“Four days ago.” His lids drooped.
I hesitated, because I was now going to risk moving into personal territory. There was quite a bit I didn’t know about vampires—quite a bit I didn’t want to know. But a bite can be business-like or all about the bedroom and it can range from a sip to a full-course meal.
As though he sensed my dilemma, Icarus smiled. “We shared a mutual feeding. It was always a small exchange. I no longer require heavy blood feedings. Being with my servant provides me much of what I need…or it did.”
The words I’m sorry sprang to my lips again, but I bit them back.
They made no difference. None at all.
“Since it’s been a few days and she’s had to use up her reserves to heal herself several times over, she’s probably running on empty,” I said.
Icarus frowned.
“She means that her power levels are depleted, or close to it.” Abraham moved to join us.
“Ah.” The confusion on the older vampire’s face cleared. “Yes, I imagine she is quite…empty.”
We all looked outside. The time was moving closer and closer to the point when she’d be cut open again. She hadn’t regained much color, not that I knew how she’d looked before this started, but that chalky white wasn’t normal.
“She’s as close to her original human state as she’s ever going to be.” Crossing my arms over my chest, I looked back at Icarus and made the offer. “I’ve got a friend who’s a witch. He’s good. Very good. He has ways of getting people to talk that don’t involve torture. If she was at full-strength, it might not work, but she’s not.”
“We’ve already tried to read her mind.”
“It’s not the same thing—not the same sort of…magic.” I shook my head, unable to explain. Justin probably could, but he’d gone to school, had taken all sorts of magical theory classes. I just knew what I knew—and what my gut said.
“Call him,” Icarus said. His features had become remote. “Call your friend and tell him that Allerton House wishes a favor.”
“Repeat that.”
I sat in my car and did just that.
Away from the scraping uneasiness that was the presence of vampires, I closed my eyes and tried to coax the muscles in my body to unknot. It was just now really hitting me what I’d done.
I had bearded the vampire in his den. Or in his bedroom, at least. I’d done it. All without a panic attack and all while other vampires hovered far too close. In other rooms, but they’d been there.
I’d done it.
I wanted to puke.
Now I had to do it again.
I knew I could now. But I sure as hell didn’t want to.
“You heard me. Allerton House found a mole. They want you to charm the info out of her—and I don’t mean with your pretty face.”
“Got that part,” he muttered.
Over the phone, I heard the harsh sound of his sigh. “Fine. I’ll head over once I meet up with Megan. We were supposed to…well, never mind. I’ll get the info I need from her and then head over.”
“Where are you meeting?”
“Howler’s. I told her what went down with Saul and she’s going in for damage control.” He paused and then added, “She seemed kind of pissed about the pseudo-bartender that the MacDonald had hired.”
I shrugged and then rolled my eyes. He can’t see me shrugging on the phone, now can he? “If she wants to go in and figure out where the mess started, let her. It’s not like we can be quiet anymore. Not after what went down with Saul. It didn’t stay quiet long anyway.”
“Nope.” He was quiet a minute. “Okay, I’ve got the supplies I need. Most of them anyway. I’ll need a heat source—the quickest way to make her talk is one of the truth spells and I’ve got all the stuff I need for that, save a natural heat source. I’m sure they’ve got something that will suffice in that old mausoleum of a house. Expect me within three hours.”
I hung up.
Then just sat there.
The odd itch on my spine had me very, very uneasy.
“I don’t understand,” Abraham said, following me down the hall. “We need this information—you said it yourself. Yet you now you wish us to allow her to remain as she is—that will let her regain her strength. That could allow her to fight the charm or spell…whatever Greaves will use. What is the sense in this?”
“The sense is that something feels wrong,” I said. And it wasn’t just the fact that I now had the attention of maybe half a dozen vampires focused on me. Including two very old ones.
Icarus and a quiet, slim woman who looked like the living breathing personification of a fairy tale. With lips as red as blood and skin as white as snow…that’s how the story goes, I think.
Their power was so massive, I thought it might crush me into the floor, but I mentally squared my shoulders against it and soldiered on.
“Explain.” Abraham folded his arms over his chest.
“I can’t.” I shoved a hand through my hair. This was why I didn’t like working with people who didn’t get me. Abraham might understand certain things about me, as I now understood certain things about him, but he didn’t get me. The things that make me what I am.
“Abraham.”
He looked at Icarus.
“Let it be.” Icarus inclined his head and met my gaze. “Please. Take Abraham with you.”
He slid a look at the woman standing next to him and she nodded. Her voice was a slithering whisper across cool, soft skin when she spoke, “We’ll see to it that Estella receives no further punishment until you return with the witch. We, too, want answers.”
“Thank you.” I turned to the door. Riding in the car. With a vampire. Again. I paused just before I slid outside. “Ah…if you would, make sure you keep only the most trusted with her. Somebody is hunting the people who have information. We don’t know who is involved or how far it goes.”
Complete and utter terror screamed down my spine at the looks exchanged between Icarus and the woman at his side. She inclined her head and lifted a hand. It seemed to me she was gesturing at nobody but a man separated himself from the others and moved closer. He immediately went to one knee, capturing her slim, pale fingers in his. The kiss he pressed to them was tender. “My queen.”
