Bloodspell

by Amalie Howard

  Angie, I know he forced you. I know you are my friend, and that you are good. Please help me. Don't be ruled by Gabriel. Please don't have Holly's death and my death on your conscience. Help me. You're not like them. I know you're not. Victoria was going all out, she had nothing to lose.

  Angie raised tear-filled eyes to Victoria, and her mouth moved soundlessly. Victoria struggled to understand the words and as she saw Gabriel turn and start walking back, she grew desperate.

  Please, Angie. Find Christian. His number is in my phone. Get the SIM card. Please, you have to try.

  Gabriel wasn't stupid, he had picked up on something, a sensation maybe, but he was far too arrogant to even consider that his magic-less sister could hear thoughts from another witch. Still, he kicked Angie roughly, his blow sending her flying.

  "Stop your sniveling, I can hear you from here. Get out of my sight!"

  Victoria suddenly realized what irked Gabriel. He despised Angie because he feared that Angie's gift made her more powerful than he was, and he hated that. He hated needing her, and knowing that everything he had accomplished had been because of her, because of her gift. Victoria saw his intent clearly. As soon as he was sure of the blood curse, he was going to kill Angie. He wouldn't need her anymore once he had Victoria's power. Gabriel gritted his teeth and half raised his hand like he was going to do it right then and there, and Victoria's stomach dropped.

  "Gabriel, why couldn't I tell what you were?" she said, trying to distract from Angie. He turned slowly, an arrogant smile spreading across his face.

  "I know you tried. I felt it the last time. But it's like painting a picture that you want someone to see. Easy enough to convince anyone, if you know how to do it."

  "And Angie? How did you do it with her?"

  "She's weak. It was easy to remove any thoughts about us other than the usual mundane things," he said, as Charla walked over and draped herself around him.

  "I'm hungry, Gabriel," she whined. "You promised to take me out for sushi." She stared at Victoria. "Not so scary after all are you Tori, all trussed up like a pig." Victoria's urge to inflict pain hadn't gone away.

  "What do you get out of this Charla? He doesn't want you, you know. You're not like him, like us." She spat the word like a dart, and it found its target easily. "You're human, nothing but a means to an end, so enjoy it while you can because it's not going to last." Charla's face had turned a hideous splotchy red color, and her eyes blazed with hatred.

  "It's going to last because you're going to die. Painfully!" She raised a hand to hit Victoria, and Gabriel caught her arm in mid-flight.

  "Stop," he said. Charla's face grew even redder, but she tossed her head, giving him a look of disgust and stalked off.

  "You're right, you know," he said almost lovingly to Victoria. Her skin crawled. "It is about us, and you'll come to your senses soon enough. Think long and hard about whether you want Holly's death on your conscience because her life is in your hands, Tori." Gabriel hauled her by the arm to one of the small rooms at the end of the big hall and shoved her into it. With an enigmatic expression, he stroked her face and the bile rose in her throat. "Would it be so bad? You and me? We were a couple, weren't we? We could be so good together."

  "I trusted you, Gabriel," she said. "How could you do that to Leto? To Holly? She's a person, not some pawn in whatever game you're playing. You can't just hurt people to get what you want."

  "Why not? My power gives me the right to take whatever I want. If you appreciated yours more, you'd agree with me. We're the same, you and I."

  "I'm nothing like you," Victoria hissed. "I would never hurt my friends."

  A cold, calculating smile. "Wouldn't you? What about your friend, the one you told me about? Brian? Brett?" The smile widened into something that no longer resembled a smile. "Or your parents ..."

  Victoria's eyes flashed fire. "Don't you dare—"

  "Don't I dare what? You know exactly what happened in that car and why you survived and they died. They died because of you and you know it. You did what you had to do, just as I did."

  "It was an accident!"

  "Was it, Tori?" he taunted. "Didn't you want to punish your parents for putting your grandmother in that place? Didn't you? You killed them when you made the car run off the road."

  "No, that's not what happened!" she said, backing away her hands outstretched as if warding off something horrifying.

