by Carmen Caine
The pool. I eyed the pool in wonder. So, the mana pools were gates? To get back, I just had to jump in a puddle of mana goo? It sounded a bit too easy. I was sure there was a catch.
I felt his palm on my back, pushing me into the pool. “Easy, buddy,” I groused. I didn’t like being manhandled. “I’ll go myself.”
He rolled his eyes at that. “You can’t open the gates, despite what they said. You’re not a keeper. And your father can no longer open them for you. We’ve sealed the gates against him. If you enter the gate without a keeper’s assistance, then you’ll suffer—”
“Whatever,” I interrupted, stepping right into the mana pool.
Yeah, I was a bit too action-oriented. The moment I entered the goop, I understood the catch. With a plopping sound, my feet were cemented to the bottom, trapped by a force impossible to break, a freezing, frigid energy so strong it could suck the flesh right off my bones.
Mr. High-and-Mighty had the gall to look pleased. “I did warn you that only keepers can open the gates,” he informed me with a perverse delight.
My body exploded in pain. I wanted to shout at him, demand that he open the gate instead of watching me suffer like a pain-wracked icicle.
A wave of longing struck me.
I missed New York.
Yeah, I didn’t know too many people, honestly. And the ones I knew, I wasn’t even sure I could call them friends. But Heath. Yeah, I missed Heath. He was actually nice. And Tabitha, well, at least she had an excuse for her behavior. She was just an overly protective dragon. Honestly, I kind of missed her in a weird twisted way, kind of like the way you miss the challenge of a splinter after you dig it out. And Lucian. Well, after meeting this blond dude, Lucian seemed downright warm and fuzzy.
The mana pool began to glow as a ball of white light exploded around me.
The last thing I saw was a look of utter astonishment on Mr. High-and-Mighty’s face.
The Birth of Revenge
Pain, agonizing pain. Nausea. It was pitch black. Every bone in my body felt crushed, every nerve felt on fire, and every muscle felt like it was made of lead. Long moments passed before my mind assembled enough coherency to panic. And then it was pure terror.
Where was I? Would this nightmare ever end?
Almost immediately, a cool, soft healing washed over me. A soft tingling sensation, as if I’d just been dipped from head-to-toe in Tiger Balm. It made me feel … safe? A little bit, anyway. And as little as it was, it was a strange experience simply because I’d never encountered it before. Not really. No one had ever made me feel wanted. Safe.
The healing waves kept coming. I grew lighter with each one until finally, I was as light as a feather, floating in a soft golden bubble of peace.
Someone’s lips softly brushed my forehead.
Lucian?
And then sleep. Blissful sleep.
* * *
I woke up to the sound of snoring. Well, kind of. It was more like a series of snorts, interspersed with giggles.
Slowly, I opened my eyes, a bit dazed.
Pale yellow sunlight flooded the room, highlighting the soft, gray comforter and modern furniture. Lucian’s bedroom.
The snoring came from Ricky on the pillow next to me, sprawled out in the absolute picture of comfort, with arms and legs spread wide, mouth open and drooling.
“Smashing! That’s a proper good one, that is,” he mumbled in his sleep, smacking his lips. “A bit peckish … sweet nothings, love … sweeeeet…in my ear…” This set off a new series of loud, whistling snores that shook his entire tiny body.
“You’re a noisy little runt,” I mumbled, figuring he dreamt of turmeric. “Knock it down a notch, will you?” Intending to make him rollover with a poke in the stomach, I lifted my hand but stopped abruptly as excruciating pain shot up my arm.
Everything came back in a flash, from Emilio tossing me off the rooftop to my encounters with the keeper and the jaggers in the Nether Reaches. I knew it wasn’t a dream. My body felt like someone had pushed it through a meat grinder. It looked like it, too. My hands and arms were covered with cuts and bruises. My ribs felt on fire, along with my legs and feet. But, strangely, they all could still move. They were functional. Not what you’d expect after being tossed off a twenty-story building.
I expelled a long, loud breath of air.
