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Pardon me if we don&039;t bleed for you, babe

My arrival at the house woke everyone, the bike&039;s roar better than an alared to the pile of broken boulders and scraped er piece of stone - a lodestone of sorts to the shift I&039;d need soon Moving fast, I grabbed five pounds of steak out of the fridge, shoved the of Snickers on top

I made it to my bedroom and back out before Molly and Evanquestions I refused to answer I just didn&039;t have tis and the fetish necklace I&039;d come for and blocked the door back tothe ruined , but when I looked that way, it had been boarded over with a sheet of plywood and Evan had taken up a stance in front of it, his arled Sighing, I looked Molly in the eye, letting a bit of Beast rise in own outlined her rounded curves, ht, but her expression belied her size She looked as if she&039;d try to take h" When I scowled at her, she said, "Not until you tell us what&039;s happening Why you&039;re going to" She pointed at the necklace and didn&039;t finish the sentence

"It&039;s the first night of the full moon And I think - I hope - I can find the site of the rites tonight But I need to gonow "

"And you think we&039;ll let you try to stop an act of black hast, her tone asking me if I was out of my mind "Jane Yellowrock Someonestole our childrenIf you think you knohere they are, then ill be there Like it or not" Her face hardened "And besides, the vampires who took our children are witches You&039;ll need us to stop the rites without o haywire

"What?" she demanded of the surprise on my face "You didn&039;t know you can&039;t just interrupt a ht And you&039;ll need us to protect the children"

"I knew," I gru the smell of the torn and blasted wards "But you&039;ll be in the way ofCat foruysill be close by They&039;ll have guns"

"Which will not stop a blood rite without a detonation big enough to take you all out"

"Crap" I hadn&039;t planned this well enough

"We&039;ll be close by," she bargained, "hoever you&039;re working with Out of sight

You&039;ll have your phone You&039;ll call us when you find the site Then we&039;ll co your weapons"

"Why wouldn&039;t she have her weap - "

Molly cut her sister off with a single elina went silent She had appeared at the opening to the kitchen, her presence blocking another exit, a fact Beast did not like at all Three angry witches had her cornered Her claws came out and cut into hed Beast wasn&039;t the only one feeling trapped Molly had just backed me into a metaphorical corner too I knehat could happen when a spell rong, whenthat contained it It wasn&039;t pretty And it had been known to interfere with ly, I said, "I&039;ll be at New Orleans City Park in an area called Couturie Forest

It&039;s several hundred acres, and I&039;ll be off the beaten paths You won&039;t be able to findher eyes froelina?"

Her sister, dressed for sleep in a long sleep shirt, stepped aroundMolly rubbed the surface with a thuht it to me

It turned out to be a river stone painted with a black sy on a silver chain large enough to wear in either ofdevice for maybe a half hour Hold the rune for ten seconds between your thuood idea where you are We can find you" She pointed at the rune, which looked like a capitalF with the horizontal arand frustrated, but slipped the silver chain around my neck "Okay Fine

Wait for et hurt or shot I&039;ll ret it"

Derek Lee and his men met me at the entrance to the projects, their dark van under a rare functioning street-light The side door slid open when I wheeled up The srease of fast food and weed from inside The men were all decked out in the latest military and paramilitary toys My own personal arrin when I pulled up and cut the engine "Dude

You guys look seriously whacked"

"Dude? Whacked?" Derek laughed at ht "Girl, that is so white-chick"

I chuckled, the laughter easing my tension "Not me I&039;m part of an enslaved, seriously abused, cheated, lied-to, and ripped-off minority Two, if you count that I&039;m female"

"Pardon me if we don&039;t bleed for you, babe"

I knew sarcasm when I heard it and ht And I still wasn&039;t sure what the heck I was doing The snarky retorts reuys, at least, could take care of theot?" one of the s you dropped by fro to rescue titch children, a witch adult na sacrificed by witch vaic, and secret weapons," I said, thinking of the sliver of wood in its velvet bag

The er in the sound "That&039;s cool Long as there ain&039;t any cops around to spoil the fun"

"No cops They&039;re busy elsewhere" I got a thumbs-up for that and Derek tossed ht it one-handed

"GPS So we can find you Or drop it any place we need to get to and we&039;ll be there"

"Handy" I tucked it into my jacket My pals and their find-Jane devices "We&039;ll be in the New Orleans City Park I want you guys to wait on the soccer fields foryou" At the look on the men&039;s faces, I added, "They&039;ll be there to provide shielding againstbut trouble"

I found his face in the cavern of the van, Hicklin, the good-looking guy they had used to flirt with the shop girl "It&039;s the parents of the kidnapped kits Children," I corrected

"You want to be the one to tell thehed "No But they won&039;t think like soldiers Won&039;t think like shooters"

"So tell theree, invite theust and slid the door shut I wasn&039;ta lot of fans today I kick-started Bitsa and wheeled her into the murky streets Exhaustion settled around my shoulders like a heavy blanket, heated and scratchy

The h in the sky, a distant white orb that pulled at ine and bent forward over the bars Daas still hours off

Hurricane Ada was a distantto be a piece of cake getting into the park this tiated and its keepers were patrolling I leftpast a guard standing in a guardhouse Finding the shadows Locating the forest by s into the trees It would have been poetic, but for the weapons and the raw meat in the Ziplocand the hard stone of fear I was carrying under my breastbone

There weren&039;t any boulders in the park, not like my hooing to be hard to shift here But I&039;d not find the blood site any other way Not in time If it wasn&039;t already too late

Beast stretched under ainst meThe woods are lovely, dark, and deep But I have proht at her Robert Frost One of few things I res that Beast and I agreed on totally With the quote, I began to relax, slipped beneath a branch and off the path, deep into the woods, using Beast&039;s senses to orient

Beast stoppedrogue I&039;d watched rise froround The arm, wet, fitful, a breezy frustrated child, prevented an outlet for her anger I ss and fertilizer, exhaust fro of bayous that trailed around and through the park

The tree I&039;d stood on to wait for the young rogue had been left in place, a convenient seat, though its branches had been cut away, leaving only piles of sawdust and the led stead I liked the spot and I set the steaks on the bent arch of tree, removed my weapons And my new butt-sto barefooted on the loa in the park and the dense, ancient trees The scents came alive, s of so and oily The sounds became a racket now that I listened: shush, slither, slide, tap, and patter of anis The sounds of ift of the forest&039;s peace sliding under my skin