by Kell Amber
“Yes. It is.”
“Fine. I’ll sign it, but I want you to clear any hunting with me beforehand, and I will send you backup if I deem your assignment too dangerous.”
Quentin nodded, too happy to speak. He couldn’t believe Jaks was giving in.
Jaks cupped his fingers around Quentin’s shoulders, then kissed his forehead. “I might be a possessive asshole, but I’m your possessive asshole. I want you to be happy. I want to make you happy.”
Quentin leaned into the embrace. “You can’t make someone happy. You can only work hard not to make them miserable. People make their own happiness.”
“And are you a happy person?” Jaks pinned Quentin with an intent gaze as if Quentin’s words mattered.
“I’m as happy as I can be right now. I wish my mother weren’t ill, but we’ve both come to grips with her health.” They’d had long talks into the night. Trina Heart was ready to meet her maker.
“I’d like to meet her if you don’t mind,” Jaks said.
Quentin smiled. “She’d probably enjoy meeting a vampire.”
His mother liked meeting new people, and with her death imminent, she was squeezing the last bit of life out of everything before she went.
“Good. I’ll stop by tomorrow.”
“Let me know when, and I’ll come with.”
Jaks pressed a quick kiss onto Quentin’s mouth. “I look forward to it. Are you spending the night?”
“No. I have an early seminar in the morning.” Quentin had signed up for the two-day special class on elemental magic early in the year, and since it had taken him three years to get into the class, he didn’t want to miss it.
“Come see me before you go.” Jaks kissed Quentin once more, then turned and walked down the hall.
“He’s really hot,” Grevin said.
“Yeah.” Quentin couldn’t argue with the necromancer’s assessment.
Grevin nudged Quentin’s arm with his elbow. “Are you going to keep him?”
Quentin tugged at his necklace. “Well, he plans to keep me.”
“Let me see.” Grevin moved to stand in front of Quentin. He hooked a finger through the chain and held it up to examine it closer. “I can just make out the runes. I can probably get this off you.”
“No!” Quentin stepped back, moving the necklace out of Grevin’s reach. “I mean no, that’s all right. It’s fine.”
A day earlier and he would’ve jumped at Grevin’s offer. What had changed? Before Quentin had a chance to examine his thoughts, the wolves began to howl. “What’s going on?”
“They’ve scented something,” Grevin said.
Curious over what had the wolves in a frenzy, Quentin said the only thing he could. “Hunt!”
Still howling, the wolves raced down the corridor. Quentin and Grevin exchanged glances before chasing after them. They ran through several hallways, then down a set of stairs. Quentin’s legs began to burn as he raced after the animals. He hated to think what could upset fae royalty.
The hunt ended in front of a closed door.
Quentin pushed past the wolves and tried the handle. “Locked.”
“Let me try,” Grevin said.
Quentin stepped back to allow more room for him.
Grevin wrapped his hand around the handle and whispered a soft incantation Quentin couldn’t quite make out. There was a loud sizzle and pop, followed by the stench of burning metal. Grevin pulled off the handle and tossed it to the floor. He reached in to pop the catch.
The door swung open with the groaning screech of unused hinges. Quentin peered over Grevin’s shoulder but didn’t see anything right away.
“Huh.” Grevin entered the room with Quentin on his heels.
“Looks like a storage room of some kind,” Quentin said. The dirty stone walls and cobweb-festooned barrels stacked to one side didn’t show signs of any occupants. No footprints disturbed the heavy dust, and the air didn’t smell of magic. The wolves milled around them but didn’t indicate any particular direction suited them more than another.
“I think we were led astray,” Grevin said.
“Yes, but why?” Quentin didn’t feel any animosity in the room or any other sign of magic.
“A better question would be by who?”
“Isn’t it whom?” Quentin asked.
“It’s ‘who the fuck cares,’ is what it is,” Grevin snapped. “Someone’s playing mind games, and you’re worried about correct grammar?”
