“They used the pipes for their cage,” Cael murmured.
“How? They’re vampires!” Vale had the same expression Cael got when he was about to tear into an inanimate object—his green eyes wide, his jaw clenched, and his mouth a rigid line.
Aiyanna could hardly blame him. Too rapidly, they were losing their ability to predict what little they knew about Pureblood and their capabilities. It reminded her of the situation with the warlocks…who could do anything if they had enough power collected to accomplish it.
“More importantly, how long will this last?” She pointed to the neat lines of water. “If they’re gone, it shouldn’t stay like this.” The werewolves could rarely use their elemental abilities at a distance, and no matter what these vampires could do with the elements, they weren’t as powerful as weres or the Fey. She felt it in her gut. Besides, creatures with their natural abilities should be stronger than those who shouldn’t have those powers to begin with.
She hoped.
“Not long. We need Heath over here to deal with this before we have scalding water raining down.” Cael was already dialing his friend. A moment later, his phone beeped. “He’ll be here in a minute—they’re going to finish checking out an abandoned building—”
Before he could finish speaking, the water went from moving as it would have inside a pipe to behaving as it should without something to contain it; it fell down, falling over them in the shape of a dome.
Both Cael and Vale’s eyes were narrowed in concentration while they kept the water from touching them. It wasn’t something an air elemental typically did with their abilities, and especially not against the weight of water. Sweat beaded Vale’s brow, but Cael wasn’t nearly as strained.
It felt like standing inside a water fountain. While at least Vale’s power would wane, Aiyanna couldn’t help but appreciate the beauty of the water gracefully cascading around them, falling next to her like heavy rain against a window. What was even cooler was the water pooled around their feet. It was almost an inch high, with steam rising to cloud the room. Only the circle surrounding them was left dry.
Curses sounded, and Heath all but leapt a foot in the air when he landed in the room. Sophia simply released his arm and stepped to a corner of the room where less water fell.
“You could have warned me that the spell broke,” Heath muttered, sending their dry group a scathing look.
Cael shrugged. “If you came about a minute sooner, you could’ve caught it before this happened.”
Making a face, Heath mimed talking with one hand while he raised the other. The water followed in a rope the width of a basketball. “I’m going to send all of this down the drain in the shower,” he said as he walked through the apartment, wincing when he must have stepped in a particularly hot spot of water. “I don’t think it’s already damaged the apartment below, but even if it has, this should help from ruining everything beneath us.”
Soon he found the bathrooms, and the water from the ceiling as well as that on the floor were being moved in two rope shapes, one per shower.
“You all go ahead, go find Pureblood.” Heath waved at them. They hadn’t really moved from their dry area, even though no water threatened them now. Heath didn’t seem to notice—he was watching his mate. “Sophe, would you mind finding a plumber to come here? We can leave as soon as some human knows to come take care of this.”
“I can do that.” She nodded. “Asshole move, yanking out the pipes.”
“Asshole move, imprisoning my girlfriend with pipes,” Vale murmured, frowning, before he disappeared.
Aiyanna sympathized with Sophia and Heath—there were few things worse than wet shoes in the winter—but didn’t protest when Cael took her back to the house they’d left. Knowing the vampires’ travel capabilities, it felt futile to search this way anymore, but she didn’t know what else to do, and neither did Cael.
So they flitted from house to house until the sun went down, their frustration growing when they found absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, excluding a large dog she felt sure was a shapeshifter. She was curious, but not stupid enough to stick around long enough to find out why he wore a collar. Every time they checked in with the others, she learned they came up with just as little.
Not long after dark, the Proteus parade started to roll uptown. Once it had ended and Orpheus began, Aiyanna’s side started to hurt, and she prayed the sound of her rumbling stomach was covered by the crunch of their footsteps and the loud, hissing wind.
She knew it was sheer luck that nothing terrible had happened…yet. It seemed the humans were safe for the moment, probably since Pureblood was busy with Katarina. At that thought, Aiyanna shivered.
“Can we take a break, maybe get something to eat?” She would have wholeheartedly admitted she was doing no one any good—and wouldn’t until she was fed.
From where he prowled upstairs in the nice shotgun house they’d infiltrated, Cael grunted an affirmative before appearing next to her. Their eyes met, both of them troubled and angry at their failure to find the vampires, and he took them outside.
Where ash assailed her, landing square in Aiyanna’s face and eyes. “Gah, who’s burning things outside? If it weren’t so humid, this would be a serious fire hazard.”
Even with the humidity, it was a pain in the ass. Didn’t Leila live near here? At least in her little corner of the Irish Channel, she could take a walk outside without feeling as if an ashtray had been dumped on her.
The moment she spoke, Cael took her to an almost-empty restaurant with checked tablecloths and a menu offering every po-boy she could think of. There were lines of anger in his face, but his expression was gentle as he wiped a bit of ash from her cheek with his thumb.
“Thank you.” Feeling much lighter, she leaned up to give him a quick kiss before she grabbed a menu and took a seat at the nearest two-person table.
