“You want to wake up a vampire this time of day?” Blair shrugged. “Okay. You go first.”

C ian didn’t care to be disturbed during his rest time. He figured a closed and locked bedroom door would be a clear signal to anyone that he wanted his privacy. But such things never seemed to stop his brother. So he sat now, awake in the dim light, and listened to the plan for the day.

“So, if I have this right, you woke me to tell me you’re going out, down to Kerry to poke at the caves?”

“We didn’t want you to wake, find us all gone.”

“My fondest dream.” Cian waved that lazily away. “Apparently, the good, bloody fight last night isn’t enough for the hunter.”

“It’s good strategy, going there.”

“Didn’t work out so very well, did it, the last time we went there?”

Hoyt said nothing for a moment, thinking of King, and the loss of him.

“Nor, for you or me, the time before that,” Cian added. “You ended up barely able to walk away, and I took a f**king header off a cliff. Not one of my happiest memories.”

“Those times were different altogether, and you know it. It’s daylight now, and this time she won’t know we’re coming. And being it’s daylight, you’ll have to stay behind.”

“If you think I’ll sulk about that, you’d be wrong. I’ve plenty to keep me busy. Calls and e-mails, which I’ve largely neglected these past weeks. I still have businesses that need my attention, which might as well be tended to since you’ve pulled me out of bed in the middle of the damn day. Let me add it’ll be a pure pleasure to have five noisy humans out of the house a few hours, that I can promise you.”

He rose, walked to his desk and wrote something on a notepad. “Since you’ll be out and about, I’ll need you to go here. There’s a butcher in Ennis. He’ll sell you blood. Pigs’ blood,” Cian said with a bland smile as he handed his brother the address. “I’ll ring him up, so he knows someone’s coming. Payment’s not a problem as I have an account.”

His brother’s writing hand had changed over all this time, Hoyt noted. So much had changed. “Doesn’t he wonder why…”

“If he does, he’s wise enough not to ask. And he’s no doubt pleased to pocket the extra euros. That’s the coin here now.”

“Aye, Glenna explained it to me. We’ll be back before sunset.”

“Better hope you are,” Cian warned when Hoyt left him.

O utside, Blair tossed a dozen stakes in a plastic bucket. Swords, axes, scythes were already on board. All of the fiery variety. It was going to be interesting explaining things if they got stopped, but she didn’t scout out a vampire nest without going fully loaded.

“Who wants the wheel?” she asked Glenna.

“I know the way.”

Blair checked the need to take control, climbed in the back, took the seat behind Glenna as the others joined her. “So, Hoyt, have you ever been in the caves? I don’t figure that kind of thing changes much in a few hundred years.”

“Many times. But they’re different now.”

“We’ve been in them,” Glenna explained. “Magically. Hoyt and I did a spell before we left New York. It was intense.”

“Fill me in.”

Blair listened, one part of her brain marking the route, landmarks, traffic patterns.

In any part, she saw what Glenna described. A labyrinth of tunnels, chambers blocked with thick doors, bodies stacked like so much garbage. People in cages like penned cattle. And the sounds of it—Blair could hear that in the back of her mind—the weeping, the screaming, the praying.

“Luxury vamp condo,” she murmured. “How many ways in?”

“I couldn’t say. In my time the cliffs were riddled with caves. Some small, barely big enough for a child to crawl through, others big enough for a man to stand. There were more tunnels, wider, taller than I remember.”

“So, she excavated. She’s had plenty of time to make it all homey.”

“If we could block them off,” Larkin began, and Moira turned to him in horror.

“There are people inside. People held in cages like animals. Bodies tossed aside without even the decency of burial.”

He covered her hand with his and said nothing.

“We can’t get them out. That’s what he’s not saying to you.” But it had to be said, Blair thought. “Even if a couple of us wanted to try a suicide run, that’s just what it would be. We’d die, they’d die. A rescue isn’t an option. I’m sorry.”

“A spell,” Moira insisted. “Something to blind or bind, just until we free those who’ve been captured.”

“We tried to blind her.” Glenna flicked a glance in the rearview to meet Moira’s eyes. “We failed. Maybe a transportation spell.” She looked at Hoyt now. “Would it be possible for us to transport humans?”

“I’ve never done it. The risks…”

“They’ll die in there. Many have already.” Moira scooted up in her seat to grip Hoyt’s shoulder. “What greater risk is there than death?”

“We could harm them. To use magicks that may harm—”

“You could save them. What choice do you think they would take? What choice would you?”

“She’s got a point.” If they could do it, Blair thought, if they could save even one, it would be worth it. And it would be a good hard kick in Lilith’s ass. “Is there a chance?”

“You need to see what you move from one place to another,” Hoyt explained. “And it’s more successful if you’re close to the object. This would be through rock, and we’d be all but blinded.”

“Not necessarily,” Glenna countered. “Let’s think about this, let’s talk it through.”

While they talked—argued, discussed—Blair let it all stew around in the back of her mind. Pretty day, she thought absently. The sun shining on all that green. The lovely, long roll of land with cows grazing lazily. Tourists would be out, taking advantage of the weather after yesterday’s storm. Shopping in the towns, or driving out to gawk at the Cliffs of Mohr, getting their snapshots and videos of the dolmen in The Burren.

She’d done the same thing herself, once upon a time.