I frowned. I knew the binding spell that had only recently been put on Katie to stop her shifting had hit her hard, but it had also been temporary. I hadn’t realised there would be after-effects, or that shifters felt any actual need to change. It was becoming more and more apparent, the longer I spent in this Other world, the less I realised I actually knew about it. Though it was clear from the strain in Medea’s expression that this wasn’t an expected or welcome development on her part, either.
‘But she’s OK? You’re both OK?’
‘Yeah. Yeah. We’re fine. And, y’know, none of the neighbourhood cats crap in the garden anymore, so there’s that.’ She smiled ruefully, but before I could respond, Katie had joined us. She was slightly flushed from her change and had dressed quickly in yoga pants and a t-shirt that said ‘Save the NHS – kill a Tory’. As a nurse, she took the whole Austerity thing very personally.
‘Dogs have excellent hearing, you know,’ she said mildly, kissing Medea lightly before offering me a more platonic peck on the cheek. Medea coloured slightly at the admonishment, and there it was again, that acrid tang.
‘We’re having Italian, hope that’s OK? So it’s not too early to have a cheeky one, is it?’ Medea plucked a bottle of red from the wine rack, nodding to Katie to fetch glasses. ‘We can pretend we’re continental.’
I frowned. While I was never one to say no to a drink, and neither Medea nor Katie were abstemious, Medea was usually far more sensible than me. I hoped there was nothing more to this than wanting to enjoy their time off. The food, too, was out of character. Medea usually favoured the Indian recipes she had learned from her mother, but this was full-on Mediterranean: a couple of salads had already been laid out, alongside a plate of bruschetta, and she pulled a bubbling lasagne out of the oven. It felt like an awful lot of effort to go to for lunchtime, but Katie grinned.
‘Mm. My favourite!’ She kissed Medea again on the shoulder as we took our seats and I realised, belatedly, that none of this was for my benefit. That should have calmed me down: naïve as I am about relationships, even I realise a big part of them is Doing Nice Things for the other person, but my jangling Sense wouldn’t let me relax. Still, I was more than happy to distract myself by stuffing my gob with delicious food and nice wine as they caught me up on what they had been doing (short answer: sleeping, cooking and alternately marathoning The Good Wife or Veronica Mars, depending on who had charge of the remote control.) It all sounded so blissful I considered not telling them my news at all, but then Katie nodded to the large Primark bags I’d left in the corner.
‘Redecorating?’
So then I gave them a recap of last night, or at least edited highlights – though possibly too edited, because Katie’s reaction was not what I expected.
‘Bloody hell, Cass. We leave you alone for five minutes and you’re refereeing a naked wrestling match between your two supernatural suitors.’
‘Only one of them was actually naked,’ I pointed out, peeved, and she laughed again.
‘Oh, come on, I’m gay and that sounds pretty hot,’ she chuckled, until Medea quelled her with a stern look, and her face dropped. ‘Apart from the rapey vibe and the stabby bit at the end, obviously. Um, yeah, not hot, I see that now. Sorry.’
‘Well,’ I admitted, feeling bad for her – it had been a fairly edited version. ‘It’s not like I haven’t thought that Cain and Laclos wrestling naked wouldn’t be a fun spectator sport. Just turns out when you add in serious creepiness and near death, not so much.’
‘That would dent a girl’s enthusiasm.’ Her expression more serious, she asked, ‘So why was Laclos being all "break in and brood" anyway? Just to get at Cain?’
Which led me to telling the rest of the story – newly turned messenger, killing spree and all. Now nobody was laughing. Medea, looking as pale as her complexion would allow, topped up our glasses, her hand shaking slightly. She took a moment to formulate her thoughts, watched by Katie, who could always read her mood and clearly didn’t want to speak first and interrupt her thought processes.
‘Do you think the young vampire was telling the truth?’
It was a good question. We’d had no verification; even Leon had only heard rumours.
‘I didn’t Sense he was lying, but of course that could only mean that he thought what he was saying was true, not that it was. I imagine if you’re capable of turning someone to use as nothing more than a human email, you’re not above lying to them.’
‘And you Sensed nothing from Laclos?’
