Dustin sat on a wooden chair with his shirt off. Maria wrapped bandages around his blueberry-colored ribs. She saw he’d taken a hell of a beating, but given a little time, he’d soon be back to normal. His fingertips might be sore for longer, though. Sanders really did a number, shoving needles under his nails as far as he did.

The vlads who were left in charge had toyed with the idea of sliding scalpel blades underneath his fingernails. Dustin bore the pain, but it hurt like a bitch. Needles only made small holes in the skin, but scalpel blades all but separated your nail from the end of your finger.

“The van’s loaded and you’re all ready to rock and roll,” Willy said as he walked into the bar behind Kelvin. He looked at Dustin’s bruised body. “I suppose you told them everything?”

Dustin smirked. “I told them fuck all. I just wish I could’ve repaid the pleasure. Thank God for Kelvin's plan.”

“The kid’s got some balls, that’s for sure. If it wasn’t for him and hi…” he started to say, but Gabriel walked in with Megan.

Gabriel smiled. “We’re going for a quick nap, and then we’ll be ready to head into the Dirty D. We do know where we’re going now, right?” Kelvin nodded a yes.

Megan and Gabriel walked upstairs and finished packing their things. It was going to be a fleeting visit to the shaman. Get in, get the elixir, and get out. Gabriel had his vial of blood ready to mix into the potion. He was set, they were all set, and within twenty-four hours he’d be a wolf again. It’d taken long enough, and he’d endured some real mind-mangling adventures so far. Gabriel emptied his pockets and threw the contents onto the bed.

“Here,” he said, handing Megan her cell.

“Thanks. I’m not even sure why I have it. I hardly ever use it.”

Megan sat her phone on the cabinet. She sat on the edge of the bed, resting her head against the oak headboard and two plumped up pillows.

“This is your moment, it’s what you’ve been aiming for,” she said.

“Damn right, and I’m glad you came along for the ride,” he said. “You’ve saved us some trouble along the way.”

“You think so?”

“I know so. Kat was a vlad, and she could’ve been among us now. How freaky would that be? A vlad in the camp.”

Megan started to laugh. “That would be very freaky. How would they keep out of the daylight, huh?”

Gabriel yawned. “Well, it’s kinda late, and we’ve got a few hours left before sun up. I’m going to have a couple of hours.”

“Me too. I think I’ll go for a swim and clear my head first.” Gabriel nuzzled his head into his pillow. Megan looked at him. “Where are we actually going to see the shaman?”

Gabriel yawned and rolled in her direction. “It’s so funny. Kelvin was looking at the church on Elder Street, and the shaman’s house was right behind him.”

“So, Elder Street, opposite the church?”

“Yeah!” His eyes started to close. “And apparently you can’t miss it. There are only two buildings there.” He slept.

Megan picked up her phone and texted Sanders the location. She wanted to be the first in the shaman’s house. She watched Gabriel as he fell deeper into sleep. She tiptoed to the balcony doors and slipped through the gap. She tensed her body and started to change into her vlad form. She looked back through the window, Gabriel slept like a baby. If she cared, she would’ve smiled. She didn’t. She leaped from the balcony and vanished into the night.

The Dixie Mafia girls stood in a huddle. A body now lay on the ground in a massive puddle of blood. The tallest of the girls held the cut-throat razor between her fingers as the van arrived. Kelvin jumped from the side door and asked what happened.

“It was like a plague of locusts coming over the rooftops and down the streets. We fought them off as best as we could, but I think they headed toward the shaman’s house.”

“FUCK!”

Kelvin spun and started running down the street toward the church. He wished he’d known he was so close before. He heard the van tires screeching like a cat that was dumped in a sack and thrown into the river. Maria held her foot hard on the floor of the van and Gabriel hung onto the side door.

“What’s going on?” Megan yelled from further inside the van.

“It looks like the vlads have beaten us to the shaman.”

“Oh no!”

Well! What do you expect? I was here just over an hour ago.

Megan cradled Dustin's head in her lap. She could easily just push him forward and let him roll around in agony. She wasn't entirely heartless (yes she was), and Sanders had put him through some excruciating pain. But there was also the fact it stopped her cover from being blown, about her becoming a daywalker.