  "Yes. It. Is." He snapped the words through his teeth. "Face it. We are the same, Tori. You know why?" He leaned in. "I set the fire." Victoria's eyes widened. "I set the fire because they were going to send me away, and they weren't exactly talking Hogwarts." His mouth twisted into an inhuman grin, a rictus grin. "So I killed them."

  A stifled gasp drew her attention as Angie clapped a hand to her mouth, her face frozen in horror.

  "You're a monster," Victoria whispered.

  "Am I? All's fair in love and war, Tori." His voice turned hard. "Make your decision."

  "I'd rather die than be with you."

  "That can be arranged. Don't push me, Tori. You won't like the result. Your cat was just a taste of what I am capable of. What did your friend Tony say in the bar? We can do this the easy way or the hard way. You decide." He paused, his voice almost gentle. "Think it through and you'll see ... you don't have a choice."

  The echoing of the door closing was ominous in the silence, like the toll of a death bell.

  CHRISTIAN STARED DULLY at the ringing phone. The caller ID said "private number." He stared at the flashing screen for several seconds before flipping it open.

  "Hello?" a voice said, "may I speak to Christian Devereux please?"

  His voice was dry and curt. "Who is this?"

  "My name is Angie, I'm a friend of Tori's," she said. At the sound of Victoria's name, Christian clenched the phone so tightly that he almost crushed it.

  "Do you know where she is?" he rasped.

  "I can't talk long but she's in danger. She asked me to call you. Meet me at sixty-eighth and Madison tonight in New York at midnight and I'll explain. I know you have no reason to trust me but I'm begging you to. I got your number from her phone. She needs you. I'm sorry. I have to go. He'll kill me if he finds out. Please come."

  The call disconnected.

  Christian stared at his cell phone with unseeing eyes. He'd come back from France a day after Victoria, and ever since then, he'd been haunted by the feeling that something was wrong. He'd gone to Victoria's apartment, and when he'd seen Leto, his heart had dropped to his feet. Christian had gently brushed his mind, finding nothing but pain-filled, glazed green eyes for his efforts.

  It was at that soul-destroying instant that Christian's world crumbled, because he knew that Leto's unresponsive deadness, could only mean one thing—something or someone very powerful had hurt him on the inside.

  Until Christian had received the phone call from Angie, he'd even considered enlisting Lucian's help! In his momentary panic at not even being able to communicate with Victoria mentally and after seeing Leto's crippled state, he had been teetering on the brink of revealing to Lucian that Victoria was the witch from the prophecy just so that Lucian would want to find her.

  Christian had never been more terrified in his life that something unimaginable had happened, and he didn't care that Angie's mysterious call could possibly be a threat. It was the only lead he had after days of waiting. He would follow it even if it cost him his undead life.

  Christian arrived in the city in not much time at all, and waited a block away from where Angie had told him to meet her. He recognized her as she walked to the corner looking for him, glancing at her watch and looking around as if she were afraid of something ... or someone. Christian observed her carefully for several minutes to see if she was alone.

  Angie paced and glanced at her watch again; it was ten minutes past midnight. As she turned around to leave, she found herself face to face with a leather-clad, white-faced Christian Devereux. Angie stepped back, her
eyes wide and her hands automatically at her throat, but Christian ignored the instinctive response and waited for her to make the first move.

  "It's not safe here," she said, starting to walk down Madison Avenue.

  "Where is she?"

  "Gabriel," she said. Christian stiffened immediately. "He's holding her captive." Christian felt the rage in him boil just from hearing the name.

  "Can't she get out? Use her magic?" he asked, earning a swift look from Angie.

  "No," she said.

  She stopped walking and pulled Christian into the shadow of a building. "Did Tori ever tell you anything about me?"

  "No. Why?"

  "I was the one who told Gabriel about her, about what she was," she said. "I'm not a witch like Tori or a warlock like Gabriel, but I can see what people are."

  Christian grasped her arm roughly as he whirled her to face him. Angie winced as if the movement were painful. His face was harsh in the darkened shadows.

  "Hang on a second. First of all, Gabriel is a warlock?" Angie nodded reluctantly. "And you can see what people are? What does that mean? Can you see what I am?"

