So either Byron or someone else had started doing these rituals. First they killed some mortals in the field near the farm, which they’d managed to do without being noticed until the bodies were found. I didn’t know where in the field, but Evan hadn’t been arrested on suspicion for failing to see anything, so I could guess it was pretty far out and away from his house. At some point, this evildoer had recruited the mortals Lark had kicked out of the Factory.
That made sense. Easy labor. Desperate people, a lot of them young, most of them so wrapped up in the supernatural world that they had no clue how to survive in the mundane world anymore. Promise them what they wanted and bam, free help kidnapping and otherwise attacking vampires. The fire had probably been intended to kill “Queen” Lark and avoid payback. Vampires are viciously protective of their own kind.
Maybe the vampires were integral to the spells, but I suspected not. They were just easy prey, since the person had that anti-vampire spell ready and a group of mortal cohorts who were pissed at the vampires.
But why poke the hornet’s nest of immortals?
I pictured all of the Guild Elders other than Beverly—Kiki, Byron, Jones, Carla, Evan, even Erin—trying to slot them all into the role of evil mastermind based on what little I knew about each of them. I couldn’t figure out what any of them stood to gain by so much murder and mayhem. Unless immortality was the goal, and they really believed their series of spells would work.
Something clicked. Maybe they wanted vampire blood for some kind of ritual or spell, and the easiest way to get it was to take vampires. If the result was worth the vampires’ wrath, maybe that was all there was to it. And after they took enough blood, they killed the vampire for extra power.
But I didn’t know if it was true or if I was just hoping to have it all figured out before I pulled up to the farm.
I made a phone call while driving and then rammed my foot down on the gas, speed limit be damned.
* * *
The lights were on at the farmhouse, and there were a couple of cars parked in front, including Erin’s blue convertible and a nondescript white van.
My mouth went dry at the sight of it. I was sure it was the same van that had picked up the mortals after they set the Factory on fire. I knew now that Bea had been trapped inside. If I had stopped it from speeding away, I might have saved her. But then I might have lost Lark and Harold.
The van meant Jeff was right. His friends had come here. I spared a thought for him, hoping he’d pull through to spite those assholes, if for no other reason. I parked behind the van, hoping my sedan wouldn’t be noticed by anyone inside. Not that it mattered all that much. They’d know I was here soon enough.
I pulled my sword out of the trunk and tucked my Taser into my pocket. I didn’t take the stake, unable to squeeze it into my jean pockets.
On my way to the front door, I heard noise out back and changed course. I drew my sword and edged around the side of the house, heart pounding with every step.
When I reached the end of the house, I hung back behind the wall to examine the scene. There was a backyard that extended out a good thirty feet before it hit a short fence, and then beyond the fence was a field that went on for acres. The backyard was more dirt than grass. In the middle of it, someone had carved a large circle. A body in a black trench coat writhed in the center of it, hands tied behind their back.
Brad. I recognized his dyed black hair and the clothes he’d been wearing when he tried to kill me with a grenade only hours before. I had to resist the urge to walk up to the circle and stab him myself.
I held my breath, listening for sounds to indicate there were other people around. All I could hear was the rapid pounding of my heart.
Where were his friends? And more importantly, where was the asshole who’d tied him up and planned to use him for a death ritual?
For several moments, nothing happened. No one appeared to do horrible things to Brad, but no one seemed to be lurking around waiting for me to jump out to rescue the guy, either. I didn’t think it was a trap, but where the hell was the bad guy?
I was debating my options—try to save the asshole and risk being seen, or go around front to get more information—when the back door flew open.
Someone pushed Erin out onto the porch. She stumbled forward, resisting.
I ducked back behind the corner of the house, but not before I saw that Erin’s arms were tied. She wore different silver bracelets than her usual ones. Nullifiers, probably. A built-in bench ran the length of the porch, and Erin was forced to sit on it. I couldn’t see her captor from this angle, only half of Erin’s body as hands tied the rope around Erin’s wrists to the porch railing, pulling it around her chest to keep it secure and keep her in place.
