And that’s the issue. Who did all of this?
“If that’s it, I’m going to leave,” Shiff announced. “I don’t trust any of them.”
“Of course. Keep us posted,” Cham said.
“If you need anything, let me know,” Shiff said. He gathered the garbage, held his hand against the wall, and removed the muffle spell. When he was clear, he left the room. His footsteps grew softer until they could no longer hear them.
“Anyone want to help with Amelie?” Annie asked sardonically.
“You ain’t going by yourself girl. Never know what those damn vampires colluded to,” Gibbs advised. “You coming, boy?”
“And see the show? With pleasure.” Cham smiled.
Chapter 30
Feeling as if she were sneaking out after curfew, Annie peered down the hallway, which was eerily quiet in the semidarkness. Uneven pinpoints of light led them down this seldom used wing. Any door they passed was locked and a quick peek through the vertical windows showed unused, empty rooms.
As Annie exited the hallway, her eyes darted across the empty Wizard Hall, finding any known video cameras.
Not that it matters.
She knew Bucky Hart would remove their presence from the tapes. Still, she noted the half-round bubbles containing the video camera that recorded their movements.
Annie, Cham, and Gibbs slunk through the cubicles to the prison wing entering through the first set of doors. The long hallway wound them around several curves leading them directly under Paris, or perhaps it was merely magic that made it appear as though they were.
“Good evening,” the prison guard said with a smile. Though he attempted warmth, Annie felt a chill.
Maybe I’m imagining it.
“Take your time with the vampires. I think the prison is affecting the princess,” he advised.
“That’s always good news,” Annie said. She caught a view of the small pin attached to his lapel. Shiny and still appearing new, it sparkled in the light. “Have you worked here long?” Annie casually inquired.
“I’ve been here five years,” he answered promptly.
“When did they start passing out those pins? I find them fascinating,” Annie said as she bent closer to his lapel.
“Oh, this? About a year ago. A gift for all the employees. They are handsome,” he said proudly.
“Yes. They are very nice,” she said as he buzzed them inside.
“Did you answer your concerns?” Gibbs asked as they stepped through the door, which slammed behind them.
“No,” Annie responded, leading them a short distance to the four vampire cells. If Annie had to guess, they had been that way for some time.
They stepped in front of cell doors and froze in shock. No one had warned them. The scene was gruesome to say the least.
A large pool of blood stretched across the floor with Amelie at the center, drenched in her own blood. It covered her hands, her face, and matted her hair. Small handprints climbed the walls—some full, some smudged.
The stench was overpowering.
“Oh, hell,” Annie whispered.
“I’ve never seen this before,” Gibbs said.
“She’ll be easy. Don’t wait,” Cham advised.
Annie waved her hand across the cell door. The metal bars slid through the blood, smearing it across the cement floor and splattering their pants.
Amelie groaned softly. Her shaky hand reached outward and her fingers stretched out, coating her hand in her own blood. She licked her palm and each finger; it wouldn’t be enough to sustain her. She had no life left. Annie looked away.
“And you’re just watching, amused, I suppose,” Annie sneered at Sturtagaard. He shrugged, seemingly disinterested in the princess and her final demise.
Gibbs followed Annie into the cell. He tossed a bag of blood to the vampire and stood beside Sturtagaard like a sentry, with the stake above his heart.
Sturtagaard frowned as he opened the blood pouch. “Is that necessary?” he asked and took a cautious sip of the cold liquid. “I see you brought your boy. Much better,” he quipped before he sucked down the bag.
Annie skidded through the sticky wetness before kneeling beside Amelie. “Anything else you care to confess?” She held the stake above Amelie’s heart.
Amelie Maxillian, former princess of Amborix, spoiled brat, evil vampire, stared at Annie through eyes that were no longer black with fury and hate. They were soft and gray, almost human. The princess glanced at the stake and back to Annie. “Just do it,” she croaked in a raspy, weak whisper.
Annie twirled the stake in her hand for a moment before plunging the wood into Amelie’s breast plate. She bore down with all her strength until she was through the bone and muscle. The stake gave and plunged into Amelie’s unbeating heart.
The vampire shuddered and jerked before exploding into multicolored flames. Orange, blue, gold, and red burst from the vampire, roaring and dancing across her taut body. The rancid smell of burnt flesh quickly filled the small cell. Annie turned and coughed.
She expected a blood-curdling scream to escape Amelie’s lips, as most vampires often do once the cursed fire began to eat them alive. But Amelie remained silent. Either she had no will or fight, or she was stoically facing her death.
Her tired body slumped against the wall and slid down; her eyes were focused only on Annie.
When Annie could no longer handle the heat of the fire, she skidded away.
The fire traveled across the blood-soaked princess, down to the blood on the floor. It danced and stretched upwards, finding her handprints, settling in her hair.
Amelie reached inside her pocket, and Annie’s hands flew upwards in a protective stance.
Their eyes locked. As the fire burned away the vampire’s flesh and bone, her eyes lightened from gray to blue. Her human eyes stared back at Annie. Confused, Annie blinked several times, unsure of what she was witnessing.
“What the hell?” Annie asked out loud to no one in particular.
