Three things happened all at once.
My hands were jerked from Evander's neck—and my arms were nearly jerked free from their sockets--by Ace and a vampire that could only be Ace Junior.
A slight, older, wiry vampire forced himself between Evander and me. There was no need for his intervention because of the third thing—or rather, the first thing—that had happened:
Before any of the three vampires had stepped in, Evander had already changed his mind about killing me. The instant he bit down, he'd gasped, stilled, and released me—much more delicately than he'd attacked.
Now he was completely ignoring the slight vampire holding him off as he smeared a drop of blood on his lips. He looked shocked, in the same way, Abraham had looked shocked when he had tasted my blood. All the color he had gained by feeding on the goblin drained from his face, and I didn't think it had anything to do with his vampiric curse.
"What in the name of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are ya, woman?" he exclaimed.
"I'm your worse fucking nightmare because you bit me, you evil, bloody bastard! I will curse you to hell and back!" I yelled, struggling against the two vampires that were very nearly pulling me apart. "Get off me!" I yelled at them, digging my venomous nails into their wrists and stinging them.
"Ow," Ace Junior dead-panned. He sneered at me and then changed to a falsely cheerful tone. "I'll break your fucking hand for that, and then I'll break your fucking neck for Orla."
He ripped my fingers from his wrist and squeezed. I screamed as bones ground against one another.
The speed at which Evander put twenty feet between me and Ace Junior wasn't movement my eyes couldn't follow. I was still screaming in pain when Evander threw Junior into a tree and let loose a full-throated, multi-syllable panther roar of dominance.
That noise stopped my bellowing, but not my struggling. Ace looked down at my hand, cursed, and released me. Very low in my ear, he said, "Stay still, be quiet, and try not to confuse Evander any more than you have. If my brother kills my son over you, it's going to be a very bad night for us all."
In fact, Evander and Ace's son were tussling now. Junior was clearly the bad boy of the vampires. Vigorous and muscular and lively in a way that vampires just weren't, he had a spirit of rebellious youth that the others lacked. He succeeded in shoving Evander off as he growled back. "Have you been at the shine, or are you losing your damn mysterious mind, Father Time?"
"Maybe," was all Evander said. He didn't attack the younger vampire again, but he kept a hand grasping Junior's shirt front. He looked at me, his eyes burning, his fangs tipped in my blood. He shook his head, rattled Junior a bit more, then looked at me again. Wild and confused, as if he felt compelled to stand between us and had no idea why.
He focused his attention on the poor dead girl. After some long moments of silence, he released Ace's son and moved to stand over her body.
"Orla, darling of two tribes. There's no prayer I can say for you that will be heard from the lips of a vampire. I'll leave it your father's people to give your their pagan rites, and to your mother to pray for your soul."
Despite what he said, I think he did pray in some way, for he bowed his head for a long moment. When he raised his face, it was impossibly composed, considering that his bloody fangs still showed when he spoke.
"Did anyone know that the child was here in Sanguine Springs?"
When no one answered, Evander said, "Thacker, go back to the resort and tell your father what has happened, but tell no one else. The two of you will discreetly find out why Orla happens to be here. If her mother is also here, take Eloise to my cabin, but say nothing of why. Say only that I want to speak with her. Troy, go to the cabin now. Tavish is there. He's himself again, but he should not be left alone. Play cards with him, but do not speak of this."
The two lads rose without words, but they gave each other uncertain glances.
"Resort," Evander growled, pointing southeast. "Cabin." He pointed northeast. They shuffled off in their assigned directions, peeling back the forest, disappearing almost immediately. Moonlight did not allow for far sight beneath such a thick canopy.
"It's a wonder those eejits have survived to manhood," Ace said when they were out of hearing. "If a paved road doesn't point where they're going with big bold signs they can't navigate to save their lives."
"Not true, Da. If the place is a well-stocked speak filled with tomatoes, they can sniff it out quicker than you can," his son laughed.
"Tomatoes?" Geordie asked the question I was wondering myself, but mostly I was wondering if I could safely take those pain pills Doc Jesse had left me because my broken finger hurt worse than the werewolf wounds.
"Bonnie lasses with little to no brains," Ace Junior explained.
"Ah," Geordie nodded. "This language today, I don't comprehend half—"
"How dare you!" Evander cut the other vampire off and turned to Ace's son, but pointed a finger at me. "How dare you lay hands on that girl who I told ya was under my protection until I got to the bottom of her appearance."
