Healed

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Healed Page 21

by Samantha Stone


  “Want to start there?” Katarina pointed to a place over the corner of Iberville.

  “Let’s go.”

  They worked their way away from the river, moving toward the street Katarina dreaded most: Bourbon. The idea of Bourbon Street was fun—most of the year, certainly not now, when it was almost too packed to walk—but the place only reminded her of her failures, of what she didn’t have. The last time she’d been here, she’d applied for and gotten a job stripping…only to be bodily kicked out of the building after the club’s owner realized she was only seventeen.

  It was the only job ever directly offered to her. One of the club’s employees had stopped her in the street the week before and asked her to come work for them. Katarina had been a combination of humiliated and ecstatic. If people didn’t want her for her mind, people wanting her for her body wasn’t too far down the list, right?

  Wrong. She was glad she never really worked there. Would Vale be ashamed of her for trying? Would those beautiful women mated to the other werewolves judge her? She swiftly shook her head. They’ll never know.

  Two streets up from North Peters, they accidentally popped in on two humans having sex in their living room, a strangely-shaped piece of blue furniture underneath them and classical music setting the mood.

  Vale brought them out onto the street so they could laugh in front of what looked like a nice art gallery. A human woman hanging art in a nearby window glanced around, undoubtedly perplexed by disembodied laughter, but it did nothing to quiet them.

  “I just don’t understand,” Katarina gasped, the image of the entwined naked humans burned into her vision. “Bach? Really?”

  “Is that what that was?” Vale wiped his large hand over his smile, like he was ashamed he’d found the sight so funny.

  “It was one of his Brandenburg concertos.” The laughter made her feel lighter, like they weren’t searching for murderers, but humans with bizarre sexual fantasies. She pressed the mirror to the skin of her chest, allowing the cold metal to center her.

  “You’re like an onion.” Vale made a face when Katarina started to laugh all over again. He kicked his feet against the pavement, his expression one of utter misery.

  Finally, she took pity on both him and the still-confused human a few yards away and stopped laughing. She even made an attempt not to smile.

  “I’m serious!” Vale cried.

  The woman yelped and ran inside her store, flipping the sign to closed.

  “There are a lot of layers to you, Katarina,” Vale explained. He pressed a light kiss to her lips. “You’re an onion.”

  She smiled. “And you, my Wolfiness, are a starfruit. No, I’m not explaining.” She nodded to the next apartment. “Let’s go, and pray these humans are decent.”

  Vale sobered. “And the vampires are sleeping.”

  Katarina couldn’t agree more.

  As they went on, most of the apartments were small, housing one or two humans going about their business. One had what looked like fifteen or so college-aged women screaming and bumping into each other with both mascara and curling wands. It was the most interesting place they’d been since the humans playing Bach.

  Worse, it was time for them to hit Bourbon.

  Her stomach knotted. Katarina held on to Vale, feeling the familiar press against her back as they were taken to yet another apartment. This one was larger, with food and drinks scattered on almost every surface…and its inhabitants were gone?

  Voices sounded. Quietly, in case someone was in a bedroom, Katarina went to peek through the blackout drapes. A handful of humans sat on the porch overlooking Bourbon street, bags of beads beside the chairs and plates of food in their laps.

  “It’s clear.” She moved to let Vale see, and he nodded before taking them next door.

  They went to every apartment on the side of Bourbon nearest the river before deciding they were getting away from the crowds and needed to move back toward where they started, only on the other side of the street. Despite every apartment being completely innocent—save one, where the men staying there only carried beads with breasts and penises hanging from them—Katarina couldn’t get over her unease.

  Get over it. She needed to think fast, and wallowing over something she’d almost done one time helped nothing. There’s nothing wrong.

  She could tell Vale was almost becoming bored as they went back down the street, seeing the same drink bottles and the same boxes of cheap king cake every place they went, humans already begging those walking on the pavement to take their tops off despite the relatively early time of day. Normally, Bourbon was only like this at night, but here, Mardi Gras seemed to bring out the crazy in everyone.

