Vengeance

by Carrie Whitethorne

  My hands were free. That was their first mistake.

  The second didn’t really matter, because I was too fast for them to keep up. “Bruni, deyja. Dǫkkálfar. Dafna múgr gnótt.”

  It was desperate, off the cuff spell. If it failed, I was done. Magic wasn’t always in the delivery, it was in the will to create it, and while the words added weight, the sheer bloody will to survive brought forth what I needed.

  Why did I choose old Norse? So the smug bastard knew without any doubt exactly what was coming for him, naturally.

  The roar of flames was deafening, and in the split second it took the fae to register what I was doing, I’d already brought my right hand down onto the crown of his head.

  Projected thoughts were always fun to witness. You never really knew what you were going to get, but I hedged a bet on me being at the forefront of his mind. I wasn’t disappointed.

  His memory was projected for all in the room to see. It took a few seconds for the audio to kick in, but, again, insta-spells weren’t perfect.

  His companion was blurry, suggesting he wasn’t entirely certain of their identity, but one thing was definite—she was a woman. “Escaped? How? The order was to set the charges directly above the holding cell. We cannot risk the Bishop witch gathering momentum.”

  “The order was carried out as you wished, my lady,” my new friend replied earnestly. “She escaped by magical means.”

  “Find her and kill her,” the female snapped, her rage clear in the elevated pitch of her voice. “Remember what is at stake here, Farnal. Do not fail me.”

  The room around us had filled with the conflagration I’d summoned. The dragonkin still gripped my hair, and the fae still stood with only a foot separating us. Where Agent K had got to, I couldn’t see. The fading memory mixed with the flames around us obscured my vision as I began to twist in a bid to break free of the vise-like grip on my hair.

  Meanwhile, my faenemie was incanting all kinds of shit in all types of languages in a desperate attempt to douse the growing flames.

  “Let me go and I’ll consider killing it,” I yelled to be heard over the roar.

  Agent Smith only wrapped his free arm around my waist and pulled me into his body, preventing me from wriggling. He held me against him and looked down at me with a sickening grin.

  I locked eyes with him, refusing to back down. Bastard. The flames wouldn’t bother him for a while, and I was in no position to handle his boss. If I brought them in any closer, they’d burn me, but if I didn’t, the fae would soon turn his attention on me.

  Raw instinct pushed outward from my chest.

  No. Not now. I couldn’t let her out. While Alva would crush the dragonkin with very little effort, I didn’t have the same confidence against a fae.

  Something off to my right toppled, crashing to the ground, and drew our attention.

  And that was when she slipped out.

  Not all of her. She was so fast, I barely felt a thing, but I recognized the sickening sound of bone splintering an instant before my head was yanked downward.

  Agent Smith’s fingers were still locked around my hair as he hit the deck, and I had no choice but to fall with him. That served to my advantage, because the corpse broke my fall. Detaching his fingers, I scrambled to my feet. All evidence of the wickedly barbed tail was gone by the time I was upright.

  Turning wildly, I scanned what was left of the room.

  My satchel was nearby, untouched by the fire, and Agent K was wrestling with the door, desperately trying to escape.

  With him busy, I turned again, looking for the fae, and was not pleased to be greeted by the back of his hand flying wildly toward my face.

  “The audacity—”

  I cut him off by swinging my fist at his face. Magic was fun, demon head caving displays were satisfying, but sometimes you just had to do the human thing and fucking punch them. It was entirely worth the pain in my knuckles and wrist to hear his growl of agonized fury.

  “Who is she?” I demanded, straightening and taking a step back to avoid another one of his wild swings. All while muttering another incantation.

  The marble desk slid toward us, barreling into him and forcing him to the ground. It stopped before it reached me, and I murmured again, watching it slide back over him, preventing him from standing. “Don’t make me ask twice, asshole.”

  “Kill her, you coward,” the fae roared from beneath the desk, clearly realizing he couldn’t gain the upper hand without his minion coming to his aid.

  Agent K didn’t respond, but his thumping on the door grew louder at the sound of his angry master’s voice.

  I peered down at the faerie and cocked my head. “Dauði.”

  One single word was all it took for him to close his eyes in resignation.

  The hammering ceased.

  “Now it’s just us, Farnal, no witnesses, tell me who that was. She’s above you, but how high? Is she the head honcho? Is she fucking the head honcho? Tell me what I need to know, and you’ll live to fight me another day. Maybe next time you’ll win.”

  Rather than do the smart thing, the idiot pushed up onto his hands and knees and spat, “The day I help a cambion whore and her gypsy—”

  “Okay.” I sucked in a breath of arid air and sighed before continuing, “I gave you chances, but you’ve forced my hand. And for the record, they aren’t gypsies, they’re Romani. Klubba.”

  The table tipped and I turned away, much to Alva’s disappointment. The sickening sound of his skull cracking followed by a wet squidge from the weight of the marble was more than enough to confirm he was dead.

  Bending to collect my forgotten satchel, I made for the door with another mumbled charm to clear the two dragonkin bodies from my path and burst open the once locked door.

