Lee woke up alone.

This wasn't unusual: Irene slept lightly when she felt stressed and this week had been no exception to this habit. The grumbling werewolf sat up in her blanket pile, glaring at the bird sitting on the outer window sill. A woodpecker, yellow-bellied with a red cap, pecked at the window casing as if curious before Lee leaned over to snarl at it. It flew away with a flutter, frightened.

Lee did not like birds.

As the woodpecker flew off, Lee got to her feet and shuffled to her bedroom door. It was ajar, but she expected that and she pulled it open fully with a yawn. Coffee, she thought with some relief as the smell of it hit her nose. After sleepily fumbling with the cabinet, she poured herself a cup and sat down at the table. Across from her, in the bathroom, the shower was running, and it was running hot - steam billowed from under the door. Lee stared at this over the rim of her mug, unsure if it was steam from her coffee or the door that was throwing her off.

The door to the apartment opened with a jangling of keys. Irene stepped in, a brown paper bag bursting with items in her arms as she pushed her front door shut with her foot. For the brief moment Lee could see the opposite side of the door, she saw a splatter of what a short sniff confirmed to be blood across the door's pristine wood.

"I'm sorry I didn't wake you, there was an emergency," Irene said apologetically. She put the bag down, not gently at all in her haste, and hugged Lee tightly as she trembled. Lee hugged her back; the werewolf realized that under her coat, Irene was still in her pajamas.

"What's going on?" Lee asked as Irene began dumping the bag's contents out on the table. Crystals of different colors (red, purple, soft pink, was that a quartz?), herbs (rosemary, lavender... sage?), chalk- "Who's in the shower?" Lee finally remembered to ask.

"Ellie." Irene picked up the herbs and started a kettle boiling, putting the lavender in a cup and putting the rest of the herbs in containers. She'd stopped to grab them from her shop downstairs, Lee supposed. "Something attacked her last night on the way from the town hall to where she and Christopher were staying." Irene clasped her hands behind her neck and sighed, looking at Lee as she bit her lip. "I was honestly a little worried when you didn't wake up, we weren't exactly quiet."

"I've been sleeping pretty hard." Lee waved it off, "What got her?" Lee glanced at the bathroom again.

"She doesn't know. My money is on the djinn we learned about or a friend of Edmund's." Irene picked up her supplies to organize them. "She wasn't staked, but they definitely got her in the gut."

"Glad she made it." Lee was mildly disturbed by how quietly she was handling this, but it was Irene's sister. If anyone raised an alarm of an attack on a person of interest in the story around the Brooks family, who knew what would happen when the attacker was identified? "Was she with anyone when she was attacked?"

"Not that I could figure, she won't say. That djinn's been through, though." Irene pointed to the window over the sink. "The birds."

"Birds?" Lee repeated. She really was having a hard time waking up.

"The birds here in Wodenton follow surges of magic. It messes with their flying, magnetic poles... or something." Irene flapped a hand. "I'm a witch, not an ornithologist."

"Wait, is that how the window got broken yesterday? A bird got lost and crashed through?" Lee stood and peered through the window Irene had pointed at. Across the parking lot, sparrows easily numbered in the hundreds, and a handful of falcons drifted lazily overhead to pick out what would likely be an easy meal. Wait, was that a seagull? Lee thought, confused. "So this djinn goes by, magic waves change, birds follow."

"That's my theory." Irene set one of the now gently-glowing crystals in the window and a pale net of light grew over the panes. "Precaution," she said with a shrug. Then, pointing, she said, "Willing to bet that's where they are. The diner over there."

Lee squinted through the net at the little diner. "You're probably right, that's a shit-ton of finches. That's a heron. You sure it's a djinn and not an animal talker?"

"Could be both. Djinns are talented." Irene finished setting up the rest of the nets - she didn't want any more dead birds in her house - and turned to the bathroom as the door opened. Ellie was shaken, but she was clearly recovering as she drank something Lee didn't want to think about out of a travel mug. "How are you feeling?"

"Exhausted." Ellie slumped into a chair. "If that thing is the one that stabbed me-"

"They're not. You'd remember." Irene poured the hot water from the kettle into the cup of lavender and handed it to her sister. "Drink this, calm your nerves. I'll be back soon."

"I'm going too-" Lee blinked at the tight hug Irene gave her.

"I need you here to watch Ellie in case someone tries to bust in here. Please. She's hurt." Her voice was muffled and Lee sighed, rubbing Irene's back.

"I'll do it. Just be careful." Lee kissed the top of her head before nuzzling her. "I love you too much to let you walk into a set-up alone."

"I love you too." Irene pulled back, cupping her girlfriend's face in her hands. "And that's why I'm asking you to guard my sister. I can't trust anyone else."

Lee nodded reluctantly and sat down, watching Irene gather her things. The witch stopped at their bedroom door, considering wearing something other than fuzzy Nightmare on Elm Street pants with a matching t-shirt. She shook that idea off and pulled her coat on, buttoning it. "My braids still in? I didn't take a look when I got up."

"Still perfectly tight." Lee smiled. They'd spent the better part of last Friday pulling and taking Irene's curly, curly hair into braids; without the volume of her curls pulling her hair up, her hair went down a little past her ears.

"Good. They better be, took us most of a day," Irene chuckled, relaxing a little. The door clicked shut behind her as she left, her crimson wards glowing to life moments later. Both Lee and Ellie sighed and looked at each other, awkward silence filling the air.

"Um." Ellie sipped her tea, rubbing her side; Lee saw the bandages under the too-small shirt. "Sorry. She's stubborn, but I think that would be my fault. Over-protective big sister," she smiled sheepishly.

"She can hold her own," Lee agreed, "but this feels bad."

"She walks into "bad feelings" with all the curiosity to kill a hundred cats. It hasn't done her wrong yet." Ellie chuckled with no small amount of pride. "In ten minutes, I can undo her wards and we can go after her and hide outside the diner."

Lee raised an eyebrow. "Against her wishes?"

Ellie leaned in. "I know my little sister. She wants to handle it alone. But she's never turned down backup when she needed it." She took another sip of her tea, sighing in gentle relief. "Oh, I missed her tea so much."

"It's good stuff." Lee was quiet for a minute. "Who attacked you?"

"A vampire. A Brooks. Couldn't see his face though. I was an idiot for going home alone. Christopher knows I'm okay, Irene called him when I got here. My phone was smashed." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'm never going without a phone case again."

"All that aside, why did he attack you?" Lee leaned over a bit on an arm.

"Full investigation mode. Irene's rubbed off on you," Ellie teased gently.

"Eh, my dad was a private eye for most of my teenage years. I still remember all the doors he kicked in," Lee grinned despite herself and stood up. "Let me put on something other than a t-shirt and boxers and we'll go. You sure you're up for this?"

"I'll be right as rain. Irene caught I think a raccoon last night, I'll just heal slow." She eyed the travel mug, "Not my preferred method of drinking, she could have just handed me the poor thing."

Lee shook her head with a chuckle and stepped into her room to change.