I visualized it like a line of white light shining down as we walked. I ignored the sounds of fighting, because I had to trust the three Harlequin to protect us long enough for me to do this. The dead would not rise here, but there was power here that I could use all the same. I prayed for protection and guidance. Nathaniel was an extra kick of energy, but I was already heavy with energy from having drained the Roane in the castle. I heard the circle close with an almost audible pop and felt a pressure change that made us both have to swallow as if we’d changed elevations. I took the knife with the Roane blood still on it, not even dried completely, and I pushed it into the ground. I hoped it would do what we needed.

   The three Harlequin were backing toward us with a crowd three deep surrounding us. How many seal guards did Moroven have? Shit. They rushed us, and the triplets did their best. Rodina threw one over her shoulder and it fell through the circle. That could have been accidental, but then he stood up and stepped back through the circle to draw a sword almost as tall as I was, but half his body went through the circle.

   “It’ll keep out vampires, but not these guys,” I said. Then full dark came. I felt it in my bones like an echo. The triplets all backed up through the circle and to us so that we were standing almost back to back. There was a solid wall of the Roane in human form waiting outside the circle, which I knew they could cross.

   “Not that I’m complaining, but what are they waiting for?” I asked.

   “The vampires to arrive,” Rodrigo said. “She’s told them to wait.”

   “I won’t be captured,” Rodina said.

   “Nor I,” Ru said.

   “Crap,” I said, and looked around for something, anything to help us. I saw something not that far away that gleamed in the dark. When I looked at it straight on, it wasn’t there, but out of the corner of my eye, it was like a white phosphorous glow, a ghostly glow.

   “The prophecy says that to guarantee our dark mistress will be lost and the Master of Tigers triumphant, they must marry one of the clan tigers,” Rodrigo said.

   “Is this really the time for a history lesson, Roddy?” Rodina said.

   “If I die here, I need someone else to understand what’s happened.”

   “What are you babbling about now?” she asked.

   “What’s in that direction that would be really haunted?” I asked, motioning.

   There was a moment where the three of them sort of shifted and thought, and then Ru said, “Wicklow Gaol.”

   “It’s just a historic site now,” Rodina said.

   A wind blew high and shivering through the trees overhead. It didn’t smell of rain, but it felt like a storm was coming. There was a black cloud boiling in the sky toward the sea. “What is that?” Nathaniel asked.

   “It’s her,” Rodina said, “her and all her dark court.”

   “We will give our lives for you,” Ru said.

   The black “cloud” began to separate into individual shapes. It was vampires flying in a mass like some Halloween witch poster. I leaned into Rodina. “Can you fight your way free to the gaol?”

   “I cannot promise.”

   “Is it important enough for us to die for?” Rodrigo asked.

   “There are dead there that will rise,” I said.

   “You won’t have to kill me for what I did to your lover, Anita. The sea folk will do it for you.” He gave a battle cry, which was the only term I had for the sound, and leapt into the mass of enemies.

83

   IT WAS SUDDENLY a hand-to-hand fight, and we were outnumbered. It was Nathaniel who used a gun first, the sound thunderous even outside. It startled the man in front of me so that I stabbed him through the heart and was able to throw him back into the mass of his friends. And then suddenly, they stopped fighting. They cried out in confusion, almost in pain. I had no idea what had happened. I knew it wasn’t any magic of mine.

   Rodrigo and Rodina grabbed us and started running while Ru guarded our backs, but none of the others chased us. We ran. I tapped that part of me that was my beasts, that part that helped me work out with real lycanthropes in the gym, and I ran so that the streets were a black blur. I ran until the evil wind at our backs wasn’t fast enough to keep up. Nathaniel stayed at my side easily, and so did Rodina and Rodrigo, but Ru stumbled and his sister had to grab him to keep him with us. I raced toward the white light shining as if the full moon had fallen to earth. I could see it more in front of my eyes the closer we got to it.

   The triplets were actually behind us as we ran through the entrance to the huge stone building. If we survived, I’d make them do more cardio. A white-haired woman dressed in a long skirt and what was supposed to be authentic clothing but wasn’t quite said, “We’re closing for the day.”

   Rodrigo pulled a gun and showed it to her. “Run away now. Bad things are coming.”

   She ran away, yelling for help. She went through a side door into a café that was apparently still open. I hoped no one got brave. I wanted to use the ghosts, not make new ones.

   Damian was suddenly loud in our heads again. He wanted to know where we were, and we thought it at him. He was above us in the night sky, and he thought of the gaol as old hunting grounds.

   Two dark shapes appeared in the doorway. They were dark-haired, pale-skinned, dressed in black as if they’d come from central casting for vampires, one male, one female, but they were the real deal. They stalked in through the doors because they didn’t need anyone’s permission to get inside a public building. They looked at the people huddling in the café. They grinned wide enough to flash fangs.

   “We will feast tonight, as of old,” the man said.

   The woman said, “They’ve seen us. We have to kill them now.”

   “No,” I said, “you will not harm these people.”

   “You have no power over the dead in Ireland, necromancer,” the woman said.

   “You will not harm anyone in this building tonight,” I said. I heard a whisper in the hallway and felt a cold wind down my spine. It wasn’t vampires. I closed my eyes briefly and the whole building burned with ghosts like white phosphorus, thick with the moving pulse of hundreds, maybe thousands of restless spirits. They were angry. I’d never felt so much anger from ghosts before, and then I realized why. They were angry at the vampires.

   “How many people did you kill in here over the centuries?” I asked.

   They smirked at each other. “Enough,” she said, and he nodded.

   I pressed my still bleeding hand against the stone wall and felt the power shivering through the building, just waiting. Nathaniel put his hand over mine, and you could feel the building’s bones shift and surge.