“Kett,” I breathed as I stepped closer to the entrance.
He smiled — a fleeting, cool expression — but didn’t approach.
I kicked something that sounded like metal. Momentarily distracted, I reached into the shards of glass and splintered wood that were once the door to pull one of my trinkets out of the debris. Obviously, the ones that had previously hung over the doorway hadn’t come through as unscathed as the ones in the windows.
My eyes welled with tears. I looked up, met Kett’s gaze, and instantly knew that he was livid despite his earlier smile. Not by his face, which was chiseled out of ice, but by his shoulders. The twist of his shoulders betrayed his ire.
“It’s just a trinket,” I whispered.
“Is it?” he answered.
I twined the trinket — green sea glass collected from Jericho Beach, a cameo found at a yard sale, and a 1958 Canadian silver dollar strung on a silver chain — around the palm of my left hand. Across the wound that Scarlett had partially healed with a kiss. It wrapped three times, mimicking brass knuckles when I was done. If I closed my hand firmly enough, I would crush it. Mangle it with my dragon-inherited strength.
“Is everyone unharmed?” Kett asked, surprising me that he cared. But then, I called him a friend, didn’t I? What friend wouldn’t care?
“The bakery took most of the damage.” Then I asked, “Won’t you come in?” I assumed I needed to invite Kett through the new blood wards, which would explain why he still stood at the far edge of the sidewalk. I thought I’d already made his invite implicit. But then, I’d never constructed a blood ward before.
Or perhaps he just enjoyed standing in the shadow of the streetlight.
He smiled again, though I could still see the anger he held at bay. “You’ve fortified the wards with your own sweet, sweet blood,” he murmured, his eyes glowing red. But in a blink, they cleared back to his typical ice blue, which I could see despite the deepening darkness of the evening. “I don’t think I will test my mettle tonight.”
His tone held no condemnation. Not a drop. For what was blood magic to a vampire but everyday life?
“I was attacked.”
“By a creature stronger than you?”
“I hope not.”
Kett nodded. He scanned the edges of the bakery, then looked up to the apartments above. Mine, which overlooked the alley, and Kandy’s, which stood empty and awaiting the return of my werewolf best friend.
I stepped through the wards covering the entrance, crossing the sidewalk in two strides to wrap my arms around Kett’s neck. Taking without asking all the cool comfort he had to offer.
He stood just shy of six feet, and with my boots back on, I was only an inch or so shorter. I pressed my cheek against his and breathed in his dark peppermint magic. He wrapped his arms around my back to hold me gingerly, as if I might be a precious piece of china.
“You’re angry, but not with me,” I whispered, aware but not really caring that the street was really too full of people to be making such a display of myself.
“Never at you,” Kett replied. He pressed his hand briefly to the back of my head, then dropped his arms.
I took the hint and stepped back so a few inches stood between us. I could still taste his magic from there. Could still steal the calm that came from that cool taste. I’d never found peppermint so soothing, not before I met Kett. The vampire still scared me, but in a we-are-all-capable-of-extreme-darkness sort of way now. We’d shared a life bond for a terribly brief moment. Perhaps that magic still lingered between us. Perhaps waging a war together against a demon horde summoned by my sister — and surviving — was a stronger bond than anything else could ever be.
“Tell me everything,” he said.
“The dragon kid came. She demanded my necklace and used its magic to transform into a teenage version of herself. She wanted my knife as well, but I wasn’t stupid enough to just hand her a deadly weapon. Then Gran kicked her ass.”
Kett’s lips curled, minutely and briefly, at my characterization of Gran. He was a fan of Pearl Godfrey’s, through and through. I think she scared him just a little. Apparently, that was what it took to get an ancient vampire’s attention.
“The child from the fortress?”
“Yes.”
Kett knew about the map, which he’d helped decode, and about the fortress in the Bahamas. He hadn’t really met Warner yet — other than during their brief skirmish in Seattle. Somehow, they were never in Vancouver at the same time.
“She took the map.” I was loath to admit the last part.
“Interesting.”
Again, I could hear the anger underlying the vampire’s normally icy tone. “You’re pissed.”
“Indeed.”
“You’re going to help me get the map back.”
“If you wish.”
“Don’t play me, vampire.”
“Never.”
Kett brushed his fingers along my necklace. He was a big fan of it as well. I imagined that was part of his pissiness. “Not completely depleted,” he murmured.
“I topped it up when I sealed the wards.”
“With Pearl and Scarlett?”
“You can feel that?”
Kett inclined his head. I wasn’t sure it was a great idea for the Executioner of the Conclave to know that the Godfrey coven performed blood magic together.
“Will others know?”
“No,” Kett replied. “Other Adept will feel a powerful ward, but only those intimate with the smell of your blood will comprehend its construction.”
“So you. Kandy?”
“Possibly Desmond. I can only guess that a guardian or Drake could tell as well.”
“They don’t tend to drop in for cupcakes.”
“They will come now.”
I nodded but refused to worry about that. Guardians didn’t care about things like blood magic as long as someone wasn’t wielding it to destroy the world.
