“What does one city matter if you carry the seeds of the apocalypse inside you?”

   “I’ll take that as a no,” I said, and looked to Jake and Fortune. “All right, tell us what you’ve learned, because we need a plan before nightfall that doesn’t need Kaazim to work.”

   “I will do my part of any plan,” he said.

   I shook my head. “You had your chance, Kaazim. You said you’d let Dublin burn, let Ireland be destroyed tonight, because you’re worried about a disaster that’s not here yet.”

   “You feel her power inside you. You must,” he said.

   “Power is not destiny,” Jake said.

   “I’m a big believer in free will,” I said.

   “And I have seen too many centuries not to believe in fate,” Kaazim said.

   I turned to the rest of them. “Let’s find Edward and get our plans off the ground without gloomy puss here.”

   “I am not a puss,” he said.

   “Fine. Without gloomy dog here—no, that doesn’t work, does it?”

   “Gloomy puppy?” Nathaniel offered.

   “Gloomy pup?” Pride suggested.

   “I expected better of you,” Kaazim said.

   “Dev isn’t perfect, Uncle Chaz, but he’s trying, and you really are a gloomy hound and always have been.”

   “Uncle Chaz?” I said.

   “When we were little, they were Uncle Jake and Uncle Chaz,” Pride said.

   Kaazim ignored the old nickname; too angry to care, I think. Then he said, “You are right.” He turned to me. “And you are right, as well. I have made the mistake of a soldier: letting the fear of defeat in war steal my courage for fighting today’s battle. Thank you for reminding me that if we do not win today’s battle, then we will never survive to win the war.”

   “I was thinking more, you win the war one battle at a time, but okay, let’s go find Edward and get our well-armed ducks in a row.”

   “How do you know what ducks you need, our queen?” Jake asked.

   “We’ll figure that out as we go,” I said.

   He looked at me for a moment, then threw back his head and laughed. “Just like that.”

   “It’s Edward. It’s me. It’s all of you, Nolan, and his people. It’s the gentle folk of Ireland singing sweet songs in our ears. With all that on our side, Jake, we’ll figure out which ducks we need.”

   “Before nightfall?” Kaazim asked.

   “Yes.”

   “There is no doubt in you,” he said.

   “I don’t have time for it.”

   Fortune came up to me and Dev because he was so close, throwing an arm around us both. “We’ll find gigantic carnivorous ducks,” she said, and kissed us both one right after the other so that I tasted the echo of his mouth on hers. Nathaniel came over and added his kisses to ours, and Damian came to kiss two out of the four of us. Kaazim made an impatient sound that we were wasting time, but I’ve gone into a lot of fights now, and starting with a kiss beat the hell out of starting with a punch.

71

   DAMIAN GAVE ADDRESSES of the old lairs that his old master and cronies had used five years ago; since they’d been using some of them for centuries it was a good bet they were still using some of them. You’d expect that once we knew possible places to go we’d suit up and bust down some doors, but it didn’t work that way in America or in Ireland. The police would be gathering information on the addresses: public records, blueprints, find out if they were owned and lived in by human beings we could verify, because some of the addresses hadn’t been used by M’Lady and her crew in a while, like decades. He made a list of centuries-old lairs. Not because they had been used recently, but because she owned them and she gave up nothing. Some of the buildings probably didn’t even exist anymore. Those would be weeded out first and then they’d gather as much intel as possible. I’d worked with enough tactical units to know that the information gathering saved time and possibly lives later, but it was still a delay that always drove me a little crazy. It wasn’t as bad this time because we didn’t know which address we needed to hit, and the info would help us narrow the choices.

   What to do while we waited? Edward and I both had some ideas; they just weren’t the same ones. “If we can figure out why the holy objects didn’t work at the police station and get them working before we send people into battle again, it will give us an advantage. It will give an advantage to the newbies who have never fought vamps before.”

   “How do you know the newbies will have that much faith?”

   “They’re fresh out of the packaging when we all believe in right and wrong, and that we can save the world. Your faith is always shinier before it gets a good test run.”

   “But not stronger,” he said.

   The comment surprised me from Edward, but I nodded and said, “No, not stronger, just newer.”

   “Your cross didn’t go off either, you know.”

   “When no one’s cross worked at the door to the station, I didn’t think to draw mine. I might have, but about then he went out the door into the sunlight. I’ve never tried to trap a vampire between a cross’s glow or burning to death in sunlight. I think I’d go for the cross first, if it were me, but once it gets dark the crosses will be the only glow they need to fear. Besides, Damian was right beside me; when some of the vampires are on our side, holy objects are a mixed blessing.”

   “If I’d brought my flamethrower, that wouldn’t be true about the glow.”

   “You’ve almost burned one house down around us. It’s left me not a fan of your flamethrower.”

   “You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”

   “Nope.” I smiled when I said it, but I meant it.

   Edward wanted me to go off with one of my people and try to heal my wounds with a little sexual healing before I did anything else. “It will take time for Pearson to get permission for you to do a demonstration to peacekeepers he doesn’t have under his direct charge.”

   “How much time?” I asked.

   “Make it a quickie, thirty minutes or so; they won’t have everything organized before that.”

   “I knew there was a reason we were friends; I like a man who considers thirty minutes a quickie.”

   He grinned. “Twenty minutes in a pinch, but you’re not just having sex; you’re trying to heal a wound made by something supernatural. That might take more time.”