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An engine raced The sports car fishtailed out of the drive I landed on o after her It landed with a heavy thu underneath the couch My travel tote, torn jeans, and the pink blood-ht breeze off the French Broad River was already carrying the scent of her car away I went back inside, standing in the corner, staring at the chaos

Pickersgill was bleeding out, the witches were falling all over theill, hissed between his fangs, furious and scared, "My own master staked me!"

"Yeah, but he staked you to keep you alive or he’d have aiher and to the left," I said I bent at his side, one knee on the floor "I’ll pull out the stake Try to bite ut and he disappeared to feed I figured he’d live, if the undead can be said to live Wiping Pickersgill’s blood froie inher to s wrapped around ic polluted the air

Evangelina had the dia Evan asked, "Did the banishing work? Did we bind the Raven Mocker?"

"I don’t think so," Molly said "I think Evangelina disrupted the spell" Which was her right as coven master Then she ran away With the dia clearly Not thinking much at all Because the disrupted spell and the appearance of the angel Hayyel had stolen my Beast I was alone insideher close

The weres left together, Rick, silent and acting like a twitchy cat, driving fast Having a first encounter of the third kind with an angel had to be a ood Catholic boy The white wolf and Ke in the bed of the truck, in cages borrowed froelina’s back room I didn’t knoould happen to the wolf I wasn’t even sure what the as now

Cia drove off in her car, leaving her sister’s car in the drive Sheto see Liz and Car Evan packed his family into the van with unsee at his heels, leaving his rattletrap in the drive None of us talked We didn’t even make eye contact I don’t think we could

Fortunately I had a spare key hidden in the bike I was halfway home when my tears started Beast? The place inside me where she stayed was empty And cold And silent I didn’t knohat to do I had no idea It was only as I neared the Asheville city limits that I realized how badly I had elina on the loose with a dia, there was a demon unaccounted for And Lincoln Shaddock had disappeared Had Evangelina called him to her? Crap I had lost one of my primary subjects

I went to the hotel forthe M4--and to change out of Evangelina’s stupid impossible-to-ride-a-Harley skirt I didn’t speak to anyone, and I didn’t stop to check on e and his blood-servants I was in and out as fast and unobtrusively as possible, a velvet jacket over one shoulder Beast was gone

Fang and I tooled around the city of Asheville, halfway looking for a red sports car,frohts, using Fang’s roar to block out the part of one My mind was my own for the first ti the crap outtato e flashing onto the back of el and a de? Or had it been aartificial shared by the elina and lying in wait for the right moment No Too many variables in any scenario except the real one I had seen an angel A freaking, dang angel

My angel, who came when my friends called him, to take away an evil as never supposed to be on earth Ever My angel, shared with Angie Baby, who could see angels, but never said so, who thought everyone could see the on my soul like a tick burrowed into my skin

Molly hadn’t talked to hter had a personal relationship with an angel and her sister had one with a deain At least this tirubby witchy hands on the pink blood-diaain That was my fault, totally