Dooby waved and followed.
Blythe propped her chin on her fist. “Why didn’t you want Castor to know about the danger?”
“Because I want him to stay here. Elsa will keep an eye on them both.” I pulled out the decanter to start another pot. “I need you to find out where their next concert is and then you and I will take a short trip.”
She opened her mouth and I could tell she was going to bring up all the danger again when her blonde eyebrows nearly met in the middle of her forehead. I held up my hand to shut her up. “It’ll be a short trip. We’ll find her, get a fix for your magic and come home. I want to do the elemental summoning near this house, so you guys can bring my body here for safety. Which reminds me, we have to find a spell to keep me asleep.”
“Unless we leave the portal open the whole time, you’ll stay that way permanently. How will I know when to open it back up?”
My stomach clenched hard. “I hadn’t thought of that. We’ll get Dooby and Castor to start researching, see if anything like this has ever been done or if there’s a spell to maybe bind the elemental into keeping the portal open.” I closed my eyes, rubbed my temples. “There’s so much to figure out before we do this. Let’s just get your magic fixed first. I don’t want you binding yourself even more this time.”
“Or burning down the city.”
“Yeah, I’d thought of that.”
Later in the day while Blythe packed, I rummaged in a greenhouse I discovered behind the house. It was obviously under construction because no actual plant life resided inside, just a lot of boards and tools. I assumed Nikolos planned to build more of the long tables he had in here. There were two.
The sprite was still sleeping—I hoped—in the windowless bathroom, but I needed something to put him in for the trip. I wasn’t letting him out of my sight. Who knew when we’d find another ancient?
I ended up building a kind of rudimentary mini-coffin. It wasn’t pretty, but I glued the hell out of every corner so I was sure no sunlight could get inside. We couldn’t just keep him wrapped in shirts the whole way.
I was wondering if vampires could suffocate later as I watched Blythe pull up a search engine. Dooby and Castor had grocery shopped, so Blythe and I made a quick dinner of sandwiches and chips before settling in front of the computer to find this band.
“The witch who answered the phone said the band is called Staglina.”
It wasn’t hard to find them. They must have been popular because they came up on the first search page. Their website was a dark, serene blue with an image of the moon hovering over an ocean. There were no concert locations, no band member biographies…nothing but a link to a video.
Blythe clicked and sat back with a thump against her chair when the music started. So did I. My heart pounded harder, warmth filled my chest. Women’s voices raised in a harmony like nothing I’d ever heard filled the room. Castor and Dooby left the table where they’d been poring over the ancient spell book translations and approached the computer.
We all waited until the last note played, then I released a shaky breath. “Whoa.”
Blythe shook her head. “Sophie can’t be in that. This is magic.”
“Of course it’s magic—they’re witches.” I managed to stop myself from rolling my eyes. I was trying not to do that so much around Blythe with her habit of stating the obvious. I did catch Phro’s eye roll in my peripheral vision. The goddess couldn’t care less about the little witch’s feelings.
Castor leaned over my shoulder and used the mouse to restart the video. He turned the speakers down. “Look at their faces.”
I squinted at the small video. All I saw was a blur of women in blue dresses. “What faces? This is obviously a poorly recorded phone video from a concert.”
“And Staglina linked to it?”
I shrugged. “Sure. Why not? That song alone would pull a lot of people to their concerts.”
“Nothing around them is blurred—just their faces.”
The stage, the trees behind it, everything else showed up sharp and crystal clear. “Creepy.”
“Suspicious,” Blythe replied. “Wonder what Staglina means?” She clicked back to the home page. “And why wouldn’t they have a concert listing? I was told Sophie called them from Alabama. Some small town near Birmingham.”
“I think Staglina is Norse.” I searched the memories of my stint with an obsessive Norse mythology fascination. I’d been trying to find a troll and got completely caught up in the old stories. I wouldn’t be telling Aphrodite this, but I never got quite as fascinated with the Greek myths. “I’m sure Nikolos has some books on Norse myth in his library, but I think I remember it having something to do with a chain and anchor.”