‘I… think in his current form, he’d be capable of what they’re saying he’s done, certainly.’
‘Did the vamp say anything else?’ Katie asked.
‘Nothing of any import, really. Nothing that gives us any clue as to how to help Laclos.’
‘Stop Laclos, you mean,’ Medea corrected.
‘It’s pretty much the same thing.’
‘No. No, it isn’t, Cass,’ she frowned. ‘And if what that young vampire said was true – and given what Laclos was willing to do to Cain – the question surely isn’t how we help him, but if we should.’
OK. So that shocked me.
***
There was a long, awkward pause during which I tried to articulate a reasoned, unemotional argument. Which I didn’t manage.
‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ My tone was so sharp that Medea flinched, and Katie gave me a warning look. Medea clocked it, shaking her head, ever the peacemaker.
‘Hear me out on this, Cass,’ she said, her voice gentle. ‘If that vampire is right, then Laclos has been on a murder spree – killing people in the very community we serve. And it’s fuelled by what? Spite over Sebastian’s treachery, and his own desire for power. Whatever you feel for him, whatever you think you owe him…’
‘You mean, what I owe him for risking his life fighting your crazy ex-girlfriend and the pack of Weres who came to town to eat your fiancée?’ I snapped, because Laclos had only been brought to this pass because of a pact between the witch Celice, Medea’s insane – and insanely jealous – ex-lover, and Katie’s old wolf-pack, who saw her desertion of their ways as a treasonable offence.
‘And whose fault was that?’ Katie retorted, which wasn’t entirely unfair. But then again if they’d actually told me any of this shit – that they were in hiding from these two enemies and were relying on a concealing spell scribbled in a notebook stashed in a desk drawer in the office to stay hidden, I would have been a lot less likely to open said bloody book and accidentally break their cover, so I wasn’t letting them entirely off the hook. Medea, clearly sensing this argument had the potential to go very bad, very fast, put a hand on her fiancée’s arm to calm her, though that looked only partially successful.
‘I’m not unaware of what he’s done for us,’ she said, carefully. ‘Or what he means to you. And Goddess knows, none of us are without blood on our hands anymore…’ She looked pained at this. As a Wiccan, dedicated to the forces of life, the last few weeks had cost her dearly. ‘But if Laclos has killed innocent people…’
‘Vampires,’ I interjected, and hated myself for making the distinction. But then, it did make a difference. I might believe that vampires deserved peace and respect and could be functioning members of modern society, but I wasn’t a fool. It was highly unlikely anyone had come to power in a city like London without a fairly lethal degree of ruthlessness – especially if they had done so before the accords that, for the last century or so, had meant their species, like all Others, was committed to peace. I doubted any vampire over a hundred years old – Laclos included – could ever really be considered ‘innocent’. But I could also see from Medea’s expression how (justifiably) feeble she thought this argument was. So I tried another tack.
‘But it’s not him, Mey. You saw what Cain’s blood did to him.’
‘I saw it made him powerful enough to go after something he may have wanted all along. He seemed perfectly lucid to me when he left us. And surely the fact that – whatever h
e threatened Cain with – he’s now been to see you twice without harming you shows he’s in control of his actions, he’s still rational?’
‘You’re wrong, Mey. I Sensed it,’ I ploughed on, desperate for her to believe me. ‘What would you do in my place? What if, instead of binding her shifting abilities, Celice’s spell had driven Katie mad?’
I turned to Katie, hoping for some support, but instead felt the temperature drop and heard the unmistakable sound of paper-thin ice cracking beneath my feet, as I realised it perhaps was a tad foolish to compare the vampire with whom I’d basically had a one-night shag to their years-long relationship. I backtracked, hastily. ‘Not that it’s the same thing, obviously,’ I added, and both women untensed, slightly. ‘I just think… after everything he’s done for us, he deserves the benefit of the doubt.’
Medea and Katie exchanged glances, and there was a moment of that silent communication that long-term couples are so good at, a conversation without words that stretched the silence almost to discomfort. I shifted awkwardly in my seat, not wanting to interrupt, but Medea, with a sigh, turned to me.
