“No eggs?” Eostre tilted her head and glided toward them, unable to mask the alarm in her eyes. “Are the hens ill?”
“No, ma’am.” Max wrung his hands harder. “Six of them are dead…drained of all their blood.”
“How?” Pete shook his head. “Who…?”
“I don’t know.” Max scooted backward, out of the doorway. “What will we do?”
“Have you told anyone?” Pete asked.
“No. Not a soul.”
“Keep it that way for now.” He marched into the studio and climbed the steps to his platform before lifting his hands. “Attention,elfen. The egg delivery has been delayed. Please clean up your stations and return to your homes. I’ll let you know when it’s time to get started again.”
The chittering turned into a murmur as theelfenput away their paints. Pete hopped off the platform and made his way toward the exit, where Eostre already stood, waiting.
She took his hand, and, in a flash of magic, they appeared in front of the henhouse. Eostre didn’t say a word as she ascended the ramp and tapped lightly on the door. It swung open, and she disappeared inside.
Pete swallowed hard and steeled himself before following her in. At least two dozen hens perched in their nests, some trembling, while others let out mournful clucks. Another dozen or so paced circles around the center of the room.
Eostre cleared her throat, and they all stopped, their heads snapping toward her. “Our deepest condolences for your loss. Where are the sisters who have passed?”
“Out back in the yard,” a brown hen said. “Henrietta is keeping watch until Jord gets here.”
“Thank you.” Pete strode through the room, exiting through the back door, and Eostre followed him into the yard.
A large hen with blue-black feathers stood among the bodies, her head jerking this way and that. When her gaze landed on Eostre, she bowed. “No blood. What creature would do this?”
Pete shoved his hands into his pockets and peered at a rust-colored hen. Red marred the feathers around a tiny wound on her shoulder, but she was otherwise intact. If hungry coyotes or weasels had found their way into this realm, they’d have eaten the entire bird. He shuddered at the thought.
With just the blood missing from the bodies, it could only mean one thing.
“Vampire,” Eostre said as if reading his mind. “But that’s impossible. Vampires can’t enter this realm.”
“I don’t know what else it could be.” Pete stepped away from the bodies. “Someone got in somehow.”
“Vampire!” Henrietta clucked, her head darting around on her neck again.
“Remain calm,” Eostre said. “They cannot be out in the daylight. Your goddess, Jord, will be here soon to protect you. Peter, you must find out who did this and rid our realm of the terror.”
“Me?” He raised his hands. “I’m a painter, not a fighter.”
She stepped toward him and lowered her voice, gesturing to the poor hens. “‘Balance dies when birds lie.’ You have a vampire friend in the earthly realm, do you not?”
He ran a hand through his hair and opened his mouth to argue this was a job for the gods, but he couldn’t find the words. Fae deities were forbidden from taking lives, and theelfenlacked the strength to battle a creature of the night. If a vampire needed staking, he had to be the man to do it.
But how the hell did a vampire get into Eostre’s peaceful realm? And why go after the chickens? There were plenty of biggerelfenin the realm that would satiate a thirsty vamp faster than hen blood could. Nothing about this situation made any sense at all.
“My hens are too distraught to lay eggs,” Henrietta said. “Some are threatening to fly the coop. If you don’t help us, there’ll be no Easter this year or ever again.”
Nausea churned in Pete’s stomach. His rabbit wanted him to open a rabbit hole, tuck tail, and bounce, but he couldn’t. Not with the safety of hiselfenand every other creature in the realm at stake. Not with his own life now hanging in the balance if Easter failed to happen.
“Peter?” Eostre rested a hand on his shoulder.
He had to be mad as a March hare to agree to this, but what else could he do? Think of the disappointment children would feel with no eggs to hunt. And Eostre… What would happen to her if she wasn’t celebrated? The gods needed offerings and celebrations in their honor to survive as much as…well, as much as vampires needed blood.
Easter had to happen. There was no way around it.
He straightened his spine, nodding with resolve. “I know a guy who can help.”
