“Yeah.”

“Have a good trip and a safe flight. Maybe I’ll already be Titania by the time you get back,” I joked.

“Maybe. I can get you a snow globe of the White House as a congrats gift,” he offered.

“Sure.” I smiled. “Love you, hon.”

“Love you too. Good luck.”

I headed back into the dining room. “I’m ready,” I proclaimed, and Lex nodded. “So, what’s the plan?”

“I doubt they’ll leave quietly, so Tybalt and I are goin’ to convince them to let us alone. After they’ve lost a few limbs they’ll get the message and clear out.”

I wrinkled my nose at the thought of severed dead-people parts.

“Are you sure we can’t just kill them?” Tybalt asked, sounding disappointed.

“Nah, that’d just end up in too much paperwork.” Lex shook his head and slid out of the booth. I’d forgotten how tall he was. I’m on the tallish side, so I don’t encounter a lot of people taller than me. He was wearing all black as usual, from his steel-toed boots to his jeans to his plain cotton T-shirt and long duster. No one wears a jacket in June in Illinois unless we’re experiencing one of our more freakish weather patterns, so I was willing to bet there was more than muscular arms and a tight butt under that duster.

I scolded myself for wondering about the state of Lex’s posterior and then shrugged. “Anything else I need to know?”

“Nope. When we step outside, you shield yourself and don’t distract us.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Great.” Excellent plan. It was simple, easy to remember. Probably stupid as all get out, but hey, he’s the professional, right? I’m just the target. “Sure you don’t want to duck out the back?”

“They won’t learn anything that way. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”

“Right.” I motioned toward the door. “After you, gentlemen.”

Squeezing my eyes shut, I hugged my arms to my chest as my shields snapped into place. It was a globe of safety that moved with me, but also made it harder to maneuver, like walking through water. I did my best not to be terrified out of my wits as I walked through the door of the Three Willows. There were no less than five vampires out there waiting for me in the dark, ready to tear me apart and bleed me dry, just as they had my mother and Maureen, two women who were by all accounts much stronger and more knowledgeable about their arts than I. The door shut behind me, and I shivered with fear. I was outside neutral ground. I was fair game.

“C’mon, let’s go,” Lex said. I obeyed, following behind him. He turned in the direction of my apartment, thankfully, and I hurried to keep up. It’s damn hard to move and shield at the same time, and because it takes a lot of concentration it slowed me down.

The silence frightened me the most. A Saturday night in the city should be louder, full of urban noises like cars and cell phones and televisions, but here there was nothing, not even the rumble of an approaching train on the tracks. A slight breeze brushed my face and I caught the scent of vampire magic. It’s a peculiar but memorable scent, the smell of the last dying ember clinging to a candle’s wick, refusing to be snuffed. Really, that’s all vampires are, that last spark of life clinging like hell to this world, terrified to give in to what lies beyond. I knew that smell all too well, remembering how it had mixed with the fear and death in my mother’s house, and I panicked. Something squealed high and hideous just out of arm’s length, and I turned as a small, skinny woman recoiled away from me, her pale hands smoking where they had touched my shield. Glaring at me from beneath her black bangs, she hissed and snarled something that was either incoherent or a completely foreign language, possibly both, and launched herself at me again. The woman bounced off my shield and was thrown backwards like she’d leapt onto a trampoline, a much louder electric sizzle scorching the air.

“Not real bright, are ya?” I smirked, suddenly feeling much braver than I had any right to be. A small crowd of vampires circled around us, and a quick count revealed a few more than we’d expected, nine attackers in total.

“They really aren’t the smartest breed, cousin,” Tybalt commented. The faerie brushed his disguised white-blond hair out of his face and eyed the mob.

“Settle down now,” Lex warned them. “This woman is under my protection, so you’d better head on home.”

“You said there were only five.”

“There are,” he replied. “The rest are just necromancers.”

“Oh great, I feel so much better now.”

“Go on, get out of here,” the guardian repeated to the crowd, as though scolding a disobedient puppy. They ignored him.

“Step aside, Duquesne, you have no business here,” said the vamp who’d bounced off my shields. The overly goth outfit she wore made me wonder if the vampires had lowered their standards for membership. She would blend in perfectly with the late-night Denny’s crowd. It was damn hard to take her seriously.

“Now, Merrideth, I just told you that this young lady is under my protection, so if you and your people don’t turn around and walk away, we’re going to have a problem.” Lex slipped his hands into his duster, reaching for whatever weapons he had concealed beneath it and sending a clear message to the crowd that he meant business.

“Maybe I should kill one, Duquesne, just to set an example,” Tybalt suggested.

“Don’t even think about it, Silverleaf. Just cut ’em off at the knees, that’s always fun.”

Apparently they took offense to that idea, and without another word they attacked, moving in a dark blur that was hard to see. As the vampires swarmed him Lex drew his weapons in a quick flash of bright metal, swinging a short sword in each hand. Guess that answered the question of why wear a long black coat in June, because swords were a tad hard to conceal without it. The guardian moved with inhuman speed as the fight boiled into the street. I couldn’t spot how he was wounding them, but I smelled the stale scent of vampire blood in the humid night air.

Tybalt’s rapier appeared in his hand and his clever human disguise vanished as he abandoned all pretense of hiding his true nature. The vampires around him hissed in surprise, and he launched himself at them, moving in a dark blue blur I couldn’t follow. I felt pretty useless inside of my safe little bubble, but there wasn’t anything I could do to help. I wasn’t trained as a fighter, and thanks to my witch upbringing I didn’t know any offensive spells. Best I could do was hurl harsh language.

A vampire fell away from the fray in the street, stumbling and then scrambling about searching for something on the ground. After a moment I realized it was looking for the rest of the severed arm that had rolled under a parked car. My stomach heaved and I swallowed hard, looking down at my feet and trying to shove that image out of my brain.

“C’mon now, that had to hurt,” Lex teased the armless vamp. “Why don’t you just take your hand and go home?”

“Only a flesh wound,” the vampire growled as it stretched to reach beneath the car.

Like the worst part of a horror film, it was morbidly fascinating, and I couldn’t help but watch. They were stronger, faster and outnumbered him, but somehow Lex held his own. While the vampires were slashed and bleeding, the guardian didn’t have a scratch on him. Yet.

“Come out and play, little Cat,” a new voice crooned. Turning my attention away from the fight, I found four strangers pacing around the edge of my shields. Necromancers, from the awful smell of them. They circled me like hungry sharks, searching for a weak spot in my shields. Yeah, good luck there. It’d take a lot more than four necromancers to get through my shields, as long as I stood still and concentrated. Unfortunately I couldn’t stand there all night, and it’d be a real long walk to my apartment with them trying to sabotage me the entire way. Not a happy thought.