Chapter 8

T he next few days are blessedly uneventful…in terms of the road trip, at least.

My press conference garnered a few hundred thousand views that first day, and then several million by the end of the second day, and by evening on the third day, it was officially viral. Restaurants no longer kicked us out, so there's that, at least. Reporters seemed to find us wherever we went but kept a respectful—or perhaps cautious—distance, content to snap photos with zoom lenses.

Those original reporters probably warned them about how I handled their assault on my privacy.

We're sticking to back roads, county highways, and state highways—every time we cross an interstate overpass, the lanes are clogged with abandoned cars, especially near more populous areas.

It's not all good news, though: Sharon has elected herself our social media guru. She made a few "official" accounts on various platforms and posted candid snapshots, short videos, and confessional-style interviews. This is good and fine. We needed an official social media presence, and she's most qualified to handle it. The less good news is that for every positive comment and like on the posts, there are half a dozen haters, inflammatory and derogatory comments, and downright heinous and vile posts attacking us by ignorant mortals and faceless keyboard warriors. It's nothing new, of course, but disheartening, nonetheless. Mainly because many of the comments and posts are dedicated to tracking our movements and hinting at retaliatory action. Retaliation against what, we don't know.

And then, a week after the press conference, we get our first taste of true resistance from an anti-immortal faction.

I'm not entirely certain where we are—one of the Carolinas, maybe; the hours and miles and days are blurring together. At every stop, our caravan grows a little bit larger as immortals find us and join our northward journey. I try to greet each new arrival that night as we stop. We have eight new fae—five males and three females, none of whom know each other. Six new vampires, four in a coven—two males, two females—and two individuals, both males—five shifters, a pack of coyotes, four males and one female—the female is the alpha, which Caleb claims is highly unusual. We also gain a dozen mortals—it's not clear if they're supporters or just traveling with us for safety in numbers—I welcome them with a warning that we expect them to keep the peace and be respectful, and so far, they have been.

So now, stopping for the night is a major undertaking. We let the majority of the caravan figure it out for themselves, and my inner circle finds a motel of some sort. A couple of nights, there's nowhere to go, so we pull off into a vacant parking lot and just sleep in the vehicles.

Our van is in the lead, Callahan driving. I'm in the very back row with Caspian and Caleb, resting and chatting mentally with Alistair, Fin, and Stirling. We discuss the updates to the estate necessary to make it my eventual permanent residence, and the reports from Sorren, Hesperion, and my grandfather—Sorren is making a lot of progress with the shifters, but Hesperion is having less success with the fae, who seem hesitant to throw their lot in with me; no one has heard from my grandfather.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit," I hear Callahan grumble from up front.

I mentally sign off and sit up. "What's wrong, Callahan?"

I peer through the windshield and see the issue for myself: an overturned semi blocking both lanes, with a jumble of burned-out wrecks, refrigerators, piles of scrap metal, old engines, school busses…

"It's a blockade," Callahan murmurs. "Placed intentionally."

"I smell mortals," Caleb says. "A lot of them. Very close."

I send out a tendril of prana, seeking, seeking.

Finding.

Ten…a dozen…twenty…forty…not just heartbeats, not just the lush, fresh scent of mortal blood but intentions, also.

Violence.

Anger.

Hatred.

I release the tendril. "It's an ambush."

"No shit," Callahan growls.

Caleb snarls, a purely wolf sound of warning.

"Sorry," Callahan murmurs.

I glance at Caleb with an eye roll. "He's allowed to be sarcastic, my love."

Caleb ignores that, kissing my temple as he squeezes past me for the side door. "Pack. With me."

Moments later, there's a pile of clothes and a flare of amber light, and then a handful of wolves are bolting away from the van, leaping over the median, and vanishing into the tall grass on the far side of the highway and into the trees—several gunshots crack across the silence.

"Did they just shoot at my pack?" I ask.

"It would seem so," Nico grumbles.

I sigh. "What do they expect to accomplish?"

