“Multiply that by about a thousand,” Grace said. “Mama’s busy a lot of the time right now—out fighting the Irish mostly—so she isn’t thinking about us all the time, but don’t I know it when she does.”
“We broke our word to her.” Preston changed lanes to pull around a semi in his path. “We promised we wouldn’t tell what she’s doing to anyone outside the coven kingdom.”
“Outside the family,” Grace interjected.
“But we don’t like what’s happening.” Preston met Rose’s gaze in his rearview mirror. “I love my mother. I believe in fighting for our rights, but the way she’s going about it...I can’t be a part of that any longer.”
Satterfield took Preston’s free hand, and he nodded at her in grim appreciation.
“Is there anything you can do to alleviate that feeling?” Matt asked.
Everyone grew still, the sound of the van’s engine and tires suddenly deafening. Rose shared a look of uncertainty with Matt.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“There’s only one way to break a poison tie.” Olivia sounded like a child, her voice high and toneless.
“How?” Rose asked, fearful of the answer.
“Sever it.”
“No.” Grace sat up straight, her eyes wide. “We talked about that. We’re not going to kill Mama.”
“What if she gives us no choice?” Preston asked.
Grace turned her gaze to the window, her long hair obscuring her profile. “I can make her listen to reason.”
“Grace, honey, you already tried that,” Satterfield said.
“You confronted her?” Matt asked.
“We both did.” Preston sat quietly for a moment, seemingly lost in the past. When next he spoke, his voice came out gruff with emotion. “Mother’s been quietly executing old guard vampires for months now.”
“Not always so quietly,” Rose said.
Preston nodded. “The ones you’ve heard about, she did that on purpose. She’s become a beacon to the unattached—vampires without covens of their own. Your kind have always made it hard for us to congregate. They let some of the old guard build covens, but even those were small. Most vampires have traditionally lived alone for fear of succubus intervention. Mama’s changing all that, and the downtrodden are flocking to her.”
“So, her coven kingdom isn’t comprised solely of you and your siblings?” Matt asked.
“Nope,” Grace said. “Mama’s broken up the east coast into ten regions with one of my sisters at the head of each, but a lot of the vampires serving them aren’t family.”
“Family or not, they’re loyal.” Preston changed lanes to pass an SUV and immediately exited the highway, his attention bouncing from the road to his mirrors.
“They’re the ones she’s been using to move against Society,” Satterfield said. “Most of those executions aren’t making the news. We don’t know if Society is suppressing them out of embarrassment or if the succubi she’s killing aren’t prominent enough to rate full coverage.”
“I doubt Society’s holding back coverage.” Matt shook his head, his jaw tight. “It looks to me like they’ve become completely disorganized. That’s why the report about Piper attacking Alice’s goons went public.”
Preston turned west at the top of the ramp onto a busy freeway. “Thankfully, most people figured that for a hoax.” “I get why Piper’s fighting Alice.” Rose adjusted her seat belt to lean forward. “But you’re saying she’s been killing Society elites?”
Satterfield nodded, her expression grave. “Three in the last week.”
“That we know of,” Preston said.
“Her network is growing. None of us know how big it’s gotten. She has people everywhere now, and she’s constantly sending orders to one of the girls or another.”
They passed a slew of fast-food restaurants, strip malls, and gas stations on the outskirts of a small town feeding off Atlanta like a remora. Less than a mile from the highway, the state road narrowed to two lanes with heavy forest on either side.
“Mama’s gone a long way fast,” Grace said. “Society is just now catching on to what she’s been up to.”
“She’s been strategic about it.” Preston gunned the engine to pass a pickup despite oncoming headlights in the opposing lane. “Every succubus she’s killed contributed to the power struggle going on in Society. The more they focus on that, the less they notice what some vampires are up to.”
Rose twisted in her seat to look out the back window. Another car whipped around the truck Preston had passed, its headlights illuminating the rear seats. “Is someone following us?”
“I wasn’t sure till just now,” Preston said. “They were discreet on the highway. There’s two or three of them, and they kept switching out every few miles, making me think I was imagining things.”
A second car passed the pickup to assume a position behind the first, which was rapidly gaining on the van. The lead driver flashed the high beams as if signaling Preston to pull over.
“Any idea who they are?” Matt asked.
Preston, his face bathed in white light from the mirrors, shook his head. “No, but I can tell you one thing, they ain’t human.”
18
Beyond Her Grasp
Preston slowed the van to turn onto a narrow gravel lane marked with blue reflectors but no mailboxes. It looked like a fire road, which Rose took as a good sign. The last thing they needed right now was a neighborhood full of nosy humans. The two cars followed, staying close. Though the moon was full, little of its light penetrated the thick canopy, leaving the road essentially black outside the cars’ headlights.
“What’s the plan?” Matt asked.
“We’re going to confront them?” Rose wished she had worn her Kimber pistol. The model 1911 would go a long way to easing her fear about two carloads of attackers overwhelming her side.
