Blood Ties

by Skyla Dawn Cameron

  The fuck had Ashur gotten me into? Who was this guy?

  From a distance the dark blue of the manor, the same as the landscape, almost made it look like a normal house shuttered for the night; up close, it was abundantly clear how unnatural it was. The ground folded and puckered around the edges of the foundation, disguising somewhat but not entirely that it was all the same substance. The walls had no texture, nor did the door, the surface all the same and making it even more alien. A house made of clay.

  The door silently opened at our approach.

  I’d been expecting rooms, maybe a hallway with stairs, but the exterior was where the facade ended. The house opened to a single two-story room that took up the bulk of the place. The windows were all false, the walls inside smooth and uninterrupted by anything but the door, which closed at our backs.

  There was warmth, at least, coming from a firepit in the center; it wasn’t regular fire but white light tinged in blue, giving off glittering sparks that suggested a magical version of a fire and light source all in one. I still shivered in the cloak while I adjusted to warmth that far outpaced what had been given off by my own spell.

  I was painfully outclassed here.

  The man was seated high against the far wall, no steps or anything there so he must’ve magically elevated himself. He looked over us as if from a throne, the blue-tinged light from the fire spreading against the room and lighting him from below.

  “I’ve been here a very, very long time, and suddenly I have guests. I admit I’m curious and distrustful.” He raised one hand to rest his chin on his fist, the other hand tucked at his side and out of view.

  I couldn’t claim I came to rescue him—I didn’t even know who the hell he was. I couldn’t claim I stumbled in here accidentally, given the difficulty in reaching the dimension. It left me with one possibility that would either work or blow up spectacularly in my face—but it wasn’t like we had a whole lot of other options.

  “We were sent to kill you,” I said plainly.

  Melinoë’s gaze whipped to me, her eyes huge and body tensing like she was prepping to dart away.

  The man said nothing to that but simply waited.

  “Clearly that was a tremendously bad idea and we are way in over our heads,” I continued. “I don’t want to be here. She doesn’t want to be here. It was a quid pro quo situation where I owed someone but this is far from what I was told to expect.”

  He seemed wryly amused, though little more than contempt left his expression. “Do you have a proposal?”

  I nodded. “Smart man. We have a way out. I’m assuming someone of your...” I gestured around us. “...considerable abilities has means on the other side. Pay us when we get back to the surface so we can get out of dodge and we’ll get you out of here.”

  It was a gamble. If it failed, I’d have to throw lightning at him or something and pray Melinoë or I could get the upper hand.

  “You understand I can’t merely take your word for it,” he said at last.

  I shrugged. “Pinky swear?”

  His smile widened, slowly and deliberately. “You remind me of someone.”

  I was playing at seeming a sweet dumb kid too over her head to double-cross him, and we all sort of looked alike to people like him. “Hope she’s brilliant.”

  “Mmm. She thought she was.” He shifted, dropping his hand as the wall beside him melted and moved to reveal a vial of some kind. “I have further questions but I do need to know you’re telling the truth. You understand this, of course.”

  “Of course,” I said automatically. Melinoë didn’t speak but took half a step back seemingly involuntarily.

  He uncorked the vial with the hand holding it and tossed the contents forward.

  Dark powder struck the fire and sparked, puffing out with growing smoke that rolled across the floor and concentrated in the direction of me and Melinoë. I braced but held my place as the smoke wound up our legs and bodies, a violet-tinged haze I couldn’t help but breathe in. For a moment even my vision was glazed in purple, but it faded and I stared at the same room again.

  Melinoë crossed her arms at her abdomen, her leather coat creaking, and tightened her lips together.

  Any remnants of the smoke were entirely gone now. I didn’t feel any different, no sense of being lightheaded, no sign of a dull headache or anything, but my stomach twisted nervously.

  “Now let’s have a real conversation.” His tone changed, pitching darker and colder, and a shiver worked across my skin. “Who sent you?”

