And, just to complicate the situation further, I wasn’t certain whether or not Gabby was already inside baking. I’d gotten her number from Mory — keeping Liam out of the loop so we didn’t risk him running in with guns blazing — and texted her before we left Pearl’s. I hadn’t gotten an answer yet, though only about seven minutes had passed.
If Gabby had shown up for her shift while the elf was trying to break in, I wasn’t sure whether he would have tried to use the junior amplifier to gain entry. Jade’s wards didn’t work like that — only the dowser could grant safe passage through them. But whether the elf would have tried anyway, I had no way of knowing. Alternatively, the warrior — currently covering his armor with a brand-spanking-new sweatshirt and sweatpants — might have allowed the amplifier to enter the bakery, using her to study the wards.
I pulled my phone out of my jacket pocket, sending a second text message to Gabby, just in case.
Stay inside the bakery.
The elf stepped back up to the exterior door, holding his hand forward as if feeling the energy that encased the building. Then he started moving his hand, almost as if he were drawing in the air. He slowly boxed out the entire door with his gestures. Then he reached for the door handle, actually managing to grasp it before staggering back and shaking his hand as if he’d been burned.
If I’d been capable of seeing elf magic, I would have been able to view exactly what he’d been drawing. But either way, it was a safe bet that he was a ward breaker of some sort. Like a code breaker or a hacker, but with magic. He was either trying to sever or neutralize Jade’s wards, but limiting the scope to the perimeter of the door. Smart.
Beau appeared behind me, arriving from the opposite direction.
I glanced at him.
He shook his head.
No other elves, then. Or none that Beau could sense, at least — but that was actually a problem, since none of us seemed capable of sensing the elves before they chose to reveal themselves. So there might have been a half-dozen of them hiding in the ever-lightening shadows at the edges of the alley.
Except … the illusionist was dead. I had seen her sprawled on the ground. I’d seen Jade with the illusionist’s gemstone drilled into her forehead.
So maybe it was just the one elf — leaving us to hope he couldn’t also teleport. But the little information I’d cobbled together about the elves made it fairly clear that they specialized as Adepts did. Warriors, illusionist, telepath, teleporter. The ward breaker in the alley might have channeled magic similar to that of an Adept sorcerer — and it was likely the only magic he channeled.
“Can’t sneak up on him,” Beau whispered, practically pressing his lips to my ear as he articulated the concern that already had me hesitating. “And he’s thinking of leaving.”
I nodded, whispering back, “His magic is different than the others. Though that doesn’t mean he can’t do the knife trick.”
“They all seem to be able to do that.”
“But if you hear him muttering or see him drawing anything … well, try to stop him before he finishes.”
Beau nodded. “And our approach?”
“If you can’t be sneaky, be brash.” I reached up, unbuttoning my suede jacket and then the top buttons of the silk blouse I was wearing underneath. With my cleavage on display, I fluffed my hair, fanning it over my shoulders.
Beau snorted. “Here’s hoping he likes vampires. And females, for that matter.”
“He’ll at least look. All I need is eye contact.” That last claim was a bluff. I had never actually tried to beguile anyone except Kett. And he hadn’t even noticed my futile attempts.
I sauntered into the alley, swaying my hips a little more than I needed to in order to walk.
The elf immediately locked his gaze on me. A short blade appeared in his hand, but he kept it pressed against his leg.
I allowed an enticing smile to curl my lips. I might not have been a warrior by the high standards of the Adepts who called Vancouver home, but I was a vampire. And vampires seduced their prey.
At least as far as I’d figured things out so far.
I slowly prowled toward the elf, moving languidly. Playing at being a little drunk. I caught a curl of my hair, smoothing it through my fingers and holding the gaze of the bigger predator in the alley.
I was supposed to be able to ensnare, to beguile. Though even if I actually wielded such magic, whether it would work on an elf, I had no idea.
Ten steps away, though, the elf still hadn’t raised his weapon.