I climb out of the van and stop midway between the hood of the van and the blockade. With a flex of prana, I conjure a thick curtain of jellied air around me.

"Who is in charge?" I call out, using a thread of prana to amplify my voice.

A quick trio of gunshots rings out—BAMBAMBAM! the rounds bury in the curtain.

I sigh. "This isn't going to go the way you're thinking, mortals. Will the leader of this little…faction…please come speak with me? You can keep your little guns."

BAMBAMBAM!—BAMBAMBAM!—BAMBAMBAM!

More rounds are buried in the curtain—little bits of metal trapped in nothing at all.

"Very well, then," I say. "The hard way it shall be."

I summon roots from the dirt and cause them to grow, to thicken, to multiply. Send them into the blockade, long, wriggling green shoots that wrap around tires and axles and beams and handles, becoming thick as arms, and then pythons, and then tree trunks. I use the roots to pull the blockade apart bit by bit—first the semi, scraping across the blacktop with a screech and howl of metal on stone, pulling it aside until it rolls to rest in the median. Then, piece by piece, I remove the rest of the objects—or most of them, at least.

Enough to see the huddled cluster of mortals crouched with their guns, watching as a waist-thick root moves with serpent-like sentience, coiling around the mangled ruin of an old pickup truck, lifting it over their heads.

"Guns down, mortals," I call out. "Now."

I watch them turn toward me, level their guns at me, and fire—a deafening barrage of semi-automatic weapons fire, barking and chattering and cracking.

"I have no reason to hurt anyone," I say.

"Die, bitch-witch!" A male voice, in a thick southern drawl: bee-yitch wee-yitch.

"Bitch-witch," I repeat. "How creative."

"Want me to scare them a little?" Caspian says, coming to stand next to me. "Flash over, take a few guns, maybe draw a little blood?"

I shake my head. "Not yet. They're just scared, ignorant mortals doing what they think is necessary to protect themselves. We aren't threatened by them, only inconvenienced."

Caspian chuckles. "I see. So, what's your plan, now?"

I shrug. "Not sure yet, still thinking."

A howl erupts from the woods on the right, answered by another on the left…the howls echo and move and seem to multiply until even I'm not sure where the wolves are or how many there are. I mean, I know how many there are, obviously.

"I'd put the guns down, mortals," I say. "Those wolves aren't likely to listen to me—not after you took unprovoked potshots at them."

Another barrage of gunfire, and now my curtain of air is riddled with bullets. I infuse it with more prana, thickening it and making it more solid. I don't need the hassle of getting hit right now.

Time for a slightly more aggressive action, I suppose. I walk forward, pushing the curtain ahead of me. BAMBAMBAM! Yes, yes, yes, you have guns. You'd think they'd realize they're only wasting ammunition.

I halt on this side of a bullet-hole-riddled school bus, which is on its side halfway across the righthand lane. Roughly thirty feet away, the mortals have arranged themselves in a series of ranks, like you'd see in a Revolutionary War movie—the ones in front on one knee, the ones behind standing. All the mortals have aimed their guns directly at me.

All I can smell is mortal blood and fear.

I fight the urge to sample the blood. Instead, I get creative. Send prana into the ground, causing a ring of boiling soil to crack up through the blacktop. I hear frantic shouts of panic and fear as the ring becomes a wall of thick black soil; another burst of prana and the dirt solidifies into the hardpan of an old dirt road.

Shouts echo—curses, pleas, screams, epithets.

A gunshot echoes from inside the chamber, accompanied by irate shouts—I can't help but laugh.

"Are we done?" I ask.

Silence.

I allow the wall to soften once more, and then slowly lower it until I can see faces—dirty, fearful, and pissed off. "Put your weapons down and show me your hands."

Rifles and AR15s and handguns and shotguns clatter on concrete and hands go up. I let the wall subside back into the earth and use a sharp gust of wind to scatter the weapons out of reach.

No one moves. No one speaks.

