All Just Glass

could have been caused by low blood pressure.

“What’s next?” Dominique asked Adia.

“Next …” Adia paused, thinking on her feet. “Zachary, Michael and Jay will all need some recovery time. I made a contact at that bookstore that may be able to lead us to our remaining targets, but first we need to relocate. If our targets are going to be launching full-scale attacks on us, we should be somewhere less well known and better fortified, at least until we’re back to our peak strength. I assume we have a safe house that Sarah doesn’t know about.” Dominique nodded. Adia pondered a moment longer, then shook her head, declining to continue with her plans. “I think that needs to be our first move. Once we’re there, we can recover our strength. Everyone gather only what you need. I don’t want to stay in this house any longer than necessary.”

Dominique didn’t look happy with the delay, and Zachary took the blame for that upon himself, but she didn’t argue with the daughter she had put in charge of this mission. Fortunately, though Zachary had been planning to stay with Dominique as long as necessary, he had not yet unpacked his bags. It would be easy to go somewhere else. One house, one bed, one table, was like any other.

CHAPTER 11

SATURDAY, 8:20 A.M.

“ADIANNA, YOU—” Dominique broke off when her oldest daughter turned to her with a focused expression.

“Yes?” she asked when Dominique paused, reminding herself that she had put Adianna in charge for a reason. Her daughters were—had been—adults, ready for authority, but she had kept them strictly under her command for too long. The recent disaster had made her realize that it was time to make adult responsibilities a little clearer.

She did believe that Adianna was capable, but defying old habits was still difficult.

“I can gather the books,” she said, changing her tone from commanding to offering. Even though they did not need the records to identify their current targets, leaving the heavy tomes behind was not an option.

Adianna nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

There were two books. One was an ancient tome of Vida law. Every witch of their line was required to study those pages, and needed to be able to recite each law word for word before she was given her primary weapon and named a full member. The second was a collection of notes and drawings about every vampire hunters had ever encountered, currently gathered in a giant binder.

Those invaluable records, representing centuries of knowledge, had been in horrendous shape when Dominique had first seen them, with information, sometimes in other languages, jotted down on scraps of paper, parchment and even bark, often worn, faded or crumbling beyond all readability.

She had sealed the salvageable drawings in archive-quality sleeves, laboriously worked with language experts to translate pieces no one had read in decades, and agonized over her first typewriter in an effort to transcribe and organize what could be read of the older, handwritten notes.

After Jacqueline’s death, locking herself away with the occasionally ancient, dusty texts had been soothing. Pregnant with her second child, she hadn’t been able to hunt. Sitting, doing nothing—indeed, being protected by an eight-year-old orphan child and the human she had married—had been infuriating. She had wanted nothing more than to call up old friends, whose companionship had always been comforting, if not entirely healthy.

She slid the drawing of the twin vampires into the proper acid-free sleeve and then gathered the books into a canvas bag.

Maybe she should have spent those months hunting instead. An unfortunate accident eighteen years earlier might have saved her daughter and nephew from learning what it meant to put a knife in someone they loved.

Please, Dommy.

She could almost hear his voice pleading with her.

Please. You owe me this.

She tried to chase the phantom away. He was long dead. She knew, because she was the one who had killed him. He hadn’t been strong enough to do it himself—just as Sarah wasn’t strong enough now.

“Did you manage to reach any of our other contacts?” Adianna asked, returning to the room with a duffel bag thrown over her shoulder.

Dominique shook her head, recalling with frustration how her many phone calls had gone. At first she had been able to reach most of the hunters she dialed. They were grumpy and groggy, often having just gone to bed, but they answered.

Some of them told her they would contact her if they got word, but made it clear they had no interest in joining the hunt. Others told her flat out to go to hell. Word must have traveled fast, because after the first round of attempts, she hadn’t reached anything but voice mail. The one contact who had asked to set up a meeting had then left a message saying he had changed his mind.

Traitors. They claimed moral objections, but the truth was they didn’t want to risk their hides hunting powerful prey, especially when it already knew all their names and faces.

“Our allies know what is going on, but I do not believe any of them will prove useful.”

Adianna shrugged, seeming unconcerned. “Might as well keep it in the family.”

She looked up into Dominique’s eyes as she said it. Her gaze held many questions and a silent plea of Don’t make me do this.

Adianna prided herself on her control, with good reason, but she was still Dominique’s daughter; she couldn’t hide perfectly when she looked into her mother’s eyes. But though Dominique saw the plea, Adianna clearly already knew she wouldn’t respond. They couldn’t afford to be sentimental that day.

Dominique would watch her and make sure she didn’t balk, because forward was the only direction that would get them through this. She wouldn’t let Adianna become another Jacqueline, whose impulsiveness and doubts had destroyed her, along with most of her family.

“I’m going to see if Zachary and Michael need help,” Adianna said, looking away. “They’re pretty worn down. You check on Jay.”

Adianna turned away without waiting for acknowledgement, a gesture Dominique knew had been learned from her. It didn’t leave any space for an argument, had Dominique wanted to make one.

Jay had arrived with a backpack and a small tote bag that held all his weaponry. When Dominique reached him, he had finished packing but was struggling with the zipper because of his broken arm.

She reached down to help without asking, or even looking directly at the empath. Nevertheless, he responded as his line tended to, with no regard for her obvious signals that she had no desire to engage in conversation.

“It isn’t your fault,” he said.

“A hunter shouldn’t try to be a therapist,” she said, zipping the backpack and tossing it at him. He caught it one-handed without a problem.

“I just wanted to—”

“It isn’t my fault,” she interrupted. She knew too well the way Marinitch witches worked when they tried to get inside someone’s head. “If anything, it’s the fault of those damned fools at SingleEarth. If it weren’t for their insistence that we honor their alliances, my daughter never would have been put into a situation where she was forced to endure the company of a leech just because he was pretending to play nice.”

The Vida line had laws forbidding relationships with their prey—even friendly ones, much less romantic—for a reason. They could all pretend to be human for a while. They could pretend to be charming, even. She had seen it. Believing that they were, however, was a good way to get someone killed.

“You’ve never once had doubts?” Jay asked.

She answered him honestly, because that was the only way to deal with an empath. Lies only made them pry further.