“Hello,” I tittered. “Are you looking for Jade?”
The elf stiffened, but he didn’t glance away from me.
“Sometimes,” I whispered secretively, “she’ll share cupcakes before the bakery opens.” If not for the worry over whether Gabby was there, I might have been able to drag the elf through the powerful wards that coated the building. Except since the elf wasn’t keyed to that magic, I’d be hoping that trying to do so wouldn’t fry me along with him.
“I’m not interested in cupcakes,” the elf spat. His English accent was thick, but I couldn’t attach any specific place of origin to it.
I allowed my smile to widen, then touched my tongue to my teeth. “Oh yes? What does interest you?”
He looked confused by the question. Maybe even a little glassy-eyed. So had I actually managed to beguile him? How was I supposed to know?
The elf smiled, displaying sharp-pointed teeth. The effect sent a shudder up my spine.
But instead of fleeing, I leaned into him, gently placing my hand on his shoulder. He was over a foot taller than me.
He grabbed my shoulders, pressing me back against the building. The motion was hard, perhaps even bruising. Except I didn’t bruise easily.
“What are you doing?” he snarled.
I laughed teasingly, toying with the string ties of his sweatshirt. “Don’t you like to play?”
“Play?” He frowned.
I reached up, keeping his gaze locked with mine as I stroked his jaw, trailing my fingers down his neck. “Yes … play.”
His expression softened.
Beau was slipping along the edge of the fence toward us, trying to keep to the shadows. Except the sky was brightening to the point where doing so was about to become difficult.
I ran my tongue along my teeth again, realizing that my canines had sharpened. Lengthened.
The elf watched my every move, enraptured.
I smoothed my hands over his shoulders, readying to grab him before Beau struck.
The elf suddenly grimaced, pressing his hand to the gemstone in his forehead.
I felt my hold on him slip — a hold I hadn’t been entirely certain I’d actually established.
Then Gabby threw open the exterior door, carrying a light-green composting bag.
The elf’s gaze snapped to her.
Ah, hell.
Instinct kicked in. I surged forward, lifting up onto my tiptoes and sinking my teeth into his neck.
The elf snarled, slamming me back against the building even harder this time. I hung on. His thick blood instantly coated my face and lips, pouring down my throat though I wasn’t trying to drink. He slammed me back again and again, but I clamped down even harder, desperately hoping my venom subdued him before he cracked my spine.
Gabby cried out. Her delayed reaction time gave me a hint of how quickly the elf and I were moving, grappling.
Beau grabbed the amplifier, shoving her back through the wards into the bakery kitchen.
The elf stabbed me.
Two short blades embedded into either side of my ribs, slicing through my flesh, then getting caught on bone. Pain flooded through my torso, radiating up into my chest. The elf twisted the blades, presumably trying to free them — but feeling more like he was destroying the very magic that held me together. Carving me out from the inside.
I tore at the flesh of his neck, desperately trying to keep ahold of him. He stumbled, slowing. Perhaps my venom was st
arting to affect him. But he still managed to withdraw his blades. They felt even worse exiting than they had in the stabbing.
He was going to knife me again.
I wasn’t certain I would survive a second attack.
Beau appeared behind the elf, walloping him over the head with a heavy-bottomed cooking pot. The blow reverberated through my teeth, which were still latched to his throat, then into my head.
I released my prey, stumbling back against the building.
The elf whirled to answer Beau’s blow, belatedly raising knives that were sticky with my blood. He was moving as if drugged.
Beau flipped the pot, deftly slamming it up underneath the elf’s chin.
The elf’s head snapped back. He dropped to the ground between us.
The intense magic of Jade’s bakery wards churned on the exterior wall behind me. I pressed my hands against it, holding myself upright. The elf at my feet took a ragged breath.
I looked up. Beau stood on the other side of my prey, facing off with me. And for a moment, I considered lunging over the elf and taking out the loss of my prize on Beau’s throat. I could already feel the heat, could taste the spice of his sure-to-be-thick-and-sweet blood flowing down my throat.