“You can’t do this,” Erin protested.
The culprit didn’t speak. I held my breath until footsteps carried the culprit down the porch steps, and only then did I dare peer around the side.
I gasped.
Carla stood next to the circle where Brad was trapped. She wore slacks and a thick red coat.
My surprise that it wasn’t Byron only lasted a second. Actually, it made even more sense in some ways. She’d struck me as power-hungry, and Erin had confirmed as much. I hadn’t pegged her as the sort to resort to murder, though she’d made it clear she didn’t feel that vampires were people, and no doubt justified the other deaths as necessary evils.
“What can you possibly hope to gain from this?” Erin demanded, her voice steady despite how terrified she looked.
“The Guild, of course,” Carla answered her, unbothered, not even turning around. “The Elders system is absurd. Trying to get seven or eight people to agree on any course of action is nigh impossible. Most Guilds and Covens simply have one leader.”
“That’s not true,” Erin said.
“The good ones do. The smart ones,” Carla argued. She walked around the circle putting candles at certain intervals.
Brad tried to scream or speak, but there was something over his mouth that turned his words into an unintelligible bark.
“This is how the spell works, boy,” Carla said, turning her attention to the man in the circle, but Brad wasn’t appeased by that. He continued to writhe and strain against his bonds.
“You want to live forever, don’t you?” There was deep cruelty in her tone. She was mocking him. Brad was not my favorite person by a couple of miles, but even he didn’t deserve to be taunted and then defleshed by a magical ritual for Carla’s benefit.
“You’ll be locked up once the Guild finds out what you’ve done, and that’s the best-case scenario,” Erin argued.
Carla finished placing the candles and stood upright. Bag of candles in hand, she walked back to the porch. I pressed myself back against the wall, hopefully out of sight.
“The Guild won’t find out. They’ll think you and that brother of yours were behind the whole thing. That you recruited poor, pathetic Beverly to help you. And maybe Byron. We’ll see if I think I can keep him from asking too many questions. And then I’ll be the hero who stopped you. After you did this final ritual, of course.”
“You bitch!” Erin spat. “No one will believe you!”
“Won’t they?” Carla asked. So damn smug. I wanted to punch her.
I heard more footsteps and dared to peek around the corner again. Carla was heading back to the circle. She pulled out one of those long lighters, the ones people used for barbecues, and began lighting the candles.
I didn’t know how the spell worked, but I figured it was time to act.
I took a deep breath, glanced back once at the infuriatingly empty driveway where no backup was arriving, and stepped out from behind the house. I crept along the porch, staying low until I reached Erin. I whispered her name and she glanced down at me, eyes going wide, a small gasp escaping her lips.
I put my finger to my mouth in a shh gesture and Erin turned forward again. I ducked down as Carla turned at the faint noise. After a long moment,
I eased the sword against the rope tying Erin’s wrists together. The blade severed the rope. She kept her hands where they were but shot me a grateful look.
I straightened and stepped out into the open.
“Pretty sure that circle is not the gateway to immortality,” I said.
Carla spun, surprised, though she recovered quickly. She folded her arms over her chest and looked me up and down. “You said you killed her,” she said to Brad.
Brad mumbled something around the tape over his mouth, but I couldn’t make it out.
“He tried,” I said.
Carla sighed like this was a horrible imposition, right on par with having an extra uninvited dinner guest arrive for a party. “Well, I suppose it can’t be helped.”
“Why the hell are you doing this?” I asked it more to stall her than anything. I didn’t really give a shit why she felt justified in committing ritual murder over and over.
She smiled brightly at me. “Because I’m the best witch in the Guild and I deserve to be in charge. Now, thanks to my cunning plan, I will be.”
With her words, pieces of the puzzle started clicking into place. I thought of Lark, holding the skull from the box. My theory about the vampire blood went out the window as I finally understood Carla’s grand plan. “You want to start a war with the vampires.”