  “Ashur,” I said immediately. “He’s one of the Aanzhenii. He didn’t tell me who you are—”

  “Maximilian Vasquez,” he cut in.

  That meant absolutely nothing to me and I was certain the confusion was obvious given the tightening of his expression.

  “My, how the times change,” he said with an edge of bitterness. “Is this how things work in the real world now? Little witches doing errands for those creatures?”

  “Like I said, I got way in over my head,” I replied. “I have nothing against you. We could all get out of here, and if you can fund us getting out of the country, I’m happy to forget all this happened.”

  His gaze shifted to Melinoë. “You’re awfully quiet.”

  “I-I’m just here to help,” she said quickly. “I got caught up as well but this is on her, so whatever she says, I’m going along with.”

  All true, at least—we might be in trouble if he really pressed or asked for specifics, but Melinoë had at least figured out this was some kind of truth spell and whatever answers we offered had to be truthful ones.

  “And how did you reach me?” His expression was guarded, eyes narrowed. “Did this Aanzhenii open the dimension somehow?”

  “Some kind of blood magic?” I shrugged. “I never learned so I don’t know the particulars.”

  His head tilted to the side as he regarded me, then his gaze slid between me and Melinoë smoothly. “Interesting. Whose blood?”

  Too direct to wiggle out of. “Mine,” I said automatically.

  “Hmm. I do find your terms potentially agreeable, but that leads us to who I’m doing business with. What are your names?”

  Melinoë and I looked at one another.

  “I’m Elis O’Connor,” I said.

  “Mel,” Melinoë said.

  He shook his head and gave me a withering look. “Your...true names. Your full names, your family names. The names your parents chose, that bind you to your families.”

  He must’ve been down here decades if he thought birth names were “true” names or somehow sacred, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. A biting remark calling him ‘grandpa’ hovered on my lips but I swallowed the snark back.

  “Melinoë Hayden,” Melinoë said, “was my birth name, but my mother called me Melinoë Takata.”

  He watched her and several minutes ticked on, the silence serving to ratchet up the tension. “Persephone’s daughter.”

  She nodded.

  His attention then homed in on me expectantly.

  I took a deep breath and spoke the name no one had used in many years.

  “Elisabeta,” I said.

  He gestured for me to continue.

  Discomfort squirmed in my gut—I schooled my features into neutral, resisted fidgeting, but this was bothering me far more than I’d anticipated.

  “My birth name is Elisabeta Nicole...”

  He waited.

  “...Lain.”

  His widened grin was practically villainous, a light coming to his eyes that I hadn’t seen the entire time we’d been here. “Well, well. That’s...interesting.”

  I probably shouldn’t’ve said that, but I suspected he knew—or at least theorized—about the answer before he asked me. Which meant this guy knew my parents and probably not in a good way.

  He had to want out, though. And I’d gamble that as soon as he could confirm the way out, he’d kill me.

  So I’d play dumb until I could kill him first
. No problem.

  His seat against the wall moved downward until it deposited him standing flat on the ground again. As he stood, I glimpsed the stump where his left hand should’ve been—and flashed back to the skeleton hand left on the floor of the chamber where Ashur took us.

  This man, this Maximillian Vasquez, had been in a battle in that very chamber, which led to him ending up here.

  He gestured forward with his remaining hand as the door opened behind me. “After you.”

  Twenty-Four

  Season of the Bitch

  So the guy who was most definitely going to kill me was behind me for the entire freezing walk back to the portal doorway.

  Should’ve called Ashur on his bluff. Maybe he would’ve given me some other job to do, or maybe I would’ve gotten my ass fried, but at least then it would be done instead of dealing with this tension now.

  Whatever power Vasquez had before he got here, things had changed. This was his dimension now. It answered to him. If I tried to draw magic externally, I doubted it would respond. That left whatever magic entwined with me, and it was definitely finite. I’d have to hit him fast, use the element of surprise, and that wasn’t seeming likely.