Darrow looked honestly confused. He shrugged. "You said she killed Orla. I heard the words from your lips. Now you're behaving like you've bled her and bedded her. I'm sorry, Evander, but I'm having trouble keeping up with your mood swings where this witch is concerned."
"I see. Tell me Darrow, shall I end your troubles for you altogether, then?" Evander's words were ice cold, the most chilling I'd heard him speak to anyone.
"Evander, calm yourself, she's not hurt one bit," Ace said.
Never one to take orders, I immediately ignored Ace's order to be quiet and calmly enumerated my grievances. "The fuck you say. Vampire bites and broken fingers hurt quite a bit, actually." I held out my hand, then waved it at the bite on my neck. "I really hate all you godsdamned vampires, you know?" I really did. I was lousy with pain and fatigue.
Evander's response was to shove Junior again. Hard. Green leaves showered down all around us, such was the force. "You actually broke her hand!?!"
"Aye, and you bit her neck! I was just following your violent example, Father," came the angry reply.
"Will you stop carrying on so, the two of ya! And over a fecking witch, too!" Ace had his Irish up now, as he shouted at his brother and his son.
"Evander!" The slight and older vampire barked. "Use your brain. Darrow can be no threat to her, if you say he can not. Jesus, man, what's gotten into you?"
Evander hissed at his brother and the older vampire for speaking out of turn, but he grew solemn again as he addressed Ace's son. Or his own vampire son. Whatever. "You will not harm this woman, this witch I have taken in. You will not touch her without my permission unless it is necessary to protect her. It is my will, Darrow Livingstone, Son of my Curse, War Chief of my Sept."
Evander released him, a little forcefully, but he held Darrow's gaze against the younger vampire's will.
Darrow sighed dramatically, but he bowed. "And now it is my mandate, Maker of my Immortal Life, Lord of my Sept." Then he stepped back.
"Where did you guys learn to talk like that? From a penny dreadful?"
Evander whipped his glittering, onyx eyes onto me, and that's when I realized I had said that out loud.
Oopsie...
Suddenly Evander became the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. He didn't sparkle but his skin glowed like an angel's. I felt like I was falling asleep with eyes open, and the vampire entirely filled my waking dream. I had been wrong, it hadn't hurt when he bit me, it felt wonderful. In fact, it had removed all pain. He should finish what he began...
I took a step, and then he closed his eyes, shook his head, and the dream evaporated.
Evander snapped back sharply into focus exactly how he was......angry, blood-soaked, barely in control of his monster.
I was back in reality, too. And reality hurt. My crooked pinkie screamed in pain again. It was difficult to tell if the punctures from the vampire bite or the neck strain from the goblin's shaking hurt worse because I was a throbbing mess between my head and my shoulders.
With his eyes still closed and a coarse, gravel anger in his voice, he said, "Advice, Miss Dunne: Do not look directly at a vampire while smarting off. You're likely to get the sharp end of his temper and his teeth that way."
"Did you just enthrall me but claim it's my own fault?" I popped back, careful to stare at his blood-soaked shirt instead of his face.
"Jesus Christ, witch, you have no sense of self-preservation at all, do you?' Just like Ace, Evander had his Irish up now. "You'd argue with me even as I drained you to your last dirty drop."
"Probably," I admitted.
There was a long awkward pause. I had killed most of the nearby insects so there was little background noise to mask three vampires trying very hard not to laugh and a fourth straining against his impulse to savage me.
I decided it would be best to wait until spoken to, to speak again.
He opened his eyes but I didn't risk checking to see if the glittery magic was gone. "You've yet to answer my question. What are you?"
"I'm a gray witch, I told you this."
He shook his head. "You are not just a witch. Your blood is dirty...but beneath...I've tasted blood like that before. You'll tell me what you are. You owe me that. You've cost me one I love."
I looked over at the dead girl. It was very hard to look upon one so young, so destroyed. I wondered if Troy and Thacker had ever seen death before. I was glad they did not see what I could almost see. There was a shimmery glamour upon the girl, and I was very afraid that I knew why. I didn't think the vampires could see beneath it either because none of them look horrified.
Then again, it probably took quite a lot to horrify a vampire.
"Answer me," Evander demanded.
