I was floating, flowing, ebbing. And it was so nice. I put my hand on the screen door and pushed it open.

Something suddenly jerked me under the water and weighed me down. I was sinking fast, and I couldn’t breathe. I clawed for the surface. I couldn’t breathe.

“Persephone!” Johnny’s voice. The enchantment broke. His hands, the something that had grabbed me, jerked me back and spun me around, breaking the connection between me and the vampire. I gasped.

I couldn’t do this. I knew it. I couldn’t face a vampire. I was such an idiot for even considering—

The faith in Johnny’s eyes, in that Wedjat gaze, was like a buoyant lifesaver. My confidence clung to it, and he pulled me back to myself. “Don’t look in his eyes,” Johnny whispered, and turned my body back toward the door.

He didn’t expect me to run and hide, didn’t expect that I needed protecting. And he didn’t know my confidence was false, was based on knowing the vampire couldn’t get through my wards. But Johnny hadn’t laughed at me when I told him about Vivian hiring me as an assassin, he’d called me a—a—what was it again? Lustrata.

I faced Goliath, staring at the top of his head. I hated it when people did that to me, and I hoped it irritated him as much. At least I’d learned something: that old saying that the eyes are the windows of the soul was true. Looking through the glass was good, but if you opened that window or left it unlocked, something ugly was likely to creep inside.

“You cannot keep yourself and everyone you care about behind magic fences forever.” Goliath glowered. “If you taunt me again, I’ll have them one by one until you’re begging me to take you in their place.”

“I don’t repeat mistakes.”

“Perhaps not. But you do make so many of them.” He tsk-tsked me. “Your wards are good, but you must not be much of a witch otherwise. You couldn’t divine your data or scry for it. You hired a background checker. Ms. Diamond could have told you much if you had used the right method to ask.”

He meant torture—of that I was certain.

“I commend you for being able to lure Ms. Diamond to your home, along with her most precious objects. I haven’t been able to fake her into such stupidity, and I’ve been trying for years.”

I wasn’t about to reveal that he had the wrong assumption. He clearly thought I had known about the “precious objects” and had acted purposely to obtain them. I hoped he’d think I could protect myself and keep them too. But damn it! I’d just been enchanted by his eyes—a stupid, stupid mistake. Surely he was wondering now if I could possibly be a lucky bungler.

“At any rate, you have gained my attention, Miss Persephone Isis Alcmedi.” He proceeded to tell me my phone number, Social Security number, and credit scores, and then he rattled off a series he claimed was my Avalon’s VIN. “Shall I go on?”

My palms were sweaty.

“If your cerebrum is keeping up, you’ll understand now that I have also acquired information about you. And I can use my information to make your life”—he spat that last word—“a tragedy worthy of your bastardly Greek heritage.”

Nana’s hand, holding a lit cigarette, pushed me aside. She stepped up beside me, Vivian’s box cradled in her left arm. “You better get your rotting ass off the lawn, and I mean now.” She put the cigarette to her lips, flipped the box’s lid up, and reached inside.

Chapter 16

From the box, Nana pulled a wooden stake caked with dried mud.

Goliath hissed—not the kind of theatrical vampire hiss that Hollywood directors make actors embarrass themselves with. This was a hiss that took ten full seconds to build and occur. It started deep in his gullet and rose with such force that Goliath’s entire body shook in a growing convulsive wave. His mouth barely opened, but the sound was hellish: fear and loathing and vengeance with a voice.

After that, he fled in an otherworldly blur.

“What the hell is that thing?” I asked, pointing at the stake.

“This is the product of a spell from the Codex. Come back to the kitchen.”

“Excuse me,” Dr. Lincoln said to Johnny. “Would you, uh…” he stammered, and finally said, “Is he gone for good?”

“Probably for tonight, anyway. Why?” Johnny asked.

“Oh,” I said, getting it. “He needs his stuff to fix up a bag for Theo.”

“A bag of what?”

“To help her body have enough energy to change.”

He clasped the doctor’s shoulder. “I’ll fetch it. A real doctor bag, right?”

“Yeah.” He squinted apologetically. “But I didn’t mean you should fetch, I mean, you’re…and that would be…you know.”

“Red, straighten him out, would you?” Johnny went outside.

Nana headed through the dining room.

“C’mon.” I motioned to the doctor. “You’re a brain with the medical stuff, but you don’t talk with people very well.”

He shrugged and followed. “With owners of patients it’s almost like a script repeating over and over. When it’s not a script…you know. More so with him; he’s so…intimidating.”

“Johnny? I know. I used to think so too.” The words came out and made me realize that I truly felt as if I was over that personal hurdle. Then I thought of something and stopped. “He recommended you because you treat wæres. I thought you two knew each other well.”

“Not ‘well.’ I treated him once, a long time ago. He made it hard to refuse him.”

I studied the doc. “I think that’s a story I’m going to want to hear someday. For now, you helped Theo and you came by at—what? — four in the morning. Nobody here is going to hurt you or intentionally let you get hurt.”

“That’s reassuring.”

It didn’t sound sarcastic, so I led him on to the kitchen, saying, “We had a break-in, doc. We’ve tied the culprit up, so don’t be too alarmed. We’re handling it.” Beverley sat beside Nana at the table, with her head on her arms. She yawned. I wondered how she knew Goliath. There was so much going on, though, and I had to focus on the enemies right now.

Nana had the book open before her and a page of very modern notebook paper in her hand. “Vivian modified a spell of protection for the human servant of a vampire, transforming it from increasing the vampire’s protection into binding the vampire’s own power to use against him,” she said.

Johnny entered with the black leather bag. Dr. Lincoln immediately took it to the counter behind me and rummaged through it. “I need one of the cans of protein supplement I gave you to use in the feeding tube,” he said.

“I’ll get it.” Celia left.

Vivian moaned as if she had something important to say. I pushed her gag down. “What?”

“You guys are so stupid. He’s not about to let that thing slip away. He’ll come back, you know.” Vivian glanced at the clock. “It may be too late for action tonight, but he’ll be back tomorrow. Menessos will be with him. You can’t possibly stand against him.” The last comment she aimed at me.

“We have your stake,” I reminded her.

“But you’re muddling through the motions, guessing. You don’t know anything. All he has to do is torch your house. Bye-bye stake, and his buddies suck dry anyone who comes running out and throw the body back in, disposing neatly of all his threats at once.”

“This is when you bargain information to stop him from doing that in exchange for our untying you, right?”

Vivian smiled. “What a good idea,” she said mockingly.

“Dr. Lincoln?” Johnny said, making Wedjat squints at Vivian. “Do you have any sodium pentothal in that bag?”

“Truth serum?” the doctor asked back with a laugh. “No. I don’t usually need to question my patients.”

“Well, I don’t need science or pharmacology,” Nana said. She left the book and shuffled over to stand behind Vivian. “Might be easier this way anyhow.” She placed her hand atop Vivian’s head, burrowing her fingers through Vivian’s hair to touch her scalp. “Now her protection charm won’t jolt me. Ask her what you want to know.”