“Where?”
“To see someone who might have some answers.”
He ran to his double-parked vehicle and then raced it north to the Uptown neighborhood, checking the exact address on his cell phone at a stop light. Though he thought about calling first, he decided surprise would be on his side. He was there in six minutes. No text from Skye, so she hadn’t gotten Luc yet.
As he drove, he concentrated on Nuala, tried to feel her, mentally called her, but he got nothing, no response. Did that mean she was unable to hear him for some reason? Even so, he did his best to get a message to her.
I’m coming for you!
He hoped she heard it. And that Haider didn’t.
While much of Uptown had been gentrified, there was a huge gap between the wealthy and poor who lived here. His destination was a few blocks from one of the tent cities the homeless had built under a Lake Shore Drive viaduct. The street held a few large apartment buildings along with three-flats and six-flats and a few single-family homes. No parking on the block, of course. Double parking was becoming de rigueur for him.
It was well after dark, but a handful of kids were still playing outside, and he was sure several gang members were up to something down the block. Unwilling to let them distract him, he got out of the car and headed up the steps of a three-flat, entered the vestibule and rang the bell.
“Who’s there?”
“Ethan. I need your help, Isabeau. Let me up.”
“Second floor.” She buzzed him in.
The ten seconds it took him to get to her door were filled with doubt. What if he was wrong about Isabeau being Kindred? He couldn’t be wrong. He needed help to get Nuala and her baby out of harm’s way.
When he got to her landing, Isabeau stood in her doorway, arms crossed over her chest, her expression purposely neutral. “What kind of help?”
“Kindred help.”
“Kindred?” she repeated as if she didn’t know what he was talking about.
A sick feeling gripped him, but he went on. “Nuala Lazare and her baby have been taken by a powerful Kindred named Max Haider who’s going to use them to get to her father. We couldn’t scare up Nuala’s brother Luc, and I needed help fast, so I thought of you.”
Though she backed off and let him in, Isabeau wasn’t admitting anything. “Of course as your partner, I’ll do anything I can to help you. Have you called in the kidnapping?”
“Okay, let’s get real, here, Isabeau. Normal humans couldn’t deal with someone like Haider. He arranged that attempt on the mayor’s life that you stopped.”
“I was just lucky—”
“Right. That you weren’t in Haider’s thrall.” Before she could object, he added, “I know what you are. You’ve heard my thoughts and I’ve heard yours—”
“How?”
“The blood connection. From Nuala.”
Her eyebrows shot up.
“Surprised me, too. It was an accident when I kissed her.”
She stared at him for a moment as if trying to read him. “So this Kindred woman means something to you.”
“She and her baby mean everything to me. Shade Cross was the baby’s father.”
The significance registered in her expression. “Your late partner.”
“Shade was not only my partner, he was my best friend, and I thought of him like a brother. This whole thing is very personal. I’m begging you to help me. Haider is in league with Peterson. You got a taste of his influence at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. He’s probably the one who killed Diablo and Madera. And the wolf hybrid.” Talking about it made him think of Mike, but that conversation could wait until Nuala and Maeve were safe. “Look, I don’t care about your being Kindred.”
“Good. Because I’m not.” Then she gave in. “My father was.”
“So your mother was human?” Not that it really made any difference. Luc’s mother was human, as well, and he was still a shifter with Kindred powers. “Whatever. I know you can help me. I can’t do this alone.”
“What exactly do you think I can do for you?”
“How much do you know about the blood connection? The Book of Powers says that a blood tattoo can let a human fight Kindred influence. No instructions included.”
“The Book of Powers…” There was a whisper of awe in her tone. “You know who has access to it?”
So she knew what it was. “Shade’s twin Skye has it, inherited from their mother.”
Isabeau took that in, then said, “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about blood tattoos.”
Ethan’s heart fell.
Then she added, “But I can take you to someone who does.”
*
Nuala couldn’t believe she and Maeve were being held prisoner by Max Haider. She tried the door. Locked, of course. As were the windows. Concentrating, she held out her arms toward one of the windows, focusing on it, sending waves of power from her hands, seeing the window open in her mind.
Though it shook and the glass rattled, it remained firmly shut.
Furious, she waved a hand and sent a chair flying at the glass. The chair bounced right off.
They were trapped in a room by a spell Haider cast that made her realize he was more powerful than she had guessed. Ethan could so easily have died at his hands, it was a miracle he was still alive. He would come for her if only he knew where she was. But that would simply put him at an even greater risk. She had to get out of here before Ethan figured out where to find her.
She wasn’t going to wait until it was too late.
Picking Maeve up from the bed and holding her in the crook of her arm, Nuala pictured Pop’s office in The Ark and used all her preternatural energy to sift there.
Nothing happened.
“Damn you to hell, Max Haider!”
What was she going to do now? What did he want with her? Maeve started screaming, and she realized her angst set her daughter off.
