The rest of us grabbed seats in the kitchen while I made hot chocolate.

"I do so love this time of year in this part of the world," Bella said. "The weather just doesn't feel right in the south for Christmas."

Harry Shelton walked through the kitchen door, wearing his standard leather duster, jeans, and cowboy boots.

"Harry!" Bella said, meeting him halfway with a hug, and a kiss to both cheeks. "It is good to see you again, dear."

Shelton's face flushed bright red. "Yeah, yeah, darlin'. Good to see you, too."

She laughed. "Don't be embarrassed."

"I'm not—" he huffed out a breath. "Oh, whatever." He walked over to the counter. "You got any coffee brewing?"

I gave him an exasperated look. "Good to see you, too, Shelton."

"Glad you made it out of there alive, kiddo."

"I'm glad you made it out alive," I said, resisting the urge to pelt him with questions.

Shelton grabbed a mug and sniffed at the dark liquid in the decanter on the industrial coffee machine. Shrugged and poured a cup.

"It's fresh," Elyssa said.

He took a sip and grimaced. "Weak." He sat on a stool and looked at us, his eyes settling on Katie. "What's she doing here?"

"Polite as the last time we met," Katie said, crossing her arms and staring him down. "If you can't afford etiquette school, I'd be willing to work two jobs to support you."

Shelton laughed. "You're not the scared little girl I remember."

"She helped rescue me from Maximus," I said. "I think we've all done some growing up in the past few days."

"Amen to that," Elyssa said, before taking a sip of hot chocolate. "You can add my father to that list."

"Sounds like I've missed out on a lot," Shelton said.

"You have no idea." Bella grabbed her own mug. "I emailed you a couple of times to fill you in, but I think I did something wrong."

"Heaven help this poor woman with technology," Shelton said, a grin spreading on his face. "You typed everything in all caps for one thing. And your email ended in the middle of a sentence."

"Yes, I somehow deleted part of the email and couldn't figure out how to get it back, so I sent it to you, hoping the program would recover my missing text." Bella shrugged. "I suppose it didn't work as I'd hoped."

I took in the perplexed look on the petite Arcane's face and burst into laughter. It didn't take long for the others to join in. After the laughter died down, we took turns giving Shelton the detailed story. By the time we finished, it was almost six and all the hot chocolate was gone. Shelton, I noticed, didn't say a word about his abrupt departure, or what problems he'd encountered during his brief stint in Colombia.

"We need to get ready if we're meeting Nyte and Ash," Elyssa said.

Shelton stood. "I'm headed back to my place. I say we meet there to plan the next move."

"I'll go with you, Harry," Bella said. "Assuming you haven't kicked me out of the guest bedroom."

"Nah, sweetheart, the bed's still unmade and your underwear is still all over the floor where you left it."

Her face went scarlet. "I—but I picked up all my underwear before I left!"

He laughed. "Oh man, you are too easy."

She slapped him on the shoulder. "You are so mean sometimes."

I looked at the two of them, thinking back to Bella's questions about Shelton. Did she really like him? Bella really was a sweetheart, at least as far as I knew, but she'd need some heavy duty magic to make Shelton behave.

Shelton's face grew serious as he looked back at me. "You've made some impressive gains in the magic department. A few tweaks, and you'll be casting spells like a pro." He stood back and gauged me. "What do you think, Bella, six and a half feet?"

Bella looked me up and down. "I think it would be perfect."

"What would?" I asked, confused.

Shelton clapped me on the shoulder. "I think it's time we got you a staff. You're ready for the big leagues now."

Chapter 34

"My own staff!" I said for at least the tenth time, so excited I couldn't stop rubbing my hands together.

Elyssa snorted and glanced over at me. "Don't have a nerdgasm in the car, hot stuff." She took a left turn and pulled into the parking lot of the pizza place.

"Is a staff a big deal?" Katie asked from the back seat.

"Don't even get him started," Elyssa said with a grin.

Nyte and Ash stood near the front door of Ghetto Pizza, their eyes already locked onto us. Elyssa opened the door to get out, but Nyte jogged over. In place of his usual Goth attire, he wore designer jeans and a leather biker jacket. He wore only a couple of earrings in place of the metric ton of metal he used to wear in his nose, eyebrow, and numerous other places on his face. His red hair was shorter and worn stylishly. He looked really good.