  I let the fire burn. Just a taste of things to come if they continued to cross me. If they were smart, they’d get the message and plan their revenge carefully. If not, I’d enjoy delivering it in person. There was no way I could beat them alone, but they’d made it personal when they tried to take me out. I vowed to take a few of them with me before I was done.

  Exhausted, hungry again, and incredibly pissed off, I descended the stairs. Making quick work of cutting through the restaurant and pushing open the glass doors, I was grateful to get out onto Broadway again. The cooler air was soothing against my skin, but there wasn’t time to enjoy it fully or rest. I needed the final piece of my puzzle within my hands before the fae came for me. I had a date with a demon, and I wasn’t prepared to die without giving him a piece of my mind.

  Chapter 13

  Sorrel

  The adrenaline pumping through my veins had me reaching the outskirts of Chinatown in record time. Resting against a building, I tried to catch my breath while I worked out my next move. Sirens blared, pulling me from my thoughts, and I glanced up in time to see a fire engine drive by with its lights flashing, closely followed by police and an ambulance.

  It had been a struggle not to let Alva loose with the fae and dragonkin. She might have handled them far more quickly than I had, but my original intent was to keep the fae alive so he could pass the message on to whomever he was working with. Unfortunately, that didn’t go to plan, and the only thing that would have satisfied Alva was if she’d been free to paint the walls with him. One dead fae and two deceased dragonkin should be enough of a message to whomever Farnal was working with though.

  For all the anger people saw in me, it was barely the tip of the iceberg. This past week had added to the bank, and Alva was where I stored it. The irony was that if I hadn’t been hell-bent on having answers, I would never have found myself where I was now.

  The fae and his minions would be alive. All the other dragonkin before, who had pursued me and the guys, would never have been sent to their deaths.

  But I wouldn’t have met Sorin.

  “Shit,” I muttered to myself. I was trying not to think about him, but that moment we shared in my kitchen kept creeping in.


  He was so damn cocksure, and despite myself, I wanted to know why. What had he seen?

  It could have been nothing. He could have just been testing the water, knowing the succubus in me would want a piece of him. Another notch on his belt. But something told me it was the former.

  It didn’t help that I kind of liked the bastard.

  Annoyingly, my thoughts kept circling around Sorin, so I shoved him to the far recesses of my mind as I pushed off from the wall in search of my next destination. I couldn’t afford to be distracted by him, not right now.

  I’d come across the directions to the shop in the back of one of my mother’s books along with a list of ailments, but it took a few minutes to find the right building. The clumsily scrawled note didn’t tell me that it was tucked away down an alley. And it was no wonder I couldn’t find how to gain access to it, because the door was cleverly hidden by a dumpster belonging to an authentic Chinese restaurant on Main Street.

  I did a quick scan of the alley to make sure I hadn’t been followed by more of the Assembly’s minions before stepping up to the door. The door was stiffer than I’d expected, as though it wasn’t used often, and I had to put some effort into it to get it open. When I finally managed to open the door, I winced as it dragged against the worn floorboards, leaving fresh gouges over older ones.

  Despite all that, the shop itself was clean and orderly. The entire left-hand wall was made up of rows of cherry drawers with polished brass handles, and a glass fronted counter in a dark wood separated them from browsing customers.

  Intrigued by its contents, I shoved the door closed with my hip and crossed the room to get a closer look.

  The glass shelves were highly polished, and the various items on display captivated me.

  I’d only ever read about them in my mother’s book, but some were so rare I’d never hoped to see one in my lifetime.

  The first items within the display cabinet that I caught my eye were a dozen glass bottles no bigger than my thumb, each filled with a cloudy oil and sealed with a cork and wax. There were no labels to explain what the contents were, but for someone who knew their stuff, it was obvious. I’d never sought to obtain corpse oil, it was rare, expensive, and I had no use for it, but I suppose it had its uses.

  Beside them was a black bowl with what appeared to be heavy cream inside. To its left was a ramekin filled with small berries, and arranged around it were eight silk drawstring bags with the image of an infant embroidered on the front.

  Next on the counter was a single book, bound in a light tan leather with an ornate iron clasp. It drew my attention away from the little pouches and held my gaze for a few long seconds, but I couldn’t figure out what was drawing me to it. There was nothing inherently wrong with the thing, it was just a book, but I couldn’t seem to look away.

  “Can I help you?”

  The accent was unmistakable. Chinese, but with a subtle difference from the average speaker. Not bothering to respond, I continued to try to work out why I was fixated on the book. I didn’t dare touch it though. Places like this had many uses for everyday objects, and something as innocuous as a book could be deadly.

  “Sorrel Bishop. Anis suspected you would be headstrong,” the same voice announced, “but I hoped for manners at least.”

  That caught me off guard. I’d been planning my visit to this shop for years, but had decided to wait until I had the other elements required before seeking to obtain this final one. To arrive and have the merchant address me informally then mention my mother was a surprise.

  Raising my head, I looked my host over.

  “I’m sorry?”

  No more than five feet tall, the elderly woman squinted at me over the counter. Deep wrinkles lined her features, her hooded eyes taking me in. “Your mother. I expected you a long time ago. Come, we have tea.”

