"Ragnar," I said. She nodded.
We split apart. Roisin's gun cracked again, but I no longer tracked her movements. My world came down to Ragnar. The man I had restored. The man I'd sworn to murder. He bent over Talia, his neck pulsing as he drank her blood, her body jerking as she struggled against the hypnotism of his bite. The fear thundering in her heart was loud enough for me to hear, but she was not drained yet. Still alive. Ragnar had not yet pushed her past the point of change, nor death.
I stepped with supernatural speed, the world blurring, and stabbed him in the back with his soldier's dagger. Metal grated against bone and I twisted the blade, scraping it against his vertebrae. He arched his back and roared with pain, ripping his fangs free of Talia's throat. Blood dribbled from his open maw, peppering her pale face.
She twisted, digging her heel into the top of his foot, and he dropped her. Her body slapped against the ground, bouncing once, and though I ached to reach out to her, to help her to her feet, keeping Ragnar away was the best I could do. Talia caught her breath in a long, struggling gasp, then scrambled to her hands and knees and fled, one hand clasped to the side of her neck to hold the blood in, toward where the front of the house had last been. I hoped she'd make it.
Ragnar whirled to face me, his silvery eyes aglow with rage, and snapped one arm back, elbow bending at a too-steep angle, to wrench the dagger from his back. I backed away from him, but not so far that he would lose interest, knees bent in a ready stance with my arms out before me, claws extended.
He took me in slowly, and smiled, flipping the blood-slick knife in his hand over and over again, letting its tip send little droplets of his blood splattering out in all directions. My shoulder ached, the poison of the silver less than it would have been in the days before the mote in my eye grew. He met my gaze, and his eyebrows rose.
"You step closer to the night every day, Magdalene. Tell me, how long until you join your lover and I in the shadows?"
"I thought you wanted to walk the day with your power whole," I countered.
A shadow passed across his face, a realization that I couldn't quite place. Something had changed in Ragnar. Something had gone wrong for him in the re-acquisition of his power, and my words were skirting very close to the truth.
"Desires evolve, my dear. There is more to immortal strength than silver and gold." He cocked his head to the side, stroking his thumb along the dull edge of the blade. "He told you, did he not? My Lucien." The way he spoke as if he possessed Lucien grated, but he was goading me into a hasty attack. I stood firm. "He told you what rode his mind? He was not supposed to know of that force—no one was—but you saw to that, didn't you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," I lied, but he knew the words for false the second they passed my lips.
"Lucien cannot lie to me, darling. Shall I prove it to you? Summon him here to dance beneath the moonlight on my whim? He hides from me now, the poor boy. Thinks I cannot see him, huddling beneath the earth like a pathetic worm. If I had known we'd have such charming company tonight, I daresay I would have brought him along."
I would give him no chance to summon my love. With a burst of speed I lunged for him, one hand lashing out to strike the dagger from his grip as I collided with his chest, taking us to the ground. Metal clattered against stone.
Stars burst behind my eyes as Ragnar rammed his forehead into mine. Blood spilled across both our faces—his or mine, I didn't know—clouding my vision. Claws raked my arms, tore wider already open wounds. He moved faster than I could follow, arms a blur as he grasped me and flung me against the wall.
My back cracked, hard, and I dropped to my side. Pain radiated from my hips to my skull, but I found stable footing and pushed myself up to one knee. Seamus's blood was hot in my veins, compensating for the lack of sunlight for me to draw power from. A quick glance revealed two piles of ash at Roisin's feet, the other two nipping at her with feints and wary attacks. They reminded me of the small fish that clung to sharks, waiting for the greater creature to weaken.
Ragnar's body blurred as he floated to his feet, the shadows around him a cloudy swarm, agitated by his power, thrumming with excitement. His tongue lashed out and tasted the smear of our commingled blood, drew a streak into his mouth and rolled it around, savoring. Gross.
