"We'll work on form and agility." Cian cast his glance around the room. "I haven't seen a great deal of that in any of you so far."

"Is there a point to you being insulting?"

Moira asked wearily. "A point to any of this?

Slapping swords and trading punches? You were burned worse than anyone I've ever seen, and here you are, an hour after, up again. If magic such as that can't take you down, keep you down, what will?"

"I take it you'd be happier if I'd gone to ash. I'm happy to disappoint you."

"That's not what she meant." Glenna shoved irritably at her hair.

"And you interpret for her now?"

"I don't need anyone to speak for me,"

Moira snapped right back. "And I don't need to be told what to do every bleeding hour of every bleeding day. I know what kills them, I've read the books." "Oh, well then, you've read the books."

Cian gestured toward the doors. "Then be my guest. Go right on out and take out a few vamps."

"It'd be better than tumbling about on the floor in here, like a circus," she shot back.

"I'm with Moira on this." Larkin rested a hand on the hilt of his knife. "We should hunt them down, take the offense. We haven't so much as posted a guard or sent out a scout."

"This isn't that kind of war, boy."

Larkin's eyes glittered. "I'm not a boy, and from what I can see it's no kind of war."

"You don't know what you're up against," Glenna put in.

"Don't I? I fought them, killed three with my own hands."

"Weak ones, young ones. She didn't waste her best on you." Cian rose. He moved stiffly and with obvious effort. "Added to that, you had help and were lucky. But if you came across one with some seasoning, with some skill, you'd be meat."

"I can hold my own."

"Hold it with me. Come at me."

"You're hurt. It wouldn't be fair." "Fair is for women. If you take me down, I'll go out with you." Cian gestured toward the door. "We'll hunt tonight."

Interest brightened Larkin's eyes. "Your word on it?"

"My word. Take me down."

"All right then."

Larkin came in fast, then spun out of reach. He jabbed, feinted, spun again. Cian merely reached out, gripped Larkin around the throat and lifted him off his feet. "You don't want to dance with a vampire," he said and tossed Larkin halfway across the room.

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d." Moira scrambled up, raced to her cousin's side. "You've half strangled him."

"The half 's what counts."

"Was that really necessary?" Glenna got to her feet, moved to Larkin to lay her hands on his throat.

"Kid asked for it," King commented, and had her whipping her head around.

"You're nothing but a bully. The pair of you."

"I'm all right, I'm all right." Larkin coughed, cleared his throat. "It was a good move," he said to Cian. "I never saw it coming." "Until you can, and do, you don't hunt."

He eased back, lowered carefully into the chair.

"Time to work."

"I'd ask you to wait." Hoyt came into the room.

Cian didn't bother to look at him. "We've waited long enough."

"A bit more. I have things to say. First to you. I was careless, but so were you. I should have barred the door, but you shouldn't have opened it."

"This is my house now. It hasn't been yours for centuries."

"That may be. But courtesy and caution should approach a closed door, particularly when magic is being done. Cian." He waited until his brother's eyes shifted to him. "I would not have had you hurt. That's for you to believe or not. But I would not have had you hurt."

"I don't know if I can say the same." Cian gestured with his chin toward Hoyt's face. "Did your magic do that?"

"It's another result of it."

"Looks painful."

"So it is." "Well then, that balances the scales somewhat."

"And this is what we've come to, checks and balances." Hoyt turned to face the room, and the others. "Arguments and resentments. You were right," he said to Glenna. "A great deal of what you said was right, though I swear you talk too much."

"Oh, really?"

"We aren't united, and until we are, we're hopeless. We could be training and preparing every hour of every day of the time we have left, and never win. Because-this is what you said-we have a common enemy, but not a common purpose."

"The purpose is to fight them," Larkin interrupted. "To fight them, and kill them. Kill them all."

"Why?"

"Because they're demons."

"So is he." Hoyt laid a hand on the back of Cian's chair.

"But he fights with us. He doesn't threaten Geall."

"Geall. You think of Geall, and you," he said to Moira, "of your mother. King's here with us because he follows Cian, and in my way, so do I. Cian, why are you here?"

"Because I don't follow. You or her."

"Why are you here, Glenna?"

"I'm here because if I didn't fight, if I didn't try, everything we have and are and know, every one of us, could be lost. Because what's inside me demands that I be here. And above all, because good needs soldiers against evil."

