Page 54 of Shadow's End

“Why didn’t we find that one when we had our first vampire problem?”

She snorted. “You’ve seen Gran’s index, haven’t you?”

I grinned. “Meaning it wasn’t actually listed.”

“No, it was not. We caught it when we were doing the redo, though it’s not been scanned yet.”

“We” being her and Kash, the rather delicious-looking man we’d hired to help us convert Nell’s books into digital format, and who’d turned out to be a bit of a bastard. “You heard anything from Monty?”

“He rang about ten minutes ago to say he and Ashworth were finished and were on their way here.” She paused, her expression going inward as she reached out mentally. “They’re just parking out the back now, so will be here in a couple of secs.”

“It didn’t take them very long to take care of the charm, then.”

“No, because the thing disintegrated just as Ashworth arrived.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Itdisintegrated?”

“Yeah, and from what I could gather, that happened just after you and Maelle began talking.”

“She deliberately destroyed it.”

“Or destroyed the monster attached to it.”

I remembered all the blood and gore covering Maelle and shuddered. If she’d swum in her monster’s remains, well, she was further out on the insanity limb than we’d thought. And that meant we needed to find Roger before the disintegration could get any worse.

I scooped up more cake, then reached for my phone and did a search for dog parks. There was one, according to Google, and it was only a few minutes away from here. I flipped the phone around and slid it across the table to Belle. “If your guess is rightand the barking was coming from a dog park, then it’s possible he’s located somewhere near this one.”

“Finding him will be the problem. We can hardly go knocking door to door asking if they’re harboring a vampire’s one-legged thrall.”

“Not unless we want to cause the wave of panic the council is trying to avoid,” I replied dryly.

“It might be the one way to save more people getting dead, though.”

“The only way of doing that,” Monty said as he bounded up the last of the stairs, “is to get rid of all the damn vampires.”

“Easier said than done when we can’t find hide nor hair of one lot.” Belle motioned toward the small kitchenette. “Kettle’s boiled, and there’s cake in the fridge.”

“Excellent.” He glanced around as Ashworth appeared. “Something to drink? Eat?”

“A coffee would be grand.” Ashworth continued on to the patio doors, opened them up, and dragged two of the plastic outside chairs back in. “So, what’s this about dog parks?”

I quickly explained the conversation I’d had with Maelle about Roger’s location. “Given the dirt floor, I’m thinking we’re probably dealing with some sort of shed at the back of a house.”

“The house would have to be empty, though, surely? They couldn’t risk the owners randomly walking in and discovering him.” Monty handed Ashworth his coffee, placed a second mug on the table, then headed back to collect his cake.

“She did say he was well protected with spells,” Belle said. “It’s possible one of those is a redirect.”

“Redirects are notoriously unreliable,” Ashworth said. “I think the bigger worry is the summoning spells interwoven through the protection ones. If Maelle mentioned them, you can bet your ass they exist.”

“Which is why I think we need all witches on hand,” I said. “Two of us can dismantle, and three can guard our backs.”

Ashworth nodded. “It’d also be wise to grab Aiden or at least one of his people, so they can evacuate the house if it’s not empty.”

“I’ll call him?—”

“He likely won’t answer,” Monty cut in. “He muttered something about having to report to the council. Ring the station instead.”

I did so and got Jaz. I explained our situation and what we needed, and she agreed to meet us in twenty minutes. Which at least left time for both Monty and me to finish our cakes.

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