I sighed and began my disclosure again. "I am a witch. Possibly a more powerful witch than some. My power grows as I age, though I have never killed fowl, beast, nor man to increase it. I swear to you, I did not kill this girl, Evander. I was just the same sort of witchchild as her, a decade ago. White, innocent, vulnerable. My father protected me. I would have protected her, if I could have."
A vampire's face didn't really soften, but if there was a thing in a vampire that was still alive, it was their eyes. I could feel his conflict broiling there as I stared at the gore on his shirt, avoiding another accidental enthralling.
"I want to believe you, lass," he said softly. "God knows, I want to. Especially now."
"Does God know anything at all about vampires?" Ace said cynically. "And why now, Evander? Why did you go from ripping out her throat to raging at Dare because he twerked her pinkie finger? What did you taste in her blood that changed your mind?"
I'd like to know the answer to that question, too. Whatever he had tasted, it seemed as though Abraham knew something about as well, but that information did not seem wise to share at the moment.
"I don't know. It's a rare touch of magic, I think. Very rare. But I have tasted it before. Twice in the Old World. Both mundane men of learning, or so they seemed, but also men of untold violence. One other time as well."
"Where?" Ace probed.
Evander seemed reluctant but finally, he shot me a quick, suspicious glance and said, " The same subtle taste ran in Liadh's blood."
"Liadh?" Ace asked. "You mean to say this witch is some kin to your wife's people?"
Liadh must have been Tavish's mother, the one that died long ago. I suppose if my blood reminded him of hers, then I have her memory to thank for saving my life. I don't know how to feel about that—thinking Evander would have torn out my throat minutes ago if I didn't share his dead's wife blood type.
Evander pulled out the bloody handkerchief. He put his foot on a dead log and fiddled with the scrap of cloth. When he'd folded it into an acceptably clean patch, he closed the distance between of us, and offered it to me, gesturing at my throat to mean that I should apply it to the trickling punctures. I took it, but for whatever reason—pride or a stubborn refusal to clean the mess he had made, I merely crushed it in my good hand.
With lightning speed, the vampire grabbed my other hand. He'd reset the bone before my scream's echo faded.
"Sorry, lass. But it's always best to do a thing like that when you're not expecting it." He kept hold of my hand while he used the bloody handkerchief as a makeshift splint.
"Touch me again, you fucking bastard, and I am going to curse you when you're not expecting it," I promised him.
"You promised not to."
"I think we've established all bets are off."
"No, we've just made a misstep. We'll begin again, and I swear to you, I'll protect you with my life."
"That doesn't mean much, since you're dead."
He smiled, I caught the expression just as he moved behind me to keep me from seeing it. "Alistair, when you look at Celie, do you not see a bit of...well... maybe I'm imagining it." Evander made a slight noise that I realized was a vampire's way of sighing without actually putting air with it. I supposed he wasn't breathing now, so there was no air in him to exhale.
Ace had remained by my side. Now, he spun me toward him so rapidly that I would have stumbled over roots if he did not have perfect control of my person. Before I could protest, there was a cool swipe at my throat and Ace stuck his finger in his mouth—with my blood on it. He bit back a grimace, but at least he had the courtesy not to spit.
"Okay. You're on my curse list too, now." The next goddamn vampire that touched without permission me was getting the Eternal Flaccid Phallus curse if I had to dedicate my life to searching the world and stealing grimoires until I learned how to cast it.
He ignored my complaint. "There's not a drop of our blood in her. She's not your many times granddaughter through another child of Liadh's, if that's what you're worried about, Evander."
I turned back to Evander. "Your granddaughter? You thought I was your granddaughter?"
"No, I did not," he said flatly. "My wife was not with child when she...when I lost her, and I had been a vampire for more than a year before that. Neither vampires nor dead women make children. Are ya daft, man?" he asked Alistair. "Why would say such a thing to me?"
"Hell, Van, I'm not trying to unearth your grief, but —it's not as if you can visit a grave and know Liadh lies there at peace. As far as vampires not siring children in the natural way? It's not a thing we've encountered, I'll grant you, but we don't know everything there is to know about our kind, and there's a first time for everything, isn't there?" Alistair shot back. "If she were your descendant, it would explain your current territorial insanity—that's all I mean."
"Aye, it would," Evander agreed. "But she's no kin to me. Liadh, though..." Evander trailed off.
