Companion Pieces: Stories from the Old World and Beyond by Melissa F. Olson

Author:Melissa F. Olson [Olson, Melissa F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-08-31T22:00:00+00:00

I looked at Sara Reine. “How do we know—”

She held up a hand. I had thought she was squinting after the vampires, but now I realized her face was twisted in concentration. “Hang on.”

I waited, helping Katia get in a comfortable seated position. After a minute Reine said, “They just tripped the perimeter spell I put on their vehicle. Hold on…yeah.” She nodded to herself. “And that’s the one I left on the road. They’re leaving.”

She lifted the strap of the quiver over her head, stretching out her neck muscles, and plopped down on the ground next to us. “Whew. That was tense.”

“Uh, yeah. Pretty sure you saved our lives just now, Ms. Reine.”

She snorted, and waved a hand. “Call me Sara. Ms. Reine is my tortoiseshell.”

“Your what?” Katia looked confused.

“Cat,” I told her.

“And I didn’t do it for you,” Sara continued.

“Then why?” I asked her, rubbing at my throat. I was going to have a bruise.

Katia answered before Sara did. “Territory.”

Sara nodded. “That fucking Oskar has been a bee in my bonnet for years. Except I like bees. Anyway, I’d been making plans to get rid of him, but I’ll be honest, I was pretty relieved when the folks in LA took care of him for me. The last thing I want now is any other vampires thinking they can fuck around on my patch.”

“You could have let them kill us before you ran them off,” I pointed out.

Sara grinned. “I suppose I could have. All right, you got me. I’m a sucker for an underdog story, and you were putting up a hell of a fight.” She looked at me appreciatively. “Damn, woman. Where the hell did you get stakes like that?”

I smiled, climbing to my feet and reaching down to help Katia. “Text me your address, and I’ll send you a box of them.”

“I might take you up on that,” she replied, looking thoughtful. “I bet I could configure them for this crossbow.”

“Now that could get really tense.”

I put one of Katia’s arms over my shoulder, and after slinging the crossbow’s strap over her free shoulder, Sara Reine did the same. We helped Katia walk around the side of the main building and back to the car, where she pulled away and leaned against the hood.

Katia was tight-lipped and just as pale as she’d been earlier, if not more so, but I could see tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. I followed her line of vision to the main building, which seemed more threatening somehow, now that the little sheds were gone. I wasn’t exactly expecting Disneyland, but it just looked like a place where terrible things had happened.

With a sigh, I looked at Sara Reine. “Would you be terribly offended,” I asked, “if I were to set this one last building on fire?”

She brightened. “Hell, no. I was just thinking I’d come back and do that tomorrow anyway. You can save me a trip.”

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