Kelvin half-changed to his wolf as he reached the end of the first block. The van pulled alongside him as he tore through the air. He yelled to Maria to go to the rear of the house, and he’d take the front. She swung a right, and he leaned to the left and bounded over the grass and the sign that said Keep off the grass.

He heard it well before he reached the street, and he heard it well before he saw the congregation of people who’d gathered between the church and the shaman’s house…

The drone of a bell rang into the early morning sky as lanterns were held aloft in the final hours of the night before the dawn. Kelvin guessed there must be a couple of hundred who stood vigil all along the street. He feared the worst. And knowing Sanders, if he didn’t get what he wanted, he was likely to make sure no one else would get what they wanted, either.

He must’ve been one spiteful, fucked-up kid.

Kelvin noticed the bodies of a few vlads who never made it into the house or made it out of the Dirty D. The basketball kid from the D Block stood with the rest of his crew at the bottom of the steps. Kelvin changed back to his full human form as he neared. The kid now found nothing to rap about, but then again, rap was all about the hard times.

“What’s happened?” Kelvin asked, even though he already thought he knew.

“These things you told us about, they got to The Big Momma. Some of the guardians are inside. I think it’s not looking good,” he said.

“We did our best, and I need to get in there. She’s the one chance my friend has to get back as a wol…” he started to say.

“I know, you don’t have to hide it. From the moment I saw your twin on the veranda canopy, I knew there was something different. Yes, very different, about the both of you. Who in their right mind would venture into the Dirty D by themselves?”

“I know it doesn’t mean much, but whatever’s happened inside, I’m sorry. We all are.”

“When it’s time to go, you gotta go. No matter how many spells you can cast. Your time is your time to meet your maker,” the basketball kid said. He was right, but if it was as bad as it looked, then the shaman had met her maker a little more prematurely than what she might’ve anticipated.

Maria, Gabriel, and Megan walked around the side of the house and met up with Kelvin. They all took a deep breath and made their way up the broad wooden steps leading to the kitchen door. Residents of the Dirty D parted and gave them free passage. This was a time for unity and not laying down their rules. These were voodoo rules and were set down hundreds of thousands of years ago, by tribal elders. Anyone who wanted to fuck with those rules was pretty fucking insane.

Sanders had, and he was, most definitely, insane.

Skulls lay on the floor; their candles had been snuffed as they’d hit the floor, spilling molten wax across the floorboards. They stepped into the shaman’s reading room. She was surrounded by two, younger, dark-skinned women who cried like there was no tomorrow.

Maria stepped closer and put her hand on the first woman. The one who was wearing her SpongeBob nightgown, and pink slippers that looked like two balls of cotton candy.

Maria glanced at Gabriel and Kelvin. “She looks like shit, but she’s still alive,” she said. “The van. Grab the van, an ambulance is gonna take too long.”

Maria asked the woman for her robe. She slipped it from her body. Maria doubled it then trebled it, and pushed it against the shaman’s neck where the lacerations were crisscrossed across her leathered skin.

Gabriel scooped the shaman up into his arms. He carried her carefully. Kelvin opened the side door as he stepped inside. The shaman ran her hand across Gabriel's cheek. A thin streak of blood began staining his chiseled features.

“Nona no, coma siretu campia resurecto,” the shaman muttered, with a wheezing rasp in her voice.

“Quiet. There’s plenty of time for that,” he replied.

Her head shook. “Nona no sire…” She passed out.

Maria drove toward New Orleans Bounty Hospital. The roads were empty as it was heading out of town, and it was open twenty-four hours. The sizeable curved structure came into view well before they pulled off the turnpike. It already glowed with the first colors that peeked over the tip of the horizon. Megan saw (and panicked) she’d be caught in the sun if they didn’t get in and out of the hospital as fast as possible.

Two hours, max.

The doctors wheeled the shaman down the hallway. She was barely conscious and held her hand close to her chest. Gabriel walked next to the gurney, his shirt soaked with her blood. He was concerned for her life, and he was worried for his inner wolf. This was his chance, and he saw it slipping through his fingers. It was right about now he’d do pretty much anything to save her life.

