I had originally been planning to stuff the thing down the back of my pants and let my jacket conceal it as I walked out of the Fang with it. But now I found I couldn’t stand the thought of the weird stake so close to me. It seemed dangerous somehow, as though it was a predator that was mostly full but wouldn’t mind taking another bite or two if another prey happened along and offered itself.
Instead of trying to carry it like a concealed weapon, I put it back on the desk and took my jacket off all together. Then I gathered it up and hid it in the jacket’s folds, making sure not to let it touch my skin as I walked casually out of Corbin’s office.
My heart was in my throat the entire time as I made my way out of the crowded club. I was sure at any minute Corbin would pop up in front of me and demand to know why I was stealing the stake. I didn’t see him at all, however—probably he was somewhere still dealing with Antoine.
I blessed the little vampire assistant and promised myself I’d be nicer to him next time I saw him—if there was a next time. Corbin had made it pretty clear he didn’t want to see me again before he left, which hurt. But I was sure there was something behind his rejection. Something strange and not right and I was determined to find out what it was.
Chapter Twenty-one
It didn’t take long to find the witch’s house—not when I was able to search her immediately on the PD’s database. Gwendolyn LaRoux lived on the fringes of Ybor City—the oldest and most historic part of Tampa. At the turn of the last century, it used to be home to Cuban immigrants and cigar factories. Now it’s mostly a party spot for the college crowd with a few kink clubs, tattoo parlors, and cigar bars thrown in for the tourists.
The whole area had gotten pretty run down but lately there had been a big effort toward beatification. Many of the old wooden bungalows had been remodeled and some had been torn down to make way for cute little cookie-cutter townhouses in all the pastel shades of the rainbow.
The witch’s house appeared to be one of the remodeled ones. A quaint, one story bungalow, it was painted a soft cheery yellow with neat white trim. There were rows of pink flowers flanking the walkway leading up to the old wooden wrap-around porch.
Hmm…I checked my address again but there was no mistake—this was Gwendolyn LaRoux's place of residence. But the outside of the house certainly didn’t jibe with the angry Goth girl I remembered leaving Corbin’s office.
Taking a firm grip on the stake that was still wrapped in my jacket, I marched up the front walkway and knocked on the pristine white front door. There was no answer—not surprising considering it was after midnight. Well, too bad if she was in bed, I wasn’t waiting another minute to talk to her. I rapped on the door again.
“Gwen, honey?” came an old lady’s voice from inside. “Who is that at this hour?”
“I don’t know, Grams. You stay in bed—I’ll check it out.” That sounded like Gwendolyn.
The front porch light popped on, immediately attracting a swarm of moths. The door opened about an inch and a suspicious jade green eye peered out at me from under a tousled mop of black hair.
“Who are you and what do you want?” she demanded.
“You know who I am,” I snapped. “You saw me when you were leaving Corbin’s office.”
The eye flicked around nervously. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do,” I said stubbornly. “Look, I’m an Auditor. If you want to make it official, I can bring you downtown for questioning.”
“You can’t do that—I’m not a vamp.”
The front door started to shut but I stopped it by shoving the end of the stake through the crack and into her face.
“Hey!” She jumped backward and the door flew open. “Get that thing away from me! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Her reaction told me my hunch about the stake was right. Now I just had to get more information.
“You know what this is, don’t you?” I demanded, taking a step into her house. “You know what it can do. You’re the one who gave it to Corbin—I saw him tucking it into his pocket just as you were leaving.”
“Gwen, honey?” The old lady’s voice sounded from the back of the house again. “Who is that? Should I call the police?”
“No, Grams, it’s fine,” she called back. “It’s just, uh, someone wanting their cards read.”
“At this time of night? You tell them to come back tomorrow.”
“It’s an emergency reading. She needs to know if her fiancé is cheating on her. It’s only going to take a minute.”
“A minute you could be sleeping, you mean,” the old lady grumbled.
“You go back to bed, Grams. I’ll talk to her out on the front porch so we don’t bother you.” Gwendolyn nodded for me to go out the door and then she came after me and closed it behind her. “Over here,” she said gruffly and led the way to an ancient old swing hung in one corner of the porch.
I followed her, noting that I had obviously gotten her out of bed. She was wearing a long nightshirt with Tweety Bird printed on it and purple and black striped socks. Tweety was saying, “I taught I taw a puddy tat!” Again, not very witchlike—but who was I to say how witches had to dress for bed? Besides, right now I was more concerned with vampires.
“Tell me about the stake,” I said as soon as we sat down on the creaky old swing. “What is it doing to Corbin? What’s wrong with him?”
She frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. “There is such a thing as client/witch confidentiality. And Alec Corbin is strong enough to tear me apart if he finds out I told you something he doesn’t want you to know.”
“He won’t touch you,” I promised. “I, on the other hand…” I poked the stake at her again and she flinched. “You’re going to tell me everything,” I said. “And start at the beginning.”
She sighed. “Fine. It’ll be too late for him to do anything to me soon anyway.”
That sent a cold chill down my spine but I simply nodded at her. “Go on.”
