Page 21 of Midlife Vampire Unexpected

“I don’t know if it is even possible or not.”

“Hilda will know,” Jane insisted. “Seriously. This guy is a demon who has gone AWOL from Undirheim. They’re going to be looking for him and what they do to him is out of our jurisdiction. We can’t be seen protecting him.” Jane spoke as if she was speaking to a child.

“I don’t wanna protect him. I want to give him a chance at life,” I insisted.

“How do you plan to do that?” Jane asked.

“I have no idea, but I’m going to ask the Coven if we can help him live in exchange for information.”

“Are you sure this is what you wanna do?” Jane asked softly.

“What do you mean? I don’t think there’s any other way about it.”

“There are always multiple ways to get to the same result,” Jane said. “I mean, we have options. Maybe giving a demon life isn’t the best option.”

I frowned at Jane. I wanted her to agree with me. I tried to be cool about it, but the reality was I thought it was the best shot we had at getting the next lead.

This was the exactly the kind of situation that got me in trouble back in Indianapolis. Now wasn’t the time. I needed to learn from my mistakes.

“Let’s take it to the coven and see what they have to say.”

I stood up so we could head out the door.

Chapter 14

“You promised a demon what?” Trina’s bony arms crossed in on her chest as she frowned at me.

“We don’t have to deliver him exactly what I said, but we have to do something,” I pointed out. All the witches had come plus Jane, Bianca and Mae. I had done thorough research on the people of The Estate when we started the investigation on the murders. Toern was a new face to the crowd, but from the way he sat protectively next to Jane, his dark eyes brooding, I could see he had bonded with the group. Branson and Matheus stood like sentries at the door. We sat in the red room discussing what everyone thought would be the best choice of action under the circumstances. “Cops do it all the time. It’s called bartering.”

“Well, maybe that’s one of the problems,” Trina said.

“Look, maybe we can’t deliver, but I think she has a point,” Mae said. “We need to find out who’s behind this if we’re really going to secure the protection and safety of the cemetery. If we keep fighting the creatures who come against us, they’re going to keep sending them. Ultimately, we’ll break.”

“Especially if they get to us before we have all the members of the blood pact together,” Bianca said. “We have to fulfill the rest of the stones.”

I pointed out. “Look, we don’t know when the bad guys are coming, but the one thing we can be sure of is they are coming. The demon is our only lead, we need to take it.”

“Right, but she said to the demon we can provide him with life,” Bianca said. “Does that mean one of us is giving up a body so the demon can have it? Because if that’s the case, I’m out.” She whispered the last words.

“Maybe we don’t have to bring him back to life,” Jane said. “Maybe we can do some work. If you bring him here, maybe I can connect with him, and we can figure out exactly what it is he knows.”

“Are you saying you wanna mind meld with a demon?” Bianca asked. “That didn’t go too well last time. How do you know he won’t jump inside you again?”

“If it’s our best chance of finding out who sent him here to mess with the cemetery, then yeah, I’m going to do it,” Jane nodded.

A low snarl went up from Toern. “I don’t like the idea,” he said in a deep voice.

“It’s going to be fine,” Jane said. “It won’t take me a minute. I’ll just reach my aura out, connect it with his, do a psychic mind meld, and boom, get the details and get out before anyone even knows what happened. Then we can let him return to Thrain.”

“Do you guys think we should go through it before we even meet with him?”

“No, don’t do that,” Hilda said. “Demons are naturally suspicious at the best of times.”

“If Rar’goth does come here, trusting you and believes you’re able to deliver on your word, he’s still going to be cautious. He’s going to send out signals and try to determine if there’s any demon activity over here that wasn’t set up by him. So probably the worst thing you can do is call Thrain.”

“We’re really going to do this?” Bianca asked the room in general.

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