“Shh, sweetheart. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
No doubt Maeve was hungry, so Nuala slipped her top to the side and repositioned the baby to let her suckle. If Nuala only had herself to worry about, she would attack Haider the moment he opened the door. But he’d already used Maeve to get her cooperation. She wouldn’t put anything past him. Still, she had none of the baby’s things here and couldn’t use a spell to scare them up. So she moved to the door, banged on it and yelled for Haider.
“I need diapers and clean clothes for the baby!”
If he heard, he didn’t answer.
Unless she figured out a way to break the spell he’d cast, she and the baby were trapped here until he chose to release them.
*
“Her name is Vadoma Ratcliff,” Isabeau said. “She’s a powerful spellbinder.”
As he drove like a madman down Lake Shore Drive, south toward the Gold Coast, the most expensive couple of blocks in Chicago, Ethan said, “I assume she’s not human. Then what is she?” Apparently someone who had acquired wealth, but had she done so using supernatural means?
“I don’t judge.”
What did that mean? That this Vadoma was something beyond Kindred? Well, he guessed she had to be if Isabeau thought she would help him fight one.
“Neither do I,” he said, thinking of Nuala.
He forced back the searing pain caused by knowing she could be lost to him forever. He needed to be focused. He would do whatever it took to make sure Nuala and Maeve didn’t suffer because of the lion shifter. Assuming he could get to them in time. Skye had called to tell him she hadn’t been able to scare up either of her brothers, so she was on her way to The Ark to see if she could find out where Haider lived.
They arrived at the Astor Street destination soon enough. No parking anywhere in this neighborhood. Stopping in the middle of the block, he double-parked in front of a row house with a brownstone facade and a small, meticulously kept garden between it and the sidewalk. Ethan let Isabeau take the lead. She hadn’t even touched the doorbell when a woma
n opened the door. Though mature with silver streaked hair, she seemed ageless. Understated in a mid-calf dress the same pale gray as her eyes, she would fit in anywhere. Nothing about her appearance made her seem anything but human. And yet he could feel that she was more. Energy seemed to vibrate from her.
“Isabeau, I knew you were coming.” Then her questioning gaze turned to him. “Vadoma Ratcliff.”
She held out her hand and Ethan took it, surprised at the strength in her grip. “Detective Ethan Grainger. We’re here because I need your help.”
“I am aware. Come in.”
She took them to the back of the house, a dimly lit room the width of the row house with floor to ceiling windows to the garden. Ethan let Isabeau explain in full the reason they were there.
“A tattoo can give you abilities to fight the Kindred,” Vadoma agreed.
“You’re saying I’ll be a shifter?”
“No. But your brain chemistry will change. You will have influence and certain powers.”
“Like what?”
She shrugged. “I cannot predict that. I just know it depends on the individual.”
“Just know?” He couldn’t prevent the edgy tone to his voice. “So you haven’t done this before?”
“You would be my first.”
He turned a questioning glower on his partner.
“Ethan, I wouldn’t have brought you here if I didn’t trust her to do right by you,” Isabeau said.
What other choice did he have? For all he knew, Nuala’s time could be running out. He met Vadoma’s gaze. “I’m sorry. This is just all new to me. How does this blood tattoo work?”
“Sit,” she said, indicating the sofa across from the loveseat where she perched on the edge.
Ethan did as she suggested and looked around at the room. No sign indicating this Vadoma was any kind of a spellbinder at all. The room was furnished simply and decorated with what looked like Impressionist prints on the walls and luscious bouquets of flowers on a side table. No moons or stars or magic paraphernalia of any kind. Also, no photographs of loved ones. Did that mean she had none? Or that she had outlived them?
“I have family,” Vadoma told him, making him start. “I selfishly choose to keep them to myself in my private quarters.”
So she could hear his thoughts, which definitely made her something else.
“Kindred are descended from the Nephilim, who were children of fallen angels and human women, and have always had a corrupting influence on mere mortals,” she began. “The Powers are the keepers of history and the bearers of conscience. They are warriors who oppose evil and keep corruption from running rampant.”
Even knowing Skye and Shade’s mother had been descended from the Powers, he was having a difficult time taking this all in. “So you’ll somehow turn me into what?”
“You’ll still be yourself, but the balance between dark and light will let you see things more clearly. You need to know how this evil Kindred thinks. You need to be able to oppose him. That’s why the ink needs to have blood of both Kindred and Powers.” She sighed. “And you need to know that it will change you forever.”
He wasn’t ready for that one. If he could believe everything she was saying, what was he getting himself into? If he backed off now, he would never forgive himself if something happened to Nuala or her daughter. He’d lived with guilt for ten years because he’d abandoned Mike when his brother had most needed him. He couldn’t live with that guilt again.
And he couldn’t live without Nuala.
“You have the blood?” he asked, readying himself to commit.
She shook her head. “I am sorry, I do not.”
Another blow. He’d thought he could do it and get it over with now. “Luc and Skye could help me. He’s half Kindred, she’s half Powers.”
“Do you really believe Luc Lazare will betray his connection to his Kindred clan?” Isabeau asked. “You should know by now that though he’s half human, he is one of them.”
