“Why can’t we hear what they’re saying?”
“Backward? Just wait for the playback.”
A pool of magic flowed out around Jasmine, as if she’d just triggered a spell. It matched the tenor and color of the residual I’d felt when entering the room.
Then the reconstruction winked out.
Declan stumbled, pressing against the circle for a second before steadying himself. “What the hell was that?”
“That was all there is,” I said, gathering the magic to me a second time.
“Three vampires and a witch, and that was all you picked up?”
“Vampires don’t emanate magic the same way other Adepts do,” I said, keeping my tone crisply professional. “If magic isn’t directly involved, as in a confrontation, then there won’t be anything for me to collect. I’m not a sensitive.”
“I know you aren’t,” Declan said. “But you are tuned to Jasmine.”
“And she wasn’t doing anything magical until the moment she dropped whatever spell she got from your friend, Copper.” Unintentionally, I enunciated the word ‘friend’ with too much emotional distaste for my own liking.
Unfortunately, Declan picked up on my annoyance, choosing to smirk knowingly at me instead of correcting or confirming my impression.
I looked away. Declan wasn’t a crack in my armor. Rather, he and Jasmine — or at least my love for both of them — were my armor against everything terrible in the rest of the world. And as such, my well-honed emotional shields apparently couldn’t keep him out. Still, I had a feeling that spending enough time with him would build up my resistance out of self-preservation, if nothing else.
I could only be hated to my face for so long without shutting down completely.
But the thought of becoming emotionally numb to Declan made me profoundly sad. Ignoring the heaviness settling in my chest, I focused my attention back on the dormant magic in the circle. I skirted around the edges of my barrier along the front of the TV cabinet until I stood with my back to the door — a vantage point that would allow me to see Jasmine’s face without playing with the magic too much.
Declan was watching me closely, but he lifted his hand to the circle without comment, maintaining his position on the other side of the room and giving me some much-appreciated space.
“Ready?” I asked. My heart felt as though it was lodged in my throat. But the only sure way to get it loose was going to be watching three vampires kidnap my best friend, then finding the next clue.
Declan nodded.
I called the magic forth. It collected at my bidding, resolving into the moment before a spell was set off within the reconstruction. A cloud of teal-blue magic appeared before us, though it was most likely only visible from within the circle. To my eyes, at least.
“A reveal spell,” Declan muttered, picking up the tenor of the magic before I did.
The light in the room shifted, becoming more concentrated around the desk where a lamp was illuminated next to a laptop.
Jasmine appeared, surrounded by the three vampires — the two females from before and the male I didn’t recognize. She looked tired, but determined.
“The dark-haired vampire is missing,” I said, smothering the well of emotion that came from seeing Jasmine surrounded by vampires with a cool-headed assessment of the scene. “And the room isn’t as tidy. The magic feels relatively recent, but we’ll have to look for other clues as to when this occurred. Last night or the evening before, perhaps.”
“And what was she trying to reveal with the spell?” Declan asked. “Were the vampires cloaked? Is rendering themselves invisible something they can do?”
Jasmine shifted her gaze past the vampires until she was looking directly at me. As if she could actually see me standing before her.
“No,” I whispered, as my belly hollowed. “Me. She was trying to see me.”
“That doesn’t make any sense —”
“Wisteria.” Jasmine spoke within the reconstruction.
The three vampires whirled around in a blur of motion, their surprise turning into frowns when they apparently saw nothing and no one behind them.
“You’ve got this, babe,” Jasmine said, continuing to speak to me as if I were in the room with her. “They’re looking for Kett, because we’re looking for them.”
The olive-skinned vampire in the long pencil skirt and the four-inch silver heels snarled. “Who the hell are you talking to?”
Jasmine sneered at her. “You can’t kidnap a Fairchild witch without retribution.”
“Are we kidnapping you?” the ruddy-haired vampire asked with amusement. His accent was melodic.
