Bad Blood

by Kristen Painter

  “I’m sorry,” Mortalis muttered. “If I had any idea that Hugo was going to do this—”

  “Enough, Mortalis,” Chrysabelle interrupted him. “What’s done is done. Loudreux’s machinations are solely his responsibility.”

  Mal rested his hand over hers. “I need to speak to you alone.”

  “You have an idea?”

  He flicked his gaze to the front seats, then back to her. “Alone.”

  “All right. Let’s take a walk down this alley.” She looked at Mortalis. “We’ll be back shortly.”

  He grunted a reply.

  Mal got out, held the door for her, then shut it behind her. She winced as she got out, the tightening of her body so subtle that if he had blinked, he would have missed it. She was hurting, but if she wasn’t going to acknowledge it, neither was he. They walked to the middle of the alley in silence. She checked both sides, then turned to him, her gaze dancing across his face as though she’d never seen him before.

  “What?”

  She smiled. “It’s strange to see you with sun on your face. Good strange.”

  “Likewise.” He reached up and ran his fingers over a sleek blond strand hanging past her cheek. Artificial light lit her signum up, but daylight gave her an almost otherworldly glow. He understood why people looked at her. It was hard not to stare with a gaping mouth and a dumbstruck tongue. Her eyes really did match the sky’s ethereal blue. He swallowed and opened his fingers, letting the hair loose. “You shine like… the sun itself.” Damn, he was an idiot with words around her. No, just an idiot.

  “If you’re trying to sweet-talk me, you might want to save it for when we get home.” But her smile didn’t disappear. And now the faintest hint of pink colored her cheeks. Was she blushing? This woman? At least she hadn’t slapped his hand away. Or staked you.

  “So.” She blinked and looked back at the car. “What’s your idea, because I know you must have something cooking in that head of yours. Don’t say you’ll kill him either. That’s not an option we’re taking.”

  He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans to keep from touching her more. “I can persuade him to give up the position.”

  “Persuade? As in use your power?” She shook her head. “I know you can do that with varcolai, but that doesn’t mean you can do it with fae. Their magic is completely different. You try that and fail and no bribe is going to protect you.”

  “I can do it. I’ve done it already. With the smokesingers that stopped me on my way to meet you. There’s just one thing.”

  “Always a catch, isn’t there?” Her eyes narrowed a little. “What is it?”

  “Persuading a fae to tell me his name is one thing, persuading one into giving up a position of power is utterly different. It will take a lot of work and leave me drained afterward. I’ll need to feed.” Why he felt like he needed to justify his request boggled him. He was a vampire, she was a comarré. It was no secret to either of them how this worked. There was, of course, the complication of him not being able to drink from her vein and the extracurricular contact that necessitated. The hot, mouth-to-mouth extracurricular contact. Which she’d denied him earlier. He blew out a breath to keep a growl from leaving his throat. Drain her.

  “Blood is easy.” If she was thinking about the kiss that would come after, he couldn’t read it in her eyes. “How are you—we—going to explain your weakness to Mortalis after seeing this guardian? He’ll know something’s up.”

  “Will it matter if we succeed?” His entire body tightened knowing that she was so willing to give her blood to him again. The voices whined with fear and excitement. They loved her blood but hated the way it calmed them. “I’m not worried about Mortalis. If he finds out what I can do, so be it, but Amery…” Mal shook his head. “I don’t know him, don’t trust him. I don’t even like you knowing.”

  She scowled. “You don’t trust me?”

  “I trust you implicitly. I don’t like burdening you with information about what I can and can’t do. I don’t like the possibility that someone could use it against you someday.”

  She rolled her eyes. “It’s not a burden, and I can take care of myself.” She turned toward the SUV. “We should get a hotel room. I can drain blood there and we can ditch Amery. Maybe Mortalis, too. I can tell him I want to make the first attempt alone with you to guard me, that I want him out of it so if something goes wrong, none of the blame falls back on him.”

  Mal checked the sun’s position. “We’re not going to make it back to Paradise City in time for Samhain.”