“You’re tired.” Fifteen minutes later, Cael scrutinized her while she wolfed down the first half of a fried shrimp po-boy once she’d placed a layer of fried bell pepper rings on the sandwich.
Aiyanna shook her head, but she didn’t put her sandwich down. “Not now that I’ve got something in my stomach,” she told him honestly. Did she want to stay out searching into the wee hours of the morning? Hell no. But she could look for a while longer, providing she found a snack before bed.
And that snack’s name begins with C…
“What we should do is go to the parade. If we pop in along the parade route, we may see something that could lead us to Pureblood. It’s dark now, so they have no reason to stay away.” She didn’t mention how popular a parade Orpheus was, or the wonderful music currently playing down St. Charles Avenue. Cael knew that already. These vampires probably couldn’t resist something like this occurring right under their noses.
“Did you find them?” Cael didn’t snap at Aiyanna, but whoever had called him. Glancing down at her phone, she realized she, too, had a missed call.
“No, but we talked to Sebastian and Briony, and not only have Pureblood been scrying for us, they have the abilities of those whose blood they’ve drank. Meaning they recently killed a witch, and probably a faery, since at least one of them could bend metal.” Heath sounded even more exhausted than she’d felt half an hour ago.
That explains it. Aiyanna wanted to slap her hand to her forehead. Those bloodsucking dickheads. She figured it made enough sense for power to run in the blood—but she sincerely hoped it had some nasty side effects when vampires used other creatures’ abilities, no matter what they were.
Cael spoke to Heath for a few more minutes, forming a rough plan for the rest of the night. They would take the most uptown section of the parade while Heath, Sophia, Raphael, and Mary took the sections in the garden district and downtown. Vale, apparently, wasn’t listening to reason and refused to stop his search. Knowing there was nothing else he could do, Heath had sent Emmanuel to accompany him on his hunt for Katarina.
“Just in case, let’s get some more caffeine before we go.” The temperature from the drink would keep her alert more than the chemicals, and she wanted the creature comfort.
Aiyanna liked Katarina, and the thought of what Pureblood was doing to her made her stomach turn.
Within a few minutes, they both stood on the street in front of a seafood restaurant, their stomachs full, and warm Styrofoam cups in their hands. An enormous float covered in music notes rolled past, and Aiyanna couldn’t muster a smile, her thoughts still with the young almost-warlock. Due to her age, she wouldn’t be immortal yet, making her even more vulnerable. She didn’t blame Vale in the least for his fury.
For a while, she leaned on Cael slightly, letting his scent ground her while she watched the humans enjoy themselves, searching with all of her senses for anything suspicious, like a flash of fang or the scent of blood. Nothing set off any of her internal alarms…until she saw a bright light rising perpendicular to the horizon. It almost looked like a spotlight aimed at the sky, only it was brighter than what humans could produce themselves.
“There.” She turned Cael around bodily. He’d been facing the opposite way, watching the crowded sidewalk behind them. “That’s where Katarina is, and where Pureblood’s hiding.”
He squinted at the light, his lips turning downward. “Why would they reveal themselves this way? That can’t be them.”
Now, Aiyanna smiled. She wanted to purr. “I don’t think they did it. I think she did.”
Chapter 18
IT surprised Katarina that she felt no remorse for the vampires lying dead at her feet. There were five of them. Of the last three, each had been more determined than the last that she couldn’t kill them.
Now, it seemed, their friends had decided drinking her blood was a bad idea. She would’ve thought they were smarter as a whole if four more of them hadn’t drank from her after the first died from her “poisoned blood,” but that boded better for her.
Better to be captured by stupid creatures than smart ones.
From the arrogance of the last man who’d come in knowing he’d be immune to her blood, she figured she had a few minutes’ reprieve before someone else came along to make sure one of them was dead.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much she could do in her downtime. There was hardly enough light for her to watch the invisibility spell dissipate, which was as boring as watching paint dry.
Her head ached and her legs felt like jelly from the blood loss. She was only conscious due to the pain in what had been her good her wrist, where every Pureblood vampire had bitten her in the same exact spot.
After bite number two, given by a scared, slight vampire she almost felt guilty for accidentally killing, she thought her hand would fall off her body. Now, she wondered if it would turn on her, Wormtail-style, and strangle her for allowing herself to be in this situation. Why do people think they can just…take me, like an object?
I’m better than this. She deserved more, not only because she was a person, wholly human or not, but from the look on Vale’s face when he realized he couldn’t save her from Pureblood. Never had anyone been so devastated for her—hell, they’d never cared about her, not when she joined the float, or in the foster care system. She shouldn’t have, but she’d needed the reminder Vale gave her in the way he fought for her. I can’t let them kill me.
It was her mantra during the following hours. They left her alone the entire time as they made whatever plans they needed far enough away that she didn’t so much as hear a whisper. It unnerved her, but the more the light waned, turning into the darkness that seemed so much thicker this time of year, the more she didn’t care.
Katarina didn’t even notice that she didn’t see the daylight dwindling away—she had no way to without windows in the room or light filtering in from the connecting hall. She just knew, a strange knowledge she’d think about endlessly later, when she was healed and had been taken away from this hellhole.