“He sounds Irish,” I said out loud, desperately trying to glean each and every clue as it was revealed.
“Could be Welsh,” Declan said. “I had a couple of buddies from Wales in school. I’ve worked with them a few times since.”
“There’s a secondary glinting around them,” I said, pausing the reconstruction for a moment. “Hints of blue in her aura.” I pointed to the olive-skinned female, then to the male. “White, or maybe silver around him?”
Declan didn’t answer.
I thought about the magic I’d seen gathered around Kett when I glanced at him through my reconstruction circle. Blue witch magic had been pooled in his palm. “Secondary powers? Like they were Adepts before they were remade?”
“Does it matter?” Declan asked impatiently. “Just play it through.”
Understanding his frustration, I let my hold on the magic loosen, allowing the scene to continue.
Jasmine lifted her hand, dramatically pointing her finger toward the hotel door, toward me. “I call forth vengeance. She’ll come with thunder and lightning at her right, and blood and fangs at her left. She’ll come for you.” She locked her fierce, blue-eyed gaze on the male. “She’ll come for you, Yale Evans, maker of Nigel Farris.”
Jasmine paused for dramatic effect as the two female vampires looked at the male in unison. The smirk had been wiped from his face.
“Who the hell is she talking about?” the darker-skinned vampire in the long mink coat asked him. Her English was also accented.
I glanced at Declan. “Spanish? Latin American?”
He nodded.
“No one,” the vampire who Jasmine had identified as Yale Evans said.
Jasmine laughed. “Even vampires need bank accounts and credit cards, Yale, sire of Nigel.”
“Don’t call me that,” he snapped. Any charm he’d been putting on earlier had evaporated with his mounting anger.
Jasmine looked back at me — or, rather, to where she knew I’d be standing in order to view the reconstruction. “Come get me, Betty-Sue. Thirty-three point three percent sign dash BBB three asterisks.”
“She’s just talking gibberish now.” The olive-skinned vampire moved in a blur, retrieving Jasmine’s laptop, satchel, and phone.
Jasmine, effortlessly robbed of her possessions, lifted her chin defiantly.
“You’ll answer my questions one way or the other,” Yale said.
“My name is Jasmine Fairchild, witch, niece to Rose of the Convocation, of the Fairchild coven.” Jasmine recited her credentials with no emotion. “I’m in the employ of Kettil, the executioner of the Conclave. Walk away now and you might survive. Or at least get a chance to explain your actions. I’ll make a phone call.” She looked pointedly at Yale and sneered. “Nigel’s sire.”
Yale moved so quickly that Declan flinched. The vampire grabbed Jasmine around the neck, lifting her chin with his thumb and looming threateningly over her.
My chest tightened. She was baiting him deliberately. It was completely stupid, but Jasmine understood that I needed residual to reconstruct in order to retrieve the clues she was leaving. She wouldn’t have known how long the magic of the reveal spell would linger, but goading the vampires into action would trigger their magic in a way that would have let me call it forth.
She curled her lip at the vampire poised to brea
k her neck. “Stop trying to ensnare me, you cheap knockoff.”
Declan groaned at the insult.
“Fairchild witches aren’t so easily taken,” Jasmine said.
“I don’t see you putting up any sort of defense,” the dark-skinned vampire sneered.
Jasmine, her head still awkwardly cranked backward by Yale, angled her gaze in my direction. She smiled knowingly. “Betty-Sue is so going to kick your asses.”
“Stop looking over there,” Yale snarled. Then he flung Jasmine away, tossing her into the arms of the mink-swathed female.
The vampires exited with Jasmine in a blur of motion, passing through the barrier of the circle into the hallway behind me. The magic within the reconstruction dissipated.
My legs gave out. I crumpled to the ground, staring at the empty space where Jasmine had just been standing. “She expected me to be here. She expected me to come.”
“Of course she did,” Declan said. “Just like she assumed I’d be with you. The idea that we’d band together for her goes without question.” Then he strode past me and into the corridor. “I’ll look for residual in the hallway.”
