by CC MacKenzie
His throat closing with the need to sob like a fucking baby, James closed his eyes tight and sent up a fervent prayer for patience as he started yet another round of bargaining with God.
The sound of footsteps approaching fast had him open his eyes.
Marcus and Anais came through the door.
And hot on their heels was Ezekiel.
The memory of his last conversation with the witch brought him to his feet.
Ezekiel was just the person he needed to pound on and release some stress endorphins.
His vampyre rose with a feral growl and Anais placed herself between him and the witch.
"James." She placed her hand on his chest, right on top of his broken heart, and looked up into his face. "He’s here to help us."
James stared down into the beautiful face of his sister-in-law and blinked. Something in her dark eyes, something that calmed him, made him take a very deep breath.
"What can he do?" he growled like a very hurt and very angry big bear.
"Saira needs my help," drawled Ezekiel in a tone that made James move to pass Anais and beat that good-looking face to a bloody pulp.
As if she’d been conjured up out of thin air, Saira dressed in theatre scrubs appeared at the door.
"Good, you’re both here. Come with me."
Anais and Ezekiel moved to leave but James had had enough.
"Hold it. Hold it. What the hell is going on?"
Saira merely indicated where Anais and Ezekiel needed to go before she returned to James and Marcus.
Now she turned a pale face with tired eyes to James.
"I don’t have time for this. Do you trust me?"
Shit.
"Yes. Yes, I trust you."
She gave a single nod of approval. "Then let me do what needs to be done to save your wife."
As she turned to leave, James’s anguished cry had her turn back.
"Christ, Saira, give me a crumb, something. I’m going stir crazy sitting here."
Saira stared at the floor before guarded eyes rose to meet his. "A nurse will be along to take blood from you for urgent tests."
"Sure, anything."
"We need to see if it’s your blood that has poisoned her."
His head jerked back as if she’d slapped him.
"Poisoned?" he whispered.
"That’s what it looks like. Her liver, spleen and kidneys are compromised. Her vampyre is a tough cookie and doing all it can to heal her. However, her vampyre is also making it almost impossible for us to keep her sedated. I’ve never seen anything like it and neither has the lab. That’s why I need Ezekiel. He’s trained in natural healing. And Anais is an empath and recently gone through a similar process. Charlotte’s human side is terrified and I need Anais to keep her calm. I know you're not happy about Ezekiel being here, James, but at this point I’m willing to work with the devil himself."
She gave a quick nod to Marcus and left in a hurry.
Mind reeling, James didn't feel a thing when a Centuri medic entered and quickly and efficiently took three vials of his blood.
Marcus organized fresh coffee and a couple of bags of hemoglobin. They needed to keep their strength up.
He felt his brother’s strong hand on his nape, the finger squeeze of support.
"I’m so sorry, James," Marcus said and sat in the chair next to him.
And God help him, James found his cheeks wet.
Once he started weeping like a pussy he couldn’t fucking stop.
"I did this to her. My blood has poisoned her. Why the fuck didn’t I listen to my gut? I knew we should have let her be." Pressing fingertips hard into his eyeballs, he listened to the unremitting tick, tick, tick of that Goddamned clock as his brother again squeezed the rock hard tendons of his neck.
"You do not know for certain your blood has poisoned her. There might be another explanation. Charlotte will get through this. She is a strong woman."
James shook his head, too torn by guilt and regret to even listen to words he felt were nothing more than platitudes. Words of one loving brother to another.
"I'll never forgive myself for this. I knew what had happened to you and Anais. That should have been a warning to me, but instead I didn't take care with her. My stupid pride was hurt. I've let her down."
Eventually, when he lifted his head, eyes trained on the clock on the wall, James realized he was in the middle of the toughest endurance test of his life.
Then the door flew open and a wild-eyed Anais stood there.
"Hurry James. We need you."
Chapter Eight
Charlotte was swimming in an ocean of utter agony.
