To Dance with the Devil

our enemies. There are limited options and they’re not far apart. It’s very likely we’ll be working very close to the enemy. We’ll keep up a veil as long as we can, but once the node is tapped, the interference is going to take everything down. When that happens, you can expect things to get hairy. Under the cover of the veil, we’ll be building concentric walls of sandbags around the circle where the magic will be worked. Bubba and Talia here, are our last line of defense. Your goal is to make sure they have nothing to do. Once I’m inside the circle, Chuck is in charge.”

“Celia,” Chris said as if he’d already repeated my name a couple of times. Maybe he had. I’d been concentrating hard on Creede. “We’re here. We’ve landed.”

“Sorry. I was listening to John Creede. I left some people with him.”

Chris shook his head, a half smile on his face. For just a second a hint of our old friendship surfaced, but then his expression hardened, his eyes going dark. “You’d better go ahead to the house. I know Kevin’s expecting us, but I’d rather not startle him.”

Smart man. Startling a werewolf on the day of the full moon is not a healthy pastime. So I unfastened my safety harness and climbed out of the chopper.

Kevin’s place was on the edge of the desert, near Death Valley. I’d seen pictures when he’d bought the place just after the Needle had been built. The previous owners hadn’t been thrilled with the notion of having the most dangerous criminals in the world living that close to them—even with miles and miles of inhospitable desert between the cabin and the prison—so Kevin had gotten it for a song.

I remembered that when the house had first been built, it had been featured in Mother Earth News as a perfect example of a building designed using recycled tires. The seller had given a copy of the article to Kevin, who had proudly shown us all the photos. The cabin had a stucco surface, with a wide veranda shielding the windows from the sun on the south side. The north side had been built into an earthen berm. There were solar panels on the roof and a windmill elsewhere on the property. It was austere but beautiful, blending seamlessly into the sere beauty of the desert, like a jewel in a brooch. I suspected the place was completely off the grid.

Emma had told me Kevin had made some renovations in the last few years. I’m not sure what I had expected. New bathroom? New appliances? Not this.

The simple fence that had previously surrounded the property had been replaced by a wall that was at least seven feet tall, two to three feet thick, and covered in tan stucco. Access was through a steel gate as tall as the wall and just wide enough to let a single vehicle through. The gate’s controls looked similar to the ones at my place. A sign was attached to the gate, black with yellow block letters: TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT. SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN.

I stood outside the gate and bellowed, “Yo, Kevin! It’s me!” Not the most elegant of greetings, but effective. I saw the edge of one of the curtains flick aside. A moment later, Emma came out of the cabin and approached the gate. She had my Derringer in a holster on her belt and carried one of those big squirt guns with the extra tanks. I had no doubt that the reservoirs were filled with holy water. I also knew that Chris, Rob, and I were going to get a little wet if we wanted to get past Emma. It was the only way she and Kevin could be sure that the three of us were who we claimed to be.

“Em, what are you doing here?”

She sprayed me. When it was clear that I was, indeed, me, she answered. “Kevin was worried that if something went wrong and he needed to hunt before you guys got here, Michelle would be unprotected. So I left Paulie with Dad and came out here as backup.”

I hadn’t realized her dad was back. I was glad. I knew she and Kevin had both missed him badly, and this might just give me a chance to extend an olive branch, see if we could work out our differences.

Chris and the pilot came over, both carrying boxes of equipment and supplies. Emma sprayed them, and only when they had both passed inspection did she put her palm on the control pad and open the gate.

“Where do you want these?” Rob asked.

“Put them in the living room. We’ve cleared everything out to make room.”

“Right.”

True to her word, the large room was empty save for a single recliner. The curtains had been drawn on all of the windows so that it was dim. Michelle sat on the wide ledge of a stone fireplace. After greeting me, she sat quietly, watching Chris set up the equipment.

I couldn’t blame her for being afraid. A few days ago she’d been living a normal life. Now her mother had been murdered and she was being hunted by a mage who wanted her dead. And it looked like her only option was to put her life in the hands of people she’d only just met and attempt what sure sounded like a harebrained scheme with no guarantee of success.

In the last few days she’d been shot, had surgery, had run for her life twice, and been part of a gun battle. All that would have been hard on me, and I was used to violence. How difficult must it have been for her? I walked over to her. “Hey, Michelle, how you holding up?”

“Truthfully? Not so hot. Kevin’s acting strange. He keeps pacing and looking out the windows. He hardly talks to anyone. Emma’s worried, but she won’t say why, and it doesn’t feel like she’s worried about me.” She took a breath. “And I’m scared. What if the transfusion doesn’t work? I mean, you’re just guessing.”

“It’s the day of the full moon. Kevin is feeling a little restless.” In fact, he’d gone outside the minute we’d come in, preferring to keep a little distance between himself and so many people. “And Michelle, you need to trust me. I am not going to let you die. I’ll do everything in my power, whatever it takes, to see to it that you make it to tomorrow. Do you believe me?”

Her answer was a barely audible whisper. “Yes.”

“I can’t promise that this will work. I think it will; I think it’s our best bet. But if it doesn’t, we’ll do something else.” Right then, I didn’t know what that something else would be, but I knew I wouldn’t give up. I did not want her to die, not just because her death would help Connor Finn, but for her own sake. She seemed like a good kid. She deserved the chance to have a full, happy life.

Chris said, “We’re ready, and we should probably get started right away. The rapid infusion device was destroyed in the fire yesterday and I couldn’t get a replacement. So it’ll take longer than planned to get everything done well before sunset.”

I turned to Michelle, who had gone pale. She began to shake her head no, over and over.

“Michelle, you need to do this.”

She didn’t answer, just kept shaking her head. Chris, Emma, and Rob were all looking at me like: fix this. But I didn’t know what else to say, how to convince her to go through with it. I wondered if Chris had brought sedatives; I wondered how he’d feel about transfusing an unconscious person against her will.

Just then the temperature in the room started to drop. A cold breeze ruffled my hair and my breath misted the air.

“Mama?” Michelle’s voice held awe and wonder. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

The sound of scratching on the frame of the picture above the fireplace mantel drew our attention. There, written in frost, was a single word. Yes.

“I miss you so much. I’m so scared.” Michelle was crying, her words almost childlike in their desperation and simplicity.

You have to do this. You MUST. The words appeared slowly, but they were unmistakable.

Michelle stood. Swallowing hard, she turned to me. “Will you hold my hand?”

It was a bad idea. I’m part vampire, and there was about to be a lot of blood in the immediate area. I should be as far away from the whole process as possible. But she was so scared and desperate that I found myself nodding mute assent. I heard Chris tell Rob to turn up the blood warmer.

Michelle was still strapped to the machine when the attack came, a wave of heat that hit like a wrecking ball, driving me to my knees. Michelle shrieked as her hair burst into flame and burns began crawling up her arms. Reacting almost inhumanly fast, Chris yanked out the needle and tubing that were draining her blood, flinging the apparatus away from him as it burst into blue-white flames, the plastic melting to stinking black liquid before our eyes. He clamped down, holding pressure to the wound even as Michelle’s skin began to blister and blacken