“What does she want?” Amaliya asked. “That’s what we have to figure out.”

Cian peered upward at the cloudless sky and pondered the question. Rachon had loved The Summoner. They had fought at times, but Cian knew that she would come to their creator’s side to defend him despite the distance. He remembered Rachon’s glee as she had tortured Cian in the ruins of a pyramid in Mexico while The Summoner calmly killed Cian’s mortal minions and stitched them back together as grotesque creatures. Maybe he had underestimated her devotion to The Summoner. If Rachon was out for revenge, she would have to find a way to destroy Cian and Amaliya. Possessing Bianca definitely evened the odds, but Rachon had not shown up with her own powerhouse of necromantic magic.

“It’s a distraction,” Cian decided, stopping in his stride, frowning. “She drew us here to distract us from something else.”

“If she wants Austin doesn’t she have to kill us?” Amaliya asked.

“Yep, but she’s not here,” Eduardo said and yawned again. “Fucking boring night. Thought I’d have a nice little fight to enjoy.”

“What else would Rachon want?” Cian paced, agitated. “This makes no sense. We’re missing something.”

“We don’t know something,” Amaliya corrected him.

Eduardo’s head jerked swiftly to one side and he inhaled deeply. “We have company and it’s not vampires.”

A scream rent the air.

“The van!” Amaliya shouted, breaking into a run.

Cian sprinted after her, Eduardo on his heels. Through the trees the van was hidden behind, he saw the flash of a light. The scream sounded male and raised voices competed with it. Amaliya plunged into the trees, eyes flashing white. Cian followed in her wake and barely caught sight of a woman shouting into the van just before Amaliya grabbed her and tossed her away.

“Back off, bitch!” another woman shouted, raised one hand, and swept it toward Amaliya.

Amaliya flew backward into the trees, branches snapping and cracking as she vanished into the gloom.

Alexia and Benchley shouted incoherently at Cian and Eduardo, but both men ignored them as they lunged toward the woman with long bronze hair and blue eyes. Jaw set and eyes blazing, she thrust her hands outward. Cian was hit with the force of a truck and knocked through the foliage. His body hit a tree trunk, snapping bones.

“Fuck!” Cian roared, healing instantly.

Recovering, he leaped to his feet and hurtled back into the fray. He was almost to the witch when the first woman he had seen appeared before him and slammed her fist into his face. He staggered, then seized her arm. She instantly raised her other hand, a silver tipped dagger in it.

“Get the fuck away from us!” The light from the open van spilled over her features. She had heavily-fringed blue eyes and chestnut-brown hair that fell in silky waves to her chin.

“Galina?” Cian gasped.

The young woman hesitated, her full lips parting slightly. After a second, she said, “No, that’s my mother.”

Cian let go of her abruptly. Staring at the defiant woman before him, he rubbed his chin as it healed. She wasn’t a vampire, but...

“Stupid bitches!” Eduardo howled, his mouth full of teeth that were not human as he lunged forward out of the darkness. He had obviously been cast away, too. Bits of twigs and leaves clung to his hair.

Cian caught Eduardo by the back of the neck and hauled him to his side. “Stand down!”

“They’re friends!” Alexia’s words finally registered over Benchley’s incoherent shouting.

Behind the woman who had slugged him and held him hostage at the end of her stake, the witch lowered her hands, though her body was still tensed for battle.

Amaliya surged out of the trees, eyes glowing bright white. One of her arms was broken, the bone protruding just below her elbow. As she stomped forward, she popped it back into place.

“Fucking cunt!” Amaliya screamed, slashing one wrist with her nails.

“Amaliya, stop!” Cian ordered. He held out a hand to ward her off.

“Don’t make me give you flying lessons again,” the witch threatened.

“They’re friends!” Alexia shouted again. “Amaliya, don’t do anything!”

Amaliya’s eyes continued to glow as her blood dripped onto the ground. “Cian, what’s going on?”