The devotion in his words was creepy. When he rose and placed himself at her side, I caught a glimpse of his eyes. Another servant, yes. But he no longer had anything remotely human in him. He’d been feeding from her so long, they might as well be one.
“This is Gunther,” she said, her eyes still on my face. “He has been with me since I was still mortal, my most trusted companion. He will watch over Estella.”
He bowed his head—to me. “No harm shall come to her until my lady wishes it.”
I don’t know if that was supposed to reassure me or not.
I headed out and when Abraham fell into place at my back, I let him stay there. If you had to have a devil at your back, better the devil you know.
I called Justin from the road.
He didn’t answer, so I left a message and then called Chang.
“To what do I owe this pleasure, Kit?”
“Uh…” I frowned. His infinite politeness sometimes made me feel like an ass when I just plunged feet-first in with my demands. “Hi. How are you doing?”
He chuckled. “Well, I’m in the midst of some bloody business—”
There was a harsh whine that abruptly ended and I had the feeling he meant bloody business literally. “Is this a bad time?”
“Of course not.” Chang sounded almost appalled that I’d asked. “This business can wait. Now tell me what you need.”
From the seat next to me, Abraham sat in a seemingly relaxed pose, his hands lying open on his thighs, his gaze hidden behind an overlarge pair of sunglasses. He wore a long, hooded coat that covered him almost completely but that was the only concession he made to the late afternoon sun. “I’m heading out to meet Justin. I’ve…” I momentarily gritted my teeth a
nd then just said it all in a rush. “I meant to mention it last night, but things got sort of crazy with Shanelle. I assume you know what all happened.”
“Yes.” His tone was neutral. “Why don’t you just tell me who is in the car with you?”
“How do you know anybody is?”
“I heard something move.”
I shot a look over and realized that Abraham had moved—one hand. He’d moved one hand to smooth a crease in his trousers.
“As I cannot hear this person’s breathing or this person’s heartbeat, I’m going to assume you have a vampire with you.”
“Hello, Chang,” Abraham said, a grim smile on his lips. “I was saddened to see that you decided against selling me the katana.”
A low chuckle drifted over the phone.
The muscles in my spine relaxed somewhat. “I hope that means you’re not going to alert Damon and try to send out the cavalry. Allerton House has asked for my assistance in resolving the mystery behind Icarus’ abduction. It’s all tied together. Abraham has been assisting Justin and me in the other matters so it makes it neater to just work together.”
“I have no say in how you do your job, Kit.” He made a low noise in the back of his throat. “I believe I’ll talk with Damon. Considering the events of the previous evening, it’s understandable why this…slipped your mind. But none of that is why you called, either.”
“Stop reading minds, Chang. It’s not attractive.” I stuck my tongue out at the media panel. “Listen, the cats who’ve gone missing…Shanelle was at a bar—Fang’s. Did any of the others go missing near a club or a bar? I’m looking at low-rent places. Dives.”
“Actually…”
There was another one of the pitiful, gagging whines—and it was wet. I heard a strange sucking sound and my mind conjured up a hundred images to go with that noise.
“Tell me, Barry.”
Barry? I blinked at the sound of this—a shapeshifter named Barry. For some reason, it didn’t inspire the fear.
I scowled, listening to Chang’s voice and trying to make sense of what was happening on the other end of the line.
“Just what happened at The Viper’s Pit?”
I sucked in a breath. Next to me, Abraham tensed. That name was notorious. The Viper’s Pit was one of the biggest hellholes around. It attracted anybody looking for a bit of pain and it didn’t matter if you flashed fang or grew fur. They even had witches darken their door, as long as the witches were into that sort of thing.
People didn’t go to the Pit because they were looking for a cheap beer and some quiet to watch a game.
“I…” There was a wet, thick cough and when the man spoke again, his voice was clearer. “I didn’t know he was the Alpha’s, Chang. I swear. I thought he was just some loner passing through.”
The sharp yelp made me flinch. “Oh, Barry.” Chang’s sigh sounded sincerely sad and full of regret. “You’re not answering me. We’ll have to do this—”
“Don’t! Please, please don’t!” The panicked scream had me tightening my hands on the steering wheel. “I can’t talk. They’ll kill me. You don’t know what they are capable of.”
I checked the mirror and cut over, listening to horns blast as I slid through the traffic. I grimaced at Barry’s words. Clearly the idiot didn’t know what Chang was capable of. The man was death in silk suits.
A symphony of screams and whimpers followed. From the corner of my eye, I saw Abraham listening with a great deal of interest.
When the noises faded away to whimpers, Chang said, “We’ll try this again and hopefully you’ll keep in mind who the real threat here is. Let me give you a hint, Barry. It’s not some nebulous they.”
For a moment, the only sounds audible over the line were pained, broken mewls.
But then Barry spoke. “I only got one name.”
He said it and my blood went cold.
For a few awful seconds, my blood went to ice and my hands were so slippery, I couldn’t grip the wheel worth shit.
“Chang.”
