Magic burned my palms, lighting them up with white energy. Not necromancy, but a power that came from a deep well somewhere within me. Iron strength roared through my blood, and the vampire yelled in pain, dropping his hand. I’d snapped his wrist in my hand. Holy shit.
Note to self: do not use that power on necromancer missions, especially in front of novices.
I drew back and punched him in the ribs. Bones cracked beneath my knuckles. Magic surged in my fingertips, forming a whip that caught around his neck. I flung him to the earth, and his head cracked on the pavement.
Good job, whispered the voice, and I felt Evelyn’s presence behind me once again. No… within me. Until I’d seen her face looking back at me, I hadn’t truly believed we were two separate entities. Separate, and yet—I’d used her power.
Now I understood what soul-bonded meant. I couldn’t separate myself from her. Which meant any notions of using an exorcism were well and truly wiped out. Her magic was mine, and I was her… vessel. Yet despite that, she’d looked human. Maybe having her soul lie dormant inside my body hadn’t damaged either of us at all.
Dammit. I’m not telling Cordelia she was right.
Keir staggered across my path. Blood drenched his shirt, but the second vampire was bleeding, too. I moved in to help, but he got there first. Grabbing the other vampire by the shoulders, he locked his grip tight, and I shivered at the sensation as his magic brushed against mine. Despite myself, I tapped into Death once again, seeing the blurred shapes of the two vampires who at first appeared to be in an embrace.
Threads of blue energy surged from one shadow to the other, and while one grew brighter, the other dimmed.
I blinked, the greyness cleared, and the vampire’s limp body fell to the earth. Keir had literally drained the life out of the guy right through the spirit realm.
He turned to me, his whole body glowing with blue-white energy, and glanced down at his arm. “Fucker. I liked this jacket.”
“Ouch,” I said, seeing the deep cut through the torn sleeve. “You need a healing spell on that.”
“Are you hurt?” He eyed me, his brow crinkled, the blue glow fading a little.
“Alive, pissed off, ready to get out of here. You?”
“All of the above.” He picked up his knife from where he’d dropped it. “Leave the vampires there. That ought to convince the king to take some action.”
He began to walk away. Blood streamed down his arm, and he walked a little unsteadily.
“If you go anywhere near the guild like that, they’ll mistake you for an undead,” I said.
“Whoever said I was going to the guild?”
“You’re bleeding,” I said. “I’m taking a wild guess that you don’t have a healing spell on you. My friend has some, but otherwise, the guild’s the only option. Unless there’s a place on your territory where people won’t try to kill us?”
“Territory?” he echoed. “I wouldn’t say it’s mine, any more than it’s the vampire king’s. He’s likely not to last long in the position, besides.” He attempted to clean the wound on the ripped sleeve of his jacket and succeeded only in getting blood everywhere.
“Considering he didn’t lift a finger to help us, he’s on my eternal shit list,” I said. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to my mentor. It’s lucky she’s nicer than I am.”
13
“You have got to be joking,” said Isabel, folding her arms in the doorway of her hotel room. “You want me to help a vampire—one of the people trying to wipe out your coven?”
“Two other vampires tried to kill both of us,” I said. “He’s not the one we’re after. And if he dies, I lose my only lead on the actual killer.”
She muttered something under her breath, before stepping aside to let us in. I didn’t know the witches who owned the hotel, but Isabel classified them as safe. I suspected Keir would have put up more of an argument if he didn’t have an open wound.
Lloyd had been waiting outside when Keir and I had reached the hotel. Apparently he and Isabel had devised various plans to get the guild involved for backup if need be after they hadn’t heard from me for a while. It was very thoughtful of them, and a welcome change from dealing with vampires who wouldn’t intervene to stop someone attacking one of their own people.
“I take it the exorcism didn’t go as planned?” added Isabel, heading to the small desk built into the wall, where she’d put what looked like a month’s supply of spell ingredients.