  “We might, but it doesn’t look good. I hope Doc and Creek can keep everything under control.” She exhaled hard. “This is so much more than I can handle.”

  “No, it’s not. You’re doing great.”

  She glanced back at him and smiled weakly, her signum sparking in the sun. “Don’t read too much into this, but it helps that you’re here.”

  He held his hands up in mock surrender. “I won’t read anything more into that than face value. Wouldn’t want to assume you like me or anything.” But she did. Right now.

  She laughed. “Good, glad that’s all clear.” Her laughter faded and she went serious. “What do you think is up with Mortalis and his sister?”

  Mal lifted his brows and shrugged. “Bad blood, that much is certain. Whatever his family’s history in this town, it isn’t good. At least not where it concerns him.”

  “He seems wound pretty tightly since we left Loudreux’s.”

  Mal nodded. “He’ll be all right.” He hoped. Having the fae blow a gasket was only going to complicate an already tangled situation.

  Chrysabelle’s fingers landed lightly on his arm. Beneath the sleeve of his coat, the names writhed at her touch. “Let’s go get that hotel room and get you fed, shall we? The sooner we wrap this up, the sooner we can get home to clean up the next mess.”

  At the thought of tasting her, his fangs jutted down, grazing the inside of his lower lip. He swallowed the saliva pooling under his tongue and nodded. “After you.”

  He followed her back to the car, his mind on the one thing neither of them had mentioned. The kiss that followed her giving him blood. Did that mean she was going to deny him again? He hoped to hell not.

  Aliza washed the last of the earth from her hands. It swirled down the drain of her kitchen sink. She turned the water off and stared out the window into the never-ending swamp surrounding her house. The house Evie had died in.

  Burying Evie in the coven’s plot hadn’t been easy, but her coven had been there to help and to say their words of respect. A few had cast protection spells over the grave, and all had vowed to help Aliza get revenge. They’d taken the news of her turning better than she’d expected. Didn’t mean she trusted any of them not to do something wily, but at least there hadn’t been any sudden uprising against her. Vampire or not, she was still the leader of the coven, still the superior force and talent. More superior now that her new situation had amped up her powers.

  She dried her hands and went to her private altar room to recast the spell that would give her sight through the varcolai’s eyes. She’d find out where he was, track him down, and kill him. That alone would take the edge off her grief. Maybe. The hole in her heart caused by Evie’s death seemed bigger, not smaller. Like nothing could fill it.

  Revenge was a good start, though.

  She closed the hidden door behind her and kneeled before the wood slab that served as her altar. The spell’s ingredients were still out, but they’d been moved. Used. The silver bowl holding them was blacker than she’d left it.

  She inhaled, using her new, stronger senses to test the air. The scent of Evie’s shampoo lingered, along with the scent of blood, most likely Evie’s from using the spell, but below that was something darker. A scent that stung Aliza’s nostrils like ammonia. Silver. Not only had Evie been in here and used the spell, but she’d added silver to it to make it stronger. Aliza’s gut turned over. For Evie to find out about the room wa
s one thing—secret spaces weren’t so unusual, all witches had them—but to add silver? It would have pushed the magic to a new level. Evie’s control over the varcolai would have been powerful strong. He would have felt her upon him like a hand pressing him forward.

  And he would have fought it, fought whatever Evie compelled him to do. He would have gotten mad. An angry varcolai was dangerous enough, but Doc had history with her girl. Bad history.

  Aliza sat back on her heels. What had Evie seen? What had she made the varcolai do? Why had she brought him here? How had she not seen the danger? She’d gotten herself killed because of it. Anger welled up in Aliza’s churning innards. Anger at herself for not closing out the spell after she’d used it the first time. Recasting it would have been a simple enough task.

  But how was she to have known Evie would find it and open it for her own purposes? That she would change it up in such a way that she’d end up losing her life?