  Finally, they went across the street from the first apartment they’d checked on Bourbon. Now they’d learned not to enter rooms where humans were obviously on the porch—there was no point, unless said humans were in league with Pureblood—but this place had no one, not even a chair or an extra set of beads set out on their pied-à-terre.

  Inside the apartment, all the curtains were drawn. Upon closer inspection, carefully placed pins kept them from letting in any light.

  “They’re here,” Katarina whispered, eyeing the pins. “No humans would do this.”

  Unlike the other places they’d been, there wasn’t a thing out of place. There were no crumbs on the countertop in the kitchenette, nor a wrinkled pillow on the couch. No bottles sat on the counter, and no clothes were strewn on the floor. It was immaculate—yet another thing humans at Mardi Gras were not.

  The surfaces and floor positively gleamed in what little light a small square table lamp provided.

  “We need to get out of here.” Vale said from beside the window.

  Katarina tiptoed through the kitchenette and opened the refrigerator. There, she saw three white pitchers. She didn’t have to look inside to know what they were filled with. The smell was as acrid as it was damning.

  This was where Pureblood was staying.

  Vale moved beside her. Before he could touch her to get them out, long pieces of metal appeared around her, twisting to form some sort of cage. Even from living with the warlocks, Katarina had never seen anything like this. It took a moment for her wonder to turn into panic.

  She was in a cage.

  “You underestimated us,” a man with a deep voice said as he emerged from a nearby doorway.

  His frown a slash across his face, Vale disappeared, only to reappear in the same place. “I can’t get in there with you.” He tried again, and again, while the vampire who spoke walked toward them.

  And he had friends.

  “Get out of here!” Katarina cried. “Leave, and get help. Go!”

  Throwing her one last desperate look, Vale tried to get to her one last time before he disappeared, his parting roar shaking her cage.

  Katarina’s heart beat so loudly, she was certain the vampires could hear it thumping in her chest, giving away her terror.

  How had they seen them? Glancing down, she realized they couldn’t. She’d whispered…that was what revealed them. Her stupid murmurs.

  Quickly, she gave up the invisibility act and prayed her talisman had a tiny bit of juice left in case she needed it.

  The lead vampire raised his hand and her cage tightened around her, pressing against her shoulders and back.

  She did the only thing she could do; she held her talisman tightly in her pocket and faced her captors, her chin raised.

  “Bring it on, assholes.”

  Chapter 17

  I can’t find any of you, and they have Katarina. Where are you?

  Having kept both of their phones nearby, Briony and Sebastian read Vale’s message the moment it lit up their screens. Usually, text messages were to be taken at face value—Briony rarely read too much into them, or the intent of the sender.

  This one was different. It had an aura, which was as strange for her as finding a rock with an aura. If it didn’t
make so much sense, she would’ve been more surprised.

  Both their phones glowed with anguish. It hovered around the devices as if it wanted to be seen, and Vale likely did want his friends to know how upset he was, how important it was for them to find Pureblood so they could find Katarina and take her someplace safe.

  From what Briony knew of the vampire group, the chances of finding Katarina unharmed were slim to none. They hadn’t killed any witches she knew of, a notion that brought her hope that they might find the almost-warlock alive. Sadly, it was probably up to Phoenix’s—or whoever their leader was—mood.

  With a sigh, she tilted her phone toward Gris-Gris so she could read the message. My familiar: the world’s only literate cat.

  Then again, Gris-Gris wasn’t really a cat. She was a conduit, or pure energy that decided to inhabit her old stuffed animal, animating it so it looked like a real housecat. Unlike most conduits, she wasn’t made up of only one energy source. Gris-Gris was comprised of dozens of spirits that stayed with the energy the warlocks tried to steal from them back when they were living beings. They weren’t really ghosts, since they were on Earth because of what was done to them by the warlocks rather than an inability to move on, but they were close enough.