"Well? Explain yourselves." I stand facing them from a few feet away with my hands clasped behind my back, hoping I'm channeling an irritated teacher who has just said, "I'll wait."

Still, no one speaks.

I fix my gaze on a man—middle-aged, faded jeans sagging under a beer belly, wearing a battered, sweat-stained green John Deere cap. "You." I probe him with prana, gleaning a few pieces of information. "Eric Packard. You actually seem like a somewhat decent sort, Eric. What's with the blockade? Why attack people who have done you no wrong?"

He shuffles his feet. "Heard y'all was heading this way. They're sayin' you're eatin' souls, and your vampire slaves are turning everyone you meet into more vampire slaves." Vamp-AH-r

I cackle. "Wow. That's a shocking amount of stupidity in one sentence, Eric. What evidence did 'they,'" I emphasize the word with air quotes, "provide that convinced you it was true?"

He scuffs the blacktop with a toe. "Well…"

"You saw a post on social media and just assumed it was true?"

"Naw, I just…they said there was firsthand accounts. They had quotes an' everythin."

"Oh, they had quotes ?" I can't help the sarcasm. "Wow. I'm sure those quotes were a hundred percent real and not at all invented."

He points behind me. "That there is a vampire. I seen pictures of him."

I nod. "He is indeed a vampire." I look back at him. "He doesn't seem to be making vampire slaves out of you, though. I mean, I'm in the way, sure. But…well, so far, no souls are being eaten, either. Sure seems like maybe you jumped to some very wrong conclusions."

He clears his throat. "Could be."

"Notice how I didn't hurt anyone? Notice how my vampire mate hasn't burst into flames or drank your blood or made slaves out of you? See, here's the thing, Eric. I could have done all sorts of horrible things to you. But I didn't. I don't eat souls. No immortal that I've ever heard of does. Vampires are not made, they're born. And there's no such thing as vampire slaves."

He frowns hard. "You don't know everything, bitch-witch. Maybe y'all ain't interested in hurting us, but not all of the other freaks like you out there are as nice as you."

"You have an excellent point there, Eric. The question is this: Why provoke unfriendly fae, vampires, and shifters? See, I think even most mortals, if someone is shooting at them for no reason, would respond in kind. You're trying to kill me? Fine. I'll kill you, too. But, with immortals, you're only gonna get a few shots off. And then you're dead." I point at Caspian. "You could hit him a dozen times, direct, close-range hits, and he'd still rip your head off." I gesture to my left and right, and the wolves prowling toward us. "Same with them. Your little guns aren't going to save you, Eric. If an immortal decides to kill you, there isn't much you can do. Even with a gun. Luckily for you, we're not interested in killing you." I move closer to him. Let my prana flare within me so my eyes, hair, and tattoos glow. "My advice to you, Eric? Start thinking for yourself. Try to look at facts before jumping to conclusions. And maybe don't go around attacking innocent people without provocation."

I let the ocean of seething prana swell, boil, and surge into my hands—I slice both hands down and away in a sharp, hard gesture. A swirling gust of white fire-laced wind billows outward, away from me, with a deafening hurricane roar. The makeshift roadblock is swept away in a searing torrent. When I release the magic, there's nothing left. No school bus, no wrecks, no fridges, no semi.

Gone. Incinerated.

I flip my hands at them. "Now shoo. I have places to be."

I spin on my heel and head back to the van. I hear yips and howls and growls and barks from the pack as they follow—pausing to circle around the mortals, who still stand frozen in place, shaking, as five giant wolves prowl circles around them, snarling.

"Caleb!" I call. "Leave the mortals. They've learned their lesson, I believe."

The pack trots back to the van, shifting on the run.

A minute later, the caravan is rumbling past the huddle of frightened mortals in their camouflage gear and their homemade banner proudly proclaiming—in dripping red spray paint letters— MORTAL MELITIA . With an E.

Ai-yi-yi-yi. Really?

Something tells me that what waits for us in Manhattan is going to be a whole different kind of beast than a handful of scared, misinformed, uneducated "Melitia" country boys.