  "Yes," she said. Christian wanted to hear her to say it.

  "What am I?"

  "Undead."

  In an uncanny silence, they stared at each other under the black sky. Christian's expression was unfathomable. His mind raced at the power this girl would hold in the supernatural world. In the wrong hands, her gifts could be catastrophic. Angie remained nervous, as if she expected Gabriel to come racing around the corner at any moment. She kept shifting, her movements restless and agitated.

  "Does Gabriel know about me? What I am?"

  "No!" she said. "You only came into the picture when he saw the two of you together. He was in such a terrible rage. It lasted for days and days. You d ... don't understand how he feels about her. He thinks she belongs to him. You took something from him that he thought was his. He asked me what you looked like and whether you were a threat to him."

  "And what did you say?"

  "I lied." For a minute her dark, mousy face looked almost proud that she had bested her warlock brother by successfully concealing her mind from him.

  "Why?"

  "It was my fault that she got into all of this. He saw her do an invisibility spell in the library, and he forced me to tell him what she was. He was attracted to her before that, but the fact that she was a witch made him ecstatic. Gabriel thought they were meant to be." She took a deep breath. "And then you came into the picture. He was so angry after that night at the bar that he went up to her aunt's place looking for her when she didn't show up to class." She trailed off, staring into her palms. Christian realized that she was crying. "That's how he got her to come to New York. He kidnapped her aunt."

  "He kidnapped Holly? What does he want, Angie?" Christian knew the answer even before Angie gave it but he had to know.

  "How much do you know about Tori? About her power?"

  "I know enough." Angie raised tear-filled eyes to his.

  "Gabriel knows who she is. He wants her. He wants her power for himself." Angie was sobbing now, the words running into each other. "I told him. I'm so sorry. I didn't have a choice. He was going to kill Leto and I knew he would. You don't know what he's capable of. He killed our parents. I think I knew it all along but when he said it to Tori, I knew I couldn't protect him or lie anymore."

  "Did Tori know that you knew about me?" he asked.

  "Yes, I told her. We were friends, sort of," Angie said softly. "She asked me to get you. She said 'find Christian,' and so I did." Angie was unprepared for the brilliance that illuminated Christian's eyes.

  "Where are they?" he said, his voice choked.

  "She's being held in a cell underground. I can take you to her," she said. "Don't worry, he won't hurt her. He wants what she has too badly. It blinds him to everything else." Angie noticed his indecision. "I'm not lying, please, you have to trust me."

  Christian knew that he had no choice but to trust her. If she deceived him, there would be hell and more to pay. He brushed her mind quickly with his feather-light vampire senses, and apart from her anxiety at being discovered, he could detect no deception. He did see something else though. Without speaking, his eyes softened, and he pulled her toward him gently. She winced. Christian caught the scent before he saw the crimson streaks seeping through her light-colored sweater, and he stared at her, his question obvious.

  "Gabriel," she said hollowly. "I tried to protect the cat." His jaw clenched into a hard line. It was all he could do not to break something right then and there. "It's okay. It's not the first time. I've endured worse from him over the years. Everything heals ... eventually." Her eyes were downcast. "And it's no more than I deserve."

  "Angie, no one deserves to be treated as you've been. You give yourself too little credit for the courage you've shown tonight. I am indebted to you."

  Color rose in her face at the unexpected praise. "It's this way," she murmured, flustered by his startling kindness.

  Christian followed Angie down Madison Avenue keeping to the shadows. It was clear that she was terrified of Gabriel, given his anger and what he had done to her, repeatedly it seemed. His fury surging to dangerous levels, Christian kept himself under tight control. If Victoria had been hurt, he wouldn't be accountable for his actions.

  They reached 47th Street and Christian saw the entrance to Grand Central, but it was dark and the doors appeared to be locked. He looked at Angie, eyebrows raised.

  "Not here. The entrance is around the block," she said, walking past the doors. They walked across 47th Street toward the East Side and then Angie made a sharp right turn onto Lexington Avenue. Slatted between two buildings was a small, dark alleyway with greasy black steps disappearing down into the darkness. Angie glanced around and then climbed down the steps. Christian followed.