So, I had answers now. Maybe not all of them, but I knew now what kind of monster I was. Some kind of mutated nightmare. Something unholy. Perhaps damned really was a better word. My powers were disturbing, to say the least. I probably couldn’t die because part of me was already a specter—a specter that could instill terror in my victims and unleash other specters, or jaggers, as the rude blond dude had called us, onto Earth. Yet, I wasn’t really alive either, not like other people, anyway. I could only live the existence of a parasite. A mana-sucking mosquito.
Yes, Emilio had messed up my life so much. Not to mention dooming my mother to an eternity as a jerk-blind vampire. And all for what? He’d never even liked her apparently. He’d been playing with her from the start. He’d called her an imbecile. Pathetic. He’d ruined us both, and if anything, he’d found the whole situation just momentarily amusing.
I had been so naïve.
Lucian had been right. My reason for revenge had been childish. Playacting. And I was ill-equipped to truly demand the justice I deserved. After planting a blade in Emilio’s heart, one of his buddies would just come right along and yank it back out, no doubt. My act would serve as a momentary diversion. Nothing else.
Something inside me broke. I felt my soul turn cold. Dispassionate. Detached. But … it was powerful. An all-encompassing force.
I recognized it instantly.
The birth of true rage. A true anger. Yeah, I ran hot. I was the passionate sort. I lacked patience. So, when I got mad, I acted. But that’s precisely what was different this time. The anger forming deep inside me was made of ice.
The desire for real revenge. Oh, I’d wanted revenge for my twisted childhood my entire life. It was something I could even wait for. Lucian had hit the nail on the head. It wasn’t enough to dispatch Emilio with a quick blade to the heart. He needed to suffer like I’d suffered. I wanted to rip everything he held away, extract every ounce of pain that I could, and then some.
A deep conviction rose inside me. It was time to educate myself. Train. Outwit. Time to work with anyone and do anything that took me down the path of ultimate revenge.
Passion? A distraction. Such emotions would only get in the way.
As Lucian had said, revenge truly was a dish best served cold.
My eyes fell on the bedside table. Someone had found my knives, all three of them. They rested on a leather-bound ancient manuscript next to a half-finished marionette lying on its side. It was an ugly doll. Dark comb-over. Long, hawk nose. Lips curled in a sneer and a mole on its chin. Long, black puppet strings fell from its hands to the floor.
The symbolism was perfect.
Forcing my broken body into a sitting position, I grabbed my blade and slashed one of the strings free. As I tied the string around my wrist, I vowed I’d never forget. Each day, that string would remind me of my origins, of Lucian’s Puppet Curse, my specter soul, how I’d been sucked back into a hellish existence all for Emilio’s perverted amusement.
I would exact my revenge, and I’d do whatever it took.
I fell back into the pillows, exhausted.
Lucian had wanted a real spellfinder … well, he had one now.
Game Begin
Fingers. Tiny, irritating fingers pried my eyelids open. The nasal giggle announced Ricky even before my eyes focused on his pupils plastered less than an inch from mine.
“Go away,” I grumbled, swatting him with my hand.
To my astonishment, the movement was delightfully free from pain. I sat bolt upright, launching the little imp right off the bed. He didn’t mind. With a cackle, he rolled head over heels and jumped up to rub his wispy hands together.
“Shouldn’t sleep the day away, doll,” he said.
“Day?” I grunted in distraction. There wasn’t much daylight left. I could see the last pale rays of sunlight slipping off the ceiling as we spoke.
Using my arm as a ramp, Ricky tiptoed up to my shoulder and, cupping his hands, whisper-shouted directly into my ear canal. “It hasn’t been all tickety-boo here. Lucian’s in a foul mood. Things have gone south. And the Terzi went after his marionette collection again, just an hour ago. Black mood. The worst. But now that you’re awake, we’ll track them down and then Bob’s your uncle.”
“Casssssidy,” a deep, resonating voice cut through Ricky’s chatter.
