by Elle Adams
“Yes.” The door bounced off its frame, and Madame Grey entered. “I do. Alissa, Blair—come with me.”
“We’ll come back,” Alissa said quickly to Keith.
“Like hell,” said the gargoyle.
One stern glance from Madame Grey shut him up. Then she beckoned us out of the room.
“Alissa, your hunch was right,” she said. “The killer’s choices match the actions of someone enacting a blood ritual. There hasn’t been a similar case in this town in many years, but vampires have long memories. They say that combining the blood of a shifter, vampire, fairy and wizard at the full moon will grant a person the powers of all four combined.”
My mouth dropped open. “So it’s a wizard? For definite?”
A wizard related to vampires. He hadn’t left the town at all. And his monster—if that’s what it was—still waited in the forest.
Madame Grey paused, pressing her phone to her ear, then swore softly. “The werewolves are descending on the vampires’ territory.”
15
Madame Grey whipped her wand from her pocket, waved it, and vanished in a breath of air.
“That’s unfair,” I said. “It’s not like I can—wait, maybe I can do the same.”
I’d practised the transportation spell enough times, though not with a wand.
“Blair,” Alissa said warningly, but I reached into my pocket and grabbed my own wand, mimicking Madame Grey’s movements. The next second, we stood on the road outside the vampires’ headquarters, behind a group of angry blond werewolves.
Vincent stood on the doorstep, a bored expression on his face as though he’d been interrupted napping rather than facing down a dozen furious-looking werewolves. You had to admire his nerve. Then again, he’d probably lived long enough that nothing fazed him.
“Cease your shouting,” he said to the werewolves. “I was sleeping.”
“You refused to respond to our claims,” growled Chief Donovan. “That means we can only assume one of your people was involved.”
“I told you repeatedly that none of my people were, to my knowledge, involved in the murder of one of yours. I also told you that one of my own people was a victim of this killer. I could not possibly have been clearer about it.”
“You’re lying.”
“No,” I tried to interject, but wolf voices were loud even when they weren’t growling. “I can sense lies—”
Wolf yells drowned out my words. They didn’t seem to be listening to each other, let alone anyone else. Vincent, with his own enhanced senses, would be getting an overload right now, but he wore the same bored expression as though a herd of squabbling ducks had wandered in front of his door.
“There’s a ritual,” I tried to shout. “A blood ritual—"
“If Madame Grey has proof, it’ll be at her headquarters,” Alissa yelled in my ear. “We don’t want to get stuck in the middle of this.”
Madame Grey advanced towards the werewolves, and gave us a look telling us to stand back. Probably wise, considering neither of us had vampire speed or the ability to transform into a huge hairy wolf. Even my unpredictable wand was no match for werewolf teeth. And there was no sign of the wizard, nor Lord Anderson—not to mention Nathan. He hadn’t texted me again since his weird question following my confession. That struck me as a bad sign.
“This is a diversion!” I yelled at Madame Grey. “The killer—”
Werewolf yowls swallowed my words, and Alissa grabbed my arm again. “We need to go.”
“We left our guards at the prison,” I pointed out. “Along with Steve. I doubt he can stop this… wizard ritual, but did Madame Grey tell the other witches?”
“If she did, they’ll be at their headquarters,” she said.
“They might need warning about this.” I jerked my head in the direction of the werewolves. “It’s that or go home, and I think the wizard is counting on the witches being distracted.”
But he hadn’t found a fairy yet. As long as I stayed one step ahead of him… we might be able to stop the killer and turn him over to the police before anyone else got killed.
I waved my wand, and we reappeared outside the witches’ headquarters. I pushed open the oak doors and ran inside, in the direction of Madame Grey’s office.
“Her office is locked,” Alissa said. She touched the door and yelped. “Ow. She put a protective ward on the door, too. Bet that’s where she left the proof of the ritual she thinks the wizard is doing.”