Oh aye, this was a woman, he thought.

She put shame to all of them. "The answer. The single one there is, and she's the only one who knew it. We're needed. Stronger than valor or vengeance, loyalty or pride. We're needed. Can we stand with each other and do this thing? Not in a thousand years and with a thousand more of us to fight. We're the six, the beginning of it.

We can't be strangers any longer."

He stepped away from Cian's chair as he reached in his pocket. "Glenna said make a symbol and a shield, a sign of common purpose.

That unity of purpose made the strongest magic I've ever known. Stronger than I could hold," he said with a glance at Cian. "I believe they can help protect us, if we remember a shield needs a sword, and we use both with one purpose."

He drew the crosses out so the silver glinted in the light. He stepped to King, offered one. "Will you wear it?" King set his drink aside, took the cross and chain. He studied Hoyt's face as he looped it around his neck. "You could use some ice on that eye."

"I could use a great deal. And you?" He held a cross out to Moira.

"I'll work to be worthy of it." She sent Glenna a look of apology. "I've done poorly tonight."

"So have we all," Hoyt told her.

"Larkin?"

"Not just of Geall," Larkin said as he took the cross. "Or no longer."

"And you." Hoyt started to hand Glenna a cross, then stepped closer, looked into her eyes as he put it around her neck himself. "I think tonight you put us all to shame."

"I'll try not to make a habit of it. Here."

She took the last cross, put the chain over his head. Then gently, very gently touched her lips to his battered cheek.

At last, he turned and walked back to Cian.

"If you're about to ask if I'd wear one of those, you're wasting your breath."

"I know you can't. I know you're not what we are, and still I'm asking you to stand with us, for this purpose." He held out a pendant, in the shape of a pentagram much like Glenna's. "The stone in the center is jasper, like the ones in the crosses. I can't give you a shield, not yet. So I'm offering you a symbol. Will you take it?"

Saying nothing, Cian held out a hand.

When Hoyt poured pendant and chain into it, Cian shook it lightly, as if checking the weight.

"Metal and stone don't make an army."

"They make weapons."

"True enough." Cian slipped the chain over his head. "Now if the ceremony's finished, could we b.l.o.o.d.y well get to work?"

Chapter 12

Seeking solitude and occupation, Glenna poured a gla.s.s of wine, got out a pad of paper and a pencil and sat down at the kitchen table.

An hour, she thought, of quiet, where she could settle down, make some lists. Then maybe she would sleep.

When she heard someone approaching, her back went up. In a house this size, couldn't everyone find some place else to be?

But King came in, and stood, shifting his weight, digging his hands into his pockets.

"Well?" was all she said.

"Ah, sorry about breaking Hoyt's face."

"It's his face, you should apologize to him."

"We know where we stand. Just wanted to clear it with you." When she said nothing, he scratched the top of his head through his thick hair, and if a man of six six and two hundred and seventy pounds could squirm, King squirmed.

"Listen, I run up, and that light's blasting, and he's lying there bleeding and burning. Guy's my first sorcerer," King continued after another pause. "I've only known him like a week. I've known Cian since... a really long time, and I owe him pretty much everything."

"So when you found him hurt, naturally you a.s.sumed his brother tried to kill him."

"Yeah. Figured you had a part in it, too, but I couldn't beat the h.e.l.l out of you."

"I appreciate the chivalry."

The sting in her tone made him wince.

"You sure got a way of cutting a man down to size."

"It would take a chain saw to cut you down to size. Oh, stop looking so pitiful and guilty." With a sigh, she scooped back her hair.

"We screwed up, you screwed up, and we're all G.o.dd.a.m.n sorry about it. I suppose you want some wine now. Maybe a cookie."

He had to grin. "I'll take a beer." He opened the refrigerator, got one out. "I'll pa.s.s on the cookie. You're a b.u.t.t-kicker, Red. Quality I admire in a woman-even if it's my b.u.t.t getting the boot."

"I never used to be. I don't think."

She was also pretty and pale, and had to be dog tired. He'd worked her, all of them, d.a.m.ned hard that afternoon, and Cian had put them through the wringer tonight. Sure she'd b.i.t.c.hed a little, King thought now. But not nearly as much as he'd expected.