“I’m not certain yet.” Cian couldn’t tear his eyes from the face of the young woman standing before him. She strongly resembled Galina, the human lover of the former master of the Austin cabal, the woman Cian had spared from the massacre because he had loved her. But there was a hint of another familiar face in her features. He could barely comprehend what he was seeing. “Who are you?”

The woman slowly lowered the stake and stood before him with a defiant tilt to her head. “My name is Cassandra. This is my girlfriend Aimee. We’re here to find Jeff.”

Both of the women were in jeans. Cassandra was wearing a form-fitting t-shirt with the Batman logo on it while Aimee wore a frothy white blouse over a tank top. He noted Cassandra’s combat boots and Aimee’s cowboy boots. They both looked like any of the young women in Austin, but he knew they were not.

Cian found it difficult to speak for a moment. “You’re a dhamphir and she’s a witch.”

“Yeah,” Cassandra answered.

Aimee smiled slightly. “Surprise.”

Cassandra warily returned to her girlfriend’s side, taking on a protective stance. “We’re friends of Jeff. We’re tracking someone and you’re in our way.”

“Do you know who I am?” Cian asked, his voice a bit harsher than he liked.

Cassandra smiled widely. “Oh, yeah. Cian Lynch, Master Vampire of Austin, Texas.” Cassandra paused, then leaned toward him, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Howya doing, Dad?”

* * *

Sweat poured down Pete's face as he trod carefully through the graveyard in the direction of Sergio's truck. The muscles in his back and arms screamed in pain, but he ignored the discomfort. He was absolutely sure that what he was doing was the right thing. Restoring Amaliya to life was all that mattered. His aching joints and sore muscles would have to endure until the task was done.

He passed Ethan huddled over one of the graves they had uncovered sorting through the remains in the rotting coffin. Pete assumed the hunter was looking for bits of The Summoner again. It disturbed Pete to unearth the old bodies, but most were nothing more than bones. So far they hadn't found what Ethan was searching for. Pete wasn't sure how Ethan could tell the difference between a human dead body and that of a vampire, but he supposed there were some sort of telltale signs.

Wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, he exhaled with frustration. The night was oppressively warm and the darkest black he had ever seen. A thick cloud cover obscured the cold light of the stars and he wished they had brought more lights with them.

Innocente stared past him toward the graveyard when he approached the truck. He had expected to find her napping, but her eyes were alert and her posture tense.

“Need to grab some water,” he said, stopping before her.

“Do you ever feel like you're doing the right thing, but that it will not end well?” Innocente asked.

“All the time,” Pete admitted. Opening the back door, he leaned and opened the cooler. He scrounged around in the frigid water created by the melting ice and jerked out a water bottle. “That's why they gave me Prozac for a while.”

Innocente frowned at him. “You know what I mean.”

“It's just the graveyard. We wouldn't be human if we didn't get the willies being around the dead,” Pete assured her.

“It's not the true dead I worry about. It's the others. The ones who are dead, but still moving around.” Innocente took the water he offered her. “Thank you.”

“Look, the way I see it, all of us out here are doing the best we can for Amaliya. It doesn't help that we now all recognize that all those scary stories we thought weren't real apparently are very real. You've seen Amaliya since she came back. So have I.” Pete gulped the water, trying to forget the image of Amaliya's bloody tears and sharp teeth. “It changes everything once you realize that vampires are real.”

Innocente lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “I always knew ghosts were real. Vampires aren't so surprising. I just don't like my granddaughter being one. It makes her life so much harder.”

“I want to make her life easier,” Pete said in a timid voice. He was certain that his intentions toward Amaliya were pretty clear, but it was embarrassing to know that Innocente was aware of how he had rejected Amaliya and the circumstances around it.

Sighing, the old woman took another gulp of water.

“I know I hurt her. I was just afraid. Weren't you afraid when you first saw her?” Pete leaned against the truck, staring at the woman, willing her to understand.

Shoulders slumping, Innocente nodded. “Yes, I was afraid. But then I realized that she was still my granddaughter and she needed my help.” Her voice was barbed with her anger.