“Annie?” Cham asked, but Annie, was focused only on the vampire, on the transformation that seemed to be taking place inside the fire, as if the demon was being burned away and leaving behind the human princess, raw and afraid.
Amelie reached for Annie, holding her hand out as if giving something to her. Annie braved the heat of the fire and reached out.
“Thank you,” Amelie whispered and dropped a charred black object in her waiting palm.
“Amelie?” Annie whispered.
Fire roared, the heat so intense, Annie finally backed away from the princess. The fire consumed the entire blood pool, the wall, and the princess herself. No longer stoic, wholly fearful of her impending death, the princess let out the scream Annie had expected. It was filled with fear, fury, and a great deal of pain.
The flames swirled at Annie’s feet, roaring and growing, twirling inwards, stretching and reaching for anything that had been the princess. Ash swirled and floated, covering them all.
Amelie continued to scream, ensuring her voice would never be forgotten; Annie didn’t think she would ever get Amelie’s last moments purged from her memory. She reached for Cham as Amelie’s final moment passed.
Her scream lingered, bouncing across the cement, until finally disappearing.
“Enjoy your privacy,” Gibbs remarked.
“I think I will,” Sturtagaard responded.
“Did you see that? Did you see Amelie? Her eyes, they turned blue. Deep blue. And she said thank you. It’s like she was no longer the vampire but her human self,” Annie said excitedly.
“Amelie escaped the demon’s hold? I’ve never seen that before,” Cham said.
“You sure, girl? That doesn’t happen,” Gibbs said.
“I’m not mistaking it. I didn’t imagine it. She broke free. It was her in the end,” Annie argued.
She stepped away from pile of ash that had once been Princess Amelie, shaking.
“We need to clean up. Girl, you go back to the room. We’
ll get this,” Gibbs said.
“I’m not making this up,” Annie insisted. “She said ‘thank you.’ I’m not imagining it!”
“Okay. Baby. She did. We just didn’t hear.” Cham led her from the cell to the warmer air of the hallway.
“As much as I hate to admit it, she’s not making it up,” Sturtagaard said.
“What?” Annie glared at him.
Sturtagaard shrugged.
“You turn human when you’re staked?” Annie asked again.
Gibbs kicked the vampire in the leg with his steel-toed boot. Sturtagaard flinched and dropped the half-empty blood bag in his lap. The blood leaked to his pants, saturating his leg.
“What the hell?” Sturtagaard shouted at Gibbs.
Gibbs responded with a shrug. “Amelie came back. It’s true then?” he asked.
“Yes, yes.” Sturtagaard picked up the rest of the blood bag.
“So what do you know about it?” Annie lunged at the vampire and pinched the skin above his heart with her stake.
“Drop the stake, girl. I’m gonna talk. I want back in, remember?”
Annie flipped the stake in her hand. As always, the smacking against her palm made Sturtagaard jump. “The fire burns away the demon, leaves you raw and your old self. You live in the intense heat and remember all that you did as a demon. Some ask forgiveness from whatever god they believe in, others cry or plead for life. Amelie thanked you for saving her.”
“So why haven’t any of us seen this before?” Cham asked.
Sturtagaard looked thoughtfully and said, “You humans are weak. Once the demon infects you, it takes over immediately completely. You can’t control it. Slowly, your remaining soul dies until you’re an empty shell of who you were. But Amelie and some others with the strength can fight to share the body with the demon as they work to control it.”
“So how did I see Amelie when I normally can’t see the human in the fire?” Annie asked.
“The fire burns them so fast that you can’t see it, even though we live in that fire for long minutes, reflecting on our past. But the ones who have some humanity left are still fighting, still hoping to win. They can stall. You can see that.”
Annie looked at the vampire with some doubt, though she didn’t have a better answer. She merely asked, “And what will you do when I finally have permission to stake you?” She poked him with the stake.
“That won’t be so easy. At least I still have time.” Sturtagaard winked.
It was a gesture she hadn’t ever seen from him. It caught her off guard, and yet…
Time for what?
*
A light misty, glow shrouded the bunk room.
Gibbs snored.
Lial fidgeted while he slept; the cot squeaked with each toss and turn.
Cham enveloped her in his arms while he slept. Annie felt the rise and fall of his chest against her. His breath was warm against her neck. She reached for his hand, intertwining their fingers, but she felt no comfort in his embrace.
She thought of what Amelie had given to her before she died.
Her phone.
Though fatigued, Annie just couldn’t sleep. Her thoughts were a jumble, and her stomach roiled with confusion.
Should I, shouldn’t I?
Unable to shut down her thoughts, concerned about performing a memory modification without permission of the Wizard Council, she finally pulled away from Cham and sat up.
She read her own phone: 3:15 a.m.
Marielle will be here in three hours.
What they had suggested was akin to spying on your government allies, conspiring against them. And yet the French Wizard Guard did it all the time.
Restless, she skirted around Gibbs, who lay sleeping at the center of the room, taking up most of the floor space between the two beds.
She lowered the muffle spell and stepped into the hallway. Her flashlight cut through the darkness, creating elongated shadows across the floor and up the walls.
