Standing, I paused to wipe my blood from the bed with my shirt and pocket the ropes that had absorbed my blood. If I escaped, I didn’t want anyone using it to find me again . . . or worse. There was an old belief that if you knew a person’s real name, you had power over them. It was bullshit. Blood, on the other hand, was a great way to get at a person.
I crossed the bare wood floor slowly, rolling my feet with each step to try to reduce any creaks and groans. Stopping a couple feet from the door, I got down on my hands and knees to gaze under the opening beneath the door while praying that I didn’t cast a shadow. At an angle, I could see a pair of shoes. It looked as if someone with big feet was seated outside the door. A man, or rather, a warlock.
Pushing to my knees, I inched a little closer to the door but was careful not to touch it. The spell was a simple one designed to keep me from using magic to pick the lock, which was also quite simple and old. By the age of the wood beneath me, the style of the door, and the old-fashioned iron doorknob with lock, I could easily guess that this was not a newly constructed house, which meant that the floors would creak and groan when I moved. Doorknobs would jiggle and rattle. Doors would moan when opened. In short, this was going to be a noisy fucking house for me to sneak out of.
But I didn’t need to get far. Just out of the house. Without being detected. If I could escape to a quiet location that was hidden, I could teleport. If I tried it in the house, not only would they know I used magic, but they’d be able to trace the spell to my final destination. Sure, I was going back to Low Town, assuming I wasn’t in Low Town at the moment, but I wasn’t going to my apartment. I needed to hit the parlor if these fuckers were going to continue to play rough.
But first things first. I had to take care of the asshole guarding my door. Standing, I soundlessly backed up until I was sure that I wouldn’t be trapped behind the door if he threw it open, but stayed as close as I could so I could jump on him when he came in.
I drew in a deep breath and closed my eyes for a second, willing the twisting and knots in my stomach to ease. My heart was pounding, increasing the pain in my brain, but I was barely aware of it. I had to get this right. If an alarm was sounded, I knew Fox would be here in a heartbeat.
Fisting my hands tightly at my sides, I raised my voice to a frantic scream. “Oh God! No! God! No! Help! Oh God! No! Help! Stop it!” Over my desperate, hysterical shouting, I could hear the scrape of a chair and the pounding of footsteps heading toward the door. I kept shouting as the key was inserted and the door unlocked. As I had expected, the warlock threw the door open wide as he stepped inside, ready to take out whatever monster had apparently snuck into my room from the closet. Jumping across the distance before he noticed me, I gripped his short blond hair in one fist and slammed his head against the doorjamb as hard as I could.
His large body became deadweight as he was knocked unconscious. I grabbed his sweater with both hands and silently lowered him to the floor in hopes of not making more noise than I already had. If anyone had heard me, I was hoping that my shouts had been generic enough for them to think that my guard had stepped in to torment me. Sweat ran down the side of my face as I grabbed his feet and pulled him into the room before closing the door.
The big oaf was out cold. There was a smear of blood on the wall, but a pool hadn’t immediately started to gather on the floor, so he wasn’t hurt that bad. Kneeling next to him, I pocketed the old skeleton key he had used to unlock the door and then grabbed the wand he had dropped. I turned it over in my hand, testing the feel and gauging the energy inside of it before cursing my luck. It was made of yew.
I stood and glared down at the warlock before giving him a swift kick in the ribs. What was this asshole doing with a yew wand? Yew branches were strong in death magic, which was nasty business. I could use the wand, but I wouldn’t have the same kind of control over my spells that I did when I used my hands and I was a hell of a lot more likely to accidentally kill someone with a spell using this wand.
Regardless of my desperation, I wasn’t going to use the yew wand. I was better off with my hands. Of course, I wasn’t going to give this asshole the chance to use the wand should he wake up before I could escape. With a grin, I broke the wand over my knee. I dropped one half in front of him and shoved the other half in my back pocket without the hole. I’d burn the wand later. He wouldn’t recover the magic from this one.