Carla’s smile widened. She actually looked sort of impressed. “Now why would I want to do that?” she asked, but in a singsong tone that suggested she wanted to do exactly that.
“Shit,” I said. “That was the plan all along, wasn’t it? First you scare the shit out of your Guild with dark magic. That has the side benefit of giving you more power. You plan to blame it on other Guild members, Erin and Evan and Bev. Not all of the Elders, because that’s too suspicious. You’ll leave Jones and Kiki out of it to support you when the smoke clears. And then you’ll insist that you, and only you, should be in charge. Am I right?”
She grinned. What an evil fucking piece of work.
I continued. “That’s where the war with the vampires comes in. People will be scared. Vampires are vicious and they’re highly motivated killing machines. If they decide it’s open season on witches, things are going to get ugly. You figure they’ll kill a few of your people, but you’re willing to make that sacrifice. You can use the attacks as an excuse to take total control of the Guild without promoting new Elders. And then when the war is over, you’ll insist that because you handled things and kept people alive, you should get to stay in power alone.”
Carla’s smile had slowly receded into something dark. I was right, I knew I was. She just didn’t like that I’d figured out her whole scheme.
“Well, aren’t you clever? Shame you weren’t faster. I have no intention of letting you ruin my plans.”
She waved her hands and her bracelets glowed red. So, I noticed, did her eyes. That weirded me out enough to distract me until I saw the skeleton in my peripheral vision. It rose from the ground near the fence line, not far from me, yanked up out of the ground as if by invisible strings. Another rose a few yards further away. And then a third.
Shit. My heart slammed into my ribs. I’d been ready for an angry, powered-up witch, and I’d been ready for Erin to be incapacitated, but I hadn’t counted on a group of animated skeletons doing her bidding.
The skeleton closest to me shambled toward me like a zombie out of a bad movie, only this mass of bones was all too real.
“See? Your friends are still alive,” Carla said, taunting Brad. “They can live forever like that.”
Brad wailed.
I sucked in a breath as I realized the skeletons moving toward me were the bones of the vampire groupies. They’d set fire to the Factory and left Jeff for dead, but even they didn’t deserve to die and have their remains serve as attack dogs for a literal wicked witch. She’d tricked them and turned them into unwilling soldiers to do her bidding.
The skeleton closest to me lunged forward, bony arms extended out. I parried with the sword, catching one arm and pushing to the side, but a sword wouldn’t do me a lot of good against a foe without flesh to cut or a heart to stab.
Carla raised a hand and began to chant over the circle. The skeleton reached for me again, its fingers closing around my free arm. I brought the sword down on its wrist and the sword cut through the bone. Its hand separated and it swung at me with its radius and ulna. The severed hand still gripped my arm. I tried to shake it off as I stabbed forward with the sword, catching the skeleton in the ribs.
The flames from the candles leapt into the dirt and the entire rim of the circle ignited. Brad screamed, the duct tape barely holding it back.
Another skeleton reached me, giving me a second body to grapple with just as I managed to get the severed hand off from around my arm. I swung out, trying to sweep their legs, but one got its bony fingers in my hair and yanked hard. I screamed and pulled away. The damn creature got a fistful of blonde hair.
I swung hard at the second skeleton’s neck. Its skull rolled off the shoulders and fell into the dirt. Its jaw snapped at my feet. Its headless body still came toward me, fingers reaching for my face.
I swung again, this time for its waist. It took two swings, but finally I split it in half. The third skeleton was only a few feet away. I crushed the skull on the ground with the sword’s hilt, spinning on my heel to ready myself for the third foe. I sucked in air, my arms already sore.
I noticed Erin had slipped off the porch. I hadn’t even heard her, but she was gone. I spared a second to be impressed by her stealth and then faced the oncoming skeleton. The first had recovered from my hits and was coming back, too.
Carla continued her chanting, tossing some sort of spice or maybe sacred dirt into the circle. The fire around the circle flared up, flames reaching several feet in height before fading back down.