Barely hearing Declan, I remained on my knees. I was out of my element — and quite possibly completely mishandling the entire investigation. This was the reason there were rules about investigators being personally involved in their cases.
“She expected me to find her,” I murmured. “She thinks I can take on three … four vampires.”
Declan stepped back into the room behind me. “She doesn’t expect you to fight them in hand-to-hand combat, Wisteria. Get off the floor.”
Automatically obeying the tone of command in his voice, I gathered my feet underneath me though I didn’t stand. “Thunder and lightning,” I said. “That’s you.”
“Obviously.”
“Blood and fangs.”
“Kett.” Declan spat the vampire’s name with derision.
I smiled. I couldn’t help it. Both Declan’s instinctual loathing of Kett — of anyone who might threaten his sister — and Jasmine’s outrageous behavior in the face of her own quite-possibly pending death were just so perfectly them. The ‘them’ that filled me, heart and soul.
I straightened, crossing the room to grab one of my oyster-shell cubes from my bag. I needed to shake off some of the self-doubt I had about my own abilities — by doing what I did best.
“After I collect this, I should reconstruct the hallway,” I said, placing the cube in the center of the dormant circle. “If possible.”
Declan nodded absentmindedly. “What was that 33 percent stuff?
“Her password.” I called forth the magic within the circle a third time, so that I could channel it into the cube at my feet. “To follow the money.”
“They took her laptop.”
“So they did. But we just need to access her remote backup.”
There wasn’t enough residual magic in the corridor for me to reconstruct, though presumably the vampires must have traversed the hallway multiple times. So I collected my candles from the hotel room while Declan methodically searched all the drawers, then looked under the bed for any other clues.
“Why were they here tonight at all?” Declan said, scanning the room one last time. “Why come back?”
“To leave this,” Kett said. He appeared beside us suddenly, holding a letter-sized envelope.
Declan flinched, began to snarl at the vampire, then checked himself. He took the proffered envelope, pulling a folded piece of paper out through the torn flap.
“I’d like to view the reconstruction,” Kett said to me.
“What the hell is this?” Declan snarled in Kett’s face as he thrust the paper and envelope in my direction. “Jasmine is being held as what? Collateral? A bargaining chip? What the hell have you gotten my sister into, sending her after them with no assurances of your protection? Leaving her at the mercy of your own kind?”
Kett stilled in that way he did. As if he had gathered all his magic tightly around him, and was about to rip out Declan’s throat.
Panic flooded through me. I involuntarily crumpled the note in my hand without actually seeing what was written on it.
“Well?” Declan asked snidely. “What have you got to say for yourself, vampire?”
“Please,” I whispered. “Please. Don’t.”
Kett’s gaze flicked to me. His silvered eyes held no hint of red, yet I understood how angry he was.
“Don’t what?” Declan asked. “Don’t illuminate me? If you want my help, Wisteria, you’ve got to stop keeping goddamn secrets.”
I tore my gaze from Kett, meeting Declan’s scowl with as much composure as I could summon. “You know Jasmine makes her own choices.”
“Influenced by him!”
Declan thrust his finger in Kett’s direction. I waited a breath, but the vampire thankfully kept his gaze on me rather than amputating the offending digit.
“Shouting is not the way to deal with this situation, Declan,” I said.
“Maybe if you gave a damn about anything, Wisteria,” he snarled, “then maybe you’d understand the need to fight for it.”
Anger replaced the wash of panic that had kept me rooted to the carpet. I stepped closer to Declan. He stumbled back from whatever he saw on my face, raising his hand as if to hold me off or grab me.
“Perhaps if you took a moment to listen, Declan,” I said. “Perhaps if you took a moment to consider and absorb the situation, you wouldn’t need to bully all the answers out. Perhaps then you wouldn’t be so quick to condemn the rest of us for trying to maintain some sense of equilibrium.”