Stomping down the swelling of relief that I had gotten at least this far without being caught, I moved to the door and listened for the sounds of voices or footsteps, but all was silent. I briefly peeked out to find the hallway empty before slipping out and closing the door behind me. I locked the bastard in and put the key in my front pocket. With any luck, the spell on the door would keep him busy for a little while.
The hallway was narrow and dark, more white walls and bare wood floors. There was more light coming from the far end of the hall and what looked to be a set of stairs leading down. There were three more doors on either side of the hall, leading to either bathrooms or bedrooms, but all were closed. No noises came from the other side of the doors. I was itching to look out a window to figure out what time of day it was or even try to learn where the hell I was, but I didn’t want to risk opening a door to an occupied room.
Frowning, I edged down the short hall, trying to make as little noise as possible. The floor creaked here and there, but I was hoping anyone who heard shrugged it off as noises that the house made as it settled. It was a struggle to swallow, my mouth had grown so dry, and I found myself clenching and unclenching my fists at my sides as anxiety ate away at me. I had made a ton of noise with the guard. Had no one heard me? Was there no one else in the house? Someone should have already stormed up the stairs.
At the end of the hall, I peered around the corner and looked down the stairs only to find another landing and more stairs. Fuck, I was on the third floor. How big was this place? Of course, if everyone was on the ground floor, they might not have heard the racket I was making. Praying that was the case, I eased down the stairs, sliding along the wall while trying to keep an eye out both above and below me.
Just as I neared the landing on the second floor, a door was thrown open and the witch that had twisted my nuts in her fist stomped out, frowning. She was wearing the same wrinkled blue blouse and black slacks I had seen her in a while ago, but her dark hair was now down around her shoulder instead of in a neat bun. She looked to be in her early forties, but her constant frowns and glares were putting years on her face. The witch walked to the stairs leading to the first floor and I crouched down, trying to stay out of sight while keeping an eye on her.
“Marceau, what’s going on down there?” she shouted. We both waited, but there was no response. The witch made an angry sound in the back of her throat before turning back to the bedroom she had exited. Instead of going inside, she leaned in and said something to the darkness before heading down the stairs. A couple seconds later, a warlock emerged, tucking his shirt into his pants as he followed her down the stairs.
I couldn’t stop the smirk that twisted my lips. The prevailing rule was that witches and warlocks weren’t supposed to have physical relationships, but while no one openly admitted to it, I had little doubt that it was happening.
I waited until I could hear his footsteps moving away on the ground floor, before I followed behind him. I didn’t know what had drawn the duo to the first floor, but I was hoping that it would work in my favor. If I was lucky, everyone would be gathered in one part of the house and I could sneak out another.
Before hitting the main floor, I peered through the railing to find that the stairs ended near what appeared to be the living room. Bright sunlight was streaming through the windows. It had to be near midday, but which day? Was it the same day I had been attacked, but we were in another part of the world? Or was it the next day or even later than that?
There was no one I could see in the living room. Only old plaid furniture and spindly tables covered wi
th magazines. I looked around and my eyes caught on the front door. Freedom! So close. Even better, I could see no spells on the door. Nothing to alert them if I walked right out of the house and down the driveway or street or wherever the fuck I was.
But I was too slow. Just as I started to straighten my body and head down the stairs, fast footsteps approached. I reached into my pockets and found only the skeleton key I had taken off the guard. The witch turned the corner, one hand on the large wooden banister, as I reached the last step. She looked up, her mouth dropping open in surprise to find me standing in front of her. With the end of the key clenched in my fist, I shoved it into her throat, crunching through flesh and her trachea. She gasped, but the sound was more like a bloody gargle. Her hands fluttered helplessly around her throat as she started to crumple to her knees. Grabbing her shoulders, I spun her around and laid her on her back on the stairs. She wouldn’t be visible until someone tried to go to the second floor.
