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Jesse couldn’t see any of the ly silent for about four heartbeats, and then all the lights in the house went off at once Al flash of gunfire, followed by indistinct yelling Jesse started for the house, but the back door banged open with surprising violence He dropped to the ground and army-crawled back to the cover of the trees

When he turned back to face the scene, there were six flashlight beams headed his way froround He heard laughter, and the sort of tone that signifies gers’s face!"

"Me! I thought you were gonna piss yourself when the big bastard brought his gun up!"

"How do you think he kneere there?" wondered a third voice "We was quiet, yeah?"

The other voices h for Jesse to see that four of the six were carrying soular--each of therunts

"You see some of the shit in that place?" said one of the voices "Kevlar, shotguns, holsters ’n shit The fuck does this Negro do?"

"Not h with hiether in an instant The long black object was a body bag, and it held a large black ress through the wooded area was slow, but Jesse still only had a second to think He couldn’t face this many armed men by himself, and he would never be able to make it back to his own car in time to follow them But he had to try He whirled around and ran as fast as he could back the way he had come Despite his best efforts, he made a little bit of noise, but the bikers didn’t notice They had co, cocky

Jesse made it about forty yards past the SUV, in the direction of his own car, before the bikers broke fro down just in tihts He was breathing hard--not enough exercise lately--and had to work to control the sound

When the lights stopped flashing he peered through the fronds of the giant rye, and saw that the body bag being carried across the road to the SUV had started to squirhed with relief Hayne was still alive A couple of the bikers punched the e and went still Jesse ducked his head back down so the headlights wouldn’t catch hi to do now but wait until the SUV drove off and then sprint for his car

For the first time since he’d arrive at this location, he tried to think through as happening The vae hadn’t attacked the Trials, not without his boundary witch Instead, he had sent his hu Dashiell wouldvampire had to know that Dashiell would never trade even a loyal human for a valuable commodity like a boundary witch A null, maybe, but Scarlett was safe at the Theatre; she’d left hi Hayne acco spot Jesse counted to twenty and broke cover, running toward his car By the ti since disappeared around the corner There was no way he’d be able to follow theainst the driver’s door, cursing He dug out his phone and noticed a voiceto let hieles Theatre, which meant he couldn’t tell Dashiell or the others about Hayne Shit Scarlett had said there would be hu, which et close What a clusterfuck

He started to open the car door, but stopped with the door about two inches from the frame Hadn’t Scarlett said that Hayne wore those little witch bags that protected hiot into the car and pulled onto Hayne’s actual street He parked so his headlights illuminated the door, which had been kicked in with a heavy boot--there were tread ht switch didn’t work, so Jesse used a sht on his keychain

The house was quite small, and had probably been very neat and sparsely furnished--before the MC guys had trashed it The bikers hadn’t been in there long enough to do serious da of drawers and throwing of cushions, probably trying to make it look like a robbery Just inside the door, Jesse’s foot crunched on soht to illuminate the crumpled shape of a plastic baby toy Jesse frowned Hayne had a kid? Man, he really was out of touch But there wasn’t much baby paraphernalia, so maybe the kid only lived here part-time Or maybe it was a niece or nepheho visited often Whoever it was, at least the kid hadn’t been here when the MC showed up

Jesse stepped through the junk in the living room and moved down a short hallway to the only bedroom A Pack ’n Play had been overturned and half-collapsed The bikers had flipped the s off the wood-framed bed Next to it was a small fireproof safe, the kind you could buy at an office supply store They’d thrown it down against the stone tiles until the tiles had cracked and the hinges had popped off the safe Jesse squatted in the mess No cash--if Hayne had any, the bikers would have taken it as part of their cover All that remained was a passport for Theodore Hayne, a few official docu full of miniature burlap sacks, each about the size of a rinned The bikers had left behind the real treasure

He opened the ziplock and upended it, du, Hayne had been prepared for s were marked with a simple "V," "W," or "Ww" in black marker Jesse looped one of each around his neck, just in case Then he ran for the car

Chapter 30

I went up the stairs with the rest of the crowd, but broke ahen they began filing into the auditorius, and through thee itself The exterior curtain was closed, but the two interior curtains were drawn, creating a large open space The stage had been set up that afternoon: on one side, three ornate chairs that couldn’t quite qualify as thrones, and on the other, a long table with three si for me, the defendant, and the accuser Lucky me, I’d be sandwiched in thein one of the ornate chairs, and Kirsten was gathering her skirts to sit down in the opposite chair, leaving thebutterflies inI’d been to the theater before, ere ements, but all of a sudden it felt very, very real I wished Eli were here Things were a little rocky between us, but I felt un More than anything, I wanted hiht Kirsten’s eye, and she gave ht Move your feet, Scarlett I pushed out a breath and went to my seat at the other table Just as we’d planned, the distance between reat for them to be in my radius Dashiell, Will, and Kirsten would retain all their powers during the proceedings

Dashiell was standing center stage, his back to the curtain He looked sophisticated and confident in his tuxedo, much more James Bond than concert pianist As soon as I took my seat, he turned toward us and raised his eyebrows in a sie popcorn had solidified to a slia whoever was in charge of the curtains The red fabric began to draw to either side, slowly revealing us The light onstage was still fairly diht at Dashiell

"Good evening," he announced I risked a glance at the crowd, trying to peer past the stage lights I’d figured ould only need a fraction of the available space, given the Theatre’s size To my surprise, nearly every one of the two thousand seats was filled Had our intel on the number of people in the Old World been faulty, or had people fros? Or was it both? We’d taken so many security precautions, but it hadn’t occurred to me to make sure that all the Old World attendees were actually part of the Los Angeles Old World