Evan headed toward the back of the diner, and Arrabelle could see nothing but a Dumpster waiting for them.
"Stop now. I'm getting out," Lyse said.
Arrabelle shook her head, glaring at Lyse in the rearview.
"No way," Arrabelle said, her hand reaching for the door handle.
With her disheveled hair and fiery blue eyes, Lyse looked all of sixteen. There was no way Arrabelle was gonna let her get out of the car alone.
"You can't come with me, Arrabelle." And the tenor of Lyse's voice stopped her cold. "Because you have no hands to open the door with."
Arrabelle looked down at her lap and, to her shock, saw that Lyse was correct. She didn't have any hands-just cauterized stubs where her hands had been severed at the wrist.
"What the hell-" Arrabelle shrieked, but Lyse was already climbing out of the car. She slammed the door behind her and began walking back toward the main parking lot.
As soon as Lyse was gone, Arrabelle looked down at her hands and was not surprised to find that they had been made whole again. She was sure Lyse had used some kind of hypnotic suggestion to pull that trick-and it pissed Arrabelle off that she'd fallen for it.
"She can't go on her own," Arrabelle said, and reached for the door handle again.
"I don't think she needs us," Evan said, mouth agape as he stared into the rearview mirror.
"What are you talking about?" Arrabelle said-and then she followed his gaze to the rearview mirror and saw Lyse performing a feat that nothing in Arrabelle's wildest dreams could have prepared her for seeing.
"Holy shit," Evan said, unfastening his seat belt and opening the driver's door.
Arrabelle climbed out behind him, unfolding herself from the cramped car interior, and shivered as the cold wind buffeted her skin. Niamh had already exited the car and was leaning against the back bumper, eyes on their coven master. Arrabelle and Evan joined her there, staring at Lyse, who stood twenty feet ahead of them, arms outstretched. A glowing blue light arced from her palms, creating a shimmering orb of energy.
As Arrabelle watched, Lyse opened her mouth and began to sing. It was a wordless tune, full of sorrow and grief, and as it grew in volume and pitch, the orb grew with it-until, finally, the rental car and all of its passengers were enveloped inside it. The driver of the white pickup truck either didn't see the massive ball of energy or didn't care.
"No!" Arrabelle screamed as the driver put his foot on the accelerator and the truck barreled toward them.
The pickup truck hit the edge of the orb and, in a flash of neon blue light, disappeared. The orb fizzed and hummed as a streak of lightning shot across the night sky and slammed into it, popping it like a soap bubble.
"Holy crap," Evan said, his voice filled with wonder.
Niamh said nothing, just stared at Lyse with hero worship in her eyes.
"What the hell kind of magic was that?" Arrabelle demanded as Lyse turned to face them. Arrabelle had no idea what in the hell they'd just witnessed, but she knew it existed outside a normal blood sister's abilities.
"I have no idea," Lyse said, and she shot Arrabelle an exhausted grin. "But welcome to the dreamlands."
And that was when Arrabelle realized the white pickup truck hadn't disappeared . . . they had.
Devandra
The burnt-out Victorian that had once played host to Devandra Montrose, and generations of Montrose women before her, was now just another dark spot on the elegant street in Echo Park. Dev loved the houses in her neighborhood because they had a sense of history about them. With their Easter-candy-colored clapboard siding and peaked roofs, the early Craftsmans and Victorians reminded her of sugary confections. Of course, these elderly beauties-as in most Los Angeles neighborhoods-were sandwiched in between derelict apartment buildings and tiny cottages with cracked glass windowpanes, unkempt yards, and owners who refused to pay for the upkeep on their rentals.
Some people in her neighborhood complained about these lesser buildings, saying they were blots on the grandeur of their showier neighbors, but Dev didn't agree. She thought all the homes and apartment buildings were unique in their own way, had always argued that each of them added a layer to the eccentric character of the street.
But the horror of the last two days had drained her and now she didn't have the energy to argue about anything-let alone the worthiness of the run-down houses in her neighborhood. Her world had been upended and now it took every bit of energy inside her, energy that had been stored up over her thirty-plus years of living, to get out of bed in the morning.