Kett slipped his hand into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out two wedding rings. A matching set of plain gold bands. He held the rings out to me, the metal glimmering with a hint of red where they rested in the palm of his right hand.
“Jesus,” I said. “You aren’t asking me to marry you, are you?”
Kett smiled, tight-lipped and cool. “For your necklace. I found them and thought you might wish to add their magic to the chain. The timing appears to be auspicious.”
“From a pawn shop, right? Not from someone’s dead fingers?”
Kett closed his fingers over the rings to hide them — but he couldn’t hide the tiny taste of magic I’d picked up.
“Married vampires?” I asked, as casually as possible for someone who desperately wanted the items offered. The rings would go a long way toward healing my most prized possession. Okay, one of my two most prized possessions.
Kett opened his hand and looked at the rings. “Is it so impossible?” he murmured.
“Did you find them in London?”
“I endeavor to make my visits to London as brief as possible.”
“So no time for window-shopping.”
“No, but Paris provided some distraction.”
“French vampires?” My voice squeaked rather unbecomingly with excitement. I ignored his ‘distraction’ comment. There were only three things that distracted vampires … blood, unique magic, and power plays. All of which were cans of worms best left unopened.
Kett smirked and inclined his head, but said nothing.
“A story would be nice,” I whispered as I wrapped my arms around myself. I was chilly, but I also needed to stop myself from simply snatching the gift from him.
Kett looked confused for a moment. Then he nodded and cast his gaze over my head again, up at the building behind me, though he wasn’t really looking at it.
“Brethren of mine,” he whispered.
I hadn’t been expecting a glimpse into his life when I’d asked about the rings. His cool tone was a further balm as
I leaned in to lose myself, even if just for this breath, in his history.
“Siblings, if you will. Married before they were turned.”
The vampire never shared his past. He seemed perfectly pleased to live fully within the present.
“Companions of mine for a century or so. But …” He looked down at the rings. “Ill fated.”
Some terrible sadness was buried in those two words. Something with an utter finality that I didn’t want to dig into right now. I couldn’t taste a drop of darkness in the pair of wedding rings Kett held.
“I would be honored to accept this gift, Kettil, Executioner of the Conclave.”
Kett stiffened. Well, his shoulders tensed at least. “I offer the gift as a friend, Jade Godfrey. No machinations attached.”
He might have been teasing, but I didn’t totally get it. Granted, I was enamored with the idea of adding the rings to my necklace as quickly as possible. Yes, I was easily distracted by bright shiny things. What else was new?
“Thank you,” I said.
Kett tipped the rings into my waiting hand without touching me. The hint of vampire magic tingled in my palm — more of an energy than a flavor. Not enough for me to taste, but more than enough to lift my spirits.
“Everything can be fixed,” I said, rolling the rings in my hand and already planning how I would add them to my necklace.
Kett was watching the blood flow through my neck. I hadn’t caught him doing that since the first evening we met.
Stupidly, I froze. Completely freezing in front of a predator was a bad idea. It only served to reinforce their idea of you as easy prey.
“What are you doing?” I whispered, suddenly aware there were fewer people around on the sidewalks and streets than before.
Kett didn’t answer. But he did reach out to press his fingers lightly to the inside of my left wrist. I was still cupping the rings in that same hand.
“You’re not trying to seduce me, are you, Kett?” My voice wasn’t as steady as I would have liked it to be.
“What would I do with you, Jade Godfrey, after I caught you?” he murmured, his gaze still on my neck. “I already know that your blood and I don’t mix.”
“You’re basing that assumption on seeing my blood burn demons, on the beach in Tofino. You’re not pure demon, and I’m not pure dragon.”
Kett dropped his hand and lifted his ice-blue gaze to mine. He was smiling now, amused, with no hint of red in his eyes. So he hadn’t been lusting after my blood. “Do you wish for me to seduce you?”
“Okay, asshole. I misunderstood. You don’t have to rub it in.”
“Don’t I?” he asked with a millimeter of raised eyebrow.
I snorted, then glared at him. If he’d been a human male, I would have assumed he was being lewd with that comment.
His smile turned into a grin. “Your magic is intoxicating, and you’ve been liberal with it tonight.”
Ah, yes. If it couldn’t be about blood for the vampire, then it was all about magic. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure sex was even the same thing for vampires as it was for the rest of us. I was betting it was a combination of sucking and mind games. Pleasant mind games, but feeding nevertheless.
“I have no idea where to start looking for her,” I said. I was becoming skilled at thinking about more than one thing at a time. Or maybe I was just obsessed about the map. It wasn’t every day that I met my immortal demigod father, then discovered that objects existed with which he could be murdered. Objects I was tasked to collect and return to the safety of the guardians.
Though destroying them would obviously be a better idea. However, Warner was being stonewalled over that particular notion by Pulou.
“She took the map deliberately?” Kett asked.
“Yeah, I think so. Though it might have just been a bargaining chip … to get her hands on my knife.”
“Or she wants the next item.”
“Maybe she thinks it contains enough power that she can use it to facilitate her transformation further.”
“Anything that could kill a guardian would have to be that powerful.”
