The Blood Thief (The Fitheach Trilogy Book 2)

by Luanne Bennett

  “Daemon’s fate is not your concern.”

  I recognized the man coming out of the kitchen. He was one of the men who tried to attack me the day Daemon brought me here.

  “He said this place was for my own good.” I looked around the room, stopping to glare at the man by the kitchen, feeling a false sense of security now that the big kahuna had arrived. If Daemon had committed a major faux pas by touching me, surely no one else would be stupid enough to try anything now.

  That safety net began to wither as it occurred to me that maybe the offense was in daring to touch what Maelcolm wanted for himself. Maybe I was meant for him.

  Maelcolm was watching me intently when I looked back at him. “Was he right?” I asked, referring to Daemon’s warped reasons for bringing me here, taking his own liberties instead of letting the whole dungeon have a turn.

  “Yes,” he murmured as he came toward me. He extended his hand over my face just like Daemon had done, and with that same smooth flick of his fingers, his hand swept over my eyes and the world faded away.

  The room was different, but I knew I was back in that same place where this started. I was in a bed, fully clothed with my hair still damp and molded into a messy knot against the pillow.

  “Fuck,” I muttered. My eyes burned, and my head throbbed from the intense contractions taking place under my skull.

  I heard sounds echoing from the vent at the base of the wall, and I jumped off the bed to crouch and listen for the voice of Dr. Oxford. Maybe they’d taken him back to the same room and I was just on the other side of it. Maybe he still had his eyes. But the sounds I heard were not made by Dr. Oxford: silverware tapping the edges of plates, the muffled voices of a crowd, the hum of machinery. But it was the smell of bread and sugar and coffee that told me I wasn’t listening to the sounds from Oxford’s room.

  A light tap came from the door. “Come in,” I said hesitantly as if I might actually have a choice. Go away. I wondered what would happen if I simply ignored the tap.

  The door opened and Maelcolm walked into the room. He was wearing the same brightly colored kilt, but his beard had been trimmed close to his face and he’d changed into a fresh shirt.

  The room seemed to shrink with him in it. Each step sent a vibration through the old pine planks like a large animal was being paraded across the floor. There would be no element of surprise with this one. This man couldn’t hide from anyone.

  His eyes turned, and I nearly gasped at the brightness of the blue staring back at me.

  As hard and dangerous as I knew he was, there was something noble or even kind in the way he prepared me for the impending interrogation. With a single look he said, this is going to hurt, but it is necessary.

  Still, I took an involuntary step backward as he moved closer. Picking up on my caution, he detoured toward the chair.

  He glanced at the edge of the bed. “Sit.”

  “I’ve done enough of that,” I replied. “I’d prefer to stand.”

  He nodded and remained standing, too. “You must be wondering,” he began.

  “Wondering what?”

  “What will happen next.”

  I gave no response, choosing instead to let him do all the talking. Maybe the awkward silence would ignite a little small talk. People say too much with small talk. They can’t stand the excruciating silence and fill it with things that should never leave their mouths. Maybe some awkward babbling would get me answers. But I doubted a man like Maelcolm would ever waste his time with unnecessary words.

  “May I see it?” he eventually asked.

  I played dumb, hoping for some stroke of genius in those few precious seconds that would prevent him from taking the amulet from me.

  “I’m not accustomed to asking for things, Alex. I’m even less accustomed to non-compliance.”

  The look on his face told me my time was up and that stroke of genius wasn’t coming. I reached for the chain and pulled the amulet out from under my shirt. I figured he could see it just fine from where he was standing, and I had no intention of removing it from around my neck and just handing it over.

  He stepped closer and reached for it. “I won’t take it from you,” he assured me as my hand went up to stop him.

  He was so close to me now that I could feel that telltale heat, reminding me that he and Greer were cut from the same mold, in spite of the million ways they were so very different.

  “You have my word.” He leaned in for a better look at the plain silver necklace in the unassuming shape of a dog tag. “Quite an ordinary looking thing, isn’t it?” he remarked. “Who would think that the young woman standing in front of me, with this unimpressive piece of jewelry hanging from her neck, is the key to everything.”

  “Yeah, who would have thought?” I agreed. “I guess the gods had a good time with that one, didn’t they?”

  “I am sorry about all this, Alex.”

  I wasn’t sure if he meant my immediate predicament, or if he was referring to my role as the reluctant messiah.

  “Here you are,” he went on. “Home at last. And now you’re forced to suffer fools who can’t seem to think their way out of a paper bag. Had I known what was happening, I would have come sooner.” He leaned forward as if to tell me something in confidence, in that way that intimate friends do. “I want you to know that Daemon has been dealt with.”

  Okay. Well, at least you’re discriminating about how and when you ruin lives.

  I know I should have felt more than I did, more violated or enraged by what Daemon did to me. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? The expectation of grief seems just as profane as the tragedy that causes it. Maybe I’d feel something if we were back in the park again, and my attacker didn’t have a face or a name. But I was never good at being a victim, and I felt nothing, surprisingly blank and numb. I’d already put Daemon in a dark closet in the back of my mind, and I simply couldn’t afford the luxury of feeling the wound. I couldn’t afford to be a victim while my life hung in the hands of the Highlander standing in front of me.