The doctor went through the speech. “Were they her family?”

Gabriel pulled the doctor to the side and whispered into his ear about who the old lady was. He pointed out the obvious fact; she was slipping away from them with every second the doctor was wasting time, by asking such stupid FUCKING questions.

Gabriel sat on the edge of her bed and held her hand. The shaman opened her eyes. She smiled compassionately, as any caring woman of her age would do. She fumbled for Gabriel's hand.

“Nona de mento, cumatra se finista,” she whispered.

“I don’t understand. Can you say it in English?”

“She’s saying your journey’s only just beginning. She’s unable to help, and you have to seek the help of the one person who’s closest to you,” a nurse mumbled.

“She said all that?”

“I filled in the blanks, but that was the idea behind it,” the nurse replied. “So… who’s the person closest to you?”

“Megan?” Gabriel said.

“Simatra fuquenda kimitri sanqanai.”

Gabriel turned to the nurse for translation. “Not her.”

A second earlier, and Megan would’ve heard the nurse translate that part of the conversation. She arrived at the right time to find out which part of the country Declan, Noelle, and Drake (the firstborn true hybrid) were located.

“I only know of one other. But I don’t know how he can help,” Gabriel said. “Declan, and he’s in Miami.

“Sequent amorey davinta.”

Without being asked, the nurse mentioned that Declan was the one. She also said the shaman emphasized about the boy being important.

“Drake?” Gabriel asked. “He’s still only a baby.”

The shaman looked past Gabriel. She saw Megan standing in the doorway. Her eyes glossed over. She was back. Had she come to finish the job?

“Numero dominate wampiyre,” the shaman mumbled as she started to slip into sleep.

“Shit, I’m losing her,” the nurse said.

“What did she say?” Gabriel asked as he stepped away from the bed.

“I don’t have time. Just wait a while.”

Gabriel stood back as the crash cart was wheeled into the room. It was risky, and the shaman might not withstand the power of the paddles. The machine squealed as the paddles pushed against her chest. With a beep from the machine, the shaman’s chest pushed against her saggy skin. They boosted her again. The crash team started shaking their heads.

“We’ve lost her.”

The nurse grabbed Gabriel's arm and took him outside the room, they were following the crash cart team.

“Wow, dear god, the shaman, what a shame. What was the last thing she s…” A loud scream came from inside the room. Megan stood at the side of the bed. The shaman’s hand jammed into her eye socket as blood gushed through her fingers and down her cheek. The jagged edge of the small broken elixir bottle in the shaman's fingers was also covered in blood.

They rushed back in. Gabriel was shocked. “I thought you said she was fucking dead?”

“She is, it must’ve been one last reaction, and you were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said to Megan. The nurse looked at Megan’s eye where she’d been slashed. “You’d better get to the ICU; I think you’ll lose that eye.”

Megan exited the room to go to the ICU with another nurse who was helping to patch her up. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone and sent a message as fast as she could. She was in excruciating pain, but her body could handle it better, being a vlad.

Gabriel stopped the first nurse and mentioned she didn’t tell him the last words of the shaman. “To make it simple, she said you've got to go to Miami and protect Drake.”

“And that’s it? Nothing about me becoming a wolf again?”

“There was. But she never finished the sentence,” the nurse replied. “Your journey is very far from over, and you must finish what she started.”

What she started?

Gabriel walked from the shaman’s room with a puzzled look.

“What now?” Maria asked.

Gabriel looked up. “We need to go to Miami and hook up with Declan. I’ve got to call him.”

“Oh!” Maria replied. “And what’s wrong with Megan? I saw her heading to the ICU with blood gushing down her face?” Maria thought nothing of mentioning the fact that Megan had been texting at the time.

Gabriel huffed. “It’s weird. I think the shaman just tried to kill Megan.”

“What’s weird about that? We all want to kill her sometimes!”

“Yeah! But the old lady was already pronounced dead.”

She blurted out the words before she thought. “Shit, she really must’ve hated her.” Gabriel felt his stomach turn.

“Our path is littered with many stepping stones. Tread carefully when others lead the way.”