I couldn’t remember ever seeing her anxious. “What?”

“Well…” Reagan drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “That old broad went through some sort of ‘washing machine fluffy razor’ spell of yours, as Darius described it—he was delirious at that point—before going through the two of them.”

“My spell must’ve been weak for a vampire to get through it.”

“Has no one told you that vampires can cut through magic if they’re in their monster form?”

“It’s actually called a monster form?”

She frowned at me. “That’s what you took away from that question?”

“Well, I mean…” I shrugged, clasping my hands in my lap. “They do actually look like monsters, but I didn’t think they’d actually call themselves monsters. They seem much too vain.”

Reagan huffed. “You’re a nut. No, they probably don’t call it that, but I have no idea what they do call it. Because I don’t care. ‘Monster form’ is a good description. I suggest you use it. To their faces. Especially when they’re angry. You’ll appreciate the fireworks in their eyeballs.”

“No, thanks,” I said, somehow not at all concerned that she was weaving in and out of cars at over a hundred miles an hour. Clearly my brain had shut off at this point. I’d been through too much. “No, no one told me that. I killed that one last night, so I just assumed…”

“Well, here’s the thing. It depends on the age of the vampire and the power of the mage. The older the vampire, the stronger their ability to cut through magic. So Darius might be able to cut through one of your spells, but I doubt Moss could. Moss might be able to cut through a Callie and Dizzy spell, but Marie couldn’t. Get it?”

“Yes,” I said. “Are shifters the same?”

“In a way. They don’t cut through spells, but they can withstand them. Shrug them off, is how I’d describe it. It’s weird.”

“That stands to reason. It seems like it’s basically all about where you are on the power grid.”

“Yeah, basically.”

“And where are you, Reagan? No one will tell me anything about your powers.”

“It’s a secret.”

I stared at her for a count of three, realized she wasn’t going to crack, and looked away. With fatigue pulling at me, dragging me down, I didn’t have the energy to get it out of her. And honestly, I probably wouldn’t be able to, anyway. “Cool.”

Reagan exited the freeway, barely slowing down to do so. Hopefully, this thing had great brakes.

“Before Marie ran you out,” she said, thankfully downshifting quickly and slowing the car, “Darius instructed her to organize blood for Ja. It was a precaution in case your spell was nasty, and in case he and Moss had to finish subduing her. Darius clearly had no idea how powerful a riled-up, old-as-sin vampire could be. No idea.”

“Is there a point in there somewhere, or are you uncomfortable with silences?”

She turned and smiled at me, her eyes glimmering in the red dash lights. “Aren’t you fun when you’re at your wit’s end?”

“I don’t feel very fun.”

Reagan crawled through a run-down neighborhood. The car wouldn’t have fit in even if it was missing both bumpers, its tires, and was peppered with dents. “You’re a hoot, trust me.”

“Are you taking me somewhere to kill me?”

“Possibly. We’re going to my house, where you’ll get to crack open some very advanced books and take a few spells for a test drive. I’ll be running interference so you don’t kill yourself or the whole neighborhood. I can’t wait to start. Anyway, I did have a point buried in there somewhere. Marie got the blood and locked Ja into a vampire chamber with two guys that really should evaluate their life choices.”

“But you said Marie didn’t know if Ja was alive.”

“Right. There was none of that black sludge they usually exude when they die, but Ja is in really bad shape. So, she might die, which will, in essence, be Darius’s fault. Ja has mostly removed herself from all vampire politics, but she is still an elder vampire. The other elders won’t like it.”

“Then I guess we should hope she lives…and suffers from amnesia.”

Reagan turned down a street with houses on one side, all small, broken-down hovels with chipping paint and weeds struggling through walkways. A large concrete wall lined the sidewalk on the other side. After passing an opening in the wall, I saw that it was a graveyard. The large gravestones rose in rows, a couple lightly showered by a weak street lamp, the rest stewing in the darkness. The vast space felt like an enormous black hole, pulling at lost souls with the intent to trap them within its confines forever.

That, or my imagination was going haywire again. I really needed to get some sleep.

“The thing is…” That troubled expression crossed Reagan’s face again as she turned left, keeping the graveyard on our left side. She parked in front of a little house with fresh paint, flowers blooming in a box in front of the raised porch, and two unbroken chairs facing the graveyard entrance across the street.

“What a dismal view,” I muttered, seeing the same pool of darkness at this opening. The light from the street lamp didn’t reach far before dissipating into murky oppressiveness.