  For her age, she was quite spritely, and she was almost to the beaded curtain that covered a doorway set into the wall of cherry drawers before I managed to respond. “How did you know my mother?”

  The many bangles on her wrist jingled as she reached up and held the curtain aside as she gestured to the next room. “Impatient, too, I see. Tea first.”

  After the morning I’d had, I didn’t relish the idea of being lured into a back room, but I’d come too far to back out now. She was the reason I was in the city in the first place. Well, her and that intriguing book.

  I obliged, bowing my head as I passed.

  “She came to me before you were born,” she explained, as I stepped into the room.

  Not surprisingly, it was very small with no furniture to speak of but a very low table in the center. Cushions were placed on either side of the table, and the wall opposite the door was lined with more cherry shelving.

  “What for?” I demanded, not looking away from the shelves, my attention fixed on an ornate, golden dragon statue in the very center. It was beautiful, with blue and silver scales gleaming in the low light of the room.

  “Help,” was the old woman’s reply.

  She shuffled past me, over to a wood burner I hadn’t noticed tucked into a corner, and lifted an iron kettle from the floor to the hot plate on top, then made for the shelves. “She suspected they would take you. Her request, however right it seemed at the time, was not the right path.” She fell silent for a moment, taking a delicate teapot and matching cups from the shelf before carrying them to the table.

  When she gestured to the floor, I sat, and once she’d placed the teapot and cups on the tabletop, she continued, “For two days she begged, and two days I refused, instead asking for the assistance of the little ones already in my care. When she saw them and heard what they had to say, she chose another way. It cost her, but the price was more agreeable.”

  “She left clues,” I divulged, watching her shuffle to the shelves for a small wooden box then back to the table to decant the contents into the teapot. “I managed to piece together her puzzle and it led me here. You know what I need.”

  She bobbed her head. “Indeed, I do. But do you know what you need, Sorrel?”

  Jaw clenched, I counted to ten in my head. The last thing I needed after this morning’s escapade was cryptic bullshit.

  “You want the grimoire,” the old woman continued, and once the whistle on the kettle started, she took the teapot to the stove and filled it with water. “You want answers you can only get from a single individual. You’re also seeking revenge. But will any of that deliver what you truly need?”

  “If I’d known then what I know now, I certainly wouldn’t have worked so hard to get here,” I muttered. “What I need is for this to be over.”

  Carefully placing the full teapot on the low table, the old woman joined me. She sat cross-legged opposite me, watching me for a moment as though deciding what philosophical shit to throw at me next. With a single shake of her head, she poured the tea and pushed the teacup toward me.

  “You are exhausted, girl,” she berated. “Two decades, several halfhearted attempts at relationships, and a quest to take revenge for your mother’s condition that has neither borne fruit nor been targeted at the persons responsible, and all you have achieved is exhaustion.”

  Instinctively, I opened my mouth to snap a retort, but quickly closed it again. Finding myself speechless, I expected Alva to respond, since she usually did. But there was nothing. I couldn’t exactly argue with a woman who wasn’t wrong. Dammit.

  “Alva agrees, I take it?” she quizzed, before raising her cup and taking a sip.

  I met her gaze, bristling at both her amused expression and easy use of my demon name. Only two people knew me by that name, and neither had set foot on the bright side. “I’m not here for a psychoanalysis.”

  Mouth turned down at the corners, she tilted her head to my cup and took another sip of her own. “Drink.”

  I raised my brows at the demand. “Why?”

  “Because it will help,” she stated calmly. When I raised the cup to my lips, she continued, “Now, wh
en your mother came to me, her plan was to remove you from harm’s way. I refused. You are welcome.”

  I narrowed my eyes but didn’t ask her to elaborate, figuring the way she was talking she would do it without much prompting for me. Instead, I took another sip of my tea and inquired, “Which sedative is this?”

  She chuckled. “Not a sedative. Just passionflower. Pay attention, Sorrel, I have more pressing matters today. Your mother’s family sought to have you destroyed. A misguided approach to your mother’s situation, but in their defense, they wanted to protect her. But she loved you and wanted you with her always. Sadly, the little ones knew what they had in store for her, and instead, I persuaded her not to have you join them.”

  I frowned. Twice she had mentioned these mystical little ones, but there was no sign of them here. “Little ones?”

  “Ah… yes. Golden children. The souls of infants torn from their mothers before their time, bound to their premature forms. Mothers create an immortal being with little consideration for their own mortality. It is an outdated practice now, however, yet I have a number of little ones in my care. With no mother to love them, I nurture them, and in return they occasionally pass me valuable information from their side.”

  The little pouches in the display cabinet out in the shop, I realized with a shudder.

  My mother must have been desperate to come to this woman for that.

  “The little ones showed me an alternative, a way to protect you, and her. When she left two days later, she knew the price and accepted her fate. Sadly, she had no memory of it.”

  “You’re saying she kept me and willingly forfeited her memory of my father?” The words came out sharper than I’d intended.

  The old woman lowered her head. “It was her choice to make. But she did leave something here in the hopes you would live long enough to find it.”

  “The grimoire,” I confirmed. “What’s so special about it that she hid it here?”