She lifted an eyebrow at the irritation in Glenna’s voice. “For some of us anyway. Nice dagger.”
“It’s not working.”
“Let’s see.” Blair snatched it from Glenna, tested the weight. And sipping coffee, threw it toward the target. It stabbed the bull’s-eye. “Works for me.”
“Great, so it’s got a pointy end, and you’ve got excellent aim.” Glenna stomped toward the target, wrenched out the dagger. “What happened to the magic?”
“Search me. It’s a knife, a nice one. It stabs, it hacks, it slices. Does the job. You start counting on magic, you can get sloppy. Then somebody puts that pointy end into you.”
“You have magic in your blood,” Hoyt pointed out to her. “You should have respect for it.”
“Didn’t say otherwise. I’m just more comfortable with sharp implements than voodoo.”
“Voodoo is a different matter entirely,” Glenna snapped. “Just because you can throw a knife doesn’t mean you don’t need what Hoyt and I can give you.”
“No offense—seriously. But I count on myself first. And if you can’t fight with that, you should leave the combat to the ones who can.”
“You think I can’t hit that stupid target?”
Blair sipped more coffee. “I don’t know. Can you?”
Riding on insult, Glenna turned, and with curses running through her head flung the knife.
It hit the outer circle. And burst into flame.
“Excellent.” Blair lowered her coffee. “I mean your aim’s for shit, but the fire show is very cool.” She gestured with the mug. “Probably going to need a new target though.”
“I was pissed off,” Glenna mumbled. “Anger.” She turned her excited face to Hoyt’s. “Adrenaline. We weren’t angry before. I was happy. She pissed me off.”
“Always happy to help.”
“It’s a fine charm, a good weapon.” He laid a hand on Glenna’s shoulder as the target burned. “How long will the flame last?”
“Oh! Wait.” She stepped away, centered herself. Calmed, she put out the fire in her mind. The flame flickered out to smoke.
“It needs work. Obviously, but…” She went back to the target, gingerly tested the dagger’s hilt. It was warm, but not too hot to touch. “It could give us a real edge.”
“Damn straight,” Blair agreed. “Sorry about the voodoo crack.”
“Accepted.” Glenna sheathed the dagger. “I’m going to ask you for a favor, Blair.”
“Ask away.”
“Hoyt and I need to get to work on this now, but later today…Could you teach me to throw a knife like you do?”
“Maybe not like me.” Blair grinned. “But I can teach you to throw it better than you do, less like you’re shooing pigeons.”
“There’s more,” Hoyt said. “Cian takes charge of the training after sunset.”
“A vampire training humans to kill vampires.” Blair shook her head. “There’s some sort of strange logic
in there. Okay, so?”
“We train in the day as well—a few hours. Outside if the sun holds.”
“From what I saw last night, you can use all you can get. And don’t take insult,” Blair added. “I work on it a couple hours a day myself.”
“The one in charge of our daylight training…we lost him. Lilith.”