  The air was rank with the smell of decay combined with the hot stench of the sewers and the subway trenches. Angie pulled out a small flashlight that cast a thin light down the gloomy tunnel, and Christian's vampire eyesight adjusted naturally to the darkness. About halfway down the tunnel, Angie, who'd been counting quietly under her breath, stopped and pushed against a nearly invisible metal door. It swung open, creaking loudly in the silence and she jumped nervously, looking over her shoulder at Christian's wary, white face.

  "It's just down here," she said, her voice harsh in the quiet. "This is another entrance, not the one that Gabriel knows. I found it looking at the rats one day."

  Christian stared down the hallway and noticed the glow of lights toward the end. He walked on silent feet toward it. "What is this place?"

  "I think it used to be some kind of secret meeting room in the nineteen thirties. The floor in the main room is marble, and there are paintings on the ceilings," she whispered back.

  Christian wasn't surprised. New York City was full of secret meeting rooms and buildings located in unlikely places, and he himself had been in several of them over the decades. This one, however, was new to him. He stepped past Angie and walked stealthily down the corridor, noticing that at the first light-bulb there was a large wooden door. Angie remained in the darkness, her part finished for now, and he could hear her moving slowly back the way they had come.

  He pushed open the unlocked door. The room was dark and empty but was just as Angie had described with its murals and marble floors. He sensed no movement and peered into the gloom. He crept silently into the room, keeping his back to the edge of the wall and letting his vampire instincts take over to get the scent of her blood. He was rewarded with the barest hint of it toward the back of the room. Relief flooded him like a river, and Christian rapped gently on the door to the room where the scent was most potent.

  "Tori," he said, louder than he'd intended. He heard sounds on the other side of the door but still couldn't detect her presence other than the faint smell.

  "Christian?" she said in disbelief, as if expecting a trick of some sort. The wards were
so powerful that he could barely hear her even with his heightened senses.

  "It's me. Angie found me like you asked her to," he said. Christian couldn't hear anything on the other side and he wasn't sure if she had responded or not. "I'm going to try to open the door."

  The minute Christian put his hand on the handle, the shock sent him flying ten feet across the room, his hand burned black from the lightning bolt hex on the door. He watched as it repaired itself almost immediately and bounded back unhurt to the door. "There's some kind of spell on it," he said, forgetting to whisper.

  "Well, of course there's a spell on it, Devereux" said a mocking voice. "Isn't that sweet, coming to rescue your love?"

  Christian whirled around, furious with himself that he had been caught off guard. He straightened his spine and shook it off. He had no qualms about fighting this warlock. He had fought worse battles over the years and some whip of a boy wasn't going to get the better of him, no matter how powerful he thought he was.

  "Gabriel," he said.

  Gabriel walked toward the middle of the room watching Christian as if he were trying to work out how he'd gotten in there. Christian stayed still but ready, a tactic honed by countless decades and numerous duels.

  "Don't you know by now that she's out of your league, Devereux?" Gabriel said, his tone deliberately insolent. Christian didn't answer. "Cat got your tongue?"

  Christian remained unfazed, watching him carefully. Realizing that his strategy wasn't working, Gabriel tried something else. "Tori, your boyfriend's here," he shouted.

  With a wave of his hand, the solid door became transparent, and Christian could see Victoria's worried face as she stood in the doorway, her hands up against the now invisible door. Their eyes connected for a split second just as Gabriel started laughing horribly, drawing their stares. He wiped mock tears from his eyes.

  "You're no Romeo, Devereux," he said. "And she's definitely not your Juliet. Not by the time I've finished with her anyway." Despite his control, a muscle began to tick in Christian's jaw. "Enjoy the show, Tori. I'm certainly going to," Gabriel said to Victoria, just as he did the hot knife trick in her belly. She leaned against the door gasping. Her eyes were glued to Christian's, and Gabriel's rage erupted at their shared look. He twisted his hand again viciously and she fell, clutching her stomach but still not making a sound, defiant to the end. Christian restrained his fury.