Declan clenched his jaw in frustration. Then he stormed out of the room without another word.
I pressed my hands to my heated face, meeting Kett’s gaze. He raised an eyebrow, tilting his head slightly.
“That was … I was …” I murmured. “That was possibly an overreaction.”
“You were lovers,” Kett said. “I wasn’t sure. Is that the root of the schism in the Fairchild clan? I’m not well-versed in modern-day society, but given that you’re not blood related, that would seem to be an extreme reaction.”
Not answering him — mostly because the story was too convoluted to tell concisely, but also because it was too intimate a topic — I dropped my hands and crossed to the desk to retrieve the reconstruction from my bag.
Kett was beside me before I placed the magic-filled cube down on the desk. He reached out, hovering his fingers over the bracelet on my right wrist. And for a brief moment, I almost leaned against him for comfort.
“Will Declan Benoit stand between you and your future, Wisteria Fairchild?” Kett’s whispered breath brushed against my temple.
I stared down at the two tiny reconstructions nestled with the charms on my bracelet. “What future?” My question was tinged with more grief than I wanted to admit. “The one defined by the contract with the Conclave?”
Kett moved his hand away from my bracelet without answering.
I glanced over at him. “You haven’t crossed Declan off yet.”
“I haven’t.”
“But you have investigated him?”
“Not as thoroughly as I scrutinized you.” The vampire’s tone was almost playful.
I looked away from him. There wasn’t anything fun about the situation, not with the contract or with Jasmine missing.
“You are exceedingly shaken by Jasmine’s disappearance,” Kett said. “Both of you.”
“Her kidnapping. And yes.”
“Show me the reconstruction.” He placed his fingertips on the edges of the cube.
Placing my fingers opposite his, I triggered the magic it held. But I couldn’t rewatch the scene myself. Not yet. I was too riled up.
Staying close by so I could stop or retrigger the playback if Kett desired it, I retrieved the note from the vampires that I’d inadvertently crumpled and dropped. Smoothing the paper out on the desk, I noted that it was embossed with the hotel’s logo, and han
dwritten in a barely discernible scrawl.
We have your witch.
Tell us where to meet you.
I pulled out my phone, finding the picture I’d taken of the FedEx envelope and comparing the handwriting of the label to that of the letter. It wasn’t a match. Though that didn’t mean much with at least four vampires involved.
I cast my gaze around the desk, finding the folder that contained the hotel’s complimentary paper, envelopes, and a pen. It was the same paper, the logo identical. I flicked on the desk lamp and held the top sheet up to the light, so that I could see impressions denting its otherwise blank surface. One of the vampires we’d seen in the lobby must have written the note while we were skulking around outside, trying to peer into the hotel’s windows.
I picked up the pen and wrote my own note on the blank sheet.
Fairchild Park
Care of Rose Fairchild.
– Wisteria
I glanced over at Kett. He’d finished watching the reconstruction. He read my note, then plucked the pen from my hand, adding a short dash and the letter K underneath my signature.
That initial was an exact replica of the initial beside each of the names that had been crossed off the contract I was still carrying in my bag. Just written now in black ink, rather than blood. Blood would probably get the other vampires’ attention, but it seemed unlikely that an elder would leave random samples around for his enemies to collect. Though perhaps such forms of malicious blood magic were a witch thing, not a vampire thing.
“Do you know any of them?” I asked, referencing the reconstruction he’d just watched. “Will they hurt her?”
“They won’t come back while I’m here,” Kett said, which didn’t remotely answer either of my questions. “Otherwise, I would have you go to Rose’s without me. That is if they have a lick of sense, which is not a certainty given the scene you collected.”
As he turned to leave, I grabbed for him, unable to articulate all the things I needed to ask. I expected him to instantly shake me off. He didn’t.
Instead, the vampire stepped closer, bowing his head to me.
“Please,” I whispered. “Please.”
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