“Well, that’s easy to say,” Jasmine muttered.
I interjected before Pearl could rip Jasmine’s head off. “And Benjamin Garrick? If he’s turned like the others?”
“Whether or not the boy is a vampire, he is none of our concern.”
My heart sank. I’d expected that answer, but it was difficult to hear nonetheless.
“What?” Jasmine said. “So we just let the … we just let Kett kill him?”
“How the Conclave chooses to deal with its own is not your concern, Jasmine Fairchild. You will not attempt to intervene.”
“That’s going to be a hard line to sell to Teresa,” I said, trying to appeal to Pearl on a practical level.
“If the necromancer refuses your jurisdiction, you will leave the area and inform me immediately,” Pearl said. “I’ve already formed an extraction team.”
I locked gazes with Jasmine. I had never heard of such a thing. But then I’d never been on this side of an investigation before.
Jasmine nodded.
“We understand,” I said.
“Teresa owes the Convocation her life. She will be reasonable.”
Jasmine and I exchanged doubtful looks. Any necromancer who walked into a vampire’s lair and demanded his blood had already crossed so many lines that I wasn’t sure reasonable behavior was a reasonable expectation. But Pearl knew Teresa, and I didn’t. I also didn’t have much say in the matter. I too owed the Convocation. Not my life. I’d bargained for that myself. But definitely my comfortable existence.
“Did the charm really foil the vampire?” Pearl asked. “He stood before her and sensed nothing? No magic at all?”
“None of us did,” I said.
“I have no doubt that your senses didn’t penetrate Scarlett’s casting,” Pearl said. “But the vampire is an elder and another matter altogether.”
“Teresa never crossed her threshold,” I said, feeling the need to justify my competence. “We never entered her home.”
“She wears the charm.” Pearl’s tone was laced with pride.
“It’s mobile?” Jasmine asked, exceedingly impressed. “Not tied to wards?”
“I would have felt wards,” I said.
“Exactly,” Pearl said. “I expect to hear from you on the hour.”
“Of course,” I said. “But perhaps you should …”
Pearl ended the call before I could ask any more questions or make any more demands.
I finished my thought anyway. “… speak to Kett directly.”
I looked at Jasmine, twisting my face wryly. “Happy you answered my call now?”
She laughed. “Hell, yeah. When was the last time you hunted a vampire, only to uncover a necromancer in Convocation witness protection who’s dosing her son with vampire blood to keep him alive? Add a hot executioner and the hefty paycheck to follow? Cha-ching!”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Jasmine had a way of looking at life that lightened my own outlook. She was fearless, though never stupidly so.
Jasmine flinched, then glowered.
Kett had appeared in the kitchen, standing just behind my shoulder. “I’ve questioned Nigel. He knows little of consequence.”
“We’ve just gotten off the phone with Pearl,” I said.
“I heard.”
“Oh.”
That was my brilliant response as I ran through the entire conversation with Pearl in my head.
“Wicked hearing, man,” Jasmine said. “Through concrete and everything.”
Kett snorted derisively. “The door is wood, witch.” He turned away into the hall.
“Right.” Jasmine rolled her eyes at his back, packing up her gear.
I stood, leaning over for my own bag. And as I did, a pale, viciously clawed monster smashed through the aforementioned door. Shards of wood exploded throughout the kitchen. I caught a flash of blood-red eyes and wicked fangs, and then the creature was grabbing me.
Jasmine screamed.
“Stop!” Kett shouted.
The unhinged vampire froze. Its claws were pressed against my neck, jaw, and collarbone, as if it had been about to rip my head off and bathe in my blood.
I managed to breathe, willing my heart to stop thrashing in my chest, but to no avail.
The vampire whimpered, withdrawing its trembling hands.
“Step back,” Kett commanded.
The creature complied, shuddering. It curled its claws against its chest, and they slowly transformed into long, almost-delicate fingers. Its fangs disappeared, though its eyes continued to whirl with blood.