“Nope,” I said, removing my jacket to check on the damage. I’d been lucky to escape with a few scratches. Given that I’d nearly had my soul sucked out, the evening might easily have ended very differently. “The guy we met with turned out to be dead, controlled by another vampire. Then two more vampires ambushed us after our meeting with the vampire king.”
“I think the question is, who is the vampire king?” asked Lloyd, picking up a band-shaped spell to examine it. “Since when was there one, for that matter?”
I shot Keir a look. He’d sat on the free chair, easing his jacket off to expose the wound.
“There’s always been a designated leader,” he said. “It’s a requirement, so the Mage Lords have someone to speak to if there’s a serious problem, but we don’t all answer to the same person.”
“If he’s as rude to the Mage Lords as he was to us, I take it there’s never been a serious problem.”
Light flashed from the floor, where Isabel was in the process of tossing ingredients into a chalk circle.
“No, I can’t say there has,” said Keir, stretching out his injured arm and wincing a little. The cut was even deeper than it’d looked before. “If it’s any consolation, you needn’t worry about retaliation if you report the attack to the guild. They attacked you because you’re a Hemlock witch, not because of your guild status.”
“I don’t give a shit why they attacked me,” I said. “They can join the poisoners on my list of enemies. Might they be working together?”
“I assume they are,” he said.
“How’d you figure that one out?” asked Lloyd, replacing Isabel’s spell on the desk and digging in his pocket for his phone. Like me, he’d left his necromancer coat behind and dressed in simple jeans and T-shirt, so nobody would ask questions about a necromancer hanging out at a hotel which belonged to the witches.
Keir turned in my direction. “The person who tried to poison you worked out your identity, and your friendship with him—” he eyed Lloyd—“without ever meeting you in person. That suggests they got that information via the spirit world.”
“That wouldn’t explain how they knew I was a Hemlock witch,” I said. “I’m not kidding—I never even told Lloyd.”
“Which you still owe me for,” Lloyd interjected. “Not to mention the crap we’re going to be in if Lady Montgomery finds out.”
“Oh, I’m telling her about the vampires.” I walked to the bathroom and ran a cloth under the tap to dab at the blood on my face. “Including their lazy arse of a king.”
Keir didn’t say anything. I might have won this round, but we still had no way of knowing how the enemy had got wind of my existence, short of seeing the spirit looking through my eyes and somehow working out she was a Hemlock witch.
“She’s not wrong,” Isabel commented. “Want me to look at that arm?”
Keir offered her his injured arm. “It’s up to you, Jas, but remember that these people already want you dead. Do you really want them to learn of all your allies?”
“Might make them think twice about attacking me again, knowing I have the whole guild at my back,” I answered. “Since the presence of one of their own didn’t stop them trying to wipe you out, too.”
“Ouch,” he said. Then, as Isabel dabbed at the wound, “Ouch.” Light flared up around his injury, and he hissed in pain, yanking his arm away from Isabel.
“Keep still or it’s going to get a lot more painful.” She reached for another spell. “That cleansing spell got most of the crap out of the wound, but let me kno
w if you want a second round.”
“You put salt in it on purpose, didn’t you?” he said accusingly.
“I can if you want to,” offered Lloyd. “We could have left you to die.”
“Keir, stop being a dick,” I said, attempting to defuse the situation before it blew up. “You got us attacked by your allies—twice, I might add. If I were you, I’d be seriously re-evaluating my friendship choices.”
“I wouldn’t call Nate a friend. Nor any of the other vampires we encountered today, come to that.” Keir held his arm steady so Isabel could put the salve on the open wound. I had the impression he didn’t like surrendering control. “But now you have me here, I suppose I owe you. What do you want to know?”
“For a start,” I said, “you never told me who summoned that fury to begin with, let alone how you knew it was underground.”
Isabel’s hands slipped and brushed the wound, resulting in another exclamation of pain from Keir. “Did you say fury?”
“You’re not saying you’ve met them, too?” I asked.
