“Roger that. Leg wound it is.”

Bruiser looked from Eli to me to Molly and lifted one eyebrow, just the one, and smiled. “Capital idea. And what is my job?”

More softly I said, “Throw the cat at her.”

“I’ll try that right away,” he said, his tone wry, “the moment I see a demon or something, hoping to avoid a shooting. Less mess, all that blood getting all over the grass and inciting vampire hunger.”

“Yeah. Okay. Whatever,” I said, taking in the circles and the location and the weird storms on the horizon. No. It wasn’t okay; it was scary and dangerous and probably stupid. It looked all wrong. Lightning flashed between thunderheads, brightening the sky. I did not like it at all.

“You in a Latin triple circle with witches and a priestess of the Mithrans, objects of black magic, the creation wood of all the vampires, and a death witch at the trap to the door? What could go wrong?” Bruiser asked softly, reading my mind.

“I know. Right? Easy-peasy.”

“I have a bad feeling about this, Jane. Make them find another away.”

I glanced at him, his body tense, leaning against the SUV, the grill at his back. He was dressed in Enforcer garb and loaded with weapons, his strong, slightly Roman nose proud and beautiful, his jaw almost square, upper-class British lips thin with disquiet. “Questions, Onorio. One: Does this look like it might work?”

His mouth turned down with an unwilling, “Yes. Perhaps. If it doesn’t blow up everyone in the rings.”

“Two: What kind of honor would I have if I ran away?”

He shook his head, refusing to answer.

“Three: I know you can enter the Gray Between and fight beside me. What would happen if you crossed over an active witch circle or three in the middle of a working?”

Bruiser tilted his head down and smiled at me from beneath his brows. His tone speculative and intrigued, he said, “I have no idea.”

“Well, if it looks like it’s going to hell in a handbasket, and throwing Molly’s familiar at her doesn’t work, and Eli shooting her doesn’t work, pull a couple blades and try it.”

He leaned over to me and pressed his lips to my forehead, his mouth fevered and dry and smooth, like a blessing more than a kiss. I closed my eyes, holding him close with one hand on the back of his head. “Be safe,” he murmured against my face. I felt small tingles of magic flutter over my skin, cool and sparkling, like the tingles of sparklers from a Fourth of July celebration. “Please.”

“I’ll do my best.”

I removed the sliver of the Blood Cross and gripped it in one hand. I tucked the iron discs in a Velcro pocket at my right hip. Overhead, the rumble of thunder sounded. Wind whipped through the cemetery, smelling of ozone and rain. Shorter strands of my hair were yanked loose from the bun, stinging my face, tangling in my eyelashes. While watching Molly, I tumbled the blood diamond from its lead-lined pouch into my palm. Her eyes found me instantly, and the stone went from icy cold where it touched me, to a pleasant warmth in my hand, to fiery, as if it had been heated by a flame. It felt as if it wanted my attention, even as I watched Molly. It was just a stone, but it felt like more. It felt . . . interested.

Curious.

Alive.

So very wrong.

CHAPTER 26

Dressed Like a Man of My People

Sitting in a witch circle—again—felt like a really bad idea. We had tried something similar once and it had ended badly. Unfortunately, I had no better ideas. And humans were dying. The fifty-two were dead. Pinkie was dead. Homeless people were disappearing. Humans were close to rioting in the streets. My choices were limited. So I stood close to the inner ring with the others, and across from Molly.

Four witches sitting inside the largest circle spoke softly, the words in unison. “Surgent in terra,” in Latin instead of the Gaelic I was accustomed to hearing from Molly’s kin. The large outer circle rose with a brownish light and a thrum of power that I felt through the earth. They blessed it with a second spell, “Benedictionibus lucem,” and the color of the ward lightened into a rosy hue, like flower petals.

The witches of the middle circle sat and spoke their spell, “Arma, mediante circulus.” The pale green energies of the middle circle rose as I figured out the meaning of the wyrds as arm the middle circle, enclosing them, an answering pulse that I felt in the air as an updraft rising toward the clouds. The sky grumbled overhead. A crack of lightning hit the ground deep in the tree line, close enough to brighten the scene in flickering uncertainty. Instantly the boom of thunder sounded. “Benedictionibus lucem,” the witch sitting at true north, in the outer circle, said.

Dangerous wyrds, my Beast whispered at me.

Blessed light? I thought back.

Dangerous spell. Cannot tell what will happen with witches and storm. Overhead, thunder rumbled, far off and rolling closer. Storm is drawn to power.

Yeah. I swallowed, my throat dry and painful. I got that too.

Sabina rose to her feet inside the middle circle she had just helped to raise, removed a small box from her sleeve, opened it, and took out something that crinkled, a plastic Baggie, saying, “Ad esca in captionem.” Something about a trap. Baiting a trap? Even before I saw her open the Baggie I smelled it. Raw and scorched at the same time. But not exactly rotting. Sabina had found the gobbet of flesh Santana tore out of his body at our last attempt. Yeah. Or I could use the hairs in Bruiser’s pocket. I had forgotten he carried them. A little late now. I looked to him and patted my pocket. Even across the distance I saw his eyes widen.

Sabina placed the stinking flesh on the ground inside the center circle, which was all of four feet across. She pointed at me to step into the circle. I looked at Bruiser and lifted one corner of my mouth. He was holding KitKit and the small envelope containing three scorched hairs from the head of the Son of Darkness. And he was smiling at Molly. It was a really nasty smile.

I stepped into the inner circle but I didn’t sit. No way. I stood, bent kneed, relaxed, balanced, with the gobbet of flesh between my boot heels. And this time I was armed to the teeth. If the weapons made the spell go wonky, they’d have to think of something else. Sabina didn’t remark on the metal I carried, her eyes flickering over me in what looked like approval, before she returned to her position and sat. Wind gusted through the cemetery, the wards being air permeable. The candle flames, protected in glass globes, wavered and stuttered.