“Sorry.” Quentin raised his hands. “Let’s go to the courtyard and try some spells on the wolves.”
“Okay, good idea,” Grevin said, calmer.
They turned to exit only to find no door. Where before there had been an entrance, there was now a smooth stone wall.
“That can’t be good,” Quentin said.
“I think we stupidly fell into a trap.” Grevin examined the new wall, tapping it with his fist.
“Hmm. I wonder how long it will take Jaks to notice I’m missing.”
“I’d say about two minutes, but who knows. There are some spells that make everyone forget you. Your entire life could’ve just been erased. I doubt that would work on vampires, though.”
“You don’t have to be so calm about it!” Quentin snapped.
Grevin shrugged. “I don’t have anyone to miss me.”
Quentin opened his mouth to speak and then shut it again. That was one of the saddest things he’d ever heard. “We’ll work on that when we get out of here. Everyone should have at least one person to mourn them.”
“I’m a necromancer, Q-Boy. People are happy if I’m not around.”
Quentin might have thought Grevin resigned to that fate if he didn’t sound so forlorn. “I’d miss you, okay?”
Grevin smiled. “No, you wouldn’t. You only remembered me because your wolves needed help. Hey, it’s all right. Some people aren’t meant to make an impact on this earth. Besides, I’ll get reflected glory by being friends with you. No one is going to forget you. I don’t care how many spells are cast.”
“I appreciate your pep talk, but I’m not ready to vanish quite yet. Come here. Between us we should be able to get out.” Quentin reached for his magic, but something blocked him.
Grevin shuffled his foot along the floor, stirring up a thick cloud of dust. The wolves sneezed.
“What are you doing?”
“We’re in bigger trouble than I thought.” Grevin’s worried tone had Quentin rushing to his side where the door had once been.
Grevin had scraped a clear spot on the floor to reveal a glowing set of runes.
“Oh crap!” Quentin said.
Grevin nodded. “Exactly.” He cast a small spell and the runes flared. “That’s what I was afraid of. The runes are absorbing our magic. Anything we cast will be sucked into the runes, just making them stronger.”
Quentin stared at the luminous runes. He crouched down and brushed away more dirt to get a better look at them. “These were purposely covered with a concealment spell.” The squiggly lines moved beneath his gaze. He blinked, trying to arrange them into some kind of order.
Grevin moved closer. “They also placed a distraction spell on the symbols so you couldn’t decipher them.”
“Me?”
Grevin nodded. “Whoever laid this down was trying to trap a wizard. How many of those do you think wander into a vampire manor?”
Quentin sat on one of the nearby barrels. “What do you think we should do?” The walls were smooth, with no signs of the door or any windows. Quentin turned his attention to the ceiling. “Do you think it goes all the way up?”
“What, the spell?” Grevin came to stand beside Quentin’s barrel.
“Yes. Or is it only confined to the floor and walls?”
“Good question. Lift your feet off the ground and check.”
Quentin blushed over the simple test. He lifted his feet and cast a light spell. For a brief second, a ball of light flared and then snuffed out. “Well, that answers that qu
estion.”
“Not quite.” Grevin hopped up on a barrel and stood. “Maybe it’s a proximity thing.” He moved his hands apart and said a quick incantation. A glow ball flew from his hands. It lasted an entire minute before disappearing. Grevin hopped back down to sit on the barrel beside Quentin.
They sat there for a few minutes in silence, each contemplating their situation… or at least that was what Quentin thought until Grevin said, “I’m hungry.”
“Well, you’re going to be hungrier if we don’t get out of here soon.”
“Your vampire is going to miss you and come looking. From what I can tell, the spell is to contain, not harm.” Grevin kicked his feet against his barrel.
“Which makes me wonder why.” Anyone with the ability to trap Quentin could have used the opportunity to kill him.
“Me too.” Grevin began humming tunelessly until the wolves growled at him. The beasts lay down on the floor, taking up most of the surface.
“I don’t think they care much for your musical aptitude.” Quentin couldn’t resist saying.
