“I don’t like the ‘no- killing’ part of that arrangement.”

“Careful, Zane. If you go against her wishes on that, be prepared for retribution. Francine might not look it, but she has a great deal of power. And she’s smart. We either play it her way and accept her helping us with immobilizing him, or we go in guns blazing. And you know what that means.”

Casualties. That’s what it meant. Yvette could be hurt, the actress Kimberly killed. It was a risk. “We’re still going in guns blazing.”

“Sure, but only with Francine’s witch power can we disable him before he can cast anymore spells. Then, we go in guns blazing.”

“Still don’t like it.” An uncomfortable tingling on the back of his neck told him they weren’t alone anymore. Zane turned to face the witch. “Has nobody ever told you it’s impolite to listen in on people’s conversations?”

She smiled. “Same as nobody’s taught you not to talk bad about other people behind their back.”

“You’re not people. You’re a witch.”

“Witches are human.”

Like Zane cared either way. He gave Gabriel an exasperated look. “You’re the boss.”

Gabriel nodded. “We have two hours until sunset.” He gestured toward the living room, and the three of them rejoined the others.

There wasn’t a seat left in the house. Everybody who could be of any use was assembled: Amaury, Thomas, Eddie, Maya, Nina, Samson, Oliver. Even Delilah sat on the couch, her big belly prominently sticking out. Not that she would get anywhere near the fighting, but Samson always included her in all discussions.

Could six vampires, two humans (one of which was a woman) and a witch defeat one powerful witch and free Yvette and Kimberly without anybody getting killed? Hell yeah! And he bet they could do it without the witch. If Yvette got hurt, they could heal her quickly—that’s why they’d take Oliver with them. He’d been an emergency blood donor on other occasions and could act as such again. And if Kimberly was injured, any of the vampires could heal her with his vampire blood. It carried healing properties more powerful than any antibiotic. As long as Kimberly received no fatal wound in the scuffle, she would come out in one piece at the end.

Zane for one would keep a close eye on Francine. One wrong move and he’d have her by the throat.

***

Darkness finally surrounded the large warehouse in the industrial area of South San Francisco. Zane had chosen to ride in the blackout van that carried Gabriel and the witch. He wouldn’t leave her out of his sight no matter what his boss said.

With suspicion, he eyed the little potion bottle Francine clutched to her chest. He’d demanded to be the one to carry it, but she’d refused stoically.

Zane slid the van door open and stepped out into the cool night. Rain was in the air. He could almost taste it. Around him, more shadows appeared. The vampires were all clad in their usual dark clothes to be able to easily blend into the night. Thomas wore his customary biker gear and looked the part.

Because witches were essentially humans, the weapons they had brought this time were meant to harm humans only. The guns were loaded with regular bullets, not silver bullets like they normally were. Nobody wanted to risk injuring Yvette. Instead of silver knives, each vampire was carrying at least one knife with a metal blade and a few throwing stars. They’d left their stakes at home, not wanting to risk their opponent to get their hands on the deadly weapon.

They were ready to do battle. And had it been his call, Zane would have stormed into the place and razed it. But Gabriel and the witch had other ideas.

Zane watched closely as Francine stepped out of the van and approached the building. She was dressed in equally dark clothes as his, and without his superior night vision he wouldn’t have been able to make her out, because all street lights on the block were out. Thomas had hacked into the city’s power grid and made sure no electricity was being fed into the block on which the warehouse stood. Since only taking out the power on this block might have alerted the witch, Thomas had made the decision to widen the radius to several blocks. If Haven looked out the window he’d simply assume that a whole section of the city had lost power and would write it off to the usual problems PG&E was experiencing and not associate it with an imminent attack. They still had to be quick, though. The energy-less residents wouldn’t just sit and wait indefinitely for the power to come back on; someone would call and their gig would be up.

“You should have let me go with her. What if she betrays us?” he whispered to Gabriel who stood by his side, his eyes glued toward Francine, who approached the front entrance of the warehouse.