“Lift her head and give her the red and yellow potions that are in my left pocket,” I say to Gerard.
He digs the potions out of my pocket, setting the green one aside. He has to pull the bag farther open and tug her shoulders up in order to rest her head on his lap. He tugs her mouth open revealing a missing tooth, and pours the first potion down her throat, and then the second. She swallows, her eyes flickering open.
“It will help with the pain and the blood loss,” I explain.
Maybelle lets out a sigh and I can feel the pain potion sweeping through her.
“How did you find her?” I ask.
Gerard squints at me. “The Finding magic, it worked. I saw it on the map before you collapsed and burned the whole thing up.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped!” I demand. I should have recognized the strange feeling in my stomach, the constant disquiet. I wish I had someone that could teach me, but instead, I’m left bumbling through all of this on my own.
“She wouldn’t have wanted you involved,” he says, leaning over her head protectively.
I pull my phone out, one hand still on Maybelle’s chest, and dial 911.
“What are you doing?” Gerard demands, grabbing for the phone. I lean out of his reach.
“She’s dying,” I snap. “I’m barely keeping her alive right now, we have maybe thirty minutes to get her medical attention.”
“She’s going to hate you for this,” Gerard growls.
“At least she’ll be alive to do it,” I growl back.
“Pecan Grove Police Department, please state your emergency.”
17
“No, for the last time, he just showed up at the clanhouse shortly after dawn and asked me to heal her,” I say evenly, though my nails are digging into my palms.
Brunson is using this as an opportunity to work off some pent-up aggression by being an asshole. Hawking isn’t here to reign him in like she usually does. He has asked me to repeat my story at least five times. He tried to make me tell him what happened in reverse order, and I barely reigned in the impulse to kick him in the shin.
It’s been four hours since we got to the hospital, and I haven’t had any updates on her condition. We’re obviously not related, so I’m not sure if I’ll get them at all.
“Did Gerard mention how he had found her?” Brunson asks, leaning in.
“No,” I say, holding his gaze. I can only hope Gerard will back up my story, I have no idea what he’ll do now that I’ve gotten the police involved.
“Ms. Carter?” A tall nurse with a deep voice and bright purple scrubs is scanning the waiting room from the doorway.
I stand and walk toward him. “That’s me.”
“She has woken up,” he says with a calming smile. “And she is asking for you.”
“Thank god,” I say, relieved. “Where is her room?”
“I’ll take you there.”
“I’m coming with you,” Brunson says from behind me.
“I”m afraid you’ll have to wait, sir,” the nurse says. “She requested to speak with Olivia alone first.”
Brunson pulls out his badge and I roll my eyes. “I’m a JHAPI agent, I have a right to— “
“Miss Maybelle is a victim, not a suspect, and per hospital policy, you will wait to talk to her until she is ready,” the nurse says firmly, his friendly smile fading into a frown of disapproval.
Brunson bristles but doesn't argue further, shoving his badge back into his pocket with jerky motions.
“Now, it’s just down this hall,” the nurse says, putting his hand on my shoulder and guiding me out of the waiting room.
The hall is empty except for the occasional nurse slipping from room to room. I hate the open doors because I can’t help but look and each person laying inside looks gray and old with all the tubes sticking out of them. When I was younger I used to sneak into the hospital and try to heal them all a little bit, but it was never enough, and I was left depleted. My mom put a stop to it as soon as she found out.
The nurse stops in front of a closed door. Maybelle’s name is scrawled on the little whiteboard, and her doctor’s name underneath.
“She looks rough, but she’s not in any pain, alright?” He says, his hand on the door handle.
“Alright,” I say with a nod.
He pushes the door open and I step into the dim room. The blinds are drawn and the only noise is her raspy breaths. I hear the door click shut behind me as I approach the small lump in the bed. She’d be barely four feet tall if she was standing. More than that though, Maybelle always had such a large presence. She seems so diminished here.
I can understand the nurse’s warning as well. They cleaned off the blood, and that has only made the cuts more obvious. They crisscross her face and arms, and I imagine they must cover her entire body. I don’t understand why anyone would do this to her.
She opens her eyes and squints at me.
“Olivia?”
“Yes,” I force myself forward and sit in the chair next to the bed.
“Tell her Maybelle,” Gerard says, materializing out of the shadows.
I jump out of my chair, startled to see him in here.
Maybelle shakes her head, the curls bouncing around her narrow face. The hear monitor blips faster.
“You can tell her or I will!” Gerard snaps.
“You had no right to force this,” Maybelle hisses. “After everything I’ve done for you.”
“I had to! If I hadn’t, then we would all have been doomed.”
Maybelle scoffs. “You and your premonitions.”
“Have I ever been wrong?” Gerard says, baring his teeth back at Maybelle.
“What the hell is going on?” I blurt out finally.
Maybelle goes quiet, still not looking at me.
“Ask her a question, Olivia,” Gerard says. “Ask her how she knew your mother.”
