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I had thewith shells Feht in tree Not good hunters, but they would be fast from vampire blood

They helped to hurt kits Will kill thehtNot in Beast for the kits, then attack, with help froustBeast strong Beast kill blood-servants

But Jane rose, showed ht together I/we of Beast

Panted approval Padded back into forest Back to tree and all Jane&039;s gear Did not want to change Did not want to shift and give up alpha But Jane and Beast together were best killer Leaped to tree Hunched And thought of Jane Of snake in her bones Gray place reached out and took me in fist with claws Cut Beast with sharp claith knives Pain Pain, pain, pain

I fell fro Gasped a shuddering breath that hurt onmy misery quiet when I wanted to cry outCrap That hurt Still lying on the ground, I pulled the unneeded bag froers Tore into the plastic bag of Snickers candy bars and bit into the sticky sweetness I ate four before the shakes stopped Then I dressed fast, but not in the lightweight clothes I had expected to use In elina would be in the soccer field soon, and I didn&039;t want to be caught naked I wanted tiic site That er even three witches working together probably couldn&039;t overcome The vaood would their spells be?

Dressed, I hit Derek&039;s GPS device and I called Molly&039;s cell, reporting in, telling her what I had seen "You can&039;t get to the site, Molly That many vamps would know you were there and take you out before you kneas happening You can&039;t come"

"How ht with the need to do so, to save her babies

"Renee, Tristan, and their nameless brother; the three of them are weak vamp-witches

Adrianna of St Martin, Rafael Torrez of Mearkanis are here, and I&039;m pretty sure they&039;ve secretly made him clan master He smells like a blood- about the tiht, with van over humans like they did on Haiti"

"What?"

I hadn&039;t told her about the challenge against Leo There hadn&039;t been time "I also saw Bettina of Rousseau, but she smelled weak I think they&039;ve bled her nearly dry Adora and Donatien, the young-rogue teens who are bound, gagged, and fighting like s Bliss and the kits Bliss has been bled so much she&039;s nearly dead I don&039;t think she&039;ll survive tonight"My faultThe thought thudded through my veins with my bloodMy fault I tucked the cell under un harness over my shoulders, and clipped it in place Shoved the vamp-killers back into their loops onrated

"Molly, you can&039;t get to me in time You just find their limo on Harrison Avenue and make sure it won&039;t run And kill any va with frustration Her strangled sobs made my hands sweat I wiped them down my leathers, but they didn&039;t absorb sweat from either side "Molly!"

"Okay" She hiccupped and sed hard, fighting for control "But if you need a shield, just hold the rune again We&039;re putting soive you protection"

"A &039;find me&039; charm that works as a relay?"

"Yeah Exactly" She sounded ether

I breathed out, reliefin there And thank you, Molly" Then,

"Make it ten feet in diameter? The shield? No ics or bullets move in?"

"I don&039;t - "

"Will do," Evan said from a distance "Ten feet"

"Good Stay safe and out of the way" I clicked off and hit the speed dial for Derek

He answered with the words "We&039;re two klicks out"

"Meet e, two insane ones in shackles that need to stay that way, one bled-out and starving clan ets half the chance, and three hostage witches"

"Girl, you do kno to throw a party" He disconnected

I didn&039;t kno long it would take seven for It wasn&039;t Watching thein two sroups I turned toward the south and waited

When they didn&039;t appear when I thought they should, I said softly, "Y&039;all waiting for engraved invitations?"

Derek laughed just as softly and stepped through the foliage nearly as silently as Beast

I looked the other direction and waited Hicklin stepped out and pulled off low-light-vision goggles "Not bad, girl Not bad" He held out a strip of wire, which turned out to be a headset Obscurely pleased, I took it, hoping it was the same one I&039;d used before, because otherwise, well, that was just icky But fear of losing my current approbationthe low-light-vision goggles

They&039;d be able to see as well as th of wood fro in the dirt One of the"I&039;ll take point

We&039;ll approach froet there, we&039;ll find a ten-foot-diaraht Path the vamps will use to enter is here" I tapped the earth "We stay south, from this location to here, and we&039;ll be doind of thees

They shouldn&039;t sht vision will be compromised for us Not sure ill happen for the vamps Under other circuroup is seriously different" I heard an affirs are correct, the hostages will be in the center of the pentagrauess that means we should leave behind the RPG launcher," one of thehed but I wasn&039;t sure he was joking

Pretty Boy Hicklin settled a fully automatic machine pistol on a strap over his shoulders "The witch patrol?"

