Night Terrors (Sarah Beauhall Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page B

several points and cast some into stark relief. In the distance you could make out the helicopters and the field of the dead. This was our final stand, just before the dragon took down Susan and Maggie. I remember it like it was yesterday.
    Katie was crying quietly, holding my hand like she was afraid I would fly away. “It’s beautiful,” she said.
    “Yeah,” I breathed. “It’s something.”
    We’d always have a place to honor our dead, but we also could never forget. I’m not sure which was better in the long run.
    “Can we go home?” Katie asked me.
    I looked down at her. “Sure hon, whatever you need.”
    “It’s too much,” she said. “I need a place to breathe.”
    I went and plucked Jai Li from the crowd while Katie went into the house to say goodbye to Deidre. We were leaving while the party was still going. I understood everyone’s need to celebrate life, but there was a point where we just needed to pull away and find ourselves, even among the ruins of the past.

Six
    As I approached the house, I saw that Jimmy was standing in the kitchen, gesticulating pretty forcefully. By the time I heard the shouting, I handed Jai Li off to Trisha and asked her to cover for me while I went in.
    Trisha grinned. “I won’t deal with them when he’s in a tirade,” she said, hugging Jai Li to her chest. “I’ll take her and the other kids over to the barracks to start settling down. They can play cards.”
    I nodded. “Thanks, Trisha. We’ll come get her as soon as I figure out what’s going on this time.”
    I hated when Jimmy and Katie fought. I’d thought they’d gotten past that little spat over the ring now that the necromancer was defeated. This was likely a new issue. I sighed and opened the door to the house, letting Jimmy’s voice roll over me.
    “Don’t be such a damned child,” he was bellowing.
    Awesome. Just what we needed on this night.
    Deidre made a face at me as I stepped into the kitchen—somewhere between run-for-your-life and get-me-out-of-here. A shame I was learning to gather that much from the set of her face and the nods.
    “What’s going on?” I asked loud enough to catch both Katie and Jimmy’s attention.
    Jimmy turned to me, his face livid. “You were with her,” he said, pointing his meaty finger in my face.
    “With her where?” I asked, calmly.
    His nostrils flared and he blinked a couple of times before pulling his finger out of my face. “You met with the Mordred folks,” he growled, swinging his attention back to Katie. For a moment, I thought he was going to hit her.
    “Settle down, Jim,” I said, taking a step between him and Katie. “Have you lost your mind?”
    He shoved me in the shoulder, his fist up.
    I stepped into him, grabbed his shirt in both of my hands, and slammed him back into the fridge. “You need to calm the fuck down,” I said, pushing way from him and leaving him off balance. All that swinging a hammer and wrastlin’ with horses gave me an edge.
    He took one step toward me when Deidre barked out, “James, stop it.”
    That was the secret sauce. The fight seemed to fall away as his shoulders sagged and he lowered his arms. “You had no right,” he said, the anger barely under control.
    “No right?” Katie said. “They had mom and dad’s wedding rings. Did you know that? Did you know that some elf died trying to steal those rings from their hotel room?”
    Jimmy swallowed before answering. “No, I had no idea.”
    “It wasn’t an official visit,” I said, trying to be as reasonable as I could. “One of their people reached out to us. He claims he’d be in big trouble if his people found out he went around channels.”
    “Yeah, he works for a bunch of idiots like Jimmy here,” Katie groused.
    “Stop it,” Deidre said, putting her hand on Katie’s arm. “Not tonight. Let this go.”
    Katie whirled to face her, tears streaming down her face. “When then, huh, Dee? When do we talk about shit? When Jimmy’s had his