“What?” Reagan followed my gaze before shooting me an incredulous look. “Dismal?” She shook her head and pushed open the door. “That is a great view. You’ll see. Anyway…” She came around my side and stood next to the door as though waiting to see if I needed help out. After realizing I didn’t, she trudged up the nearby porch steps to the door.

“Shouldn’t you lock the car?”

She pulled open the screen door before pushing open the interior one, then waited in the doorway for me. “I don’t want some idiot to break a window out of some misguided hope they’ll find something of value. This way, they can have a look, take anything I was stupid enough to leave behind, and go on their way. No hassle.”

“But…what if they steal the car?”

Her lips curled ruefully. “Anyone in this neighborhood knows better than to steal a car, nice or otherwise, parked outside of this house. Any outsiders that try to boost cars from these streets will find a world of hurt waiting for them on the other side of theft. A world of hurt, and not just from me. My neighbor does not like people invading his territory.”

“Right…” My body was starting to shake again, a sign that I was still horribly outside of my comfort bubble. “And we’re positive I can’t stay with Callie and Dizzy?”

“You’ll be fine. Promise. C’mon.” Reagan gestured me in. “As I was saying, it makes me nervous that Darius was blindsided by Ja’s power. Hell, it makes me nervous that a vampire can be that powerful. An elder is no joke. Ja is clearly far beyond that.”

Her entryway opened up into a small living room with plush furniture, a giant TV on the wall, an expensive rug, and paint and decorations that perfectly accented the space. It was cozy and comfortable while still trendy and top of the line.

“Want a drink?” She disappeared through an archway into a kitchen that had received the same treatment as the living room. The various gadgets would be at home in a rich person’s kitchen. Even Callie and Dizzy would’ve been envious of all the state-of-the-art appliances, though probably not of the tiny quarters into which they were all systematically crammed.

“Water, please.” I sat at a small, round table in the corner, with artfully aged wood, each strip a slightly different color than the other, but all blending into a really neat piece. “Did you decorate?”

She laughed as she pulled down a bottle of whiskey. “Yeah, right. No, Marie came through and did all this up after my house was burned out by a ridiculous mage hopped up on—” She stiffened before continuing, “Painkillers. Never mind.”

I sagged into the chair as she got to work on our drinks. A suspiciously short time later, she delivered a glass with a lime floating among the ice cubes.

“That’s my version of a margarita. You’ll love it.” She sat opposite me with a darker liquid that was almost certainly whiskey, her version of water.

I ignored the glass in front of me. “I don’t understand how I made Ja react like that. Darius said my magic was doing it, but…” I shook my head, at a loss.

Reagan set down her glass and leaned forward. “Marie said your magic acted as a catalyst. It pumped out a sort of aggression that said, in essence, get lost or I’ll kill you.” She leaned back again and took a sip of her drink. “Elder vampires use a similar approach with newbies, I guess. They exude a sort of…mood or something that gives them control. I don’t totally get it, but you must’ve shoplifted the ability without knowing it. The problem is, elders are the scary ones, not the ones who are scared. Darius thinks Ja felt your intention, and it stripped away all the layers of dust collected on her personality. You, in essence, woke up the beast.”

Shivers ran through me as I remembered that red, white, and black thing jerkily walking toward the top of the stairs. She’d been through hell, and refused to sit down for a rest. “Will she go back to sleep, or whatever?”

Reagan stared into her whiskey. “That’s what has me concerned. If she lives, and she doesn’t slip back into a dormant state—which is basically a vampire’s version of a vacation from life and intense introspection—there’s no telling what it’ll mean. We might be introducing another, very intense, player into the supernatural game of politics.”

I took a sip of my drink, then sputtered and shook, immediately putting it back down again. “That’s straight tequila.”

“No! It has a lime and a little sugar. I said it was my version of a margarita.”

I pushed the glass away. “So what will Darius do if Ja wants to get back to life?”

Reagan shrugged. “That’s the real question, isn’t it? What will Darius do. Because honestly, it has nothing to do with me. Unless that she-bitch tries to kill him to steal his interests. Then it very much has to do with me, and I’ll get to see how hard it is to kill an ancient vampire. Otherwise, it’s Darius’s problem. Tomorrow we’re going to hit the books. You have the power to be great. I’m going to help you blindly stumble into actually being great. It’s a foolproof plan.”

“Certainly seems so.” I stood and went to the cabinet.

“Oh good, you’re already used to waiting on yourself. We’re gonna get along fine. Bottom line: we’re in unknown territory, and if anything makes vampires itchy, it is unknown territory. So we’ll avoid them for now, especially the old one you drove crazy, hole up here, and do some magic. Easy.”

If there were any certainties in life, one was that Reagan’s and my versions of easy were vastly different.