‘I’m really not sure how we can help anyway,’ she said, and it felt like such a concession I sagged in relief. I needed them on my side – and not just for their abilities. I needed my friends.
‘Help me find him. Cain thinks we can get him to… burn through the angel blood, and once it’s out of his system, he should recover. Then we can try and come up with some kind of truce or reparation. But we need him sane for that to work.’
‘And if he doesn’t recover?’ Katie asked, though her tone wasn’t unkind. I dropped my gaze.
‘Then Cain will… take care of it.’ I put my hands to my eyes, as if I could rub away the sights of the last few weeks. ‘I know we can’t just leave him to have free rein over the city. I get that. But I have to believe we’ve tried everything else first.’
Medea looked at Katie, who nodded, and then turned back to me.
‘OK. Tell me what you need.’
***
A locator spell is fairly simple magic, though you do need a decent level of skill to control it, to block out the background noise of the city and find your target. I’d considered bringing a bottle of wine that Laclos had brought me to use as a focus, but instead, thinking freshness was an issue and recalling Cain’s opinion that ‘blood is life’, I brought one of the pillowcases that had been ruined in the fight. I just hoped it wouldn’t lead us to Cain instead. Katie wrinkled her nose slightly when I pulled it out of my bag.
‘It’s like being back at work,’ she muttered, but Medea was already in concentration mode, all practicality.
‘I haven’t done any magic since…’ she gave me a rueful smile. ‘I’m a bit rusty. It might not work.’
‘I appreciate you even trying,’ I assured her. ‘Any idea of where he’s sleeping during the day will be useful.’
The plan was to catch him when he was vulnerable, in daylight hours. I didn’t fancy a rematch, and I honestly wasn’t sure if Cain would survive one. With a starting point, even a loose one, I could use my Sense to narrow it down. London was a great city, but it was also very big and, we were discovering, one where it was very easy to hide if you wanted to.
As with most skilled practitioners, Medea didn’t need much for the ritual: magic in its truest form is unshowy and comes from within, the bells and whistles mainly there to impress the punters or deter the dabblers. She sat, cross-legged, the blood-soaked cloth in front of her, with a candle and an A-Z I’d picked up on the way, having seen her use one successfully in a previous locator spell. Katie and I sat nearby, quiet and unobtrusive, and I felt my anxiety spike as the tell-tale prickle of magic hit my Sense as Medea started her incantation. But then… nothing.
Katie frowned, as puzzled as I was, and Medea sat back, offering us a slightly sheepish smile.
‘Wow, clearly I really am rusty. OK, let’s ramp this up a bit.’
She unfastened the charm bracelet she usually wore, and dropped it onto the pillowcase. I’d never really paid much attention to it before, but looking closely I could see the symbols weren’t random: they were all related to London. A bus, a Tube sign, an elephant next to a castle, a cross, a crown… she clearly hadn’t just picked this up at Claire’s Accessories because she thought it was pretty. I felt it, this time, a shift in the energy like the air before a storm, and I sat back, relieved. It was working! But barely had that thought formed than a wave of repulsion hit me so forcefully I rocked back, and I Sensed, rather than heard, the word ‘no’, as clear as a bell, although none of us had spoken. There was a crack like a gunshot and Medea was lifted off the ground and flung backwards, hitting the wall behind her with a thud.
‘Meds!’ Katie screamed, rushing to her aid, but I was frozen, sprawled where I was, staring in horror as the pillowcase sparked into flame and burned its way to ashes in a matter of seconds, disappearing into nothingness before my very eyes. I hauled myself up, and went to Medea, who was cradled in Katie’s arms, clinging to her, face streaked with tears.
‘I can’t do it,’ she sobbed, anguished, as Katie looked at me in despair. ‘It’s gone. It’s left me. My magic has gone.’
***
While I was keen to offer my help, it was obvious that there was nothing I could do. Katie was as shocked as I was, but I could tell that she thought the best thing would be for her and Medea to deal with this in private. Close as we’d all become over the last couple of years, there are times when you just want your partner, and so I helped her get a distraught Medea upstairs, and I prepped a hot water bottle and some hot chocolate to take up to her, giving her a big hug and leaving her with assurances that everything would be OK that sounded fake even to me. I’d never seen Medea so shaken – hell, I’d seen her survive a collapsing building and look better than this – but she seemed completely drained, as if something had reached inside her and torn out a part of her soul. She barely managed a nod of acknowledgement to me, though she squeezed my hand tightly as I said my goodbyes. Katie kissed her gently on the top of the head before showing me out.
