Scorched

“Good. I need company.”

With no more warning than that, she hung up. The night was suddenly emptier. Alessandro quickened his pace. He never liked leaving Holly home by herself, even if she was a powerful witch. She meant too much to him not to worry.

There was a lot to worry about. For one thing, the hellhounds had to stop wandering away from their post at the Castle door. He was going to call Lore, their alpha, and have a word. Alessandro didn’t pay the Baskervilles to take kibble breaks whenever they felt like it.

Not with Holly home alone. Of course, all thoughts eventually led to her.

He finally reached the street beside the graveyard where his T-Bird was parked. The sight of her—the car was the other woman in his life—made his spirits rise. She was a sixties red two-door with custom chrome and smoked windows. He’d bought her new and kept her up himself. It was a point of pride that he never locked the doors. No one dared to mess with his car—except, of course, the occasional bird. Nature kept everyone humble, even vampires.

A cold wind whispered in the cedar trees as he threw the broadsword in the trunk and got behind the wheel. He wondered whether Holly had finished studying for the night, or if he’d have to coax her away from her books and over to the couch, where they could talk or watch television until other ideas pleasantly interfered. The ugliness of the night is done, and I’m going home to the girl I love, he thought, and he smiled. In all his long centuries of existence, this last year had been the first time he had been able to say that night after night.

He didn’t mind. Holly had been worth the wait.

As he sped into the driveway, the first thing he saw was a strange motorcycle at the curb. He parked and got out of the T-Bird, looking first at the house. Holly’s family home—where he lived now, too—was an 1880s painted lady with an ocean view. The usual lights were on in the kitchen and front room. He could see Kibs, the cat, staring out of the study window. Except for the motorcycle, everything looked normal.

But in the last few minutes, Holly had grown upset. He could feel it the way he could feel all of her strong emotions, as clearly as if she had spoken in his ear. Trouble had arrived.

He got the sword out of the trunk.

No doubt the trouble had ridden in on the bike. He turned and paused long enough to take in the red trellis design of a Ducati Monster. It was dirty, as if their visitor had ridden a long way.

Alessandro ran up the steps, mind scrambling for clues as to who this invader might be.

If this guy meant harm, he shouldn’t have made it over the threshold. The house should have kept him out. Witch houses were semi-sentient and self-repairing, sustained by the ambient magic that surrounded their families. They were also able to work basic protection spells, so why hadn’t it stopped this motorcycle-riding intruder?

The front door opened for Alessandro before he reached for the knob. He swept inside, noticing an unfamiliar red and white helmet on the front hall table. This guy had left it there like he owned the place. A sudden wave of territoriality made Alessandro clench his teeth.

He could sense Holly in the kitchen. She was always at the table these days, studying for her university midterms. The last thing she needed was an outsider disrupting her work. Alessandro went to confront the stranger, letting his boots fall ominously on the polished oak floors. A sharp, bitter smell hung in the air, as if Holly had forgotten to turn off the coffeemaker.

When he reached the kitchen, his eyes went first to her. His Holly was dark-haired and beautiful, but slowly surrendering to the wild-eyed, disheveled look of a full-time student. She sat surrounded by textbooks, dirty mugs, a laptop, pencils, and two complicated calculators, neither of which Alessandro could figure out.

“Hi,” he said. “What’s going on?”

As she turned around to greet him, he could see Holly’s huge green eyes were too wide, like she’d been shell-shocked. Frowning, he turned to the figure sitting in the chair next to Holly.

Then frowned some more. The motorcycle rider was not male.

The woman in riding gear was a bit taller than Holly, blonder, but had the same startling green eyes—which were riveted on him. She was grubby, her hair flat from the helmet and a hard set to her jaw. Alessandro knew the type—they swore hard, drank hard, and picked their teeth with a sharpened stake—just before they drove it through, some unfortunate vampire’s heart.

Which was just unhygienic.

No one said anything. The tap dripped in the kitchen sink. He held the scabbard of his broadsword casually, but doubted he was done with it for the night.

“Hey,” said Holly.

“What’s going on?” he repeated, looking pointedly at Kick-Ass Gal.

“This is my sister, Ashe.”

“The vampire slayer,” Ashe added in a voice like filthy snow.

Oh, great.

Holly’s expression was projecting a version of don’t-blame-me-I-didn’t-invite-her. He tried to smile but could feel it sagging into a grimace. He liked Holly’s grandmother. Holly’s parents were dead. That had been the sum total of his thoughts about his de facto in-laws.

Except, I know this is the in-law who tried out major magic, destroyed her own power, almost destroyed her sister’s power, accidentally killed both their parents, then ran away to live on the streets. Yeah, let’s have her come and stay for a few weeks.

Then he remembered Ashe owned half the house. He was technically the guest here.

This just gets better.

Alessandro sank into a chair across from Ashe, setting the sword down close at hand. Her expression made him wonder whether that and the three knives he was carrying were defense enough.

“So, you’re Alessandro Caravelli, the vampire queen’s renowned champion warrior.”

Ashe narrowed her eyes. He knew she was eight years older than Holly, which put her somewhere in her middle thirties. The hard lines in her face made her look older.

“I no longer work for the queen,” he replied stiffly. “I work alone.”

“I didn’t think vampires did that.”

“I’m hard to work with.” The truth was, he worked with and for the entire supernatural community in Fairview, keeping order much as he had when he served the queen. That wasn’t the point. “Why do you want to know?”

“You’re with my baby sister. You’re a vampire. What do you think?”

“I think you’re leaping to conclusions.”

“About what? The sex or the fangs?” She shoved one of the textbooks hard, sending it flying across the table toward a mug full of coffee.

With superhuman speed, he slammed his hand on the book, stopping it cold. With one simple act, she’d made him show his inhumanity. Show he was one of the Undead. Rough anger slid over him, scraping like coarse wool.

“Wait a damned minute,” said Holly, clutching at one of the pencils and stabbing the notebook in front of her. “How’d you find out about us?”

“Grandma’s letters finally caught up with me. I tried calling her from Calgary, but she’d already left for the family reunion in Waikiki. Maybe you should have taken lover boy there for some fun in the sun.”

Holly gave Ashe an unfriendly look. “You said you were here to see me. What you really meant was you came all this way from ... wherever to save me from Alessandro?”

“I was in Calgary,” Ashe replied. “Doing a job.”

“Killing vampires?” Alessandro asked, letting a little menace slide into his voice.

“Yep, and the guy paid me well. See the bike outside? That was just the bonus.”

Alessandro stifled a laugh. Well, the sister had guts, saying that to his face. He had to give her that much.

Holly’s face went white and she stopped staking her notes. “This is such BS. You walked out when I was a child. You never wrote, you never phoned. Why the hell do you care now?”

Ashe folded her arms. “I had other problems back then.”