As the imp dove under my pillow, I spied the unusually tall form of a Night Terror gliding towards me in the darkening gloom. It took me a moment to recognize him as the Night Terror I’d met in Venice. Lucian had called him The Keeper of the Old Wisdom. Painfully thin with wispy hair and sagging jowls, he glowed, his skin white and his eyes gold. I found those eyes disturbing. They weren’t quite like the jaggers’ silver ones, but they were close enough to signal the relation. I had more in common with the Night Terrors than I cared to admit.
But then, if it got me what I wanted, what did it matter?
“Specter kindred,” I greeted, swinging my feet off the bed.
The Night Terror grinned, a ghastly, ghoulish smile. “You’ve gone home,” he said, clearly pleased as he dipped into the deepest, most respectful of bows. “It is the greatest honor to introduce myself to you, at last. My name is True.”
I met his gaze head on. “You’ve got more answers, don’t you,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
A slight smile played over his white lips. “Not ones you’re ready for, little one.”
Little one. The jagger had called me that. Whatever. I was tired of playing other people’s games. “Then I’m wasting my time with you, True,” I said curtly.
My brusqueness didn’t bother him. He humored me with a pacifying smile. “You must learn to control the mists first, little one. Then, and only then, will the Old Wisdom I keep be understood. You must crawl before you run.”
“Well, unless you plan on giving me lessons, there’s not much else left to say,” I told him.
True just nodded indulgently. It was irritating. “A gift for you, kin of my spirit,” he said, pulling a pint-sized crystal bottle of mana out of his sleeve.
I accepted the bottle from his thin fingers, realizing suddenly that I was quite hungry.
“Call my name in the mists when you need me,” True whispered, his golden eyes shining brightly. “Call, and I will come. We are kindred, you and I.”
With that, he drew his deep hood over his face and floated across the room to disappear directly into the wall.
I stared.
“Not ones to use doors, that lot,” Ricky emerged from under the pillow to mutter darkly. “Gives you the collywobbles.”
It was creepy, but less so than the noseless jagger, Justice, in the Nether Reaches. Ignoring Ricky, I stood up and uncorking the mana bottle, slapped my hand over the opening and drained it dry in less than three seconds. Energy coursed through me, not enough to find myself fully restored but enough to get me out and about.
I glanced at the black string tied around my wrist. Right. Time to get moving.
Eyeing another shopping bag courtesy of Heath, no doubt, I didn’t pay much attention to the clothing this time. I just slipped it on. My mind was busy. I needed knowledge in order to create my map of revenge. Knowledge. It was time to eat, sleep, and breathe Emilio.
No sooner had I thought his name than I smelled his unique spicy scent of death.
A moment later, his voice drifted up through the spiral staircase from the vicinity of the kitchen.
My eyes lit with a keen anticipation, and my heart went cold. Ice cold.
Calmly, I put one booted foot on the staircase.
Game begin.
The Charmed Mafia
“Word in the Fringe is that the Terzi shattered your wards, Lord Rowle,” Emilio’s distinctive voice began in the kitchen but ended in the living room. “And they say you’ve devastated their eastern clan in response. And now, I hear they’ve attacked your collection in Venice. I can’t have a war now, can I?”
I paused on the bottom step, searching for the sadistic vampire. He appeared the next instant, settling back onto the black leather couch in the living room. Dressed in an expensive Italian suit with a large ruby pinned to the lapel, he casually crossed his legs and took a long pull from a cigar to blow a smoke-ring with slow, leisurely grace.
As I entered, his gaze latched onto mine, his expression impenetrable. Emilio. My nemesis. I met his scrutiny with a steady confidence. It was easy now that I felt so cold inside, so detached. He watched me approach, the glint of intrigue growing in his eyes with each step I took.
When I finally came to a stop, he greeted me with a soft, “Bambina.”
He smiled.
It was odd, that smile. It beamed with pride. And not just any pride, it was distinctly paternal. Was ‘bambina’ more than a sexist, chauvinistic term of his? Did he really think I was his daughter? Was he truly narcissistic enough to fancy himself the only vampire to have ever fathered offspring?
Seizing the moment, I bent my head and stroked his vanity by murmuring a contrite lie. “I recognize you for what you are now. My father.”