This place is creepy.
Annie marched through the maze of cubicles. A fan whirled above her. Any sound was loud in the empty space, and she jumped at each one.
Unsure of her purpose, she found Fabien’s cubicle and sat in his seat. It was much like Milo’s cubicle at home: stuffed with artifacts, folders piled high on his desk, books in piles lined against the walls.
Where do I start?
Annie rummaged through folders labeled with dates and names and case numbers. Everything seemed normal, nothing sinister.
Above her, a small light flickered and blinked. The video camera taped her presence. She pulled out her phone and texted Bucky to remove the video files of their stay. Her list of chores for him was growing longer.
With nothing in Fabien’s cubicle that made her suspicious she moved on to Marielle’s cubicle two spaces down. It was larger than the others in this section, though smaller than Fabien’s.
Maybe she’s an assistant manager or team lead.
Annie sat in the desk chair and stared at the clean, neatly organized desktop. Pen holders, file organizers and an unused blotter were squarely placed on the desktop. Annie touched the blotter and a large calendar, which was empty, and several months behind.
She ran her hand across the paper, searching for indentations, as if Marielle had written on another paper. It was clean.
What do they do here?
Annie ran her fingers under the edge of the desktop, feeling for hidden buttons. Finding nothing hidden or magical, she slid open the top drawer. It was filled with rubber bands, paper clips, and sticky note pads neatly stored in various sized organizers.
She’s obsessively neat and tidy.
Searching for hidden pockets, she pulled the storage bowls out, touched the sides of the drawer, and placed the bowls back.
The middle drawer was much of the same: pads of note paper and spiral notebooks were neatly stacked. She opened them and saw that they were unused. Her flashlight revealed nothing.
From the outside, the bottom drawer looked large, but when Annie opened it, she saw that it appeared more shallow than it should have been.
Annie smiled and pulled out the folders that hung neatly inside. Her fingers grazed the bottom of the drawer, finding the smallest of latches at the front of the drawer. She grabbed the small metal handle and pulled up the false bottom. Inside was a large stash of thousands of Wizard Council pins that gleamed in the light from her flashlight.
Everyone has one, Marielle said.
Annie grabbed one.
It was half the size of a fingernail, silver plated, the witches mark etched at the center. She hadn’t noticed previously, but the pin vibrated and buzzed against her skin.
As she held it to her ears, the magic hummed softly. Summoning a pink translucent crystal, Annie held it above the pin, collecting any magic inside. The rock lit up a bright grayish white light.
“Huh?” she said.
Not exactly good magic, not exactly bad magic.
She pulled out a second pin from deeper inside the pile and tested it; the magic was the same.
“What are you?” Annie whispered to herself.
Though Roland had made the initial suggestion to perform the spell, it was Marielle who was so insistent that they do. They had both told Annie of how they had done this before, using the Eiffel tower to broadcast the spell to anyone who wore this pin.
How often do they cast spells on their people?
Annie pocketed the pin and closed the desk.
With sleep no longer an option, Annie summoned the phone Amelie gave her and switched it on. Surprisingly, even in its charred state, it easily powered up. She scrolled through the call list. All calls came from a single number, but any contact information had been left out of the phone. Annie texted Bucky the number and asked for the name and location of the owner.
It’s probably a burner phone.
While she waited for any answer, Annie summoned the papers she had stolen from the seaside cottage. She safel
y tucked away most of the stack in her field pack and settled on a short, handwritten note to read. With a swipe of her palm, she translated the note to English and began to read.
Dear Auntie Marguerite and Uncle Louis,
It has been so long and I am so glad that I found you at your new location. The seaside cottage was always such a lovely place. I would very much like to take a holiday there. But I know this location is so very important to you. Would you consider letting me stay for a little while?
Please let me know. It’s been so long and I would so like to see you again.
M
M for Marielle?
She placed the letter in the folder and pulled out what she thought looked like a contract. With a swipe of her palm, she translated the words, they shimmered from French to English.
Yeah, this is a contract!
It was plain and clear; this contract transferred the title of the house by the sea from Marguerite and Louis Van Alton to Marielle Beauchamp.
She tricked them? Threatened them? How did she do this?
The pin vibrated against Annie’s leg and rustled her pants. Annie gently touched it.
“Gibbs is right. I need time to build a case against Marielle,” she whispered to herself and bit her lip. With all she could get from Marielle’s desk, she walked to the front entrance of Wizard Hall, leaving through the security door where a guard named Francois was reading a thick book. Beside him, the monitors swept through the hall.
“Hi,” Annie said causally.
“Hello. It’s awfully early. How can I help you?” he asked. He made no mention of her riffling through Fabien and Marielle’s desks.
Maybe he didn’t see me.
“Can I ask to see your pin? The one on your lapel.”
Confused, he nodded, and pulled the pin from his jacket. “Is everything okay?” he asked.
“I was speaking with Marielle about something, I find these pins fascinating. Thanks.” She took the pin from him and waved her crystal over it capturing the magic inside. The crystal glowed, several shades of white, gray and black.
Wizard Hall Chronicles Box Set Page 95