“I guess she took precautions. Wouldn’t want anyone else getting ideas.”
I put my own hand on the door and winced when a static shock leapt up my arm. Ow. I reached for my wand, wondering if some of the spells Madame Grey had tried on the wards outside the wizard’s house would work here, too. I’d spent long enough watching her cast every ward-undoing spell in the book.
“What are you doing?” asked Alissa, as I raised my wand.
“Improvising.” I hoped I remembered right, but I’d stood next to Madame Grey for an uncomfortable hour surrounded by vampires, and the spell patterns were kind of burned into my head by this point.
I waved my wand carefully. The door glimmered, and the ward symbols faded.
“No way,” said Alissa, putting her hand on the doorknob. “You did it. How?”
“I was copying the spell she used to try taking out the wards on the wizard’s house. I don’t know what spell it actually was.”
“Oh, Blair.” She turned the doorknob and opened the door. “Never mind remedial classes. Rita needs to put you into the advanced witchery class, asap.”
“That can wait.” I stepped into her office. Her desk was noticeably empty. “Did she take the notes with her?”
The lights went out, plunging the whole room into blackness.
My heart kick-started. “Alissa.”
“Hmm?”
“Er, you didn’t happen to see anyone else on the way in, did you?”
“No.”
“This place is warded.” I spoke more to reassure myself than anything, but suddenly, even the witches’ headquarters seemed oddly quiet. Sure, Madame Grey was absent at the moment, but there was someone far more dangerous than a pack of angry wolves loose in town.
I lunged for the office door, breathing out a sigh of relief when it opened. “We shouldn’t be here.”
Alissa exited the room behind me. “Blair, do you think the killer came in? Why would he?”
“To steal Madame Grey’s notes, or to prove he could? Who knows.” I crossed the hall to the oak doors, which rattled in their frame when I pushed against them. “Locked.”
Alissa pulled her wand out. “Who’s in here?” she said loudly.
Silence answered.
My heart beat rapidly in my ears. “Is there a back exit?”
“This place can’t be locked. Madame Grey owns the whole building.” She raised her wand and zapped the door with a spell. It didn’t budge.
“We’re dealing with a powerful wizard here,” I whispered. “I bet he stole Madame Grey’s research—but he didn’t need it. He already has what he needs.”
Except for me. I’d undone those wards by sheer luck, and only because the wizard had imitated the same wards that’d been used on his house. Maybe he’d even put them there himself to stop anyone else from getting inside. But he hadn’t booby-trapped the place. That was down to the pixie. To stop him from finding anything? Was there something hidden in the mansion after all?
The shadow of a person appeared in the corner of my eye. Oh no. he’s already here.
There was a flash of glittering light and the pixie appeared in front of us, waving frantically.
“The pixie!” I said. “We need to follow him.”
“What? I don’t see anything.”
“He’s on our side.” Spinning around, I waved my wand, and a jet of disco-light-coloured paint splattered the entire hall. I grabbed Alissa’s arm and dragged her after me into the nearest classroom.
“What’s this f
or?” she gasped as I slammed the door behind us.
“The window.” I flung a spell at the window, which splattered it with paint instead of breaking the glass.
Alissa waved her wand, and the window snapped open. I made a mental note to learn that spell, and followed her, the pixie whizzing above our heads making urgent noises. The window required some intense acrobatic work to climb out of and I insisted on Alissa going first, despite her protests.
As Alissa climbed onto the windowsill outside, the door slammed open behind me.
With a shriek, the pixie raised its hands. Glitter poured down, and the wizard yelled in anger as I grabbed the window and hauled myself out. The pixie zipped out behind me, and Alissa pointed her wand at the window, sealing it shut.
“He must have planned for the possibility of getting locked in,” I said, shaking paint and glitter off my shoes and wishing I’d used a spell that wouldn’t leave such a conspicuous trail.