  My blood opened the portal—he had to know that. He could kill me now and take some blood, but I didn’t know if the portal required fresh donations or not. Maybe the blood source still had to be living—that was a thing with magic, sometimes. If that was the case, he’d put off killing me until we were right there.

  If he went for me, Melinoë would attack. If he split his focus between two of us, I’d counter the moment his attention was off my back. But beyond that, though I racked my brain, I couldn’t come up with a solution that put me on the offense. He was likely waiting for me to strike out, counter spell prepared.

  This, this, was why I preferred to sneak up on men in the dark and fry their eyeballs out.

  Our walk to find Vasquez had taken a while—hard to judge time without a clock or daylight to go by, but it felt like maybe half an hour or so. But we’d been walking only a few minutes on the way back when I glimpsed the flickering light of my magic I’d left by the doorway.

  Vasquez grew restless behind me, vibrations running into my feet from the rustling ground beneath us. The world responded to him, after all—it knew him, listened to him, was probably a part of him now.

  If we walked through that door, it was possible Ashur would be waiting for us and kill Vasquez on the spot, but where would that leave me? If I failed to do this job myself, would I owe him yet another favor? Would I pay in some other way?

  Not to mention, even if I had to be living to open the door, I had no doubt Vasquez planned to kill me as soon as he had the opportunity if we got out. Whether he intended to go through and leave me and Melinoë here, kill us as he passed through, or something else, he had to have something in place.

  This was such a stupid, stupid idea. If I had to open the door, maybe someone else could’ve gone through and done this job—maybe I could’ve negotiated... Ugh.

  Vasquez’s steps increased behind us, forcing Melinoë and I to move faster. She and I shared furtive glances but there was no “follow my lead” looks—we both knew we were fucked.

  If I survived this, Dad was going to kill me. Hell, he might resurrect me if I died just to chew me out.

  Another set of steps sounded in the silence and all three of us looked back.

  The creature was back, walking steadily toward Vasquez.

  “Fuck,” I said as we broke into a run. “I thought the swarm killed it!”

  “It cannot be killed, Miss Lain,” Vasquez snapped.

  Wonderful.

  The doorway grew closer and closer; magic grew behind me, some kind of spelling by Vasquez; I glanced back and saw the ground rise up in spikes, crisscrossing over the creature’s path. She didn’t stumble or trip, slowed only a little—otherwise she was relentless.

  “Open the portal!” Vasquez roared as we were thirty feet out from the doorway.

  I jogged ahead, pulling the stiletto out.

  Mel swung around and clocked Vasquez in the face.

  The force of his own running did most of the work—in fact she probably hurt the hell out of her hand, but she punched like she knew what she was doing, knew how to hold her fist and how to brace for it.

  I called electricity and shot it toward him, pulling energy from myself, throwing everything I could into it to take advantage of her catching him off-guard.

  Magic sizzled but didn’t touch him, hit some invisible shield—he must’ve had it up the whole time, but damned if I could sense it. The ground rose up and latched onto my ankles with teeth, jerked me off my feet. I tumbled like a ragdoll, stiletto spinning from my grip as I fell.

  Dark chaos around me, the dimension’s ground rising and falling under Vasquez’s command, knocking Melinoë back. She sprawled in the opposite direction from me, cracking her head hard enough I swore I heard it.

  I had a moment of terror and fury that surged—head injuries could kill us just as easily a regular human.

  I hadn’t time to check—I whispered words so familiar my lips were moving before I realized it, flicking my fingers in a dispel. The spell hit the now-shimmering shield around Vasquez, which crackled and shattered. He cut a furious look my way, his slicked back silver hair falling in spikes on either side of his face.

  I threw a follow-up, but not from where he expected; thunder snapped through the empty navy sky above followed by a crackling storm of electrical magic, the roar deafening and the light blinding. Ozone sizzled in the air as forks of bright blue lightning shot toward him from different angles, and he might’ve been spry for his age but had to throw all of his focus to avoid being hit.