“I don’t see any alternative.” Preston continued several hundred feet before pulling to a stop. He threw the van in park and killed the engine.
“Is Piper back there?” Rose didn’t know how she felt about the idea. She wanted to speak with Piper, find out what she was thinking, but she got the feeling whoever was in those cars didn’t have talking in mind.
“No.” Olivia stared through the back window, her face illuminated. “I’d feel her if so.”
“We all would,” Grace said.
Car doors opened behind them, and shadows appeared between the vehicles.
“That’s our cue.” Matt pressed the button to open the sliding door next to him, letting in the muted scents of exhaust and pine trees.
He climbed out, and Rose followed. Preston and Satterfield joined them, with Olivia and Grace in the rear. Two figures from the other cars sauntered forward. At first, Rose couldn’t make out their faces for the bright light at their backs, but once they passed the rear edge of the van, the shadows gathered, and she recognized them both.
“Tamika.” Preston said his sister’s name without emphasis, but the feeling in it brought her up short.
The young woman next to Tamika, whom Rose had last seen the night Piper duped her into attacking Felix Dietrich, stopped a step behind her sister, her eyes twinkling despite the scant light. Stephanie appeared even younger than Grace, though Rose knew with vampires, as with succubi, someone’s apparent age meant little.
“You aren’t supposed to be here.” Tamika stood with her feet under her hips, her knees ever so slightly bent—a stance Rose recognized from thousands of hours of training for hand-to-hand combat. Hopefully, that meant she had no intention of drawing the gun holstered at her hip.
“Mother sent you to pick us up?”
Tamika nodded slowly. She lifted a hand as if she might rest it on her pistol but let it flop back at her side. “She wants you home.”
“I think you know, we aren’t going,” Preston said.
“Preston, get in the car.” Tamika hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “You and Grace both.”
&n
bsp; “You know what Mother’s been doing is wrong.” Preston made no move to join her, and neither did Grace, though the younger vampire trembled.
“The blood pain can’t be comfortable,” Tamika said, not unkindly. “You’re both feeling eaten up inside right now, I know. Come home. We’ll work this out.”
“She’s killing succubi.” Grace stepped past her brother to confront Tamika and Stephanie. “She promised Rose we wouldn’t do that.”
“That was before the Irish came and started killing our kind,” Stephanie returned hotly. “She—”
Tamika placed a hand on her sister’s shoulder to quell her outburst. “Preston, things are happening that you don’t understand.”
“Tell me.”
“Tell all of us.” Olivia stepped forward to stand next to Grace.
“It’s not for your ears.”
“Why? Because I’m living with Rose and Matt? There aren’t supposed to be any secrets between them and Mother. That’s our agreement, isn’t it?”
“No,” Tamika said, her voice flat. “Our agreement is to help one another when in need. That’s it.”
Rose couldn’t fault that narrow interpretation of the Order’s compact with Piper and her children. Neither had agreed to divulge secrets to the other. But they had vowed to keep one another apprised of information pertinent to their treaty. In her estimation, the need to kill succubi fell squarely into that category.
“No, that’s not it,” Rose said. “We agreed to complete nonaggression on your mother’s part until after the Order won representation in Society.”
Rose considered joining Olivia and Grace but thought better of it. This was a family affair. Wherever their disagreement coincided with Order interests, she would speak up; otherwise, she felt it better to remain as inconspicuous as possible.
“We haven’t forgotten,” Tamika said haughtily. She stared at Rose for a moment as if considering something. At last, she said, “I can’t tell you all I know, Mother has her reasons for keeping quiet, but I will tell you that everything she’s done has been for the good of the Order and our Coven Queendom.”
“How is murdering succubi good for the Order?” Rose drew discernment, her gaze locked on Tamika’s eyes.
“I didn’t come here to discuss this with you. I came to collect my family.”
“We’re not going back,” Grace said. “We don’t like what Mama’s doing; we don’t like taking part in it.”
“And what about me?” Satterfield still held Preston’s hand.
“What about you?”
“You said you’re here for your family. Is the treaty off? Am I supposed to go back to the Order now? And is Olivia going with you?”
Tamika paused a heartbeat too long for Rose’s taste. Her gaze darted to Preston, to his hand holding Satterfield’s, before she said in a gracious voice, “Of course, you come with us. But Mother wants to see Olivia for a couple of days—fill her in on everything that’s going on.”
Whatever gifts Tamika might have inherited from Piper when the latter changed her into a vampire, her mother’s talent for deception wasn’t one of them. Rose’s discernment screamed like thunder trapped inside her skull. Matt glanced her way and shook his head minutely.
Preston let go of Satterfield’s hand and squared his shoulders. “We’re not going anywhere with you.”
“No, we’re not.” Olivia’s hands flexed at her sides.
“Don’t do this.” Tamika looked pained, her mouth set in a hard line. “We’re family.”
“Go home, tell Mother we’re not coming,” Preston said.