Alissa waved her wand, making the glitter and paint vanish. “You’re right. He’s too intelligent to fall for an obvious trick. He must know she’ll be back even if the vampires and werewolves go into outright conflict. It was a risk him going there at all, but he must have done something to lure the witches elsewhere. Unless they’re all going to prepare for the werewolves’ conflict with the vampires.”
“He has the research.” I began to walk away, determined not to let the pixie out of my sight. “We need to warn Madame Grey. Wolves or none. C’mon.”
She followed me, swearing under her breath. “That wasn’t a complicated sealing spell. He’ll be after us in a second.”
“I don’t think he’s a very powerful wizard, you know,” I said. “Otherwise he’d have done worse.”
Not that it was much of a consolation. Not only had I been utterly wrong about the killer, I’d left the murderer behind in a place he’d managed to break the wards on once before—somewhere that was supposed to be safe.
The pixie flew ahead of us. “I think he was trying to stop the wizard, too,” I said. “Not sure why. But he booby-trapped Lord Goddard’s house, probably to stall him.”
“What, you think there’s something in that house he needs?”
“Maybe.”
Glitter flashed in front of us, and the pixie stopped as Sky the cat appeared out of the air. He landed on his feet, casual as anything.
“Wow.” I gaped at him. “All right, get Vincent, tell him we’re in trouble. If you can’t telepathically tell him that, anyway. We’ll be right behind you.”
There was a faint growling noise. My skin prickled.
“Those wolves are still kicking up a fuss,” Alissa remarked.
“That… doesn’t sound like a werewolf.” My heart beat faster, and I pulled out my wand.
There was a tremendous roar, and an explosion of fur collided with me from the side. Alissa screamed, and I waved my wand wildly. Levitate.
At top speed, I flew out from underneath the creature, which face-planted spectacularly in a heap of fur.
Whatever it was, it defied description. Long thick hair covered a body as big as a werewolf’s, and sharp teeth curved from its jaws. A monster. The monster. How had it evaded attention for so long?
Alissa raised her wand and cast a spell. The creature shook its head, as though dazed, but didn’t stop. The pixie flew overhead, and the creature rose onto its hind legs, batting at the unexpected distraction. I grabbed the wand I’d dropped and cast another levitation spell.
The monster flew into the air. So did Alissa, with a startled shriek, and so did I…
“Nicely done,” said a voice, and everything went black.
I woke up in a dark room, with a sharp gasp. My thoughts were muddled, my head pounding. Where am I?
Piece by piece, it came back. The monstrous creature had been under Peter’s control, so if I had to guess, he’d brought us into Lord Goddard’s mansion. It was too dark to tell which room, but at least I wasn’t a snack for a giant hairy monster. I also wasn’t dead.
So he hadn’t killed me after all?
I raised my hands in front of my face. Despite the darkness, my hands shimmered oddly. Glitter, faintly green, lit up my skin.
Oh no.
I tried to stand up and tripped. My ankles were bound together, preventing me from using my wings. My wings. My glamour must have come off, maybe in self-defence. It’d probably freaked him out. But I’d still been captured and tossed in here, alone.
Where was Alissa?
I crawled towards what I thought might be a door, based on the shadowy outline, and shoved it with my elbows. The glitter on my hands must be good for something, right? But my wand was missing. He must have taken it.
I used magic without a wand before.
I waved my left hand, but nothing happened. Then I kicked the door and received nothing but a bruised foot for my trouble. He’d even removed my boots. From the thin stream of light trickling in from outside, my feet looked smaller than before, my legs, longer. And green. I remembered my nightmares, mirrors with cracked glass and green pointed ears—
Not now, Blair.
“Sky,” I whispered. I’d called him before, just by saying his name. But maybe even he couldn’t bypass the wards on this place. Assuming he hadn’t run off out of self-preservation. The wizard needed a fairy to complete his plan, after all.
“Sky!” I shouted.
There was a flash of glittering light, and the pixie appeared above me.
“You can pass through walls, too?”