  With a strangled sob, Aliza grabbed the lighter and lit the wick on the oil lamp, her purpose for opening the spell renewed. The varcolai had to die. This whole mess had to be tidied up and put behind her, for Evie’s sake and the sake of Aliza’s new life. Being a vampire made her powerful, but it made her vulnerable, too. Her blood held double the power it had when she was just a witch. No telling what schemes some of the shadier members of her coven might be thinking up just to get a sample of it.

  A revenge killing, something swift and decisive and merciless, would set a good tone for this new era of her life. Show her coven and the rest of the world that she was not to be trifled with.

  She ground the proper amount of ingredients in the mortar, dumped them into the bowl, and set it over the flame. The fire crackled and hissed. Then she pricked her finger and added a drop of blood. Time to see just how powerful her vampire blood was. If things went the way she thought, she should be unstoppable. Combine that with the coming Samhain and getting her revenge should be a snap. Getting the vampire child even easier.

  Smoke coiled out of the bowl, flattening almost instantly into a hazy screen. Already she could tell the spell was responding faster. “Let me see through his eyes,” she whispered.

  The fanned-out smoke rippled once, then went shimmery like the surface of the glades in the early morning sun. Aliza leaned in and the smoke bent to meet her, enveloping her face like a mask.

  She blinked hard at the smoke in her eyes and coughed.

  “You okay?”

  Aliza whipped around to see who’d spoken, but new images filled the tiny altar room. Images of the ghost girl and some fae and a man covered with the same gold markings as the woman who’d come to rescue Doc with the anathema vampire.

  Aliza was in.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Abrutal jab of intrusion sucked the breath out of Doc. How the hell? Both witches were dead.

  “You okay?” Fi scooted closer to him on the couch.

  “No.” Someone was in his head again. Someone powerful. They weren’t making any demands yet, but they were there, filling his mind with their presence. Evie was dead, so it wasn’t her. That must mean Preacher hadn’t really killed Aliza, dammit. He closed his eyes to keep her from seeing more than she already had.

  “What’s up?” Creek asked. He clicked off the news they’d been watching.

  Doc shook his head, unwilling to say anything to tip Aliza off that he knew.

  “Something’s wrong. Is the fever back?” Fi grabbed his arm. “Do you have a headache?”

  “You could say that.” He put a finger to his lips, then used that finger to very slowly spell out the word witch in the air. Finished, he pointed to his head. He made scribbling motions, indicating he wanted a pen.

  “What’s going on?” Damian asked.

  “I’ll explain in a minute,” Fi answered him. She tugged on Doc’s arm. “Let’s get you to the couch.”

  He nodded and let her lead him. Footsteps came and went around him, and a moment later, an e-tablet and a stylus were shoved into his hands. Eyes still closed, he jotted a quick note and hoped it was legible. Aliza’s not dead. Using the spell to control me again. Can’t talk. Don’t say anything you don’t want her to know.

  “Sounds good,” Fi said.

  Doc held out the e-tablet and made a wiping motion. Fi’s hands brushed his and the e-tablet moved under the pressure of her erasing the screen. He placed it on his knees and wrote some more. Put me in a room away from you. Lock me in. See if you can find a way to break this spell. Maybe the KM knows. Or Vel.

  Fi’s hand cupped his cheek. “Okay,” she whispered.

  He knew she wouldn’t be happy leaving him, but what else could they do?

  Her arm wound around his waist. “Let’s go.” Eyes still closed, he tried to follow the path they took, using his memory of the house’s layout, but he wasn’t that familiar with Chrysabelle’s place. They went down some stairs. He hadn’t realized she had a lower level. Basements were impossible in this part of New Florida without some kind of magic because of the water table. Her mother had been Dominic’s lover. Maybe he’d installed the lower level for her? Seven went deeper into the earth than should have been possible, too.

  Fi brought him to a stop. “Here.” Her hands found his face again, this time pulling him down and planting a soft kiss on his mouth. “We’re going to work.”

  He nodded. Her hands fell away and her footsteps faded. A door shut and a key was turned. He opened his eyes. Perfect. A wine cellar. Besides the racks of old bottles, the room held a small pub table and two tall chairs. He climbed into one, prepared to wait it out.