I stare at Maybelle, eyes wide, my heart in my throat. She isn’t speaking, just staring at her hands.
“How—How did you know my mother?” I ask.
A wave of purple magic rolls from her throat to her mouth. Her lips tremble. She sighs heavily and looks up at me. “I knew your mother, years ago.”
The magic explains the cuts and bruises all over her body. I feel sick to my stomach, I wouldn’t have asked if I had known. She has to answer now, and she has to answer truthfully, or the potion will attack her. It will kill her if she resists too many questions. Whatever the coven that had kidnapped her was asking, she was resisting strongly. No one holds out forever, not many secrets are worth dying to protect.
This explains the missing crystals too. Some of them could have been used to brew a potion like this. I curl my fingers into my palm, hating them for taking something that could be used for good and twisting it like this.
“We weren’t friends. More like business partners,” she says with a shrug. “She had hired me to procure a few specialty ingredients for her personally, and she was my contact for any work I did for her coven. A couple of years after we started working together she calls me. Turns out she’s fallen in love with her boyfriend, wants to have a baby with him.”
Maybelle shakes her head like she disapproves. “Everybody knows vampires can’t have kids, but she’s set on it.”
She’s right. Vampires are undead, kept alive by magic, and can’t seem to reproduce. Even if they could, witches can generally only have children with another witch. There’s maybe a two percent chance of a successful pregnancy with a human.
“She hired me to find a way. And I did, which, no offense, was the biggest mistake of my life.”
My palms begin to sweat, and I can feel Novak’s magic getting twitchy inside of me. I should probably sit down, but I’m feeling the urge to run away.
Maybelle picks at the blanket, clearly uncomfortable telling me about any of this.
“I found a way though. For her to have her child. There is an old coven full of some real crazies. They coll
ect magical artifacts, and there were rumors about this spell book that contained the secret to creating a child of a witch and vampire.”
I swallow uncomfortably. “Creating something like that would be a bad idea. The vampire and witch councils already hate each other. Something like that would just be a reason to fight.”
“Indeed,” Maybelle agrees, inclining her head. “Your mother didn’t care though. And so, we worked together to steal the book. If she helped, she could use the book to have her baby, and then I would get to sell it and keep all the profits. She agreed.”
I want to throw up, but I stare at her instead. I have to hear this, I have to know.
“This coven isn’t your normal, run of the mill coven. They’re more of a cult really. They claim to be the guardians of some ancient artifact. No one is really sure what they think they’re protecting everyone from, but they hoard power and old magical items. They were the perfect target. We took several things that day, but all they’ve ever wanted back was that damned book.”
Maybelle doesn’t continue, simply stares at the floor.
“What happened next?” I ask, knowing that the potion will force her to answer. She has to tell me the rest, I can’t go the rest of my life wondering. Purple magic crawls up, constricting around her throat.
“It's ugly Olivia, not the kind of thing you should have to hear about your mother,” she says, straining against the tug of the potion.
“Just tell me,” I bite out.
She takes a deep breath and looks up again. “They prepared for the spell we found in the book. She had to acquire a few things. Something from each branch of magic, a special brew she made herself, and the stars had to be aligned. As luck would have it, in a few weeks they were. We met in a cabin in the woods to perform the spell.”
Maybelle pauses, taking a deep breath, her eyes scanning my face before she continues.
“I waited in another room until I heard her screaming,” Maybelle covers her face with her hands for a moment before continuing. “He turned to dust while he was still inside her. Apparently, the magic required a price, one we didn't know about. The book,” she shakes her head. “It was not clear. We barely kept in touch after, but I knew the spell worked, and I knew what you were. I went into hiding with my brother, buying both of us a new identity. Gerard watched you throughout the years. He urged me to hire you when you came through town because he insists you are important somehow. And I admit, I have grown fond of you.”
Maybelle smiles tremulously for a moment, but the smile falls away at the expression on my face. I stare down at the floor, trying to wrap my head around this. In some ways, it explains everything.
My magic has never been normal. I was born with no magic at all, or so my mother thought until the day after I turned five years old.
I was watching her brew and decided I wanted to be able to brew as well. I had grabbed her arm and I had taken. I can still see her face, the confusion turning to horror, then the scream of pain as I stole her magic. I had stopped as soon as I could, but I was confused, and I was hungry for her magic. She had laid on the floor unable to move while I had cried and shaken her shoulders, begging my mom to wake up.
I shake my head, trying to pull myself out of the memories.
“So I’m…” I can’t finish the sentence.
“Half vampire? Yes.” She winds her fingers together and shakes her head. “And the people that planted the bombs weren’t trying to kill me, they were sending a message. They want to know where the book is. Well, they wanted to.”
She pauses, glancing at Gerard, who nods.
“I was not able to fully resist the potion, Olivia, I am sorry,” she says quietly.
“What do you mean?” I ask, even though I think I know the answer.
“They know who you are now. They will be coming for you.”