‘We can fix this though, right?’ she asked me, her voice low, as she opened the front door. ‘It can’t be a new spell from Celice, we’ve been so careful…’
I shrugged, not sure I could offer any reassurance. The magic shop where Celice had been based had been closed since our showdown, one of Leon’s people watching it, and there had been no sign of life. We had beaten the witch and her cronies, foiled her plan to revenge herself on what she saw as Medea’s abandonment by delivering Katie to the angry Weres who had wanted to kill her. But in our final confrontation with the Weres and their other ally, the vampire Sebastian, Celice had managed to escape, and we had no idea where she had gone. We had hoped that her defeat would have sent her into exile, but had no proof that was what had happened. Besides, I wasn’t certain which was better; the prospect of an enemy we could find and defeat again, or something else, something organic in Medea that had caused this, some weird side effect that meant we could only wait it out and hope.
‘It’s probably just exhaustion, or stress,’ I offered, slightly uselessly, but Katie seized on the explanation gratefully.
‘I’ll make sure she gets lots of rest,’ she nodded, glad to have a task. I hugged her, tightly, our earlier snippiness forgotten, and kept my doubts to myself. They couldn’t help, and could only make them both more worried. Then I headed back towards the Tube station, and home. I still had a vampire to catch.
Chapter 5
‘I hate to say it, but I think she’s screwed.’
This was not the verdict I had been hoping for from Cain, though he sounded genuinely sad when he said it, or at least as sad as a man can sound when he’s mid-way through demolishing a pile of bacon sandwiches between sips of builder’s tea. Clearly he hadn’t been kidding about food being helpful to his recovery. Despite having stuffed my face at Medea’s, the smell of bacon made my mouth water, so I stole a couple of piece
s myself. It was delicious, but since my kitchen had been decidedly bacon-free when I left that morning, it was also evidence that Cain had not, as we agreed, stayed home and rested. Somehow I suspected he hadn’t limited his activities to a supplies run to Tesco. But one thing at a time.
‘But you don’t think it’s Celice?’
‘I think she’d pick up on it if it was. Or your Sense would. I suspect it’s a more… internal reaction.’
‘To what, though?’
‘Well, correct me if I’m wrong…’ Exasperated at my picking, he moved his sandwich pile out of my reach and shoved a bacon-slathered wedge of bread at me, because obviously angels don’t understand that it’s OK to eat your boyfriend’s sarnies because food on other people’s plates doesn’t have calories. Then again, I’m pretty sure angels have no concept of calories at all, so I suspected the contents of my fridge after his shopping spree would be heavy on the heart attack fuel. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ he repeated, playfully slapping my hand away as I feinted at his plate again. ‘But Wicca is a positive religion, it’s all about life, yeah?’
I nodded, mouth too full of bacon to speak.
‘So Celice corrupted her magic over years – a slow, steady process. But Medea went all gung-ho after the witch/Were conspiracy when Katie got hexed. So maybe she… flipped a switch or something. Overloaded her system, shorted out her abilities. Or she’s suffering some kind of psychic PTSD that’s blocking her without her knowing it.’
‘But she didn’t kill anyone,’ I protested, then realised I wasn’t actually sure if that was true. By the end of the battle there had been an awful lot of bodies, and nobody was keeping score. ‘I don’t think.’
‘Maybe it doesn’t matter. She was willing to kill – and to kill other witches. Perhaps that’s enough.’ Another shrug. ‘Honestly, Cass, I’m just guessing. Magic has been around as long as I have, and humans have harnessed it from the earliest times, but I don’t think even its most skilled practitioners know exactly what it is, or how it works. It could be she’s permanently poisoned the well of her magic, or it could be like Katie’s increased need to shift, something she’ll likely be able to work through with a little time.’
Angel Falls (Cassandra Bick Chronicles Book 3) Page 4