I heard his voice, but I couldn’t make sense of the words. Nor did I care. “Call Damon, then call the MacDonald. I need men at a bar called Howler’s. I need them now.”
I disconnected the call and tried not to panic.
“Kit, what is—”
“Shut up,” I said through clenched teeth. Blood roared in my ears and I could feel my heart in my throat as I put in another call to Justin.
When he didn’t answer, I put in a final call.
She didn’t answer, either.
But when it rolled over for a message, I left one.
“Megan, if something happens to him, there’s no place on earth you can hide from me.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Megan isn’t an uncommon name. Are you so certain it’s her?” Abraham asked as my car went screaming around the final corner.
I hit the brakes with enough force that the seat belt cut into me but I ignored it.
“I’m so certain.”
“How?”
I climbed out of the car and he did the same, staring at me hard over the roof. “Icarus has bade me to come with you—what you didn’t hear was the command to watch over and assist, which I shall do, but I’d like to know if I’m going to cause ill will between the pack and my House.”
“You won’t. You know how your kind can smell blood?” I looked away from him, staring around me. Compared to the scene from just a day ago, the street Howler’s sat on was almost deserted. I almost expected to see a tumbleweed come rolling down the street toward me. “My kind can smell trouble…and danger. Just trust me.”
Somebody darted across the street in front of me with a quick, furtive look over her shoulder. A glorious black eye spread down across her cheek.
Fear all but leaked out of her pores.
It added to the overall atmospheres.
We started toward the bar, but Abraham went still after less than three spaces. “I don’t believe it,” he murmured.
“What?”
He didn’t answer directly. Instead, he tipped his head back, taking in the air. I heard the audible inhalation and I fought the instinct to just walk away from him, giving him a few seconds to figure out what he’d tasted in the air. “She was here,” he murmured, shaking his head. “Megan Banks was here. She no longer is. Neither is…”
He paused and then looked at me. “Neither is Justin.”
I strode across the pocked and pitted excuse of a sidewalk. Fury bubbled inside me and my skin itched. Magic hovered in the air and none of it was pleasant.
Violence clung to the area like a bad stink and I knew when I went inside I was going to find evidence of bad, ugly things.
Megan was dead.
She didn’t know it yet, but she was dead.
I was going to kill her. I don’t know how—it would probably take more silver than I had on me—possibly the rocket launcher I’d been thinking about getting to burn down Jude’s ass while he still rotted in the ground. Overkill, maybe? That wasn’t a problem for me.
“What—?”
I sucked in a breath and the effects of remnant magic hit me like a sucker punch. Too much magic and it hadn’t been finished. That was bad. Very bad.
Justin didn’t leave his magic running wild like that.
There were different kinds of magic—there were charms and spells, which by their nature had to be finished to even work, but there were other forms of magic, too. Like the elemental magics, fire and wind and water and earth. Leave earth magic unfinished and an entire continent could collapse upon itself as an earthquake tore the world apart. Unfinished fire magics had been known to cause devastating fires—some of the worst wildfires had actually been caused by witches with pyro skills. They just hadn’t realized it.
There’s also just the manipulation of energy—something the strong witches excel at. That’s all about intent, will and skill, a witch bending energy to his will and controlling it.
Controlling—t
hen releasing it.
There was remnant magic in here, the kind that would have been gathered for something. But it hadn’t been used and it was just…waiting.
Waiting, while already colored with Justin’s powerful intent, will and skill—but no target. It swarmed around me, recognizing another magical creature, but I couldn’t control it.
Red washed over my vision and I stumbled. Cool hands gripped my elbows. I couldn’t stop the instinctive flinch and I batted at Abraham’s hands. “I’m fine,” I said. The edged note in my voice belied my words, but I wasn’t about to fall down.
It was just the magic trying to latch onto me and be used. As it realized it had no outlet in me, the intensity of it faded away.
I breathed through my nose and fought to steady myself. My blood was hot, pounding too quick through my veins as everything in me reacted to the fury of an angry witch and the fear of a desperate shifter, but fear was an old friend of mine and anger…well, we were practically soul mates. Wrestling the demons under control, I took one more breath and waited for the rest of my head to settle. Magic was a potent drug—one I was glad I didn’t use.
Slowly, I lifted a hand and the air currents, charged with the unused magic, twisted and twined through the air. “You need to call Banner—have them send a witch. Tell them they need to do a discharge. They’ll know what it means.”
Abraham was quiet for a moment and then he moved away.
That left me alone to focus.
They hadn’t been gone long and Justin had all but rattled the foundations with whatever magic he’d been doing here.
I could do this.
My hand itched.
I am aneira.
My heart is strong.
My aim is true.
My blood is noble…
I let myself fall into the mantra that had been beaten into me.
My enemies cannot hide themselves from me. My prey cannot escape me.
I don’t know how I stood there, mind empty of everything but those words. Slowly, I sank into an unnatural state of calm. I don’t even remember closing my eyes, but suddenly, I was brutally aware of everything. My heartbeat. The scent of the blood—two different blood scents. The stink of booze mixed with sweat and desperation and anger and desolation. The air currents stirring along my skin.
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