"Will not be joining us But I do have a single, one-use protection spell Ten feet in diameter"

"I but I took a chance "Bullets out, none in Magic

I&039;ic, but none will make it in" I forced down the vision and reed and torn ward Bad luck to think of failure in the face of battle "You ready?"

"Girl, we arealways ready" The shed, sexual innuendo in the tone

Great A bunch ofcould be better

"What kinda spell are they working? What are we going up against?" another guy asked His eyebroere shaved, with short strips of dark skin showing through He had other bald symbols shaved into his scalp "This a hostile spell?"

"So-chained Probably not hostile

But it ht be hidden behind a ward, hard to break We&039;ll need to intervene before they complete the circle, but I&039;d like to see how they start"

"Guards?" When I shook uards, take them out without blood The vao in on yourto the GPS nuhed "You&039;ll just have to followcrosses, spread out to ht"

"You didn&039;t use the GPS, did you?"

Beast didn&039;t have fingers to carry it or the mind to understand a bunch of numbers Not that I could say that And I wasn&039;t about to offer excuses "No"

Before they could reply, I headed into the forest, drawing on Beast&039;s senses and silence

The forest folded itself around me The soldiers followed, quiet even to Beast&039;s senses I controlled an amused hack and let the forest take me

It felt like a much faster trip back to the witch circle, perhaps because I was surrounded by more firepower than I&039;d ever seen Even without the rocket-propelled grenade launcher Or s now Whatever It worked For once, I felt safe going into battle against valowed just ahead, pale and silvery, bright enough to steer by, alerting me that the vamps had already arrived Derek stopped us with an upraised hand and a whisper into hislike a wraith, Derek approached ers Crips I count three You?"

"I smell four" Which should have come out another way, to protect myself, but then Derek already kneasn&039;t human The Crips&039;s presence was proof that the coup d&039;etat would start soon, and that Leo&039;s enes to steer NOPD

attention to other in

He breathed out a laugh and sent his men out in a circle I heard a few faint scuffs, one breath sighing into the night, but no screaoners

I double-checked my crosses to make sure they were still covered I felt ht Silent Deadly

They surrounded the southern side of the witch circle, doind of the va themselves so they wouldn&039;t catch cross fire And they waited

The blood-servants packed up the shovels, empty shell-sacks, and wheelbarrow, and trundled nosily out of the artificial glen as the va in low voices In the wake of their passage, Itheir noise covered any Iin as well, but I heard little; they were pretty good for huit for longfrom the distant humans In the circle, the varaelina, Little Evan, and Bliss, visible below the tree foliage They were lying on the ground, tied and gagged in the middle of the circle

Bliss looked more than half dead, pasty pale, unconscious, sprawled, ar ie and Evan Jr were barefoot, in unfamiliar pajamas, and they were tied, their eyes closed I could see the energies of a spell over theray The surprise in the circle was Bettina, also naked, white as a ghost and half bled out, tied, her wrists behind her back She was shackled to Bliss

I remembered the smell of her in the Damours&039; bed I wasn&039;t sure why Bettina was there, but then these va chased and harassed Maybe they needed ed it yet again, added another factor But it was clear that Bettina wasn&039;t intended to last the night

There wasn&039;t a lot of roolad the children were unconscious They shouldn&039;t have to see this kind of thing No one should

Kneeling to see through an opening in the leaves, I got a good view of the witch circle

The crosses were bright, shining on the trees, but the vamps seemed impervious to them Not in any pain at all despite the close proxilasses, and I smelled sunscreen on their skin in addition to a protection spell They had devised a spell to keep theht and crosses didn&039;t stop theically fend off other vaet a lot harder if we didn&039;t get these guys stopped