“You know I can’t do that.” Tamika motioned to the cars parked behind her, and the doors popped open. Four figures climbed out. Three were wights, their skin pale as the dappled moonlight through the trees. The fourth was a male vampire carrying an M16 nonchalantly across one shoulder.
“Who’s that?” Preston asked.
“Does it matter?” Tamika slowly drew her pistol and held it at her side as the vampire and wights joined her. “We have firepower, and we have wights. Get in the cars.”
Heat rushed through Rose’s body as she drew speed, strength, and dexterity. She could tell by Matt’s expression and the subtle change in his stance, he was doing the same. She’d give anything for a pistol, not to mention body armor, but she had left those in the trunk of her car back at Centennial Park.
“Preston,” Satterfield said, “maybe we should go. I don’t want to fight your sisters.”
“You do that, and we’re dead.” Matt turned his gaze slightly to catch Preston’s eye. “Look how many bodies Tamika brought with her. There aren’t enough seats for all of you, not unless she was planning on taking our van.”
“You’re planning to kill them?” Olivia demanded.
“Mother’s orders.” Tamika flashed her fangs, white and menacing in the scant light. “What sort of daughter would I be if I didn’t obey?”
Rose had seen succubi move fast. As a matter of fact, that particular trait ran strong in her, but nothing she had ever seen or done compared to Tamika raising her gun and shooting Matt. He must have sensed it coming, his discernment twigging him to the danger an instant before the vampire moved because he managed to dodge aside as the gun barked. Rather than enter his heart, a fatal shot even for an incubus, Tamika’s first bullet ripped through the right side of his chest, and the second caught him in the shoulder. Matt cried out, twisting as he fell on the gravel road.
Without pause, Tamika reoriented her aim on Rose, or would have if Rose had obliged her by remaining still. She instead launched herself at Tamika with every ounce of speed she could draw. No easy feat since Preston and Satterfield, who hadn’t moved, stood in her way. Apparently, they were too stunned to take action. While that suited Rose fine in one sense—they were, in effect, acting as a screen for her against their sister who looked to shoot her—Rose was forced to bat them aside as she arrowed between them like a missile homing in on its target. She would have struck that target, too, except a wight slammed into her before she could get her hands on Tamika or her weapon.
Teeth gnashing at her neck as they slid in the gravel, the wight, a male whose scent could have put her off eating for a decade, pulled her close, his fetid breath hot on her skin. Heart pounding in fear and borrowed stamina, Rose spun the insensate monster to the ground so that she sat atop it. The thing was strong, but she was stronger. While it clawed at her arms, digging bloody furrows from her elbows to the backs of her hands, Rose snatched a heart-shaped rock from the grassy verge between the road and the forest. Relying on her speed, she extricated her arm from the wight’s clutches and brought the rock down with drawn-enhanced strength. The blow caved in the wight’s forehead, and it fell still.
Tamika’s pistol fired twice, followed by the staccato sound of a semi-automatic rifle. Rose spun away from her fallen enemy, her every sense sharpened by borrowed energy and towering fear.
To her short-lived surprise, she found Tamika lying on her back in the gravel, either shot or knocked unconscious. Satterfield had her gun, which she was using to pin down and distract the vampire with the rifle who had taken up a firing position behind the closest car. He appeared incapable of hitting Satterfield for fear of accidentally tagging one of the vampires or getting shot in the head. While a powerful vampire with a huge votary count might survive such a shot, he obviously had no intention of testing his luck.
Meanwhile, having healed his former injury, Matt joined Preston, Grace, and Olivia in neutralizing the remaining wights and Stephanie. Matt had retrieved a tire iron from the back of the van and proceeded to pummel both wights with bone-snapping force.
Seeing her side so ably disarmed and defeated, Stephanie dropped to her knees in the road, pale hands in the air. “Don’t hurt me. I give up.”
“Stay put!” Preston yelled. He turned to the rifle-toting vampire who was still taking potshots at Satterfield, though she remained elusive. “Stop firing. You’re done.”
“Shut
up! I came here to do a mission for the queen, and—”
Rose cracked him in the back of the head with her already bloodied rock, and he fell like a trash bag full of toasters. She took his rifle and walked over to Tamika. The beautiful vampire was still breathing, though it looked like someone had smacked her across the forehead with a tire iron.
“Got your revenge, sweetie?”
Matt nodded, his face grim in the moonlight. “I didn’t like having to do that, but she gave me no choice. She’s too damned fast with a gun.”
“I think we better get out of here before she wakes up,” Olivia said. “Those wights we killed weren’t Mother’s. They were Tamika’s. She’s going to be royally pissed when she finds them dead.”
“Will you go with us?” Grace asked, and everyone turned to her and Stephanie.
Stephanie shook her head. “No. I’m loyal. You should be, too. Mother’s been good to us, you know.”
Though it obviously pained her, Grace shook her head. “Good to us, bad for our kind. Killing succubi isn’t going to fix what’s wrong in the world. We need to find ways to work together.”
“You need help getting them in the cars?” Preston asked.
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