She had dropped big hints, but Leotie still hadn’t confirmed what clan she was from, and I wasn’t about to spill my secrets until she did. Leotie might be family, but that didn’t make her trustworthy. Mircea was proof of that.

“Why would a visit from a Law Guardian frighten you enough to send Mom and Aunt Brenda away?” I asked her point-blank. “Being an old vampire is nothing interesting to them.”

She gave me one of those half-approving, half-annoyed looks again. “No, but being a true-blood Ani-kutani witch would interest them, as the murder of my entire clan attests.”

“And boom goes the dynamite,” Gretchen said sardonically.

Chapter 23

I closed my eyes. The demon had been right; I was an Ani-kutani descendant and also a trueborn witch. What if he was also right and the possible key to breaking Mircea’s spell lay in the legacy magic that had been passed along to me?

“What about the teenager who lives here, Lisa?” I asked abruptly. “She called you Grandma. If she’s your family, too—”

“She isn’t,” Leotie said. “She calls me Grandma out of respect because I took her and her mother in when their house burned down a few years ago. But you and Gretchen are my only true descendants.”

Then we didn’t have any other living relatives. I’d thought not, but part of me had hoped. That brought up another question.

“You’re our ancient ancestor and a trueborn Ani-kutani witch. But the legacy magic ended up being passed down to me. That means you would’ve had to give it up a long time ago. Why did you, if the power it contains is supposed to be legendary?”

She smiled a bit grimly. “For the same reason your mother did. Back when I was human, my child was dying from fear-of-water sickness, which you now call rabies. The only way I could save her was to transfer my legacy magic to her. That same night, my vampire lover changed me into a blood drinker.”

“Why then?” Gretchen asked with her usual bluntness.

Leotie blinked. “To bring me back from death, of course.”

The demon hadn’t mentioned this part. “What do you mean?”

“You two truly know nothing,” Leotie muttered. “When you receive legacy magic, it merges into every part of you and instantly transforms into whatever you need most. When I received it as a young human, I most needed the ability to hide from those slaughtering my entire clan. Therefore, the legacy magic gave me the ability to transform into whatever I wanted to look like. Magic that knows what you need and instantly adapts to be that very thing is the most potent magic there is.”

Leotie paused as if letting that sink in. When her dark eyes seemed to become a richer shade of black, I knew we were getting to the catch. With great power, there was always a catch.

I wasn’t wrong.

“Yet pulling that magic out to transfer it to someone else rips you apart in the same all-encompassing way that it first binds with you,” she said. “It takes everything with it, even magic that you were born with. No one who has transferred it to another person has survived. That’s the main reason it is called legacy magic. When you pass it on, you die.”

I didn’t say anything for several moments. My mind was too busy running through different scenarios. Gretchen was silent, too. Then she said, “But you’re still here.”

Leotie lifted a shoulder. “My lover cheated the death price by bringing me back as a vampire after I died.”

Just like I had cheated death by drinking vampire blood all those times before I became a vampire myself. Then, I’d nearly hacked my own head off in response to Mircea’s spell. Wait . . .

“You said legacy magic instantly transforms into whatever you need the most. Yes, it saved me by transforming the power line voltage into a part of me back when I was thirteen, but I’ve almost been killed dozens of times since then and it didn’t do shit to help.”

Leotie’s brow arched. “Power that always transforms into whatever you need isn’t magic; that’s mythology. Legacy magic morphs into what you most need at the time of your infusion. That’s all you get, but that initial transformation contains more power than can be learned by centuries of studying spells.”

Of course there had to be another catch. It would be too easy if legacy magic protected its host against every threat, every time. Then Mircea’s suicide-inducing spell would’ve bounced right off me instead of merging and growing until he and I were bound together tighter than twins . . .

“Holy shit!” I burst out. Then I began to pace, feverishly trying to work out the details in my mind.

“Transferring legacy magic to another person strips all the magic out of you, even right down to any magic you were born with. So wouldn’t transferring it to another person also strip any spell currently cast on you, too?”

“Yes,” Leotie said, her puzzled voice drowned out from my instant whoop.

“Screw Ashael, we’ve got our solution right here!”

“Who is this Ashael you keep mentioning?” Leotie asked, then both of us ducked as her front door was suddenly kicked in with such force, it flew across the room.

Maximus stormed inside, shoving Gretchen and me behind him. At the same instant, Marty and Ian smashed through the windows. All three vampires were about to attack Leotie when my frantic cries of “Stand down!” finally registered to them.

“What are you doing?” I said, aghast.

“You screamed,” Maximus replied, accompanied by a grunt of agreement from Marty.