Flames engulfed half the broken table, wax rivulets of fire dripping onto the gritty floor. I dug my claws into the nearest piece of table and swung the flaming end like a bat. Ragnar may be the fastest vampire I'd ever seen, but speed didn't help you much when you had nowhere to go. The hit jarred my arms, the table exploding in a ball of fire and splinters. Hot wax and burning embers scattered throughout the room. The burst of flame seared my vision, the table lighter in my hands as it broke in half.
Ragnar slammed into the wall, the ancient stone crumbling, and flailed against the flames. The shadows ensconcing his body worked to snuff them but not fast enough—the wax clung. He screeched in rage and pain—a satisfying sound—as the fiery splinters settled into his hair and clothes, burning, catching, tracing large licks of fire over his coat and clothes.
I broke the table remnant in half over my knee and selected a piece that came to a sharp point, tossing the other aside. I scrambled across the remains of the table, and though I funneled all my strength and moved with all my speed, I felt as if the world had slowed, drawn to a freeze-frame moment:
Ragnar, screaming, ripping the flaming clothes from his body.
Roisin, standing triumphant over the ash of the nightwalkers, her claws slick with blood.
Sonia, rooted in place, her hands covering her mouth as if she could force her screams back down.
Raina, crackling with streams of blue power, her eyes turning silver as coins as her hair stood on end.
I raised the broken table to stake Ragnar's heart.
A shock wave of power slammed into me. The world tipped up, my vision snapping back into real time as the sky cavorted before me and then I hit the ground. The table splinter was knocked out of my hand, flying wide. I rolled, my body scraping against a combination of broken stone and wood. The thunderous crack of stone breaking deafened me, hammering my head as effectively as any blow would.
My side hit a pile of debris and I came to a hard stop, every inch of my body screaming agony. Nothing deadly—a few broken bones I would have to figure out later. I tested my legs, curling them up to my chest, and found them functional. My right hip was a little loose in the socket, and a grinding pain shot through me as I tried to stand, making me grab for purchase on the heap of broken stone that'd stopped my roll.
I pushed hair and dirt away from my face and blinked into the mingled light—blue power, red flame, violet mist. Mist I had seen before, on a scraggly moor overwhelmed by remnants. Impossible. I had torn her throat out. And yet... The Venefica.
Raina stood at the head of the wreckage, her arms outstretched, her head tossed slightly back, but her gaze—that was pinned on me.
Those eyes. I had seen something like them, only once before, and those bruise-black irises were only part of what struck me about them. In Raina's young face, a spirit centuries old stared out at me. Defiant. Perhaps, even, a little amused.
"Enough," she said, and Raina's voice shifted down into the smooth tones I recognized as that ancient Greek witch's. "With all this bickering. Come, Magdalene. We are of the same blood. Let us not be at odds anymore."
Thirty-four: Thin Roots
Gods, but I was drained. Every inch of me screamed for relief, my blood—even though I had partaken so much of Seamus—sputtered on naught but vapors. The battle with Ragnar had taken so much from me. I had no weapons to speak of still. How could I stand against her?
Roisin levered herself upright—we had, all of us, been blown flat. Ragnar stirred upon the ground. Fuck the Venefica. She could ride Raina's mind for a while—magic wasn't my business—while I dealt with Ragnar. I pressed on my earpiece to warn Seamus and Maeve that the Venefica had emerged—Maeve might
even be excited about the prospect—and got back nothing but a sharp squeal of static. Broken.
I plucked the device from my ear. The black plastic encasing it had cracked straight down the middle, the electronics within looking—as Seamus would say—fried. I sighed and tossed it aside with the rest of the rubble. At least I was holding up better than my technology.
My hip screamed as I put weight on it. A gasp escaped me—damn, but I hated looking weak in front of the enemy—and I was forced to lean heavily to my right side.
"Sorry," I said to the Venefica, "I have another date."
Her lips curled into a snarl, but to hell with her. The promise I'd made was to destroy Ragnar. I doubted she could channel much power through Raina's body. The Hensford family may have had magic in its blood at some point, but magic didn't always breed true.