“I understood you could walk amongst humans,” Kett said. “You stood before the boy without attacking him.”
Nigel.
The pale, dreadfully thin monster was Nigel. I hadn’t recognized him in vampiric mode with his skin only partly fleshed out.
Nigel squeezed his eyes shut. “I can. But the witches …”
Kett glanced at me. “You’ll have to go on ahead. I thought he’d consumed enough blood.”
“All right,” I said shakily.
“I assume he has a licensed vehicle?” Kett asked Jasmine.
She nodded. “Garage. Out back.”
“I’m sorry,” Nigel moaned.
“Go back downstairs,” Kett commanded.
Nigel’s body jerked but he didn’t immediately comply. “I won’t do it. I won’t go with you. I must stay in the house.”
Kett stepped forward. He was actually shorter than Nigel, but the junior vampire cringed at his proximity. “You will take responsibility.”
“Just kill me,” Nigel whispered. “Please, please … just kill me.”
My heart pinched.
Jasmine covered her mouth and looked away.
“Your punishment will be meted out once we’ve neutralized the necromancer and her son.” Kett glanced at Jasmine and me, twisting his mouth. “Unfortunately, if we are to avoid an incident …” — his uncharacteristic emphasis on the word ‘incident’ confirmed that he’d heard every part of our conversation with Pearl — “… the Convocation will require your testimony before they hand the other guilty parties over to me.” He turned his attention back to the vampire. “Go. Gather more blood. We’ll travel separately from the witches.”
Nigel glanced at us, then shuddered again.
Jasmine stepped shoulder to shoulder with me.
The miserable vampire turned away. Passing through the ruined door, he descended into the basement.
“My apologies,” Kett said smoothly. “Human blood isn’t as … invigorating as Adept. And he is completely unworthy of my own.”
“He … he’s suicidal,” I said, swallowing my own fear over almost being killed. “He doesn’t want to be a vampire.”
“He made that choice a long time ago,” Kett said. “And now he must endure.”
“Do you want us to take the SUV?” Jasmine asked, keeping us on task.
Thank goodness for her cool head. I didn’t want to get mired in Conclave politics any more than I wanted to be involved in witch business.
“Nigel’s,” Kett said. “If it won’t start, we’ll need to know.”
Jasmine nodded, crossing through the kitchen.
“Wait,” I said. “Don’t we need keys?”
My cousin snorted, not even pausing. “Keys? Please.”
“Keep your distance from the necromancer,” Kett said. “Ascertain that she is in residence, then wait for me. I shouldn’t be more than a few minutes behind you.”
Neither of us answered him. Jasmine because she was already out of earshot, and me because I wasn’t about to take his orders over Pearl Godfrey’s, and I wasn’t interested in fighting about it.
I hefted my bag onto my shoulder under Kett’s watchful gaze. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Perhaps for me to fall apart? Or lash out?
He leaned into me as I stepped past him. “He could have walked into the sun at any time, Wisteria Fairchild. The blood that fuels him is weak, and he brings no natural
talent to his incarnation. Never allow a predator to play at being a sheep.”
I nodded, then continued down the long hall to the front door.
“No one walks away from immortality.”
I glanced back at this pronouncement, but Kett had disappeared.
CHAPTER TEN
Jasmine and I drove into Seattle in Nigel’s older green Honda Accord in silence. For once, my cousin wasn’t attached to her keyboard, because she was driving. I wasn’t sure anything else needed to be verified at this point. But then, I wasn’t the accredited investigator. If Teresa Garrick was going to be brought before a tribunal, Jasmine’s paperwork was going to be massive. Every scrap of background information for all five of the boys and Nigel was going to be combed over and ripped apart. Making my reconstructions had been easy compared to what Jasmine now faced in the aftermath of it all.
I risked sitting in the front passenger seat for the trip. On short drives, I didn’t have much of an effect on a vehicle’s electronics. It was just under four hours back to Seattle, but if we broke down, Kett was somewhere on I-5 behind us.
