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A female for on Johnson "Are you insane? You’ll get us all killed She’s supposed to die so they can blaar"

She started to move forward, to interfere, but a melodic voice stopped her in her tracks

"Really? How very interesting"

Every vamp in the alley turned at the sound of that voice The chant above h, three forms dropped to opposite ends of the alley from the rooftops Only three, but even in miniature you could see the fear in the eyes of the bats who’d been feasting on lided slowly forward In the distance I heard the screech of tires and the slaar swore softly and gestured to his coar and the two vampires with hi the other bats to deal with the pair of snarling olves who tore through the mouth of the alley

A harsh slap rockedto focus, as I foundroo and the carpet et from where the crystal bowl had been knocked off the table

I shivered, , cold from physical and psychic shock

I re at the front door h to sturab her before she could fall, then hurried over to deal hoever An alarhbor probably Not that I cared I didn’t I couldn’t even think past the roar of h reat distance I heard a worried ht?"

"I’ly unperturbed She gave"Celia here just saw a ue I was too busy hyperventilating Meical defense mechanism The subconscious s we’re not equipped to deal with, and the vampire’s spell had helped It had been too soon to tear the lid off of these particular memories Any time in the next millennium would have been too soon "Trauh hly past Gibson to stand in front of Dot, his eyes narroith suspicion He turned to asp out the lie, and saw real relief chase across et an exterive for my dear Minnie She was quite the mouser" Minnie the Mouser That was just sick But I liked it I found ht?" Gibson’s eyes were on mine and were dark with concern

"I’ll be fine" It was a lie Fine had gone for a long vacation so with my sanity But I was alive, and here, and I da to survive this And I intended to

Dottie stepped over my foot, splayed across her nice carpet "Be a dear, Robert, there’s a pitcher of leerator--"

"No" I shook my head and tried to collect oing"

"Are you sure, dear?" Dottie ht not want Robert to knohat had happened, but she was obviously concerned aboutthe fabric of reality around itself again and I was happy to report the truth "I’m okay Just let me clean up the mess and we’ll be out of your hair"

"Oh, you don’t have to do that" But she wasn’t hurrying to do it herself, either

"Really I insist Are there paper towels in the kitchen?"

"Yes, dear On a holder attached to the wall by the refrigerator You can’t ot my feet under me and hurried out of the room Yes, I’d clean up the mess But more than that, I wanted a couple of minutes alone

The prince was a fake There hadn’t been a raid There had been no cops at either end of that alley The entire job, from start to finish, had been a setup I’d been supposed to die and have the whole thing be blaar Why? Da was being set up by soh resources and money to make it all happen and have access to de to work spells that were anathema

I’d come here for answers, and wound up with more, and scarier, questions

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