Blythe clicked on another page. Empty again. “I don’t get it. What kind of band has no useful information on their site? How are fans supposed to find them?”
“See if you can find a mention of their concert.” I took a bite of the ham sandwich, enjoyed the extra kick of sharp cheddar. “Maybe someone who went to the last concert blogged or something.”
An hour later, all we had was the location of the last show in Alabama, and that came from a small news piece on cops being called out to break up a concert.
Blythe sighed and stretched her neck back and forth. “I’ll stay on this and read comments on the video page. There were hundreds.” She picked up a potato chip and crunched it.
“Have fun with that. Comment sections on any website never fail to sap at my belief in the general goodness of human beings.” Grimacing, I reached for the mini-coffin I’d built. “I’m too tired to deal with that little creature in the bathroom tonight. Have Elsa or Castor… Wait.” I turned to Dooby, who’d gone back to the book. “You have power over the dead, right, Dooby?”
He looked up. “Yeah, but vampires aren’t technically all-the-way dead.”
“Do you think you could figure out how to feed him so he doesn’t starve before we can get to the spell?”
He shrugged. “Sure. Give me the little coffin.”
I didn’t trust that ornery expression but I walked over and gave the box to him, then walked to the door. “Hey Blythe, don’t stay up too late. We have a long trip tomorrow.”
“In the car?” Blythe avoided my gaze.
Suspicion gave me sudden goose bumps. “I think taking a vampire sprite on an airplane would be a bad idea, don’t you? Why?”
“Nothing. I just don’t like long car rides. But before you go to bed, I want to try something.”
I waited for her to go on. Tapped my foot when she didn’t.
“I think I know how you can see Nikolos again. I have some yerba santa. If we pour boiling water over it and pour it over your ankhs, I think he might come to you in your dreams.”
Even the thought had my heart pounding hard. “Let’s do it then.”
It only took a few minutes to boil the water and strain the concoction over my necklaces. It took me forever to fall asleep because I couldn’t help wondering if it would work. I wiggled so much the sheets tangled about my legs.
When I finally slept, I realized that once again, Blythe had gotten a spell wrong. Instead of Nikolos coming to me…I went to him.
Chapter Four
It would have been nice if I’d been aware of the trip. Visual markers for when I actually went in after him would have helped. But I just woke up standing in the corner of his room. I let go of the ankhs and took a step toward him then stopped, heart breaking into a million pieces.
He slept on a filthy pallet in the corner of a dirt-and-stone enclosure. Thinner, his body had been turned into a canvas for someone who loved black and blue. And red. Choking back a sob, I stood there, frozen.
Nikolos turned over on the pallet, muscles shifting, a moan of pain escaping his lips. I cursed my petrified limbs, tried to make myself move toward him, but all I could do was drink him in. “I’ve missed you so much,” I whispered.
His dark eyes blinked open and he stared up at me
, his beautiful mouth falling open before he scrambled off the bed and came toward me. He started to reach for me, then his shoulders slumped. “Another dream.”
“Not a dream. A spell.” I reached up to hold our two ankhs in my hand again and when I did, pain slashed through my body so fast and hard I gasped and fell hard to my knees. My kneecaps cracked hard on the packed-dirt floor, but that was nothing compared to what felt like molten metal being forced through my veins.
He knelt in front of me. “Oh, Beri, no you didn’t. A spell will tie you to this place.”
I managed to stop gasping and pointed to the still-healing scar on my arm. “Already tied to it. Creatures lately have told me I even smell like I’m a part of it.” I sucked in air, pushed back the pain. “Not too flattering, eh?”
Nikolos touched me, groaning when he realized he could, and suddenly sat back, pulling me in to straddle his lap. He wrapped still-strong arms around me tightly.
I wanted to hug back, but I didn’t know where to touch him without hurting him.
“I don’t care if it hurts,” he said on a growl as if he’d read my mind. “Touch me.”
