We finished our food and Jules ordered a margarita. I stuck with tea. With the council meeting in the morning, the last thing I needed was to face the Elders with a hangover. They’d be looking for any flaws, so why make it easy for them?
The waitress returned a few minutes later with our drinks.
“You’re too young to be so boring,” Jules said, taking a sip from the salty rim of her glass.
I grinned and stirred a little honey into my cup. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fun again before you know it.”
A few years back, we would have headed straight for the bar across the street, and we still went out every now and then. But for the most part, those days were over.
She downed half her drink and pushed her glass away. “I need to call it a night anyway.”
A loud crash got our attention before I could rib her about not finishing her drink. I turned around and saw one of the waiters running down the length of the bar with a metal object in his hand. It looked like one of those giant forks you skewered a turkey with. On the floor next to the bar was a pile of broken plates and glasses with food scattered everywhere. The waitress who’d dropped the tray had climbed on top of a table to escape whatever the waiter was chasing.
“What the hell is going on?” I said.
Jules’s face curled into a grimace. “Looks like rat stew is about to be on the menu.” She shuddered dramatically and pointed across the room.
The bar area cleared out, and several customers jumped out of their chairs and moved away from the commotion. A woman shrieked and headed for the front door. Her dinner companion got up and threw his napkin on the table. “I’m not paying for this,” he yelled before following her out.
The creature must have run behind the bar because the waiter circled around it and came back down the other side. A second later, something flew out from behind it and headed for the window on the far wall. It hit the glass and fell to the floor, stunned and barely moving.
I jumped out of my chair. “That’s not a rat. It’s a bird!”
“What are you doing?” Jules said as I ran across the room.
It was too late. The waiter threw the fork across the room and hit the bird, skewering one of its wings to the floor. Then he headed toward it like he planned to finish it off.
“Don’t you dare!” I gave him a warning look as I cut him off. “It’s a harmless bird.” I hated nothing more than a bully. Especially those who tormented animals.
He brushed past me a little rougher than necessary and yanked the fork out of the bird’s wing. As he raised it into the air to deliver a deadly blow, a single word slipped from my mouth. “Stop!”
Jules was staring at me when I looked over at her. “Shit, Morgan,” she said as she glanced around the restaurant at all the frozen faces. “What did you just do?”
With the exception of the two of us, everyone in the room seemed to be suspended in place, frozen as if time had stopped, and I had no idea how I’d done it. The bird was also unaffected and was flapping around the room with its wing stretched out and covered with blood.
“Go into the kitchen and find something I can put it in.”
She just stood there, looking around in disbelief.
“Go!” I yelled, getting her full attention this time. “The spell is about to break!”
She snapped out of it and ran through the swinging door that led to the kitchen. A minute later she came back out with a box big enough to hold a cat. “This is all I could find. What kind of bird is that?”
“It’s a crow. It must have flown in through the back door.”
The terrified bird had stopped moving. It lay on its side with its eye and mouth open, its breathing so shallow I wasn’t sure it would survive the cab ride uptown.
“The loading door is open,” Jules said, stepping closer to get a better look at it as I gently picked it up. “Is it dead?”
I shook my head. “But it will be if I don’t do something soon.” I put it in the box and stood up.
“You’re not taking it home with you?”
I pinned her with a look. “Well, what would you suggest? Should we wait for the server to unfreeze and finish the poor thing off?”
She glanced at his awkward form. “We might not have to.”
The waiter twitched, and I knew it was time to go. Whatever I’d done to him was beginning to wear off, and I didn’t dare try to reinforce it.
I threw some money on the table and headed for the door. Time was running out for the poor crow.
I made it home in less than thirty minutes, looking in the box every now and then to see if the bird was still alive.
Jakob stood up as I entered the building. “Can I help you with that?” he asked, nodding to the box in my hands.
“Thanks, but I’ve got it. It’s lighter than it looks.”
Jakob had been the doorman for the Winterborne Building since it was built by the clan in 1886. He was an indentured immortal who’d been given his freedom nearly a century ago but had chosen to stay on in exchange for a small apartment on the first floor. He also helped raise me and my siblings when my father left after Michael was born.
When I reached the elevator, I stopped and listened for sounds in the box. I had a fifty-fifty chance of finding a dead bird inside when I got upstairs. “Jakob, have you ever dabbled in necromancy?”
The look on his face answered my question. Then he glanced at the box. “Do I dare ask why you would inquire about such a forbidden subject?”
It had been a reckless thought. “I think it’s best if we just pretend I didn’t,” I said, stepping into the elevator. “Good night.”
I hit the button for the penthouse that I’d continued to share with my mother after graduating from college. There was a nice apartment for me a few floors down, but the penthouse had an attached conservatory, which was just a fancy name for a greenhouse, that housed my orchid collection. Not to mention the spectacular views of Central Park.
“Good evening, mistress,” a refined male voice said as I stepped off the elevator and headed for the living room.
“Don’t call me that, Otto.”
“Very well, mistress.”