Every single bone, every single muscle, in her body hurt so badly she could barely breathe.
Someone was drilling holes in her skull and she whimpered, which made the thing, the monstrous creature that had taken over her physical body, her heart, her soul, turn to snarl at her. The creature's eyes were blood red, the features a horrific caricature of her own face.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
"She is you," a deeply male voice answered.
The pain disappeared in an instant.
And she wondered if her soul had left her body. At least that’s what it felt like. Now Charlotte stood to the side of the gurney in the operating theatre. Her physical body was lying under a forest of dark green cotton sheets as Saira Pattullo and a team of men, dark haired medics, battled to save her.
Standing beside her was the biggest man she’d ever seen in her life. He was dressed in theatre scrubs and his deep brown, almost black eyes, staggering in their intensity, met hers over his mask.
"My name is Ezekiel." He nodded to a beautiful woman next to him, also dressed in scrubs. Charlotte knew she was Anais Walker. She worked for Gillespie, Pattullo and Hindmarch. "And this is Anais, Marcus’s wife. We are here to help you."
Assimilating the new information that Marcus and Anais were married, Charlotte nodded. Then asked the question uppermost in her mind. "Am I dead?"
Ezekiel shook his head as his gaze flicked over her body lying on the gurney.
"Not yet." Those eyes snapped back to her. "Your liver, kidneys and spleen are compromised. Can you tell me anything new or unusual foods or liquids you’ve ingested over the past couple of weeks?"
A picture flashed into her mind of what she’d done to her husband. How she’d ripped at his throat, how she’d shredded his skin with fingers that horrifically had turned into claws.
"Oh God. I killed James," through a wail of utter terror the words were torn from her throat.
Her body began to shake as she stared in horror at her fingers and flexed them.
Anais moved and put her arm around her waist.
"James is absolutely fine," she said.
Charlotte heard the sincerity in that soft and gentle voice, but she didn’t believe her.
"I want him. I want James," she cried.
Ezekiel, placed his hand on her shoulder and the panic fled, replaced now by a numbing sensation that appeared to suppress the too many emotions that threatened to overwhelm her.
Her frantic heart and mind slowed.
"Anais will fetch him just now and bring him to us. Do not torture yourself for no reason, Charlotte. It is imperative you answer my questions. What liquid have you ingested recently?"
Another shudder made her close her eyes tight.
"I bit James. I... I drank his blood," she whispered brokenly.
The strong hand on her shoulder gripped her harder.
"Before that. James has been in China. The damage to your organs is systemic. Try and remember. Where have you been? Did someone give you something unusual to eat or drink?"
Before she could answer him, James arrived in the theatre with Anais.
He moved immediately to be near the body on the gurney. The look of sorrow on his wonderful face nearly brought her to her knees and Charlotte thought her heart would break into a thousand pieces.
With a relieved s
ob, Charlotte moved to touch her husband and snatched her hand back when it disappeared through the cotton of his scrubs.
Oh my God.
"I am dead," she whispered.
Anais moved again to support her.
"No. Ezekiel is a... healer. He has taken part of your soul from your body. We needed to speak with you."
None of what Anais said made any sense.
Charlotte shook her head and stared into the young woman’s dark eyes.
"How can you speak to me, see me, and James can’t?"
"I am an empath and I’m here to assist your transition. Help us help you. What have you been drinking?"
Transition?
What transition?
But before she could ask the question, the memory of the wine Eleanor had given her and how it tasted like the blood she’d taken from James slid into Charlotte's bewildered and confused mind.
"Wine. I’ve been drinking a rare claret."
Ezekiel’s eyes burned into hers. "Where did you get it?"
There was no point in being embarrassed over something that had backfired on her so spectacularly.
"From Dirty Little Secrets."
Anais cocked her head. "What’s that?"
"It’s a women only club downtown."
"Who runs it?" Ezekiel wanted to know.