“Do we have a problem?” Beau asked. His voice was edged with the growl of his beast.
I didn’t want to face off against the massively strong shifter I’d seen in action only a couple of hours before. But I was, unfortunately, experiencing another completely instinct-fueled, utterly irrational moment.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Not prey, not prey.
“I repeat. Do we have a problem?”
“No problem, pretty kitty.” I had intended the comment to be playful, but my words dripped with a dark and unsteady resolve. Then I bent over and vomited up elf blood. It splattered across the pavement and the toes of my boots. And even as I waited to see if I was going to throw up a second time, I watched as the regurgitated blood solidified, turned into a fine crystal, and was partially blown away by a gust of wind.
Ah, hell. Jade had warned me not to bite the elves. She’d been joking, but I certainly didn’t like the idea of the blood thickening or crumbling into crystal inside me.
“Jasmine?” Gabby asked.
Still bent over, I swiveled my head to take in the amplifier. The lithe blond was standing by the open back door, still within the protective wards. She was wearing a ruffled pink apron and holding a copper pot. She also had a cordless earbud in one ear.
“Are you? Are you … your eyes are … red.”
“Next time, check your text messages,” I snarled.
Gabby took a hesitant step back, babbling. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Sometimes I listen to music while baking … and I … text messages interrupt … so —”
Beau raised his hand, silencing the fledgling.
She clamped her mouth shut.
I squeezed my eyes shut a second time, straightening as I attempted to get myself under control. I pressed my hands over the stab wounds on either side of my ribs. They had closed, but it hurt to touch them. As if maybe some of my magic, the magic that held me together, had been destroyed.
“How hurt are you?” Beau asked. “I can carry both you and the elf … but it might draw too much attention.”
I nodded, pushing past the grip of the pain radiating through my chest — and my almost overwhelming need to appease that ache with Beau’s blood … and now Gabby’s. “We’ll carry him between us. Like he drank too much and we’re just getting him home.”
“Right.” Beau hunkered down to pick up the elf.
I twisted my hands together behind my back. It was either that or latch them around his neck. “Go back inside, Gabby,” I said. My voice was steady and sure. Thank God. “We’re okay.”
Beau got the elf upright, his head lolling to one side, then the other. I transferred my grip to the elf’s left arm, getting it over my shoulder, then holding on. Not for my life, but for Beau’s. Though as wounded as I was, I had no idea whether I could take down the werecat. Not when my behavior was probably already triggering every predator’s instinct he had.
Gabby was still gripping the pot like she might actually use it as a weapon. To me, she looked like frightened but fierce prey as she stepped back onto the tile floor of the kitchen. Then she watched us leave from the open doorway.
“Everything is so screwed,” I whispered. “Upside down, wrong way around.”
Beau grunted in agreement. Then we stuffed the elf in the back of Pearl’s car. We made sure he’d stay unconscious and be able to accompany us through Pearl’s wards with a premade spell Scarlett had prepared, which Beau clipped to his sweatshirt. Then we took him to slaughter.
Beau drove us back, parked the car in Pearl’s belowground garage, and single-handedly dragged the still-unconscious elf from the back seat — all without saying anything about me having spent the trip gripping one side of my seat and the door handle so hard that I left both permanently dented.
Biting the elf had been a bad idea. Inadvertently drinking his blood had been even worse. But getting knifed by his crystal blades? I felt as though my inner core, everything that was holding me together, had been sliced so deeply that it would never heal, never become whole again.
I had to move. I had to get out of the car. On my own.
I still had to help Scarlett bind the elf magic to the grid. Otherwise, the witches — the last of the city’s defenders — were completely blind. I might have been dying, but if I didn’t get out of the damn car, everyone else would be joining me.
Burgundy was waiting at the open door to the basement, leaning down to clip another premade spell to the elf’s sweatshirt before Beau carried him in. The first spell was what had allowed us to drive the elf through the property wards, but the house wards presumably needed their own override. With Pearl out of commission, those wards would normally allow entry only to those she’d already invited.