  Especially the particularly vengeful few who’d somehow blown up the local warlock float’s castle-like mansion over in Audubon Place. She still wondered how they’d pulled that off, but sometimes Gris-Gris disappeared for hours, her whereabouts unknown. If Briony’s calls sounded truly panicked, her familiar would come back.

  In a time where every day brought peril, it was a comforting thought. Not so much for Briony—Sebastian rarely left her alone these days—but for him, so someone other than her could have her mate’s back. She’d lived so long unable to do much more than throw up a shield to protect herself, she was still rusty in self-defense, both magically and physically.

  Can you help us find her? Briony asked Gris-Gris. The plan had been for her, Sebastian and Gris-Gris to watch over the firehouse, but plans changed. Katarina needed them to find her, and Briony had the distinct feeling that woman had rarely been helped in her short life. There was something about her clouded personal aura that read, Please, World, give me a break!

  We need to protect this house, a woman responded, albeit regretfully. She spoke more often than any of the other spirits, and Briony thought they viewed her as their leader of sorts. Someone’s searching for your pack, and we’ve been masking this house for the past hour.

  Yeah, a man chimed in. We’d be doing anything else more interesting than using our energies to hide this dump if we could.

  But they have evil intent, and their spell hit us before it hit the house. This was another man, one with a much less aggressive tone. It was pure luck that we caught onto it before it reached us. It seems, while you seek them out, they’re seeking you.

  The vampires couldn’t be seeking them out with some sort of scrying spell. They didn’t possess that kind of magic—witches did, as well as warlocks. And they were supposed to be safe from the latter for at least the next couple of months while the witches had no reason to search for the firehouse. They were friendly with the pack and already knew where they lived.

  None of it added up.

  You mean the warlocks were trying to find us? Why would they bother, unless it was different warlocks? The New Orleans float knew exactly where they lived; they’d even tried to burn the place down back in December. Fortunately, the chemical they’d intended to use was fake. Thanks to crazy, lying faeries.

  No, we mean the vampires were searching for you. Using magic. The woman answered in a patient, measured voice fit for a child or an incompetent adult.

  Briony had lived for hundreds of years. If there was something she wasn’t catching here, it wasn’t common knowledge.

  “What are you and Gris-Gris discussing?” Sebastian asked in a mild voice. Black outlined his aura, revealing his tightly controlled fear. It had been there for the last couple of weeks, and she feared it would only become worse, despite Sebastian knowing everyone would be safe in the end.

  Her grandmother’s visions were never wrong. But fate can change.

  And the sun could die, taking Earth with it.

  When Briony answered his question, the black around Sebastian only grew, and as she suspected, it grew toward her as if it were a warped plant and she its sunlight.

  “If you’re right…” He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Then how can vampires use witches’ magic?”

  They drank the blood of a witch. The man who answered may have well added the unsaid duh to punctuate his statement.

  Now it all made complete sense. “They drink from creatures to gain their powers—temporarily?” Briony aimed her last word at Gris-Gris.

  It lasts until they drink again. The more they take, the longer it lasts.

  Meaning, the vampires probably killed that witch.

  Unconsciously, Sebastian wrapped his arms around Briony and held her against his chest, his large hands falling to rest on her relatively flat belly.

  “Every time I think I know every risk to you both,” he kissed her temple, “I learn of something else, something even more insidious than the last creature, that might hurt you.”

  Briony wished she could take away his fears, but she couldn’t. Their world was only becoming scarier, and she knew it would continue to worsen until things finally got better. And they will.

  This time next year, she’d have a beautiful baby with her wonderful mate, and by the time her child came, they wouldn’t be on high alert for attack. They would be able to rest peacefully after a long night of trying to lay him down to sleep, and they would take him on strolls around their block without fear of someone attacking their little family.

  The pack only had to get past the next few months. Probably.

  “We can do this,” she whispered, turning around to kiss Sebastian. “We can get through anything together.”

