“No, Morgan.” Rose’s calm, reasonable voice was suddenly thick with an unexpected anger. “You don’t understand. No one here wants to talk to you.”

“But I know who the witch hunter is!” I exclaimed, and the connection clicked off.

“You sorry-assed idiots!” I shouted, throwing the phone across the room. It hit the wall, the back coming off and the batteries rolling over the floor. Frustrated, I stomped into the kitchen, spilling Ivy’s pens over the table as I reached for one. Heart pounding, I scratched a note to thumbtack to the door of the church.

Nick was coming. Glenn would talk to Nick. He could convince them I was right, tell them where I’d gone. They’d have to come out, if only to arrest me for interfering. I would have told him to call the I.S., but Piscary probably owned them. And though humans had as much chance of besting a master vampire as I did, perhaps just the interruption might be enough to save my butt.

Spinning, I reached for the cupboard, pulling amulets from hooks and jamming them into my bag. I yanked open a bottom drawer and grabbed three wooden stakes. I added the big butcher cleaver from the knife block. My splat gun was next, loaded with the strongest spell a white witch would have: sleepy-time charms. From the island counter I took a bottle of holy water. Thinking for a moment, I pulled up the valve top, took a swallow, recapped it, then shoved it in with the rest. Holy water wasn’t much good unless it was all you’d been drinking for the last three days, but I’d take all the deterrent I could scrape together.

Not slowing, I strode into the hall for my boots. I slipped them on and headed for the front door, laces flapping. Jerking to a halt in the hallway, I spun, returning to the kitchen. Grabbing a handful of change for the bus, I left.

Piscary wanted to talk to me? Good. I wanted to talk to him.

Twenty-Six

The bus was crowded at five in the morning. Living vamps, mostly, and vamp wannabes on their way home to take stock of their sorry existence. They gave me a wide birth. It could have been that I stank of holy water. It could have been that I looked like hell warmed over in my ugly, heavy winter coat with the fake fur around the collar that I had worn so the driver wouldn’t recognize me and pick me up. But I was betting it was the stakes.