“He came to me about a week ago—the night before you saw me, actually. He said he wanted something to kill a vampire. A really old and powerful one.”
“And what did you tell him?” I asked, thinking that Corbin must have gone directly to see her after our second encounter where he had “healed” me.
She shrugged. “I told him it was impossible, of course. Vamps that old are really hard to kill.”
“Tell me about it,” I muttered. “But he used this stake to kill one—I saw it with my own eyes. How did he do it?”
She looked uncomfortable. “I spelled it for him. The only way to kill a vamp that old is with a major sacrifice. So, well…”
“So what?” I insisted, frowning at her. “What did you do?”
Gwendolyn looked at me angrily. “It’s dark magic, all right? I shouldn’t have done it—Grams would die if she knew. But I needed what he was offering too much to turn him down.”
“Which was?”
She sighed. “A vial of his blood. Do you know how powerful four hundred year old vampire blood is? The spells you can work with it, the revenge you can take—”
“Okay, I’m not interested in hearing how you used Corbin’s blood to get back at the nasty cheerleaders from high school who were mean to you,” I snapped. “Just tell me about the sacrifice part of it—that doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not,” she snapped back. “It’s ugly all the way around. I told him it would be fatal but he said he didn’t care. That it had to be done to protect the one he loved.”
“Fatal?” I almost put a hand to my heart and then remembered I was holding the hateful stake. “What are you talking about, fatal?”
“The sacrifice is a life for a life,” Gwendolyn explained slowly, as though she was speaking to a two year old. “The only way he could kill the other vamp was by giving up his own life to do it.”
“Oh God…” I remembered how Corbin had stabbed Roderick with the stake and then stabbed him
self with it as well. “So he what…he gave the stake Roderick’s blood and then his own?”
Gwendolyn nodded. “That’s how it works. Once the stake has tasted the blood of the victim and the blood of the killer, it takes the victim at once and the killer more slowly.”
“So Corbin’s dying?” I couldn’t believe it—didn’t want to believe it. It couldn’t be true—it just couldn’t.
But the witch was nodding her head. “Yeah, he is. In fact, I’m sort of surprised he’s lasted this long.”
“What?” I wanted to strangle her. “You mean he’s going to die now?”
“Well, probably not tonight.” She looked at the stake which was lying in my lap, still partially wrapped in my jacket. “I’d say from the color of the blood on the runes he has at least one more night.” She looked up at me. “So at least you have time to say goodbye.”
“You listen to me…” I grabbed her by the front of her Tweety Bird night shirt and yanked her close, shoving my face into hers. “I’m not saying goodbye to Corbin. I’m not saying goodbye because you are going to fix this.”
She pulled away from my grip, a pissed off look on her delicate features.
“Keep your voice down! I can’t fix it—it’s dark magic. A binding spell.”
“Well, unbind it,” I demanded. “Look, you said it had to do with sacrifice, right? What would happen if I…” I took a deep breath and looked down at the stake in my lap. “If I shoved it into my chest too?”
“What do you think would happen if you shoved a stake in your heart? You’d die,” she said flatly. “The stake has already done its magic—there’s no reversing it that way.”
“Well how can you reverse it?” I shouted. “Damn it, there must be a way!”
“What in the world is going on out here?” Suddenly a white haired old lady wrapped in a faded blue bathrobe came out the front door. She had creamy brown skin a shade darker than Gwendolyn's and looked to be in her seventies but her eyes were sharp. “Gwendolyn Marie LaRoux,” she said, hobbling toward us. “I asked you a question, what is going on?”
“Nothing, Grams.” Gwendolyn suddenly looked guilty and much younger than her actual age of twenty-five.
“I can see that’s not the truth, Gwendolyn.” The old lady’s sharp eyes suddenly fell on the stake still lying on my lap. “Oh, no,” she breathed, shaking her head. “Who is responsible for this? Gwendolyn, what did you do?”
“I did what I had to do.” Gwendolyn crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin. “He’s a really old vampire and I needed what he offered, Grams. If we’re ever going to get vengeance—”
Her grandmother sighed heavily. “Child, how many times do I have to tell you to let it go? The world turns on and the Goddess takes her due. He’ll get what’s coming to him.”
“Excuse me,” I interrupted. “I don’t know why she did it and I don’t care but it seems your granddaughter has given a man I care for the means to kill himself.” I nodded down at the stake. “Now, she’s claiming there’s no way to reverse the spell but if you’re a witch too—”
“I am.” The old lady nodded in a stately way. “I am the leader of our coven.” She glared at Gwendolyn. “Which happens to be devoted to white magic.”
Gwendolyn shot me a dirty look. “I’m sorry, Grams, but white magic wasn’t going to get this job done.”
Her grandmother shook her head. “You’ve given the darkness a hold in your heart, child—you've put your foot over the threshold of the Shadow Lands. Don’t you remember the rule of seven? You’ll have this come back on you seven times as bad as what you’ve done sometime in the future.”
“She’s going to get it back right now if somebody doesn’t tell me how to save Corbin,” I snarled. “I mean it, lady, I want answers and I want them yesterday.”