“No, they don’t appear to.” He hummed a bit more until the growling wolves drowned him out. “Sorry.” His apology didn’t have an ounce of sincerity in his tone, but the wolves quieted.
Quentin played with the links on his necklace and thought of Jaks. For the first time, he wouldn’t mind seeing the vampire come to his rescue. Jaks’s handsome face would be welcome right then.
“I’d examine the wolves for their magical signature, but I don’t want to feed the runes any of my power,” Grevin said in an apologetic tone.
“No, that’s all right. I understand.” The beasts had decided to lie down and nap since there wasn’t anything else to do. “I’m worried that they’re starting to behave more like real wolves.”
“That’ll happen over time. They might even begin to forget their other lives.”
“We have to reverse the spell or break it before that happens. I might not like my father, but no one deserves to have their soul trapped.”
“Once we’re out of here, I’ll identify the spell signature. I’m surprised you can’t do that.” Grevin gave Quentin a pointed look.
“Because he’s related to me, my spells won’t have much effect. My casting will have a different response than yours.”
“That’s true. Okay, I appreciate you letting me tag along. I’ve never seen real bone wolves before. I mean, I’ve read about them like everyone else, but I’ve never seen them. It took a high-powered necromancer to pull this off. I doubt I could.”
The admiration in Grevin’s voice rubbed Quentin raw. “I don’t think I’m going to be joining his or her fan club anytime soon,” he replied waspishly.
Grevin shrugged. “You don’t have to like a person to admire their skill.”
“True.” Quentin sighed. “I think confinement is making me irritable.”
Grevin laughed. “It’s been what, five minutes? You really don’t have much patience, do you?”
“Not really, unless it’s for spells.” Lost in academic study, Quentin had endless patience over studying a spell’s complexity and trying over and over to see if something worked.
“Do you have any enemies who would want you trapped?”
“Where do I start?”
“Please, you’re one of the good guys. You probably have people throwing themselves at your feet.”
Quentin laughed. “Not likely. I’m not one of those rock-star wizards with groupies. I recently sent the leader of this vampire clan to jail. My stepmother would probably enjoy killing me, and some weirdo is stalking my mother’s garden—not to mention that the vampire who changed Glenn is still walking around.”
Grevin stared at Quentin for several minutes before speaking again. “And here I always thought of you as a nice, quiet guy. Maybe a bit nerdy, but nice. You’ve got this whole darker, bad-boy, vampire-hunter side of you I’ve never seen before. It’s kind of sexy.” Grevin leered at Quentin with such an over-the-top expression it made Quentin laugh.
“Yeah, that’s me. Bad to the bone,” Quentin said in a dry voice.
Grevin tapped his chin with his right index finger. “So it’s a matter of discovering who wants to trap you but not necessarily harm you.”
“I don’t know.” Quentin shrugged. “If they sucked enough of my magic into the runes, it could harm me.”
“Yeah, but they gotta know you aren’t going to cast spells for long in here. You’re a smart guy, and anyone stalking you is gonna know that.” Grevin’s irises turned black.
“What are you doing?”
“What if we attract it to us?” Grevin jumped down off the barrel and began to pace as he thought.
“What do you mean?”
Had Grevin finally snapped? Necromancers weren’t the most balanced individuals anyway.
Grevin grinned. More color leached from his eyes. “I mean we pull magic in here with us and overfill the runes.”
“What kind of magic?” Quentin worried about Grevin’s answer. There were only so many kinds of magic a necromancer could call toward him.
Grevin patted Quentin on the arm. “You worry too much.”
“Uh-huh. And I have a feeling you don’t worry enough.”
The expression on Grevin’s face didn’t reassure Quentin at all. Grevin pulled off his shirt, exposing rows of runes branded across his skin.
Quentin stared. “What the hell did you do?” The raised marks covered Grevin’s upper arms and two lines ran down the middle of his chest before disappearing beneath his waistline. Quentin tried to ignore the appealing firm muscles beneath the scars.