When my arms tightened around him, he buried his face in my neck. His warm breath on my skin sent a mix of heady emotion through me. Desire, yes, but it was more like relief, like being home…like thankfulness.
“How are you here?”
“Blythe did a dream spell,” I whispered, my mouth against the pulse under his ear. “Actually, she showed me how to do it. Nikolos, I would have already come for you if her magic wasn’t so screwed up. Something happened to her when we fought the Dweller. She bound the fire elemental and somehow bound her own magic. We’re working to get her fixed so she can bind one again.” I pulled back, ran my gaze over his long Roman nose, his beautiful full lips, then met the nearly black, slanted eyes that looked at me as if I were responsible for his breath. “We have another ancient for the blood.”
“No.” He gripped my arms, gaze turning fierce. “I don’t want you coming here again. You shouldn’t even be solid for a dream visit. The laws of nature are completely different here and nothing can be trusted.” He cupped my cheeks, ran his thumb over my lower lip. “You have to let me go.”
“I can’t.” I looked away from him to try and slow the incredible pain shredding my chest, took in the dirt and clay-brick walls, the three broken steps with an iron gate at the top. I could see more narrow stairs leading up behind the metal slats of the gate. Chains were bolted into the walls. “What are they doing to you?”
“That’s not important. My jailer is a little extra-angry lately over the escape of her pet succubus.” He ran his hands up my arms, down my chest and under my T-shirt. He made a strangled sound when he touched the bare skin of my waist.
“Why did you do it?” I whispered, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “We had a plan. You didn’t have to dive into that pit.”
He didn’t answer. I hadn’t expected him to. He ran his gaze over my face, locked on to my lips.
“What happened to the Dweller?” I asked.
With this, he finally smiled. Sort of. It reminded me of the first few smiles of his I’d seen. This one didn’t even show that beautiful groove in his cheek. “The Dweller is no more. He disintegrated as we fell, as each soul was released. He was only alive through me. I had to do what I did. You understand? Did your sister—”
I nodded. “She woke up. She’s fine.”
“I did wonder.”
“Nikolos, you’re obviously not dead and from the looks of your”—I broke off, choking on a sob I couldn’t stop—“skin, they’re hurting you a lot. What is this place?”
“They call it the Realm of the Discarded. Those who lived lives without redemption and don’t get to move on, and those who are like me, trapped here.” He slid his palms along my skin to my back and pulled me closer on his lap. “You smell so good and you’re wearing my shirt. Are you in my home?”
I leaned into him, not caring that he smelled of dirt and sweat and the metallic tang of blood. “Someone burned down our houses. We’re temporarily at yours.” I buried my face in his neck and here, here I caught his scent—the one I remembered. “I don’t know how long I can stay here. Who has you so I know where to look?”
He didn’t answer, only groaned and pressed his mouth against my neck. His hands moved up my back, still under my shirt and he cupped my shoulders before stroking back down and around over my stomach to my breasts. His hands were warm and I leaned into them. He was trying to memorize the feel of me. I could tell.
And I got it. My heart lurched, then froze as I realized we might have mere seconds. I didn’t know how this dream traveling worked. It wasn’t like astral projecting. I was completely solid against his wonderful body. The heat of him seeped into me. My hands started moving, returning his caresses, seeking the warm skin, the hard planes of muscle, the silky weight of his long black hair.
He suddenly clutched me tight, his words muffled against my neck. “I don’t know how you’re here. I’m terrified for what this might do to you.” He kissed my jaw. “And I’m too filthy to have my hands and mouth on you.”
I pulled back, met the glittering black of his gaze. “I don’t care. Don’t you dare stop touching me.”
He smiled and this time, that sexy groove appeared next to his mouth. “There’s my Beri.” He pulled his hands from my shirt, cupped my face, his gaze dropping to my mouth.
“Do I have to initiate this kiss like I did our first?” I smiled, cocked an eyebrow.