"Liadh is dead," Geordie said firmly. "I saw her die as did Evander. If it were some trick of the Fae, she would have found a way to come back to him by now. Liadh did not go on, Evander. She did not have a life elsewhere or sire a line with some other man that led to this witch. She died, and what happened to her body is the same thing that is happening to the goblin you just killed. You can walk over there and see, he's already fading back to the plane in Elfame where the dead Fae go. That is what happened to Liadh as well, though we didn't know it at the time." Geordie turned to Evander, "Lad, do not fall back into a bog you labored a century to fight free from—"
"Aye, I know, Geordie." Evander said firmly to the older vampire.
All four vampires stared at me in speculation. I kept my eyes on the dead girl, feeling as though we were trailing off the point, while Evander and the vampires began a discussion of the bouquet of my blood, as if I were a terribly cheap and tawdry wine.
"I smell no Fae in her," Ace objected.
"Neither do I, and my nose is as sharp as my taste buds." That was Darrow, who had been leaning against a tree, but who strode forward and circled me sniffing at me delicately. "Christ, she stinks like the insulating material on electrical wires. What's it called?"
"You're right, man!" Evander snapped his fingers at Darrow. "You're exactly right. I couldn't place it, but she tastes like that, too. Bakelite, they call it. But they're making new versions, and they're calling them all plastics."
That's it. I am never microwaving another morsel of my food in "safe for microwave" plastic containers. I knew that manmade shit was melting into my food.
"She also has an unusual amount of metals in her blood," Evander noted.
"The Fae are vulnerable to cold iron," the old vampire mused. "All the legends say so."
"Aye, Geordie. I'm thinking a Fae, or even a half-breed, could not live with the kinds of contaminants Miss Dunne has in her blood. I do not know what exactly she is, but she's not got Fae blood like my Liadh—"
"I'm a witch, godsdammit! I already told you this!" I cry in dismay.
"Aye, you're a witch, but you're also something more. I saw you work metal on your shoes last night," Evander reminded me. "I should have known then, but I was distracted by your... other bits of magic."
"Witches can work metal. Granted, it's not easy to learn, but—"
"No, that is not witchcraft. It is well known that witches can only manipulate things that were alive. Metal is the work of men."
"My father is a witch, and he can magically work metal."
"Then he is not only a witch but also some other kind of magical aberration. And he's passed some of that strangeness on to you and not even told you that it wasn't normal. You said you did not grow up with a coven, did you not? Maybe this is why."
Before I could respond, Geordie cut in.
"Well then, if the witch does not even know her own powers, how can we be sure she didn't kill poor Orla without realizing herself what she had done?"
"Exactly what I'm thinking now, Geordie." Evander went again to Orla, who was no longer quite so exposed in the moonlight because the moon had moved across the canopy above. He stooped and put his hand on her chest. His invasion of her personal space and the darkness that surrounded her is what allowed me to see the glamour waver, and know for sure that it existed. But I said nothing about it, just yet. Geordie had said the goblin had faded, and I suspected this glamour was something he'd done, and it was fading, too. I had no enthusiasm for seeing what lay beneath it.
Evander spoke from his place beside the dead girl. "Celie Dunne, I don't want to believe you have done this terrible thing, but I know that you were fighting for your life against the goblin. If you reached out for power to defend yourself, and what you found was Orla's power for the taking, you must tell me now. If you do not truly know what you are, if you do not have control of all of your magic, you must tell me. I can not protect you if I do not know the truth."
I moved to the other side of the child and fell to my knees, digging my good hand into the earth. "I know exactly where the power to fight the goblin came from. Watch, and I will show you."
I had called hundreds of thousands to me but there were still more in the forest. I spoke the Latin direction and called a few now. A worm slithered into my hand, as did two beetle, an ugly cockroach, and a spider.
"Insects," I repeated as I held them up, turning my hand back and forth as they skittered there trapped in my spell. Then I took their life force and blew away their empty shells, which look like molted skins. My hand glowed briefly in the dark as I turned their life force to light.
All the vampires made a sound of surprise.
"They are the only creatures I cull, my only victims. They inhabit the earth by the billions. Their energy, their defenses, their weapons, collectively it's a source of great power. It's a compromise I made with my father-to learn to cull them because I would not kill higher life. I've trained for many years to power my craft in this way—I am no novice witch. I did not intentionally nor accidentally kill this poor girl. I killed bugs to raise my power. Hundreds of thousands to raise my power a hundredfold."
"You consume the bugs who feed off rot and shit. That's disgusting," Darrow said.