“But I’m not sure she can access that magic, being a dragon. Though I obviously haven’t laid hands on the next item myself. And none of this explains what she was doing in the Bahamas in the first place. The statue appeared to be of an adult woman, not a kid.”
Kett offered this conundrum his version of a shrug — a slight lift of one shoulder. The motivations of others weren’t something that particularly interested the vampire. He was all about end results. I gathered that held true for vamps in general. The ‘why’ was boring to ancient immortals. Only the final prize was worth their time.
“I just figured out how to read the map,” I said. “But I barely got a glance.”
“A glance will do,” Kett said.
“Oh, yeah?” I asked, smiling at his confidence. “What do you propose to do with a glance? It didn’t come with much detail. Just part of a landmass.”
“We only need a general location. We have a powerful dowser for the rest.”
“We’d still have to get the map out of my head. I doubt I could draw it with any accuracy. We could go to the far seer, but …”
“That might take months.”
“Yeah, and every time he touches me …” I didn’t finish my thought. Kett wasn’t the right person to talk about the future with. Time meant little to him. Or it meant everything … I wasn’t totally sure, actually. But it didn’t scare him in the least. I’d get no empathy from an immortal being whose very existence thwarted destiny … twice.
Kett brushed his fingers lightly against the inside of my left wrist again. The cool kiss of his peppermint magic filled my mouth. That was all the comfort he had to give, and I’d take every last taste of it.
“The map,” I said, forcing myself to refocus.
“San Francisco.”
“Sorry?”
“There is an amplifier in San Francisco who will help me catch a glimpse of the map in your mind.”
“Why not just take me to a reader?”
“Someone powerful enough to get through your innate ability to shield your thoughts is not someone to trust.”
“That’s some big condemnation coming from a vampire.”
Kett inclined his head. “An elder of the Conclave,” he said with a twist of a smile.
“Oh? A seat at the table, hey?” I wasn’t sure if Kett was actually happy about this appointment or not. I know that Scarlett had refused a seat on the witches’ Convocation for many years, though that might be more about her turbulent relationship with Gran rather than a concern over being mired in bureaucracy. Maybe Kett had similar concerns about his grandsire and paperwork.
“So I introduce you as ‘elder’ now? Not executioner?”
“I’m still the latter, but you should never have need to introduce me.”
Right, there was that.
“You’re going to need to pass through my wards to get to the portal,” I said.
Kett showed his utter disgust at the idea of traveling by portal. Again, this was barely a twitch of his upper lip, but to me it screamed in ALL CAPS. Knowing a vampire this well was probably way, way bad for my health, but I was done with worrying about it.
“I’ll meet you in San Francisco,” he said. “I have the jet.” Then he melted off into the shadows between the streetlights.
“Private jet, eh? Nice,” I said. The vampire didn’t respond.
No other plan or schedule … just ‘meet you in San Francisco.’ At least it was a step forward when I didn’t even know where else to start. If Shailaja had taken the map because she knew how to read it, then our only chance of stopping her might be beating her to the location of the second instrument of assassination.
“I’ll need to change, at least.” Though the taste of his magic was dim, I spoke into the air as if he could still hear me.
“I’ll text you,” he said, his breath cool on the back of my neck. “Brin
g the dragon.”
I wanted to spin around and grab him just to prove that I could, but I didn’t want to ruin his game. He liked to play, and I missed that part of my life.
“San Francisco,” I muttered as I turned to look back at the bakery windows. “That’s new.”
Again, the bakery was more trashed than my brain was ready to acknowledge. And here I was, ready to run off and hunt a possibly insane teenage dragon with Kett.
As I watched through the splintered front door, Warner stepped from the kitchen to survey the ruin of the storefront. His face was a storm of emotion. He looked up to see me watching him.
I tried to smile, but I couldn’t force the expression to actually manifest.
I was suddenly so cold.
I wrapped my arms around my chest and stepped back into the bakery. The adrenaline was wearing off, but the anger was still simmering in my soul.
CHAPTER FOUR
I stepped through my newly constructed wards, never breaking my gaze from Warner as he crossed around the still intact bakery display case. The blood magic clung to me like a comforting cobweb. Yeah, it was probably a bad sign that I found the byproduct of blood magic comforting.
Warner was dressed in dragon training leathers, and his dark blond, newly chopped short hair highlighted his wide brow. Actually, everything about the sentinel was wide — jaw, shoulders, hands — and too big, too manly to be considered beautiful, which was fine by me. Preferred, even. He wore the sacrificial knife I’d created in London openly displayed in a sheath built into his leather pants on the left thigh, though he drew with his right hand.
Normally I’d take a moment to ogle his leather-enhanced, hard-muscled physique, but I shivered instead. The chill that had grabbed me outside still had a hold on me.
Warner ran his dark-green gaze down and across every inch of me as I moved to stand before him, crushing the broken glass still covering the floor of the entrance underneath my boots as I went.
This look — so full of concern, then rage — was not the one I’d anticipated when I’d smoothed on black tights and a cashmere sweater dress this morning.
Maps, Artifacts, and Other Arcane Magic (Dowser Series Book 5) Page 6