He pressed his lips to mine and I sighed into the maelstrom of emotions that erupted with that kiss. Heartache, fear over disappearing any second, terror that whoever had him would kill him before I could get to him…and love so powerful, so damned painful, I felt nearly faint with it. I clutched him, opened my mouth and felt his big body trembling with need and his effort to hold back. I didn’t want him to.
A metal clanking noise echoed into the room. Nikolos pulled away, eyes flaring wide, and it wasn’t my imagination…something bled red around his pupils.
My sense of self-preservation kicked in and I scrambled back off his lap. I didn’t know whether I was about to face something bad coming down those stairs or if I was about to see a change in Nikolos. He cocked his head, staring at me as if he suddenly didn’t know who I was. His nostrils flared, then he shut his eyes tight and made the most horrible sound of anguish—a growl and cry mixed together that stabbed into my heart like a barbed needle.
“Go!” he roared.
“I don’t know how!” I yelled back. “Who’s coming? Tell me!”
The red bleeding into his eyes made him look like a monster. He came at me and I flinched when his hands wrapped around my throat. But he’d forgotten how strong I was. I shoved him away and as he staggered back, recognition came back to him. He shook his head, then came again.
“Just let me see who has you,” I said, keeping my voice low because now I could hear footsteps coming down those stairs. A long set of stairs apparently. Something else sounded. A sort of swish and scraping noise on walls.
“You can’t see her. If you do, you can never leave. And when she’s with me, I become something I don’t want you to see.” He picked up my hand and wrapped it around the two ankhs. “I love you, Beri. Don’t come back.”
The hot, liquid metal sensation came back and I screamed at the fiery pain as it poured through my veins. Then it felt like something reached out and squashed me into particles before sucking me out of that room.
I came to in Nikolos’s bed. Sat up, gasping. Every single muscle in my body complained, but the scar on my leg felt like someone had set it on fire. I ripped off the covers and shoved down my black sweatpants, my hands shaking so hard I whimpered in frustration. Faint lines of black spiderwebbing crawled out from the scar in every direction. About an inch. Fear sent me to my feet and I nearly tripped on the sagging sweats. I caught myself on the bed, shock making me touch the streaks of dirt on the white sheets.
“Beri!” Phro was suddenly there next to me, wearing the white toga she resorted to more and more often these days. I think it reminded her of home. I blinked at her, wincing because of the fire in my leg.
“You scared me to death. You weren’t here. You weren’t anywhere.”
“My body wasn’t here?”
She shook her head, her dark hair wispy and ghostlike because she grew translucent when upset. “I was watching you because I didn’t want you to do that damned dream spell. You started thrashing about, then grabbed your ankhs and disappeared.”
“I went to Nikolos. He said he’s in the Realm of the Discarded.”
She shrank back, going so ghosty I could barely see her. “You were physically there? Did you see anyone there? Did any of the creatures see you?”
“I only saw him.”
Phro slumped. “Oh, Bergdis,” she whispered. “You don’t know what you’ve done.”
“I didn’t do anything but try to bring the man I love into my dreams. I didn’t purposely travel into the realm of the whatever. This isn’t entirely my fault here.”
She started to fade out even more. All I could see was a shimmer of white and gray.
“Tell me what I’ve done then.”
But she disappeared completely. I closed my fingers into fists so tight my nails scraped my palms. If I had a way to tie her down and force answers out of her, I would. She always did this. Left me hanging with lots of questions.
I walked out of the room, feet cold on the marble tile of the hall. It was time to find Blythe and get the show on the road. The faster we left, the faster I got Nikolos. I stopped at the room I thought she’d picked and knocked, surprised when a sleepy, half-dressed Dooby answered the door. He wore black-silk pajama pants.
“Is Blythe in there with you?”
“Why would she be?”
“I don’t know. I thought you two were…were…” I swallowed back the words fuck buddies because I wasn’t so sure they still were—not after seeing that fireman. Two months before, they’d been all over each other right after the Dweller battle.
Blood of an Ancient: A Beri O'Dell Book, Book 2 Page 5