  The aura that had begun to meld with hers around them turned slightly lighter as her words registered. He sighed.

  “We need to warn everyone of what the vampires are capable of.”

  She nodded. “And how they can do it.”

  They lay back, her leg rubbing against his, while Gris-Gris hopped up to look out the window. She didn’t need to read his mind to understand he was thinking the same thing she was.

  I wish the vampires had never come here.

  * * * *

  As soon as Aiyanna saw Vale’s text, she sent him a pin with their exact location. She couldn’t see Cael where he circled the house, but remembered his phone was on silent so humans wouldn’t hear him snooping.

  “Cael,” she whispered softly, knowing he would hear her. “Baby, come over here.”

  He loped over, his almost black eyebrows drawn, at the same moment Vale appeared, brushing some kind of dust off his sleeve.

  Normally, Cael blended into the shadows better than anyone else in the pack, but tonight Vale had him beat. She could barely see the other man.

  “Do you have a gun?” he asked. If Cael appeared frustrated, Vale was furious. Smoke practically poured from his ears, and he had to hold his hands away from his sides so his protruded claws didn’t bite into his dark jeans.

  He’s upset he lost his woman. That was, if he already realized he thought of Katarina as his woman. It was pretty apparent to Aiyanna, but men could be difficult sometimes. Exhibit A: Cael Prendergast.

  Pulling apart his suspiciously designer-looking jacket, Cael revealed a neat little .38 special tucked into a compartment perfectly sized for the weapon.

  Aiyanna wasn’t too fond of guns, but they’d learned the hard way that bringing, well, no physical weapons to a gunfight wasn’t the best of ideas. She really didn’t want to be shot again.

  “Good,” Vale said quickly. “Are you armed?”

  She flashed him the knife strapped just above her ankle boot.

  Val
e didn’t give them the chance to ask where they were going. One moment, they stood between houses on Lowerline Street, and the next they stood in a dark, yet very neat, little apartment that was definitely on Bourbon Street from the noises wafting in through the too-thin walls and windows. She’d always wondered how people who stayed in these little pied-à-terres slept through the night, unless they wore earplugs.

  Nothing here made her hair stand on end. Nothing cried threat to her, other than the maddeningly loud crowd on the street outside. She didn’t even smell anything funny.

  “They were here. She was here!” Frantic, Vale pulled open the refrigerator…revealing nothing. He cursed and ran through the rooms, two on either side of the centered living room. Aiyanna followed Vale out of curiosity while Cael stood in the same spot he’d landed in, his arms crossed.

  “This was where she was taken from?” Aiyanna asked. If she had no gauge of Vale’s character, she’d call him a liar. This place looked untouched, ready for some tourist with a large wallet to come ruin it with a night of debauchery.

  But Vale wouldn’t have lied about this, meaning Pureblood was cleverer than she’d guessed. They were here at some point, and found a way to leave quickly with no trace of themselves remaining. Frankly, they shouldn’t have been able to do that.

  Vale nodded, his eyes growing wild.

  “Walk me through what happened.” Cael didn’t look at either of them while he spoke. His focus was on the beige, unmarked ceiling, which was just as ordinary as the rest of the apartment.

  Dutifully, Vale recounted everything. He told them about blood in the refrigerator—which they should all be able to smell—and finally Katarina’s capture, how a cage simply appeared, one that wouldn’t allow him to move inside.

  As Vale spoke, Cael regarded the ceiling. He raised a single brow at Aiyanna.

  Crash.

  Plaster covering the entirety of the ceiling fell, landing in small, uneven chunks on both Cael and Vale’s head and shoulders. No pieces came within a two-foot radius of Aiyanna. Only Cael would think of that.

  When the dust settled, marring the previously pristine space, she saw why he did it. Above them, where there should have been pipes of different sizes running parallel to the floor, was flowing water, running in neat lines of different thicknesses. There were no pipes.

 

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