While we ate, the boys caught Molly up to date on the supernatural happenings in New Orleans, especially the parts that pertained to me, the vamps, Joses/Joseph, the kill bar, and the spell I’d been hit with. I listened with half an ear, using the opportunity to let the current events settle into some sort of order in my mind. And wished I had an order for the events in the vamp boardinghouse.

I sliced steak and ate, sopped bloody meat juices with rolls, chewed, swallowed, and drank iced tea, listening until they reached the part about the spell and what it did to me.

Molly watched me carefully as Eli described everything that had happened. When he was done with his monologue, Molly set down her knife and fork and said, softly, “I want to know the exact sequence of events the night you saved my children from blood-sacrifice at the hands of the Damours. Not the fighting parts, but the part where your blood came into contact with the blood diamond.”

“Are you sure you can listen to this without getting upset? Your magic . . . ?” It had been a long time since we talked about the night when her children were in a witch circle about to be sacrificed.

“Yes,” Molly said, irritation lacing her voice. “I’m fine.”

I pushed the last bite of steak across my plate with my fork, no longer hungry. I put down the fork and rubbed my right hand with my left. Odd. It was my right hand that night too.

“I was with Derek and some of his men, in the woods of the park. By the time we found the vampire-witches, they had started passing the gem—the blood diamond—from person to person. Each one of them cut themselves with a glass athame, obsidian, I think, which I later found out meant it was chemically inert.”

Molly nodded in agreement, her dinner forgotten. KitKit jumped into her lap and Molly absently stroked the cat.

“Anyway, they each dripped blood onto the diamond. It got brighter and redder each time, as if it took power from each of them or was activated by the power in the blood of each of them.” I closed my eyes, as much to keep from seeing Molly’s face as to help me remember. The scene of the black-arts ceremony opened before me, as if imprinted on the backs of my eyelids. I started sweating; my breathing sped.

Beast rose in me, padding to the forefront of my memory. Stopped them, she rumbled at me. Killers of kits. All dead except the female with hair like blood.

She was talking about Adrianna, and though cats don’t see color the same way humans do, Beast had learned to use my eyes, much as I had learned to use hers. She understood the concept of red.

I nodded to her and went on. “We had to see how they set up the circle to stop the ceremony and take the diamond, but we also had to interrupt it before the circle was solidly set, or we’d be locked out of it and too late to act. After all five of the participants had sacrificed their blood to the gem, the leader, the bald-headed vamp, took up a solid-silver athame, which meant he was about to start the children’s sacrifice.” Remembered fear shivered through me and the words caught in my throat. My voice was tight when I went on.

“I made sure the sliver of the Blood Cross was easy to hand but still in its bag. I had been warned that it could damage me if I got pricked with it.” I shook a hand as if waving away that thought. “Anyway. It was my job to get to the leader and prick him with the wood. We attacked. Derek’s men opened fire with silver shot. The leader—Baldy—took some hits. They all did. But even with silver, the vamps weren’t falling. We ran into the clearing. I cut my face on a branch.” I touched my cheek, remembering.

“It happened really fast. Hicklin, one of Derek’s men, died, his death blood hitting the circle, powering it. Derek stopped Baldy’s blade with his own, saving Little Evan. The magic had already started to rise. The spell of the circle attacked us as if it was alive, as if it had a mind of its own. Motes of power burrowing under our skin.”

“Like the magic that attacked Leo when he was fighting the blood duel,” Eli said softly.

I nodded but didn’t open my eyes. “The men were still shooting and the weaker vamps started the death keening. It was awful. We killed Rafael Torres, who was Leo’s enemy and was mind joined to Adrianna. Derek and two other men staked her.

“I dove for Baldy, but he seemed to know I was coming, what I had planned. He reached out and shoved the blood diamond into my wound. And he said a wyrd. I had never felt pain like that, cold and searing hot all at once.” The memory flooded through me, as if it had been only waiting for the right moment to attack me again.

The gem had been icy, cold and flame. Just like the spell I was only recently rid of. Colder than the dark of space, colder than a night spent in hell, as the life force was ripped out of me. “I went limp. The gem was tearing all the warmth from my body, and I could see it happen, could see the life force move out of me and into the gem in a single heartbeat.”

My mouth was dry as memory brought it all back. The pain had seared every nerve, twisted every muscle. “I was dying. I knew that,” I whispered, more a rasp than human speech. I swallowed against the pain but it gave me no real relief. “The wyrd was a spell,” I said, explaining it to Eli and Alex, “but not like the wyrd that Santana said. This was a three-time spell, meaning you had to say it three times to invoke the power. The first utterance froze me, paralyzed me. I couldn’t even take a breath. I fell, leaving Baldy standing over me. I was dying, but . . . I had to save the children.”

The silence around the table was intense. I didn’t open my eyes. I had finally told Molly and Big Evan that their daughter, my goddaughter, Angelina, had gathered raw power and thrown it at Baldy, an offensive weapon of concentrated energies, guided solely by her need and intent. But the Youngers didn’t need to know that. At the same instant Angie Baby had released her power, however, the leader had spoken his spell again. So many things I couldn’t say aloud to protect my godchildren.

I opened my eyes and looked at Molly, but was talking to the Youngers. “Baldy said the wyrd the second time, and this time the wyrd power went up and out to do something. I don’t know what.”

Baldy had been hit with Angie’s power and he hadn’t spoken the third wyrd. He hadn’t bent to kill the children or spoken again. And then Angie Baby touched me and sent her energy into me, but this time with the intent to heal me. Both nascent workings had worked. Her raw, guided magic had saved my life. And Molly knew what I was leaving out and why.