“Okay,” I say, even though it isn’t. I run my hands through my hair and pace the small area by the hospital bed. My mind is teeming with questions. I’m not sure I want the answers to all of them, but I feel compelled to ask.
“Who was my father? What was his name?” My mother would never tell me, and now, I finally understand why.
“Dominic Bernard,” Maybelle says. “I don’t remember what clan he was with, but it was not a powerful one.”
“The stars will be aligned in the same way again in just a couple of months, but they cannot find the book. I think the cult is desperate,” Gerard says. “Leave with us, Olivia. We are going to go into hiding again. We can help keep you away from them.”
Running away doesn’t sound bad at all. If what I am gets out, and it most likely will with Maybelle under the influence of a truth potion still, I’m screwed. I don’t want to even think about how Reilly might react.
“What are you going to tell the JHAPI agents?”
“Nothing,” Gerard says. “We’re leaving before they will have a chance to question her.”
I press the heels of my hands to my eyes. “I need a minute to think. How long do I have, before you leave?”
Gerard shares a look with Maybelle.
“A few hours at most. We have to leave well before sunset.”
I take a step back toward the door. “I’m going to get coffee. I’ll be back, just don’t— don’t leave without me.”
“It’s not safe for you to go anywhere by yourself,” Maybelle objects, but I’m already opening the door and slipping out.
I had always known I was different, and that there was something wrong with me. I walk down the hall, fighting the urge to run, barely seeing anything in front of me.
My mother had made such a big deal about me keeping what I could do a secret. I wonder if she ever intended to tell me the truth about what I am.
I slip out of the intensive care unit and hurry toward the elevators. This part of the hospital is busier. The halls are filled with worried families, new parents, and dreary people being pushed along in wheelchairs. I wind my way through them as quickly as I can without breaking out into a jog.
There is, thankfully, no one else waiting for the elevators. I press the button a few times, then watch the floors count steadily up on the left one. I stand a couple of steps back from the doors, arms crossed.
The elevator dings, and the doors open. Hawking steps off, her eyes landing on me immediately.
“Olivia, I was hoping you were still here,” Hawking says, “How is she?”
I brush past her without answering and mash the door close button on the elevator without making eye contact.
Her brows pinch together, an expression of pity already forming on her face, and she steps forward.
“Olivia—”
The doors close in her face and my stomach jerks as the elevator rushes toward the basement parking level. I lean against the wall and cover my face with my hands. I don’t know what I should do. Running has always worked for me, sort of.
Zachary’s hurt face nags at the back of my head. I had run without a second thought that day, and I’ve regretted it ever since. I wonder if Patrick would feel as betrayed.
The elevator dings and the doors slide open. I step into the dimly lit parking garage and pull the keys from my pocket. They hadn’t let me ride in the ambulance, so I had borrowed one of Javier’s cars.
My footsteps echo loudly as I walk. I’m not sure where I intend on going, but I have to get out of this hospital to think.
I unlock the car and the flicker of the lights illuminate a woman standing near the trunk with her hands clasped. She’s about my height, with dark brown hair. The odd part is that she’s wearing long white robes.
I stop and stare at her.
“I need you to move, that’s my car.” My voice seems overly loud in the empty garage.
“Where are you going?” She asks in a girly voice.
“I don’t know, just move.”
She steps into the light and smiles at me.
“You are special, you know.”
“Thanks, I guess,”
I say, my hand slipping into my jacket pocket for a potion that isn’t there. I grit my teeth and sincerely regret my stupidity. I should have just stayed in the room with Gerard and Maybelle.
“You could be trained, and given even more magic, Olivia,” she says, walking toward me, hands held out to her side as though to show me she isn’t holding any weapons. “We could give you anything you wanted.”
“I really, really doubt that,” I say, taking a step back to keep the space between us. “What the fuck do you want?”
The woman stops, a smile spreading across her face. “We want to help you.”
“Help me? Is that why you kidnapped and tortured my friend? Blew up the store we were building together?” I demand, my voice rising with each word.
The smile fades from the woman’s face. “She was trying to keep you from your birthright.”
I snort. “You know nothing about my birth.”
“I know you are the progeny of a vampire and a witch,” the woman says almost worshipfully. “You are a miracle, and you will be our salvation.”
“You are insane,” I say, taking a step back. “Get away from me and stay away Maybelle, or I’ll hunt you all down and kill you myself.”
“You are so stubborn, Olivia. Just like your mother,” the woman says with a sigh. She lifts her hand and wind rushes past my ears, whistling through the parking garage like a freight train.
18
Just like your mother.
Rage boils up in my chest and the electric magic snaps down into my fingertips. I lift my hand, intending to annihilate her somehow, but a wall of air hits me and flings me backward.
I hit a suburban, my head snapping back painfully against the window, but I stay conscious. The wind presses against me, impossibly strong. It tugs at my cheeks and whips my hair around my face.
The woman walks forward, one hand outstretched, not even a hint of effort showing on her face.
Price of Magic: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Witch's Bite Series Book 2) Page 13