The other demons kept fighting, but Cormac and the others quickly noticed that they had help opposing them. We now knew they were vampires of the Order of Saint Lazarus of the Shadows. They meant that the mortal defenders had a fighting chance. They’d been injured, but they won. The vampires had left the scene without stopping to say a word.
When the sun rose and the world was still there—when the geysers and fumaroles started bubbling again—they knew I must have succeeded. They focused next on getting help for the most badly injured. I couldn’t wait to see them all again. To thank them. I hadn’t gotten my friends killed, and that seemed like the greatest victory. Like Cormac said, I might have had the biggest target painted on me, but it was everyone else who’d stood between that target at the bad guys.
We tracked down vehicles and gathered the caravan together. Sun took off by himself in his beat-up truck. “I have to report back that all is well. That’ll be fun!” The whole thing might have been a jaunt for him. I gave him a hug, asked him to say hi to Xiwangmu and Anastasia.
I found my phone. I still had a loose thread that needed to be cleared up before I would feel entirely good about this morning. We waited outside the Jeep, Ben listening close while the dial tone rang, and rang.
Then Shaun finally, finally answered. “Hey! Kitty! Holy shit!”
I might have started crying. Just a few tears of relief. “You have no idea how good it is to hear you.”
“Oh, I think I do.”
“Are you okay? Is everyone okay, have you seen everybody?”
“We’re here, we’re all fine. What about you, we went to the house but no one’s there, and New Moon—shit, have you seen what happened to New Moon?”
“Ben and I are in Yellowstone. We’re fine. At least, we are now.”
“Yellowstone. Wait, what?”
“Yeah. Long story.”
“Tell me about it. Kitty, I have so much to tell you. You’re never going to believe it.”
I laughed. “Oh yeah? Not if you don’t believe me first.”
“You’re on.”
And astonishingly, all was right with the world.
* * *
WE STAYED in the Yellowstone area another day, to wait for Grant and Hardin to get patched up. She had puncture wounds in her leg and chest, and gashes that needed stitches. Grant also needed stitches, and had a concussion. But they were both conscious and smiling when I finally saw them. With some persuasive fast talking, they were able to get themselves discharged from the hospital. And without filing a report with the police. Because h
ow would they explain any of this?
We rolled into Denver at nightfall.
The city seemed both brilliantly serene and totally worn out. We were returning to an old battlefield at the end of the war. I finally felt safe—might have been the first time I’d felt safe since meeting Roman and learning of the Long Game. But it was over now. It was really over.
I made more phone calls. Cheryl had managed to get the family out of Denver by cooking up some story about wanting to see the Grand Canyon, and didn’t a spontaneous family trip seem like fun? When I called to tell her everything was fine, she sounded relieved, but not about the world not ending.
“Oh thank God, I was running out of excuses, and I have spent way too long in one hotel room with the kids. Kitty, what happened? Is everything really okay?”
“Yeah. It is now. A bad guy was trying to blow up the Yellowstone caldera, and it would have destroyed Denver. But we stopped him.”
“If anyone else said that, I’d laugh. But you’re serious?”
“Yeah, ’fraid so. But everything’s okay now.” Everything, everything would be okay.
“Well, the plus side is we had a nice trip. The kids love the Grand Canyon.”
“You know, I’ve never seen the Grand Canyon,” I said absently. I wondered why.
“Well then, you should go. It’s pretty cool.”
Yeah. My to-do list had pretty much cleared up for the near future. Maybe I could go see the Grand Canyon.