The effect on Emilio was beyond my wildest expectations. I’d thought it merely an opening move, but I’d struck gold—no, platinum, or whatever was priceless beyond measure. He visibly expanded. The light in his eyes grew bright. A kind of eerie conceit radiated from him in palpable waves.
From the corner of my eyes, I saw Lucian standing near the window, dressed in one of those off-white traditional Irish sweaters and a pair of stone-washed jeans. He’d crossed his arms and was watching me with his dark brows nearly disappearing into his hairline.
I was just thinking I’d have to deal with him later when I all at once felt myself carried back and lifted up against the plate-glass window. Emilio. He held me in place by the throat, suspended enough so that my feet dangled off the floor.
“La famiglia viene prima di tutto,” the vampire murmured in my ear. His voice was soft, almost gentle, despite the fact that he was choking me. “What should be done to those who turn their backs on family, principessa?”
I didn’t have a clue what he expected. It was fortunate he was choking me. Not being able to reply kept me from saying something that would ruin the inroad I’d inadvertently made.
Snapping his fingers in front of my nose, Emilio whispered, “There’s joy in endurance, the bliss of suffering for a cause.” He released his hand and watched me slide down the glass and collapse at his feet. I gasped for air, and after a moment, he crouched down beside me, cupping my chin in his palm. “Fear is an option with me, bambina.”
Yep. No doubt about it. He was insane. A megalomaniac. I met his gaze head-on. “Death has a way of giving life to other options,” I replied cryptically, willing him to read what he wanted in that.
He did. His eyes flashed with outright delight, but there was something else in them. Suspicion? “A risk-taker—amante del rischio,” he said. “Not something inherited from your mother, bambina, eh? Tale padre, tale figlia.”
The way he searched my face reminded me of a tiger analyzing its prey for any sign of weakness, any fault that would allow it to spring forward and bury its fangs deep into its victim’s neck. It was obvious that he wanted something meaty from me to prove my change of heart and that I truly was his daughter. I didn’t really have anything of that caliber.
Or did I?
The way Emilio lifted his chin told me I was losing him. Following instinct, I gambled with the barely audible reply of, “The Keepers of the Nether Reaches would most likely agree with that.”
Again. Gold, platinum and every other precious metal combined. Emilio clearly had a history with the Nether Reach Keep
ers—that much was startlingly clear. He expanded again, pride oozing from every pore. His eyes nearly glowed.
“Keepers,” he repeated the word, drawing it out long and slow. “Keepers.”
I waited, hoping he’d drop another breadcrumb so I could pick my way across this minefield of a conversation, but he didn’t oblige this time.
Instead, he rose to his feet before saying, almost as an afterthought, “Trust. I have your mother in my thrall, my keeping. She’s my toy, il mio giocattolo. It would be a shame should she meet misfortune. Do you not think so, Cassidy? She is weak.”
What kind of demonic figure of fatherhood did he imagine himself to be? I didn’t let myself react. Calmly, I lifted myself off the floor. He obviously enjoyed speaking in riddles. “It is not the strongest that survives,” I said with a mysterious, bold smile of my own. “It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
Emilio’s eyes crinkled with pleasure. But for only the briefest of moments. Growing all at once harsh and cold, he dismissed me with a flick of his hand and turned back to Lucian. “This matter is of the gravest kind, Lord Rowle,” he said, picking up the thread of conversation from before. He pulled a fresh cigar from his jacket’s inner pocket and, returning to the couch, crossed his legs and nodded towards the kitchen. “Come, Samuel. Inform Lord Rowle of the accusations—the rumors circulating in the Fringe.”
Now that the spotlight had been diverted from me—at least temporarily—I cast a quick glance at Lucian. He was studying me, his pale silver-blue eyes smoldered with the promise of a future conversation before he dipped his chin politely in Emilio’s direction.
“Rumors are such slippery things.” Lucian’s deep baritone snaked through the tension-filled room. “Tell me, what drivel has some fool dredged up to humiliate himself with now?”
A new demanding, loud, and accusing voice sounded from the kitchen. “They say your blue troll’s been captured by the Terzi.”