Have Stakes Will Travel: Stories From the World of Jane Yellowrock by Faith Hunter

leather coat. As vegetarians, my sisters didn’t own leather, and I couldn’t afford it. I carried twelve stakes, an extra flashlight, medical supplies, ammunition, and five charms: two healing charms, one walking-away charm, one empowerment, and one obfuscation.
    Evan was similarly dressed, refusing to be left behind, loaded down with talismans, charms, battery powered lights, a machete, and a twenty pound mallet suitable for bashing in heads. It wouldn’t kill a vampire but it would incapacitate one long enough to stake it and take its head. We were ready to go in when Brax drove up, got out, and sauntered over. He was dressed in SWAT team gear and guns. “What? You think I’d let civilians go after the rogues alone? Not gonna happen, people.”
    We hadn’t told Brax. I glared at Evan, who shrugged, unapologetic.
    “What are you carrying?” Jane asked. When he told her, she shook her head and handed him a box of ammunition. “Hand-packed, silver-flechette rounds, loaded for vamp. They can’t heal from it. A direct heart shot will take them out.”
    The cop paused, maybe remembering the last time he went up against a vamp with Jane. “Sweet,” Brax said, removing his ammunition from a shotgun and reloading as he looked us over. “So we got an earth witch, her husband, a vamp hunter, and me. Lock and load, people.” Satisfied, he pushed in front and led the way. Once inside, we walked four abreast as my sisters set up a command center at the entrance. Behind us I could hear the three witches chanting protective incantations while Regan and Amelia began to pray.
    We passed parts of several bodies. My earth gift recoiled, closing up. There were too many dead. I had hoped to be able to sense the presence of the rogue vampires, but with my gift so overloaded, I doubted I’d be of much help at all. The smell of rancid meat and rotting blood was beyond horrible. Charnel house effluvia. I stopped looking after the first limb—part of a young woman’s leg.
    Except for the stench and the body parts, the first hundred yards was easy. After that, things went to hell in a handbasket.
    We heard singing, a childhood melody. “Starlight, star fright, first star . . . No. Starlight blood fight . . . No. I don’ ’member. I don’ ’member—” The voice stopped, the cutoff sharp as a knife. “People,” she whispered, the word echoing in the mine. “Blood . . .”
    And she was on us. Face caught in the flashlight. A ravening animal. Flashing fangs. Blood-red eyes centered with blacker-than-night pupils. Nails like black claws. She took down Evan with one swipe. I screamed. Blood splattered. His flashlight fell. Its beam rocking in shadows. One glimpse of a body. Leaping. Flying. Landed on Jane. Inhumanly fast. Jane rolled into the dark.
    I lost sight in the swinging light. Found Evan by falling on him. Hot blood pulsed into my hand. I pressed on the wound, guided by earth magic. I called on Mother Earth for healing. Moments later, Jane knelt beside me, breathing hard, smelling foul. She steadied the light. Evan was still alive, fighting to breathe, my hands covered with his blood. His skin was pasty. The wound was across his right shoulder, had sliced his jugular, and he had lost a lot of blood, though my healing had clotted over the wound.
    I pressed one of the healing amulets my sisters had made over the wound, chanting in the old tongue. “Cneasaigh, cneasaigh a bháis báite in fhuil,” over and over. Gaelic for, “Heal, heal, blood soaked death.”
    Minutes later, I felt Evan take a full breath. Felt his heartbeat steady under my hands. In the uncertain light, my tears splashed on his face. He opened his eyes and looked up at me. His beard was brighter than usual, tangled with his blood. He held my gaze, telling me so much in that one look. He loved me. Trusted me. Knew I was going on without him. Promised to live. Promised to take care of our children if I didn’t make it back. Demanded I live and