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That was the big question And I had no idea

CHAPTER 25

We Could PlayStrip Poker

As it turned out, I learned nothing from either address Santana wasn’t there, hadn’t been there No stink of burned vamp, no dead humans, no Dominique I was fresh out of ideas until Bruiser called and Eli and I went to meet him

"Reain There is zero shelter in the event of a firefight and zero security," Eli said at his first gliraveyard

"The location wasn’t my choice This is where she said to come," Bruiser said "One does not say no to the outclan priestess Sabina Besides, we’re ics than by a hail of weapons fire"

I wasn’t sure, but Eli ht have shivered Just a little Bruiser parked the SUV and we got out, stretching our legs I adjusted ift, the curved knife he had given me The blade itself wasn’t as functional or as sharp or as strong as one of my modern vaht saveno chances and was carrying everything that e, no matter how bizarre

It was just after dusk, and ere the first to arrive at the vamp cemetery The moon was not yet up and the sky was a vibrant red in the west, fading to purple overhead, and to twilight black in the east The sun’s last rays glinted on storh the clouds Theblack shadows,broken patterns where they intersected the white shell pathways The vaels on top of the s and fly, swords raised in battle

As per instructions, we rassy area about thirty feet wide and vaguely oval shaped Eli caught er He melted into the shadows to check our peri answered Silence settled on the ce place for dead va together, still going over the possible pronunciations of the wyrds of pohich was harder than it sounded They had to sound out each part of the wyrds separately, giving each syllable its own space and not overlapping the vocal reverberations, which erous

In the papers I had given him, Bruiser had found half a dozen of the ancient spells, all in Latin, none with proper directions, and all with dire consequences if not performed properly The witches had narrowed the useful possibilities to three, one a su and two that created traps, like jails e of thorns, a spell that had saved my life on more than one occasion Since the snare had failed to hold the SoD last tiht was different And probably a lot erous It was certainly more powerful

But we three nonwitchy types weren’t depending on ear and were loaded to the nines eapons I even had un

The M4 was loaded for vamp with hand-packed silver-fléchette rounds made by a pal in the mountains Fléchettes were like , circular pattern, entering the target with slicing, lethal force The fact that the fléchettes were co power but made them poisonous to vamps, even without a direct hit There was no way a vamp could cut all of them out of his body before he bled out or the silver spread through his systeain with Leo about silver Loopholes sometimes made me happy