My jaw tensed. “Don’t make me replace you with Alexa,” I muttered, immediately regretting it. The voice went silent, and I knew I’d be apologizing to my astral assistant in the morning.
I set the box on the coffee table and sat down on the sofa, dreading what I’d find inside. It was just a bird, but it had broken my heart to see it tortured by that asshole waiter. The strays, the horses that pulled the carriages around the park, they all got to me.
When I opened the lid and found the crow still alive, I sighed with relief and gently scooped it out of the box and laid it in my lap. The poor thing had lost a lot of blood, and the stress of being chased around that restaurant had probably taxed its tiny heart. A moment later, it began to convulse and its eyes closed. It was dying.
“Hold on, little guy.” I got up to get a towel from the kitchen. “Otto, call Jakob up to the penthouse. Quickly.”
“Yes, mistress.”
I heard the elevator door open as I came back into the living room, and Jakob came rushing in. “What’s wrong? Otto said it was dire.”
“I need a few drops of your blood.”
He stared at the safety pin in my hand. Then he noticed the black feathers sticking out from the folded towel I was hugging to my chest. “What are you up to, Mora?” He’d called me that since I was a kid. “What’s in the towel?”
“I don’t have time to explain, so don’t make me compel you.”
He snickered. “I’d like to see you try.” When I unfolded the towel, his eyes lit up. “Is it dead?”
“It will be if you don’t start bleeding within the next few seconds.” I shoved the pin at him. “Necromancy will get us into a lot more trouble than this.”
“Us?” he said, throwing his hands up. “Slow down. This is unorthodox, to say the least. Do you have any idea what will h
appen to that bird? Because I certainly don’t. And I don’t relish the idea of what will happen if the clan finds out you fed it immortal blood. My immortal blood.”
“Come on, Jakob, It’s the only way to save it. No one’s going to find out, and I doubt the crow will talk.”
He sighed and took the pin. “All right, but this is all on you if it goes badly.” A drop of blue blood welled up on his fingertip as he stuck himself. “Happy now?”
“Ecstatic.” I took his finger and placed it at the edge of the crow’s gaping beak. “Some asshole tried to kill it. I can’t explain why, but I have to save this bird.”
He grinned and cupped his other hand against my cheek. “Of course you do. You’re my Mora, mother of beasts.”
The crow stirred as Jakob’s immortal blood touched its tongue. Its eyes fluttered and its punctured wing began to heal immediately.
A wide smile spread across my face. “It’s working.”
“Did you doubt it? Now all we have to do is make sure it doesn’t claw our eyes out when it comes to and sees a couple of giants hovering over it.”
I hadn’t thought about that. “Do we still have that old birdcage?”
“I believe it’s in the basement.”
He headed for the elevator to get the cage I’d kept a couple of cockatiels in when I was a kid. It had doubled as a rehab center for injured pigeons over the years as well, and I was surprised my mother hadn’t gotten rid of it. The plan was to keep the crow in the cage overnight while it recuperated and release it in the morning if it was well enough to fly.
Before stepping into the elevator, Jakob stopped and turned around. “This is a first for me,” he said, his forehead puckering. “Sharing my blood with something mortal, I mean. An animal, no less. Be careful tonight, Mora. We have no idea what we just created.”
Chapter 4
Something crashed in the living room around three a.m. I sat straight up in bed and listened for more sounds.
“Michael?” I called out when the house went silent. It wouldn’t be the first time my brother raided my refrigerator in the middle of the night.
Another sound came from right outside my bedroom. I got up and tiptoed toward the door and heard a commotion in the living room like someone was stumbling and bumping into furniture. Then I heard a soft clicking sound. A rattling.
I stepped into the living room and saw a large shadow in the corner near the terrace door. As I tried to reconcile what it was, a set of golden eyes slowly opened and looked at me. A moment later they faded to shiny black and continued to watch me as I circled the room toward the cage that had fallen on the floor. The bars were bent and broken.
“I guess I don’t have to worry about you anymore. Looks like Jakob’s blood did the trick.”
The crow’s wings suddenly spread. It flew across the room, knocking over a lamp as it came toward me. It was the size of an eagle and stopped to hover in the middle of the room as it studied me with its mirrorlike eyes.
I stumbled backward and hit the ground when it suddenly flew closer, cawing and flapping its wings as its talons reached out.
“Stop!” It worked back at the restaurant, but not this time.
The crow hovered and cocked its head, my attempt to freeze it a mere distraction. I glanced at the row of windows and its eyes followed mine, that soft clicking sound coming from it again.
I jumped up and ran for the terrace to throw the door open. The crow sailed past me into the night sky, its silhouette gleaming from the lights of the city hitting its shiny feathers. It turned and flew back toward me, stopping a few feet from the terrace and holding its wings out like a phoenix, growing larger before my eyes until it was taller than me. Then it let out a deafening caw and headed toward the park.
The breath I’d been holding came rushing out as I watched it disappear. “Goodbye, crow. Have a nice life.”