“Let me see it.” The old lady held out her hand for the stake and I gave it to her, wincing when I saw it touch her bare flesh. She held it carefully, as though it was a snake she wasn’t quite sure was dead, and examined it.
“A soul eater,” she said at last and gave her granddaughter another piercing look. “You made him a soul eater to use. Gwendolyn, how could you?”
Gwendolyn shrugged, looking guilty. “It was what he wanted.”
“A soul eater—that’s what it’s called? How exactly does it work?” I asked anxiously.
“It killed his enemy and now it’s slowly eating away at his life force—his soul,” the old lady said. “When it finishes sucking away the last little bit, he’ll die.”
Hearing the old lady confirm Corbin’s fate was almost more than I could take. I had been hoping against hope that she was a more powerful and experienced witch than Gwendolyn, that she would tell me everything was going to be all right. But now…
“I don’t want him to die. He can’t die.” I felt hot, helpless tears rising to my eyes and rubbed them away angrily. “He can’t because…because I love him.”
As I said the words I knew them to be true. All the things I had told myself, all the reasons I had given about why Corbin and I couldn’t be together were a load of bullshit. Now that I knew he was dying—really dying—I realized that I loved him. That I wanted to be with him, even if it meant giving up my job and my family.
But now it was probably too late.
“Please,” I said to the old lady. “Please, you have to help me. Help me to help him. Reverse this—do something.”
“I’m afraid there’s nothing to be done, child.” Her voice was gentle and her eyes were sad.
“But there has to be,” I whispered. “He…he did this for me.” I looked at Gwendolyn. “Didn’t you say he told you he needed to do it to keep his loved one safe?”
Reluctantly, she nodded. “Yeah.”
“Well that’s me.” I pointed to myself. “He did it for me—to protect me from that asshole Roderick. He probably thought there was no other way so he…he killed himself. All because of me. And I told him…told him I didn’t love him. That I couldn’t be with him…”
Suddenly I was on the verge of a major breakdown. I kept seeing that fleeting look of sadness on Corbin’s face. How he’d said it was nice that I would miss him when he was gone. He had been giving me so many clues—how could I miss them all? And then, after he had sacrificed his long life for me, I turned him down. Rejected him. Told him I could never love him.
“He probably knew he only had about a week to live.” I was openly sobbing now. “He’s letting himself die for me and I treated him like shit.”
The old lady reached into the pocket of her robe and handed me a folded Kleenex. “There, there, child. So you say he made this sacrifice for love? Not for vengeance or hatred or any other dark purpose?”
I shook my head. “He did it for me. I’m sure of it. God, I’m such an idiot. I thought he was going on a trip or moving but he’s not—he’s dying. It was right in front of my face the whole time and I didn’t see it.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Gwendolyn muttered. “Sometimes the most obvious things are the hardest to see.”
“Don’t talk to me.” I shot her a glare. “I may be an idiot but you’re the one who gave him the way to do this. You helped him kill himself—hell, I hope you do get what’s coming to you seven times over.”
Her creamy cafe au lait skin went pale. “Are you cursing me?”
“If I could, I would,” I snapped. “Unfortunately I’m not a witch. I’m just a plain old stupid human and the vampire I love is about to die because I can’t do anything about it.” I looked at the old lady. “Can I?”
She shook her head. “The only way to break the soul eater’s hold on him would be with another sacrifice—an even greater one than he has already given.”
“But…” I swiped at my eyes. “But he gave his life—his life for me. How can I top that?”
“You can’t,” Gwendolyn said flatly. Her grandmother glared at her and she shrugged. “I’m sorry, Grams, but I don’t see how she can.”
“I’m sorry,” the younger witch muttered. “He acted like it was the only way to save you. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.”
I shook my head and looked up at the old lady. “So…that’s it then? There’s nothing I can do? No way to heal him or save him?”
“I’m afraid not, child. A sacrifice this great—the sacrifice of a life—cannot be exceeded.”
“Fine. Thanks for nothing.” I got off the creaking porch swing and stumbled down the wooden steps, still half-blinded by tears.
Corbin was going to die—probably as soon as tomorrow night—and there was nothing I could do about it.
Chapter Twenty-two
I hadn’t been in my car for more than a minute when the radio squawked at me.
“Officer Godwin, we have a one-eight-seven-vee in your sector—do you copy?”
I thought about not answering but a 187 is homicide and the V tacked on at the end means vampire. Great, what I really needed right now was to see the gory remains of a vampire murder. I picked up the radio.
“Get another Auditor, dispatch. I’m not going to be able to make it.”
“Negative.” The girl on the other end sounded pissed. “There was a two-seventeen-vee at one of the glam-clubs in Town and Country a few minutes ago. No other Auditors are available. The PD is already on the scene—they’re waiting for you before they can proceed.”
Son of a bitch! I swiped angrily at my eyes and struggled to control myself. I wanted to tell the dispatcher and the whole rest of the world to fuck off and go back to Corbin that minute. But he hadn’t been too happy to see me before—not that I blamed him. Maybe he just wanted to die in peace and forget about me.
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