pupils stayed almost human small and his fangs didn’t snap down. “Right,” I said, stepping closer until my arm shoved against his. I towered over him. “Understand me, fanghead,” I said, prodding, pushing. “You and the wolf will not be sleeping in the house with my godchildren.”

“Isn’t that racial and species profiling?” Edmund asked, deliberately goading back.