Grevin’s smile disappeared. “I did what I needed to. Necromancers need a lot more protection than the rest of you. You don’t have to worry that one of your spells is going to try to eat you. If I call a demon, he can’t possess me because I’m warded against it. When one of my kind makes bone wolves, the pack can turn against them. The worse you have to worry about is magical backlash.”
“Why aren’t you protected against bone wolves?” Quentin asked.
Grevin shrugged. “They aren’t common enough to protect against. I can see the error in my judgment now.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to criticize, but that looks like it hurt.”
“It did. Every single time. But it could kill me not to have the right runes.”
Quentin nodded, chagrined. He didn’t know what necromancers had to go through, but connecting to demons and the undead couldn’t be easy. Only certain people had the energy and skill to handle that sort of dark energy, and Quentin wasn’t one of them.
“What’s your plan?”
“I’m going to call a demon and have it break through the barrier. I think if I introduced demon magic into the room, it will shatter the runes.”
“How do you figure? Won’t they just suck up the demon’s energy?” Quentin and Grevin didn’t need to make the marks more powerful.
“I’m thinking the demon will break the magic because it’s coming from outside in, instead of inside out.”
Quentin thought about it for a while, turning the different ideas around in his head. “You really think it will work?”
“It’s worth a try. Even if we make the field stronger, it’s not like it can capture us more.”
“True.” Quentin couldn’t argue with Grevin’s logic, even if he didn’t want to call a demon.
“So, you okay with it?”
Quentin sighed. “Sure, I don’t have a better plan.” It killed him to admit it, and he worried Grevin’s plan would go horribly wrong, but he really didn’t have a better one.
“Good, because I’m going to need some of your blood.”
Lars jumped up and snarled at Grevin, snapping at his legs.
“Whoa! Down, Fang!” Grevin pulled his feet up and crouched on the barrel so his legs weren’t dangling anymore.
“Lars, stop!” Quentin shouted.
The wolf continued to snap at Grevin for a few more mi
nutes before settling down and keeping his snarl to a low growl.
“Why do you need my blood?” Quentin tried to keep his voice neutral. If he sounded nervous, Lars might decide to take Grevin down. Quentin didn’t want there to be bloodshed on either side.
“Because if I use your blood and mine, the demon can’t enter you either. Since you don’t have my wards, I thought it best to combine them.”
Quentin thought it over and realized Grevin had a good point. He didn’t want to be possessed. “What are we going to use to cut with?”
“Oh, that’s not a problem.” Grevin lifted his right pant leg. A knife in a leather sheath was strapped to his ankle.
“Great.” Quentin tried to infuse excitement in his voice but must’ve failed from the anxious look Grevin gave him.
“I promise not to cut you too badly. I only need a little bit. Besides, I’m not so sure your big wolf there won’t go for my jugular if I try to take a drop more than necessary.”
“I trust you.” Quentin didn’t trust a lot of people, but he’d known Grevin for years. The necromancer wouldn’t try to harm him on purpose.
“Really?” Grevin smiled. “Not a lot of people trust necromancers. We get a bad rap.”
“You’ve never done anything to make me distrust you. You could’ve attacked me at any time over the years, but you never did.” He held out his hand. “Do it.”
Grevin sat back on the barrel and pulled his knife out of the sheath. He grabbed Quentin’s wrist and raised the knife.
Chapter 8
A focused explosion burst through the wall where the door had been. Jaks marched through the opening with a Glock in his right hand and a trio of vampires behind him. His angry gaze took in Quentin and Grevin sitting close together. When he saw Grevin’s knife, he raised his gun.
Quentin jumped down to stand between Jaks and Grevin. “Don’t shoot him.”
Jaks pointed the Glock away from Quentin. “He was going to stab you and steal your essence. You belong to me!”
There was no greater theft to vampires than taking someone’s blood. Quentin needed to defuse the situation fast. “He was going to draw some blood to do a spell. I didn’t have the right magic to get us out of here.”