After the swiftness with which they’d moved their operation from the apartment overlooking Bourbon Street, she had to guess they were tired. From the sallow look at least five of them had after arriving here—wherever here was—she had to guess they’d overextended themselves. Good.
She hurt so much, she laughed when the cage began to rattle on its own. She laughed even harder when she lifted her hands to make sure she wasn’t causing the commotion. There was a crack-ing sound, but she couldn’t find where it came from. It didn’t matter—the more destruction there was around her, the more she could hurt Pureblood.
Absently, she noticed sweat dripping from her brow onto her shirt.
I can’t let them kill me.
Crack.
But how can Vale and the pack find me? They were her best bet for survival…if only they could track her down. It wouldn’t be easy, given her phone had been taken away, and she didn’t know what area of town she was in, that was, if she was still in New Orleans to begin with.
Now she couldn’t stop laughing, or shaking, and her teeth clacked against each other. Her shoulder rammed hard against the bar of her cage.
“Ha!”
Now that she looked closer, the cage looked like it was made of hollow pipe.
* * * *
It was decided that Raphael and Mary would stay and patrol the parade, while the rest of them—except Briony and Sebastian—would find where the light came from. Vale and Emmanuel were already on it. Apparently, the moment Vale saw it, he’d been trying to get there.
Like Aiyanna, he knew it had to be Katarina creating the light. The question of how was still in the air, but it made no difference. If it was her, it meant they could find her and Pureblood. The problem was, Cael, Heath, and Vale couldn’t simply travel there using their air powers. They needed an image of where they were going in their minds, like some sort of coordinates or address. All they had was a vague idea of the direction in which they needed to go.
From the way he cursed more vehemently the closer they were without actually reaching Katarina, this method of searching was getting to Cael.
“We’re so much closer. Look how much brighter it is now, and we know we’re going the right way.” Aiyanna ran her hand over Cael’s back, which was rigid with tension. She felt the opposite; if Katarina could pull this off, she couldn’t be too injured. Of course she wanted to find their friend as soon as they could, but the worry that had been crawling over her ceased, leaving her head clear.
“I feel like a dog chasing after the light from the laser pen,” he grumbled darkly. His hand still clasped with hers, he took them closer twice, the first time landing them in a grassy yard. The next try, they both stood on large rocks in the middle of a pond.
“Impressive,” Aiyanna murmured, glad she wasn’t going to have to change shoes like Heath and Sophia had to earlier.
Cael only grunted and took them somewhere else.
After three more tries that only took them slightly closer to where they needed to be, Aiyanna was beginning to feel his frustration equally.
“Imagine the light.” Squinting, she tried to make out where it could be coming from, like a neighborhood or a strip mall, but there were still too many structures between them for her to see. “It’s coming from inside a building, where there’s a cage made of pipes. Think about that cage, and how you want to move to be right next to it.”
When he looked down at her, there was a similar awe in his expression to the time when he’d first seen her without clothes.
“I’d be lost without you,” he said simply, leaning down to give her lingering kiss. He smiled. “My pack would be lost without you too.”
She flipped her hair and grinned, ignoring the way tears pricked the backs of her eyes. “I know.” She raised herself on the tips of her toes to kiss him, hard, conveying without words how much she needed him.
“Don’t let those pricks get their fangs in you,” she growled, releasing her claws.
He nodde
d, clenching his hand on her back. The next thing she knew they were in a too-brightly lit room. For almost a minute, that was all Aiyanna could make out—the light was too much for her to see past. It made the screen of her phone so dark that she couldn’t see it to send a pin to the others.
Luckily, it was far too quiet for the vampires to be approaching them from behind. Then again, she didn’t know what kind of light this was. There was just as good a chance it would kill them as it wouldn’t affect them at all, like a particularly bright light bulb.
Finally, her eyes adjusted, allowing her to make out the dimensions of the small room, and see a figure in the center of the light, outlined by metal bars. Katarina’s slight form was curled up in the fetal position, her hands over her legs while she lay still on her side.
There were also what looked like bodies on the other side of the cage, each lying directly beside the other.
“I thought she wasn’t too hurt…” Aiyanna trailed off, chilled at the sight before her. The coppery scent of blood filled her nostrils. “I was wrong.”
Cael approached the cage. “Can you hear us, Katarina?”
“Yes.” The word was said in such a quiet voice, only Aiyanna and Cael’s animalistic sensibilities allowed them to hear her.
“It’s Cael and Aiyanna,” he continued, shielding his eyes with his hand. “We’re here to get you out. You can stop projecting the light.”
At his words the light dimmed, moving through her to the floor, ceiling and walls. It spread to the rest of the house; Aiyanna could see it shining in the gap under the door. Now the lighting was similar to a room at midday, when the sun was high with no clouds to hinder its rays.
The door was locked. She shrugged, knowing it wouldn’t stop them from scouting the rest of the house—well, she thought it was a house, but it could be an apartment of some kind. The only window in the room was boarded shut, keeping her from seeing where they were, exactly.
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