At the back of the house, I heard a brief scuffle and then nothing. By my guess, there were at least two more people in the house, the warlock from the second-floor bedroom and Marceau. If I was careful, I could take both out and then escape, which might buy me more time. If I left someone behind alive, they could alert Fox. But if they were all dead or unconscious, Fox might not find out for a little while.
Carefully heading down the main hall on the first floor, I approached the source of the noise. Common sense said to stay hidden, but the sight in the tiny kitchen stopped me cold. The two men I had been concerned about were lying on the white linoleum floor in a spreading pool of blood. Over them stood . . . kids. Kids holding wands. Except for one. A girl between the age of twelve and fifteen stood over one man holding a blood-splattered baseball bat.
I must have made some noise because all eyes swung to me at the same time while wands were raised in my direction. I knew in that second I was fucked because nothing in this world could get me to attack a kid, let alone kill one to save my own life.
“Gage!” the girl with the baseball bat said with an exuberant laugh. “We were just coming to rescue you!”
I could feel the blood draining from my face at that announcement as my eyes skimmed over each young face. There were five kids gathered in that little kitchen, faces smudged with dirt but all looking at me with an expression of joyous expectation and wariness. Five kids with wands.
Oh God, the runaways had found me.
24
I SAT AT the wobbly folding card table with my head in my hands. The throbbing in my temples had returned with a vengeance at the sight of the five kids determined to “rescue me” when I had been doing my damnedest to make sure our paths never crossed. After checking to make sure that the two warlocks were still breathing, I ushered the kids back outside to a secluded location in what turned out to be the Austrian countryside before we used a teleport spell to return to their secret hideout. The crumbling, abandoned house had no electricity, no running water, and no heat. While a quick look around revealed that it was relatively clean, I knew that they couldn’t stay here, but I wasn’t sure what to do with them.
Lifting my head, I found the oldest of the group and proclaimed leader, Étienne, frowning at me. From what I could get out of him, the seventeen-year-old French teen had escaped from the Tower in Brazil with Paola and Anthony. They had hidden out in Texas for a short time before coming to Low Town, where they were later joined by the baseball-bat-wielding Alice and her brother, James, from the Tower in upstate New York.
For now, we were waiting. It was about an hour before dawn. Luckily, Fox and his cohorts had had me for only a few hours rather than days. If I planned carefully, I could still get Trixie to contact the elves about Gaia and then I could turn my attention to my brother and Reave. Yet, I first had to do something about this little band, and I needed help for that. With some reluctance, I used magic to send a message to Sofie, who was supposed to locate Gideon and send him to me. From what I could tell, neither Étienne nor Paola was fond of my plan. Anthony, or Tony, as he preferred to be called, seemed to smile and roll with it all, while Alice busied herself with tidying the small house and making me a sandwich from their meager pantry. Her younger brother, James, remained silent and close to her at all times.
He was the one who worried me the most. His thin face and large eyes held dark shadows, as if he was constantly haunted by the memories of the Towers. James needed somewhere safe to live. He didn’t need to spend every second of his life looking over his shoulder and flinching at every sound. The others seemed stronger, more pulled together, but every once in a while I’d catch a ghost float through their eyes, find a crack in their armor. No child should have to live in hiding like this.
“How did you even find me?” I demanded, dropping my hands to the slightly sticky surface of the table as I tried to turn my mind away from their future and focus more on the present.
Étienne’s lips pressed into a hard, thin line and the muscles in his jaw flexed. The kid was taller than me, but he was too thin, his T-shirt hanging on him so that he looked like a scarecrow. His handsome face was smudged with dirt and his blond hair was becoming long and shaggy, and yet he managed an almost regal bearing. I didn’t know if it was a defense mechanism or if it was a French thing. I didn’t take it personally. He took the safety of his companions very seriously and he didn’t trust me.