I cut off one of the skeleton’s heads. It stumbled, hands still trying to get hold of me. I kicked the ribcage and then cut it off at the knees. The first one caught my sword in its bony hand. It held fast with an iron grip.
I yanked my sword free and then bony hands grabbed my neck from behind. I swung the sword out, beheading the first skeleton. Number three still reached up from the ground where its torso lay, grabbing at my legs. The fourth behind me tightened its fingers around my throat. I gasped, trying to get the sword behind me. My head swam. I dropped the sword and clawed at the fingers around my neck.
And then a lot of things happened at once. Headlights flashed over the yard. New arrivals, hopefully people here to help. The hand on my throat tightened like it was a vise, and I was fighting to tear it off, kicking back at the bones. Erin flew out of the house.
Carla had turned to see what the headlights were and was caught off guard as Erin jumped from the porch and landed on top of her.
But at the exact same second Carla hit the ground, a bright blue light filled the circle. It shot up into the sky and then came down, hitting Carla with a force that knocked Erin off of her. And then the light faded, leaving the acrid smell of burned grass, ichor, and smoke. I caught a glimpse of Brad, reduced to nothing but bones. He was dead.
And with the fingers around my neck and my head getting lighter, I knew I was about to be next. A fifth skeleton that had risen when I wasn’t looking bent down and picked up my sword. Mentally, I swore. My lungs burned. My vision blurred. And all I could think was that this was a really shitty way to die.
Chapter 28
The world was going black when the pressure on my throat decreased. I rocked forward, barely catching myself before I fell. I gasped for air, doubled over and leaning on my knees. My lungs burned as they filled with air. Through blurred vision, I saw Angela using my sword to cut up the skeleton who’d taken it.
Relief washed over me. I’d called Lark and told her I needed backup. She must have sent Angela. I was glad to have her. Vampires were fast and strong, and she could tear up the skeletons with a speed and skill I couldn’t match in this mortal frame.
&n
bsp; As soon as I got enough oxygen to my brain, I glanced around to find Erin. She was holding a bloody chef’s knife, staring at her Guild mate. Carla shot a burst of magic and the knife turned red. Erin dropped it with a screech.
The first skeleton was still going like the goddamn Energizer Bunny. Its one hand grabbed my jacket. I kicked out. It stumbled back.
Angela handed me my sword.
“Get your witch friend,” Angela said to me. “I’ll handle this abomination.”
I nodded, unable to speak. My throat was raw and my breath came in short gasps, like my lungs had forgotten how to work.
Angela pounced the skeleton like an angry cat. It was the only one still standing. Or the only one I saw. There had been what, six or seven mortals in that group besides Brad and Jeff? I wondered if more of them had also died here, reduced to bones and waiting to pop up out of the dirt to attack.
I shivered at the thought and raced toward Erin.
Carla saw me coming and shot a bolt of magic at me. It looked like an arrow made of fire. It hit my sword and suddenly the hilt was too hot to hold. I dropped it. An angry red welt appeared on my palm.
“Fucking hell,” I said. “What kind of spell is that?”
Carla’s eyes were still blood red. It was pretty damn unsettlingly, and I’d stared down stone-cold immortals in my time. Her skin glowed with a preternatural light, almost but not quite like a vampire’s.
“What have you done?” Erin asked, blinking at Carla’s strange appearance.
“What I set out to do. I told you I’m the best witch here! And now I’ll live forever!” She laughed. It wasn’t quite evil movie monster levels, but it was close.
“That’s not possible,” Erin said, though she didn’t sound entirely sure.
“Of course it is. It always has been, but witches are so afraid of getting their hands dirty. Barry figured it out, but it was too late for him. He was too weak to go through the process by then.” She smirked. “Too many bodies to wrangle.”
“You didn’t even come up with the spell yourself and you claim you’re the best witch?” I asked with a snort. Taunting a powerful witch who may have just turned herself immortal was probably not super smart, but I knew it would piss her off, and people who were pissed off made mistakes.
Sanguinity (Henri Dunn Book 3) Page 17