I was certain that my first assessment of her had been correct—she was perfectly mundane. Pushing power through Raina's veins had to be like shoving rope through the eye of a needle, which was probably why it had taken the Venefica so long to gather the power to blow us all flat. Poor luck for her—Maeve would be delighted. Or disappointed that she wouldn't be able to face the witch at her full power.
Ragnar pushed himself up to his hands and knees and shook rubble from his hair. The shadows encapsulating his body shuddered. Many of those dark patches had faded away, making the effect more like a twisted mosaic than armor.
The blow-back had snuffed the flames that'd clung to him, but blackened tracks of charred flesh drew crazy lines across his exposed skin, his jacket charred and sticking to his torso on one side. Good. Maeve liked a challenge, but I wanted Ragnar vulnerable. I'd seen the power that coursed through Lucien up-close. I had no desire to face that in a controlled form.
Roisin was on her feet, swaying, but claws out and ready to fight. I caught her eye, and she gave me a tight, jerking nod that indicated both that she was ready—and that something was wrong with her neck or upper back.
Ignoring the Venefica, we closed the vise on Ragnar, me from the front, and Roisin from his left flank. Or, at least, we tried.
Another wave of power, weaker than the last but potent enough to sweep our feet out from under us, knocked us flat. I hadn't had time to prepare, so I landed flat on my back over a heap of broken stone and coughed up a burst of blood. Such a waste. I needed that strength.
"I will not be ignored." She grated out the words.
I clenched my jaw and rolled to my good side, propping myself up on my arm. Fine. If she were going to keep us from tag-teaming Ragnar, I could hold her back while Roisin moved in to kill him. As much as I wanted to do the honors myself, it was me the Venefica felt connected to. Me who could distract her.
"Our bargain is done," I said, trying not to let the hurt show. "You would reclaim your full power if you restored Lucien to the light. But it cannot be done, can it?"
Her expression—Raina's face—contorted with frustration, but she did not deny my words.
"I saw your experiments in that hellhole Ragnar called a hive. Saw your desperate attempts to return Lucien to mortality—or at least strip the nightwalker curse from his blood. But you can't do it. Not without me. And I will not lend you my strength. You're trapped, witch. Forever a shadow of your formal power."
Her lips curled into a vicious rictus. "I need not your strength, only the vital fluid which sustains you."
"You want me for my blood?" I asked, trying not to watch as, in the corner of my eye, Roisin clawed her way to her feet. "Why? There's not a drop of power in it that's mine—you must know that—must know that I was born as mundane as the woman whose mind you ride now. I'm no witch. Whatever ritual you think you can use me for—it won't work."
"It is your blood that summoned me out of the sea. It will be your blood that restores me to my full power."
Well, she had me there. I had summoned her. "I can't be the only distant member of your bloodline kicking around the world. You're old. This heap of a castle—" I gestured to take in the ruins around us and turned the movement into a push to my feet. "—was probably just a grassy field when you were young. Roots spread far over the generations."
Her expression darkened. "So you would find me another supplicant? A mortal sacrifice to save your skin?"
I couldn't help it. I laughed. A low, rasping sound that made me have to spit out another splotch of blood. "So that's it. Your alliance with Ragnar is forged in the fact that he is the only one who knows who your descendants are. Make no mistake, woman, he knows of others. He's not the kind of man to move forward without contingency plans. He's keeping them from you—using the promise of controlling me through Lucien to bind him to you as surely as any chain. I will never free you. You must know that by now. Lucien is the lever that moved me to summon you forth—but I will not make such a mistake again."
"Blood dilutes as the roots thin," she said. Ah. So my age—being closer up the family tree to her—was valuable. Good to know Ragnar couldn't just throw her a mortal to free herself with. Except for Raina.
I'd gathered myself to pounce, to push the Venefica to the ground and tear her throat from her body—silencing that hissing, mocking voice for all eternity. But the thought struck me as soon as my muscles coiled—Raina was the vessel that carried the Venefica. And though that witch deserved a brutal end, the girl who carried her did not.
I had almost ignored that fact. I shot a hateful glance at the moon, drifting overhead. Was it the nightwalker power lurking within me that made me prone to such forgetfulness? I had not called upon any of its strength.