Though it was past midnight when we showed up at her house, Teresa Vern, nee Garrick, opened the door before we were halfway up the front walk of the tidy brown bungalow.
She looked weary, drained. It was more than simply her skin being yellowed by the overhead exterior light. She was wearing a red angora turtleneck sweater over jeans, not scrubs as before.
Once again, I couldn’t sense a single drop of magic around the house or yard. Not even when I cracked my personal shields and actually sensed for it, as I would if I was prepping to do a reconstruction.
Teresa eyed Jasmine for a moment, then looked at me. Jasmine and I paused on the bottom concrete step, staying out of reach but also physically blocking any exit. From the front of the house, at any rate.
“Did the Convocation send you?” Teresa asked, dropping all pretense.
“Yes,” I said.
“How much do you know?”
“Who you are,” Jasmine said. “What you’ve done, and then what Ben did.”
Teresa scrubbed her hand across her face, opening her mouth to say something, perhaps to justify her actions. Then she shook her head. “And the vampire?”
“Right behind us,” I said. “Both of them.”
Teresa’s eyes flicked to the dark, quiet street behind us. Even the moon and stars were swathed in dark-gray clouds. The only other exterior light came from the widely spaced streetlights and the occasional security light on her neighbors’ homes. As if everyone else in the immediate area was asleep, cozy in their beds.
Except us. We were about to tear a teenaged vampire from the arms of his necromancer mother, whether or not Ben was even fully turned. Remade, as Kett called it.
“We need to see Benjamin,” I said quietly. “And we’d like to confirm the events of the reconstructions.”
“But you aren’t obligated to talk to us,” Jasmine added.
“Has a tribunal been called?” Teresa asked.
“It will be,” I said.
“And are you authorized to take us by force?”
I glanced at Jasmine. She didn’t take her gaze off Teresa.
“Not us,” I said.
“Are you a Fairchild too?” Teresa asked Jasmine.
My cousin nodded. “Yes, Jasmine. You knew who Wisteria was when she first showed up.”
“The Garricks and the Fairchilds were … known to each other. Allies of necessity. I wouldn’t have thought the Convocation would need to send more than you two.”
I laughed quietly. “We aren’t that type of Fairchild.”
Teresa snorted. “And I wasn’t that type of Garrick.”
“Then Benjamin got sick.”
“And he has no magic.” Teresa’s voice cracked with all the emotion she was holding at bay. “Not a drop of magic.”
“So the witches, the healers, couldn’t do anything,” Jasmine whispered.
Teresa lifted her hands helplessly. “I have all of this magic, all that I don’t even want, and Ben didn’t get a drop. Not even latent power that could be triggered in order to heal him.”
My heart twisted at the anguish in her voice.
But when Jasmine spoke, she was harsh. Unforgiving. “So you assaulted a vampire and turned your boy into a monster.”
Teresa dropped her hands. “Yes.” She turned away, retreating into the house. “I guess you might as well come in.”
Jasmine and I climbed the four steps to the front landing in unison. The house beyond the open door was dark, unlit. Though Teresa must have been watching for us from the living room.
As Jasmine palmed something out of her bag, magic tickled my senses. A defensive spell, maybe. I wondered what else she carried along with her laptop, her phone, and her other gadgets. Also, I hadn’t realized her bag was spelled, warded to cloak the magic it held. I wondered if she’d be able to do the same for my bag, though it wasn’t like I ever carried anything but reconstructions.
The front-hall closet stood before us. The living room was to the immediate right. Teresa settled down on the couch underneath the front windows. The blinds were open. Sitting sideways, she could watch the street without turning her head.
Jasmine and I stepped into the living room, standing shoulder to shoulder.
“What else do you need to know?” Teresa asked tonelessly.
“Why didn’t you run?” Jasmine asked. “If you knew who Wisteria was when she showed up at your door?”
“Where could I go with Ben without the Convocation’s protection? I was just hoping …” She didn’t finish her thought.
