“And what is that?” I asked, knowing I wasn’t going to like it.

“We will once again place you in the center of the hedge with the item that will attract Santana. You will hold the sliver of the Blood Cross and the blood diamond in one hand, so that they touch. And you will drop your blood upon them.”

“Which could get me and everyone in the circle with me killed if it explodes and sends wild magic everywhere.”

“No. That will not happen. You have used the sliver before. Your blood has been upon it before. The diamond has touched your blood before. There will be no change except you will be able to call Santana to you with the power of your blood.”

I knew instantly that they had been talking to Molly about me and that she had shared the story of the first time I wielded the sliver of the Blood Cross. She had told them one of my greatest secrets. Until now, the number of people who knew exactly what had happened the night I killed a coven of blood-magic practitioners to save her children had been extremely limited. I turned wounded eyes to my best friend, and she lifted her chin, a gesture that looked defiant. I didn’t know what was happening to Molly. She was changing, and I couldn’t see where the changes would take her except someplace dark and empty and alone.

“It’s untried magic,” Bruiser growled, sounding a lot like he had the first time I ever saw him, in the doorway of Katie’s Ladies, defending Leo. Now he was defending me. Life was so weird. “That makes it dangerous.”

“Worst-case scenario?” I asked.

“You burn to death,” Molly said.

“That’s what I always liked about you, Mol. Honest to a fault. Except when you aren’t.”

She flinched, a minuscule recoil at my words. Yeah. Molly wasn’t so honest anymore. That hurt. And it made me mad. And it made me sad.

“Hey, Molly,” I said, feeling mean. “Where’s KitKit?”

“In the van in her travel carrier, from where I picked her up at the vet’s,” Molly said, lying through her teeth. “She’ll be fine. The windows are cracked and I left her water.” Her bright eyes stared at me across the darkness, defying me to share her secret, even though she had shared mine.

It was a dare. A challenge. Like a line in the sand, one that Molly wondered whether I’d cross. Would I really tell the witches of New Orleans that my best friend in the whole world had gone to the dark side? That she was drawn to the practice of death magic? My breath caught as I realized that—yes. I’d give away my best friend in my entire life, turning her over to her own people, if it meant saving her life and the lives of my godchildren. “I’ll get the cage out,” I said, my words slow and stiff, telling her I accepted her challenge. “A little night air will do her good.”

Molly narrowed her eyes. Her hair blew out in a wind that wasn’t there, a wind that instantly died. Staring at me, walking slowly backward, placing her feet with care, she stepped to the outermost of the three circles. I turned my back on her, a Beast-move that said she wasn’t a threat, wasn’t worth remaining watchful over. It was a dominance ploy and an insult that Molly surely recognized.

I opened the van’s hatch and saw the cat cage, the tiny cat staring at me through the mesh, much like Molly stared at me across the cemetery grounds. I lifted the carrier by its handle to carry the cage to the edge of the grassy area where the witches had activated their circles.

Sabina was watching me, her expression shrewd and knowing. I had to wonder how many times in her own long life she had been tempted to take the easy way out, to try blood magic, to kill something, or someone, for an end that appeared worth the murder and the smut on her soul—assuming she had a soul. Most Christians said no vamps had souls, but as with most things religious, there was no proof. And then I wondered, what if Molly had already been there, done that, and was getting ready to betray us all? Crap. Too much could go wrong, including the people I needed to be able to trust.

I set the carrier down on the grass and looked up at Clan Rousseau’s mausoleum, seeing the slightly darker outline of Eli Younger, stretched across the roof’s ridge. Instantly I felt better. I had stopped next to Bruiser, KitKit’s cage at his feet, his warm eyes on me, telling me that he knew something about Molly and the other witches was off-kilter but that he trusted me to handle it. Yeah. I blew out a tight breath, chest muscles relaxing. Two people here that I can trust with my life, Eli and Bruiser. I can work with that.

* * *

Deep night had fallen when the witches were finally ready, dark night, with a whipping wind and clouds building overhead, anvil shaped, moving in from the southwest. But, low to the ground, it was still and heated, the wet hanging on the air and slicking our skin, the humidity so high that our own sweat wouldn’t evaporate. Lightning flickered uncertainly between the clouds, making a low, rumbling thunder, not striking down to earth, not yet, but dancing from cloud to cloud with lambent light that brightened the mausoleums and the marble vampires who stood atop each, statues of the clan founders depicted as angels going to battle. Campy just on their own. A little eerie, considering the origination story of the vamps.

The witches had planned and arranged and rearranged the alignment of the circles, setting up the two outer rings for eight practitioners instead of nine, four in each circle, with candles on the outer ring at the cardinal points of the compass, and candles on the middle ring at the intermediate points of the compass. At the north compass point on the inner circle was the new trap, stronger than snare of thorns, where Santana would be captured if all went as planned. Molly found her place on the innermost circle and sat—the circle called the inretio circle, which was Latin for trap. And she smiled, shifting candlelight reflected in her eyes.

“Eli,” I said, loudly. “If Molly starts doing something dangerous and Bruiser doesn’t stop her, shoot her.”

“What is the problem?” Sabina asked.

“Chick fight,” I said, “one with lethal consequences. Not something that concerns you or the others. As long as Molly is a good little girl.”

“Angle of shot is acceptable,” Eli said from the roofline. “Placement of shot preference?”

“Not someplace lethal,” I said ruminatively, as if I was thinking about my options. “Maybe a lower-leg wound. She might limp for the rest of her life, but I’d be alive to see her all gimpy.”