  I whispered more power into my craft, electricity shooting from my fingertips toward him.

  The ground rumbled beneath me like a violent earthquake; unlike the ones I’d grown up with that rocked my city with dimensional rifts, there was nothing for support, no safe place to crouch. I lost my balance, landed hard on my side. The ground arched up in spikes to trap me, a cage keeping me on my knees as I struggled to wiggle through. The edges of the spikes were thorned, catching the cloak and making it more difficult to move.

  My energy was bleeding away fast. This was not typically how I fought, not typically how I used my magic—the sheer force and frequency of use as I threw everything into it depleted my reserves. The cage around me tightened, knocking me flat. My eyes went blurry and head throbbed, my vision nearly red with warning. Feet stepped in front of me as a weathered hand reached down. The ground rose and formed a dagger in the same navy as the rest of the environment, easily plucked up like any weapon, and then Vasquez’s loafer came down on my outstretched hand.

  “I would like to keep you, you know,” he said carefully as he leaned down with the improvised weapon, tip pointed toward my outstretched arm. “Take you apart and figure out what you are. Because you should not exist, Miss Lain, and that fascinates me. But fascination requires patience that I no longer have.”

  I screamed and tried to pull back, but he ran a deep slice across my wrist—enough that I’d bleed out if I didn’t get the wound covered, but it would take a bit before I died. He dragged the makeshift knife over the air, my blood swirling and carving the oblong shape of the doorway. The light from the blood magic lit Vasquez’s face, sheer delirious glee at getting out at last.

  Ashur would kill him, at least. And if I lived long enough, I could at least drag Melinoë out with me, even if the door closed. But I was weakening, struggling to get on my feet—if I lost consciousness, that would be it.

  The doorway opened to our home dimension and Vasquez took a step through.

  Or tried to.

  He hit a barrier and for a moment confusion surged.

  Past him Melinoë was awake and aware, scrambling to her feet, her focus on the doorway. And the power I felt, so raw and unmanaged previously, now hit with a tidal wave so strong I wondered if she
was even aware of it. A red film came over her eyes and demonic energy swept over me, the heat of it blowing my hair back and disrupting the air around me. Vasquez’s confusion had the ground shiver and falter, enough that the cage around me eased back.

  I had no doubt he could dispel the barrier over the exit without much effort, once he realized what she’d done. I lunged up, cloak thrown off, and snatched the fallen stiletto.

  Red heat swirled around Melinoë, tinging the air visibly and pulsing in the doorway. Vasquez turned toward her, the words of a spell on his lips.

  I rushed forward and thrust the knife into his side, angled up.

  The blade slipped between ribs, cutting flesh and muscle and puncturing deep.

  As Vasquez turned, I gave the stiletto a violent twist and wrenched it out again, blood gushing across his clothes, the ground, and my hand. As he finished turning, eyes ablaze with fury I had no doubt he was about to take out on me, a figure crashed into him from the side and he fell beneath the creature of Ashur’s. So many years they’d been here—he’d outwitted, outrun—and his screams died under its thrashing.

  For a moment, I swore it had my mother’s face.

  I blinked and the image was gone again, just the stringy-haired thing that had followed us earlier over a pile of blood and guts, the witch beneath it unmoving. The rumbling of the ground sudden ceased, the world flattening and becoming featureless. Vasquez was indeed the one who gave it some semblance of a real world—now we were in a deep navy void.

  And the door had closed again.

  I clutched my wrist to my chest and swiped hair from my face as Melinoë walked over. Her eyes had returned to normal and she swayed; I lunged forward and caught her arm, slinging it over my shoulder.

  “I’m really glad I taught you that barrier,” I said.

  She grinned faintly even as her eyes struggled to focus. “I’m glad I remembered. Can we leave?”

  “I’d say so.” I should’ve asked Ashur if he wanted some sort of proof brought back that Vasquez was dead—the other hand?—but given what he said of the dimension and his ability to sense it, I figured he’d take our word for it.