  “You’re working with Isabetta Falcone?” I asked, wondering if Maelcolm was the source she’d referred to when she dumped Dr. Oxford’s secrets on the table in that Italian restaurant.

  He scoffed at the suggestion. “She was useful.”

  “Alasdair Templeton? Has he been useful, too?”

  At the mention of the name, his body stiffened. His cheeks drew in as his jaw tightened, and I could feel the storm brewing behind his icy blue eyes. Apparently, there was no love lost between the two of them, and I’d found a potentially useful trigger.

  “That old…fuck.” His nostrils flared as a deep breath brought him back down to a simmer. “I wouldn’t let that relic clean my toilet.”

  That ruled out an alliance between the two of them, which was a good thing, because I’d be on my way to Ireland if they were washing each other’s backs.

  He took a stroll around the small space. There was a thought perched on the tip of his tongue as he looked around the room, glancing at the walls and the floor and the rumpled bed linens, a distraction to keep him from speaking prematurely or saying something less than perfect. Everything about him seemed calculated.

  Premeditated. That was the word that popped into my head.

  “Do you have a last name?” I asked.

  He stopped his meditative survey of the room. “Does it matter?”

  In the broader perspective of things, it probably didn’t. But I was imprisoned in this place at his will, and it seemed like a reasonable request to know the full name of the person who might be responsible for eventually ending my life.

  He waited for further useless questions with a touch of annoyance on his face. I decided that keeping the peace between us was more important than a name, and let it go.

  It seemed like days were passing as we stood a few yards apart, staring at each other in silence, playing out a game of who will crack first. He just stood there, expressionless with his hands clasped beh
ind his back. I was like a bug under a magnifying glass with a laser of light burning a hole in the center of my forehead, waiting to combust into flames if I didn’t get out from under his intense, wordless stare.

  “Say something!” I finally blurted.

  His brow arched quizzically. “Does silence make you uncomfortable?”

  “You make me uncomfortable.”

  “No. It’s not me, Alex. You’re beginning to wake up, and that makes you uncomfortable. In fact, I suspect you’re more awake now than you’ve ever been. You’re not used to taking what you want—what you need.” He cracked a condescending smile. “Tell me…that young man in the park, the one with the distasteful T-shirt who almost cost you your humanity, did he have something you needed?”

  “How do you—”

  His head cocked slightly as he read my reaction. “There’s nothing wrong with taking what you need.”

  The vision I had in the park the day I went to see Constantine wasn’t real, but the memory of it still shamed me. “How do you know about that?”

  He ignored my question and continued. “Poor little girl vanishes and then returns twenty-one years later, only to find out she’s destined for something unimaginable.”

  He stepped closer and leaned into the void between us. The room seemed to disappear as his presence swallowed the space. His warm breath pooled over my skin as he reached toward my face and took a lock of my hair in his hand. “You remind me of her,” he murmured, rolling the ends between his fingers.

  I jerked back and tugged my hair out of his hand. It was like he’d slapped me in the face.

  “My mother? You knew her?”

  I don’t know why that surprised me. Everyone seemed to know Maeve Kelley, the famous witch of New York, the original golden child.

  A subtle laugh came from his throat as he stood taller and moved back a step. The brightness in his eyes dulled, and I noticed for the first time the thin rings of brown around the blue. The mutation was barely detectable, but I could see the soft brown outer edges feather and disappear into the overwhelming blue of his irises.

  “She was perfect in every way, except one,” he said. I flinched but didn’t stop him as he caressed the side of my face with the palm of his massive hand. “She was a little too smart.”

  He sensed my repulsion and pulled his hand away. “Well, we have many things to discuss, but let’s get you fed first.”

  I decided on a different approach to make me feel like less of a sellout for accepting his food—I would dictate the meal and let him worry about how to get it.

  “I want French toast,” I demanded. “And don’t forget the maple syrup.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  Sophia stood on the sidewalk, looking up at the green house with the red shutters, and thought about how endearing and inviting the façade looked. But there were things in that house that were not so endearing, things she thought she was done with, things long buried.

  Mr. Sinclair had asked for a favor, although he would never call it payback. She could do him a thousand favors and still never call it even.

  For approximately one hour every morning and one every evening, she traveled between Manhattan and Bensonhurst, Brooklyn in the fancy car service Greer paid for. But on this particular day, the drive home seemed to take only a minute.

  The ticking of the clock in the living room echoed through the empty house as she walked through the front door and headed straight for the kitchen. She took a glass from the cabinet above the sink and filled it from the tap. As she sipped the water, she gazed out the window at the neglected garden in her tiny backyard. The basil would be coming back from seed soon, and the thyme and rosemary would be waking up with new growth. She promised to be more attentive this season.

  She washed the glass and placed it upside down on the towel next to the sink. Then she headed for the pantry to get on with the business of the past.