“We need to see Ben,” I said. “Then we’ll text Pearl Godfrey and let her know that you don’t dispute the charges —”
Teresa laughed harshly. “How could I? You said you had reconstructions. I might be untrained, but I know what those are.”
Through the living room window, I saw a white SUV pull up, parking behind Nigel’s Honda. Kett stepped out, glancing up at the house. I had no doubt he could see us in the front window, even without any interior lights on. Surrounded by the darkness of the neighborhood, the streetlamps lightened his hair and skin even more.
For a brief moment, he looked like an angel. An avenging angel.
I shivered.
“That’s it then,” Teresa whispered. “He’s here to kill Ben.”
“We don’t know that,” I said quickly, not wanting the situation to unravel while we stood like useless idiots in the living room.
On the sidewalk, Nigel stepped out of the SUV’s passenger-side front door. Then, in response to a look from Kett, he leaned back against the vehicle and crossed his arms.
“What else would he do?” Teresa said. “There’s nothing special about my boy.”
“He has rules,” I said lamely. “Vampires are rare.”
Teresa turned her dark-eyed gaze on me.
I shut up.
Kett was standing in the living room, directly across from Teresa. He’d entered the house and crossed by Jasmine and me without even stirring a breeze.
My cousin flinched.
Teresa slowly shifted her gaze from me to Kett.
“May I introduce Kettil, an elder and executioner of the Conclave,” I said.
Teresa swallowed.
Kett turned his attention on me. “Where is the deficient fledgling?”
“Not here,” Jasmine said, lifting her hand. She was holding a small rock in her palm. A magical detector.
Kett raised an eyebrow at her. “I already knew that, witch.”
So apparently, I was the only one in the dark.
We all looked at Teresa, who stared steadily at the floor.
“Have you killed him?” Kett asked her.
“No.”
“Shall I tear the house apart?”
“Why? You already know he’s not here.”
“He is a danger to any human in the vicinity, Teresa Garrick. I’ve already witnessed the in
complete transformation of two of his friends. Rabid fiends that had to be put down.”
One of those had been put down thanks to Luci, though the vampire didn’t mention that part.
“He hasn’t hurt anyone,” Teresa said, tugging nervously at the turtleneck of her angora sweater.
“Except his friends,” Jasmine said. Her tone was once again far harsher than I would have expected from her. “And Nigel.”
“I didn’t know about that. Not until it was done.”
“There are many ways for me to force the truth from you, necromancer,” Kett said. “Shall I list your options?”
I opened my mouth to protest. To insist on the jurisdiction of the Convocation, but Jasmine interrupted me.
“Was Nigel supposed to stay by the car?”
I glanced out the front window. The sidewalk was bare of loitering vampires. Teresa barked out a laugh.
Kett was gone. Then he reappeared outside beside the SUV, glancing around.
I wondered if Nigel had fled, or if he was looking for Ben. I wondered whether master vampires could sense their children.
Kett disappeared from beside the SUV again.
“Well,” Teresa said. “He’s annoyingly powerful. Tea?” She unfolded her legs from the couch.
“We’re good,” Jasmine said.
“Fine.” Teresa sighed. “We’ll just get to it, then.”
With no warning, dozens upon dozens of dead birds burst out from the fireplace, even as more exploded through the door that I had assumed led to the kitchen. The reanimated creatures — crows, jays, sparrows, and juncos — attacked Jasmine and me, clawing and pecking us mercilessly.
I screamed, throwing my arms around my head to protect my face. Jasmine hunched down beside me.
“I’m sorry,” Teresa said, speaking from beyond the whirlwind of birds. “But if you can’t protect Ben, I’ll have to do it myself.”
Talons and beaks were tangled in my hair, in my clothing, tearing my skin. I couldn’t move against the whirling storm of feathered fiends. But I could feel Jasmine digging through her bag beside me, hopefully looking for one of the premade spells she kept on hand.
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