“A few times.” She gave Keir a wary look. “They haven’t been seen anywhere in this realm in over a year, as far as I know.”
“What the bloody hell is a fury?” Lloyd wanted to know.
“Big evil thing with wings and talons that’s insanely difficult to kill,” I said. “It came from… where did it come from?”
“Nobody’s exactly sure on that one,” Keir said. “But it was summoned using a ritual formerly known only to a few, including the Hemlock Coven.”
“Not just them,” Isabel added. “Someone tried to do the same thing over a year ago, back at home. That’s how Ivy and I wound up meeting the Hemlock witches to begin with. The person who killed Francine—my last coven leader—worked with a bunch of wannabe anti-supernatural assassins who thought it was fun to summon those monsters. They all died, but I guess their ideas lived on. I don’t know how he found out.” She shot Keir a look.
I shook my head. “But—how are my coven’s secrets spreading everywhere when nobody else is supposed to know? I don’t suppose Cordelia or Lady Harper told you?”
“We have worse problems if it is the same ritual,” she said. “Believe me. Ivy and I barely defeated the furies, but I didn’t think anyone lived to tell tales.”
“Damn.” That setup in the warehouse… had it been an attempt at a similar ritual? There was a thin line between necromantic blood magic and forbidden witch rituals, enough that they were pretty much the same, because both involved summoning things from dark dimensions.
So much for keeping the necromancers’ guild out of my problems.
Lloyd groaned. “More enemies?”
“Same ones,” I said. “I think it’s safe to say they’re all working together. Clearly, they want the Hemlock witches out of the picture, but I don’t know if that’s their endgame. Was either of those vampires who attacked us the one who stole your zombies?”
Keir shook his head. “I never did manage to track the person responsible.”
“So he might still be out there,” I said. “Can you try to track him? The same way I did to you?”
“Not if the zombies were destroyed,” he answered. “There are a lot of us, and we know all the tricks for hiding ourselves in the spirit realm. But I might be able to find a way.” He eyed Isabel. “I owe you for your help.”
Isabel glowered at him. “I’m helping you because Jas said so, and for no other reason. If you even think about turning on us, you’ll find yourself on the receiving end of my coven’s magic, and believe me, you won’t like it.”
“No, you won’t,” Lloyd confirmed, which made me wonder what in hell the two of them had been doing when I’d been stuck underground with the fury and the vampire.
“The other reason is that I’ve encountered those furies before,” Isabel added. “And since you fought against them, you’re not on the same side as the dicks who want Jas dead.”
He grinned. “I’m honoured.”
“Don’t let it get to your head,” I said to him. “If you want to return the favour, you’ll tell us everything you know about the rogues and why they might be plotting against the witches. I wouldn’t have thought there’d be any real reason for a vampire to turn on the guild if they wanted to keep their head, but who knows.”
“The traitors must have decided it was worth the risk,” said Keir. “Maybe they were offered power, maybe not. But a rogue vampire isn’t capable of enacting a summoning ritual.”
“A witch is,” I said. “There’s a witch—more than one—behind this. Right?”
He inclined his head.
“Then I have to report this to the guild.” I gave Lloyd a sideways glance. “The other day, we were on a mission, and we found evidence of what appeared to be some kind of illegal summoning. It involved chalk symbols and witch props. Might it have been the same?”
Keir rose to his feet. “You didn’t mention that before.”
“That’s because I didn’t know rituals were involved until you mentioned the furies were summoned using one,” I said. “And we were dealing with a real bastard of a half-faerie ghost the other day, beside what looked like a witch symbol and a chalk circle. He was way too strong. I thought the spell might be amplifying his power, but the evidence is gone.”
Keir picked up his ruined jacket and moved towards the door. “If that’s the case… I need to look into this a little more. Thank you for the spells, Isabel.”
“Wait, you’re leaving?” I said.
“Before a witch with spirit sensitivity realises there’s a vampire in the hotel? Yes.”