  Her eyes moved around the small space, distracted by all the boxes and cans, and the jars of preserved tomatoes she would never get around to eating. She spotted the box of tools on the lower shelf and rummaged through the rarely used screwdrivers, hammers, and wrenches until she found what she was looking for.

  The stairs seemed to breathe as she ascended them to the second floor. When she reached the top step, she thought again about all the reasons she’d walked away from a life that had filled her with so much purpose, completed her like a conjoined twin. But no matter how far she ran from it, that life would always be patiently waiting for her return, because she didn’t choose it—she was born of it.

  On her way to the door at the end of the hall, she stopped at her bedroom and walked inside. She picked up the picture of her daughter from the dresser and examined the smiling young woman with the River Thames in the background. It had been almost a year since she’d seen Adrianna, and she wondered if her daughter would understand the change in her mother when she came home on holiday.

  She set the frame down and picked up the one next to it. The face of a younger girl looked back from the photo, and Sophia was instantly racked with doubt about what she was about to do.

  Rue was her baby, and the decision to take up her old life seemed like a betrayal to her dead child. Even as she endured years of her husband’s drunken rage over Rue’s death, she chose to weather the abuse without taking up the weapons that could have so easily obliterated her suffering.

  In the end, it was Mr. Sinclair who saved her from having to make that choice. For that she owed an immense debt, and she was loyal. Mr. Sinclair needed her help, and he’d never once asked for anything in return for all the gifts he’d given her over the years.

  Until now.

  She put Rue’s picture back down next to Adrianna’s and reached for a green cameo vase, spilling its contents onto the white lace runner covering the top of the dresser: a matchbook with a phone number written across the cover, a business card for a tree removal service, a dead beetle that had crawled in and found it impossible to climb back out, and a key.

  Sophia took the key and went back into the hall. The door was at the end, staring back at her as if it was taunting her—We knew you couldn’t stay away. She marched toward it and placed the key in the lock. The door swung open as if an invisible hand had pulled it from the other side.

  With a swift glide, she pulled back the thin woven rug and examined the pattern of the wooden planks underneath it. On the far left side was a section where the ends of the boards were too even, not staggered properly like the rest of the floor. She groaned as her aging knees pressed against the wood, and then she wedged the crowbar she’d carried from the pantry into a gap between two of the boards.

  Sophia was a sturdy woman. With a grunt, she pushed down firmly and the old board popped up with a loud split. She did the same to the other two boards covering the hidden space between the floors of her house.

  A strained breath expelled from her chest as she reached inside the floor. With both hands, she removed a wooden box, deeply patinated from significant age. She reached for the top but stopped as if it might burn her fingers if she touched it.

  “Forgive me,” she whispered with a slight glance toward the ceiling before removing the delicate chain holding the crucifix around her neck.

  With a trembling hand, she removed the top of the box and stared at its contents. There would be no going back if she crossed the veil to her previous ways, laid hands on the old path, realigned her tenets and faith. She wondered if she was too cynical now, if it was possible to return to it with an open mind and a wide heart after all that had happened?

  Her decision made, she opened the box and carefully lifted a metal bowl, charred on the inside rim from the many lifetimes of flames that had danced around its center. Four smaller bowls were removed next, followed by an elaborate silver chalice and a flat, polished stone with a star engraved across its top.

  A smile rose on one side of her face when she extracted a large double-edged knife from its wooden scabbard. The
blade had dulled, but the marks were still visible along each side. The knife had come from her mother, but the finely crafted scabbard had been carefully constructed from her own hands when she was sixteen. Feeling it again was like pulling a dark cloud from the sky, the one following her since the day she shoved her life into that dark hole.

  Sealing the blade under the floor had been the only way to prevent Sophia from ripping it from the box, and to keep its alluring pull out of Adrianna’s head. She would never allow her eldest daughter to be seduced by that world. Not after what happened to her Rue.

  Sophia sat back on her aching knees and thighs and paused for a moment before completely unraveling the past nineteen years. She lifted the last item from the box—a small leather pouch. She opened it and let the silver charm slide into the palm of her hand—a sprig of rue adorned with a moon, a serpent, and a key.

  As she placed the cimaruta around her neck where the crucifix had hung for so many years, she knew it had all been a lie to deceive her unbearable grief from knowing where it lived. But the grief had always been there, and she could feel it now without letting it destroy her.

  The grand illusion had served its purpose. She was home now. She was Strega, a fifth-generation hereditary witch from the old country, something that could never be put in a box and buried.

  The bell on the door chimed as Sophia entered Shakespeare’s Library, a tinge of anger spreading through her because it was a stark reminder that Alex was gone.

  She fidgeted with the old charm tucked under her blue floral dress while she waited impatiently by the unmanned front counter. Her normal attire would have been much more conservative and age-appropriate than the bright spring dress she had on, but she wasn’t feeling her age today. In fact, she felt like a new woman, like her clipped wings had suddenly grown back.

  Apollo came out from the back room and looked around the deserted shop with annoyance. “I’m sorry. We’re a little short-handed today. Can I help you find something?”