  He didn’t have to wait long. The compulsion to leave grew, the urging in his head like someone poking at him. “No can do, Aliza.”

  A dull roar, a very unhappy sound, echoed in his brain.

  He smiled, his suspicions confirmed that it was the old witch. His head might hurt, but winding her up was at least entertaining. He pushed the other chair out and kicked his feet up. “I’m not going anywhere, so you might as well get out of my head.”

  Get up.

  “No.” Was this what it was like for Mal with all those voices screaming in his brain? Man, sucked to be him.

  Now. Get up and leave the house.

  “Locked in, you dumb biddy.”

  More howling. His feet jerked off the chair and hit the floor. His body followed, yanking him upright. He took a few unwilling steps forward, lurching like the monster in the old Frankenstein movies.

  He struggled against the urge to head for the door, forcibly sitting back down. Again, she yanked him up, this time getting him halfway across the room before he grabbed hold of a wine rack and looped his arm through one of the brackets. “You just don’t get it, Aliza. Your daughter tried this and look how she ended up. You really want me at your house? What’s the matter—death wishes run in the family?”

  That earned him a hard, angry pain in his head. It dropped him to his knees, his bones jarring on the inlaid stone floor. He went to all fours, splaying his fingers on the cool stone. He had to find a way to… What had he just been thinking? Get out. Go to Aliza’s. No, something about finding a way to numb something. Urges. Yeah, that was it. A way to numb the urges taking over his brain.

  He lifted his head. The door. Go to the door. Staring, unfocused, he fought to regain his own thoughts. He could see only part of the door through the wine racks.

  Wine.

  Break the door down. Get free. Now.

  Wine. He got one hand around the neck of the closest bottle and tugged it free. A red. Probably a really pricey one that he wouldn’t even appreciate. The glass was as cool as the stone floor. He concentrated on the way it felt, how smooth the glass was, the weight of the bottle, the script on the label, anything and everything to fill his head with thoughts that belonged to him.

  Bottle in hand, he grabbed hold of the wine rack and pulled himself to his feet. The door. He stumbled, half dragging himself back to the table, where a small wooden box sat in the cent
er. He hoped what he thought was in there actually was.

  He plunked the bottle down and flipped the box open. Success. A corkscrew.

  Aliza yowled, realizing what he planned to do. Drop it. His hand opened. The bottle fell, splattering red wine and glass fragments in a jagged circle. His head turned toward the door, thoughts of the bottle disappearing.

  Then his gaze latched on to another bottle. A big one. A magnum of champagne. He could work with that if he went fast. With Aliza moving his feet toward the door, he snagged the bottle as he slogged past, popping out a claw to rip through the wire cage securing the cork. Stop. Door. His fingers slipped off the bottle’s neck, almost dropping it. This needed to go faster. And there was only one way he knew how to do that. It wasn’t going to help the mess in his head either.

  With a deep breath, he half shifted to bring his leopard teeth out.

  Immediately, Aliza’s compulsion spell doubled in strength. He stared at the wire basket in his hand. What had he been doing? Think. Think.

  Going to the door, breaking it down, and getting to Aliza’s as fast as you can.

  He set the bottle down on the table but kept his hand on it. That didn’t seem like what he really wanted to do. Yes, it is. No, it wasn’t.

  The bottle. That was it. While the thought was stuck in his brain, he clamped his teeth down on the cork, then twisted and pulled the bottle away at the same time. It uncorked with enough power to knock out the two teeth he’d dug into the cork. He ignored the pain as blood and champagne filled his mouth. He spit the teeth and blood out, then tipped the bottle back and chugged it.

  Near the end of the bottle, the bubbles began muting the yowling enough for him to drain the bottle and grab two more. He had enough control to pop the next cork the old-fashioned way. His jaw throbbed where he’d lost the teeth, but the pain was good. It and the alcohol were helping him maintain his own head. He found a spot on the floor where he could put his back to the wall but still see the door. Shifting fully human, he sat and lifted the bottle to his mouth.