“You don’t know.”
“I can’t see it all. But I feel it, and I know I’m connected with you on this. Not thrilled about that at this point.” She drank some more. “Not after what I saw on the subway.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Something very nasty in a designer suit,” she explained. “It said she would feed on me. She—the woman on the cliff, I think. I’m going out on a limb here, a really shaky one. Are we dealing with vampires?”
“What is the subway?”
Glenna pressed her hands to her eyes. “Okay, we’ll spend some time later bringing you up to date on current events, modes of mass transportation and so on, but right now, I need to know what I’m facing. What’s expected of me.”
“I don’t know your name.”
“Sorry. Glenna. Glenna Ward.” She held a hand out to him. After a brief hesitation, he took it. “Nice to meet you. Now, what the hell is going on?”
He began, and she continued to drink. Then she held up a hand, swallowed. “Excuse me. Are you saying your brother—the guy who manhandled me, is a vampire?”
“He doesn’t feed on humans.”
“Oh good. Great. Points for him. He died nine hundred and seventy-odd years ago, and you’ve come here and now from there and then to find him.”
“I am charged by the gods to gather an army to fight and destroy the army the vampyre Lilith is making.”
“Oh God. I’m going to need another drink.”
He started to offer her his, but she waved him away and signaled the waitress. “No, go ahead. You’re going to need it, too, I imagine.”
He took a testing sip, blinked rapidly. “What is this brew?”
“Vodka martini. You should like vodka,” she said absently. “Seems to me they make it from potatoes.”
She ordered
another drink and some bar food to counteract the alcohol. Calmer now, she listened to the whole of it without interrupting.
“And I’m the witch.”
There wasn’t just beauty here, he realized. There wasn’t just power. There was a seeking and a strength. Some he would seek, he remembered the goddess saying. And some would seek him.
So she had.
“I have to believe you are. You, my brother and I will find the others and begin.”
“Begin what? Boot camp? Do I look like a soldier to you?”
“You don’t, no.”
She propped a chin on her fist. “I like being a witch, and I respect the gift. I know there’s a reason this runs in my blood. A purpose. I didn’t expect it to be this. But it is.” She looked at him then, fully. “I know, the first time I dreamed of you that it was the next step in that purpose. I’m terrified. I’m so seriously terrified.”
“I left my family to come here, to do this thing. I left them with only the silver crosses and the word of the goddess that they would be protected. You don’t know fear.”
“All right.” She reached out, laid a hand on his in a kind of comfort he sensed was innate in her. “All right,” she repeated. “You’ve got a lot at stake. But I’ve got a family, too. They’re upstate. I need to make sure they’re protected. I need to make sure I live to do what I’m meant to do. She knows where I am. She sent that thing to scare me off. I’m guessing she’s a lot more prepared than we are.”
“Then prepared is what we’ll get. I have to see what you’re capable of.”
“You want me to audition? Listen, Hoyt, your army so far consists of three people. You don’t want to insult me.”
“We have four with the king.”