Charlotte was loathe to tell them. The implication had been made very clear by Eleanor that the whole point and success of the club was its secrecy.
Anais took her hand and squeezed.
"Charlotte, if we are to help you, it’s very important you tell us everything."
"My friend, Eleanor Pattullo."
Chapter Nine
"Now that you're helping us, does this mean we're best pals?"
The question was a total piss-take and by the dark look he received from Ezekiel as his reward, Marcus knew he was skating on very thin in ice. He opened the rear entrance of James and Charlotte's house and let the witch take the lead.
He headed for the kitchen. "Isn't it amazing how the love of a good woman mellows a vampyre prince?" drawled Ezekiel.
Marcus knew the statement was a wind-up, but he still took the bait.
"You just keep my good woman out of this."
"She's an empath who did an excellent job of keeping Charlotte calm. Anais is in this whether you like it or not."
Hell, that was nothing but the truth, so much for him keeping his wife safe and out of harm's way. It didn't mean he had to like Anais and Ezekiel's special relationship either.
"Do you have any idea what we're looking for?" Marcus opened and closed cupboard after cupboard in his brother's state-of-the-art kitchen.
Ezekiel strode to a tall cupboard. "Wine. She mentioned claret."
"Are you certain her illness is caused by black magic?"
"Her blood and organs are contaminated. I felt it as soon as I saw her."
Marcus spoke his thoughts aloud. "Who the hell would want to hurt Charlotte? And why?"
The witch opened a door in a large dresser and hissed out a breath as if stung.
Marcus peered over Ezekiel’s shoulder and saw an opened case of wine.
"Ten bottles, she’s drunk two," he said.
Ezekiel took a step back.
"You open one. I cannot touch it."
Marcus lifted out a dusty bottle and read the Italian label.
"Looks like one of Cristophe’s estate wines."
He picked up a wine opener from the shelf above, uncorked the bottle, poured half a glass and took a careful sniff.
Compared to a human a vampyre’s olfactory senses were spectacular.
Marcus recognized the vintage, 1978, but there was something else.
Frowning now, he took another sniff.
Ezekiel met his eyes. "What is it?"
Marcus placed the glass on the granite worktop and took a careful step back.
It wasn't an act of cowardice.
It was an act of self-preservation.
No way was he going to drink anything imbued with dark magic.
"Blood of a vampyre."
"So, Charlotte had been ingesting vampyre blood before James took her vein?" muttered the witch, as if talking to himself.
To contaminate an emerging newborn vampyre with the blood of another vampyre before she fully emerged was strictly against their laws.
The penalty was death.
Marcus had a very bad feeling about this.
"No vampyre would dare approach her while she's under my brother's protection. How, why and where the hell did she get it?"
Arms crossed over his chest, Ezekiel studied the glass, the bottle, from a safe distance.
"Eleanor. I can smell her taint from here."
Shit, thought Marcus, Eleanor had had the hots for James for years. But surely, even for her, poisoning Charlotte with dark magic was a step too far? "James will send her unto The Fade for this."
"One step at a time, prince. Before we bring in Cristophe and the Juristic Rulers, we need proof."
Ezekiel stretched out his arms, palms up and started to hum a gentle chant low in his throat. The air immediately began to crackle and stir. Marcus took a couple of steps back as the witch braced himself. A black, oily vapor spiralled from the wine and the corked bottles still in the case.
Marcus had the most peculiar feeling of icy fingers caressing his spine.
The urge to run had his vampyre push to emerge. But Marcus wasn’t about to lose face in front of Ezekiel, plus he’d never before seen magic used up close and personal.
Then the eyes of the witch went clear and white.
Christ, it seriously freaked him out but the darkness rising from the bottles coalesced and took the shape of... a demon? The creature had eyes of shocking yellow. Its fangs were a black and shiny jet. The dart of its split tongue was so fast even Marcus had trouble keeping up with the speed of it.