I leaned over so I could look at his irises, and breathed with relief when I saw they weren't red—a sure sign of vampirism.

"Don't come in," Nyte said, looking around conspiratorially. "We grabbed some pizza to go. Thought we'd eat it at Spooky House for old time's sake." He winked at Elyssa. "You cool with that?"

She smiled. "Wow, I haven't been there in ages." She looked at me. "You're not scared to go are you?"

I laughed. "I'm petrified. Let's do it."

"I'm in," Katie said, an uncertain look on her face.

"Sweet!" Nyte slapped the top of the car and jogged over to Ash's tank-like, periwinkle Ford, a car that looked like something out of a seventies film.

"What's this Spooky House?" I asked.

Elyssa rolled up the window and made a U-turn out of the parking lot. "It's this old antebellum house just down the street. Nobody's lived there for years. Remember how I told you about our ghost stories in the graveyard?"

I nodded.

"This is just another place we used to go to scare each other and party." She smiled. "Not just us, but a bunch of other Goths, too. It's a cool place."

"You used to party? Like drink and all that?" It was hard to imagine Little Miss Templar as a party girl.

Her lips curled into a lopsided grin. "Yeah. Alcohol doesn't affect me that much thanks to my dhampyr–enhanced metabolism." She gave me a sideways look. "I suppose I could lie to you and say I did it as part of my undercover duties as a Templar, but truth is, I actually had a lot of fun." She sighed. "I miss those days sometimes. Now everything is so serious."

"Well, maybe we can have fun tonight. Doesn't look like our friends are vampires."

"You looked at his eyes, too?" Elyssa glanced at me as she stopped at a stop sign, and looked both ways.

"First chance I got."

"Thank goodness," Katie said. "I was so worried we were too late."

"We might have gotten lucky." Hopefully. I looked out the window at the neat little houses with their porches and tiny front yards. We were in Kirkwood, not far from East Atlanta Village, so the houses were smaller and tightly spaced.

Elyssa parked on the road before a crumbling stone wall. Behind it loomed the silhouette of a house. Darkened windows and a thick overgrown lawn told me it had been abandoned a long time.

"Whoa, this is a spooky house," I said, peering out the window. I looked at Elyssa. "Does it have ghosts?"

She laughed. "Probably." We got out of the car. "Looks like they're inside already."

"The ghosts?"

"No, Ash and Nyte, silly."

Katie regarded the house, an uncertain look on her face, but said nothing.

The three of us squeezed through the gap in the rusted, iron gate and waded through a footpath overgrown with weeds, brambles, and ivy. Large columns supported a wide porch. At one end, a broken bench swing hung by a chain. A gentle breeze caused the swing to scrape against the deck, sending a chill up my spine. Skeletal branches from the oak tree slapped against a window. Despite all the horrors I'd seen, something about this place creeped me out. The porch groaned when I stepped on it. Cracks and holes showed where other people had found weak spots in the flooring.

Something thudded against a wall inside the house, followed by a muffled cry.

Elyssa and I looked at each other with alarm. She burst through the front door. I'd actually planned to run away from the house, but steeled my balls and rushed in after her. We paused in the silence at the bottom of the main staircase and listened. Katie plowed into me in the darkness as she caught up. Another thud boomed against the floor upstairs. Dodging broken spots in the stairs, we ran up them. The space upstairs consisted of one large room with a few wooden supports holding up the ceiling.

Old paint buckets and broken scaffolding leaned against a wall. It looked like the previous owners had tried some renovating before leaving the place to rot. Dim light from a streetlamp glowed through a broken window. A cold breeze ruffled the tattered curtains. My night vision flickered on. A figure writhed against the far wall.

"How's this for OP?" Nyte shouted and tossed a something across the room toward the figure on the floor.

Ash laughed as another body thudded against the hardwoods. "Dude, that is so IMBA." He flashed across the room in a blur and leaned over the person. "How does it feel to be on the receiving end, Nathan?"

"What in the hell is going on?" Elyssa said, eyes wide with shock.

"What? What is it?" Katie said, picking her way up the stairs carefully. I'd forgotten about the poor girl not having night vision. "I can't see a thing!"

Ash and Nyte flashed over to us, huge grins spread on their faces.

"Surprise!" Nyte said, flashing his teeth, and revealing sharp fangs. "Guys, you're not going to believe this, but vampires are real."