I needed Maeve. Badly.
"Does not that mortal body chafe?" I asked, pacing closer, letting her see me extend my claws as if I intended to use them. "I recall you striking a much more imposing figure, in your own flesh."
"It's better than most. I tried that thing—" She inclined her chin to Sonia, who curled on the ground with her hands over her ears. "—and found her wholly unsuitable. No magic ever ran in that blood."
"Lack the strength to manifest your own skin this time?
"No flesh is ever mine," she said.
That speared me. Stuck me into place as surely as a lightning bolt would weld steel to steel. The figure I had summoned upon the waves... Surely she had a body of her own, yes? I strained my fractured memory, so recently restored by the very creature that mocked me now.
A figure striding from amongst the waves, olive-warm skin merging with the ceaseless churn of ocean foam. Long black hair plastered by sea water—no. No. She had been dry. How could a real body be dry?
It could not.
She had been an illusion only.
A mirage.
So whose body had I killed in Ragnar's hive?
That laugh—always that laugh of hers—haunting my every dream, echoing in sick concert with the drumbeat in my blood. Coy, amused. Completely assured that it had the upper hand.
"Oh yes, see you understand. My first vessel had been entirely unwilling. I shredded her mind in taking her over, reduced her to little more than a screaming mass of hysteria locked away in the back of that mind, hidden from all sensory input, what was left of her growing madder by the day.
"Your slaughter of that body must have been a comfort to her, after being a prisoner of her own flesh. How does it feel, Magdalene Shelley, to have murdered a mortal? How does it feel to have untainted blood on your hands?"
"You forced me," I breathed, staring down at my claws as if they had betrayed me—as if they could somehow take control of my mind at any moment and rip Raina's throat wide open—just as I had already imagined. "I didn't know."
"Tsk. I gave you all the information you needed to figure it out, didn't I? I gave you back your memory, darling. You can hardly say you didn't know."
"But I didn't. I didn't."
I dropped to my knees, palms splayed against the ground, claws crunching stone as I gripped the earth as if I could hold myself together by sheer force of strength. The drumbeat sounded louder
in my veins. A drumbeat driving me to war.
"Did you really convince yourself that mote in your eye was a result of my magic?"
The words struck like a hammer to my chest. I gasped, curling over myself, every vein in my body aflame with betrayal. I had always known I could kill a mortal—all we sunstriders were—but to kill one untainted by ghoul blood was to betray our oath, to be put to death.
It was not the magic that tainted my blood, that made the moon sing my name in siren song.
It was me.
It had always been me.
"Child of my blood," the Venefica said. The shadow of her arm, her hand, crawled across the broken rubble toward me, and though I did not raise my head to see I felt her palm hover above me as if in benediction. "Stop your struggles. Come home to us. Come home to the night."
Thirty-five: Fifty-Fifty Chance
She was so close. The witch's power shivered over my body, called to me, her voice pitched to a low murmur, reaching resonance with my blood—calling me back into a fold I could not remember having ever left.
Gravel crunched under tires somewhere near the ruined castle, and a scent came to me that snapped something inside of me—like a slap to the face. Seamus. His blood, pure and bright and full of hope and strength, coming closer. Closer to this hell-scape of broken souls. I may have betrayed myself—my oath—betrayed him, though he did not yet know it. But I would not, could not, let him come to harm. Would not let him see me bent and broken beneath the hand of the Venefica.
I sprung. The Venefica screeched an unholy sound as I collided with her, my arms wrapping around Raina's chest, pinning her arms against the side of her body as I knocked her to the ground. She gasped—the sound so mortal and scared it ripped at my heart—and I brought one hand up, the other arm still wrapped around her torso, to cover her chanting mouth with my clawed fingers.
A wall hit me. Roisin thundered into me, ripped me from the prone body of Raina. We tumbled through the wreckage, came to a stop against a charred mass of table. I went limp in her gasp as she wrenched my arms up above my head, pinning my wrists to the ground as she shoved a knee into my stomach and strained, bracing herself as if she expected me to fight back.
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