He didn’t miss the sting in her voice, as if she knew of the Lazares. Perhaps Cezar’s influence was more widespread than he’d realized.
“Nuala is Luc’s family. He would do anything for her,” Ethan argued. But time was an issue. “You have a better idea?”
“Yes. Use my blood.”
“Then I still need to call Skye.” He reached for his cell.
“No need. My father was Kindred, but my mother was Powers.”
So Isabeau was both? Ethan wondered how that had happened. A love match between two opposing factions.
He turned to Vadoma. “So if I go through with this, I will never be a normal human again?”
“I fear not.”
“I’ve spent months distrusting and disliking the Kindred, and now at least in some ways, I will be one of them.”
“But balanced by Powers blood, just as I am,” Isabeau said. “And with a city vulnerable to the supernatural, the police force could use us. Not that they can ever know what we are.”
She had a point.
Even so, never in the world had Ethan thought he would agree to something that would make him like what he had so recently despised. He had taken a U-turn in his hostility toward the Kindred. He’d learned there were good Kindred just as there were good humans. He would trust Luc or Isabeau any time. But he didn’t know how this would affect him.
What if the Kindred in Isabeau’s blood outweighed the Powers and he ended up becoming some kind of nightmare?
Closing his eyes for a moment, he pictured Nuala with Maeve at her breast and overwhelming emotion made him realize he would do anything for the woman he loved.
Even taking a chance on becoming what he most hated and feared.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The third floor was one big room with a totally different vibe from the first. One slanted wall was lined with colored silks, the opposite with a mural of magical symbols set against the universe. The remaining two walls were glass, and moonlight cut through the trees in the garden to spill into the space.
Vadoma first took a vial of Isabeau’s blood. She was quite proficient at it, as though she had experience as a phlebotomist. Then she began mixing the blood with her inks already laid out on a nearby table, murmuring an incantation as she worked.
Ethan turned to Isabeau. “Thank you for your help.”
“We’re partners. We should be equally matched.”
He nodded but wondered how they could be equal, considering she was half Kindred, half Powers, while he would simply have some of their abilities, and he didn’t even know which ones.
Then it was his turn. Ethan quickly became hyperaware of Vadoma’s supernatural aura that now glowed softly against the dark. And her visage changed. It seemed sharper. She seemed younger. Energy pulsed from her as she started the tattoo on his left shoulder and upper arm. Each time she touched him with the needle, he not only felt pain coupled with an annoying, intense vibration, he felt as if a live wire zapped him.
Then weird images began assaulting him.
Fluttering wings beating a rhythm like the tattoo gun…
A spear piercing a jackal in midstride…
An eagle after prey stopped by a chain looped around its neck…
A cobra spraying venom that hit a shield, forcing the poison back on the snake…
Images flitted through his mind as if he were on a hallucinogen. He guessed the blood connection he now had with Isabeau was changing him. In the meantime, his partner was pacing back and forth, stopping to watch the process, then moving again. He wondered how powerful she really was.
He glanced at his shoulder and what he could see of his tattoo. “An angel’s wing?”
“Historically, the Powers were warriors in armor,” Vadoma said. “They carried shields and spears and chains, all of which I am giving you.”
The source of those images he’d been seeing.
He closed his eyes, thought of the reason he was allowing himself to be remade. For Nuala. He remembered how they
’d started at odds, how she’d fascinated him, how he’d fallen for her despite his hard feelings for the Kindred. Again, he saw her black panther. And her transformation as she shifted back to human. He saw her with Maeve at her breast. Then felt her in his arms, vibrant and seductive just before Haider showed up and shattered everything.
He didn’t care what Nuala was, what she could or could not do, whether or not she would have him when he told her why Mike had died. She had to know the truth if there was any possibility of a future between them. He simply wanted her alive, to be Maeve’s mother and whatever else she chose to be.
Knowing elaborate tattoos could take days, and convinced that Nuala didn’t have days, he asked, “How long is this going to take?”
“Not as long as you fear.” Vadoma kept her needle moving over his back as she spoke. “Remember sorcery is at work here.”
It seemed as if time was slowed, that hours had passed, but a clock on the nearby table assured him that only minutes had gone by. The needle had moved around to the left side of his upper back. Peppered by an electrical connection with Vadoma, he simply let himself drift…
Until his cell alerted him to the arrival of a text.
“Isabeau, can you get this?” He took the cell from his pocket and handed it to her.
“It’s from Skye with the address and…”
“What?” he asked.
“She says she couldn’t find Cezar at The Ark, but Luc showed and is now rounding up Nik to go after Haider.”
“Are we almost through?” he asked Vadoma.
“A few minutes more.”
“Where does she say to go?” He memorized the Prairie Avenue address. “Tell her I’ll meet Luc and Nik there, and they shouldn’t go inside without me.”
“Okay.” A minute of silence was followed by another text coming in. “She’ll tell them.”
Vadoma was working on the middle of his back now. An odd source of energy crept through him. Was the tattoo working on him already?
“How much longer?” he asked her.
“A few more minutes.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll get you there as soon as the tattoo is finished,” Isabeau said.
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