A terrible pain tore through my midsection. I clenched my teeth, suppressing my need to scream. I pressed my hands to my belly, to my rib cage, convinced that I’d actually been ripped in half. I hadn’t been, though. No gaping, seething wounds.
I blinked away tears of pain, hoping to God that they weren’t composed of blood. Hoping that vampires crying blood was just another urban myth. I knew that my remade body produced other fluids — or saliva, at least, because I would have noticed my teeth being stained red all the time.
Beau dragged the elf into the house. But Burgundy stayed waiting for me at the door. It wasn’t the time to be contemplating whether or not I could produce spit … or snot … or anything else without it being composed of blood.
If I sat in the car for too long, Beau would come back and try to carry me. And touching me would have been a really, really bad idea.
If I were triggered, I might try to slaughter every warm-blooded person in the house. Slaughter the very Adepts I was trying to become friends with … to build a life around …
I felt like sobbing. Then raging. Then curling up on the floor of the car and simply willing myself to die.
I did none of those things. I opened the car door and walked into the house. I managed to nod at the junior witch waiting for me. I might have even smiled.
“Are you all right?” Burgundy asked.
“Still moving.”
She nodded, twisting her hands together. Her magic dimly outlined her fingers. I blinked and the blue aura ghosting her hands disappeared. Had I actually seen her magic? That was an odd side effect of dying.
I forced my attention onto more important things. “And Pearl?”
Burgundy looked grim. “No change. We could use … another witch.”
Scarlett, she meant. Except Scarlett was a little busy trying to protect an entire city from invading elves.
Burgundy glanced to her left. Halfway down the hall, Beau had dumped the elf’s body by the door to the map room, then stepped inside. I could hear his heartbeat, along with two others
.
“I … I’d better get back,” Burgundy said. “I just wanted to make sure you were both okay. And that you could get the elf through the wards.”
“Thank you.”
Burgundy nodded, hustling off toward the stairs to the main floor. I managed to not lunge after her and tear her beating heart out of her chest. But it felt like a near thing.
I made it down the hall, pressing my back to the wall a couple of feet away from the elf. I could hear the murmur of conversation emanating from within the map room — Beau and Scarlett — but I wasn’t paying attention to their actual words.
I just had to get through this next part. Then I could retreat, lock myself in the upstairs bedroom, and drink the last two bags of blood.
That wasn’t going to be enough, of course. I was fairly certain I was dying. But hopefully, with the human blood to hold me, I’d lapse into a coma first and not take anyone else with me.
Beau stepped out from the map room. He was carrying Rochelle, but she was awake. He nudged the elf with his foot, checking for signs of consciousness.
“Closer, Beau,” the oracle murmured.
Protective instincts slammed energy into my limbs, and I pushed off from the wall. Even in my present state, I wasn’t going to let the oracle go anywhere near a wounded elf.
But it was me she’d meant. Me that she was reaching for with fingers covered in dried black paint. The white of her magic simmered in her eyes.
I knew what might happen if I let anyone touch me. And I stepped forward anyway, so that Rochelle could brush her slim, warm fingers across my cheekbones.
“Jasmine,” she murmured. “It’s going to be okay.”
Damn it. I was the one who should have been consoling and guiding her … and Beau, and Burgundy. There were only three witches in this house who were older than me. And one of them was unconscious, one of them didn’t have the magic to lead — and one of them was waiting for me to step up.
“Of course,” I said. Lying.
“See?” Rochelle said. “I see you …”
Her magic reached out and bit into my mind, offering me the briefest glimpse of a golden-haired, creamy-skinned woman on a wet cobblestone street. The woman was surrounded by buildings whose look reminded me somehow of Europe. And she was … me. Me as a vampire. The shock of recognizing myself was visceral. An energizing jolt to my system.
Graveyards, Visions, and Other Things That Byte (Dowser 8.5) Page 16