It was unlikely that any of the witches here were necromancers on the side, but I didn’t have any real argument to make him stay, especially when I needed to leave soon if I wanted to report the evening’s events to the guild. “Let me know if you come up with any theories.”
“I will.” He gave me a smile—so fast, I might have imagined it—and then he was gone.
“Charming, isn’t he?” said Lloyd, the moment the door closed behind him.
“He has his moments.”
Lloyd snorted. “On his deathbed, maybe. Vampires. I knew the senior necromancers were sitting on some major secrets, but I wish I’d got to meet the vampires’ king.”
“You don’t. He was a slob living in his great-aunt’s basement surrounded by willing servants.”
“Wait, that’s a career option?”
I rolled my eyes. “Look, can you back me up when I report to the guild? I don’t want them to throw Keir into a cell, considering we’re short on allies, but the vamps have some serious management issues.”
“That’s a major understatement,” said Isabel, tipping a bunch of used spells into the bin.
“Not that he didn’t deserve being yelled at, but did something happen?” I asked. “Aside from the obvious?”
“Lady Harper,” she said. “She called and read me the riot act for letting you run around unsupervised. Apparently she found out about your last trip into the forest. I think it was you she wanted to yell at, but she couldn’t get through to your phone.”
I pulled my mobile phone out of my pocket. Seven missed calls, including some from numbers I didn’t know. “Ah. Shit. Sorry.”
“That’s Ivy,” said Isabel, indicating one of the numbers. “It’s true that we should be further in training than we are.”
“Actually, I might have had a breakthrough,” I said. “Near-death experiences are good for something. I used Evelyn’s magic, on purpose this time, and I even saw her.”
Her eyes widened. “Wait, you saw the witch? When?”
“When I fought the vampires,” I said. “One of them tried to drain me, and my souls… split. I saw and spoke to her.”
Lloyd’s jaw hit the floor. “Uh. You spoke to the weird spirit living in your head? About what?”
“We were in the middle of fighting a vampire. It wasn’t an in-depth conversation. But I did use her magic.” I turned to Isabel. “Lady
Harper shouldn’t be giving you grief. I won’t hold it against you if you want to get out of this madness while you can.”
“Oh, no, I’m not about to leave town when there’s a witch breaking the rules,” she said. “Not to mention I’ve dealt with the furies before. It’s possible that some of the witches who used the ritual the first time around passed on the knowledge to others.”
“Witches?” asked Lloyd. “Er, no offence, but aren’t witches the least power-hungry supernaturals there are?”
“Aside from my coven?” I said. “Yes, but every supernatural group has its defectors.”
“The Hemlock coven wants power?” Isabel crouched down to dab at the chalk on the carpet with a damp cloth. “I thought they gave it up when they got stuck in the forest.”
I shrugged. “Yes, they did, but they must have wanted the power to have it in the first place.”
The image of that giant eye came to mind, and I firmly shoved it down. I knew, deep in my bones, that it was real, and that their magic—my magic—kept that beast caged. Don’t think about that. It won’t help.
The sound of shattering glass came from somewhere close by, followed by screaming.
Lloyd grabbed the back of the chair. “What the—?”
A moment later, a blast shook the room. Bright spells sprang to life on the door, walls and floor, filling the room with grey light.
Isabel sprang to her feet. “Someone attacked the hotel.”
“What is that?” Lloyd stared at the shimmering lines on the wall.
“A shield,” answered Isabel, hands stretched towards the wall as though checking for gaps in the defensive spell. “The hotel’s protected, but the attacker struck from outside.”
“Shit.” I sprinted to the window, but it showed only an empty car park, and we were four floors up. The attacker would be long gone. “Right. Back in a second.”
I tapped into the spirit realm. Faint shimmering marked the presence of a couple of hundred souls, but it took several long moments before I found the vampire’s shadowy outline.
“Keir, did you see that?”
No response.
Witch's Shadow (The Hemlock Chronicles Book 1) Page 13