The pixie fluttered its wings. It was kind of cute, actually, once you got past the fact that it hadn’t been much help against the monster. And that it’d nearly got my hand stuck in a mousetrap the last time I’d been in here.
“Was it you? Did you stop him?” I asked in a whisper.
The pixie vanished as the door opened. I stepped backwards, nearly tripping over my bound feet, and the wizard glowered at me. Neon paint and glitter still covered him, with the overall effect of a walking Christmas tree. I very nearly laughed despite the circumstances. It was plain to see the pixie prankster had been thwarting his plots from the start.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“I shouldn’t have taken so long to guess it was you,” I said. “Your ‘the evil vampires are out to get me’ act never made any real sense.”
“Really? And I suppose your attempts to get yourself under protection conveniently disappeared as soon as you wanted to nose around here.”
I rubbed my forehead. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. You tried to kill me.”
“I have no intention of killing you, Blair,” he said. “I took the lives of the others I needed because they had no value for me. But you’re different. Do you have any idea how rare it is to have a true fairy specimen?”
My stomach turned over. “That’s what I am?” I said. “A specimen? You need my blood so you can steal my powers, right?”
“Beforehand, I’d like to understand what your magical talent is really capable of,” he said. “It would be much easier if you told me yourself.”
Bad luck, because even I don’t know.
I spotted my wand sticking out of his pocket. If not for the rope tying my feet together, I might be able to fly fast enough to snatch it up.
I kept my eyes on his face. “You think if you ask nicely, I’ll cooperate, even after you kidnapped me?”
“Yes,” he said. “I do. Blair, I’m told you’re quite agreeable under pressure, as I’m sure your friend will attest.”
My throat went dry. “Alissa. What did you do to her?”
“No more than I needed to subdue her.”
“You know you’re a dead man if Madame Grey gets anywhere near this place, right?” I lowered my hand to my side, readying myself to move fast.
“She’ll never be able to catch me. And my pet will take care of the others.”
He called that monster a pet. “The bite marks,” I said. “You wanted everyone to think a v
ampire killed that werewolf, so you made those marks yourself, didn’t you? And with the first victim, you didn’t need to leave any clues to make some of them blame the werewolves.”
“No,” he said. “Poison is a simple method. Impersonal.”
And subtle enough to get around my lie-sensing ability, apparently. Not good.
“And you set the vampires and werewolves against one another so nobody would guess you killed your own distant relation,” I said. “Why not just ask him, if there was something in this house you needed?”
“I had to make sure he wasn’t around to thwart me,” he said. “I knew he had the secrets of the blood ritual locked up in here somewhere. I confess I didn’t foresee how difficult it would be to obtain that information… even the witches couldn’t find it all, in the end.”
“So you didn’t steal it from Madame Grey’s office at all,” I said. “You just wanted us to think you did, so you could lay a trap for us.”
“In the end, you walked into the bait yourself, Blair,” he said. “I’m aware that your allies are likely trying to break down the boundaries to the house right now, but they’ll never succeed. I have a transportation spell set up and ready… for both of us. All I need is your blood.”
He moved towards me, and I lunged with my bound feet, knocking into him. He grabbed the wall for balance, and I beat my wings, flying at him as fast as I could. As I collided with him, I grabbed the wand from his pocket. Sparks shot from the end and he jumped, swearing at the top of his lungs. The wand had set his jacket on fire.
“Thanks,” I said, wand in hand. “Fair warning: I have no idea what I’m doing with this.”
Glitter and flames exploded from the wand’s end, and he backed away. “Then I’ll have to bring in my pet.”
He turned and ran, leaving a trail of glitter behind him. The coward was actually running away.
“Alissa!” I shouted, no longer caring if he heard me. “Alissa, where are you?”
Screams came from my left, and I followed the sound down the hallway to another door. One blast from my wand took it off its hinges. Inside the room, Alissa struggled upright, her feet bound in the same way mine had been.