When I shut the door and headed back to bed, I couldn’t shake the feeling that that crow would come back to haunt me. There were no rules about using immortal blood on animals, but I should have known better. I’d definitely hear about it from the council if they ever found out.
I climbed back into bed to sleep for a few more hours before the big day got underway. It was just a bird. A menacing-looking bird the size of a man. Who would notice?
Someone sat on the edge of my bed and shook me awake.
“What are you doing here?” I rolled over and ignored my brother.
“Get up. It’s almost nine thirty. Today’s your big day.”
Michael and I were almost as close as twins. He was only a year younger than me, so we’d grown up with a lot of the same friends and gone through similar teenage angst together. My mother was a saint to have raised us successfully.
“Do me a favor and make breakfast while I jump in the shower.”
He got up and headed for the door. “What the hell happened in the living room? There’s a mangled birdcage on the floor.”
“Don’t ask.”
Twenty minutes later, I came into the kitchen wearing my robe and sat at the counter.
Along with his talent for painting, Michael was an excellent cook. He’d spent a year in Paris training at a world-class restaurant, only to come back to New York and realize he didn’t want to be a chef at all. He loved the cooking part, but the idea of actually working in a restaurant turned him off. Something about too much cigarette smoke and odd hours.
“Thank you,” I said, a little disappointed by the plate of scrambled eggs he slid in front of me. I was hoping for one of his amazing omelets, but at least he’d made coffee.
He grabbed an apple from a bowl and leaned against the counter. “So, what happened in the living room?” he asked, biting into the fruit with a loud crunch.
“I brought an injured bird home last night. It knocked the cage over and went a little berserk.”
I could see his bullshit detector firing up. “That was a mighty strong bird to bend those bars.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” I changed the subject to spare him from becoming complicit in my crime. “What time does the party start?”
“You’re asking me?” He straightened up and tossed his half-eaten apple into the trash. “Get dressed and let’s go find out. I have a date afterward, so I’d like to get this formality over with.”
After taking a couple of bites of my breakfast, I went back to my bedroom to get dressed. I glanced at the clothes hanging in my closet and tried to imagine what my mother would have worn to such a meeting. Katherine Winterborne was a fashion maverick. New York designers loved her because she was tall and beautiful. But it was her money and influence that they really loved. They’d probably be clamoring to clothe me next. I finally settled for an appropriate blue dress. Conservative but not too stuffy. We were immortals who sold art for a living, not accountants.
After applying a little lipstick and mascara, I walked back out and did a spin for my fashion-savvy brother. “Do I look all right?”
“Specfuckingtacular.” He tossed the book in his hand back on the table and stood up. “Let’s go raid the chambers. Shall we?”
We got on the elevator and pressed the button marked CC. The elevator stopped and the door sprang open, revealing a large room with a very long table. At the far end was an ostentatious chair reserved for the head of the clan. The walls were lined with shelves holding hundreds of books, each one containing a part of our history. The dustier ones documented the clan’s bylaws. As children, we’d been forced to sit down and read them as punishment for getting on our parent’s last nerve. An immortal’s version of a belt.
A booming voice got our attention as we stepped off the elevator. “Ah… the future of the clan has finally decided to grace us with her presence.” It was Ramsey, the senior Elder.
Michael and I glanced at each other. “I guess we’re late,” he muttered.
Since no one had actually set the meeting time other than to say “in the morning,” I felt no guilt for showing up when I did.
The room was filled with family members and Elders, the latter being the ones who’d written those dusty old books on the shelves. Enforcers of the bylaws.
I suddenly thought about the crow. As far as I knew, there was nothing in those books that indicated Jakob and I had done anything wrong by saving it with immortal blood, but then again, there were a few volumes on those shelves I hadn’t gotten around to reading yet.
Ethan and Cabot were seated at the far end of the table, near that ridiculous chair we’d nicknamed “the throne.” My sister Avery was farther down, looking bored and inconvenienced as usual. She wanted as little to do with clan business as possible. In fact, she would have given up her immortality if it were possible. But it was something we all experienced when we reached our majority, whether we liked it or not.
Majority was reached at the ripe age of thirty for females and thirty-five for males, the men needing a little more time to bake. At that point we would become immortal and stop aging. Hence the reason for our youth. You could be looking at a hundred-year-old clansman and have no clue.
Of course, it was impractical for the world to see a Winterborne unchanged forever, so we retired fairly young. Uncle Cabot had transitioned a decade ago, but with a little gray hair dye at the temples, he could work for another ten years before having to step down from the company. Plenty of time for him to battle for his new position as CEO. A position he was expected to relinquish to me in a few years when I was ready.
My cousin, James, was grinning at me like a fool from across the table. He’d recently turned thirty-five and had gone through his transition, which meant he would look like a movie star for eternity. So would his twin sister, Olivia, who’d stopped aging five years earlier. They’d both chosen to focus on development of their magical skills in lieu of working in the mundane world, which was perfectly acceptable.
I walked around the table to sit next to James so I could wipe that grin off his face, but one of the Elders stopped me.
Dark Legacy (House of Winterborne Book 1) Page 2