Ezekiel flinched as a flick of that tongue sliced into the flesh of his hand but he never faltered and now the chanting grew louder as a wind blew around the witch whipping his ponytail around his harsh face.
Marcus narrowed his eyes as the ground beneath their feet shuddered and a portal, a void of velvet darkness, opened right in the middle of the wall in his brother’s kitchen.
Holy Christ.
And the creature, the demon, was dragged kicking and screaming towards the portal as Ezekiel’s voice roared above the noise of the wind. Marcus realized the witch was repeating an ancient chant over and over again.
It all happened so fast that if he’d blinked he’d have missed it. With an unearthly shriek the demon grabbed the case of wine before leaping into the void.
Marcus’s ears popped as the portal closed with a clap of thunder that shook the very foundations of the property.
The scent of spent fireworks sizzled in the air.
He blinked as the witch simply strolled over to the open bottle of wine and rammed the cork home.
"What the fuck was that?" Marcus wanted to know, and cursed the fact his voice was very far from steady.
"A shade obeying its master." Ezekiel lifted the glass and sniffed before taking a careful sip and spat it out. "The vampyre who contaminated this wine is most definitely Eleanor."
Before Marcus could utter a word about Eleanor and what the hell she was doing dabbling in black magics, the ground under them trembled and lifted.
This time Ezekiel thrust the bottle into Marcus's hand and gave him a hard shove.
"Get out. NOW!"
When Marcus did nothing except stare as if hypnotized at the lights flashing in the room as another portal opened, Ezekiel grabbed him by the throat and squeezed.
"Get out and take the wine to Saira to test in the lab. This is the only proof of Eleanor's duplicity we have. Hurry."
Marcus emerged from James’s house to find his brothers Daniel and Adam and a battalion of Centuri waiting for him. Together they took to the air and flew fast for the hospital as the ground beneath them started to lu
rch and heave.
An earthquake.
Marcus didn’t look back.
And he wondered if the witch would live to fight another day.
***
Ezekiel's mind sent out a distress call to his personal guard.
No response.
As the portal grew a flash almost blinded him and made him take a step back.
Well, he'd used magic, a lot of magic, to dispense with the Shade of evil in the wine. He knew at the time he'd taken a calculated risk.
And now he'd been found.
Two seven foot Shades, armed to the teeth, stepped through the portal.
Ezekiel reached behind, slid swords from the sheath on his back and crouched into a fighting stance.
To face one shade was bad enough. The creatures were magic born and taught to fight to the death as soon as they slid from the womb. A vampyre fighting two of them, and surviving, had never been done. The shade to the right of him grinned, showcasing fangs the color of jet, dripping with a poison lethal to humans and vampyre alike. The other flicked out its tongue, which slashed open Ezekiel's cheek exposing bone. He didn't flinch, or attempt to wipe the blood dripping to the floor. Again he used his power to send a call for help.
Nothing.
He was on his own.
Ezekiel decided today was as good a day to die as any other.
His vampyre rose and he leapt.
Chapter Ten
Two days later, Charlotte's vampyre fully emerged.
She sat, an alabaster statue dressed in a kimono of red silk, in a high backed chair. The pain in her bones, her muscles and especially in her head eased somewhat if she kept absolutely still. Her mind focused purely on the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Even that small movement made her ribcage endure a wretched misery. She stared, unseeing, out of the bedroom window and into the inky darkness. Clutched in her hand was an empty plasma bag of hemoglobin, designed and tailored to her specific needs. Its ingredients based on a myriad of tests to her blood. Earlier in the day, she'd been moved, under a close guard of four Centuri medics, from the vampyre hospital in the basement to the penthouse suite. The silvery light of the moon peeked from behind a black cloud. The rays from the satellite were almost a caress on her cheek, as she stoically bore the heavy burden of suffering in her mind and the sound of a human, her host's, soft weeping.