"Right. You drink human blood, but I'm disgusting," I snapped at him.
Evander rose and held out his hand to me. "Pay Darrow no mind. That's clever and wise magic. Give me your hand, lass. Come here to me and swear over this poor girl that what you tell me is true, and I'll swear to protect you from what comes next no matter the trouble it brings."
"Come to you? Swear to you? You're not the 'lord of my sept,' you know. And why in the hell should I trust a thing you say? You already promised to protect me. Then you bit me, he broke me," I pointed to Darrow, holding up my crooked pinkie, "And you violated my mind!" I point to my brain.
He gave me a long-suffering look, "If I'd violated you, lass, you'd be a damn sight happier than you are right now—"
I did go to him then. I walked right around Orla's dead body, right up to that damnable infuriating bloodsucker, and slapped him in the face.
And then I screamed, "Ooooow!" in more pain and fury than before.
Slapping Evander was like slapping a brick wall, but not really because you'd never offer to slap a brick wall as hard as I tried to strike that goddamn vampire.
My hand screamed like fire, while Evander's only reaction was a slight furrowing of his eyebrows. Ace stifled a laugh, but Darrow didn't even try to. He howled.
"Break that one, too, did ya now?" Evander asked with rich Irish sarcasm.
"You fucking—"
The ring of metal cut the air, followed by the dull thud of a blade finding purchase in the ground near our feet. Evander and I both looked down at the knife Geordie had thrown. It struck home some scant inches from my bare, dirt-caked toes.
"This is not the time or place to be carrying on so," Geordie lectured. "It is time to care for Orla, Evander."
Evander stared at the knife. I half expected him to snatch it up and throw it back at Geordie's head, and for the other vampire to easily catch it in one of those cool vampiric, speed moves despite the poor visibility in the dark forest. Instead, Evander said, "That's very thoughtful, Geordie, offering up your best short knife to Celie. I imagine she will need an athame to cast a protective circle around Orla."
"What?"
That was me, Ace, and Darrow, all speaking in unison.
"We can not move her, because of the treaty. But I have no wish to leave her to the elements. And we vampires can not even guard her body by day. Celie can solve all these problems by warding her. That is, if you are as powerful as you claim, Witch?"
Evander picked up the knife, flipped it deftly, and offered me the handle.
"I don't understand," I said slowly. "You mean to leave this child where she lies?"
"I have no choice for the moment. Orla's death is more than just a terrible tragedy. Orla's death is a war waiting to happen. She is my descendent on her mother's side, but she has the craft through her witchborn father. Instead of being mundane like her parents, she took after her father's people. She became a member of the Mystic Mountain Coven, and she is the only reason my vampire Sept, that Coven, and their werewolf allies have been able to forge an interim of peace in these mountains. Before Orla, we were all accustomed to killing one another on a regular basis.
"Now, she is dead on my land at the same moment I've taken in a powerful rogue witch that no one knows. Her coven will come here. They'll want to know who murdered their youngest child, even though it may damn well be one of their own, for witches, as we all know, are treacherous. Nevertheless, they'll look to me for an explanation. They'll likely look to you in suspicion. They'll bring their damn stinking dogs with them for protection, too.
"So, Miss Dunne, I need you to put a ward on this place that protects every scent and every scrap of magic and every clue. This is a magical crime scene now, and come tomorrow night, the witches and the wolves will be here to investigate."
I looked down at the child in ribbons and the yellow dress. The child whose death was a mystery to me, even though the glamour on her was beginning to fade to my witch's sight. There was at least one leg missing beneath that glamour—probably eaten by the goblin. But I did not think the goblin had killed her because she was also dried up as if her power had been stolen before that—in an act of black magic. Probably committed by a black witch.
I saw it then, standing in the dark forest, with mushrooms rising in the night at my feet, with morning dew beginning to collect upon the leaves, with vines performing their nightly creeping growth.
I saw past all the life, and I saw death.
I saw the vampires burning here, in the same spot where Orla died. I could see the giant oaks—there and there and two more beside—where they had been staked. I could see the trees now standing that would be cut down to stoke the fire and create the clearing where the witches and the werewolves would watch their execution.
I looked down upon the dead girl again, my horror renewed as understanding came.
Orla's death had nothing to do with me, but everything to do with the vampire's fate.
Author's Note: Liadh is the Irish version of Leah, pronounced lee-ya.