Tony laughed from where he stood next to Étienne. “We’d been keeping an eye on your place for the past couple of weeks, trying to figure out a way to approach you. We saw the fight. Paola was afraid they’d take you, and we wouldn’t be able to follow. James came up with the idea to hit you with a spitball, seeing as he’d be able to track his spit with a spell.” He laughed again and nudged Étienne with his elbow. The older boy tried to maintain his frown, but was struggling. There was something infectious about Tony’s laughter.
“Disgusting,” Alice muttered from across the room with her crisp British accent. She and her brother were from the United Kingdom, while Paola was from Italy. Tony sounded as if he was from somewhere in the South like Alabama or Mississippi, which added to his charm.
A part of me wanted to laugh with Tony because the trick was quite simple and ingenious. With all the chaos going on, I doubted anyone would have noticed a spitball hitting me. But I was equally sickened by the thought that these kids had witnessed the brutality and ugliness of that fight. I was going to have nightmares for years, and I was supposed to be the fucking adult in the room.
“I appreciate you trying to rescue me, but why?” I flopped back in the folding chair and stared at Étienne. I knew the ultimate decision had come from him. He had put these kids in danger coming after me, knowing that I was being held by members of the Towers. “You know the Towers are going to be watching me and harassing me. We can’t be seen together. We can’t help each other. It’s too dangerous.”
“We will not be bullied by the Ivory Towers.” Étienne’s low voice was strong as his French accent curled around each word. He narrowed his bright blue eyes on me and leaned forward. “We have been beaten, starved, tortured, and frightened from the moment we were stolen from our homes. We escaped because we will not be treated like that. We know we cannot go home to our families, but we will not let them kill another like us. Another who has stood up against them and said no.”
I frowned, taking in his quiet fervor. Something had bothered me from the moment I saw him with the others. Listening to him, I finally knew what it was. He reminded me of myself, but worse. I left the Towers because I hated what they were and I tried to secretly protect others from the witches and the warlocks when I could. The big difference, though, was that when I was his age, I only had myself to look out for. Étienne had four kids depending on him to make good decisions. That was going to wear him down fast.
“I understand,” I said with a nod. Étienne sat back, looking confused and skeptical, so I pressed on. “I do understand and that’s why you were going to talk to me. You knew that
if anyone could understand what you’re going through, I could. I’ve been in this spot before, ten years ago. I know what you’re risking and why you’re doing it. Because of that, you have to believe me when I say it’s time to stop. Things have to change.”
The young man stiffened and even the easygoing Tony was now frowning. The room had gotten extremely quiet as they all waited for Étienne’s decision.
A hard knock banged against the wooden front door. We all jumped at the sound. Wands appeared a heartbeat later, sending me surging to my feet to stop any kind of preemptive attack. I was hoping it was Gideon, and he didn’t much care for having spells slung at him. The kids needed his help and pissing him off before getting him inside wasn’t a good first step.
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” I said in a harsh whisper, holding my hands up while sliding in front of the door. “We’re going for inconspicuous here. Wands down. Let’s aim for normal and then go from there.”
It was with a great deal of reluctance that the wands were lowered, but no one put their wand away. Maybe I was jealous that they had their wands on hand. Gods knew that I was dying to hold mine, but I would have to make do until I got back to my apartment.
I lifted my right hand and held it in front of the door, pulling up a spell to tell me exactly how many people stood on the other side of the door. When the spell revealed only one person, I sighed with relief. One I could handle.
“Who’s there?” I called.
“Gideon,” the cold, familiar voice snapped back. “Open the damn door.”
As I grasped the doorknob, I looked back at the kids. Alice had stepped in front of James, while the rest were spread about the room. All had matching grim expressions. They didn’t trust Gideon, and I couldn’t blame them. He was a member of the Towers to them. Opening the door, I stepped back so Gideon could enter. He didn’t get far. The warlock took one step forward, his eyes immediately landing on the kids spread about the small, dingy room.
Jocelynn Drake - [Asylum Tales 02] Page 29