We needed to make a plan.
Fast.
“Why would Gypsy want a bloodbath when she rises?” I chewed on my bottom lip and tapped one foot as I considered.
We had circled back around toward the vampires’ palace and were now crouching in the shadow of a nearby building, sharing food from Sorin’s backpack. To any passersby, we were just two people sharing lunch in some convenient shade.
The Elders had long predicted Gypsy’s rise from her magically induced sleep. Something about the rate of exchange between blood magic going into her crypt and other magic coming out. I didn’t understand it—I’ve never been very good at math. But if the Elders of my enclosure knew about it, I had to assume that the Council did it, too. And the vampires.
I supposed it was something of a surprise that no one had tried to raise her before now.
“Who knows what Gypsy might want?” Sorin sliced part of an apple and ate it directly off the blade of his short knife. “But I know what I want.” He waved one hand toward the vampires’ stronghold. “Lots of fighting. The more the guards turned on one another, the less we’ll have to do to get in.”
“True, but when the vamps wake up tonight, they’ll figure out something’s going awry with their guards. And then they’ll set new guards.”
Sorin eyed the scuffle on the veranda. “Maybe,” he said doubtfully. “If they can find anyone else to hire.”
“They probably have to range pretty far afield to find anyone not already falling under the Daughter’s spell. Still, it seems like a waste of an opportunity to give them that chance,” I said.
“So we get them tonight?” Sorin sounded more excited than anxious, almost exact opposite of how I was feeling at the moment.
Still,… “Yeah. I think it’s probably the best balance between getting in when they’re unguarded—or at least less guarded—and before Gypsy’s power grows too strong.”
Sorin handed me a slice of apple, too. “Have you wondered why the vamps are pushing to have her rise at the darkest point of the moon’s cycle?”
“Maybe to give them a better chance at controlling her?” I shrugged. “Her power has to be connected to the moon somehow. Full moons are when the power is strongest and bloodiest. When the moon wanes, Gypsy’s power is at its weakest—so that might give them a couple of weeks to work with her before she comes to full power. Time to try to make her their creature, instead of the other way around.”
“If that’s the case, they haven’t been listening to the old stories very well.”
I nodded, but something about that statement bothered me. It had been a while since most of the Fae were killed off. But the vampires lived longer than any of the rest of us, so if anyone was going to remember what the worst of the Fae were like, it would be the vamps. Whatever that was it had niggled at the back of my brain about the vampires shoved at me again. What was that? I almost had an idea…
No. It was gone again.
“Okay.” I drew the word out slowly and held up fingers, counting as I went. “So we have an idea of the best time for us to get in to the altar room. We know they’re trying to raise Gypsy. And we even know when, roughly. So we know that gives us some time.”
Sorin nodded as I enumerated each point.
“What we do not know is how they plan to raise her, exactly, or what else there plan might include.” I took his hands and gazed into his eyes, trying to impress upon them how important this could be. “It’s not enough to just go in and attack. We need to know what we’re trying to stop—or maybe start—and how to keep whatever their goal might be from happening.”
Sorin nodded chewing on his bottom went. “And to be honest, I think I would feel better going in is I was absolutely certain the vampires weren’t trying to accomplish a better goal—like, I don’t know, killing Gypsy themselves? What if what they’re trying to do isn’t all that horrible?”
I froze, stunned at the idea.
All my life I had been taught that the vampires valued power above all else. What if I was wrong? I’d also been taught that the Elders would always do what was in our people’s best interest, whatever was necessary to protect those of us who lived within the enclosure. But they hadn’t listened to me when I tried to tell them what I’d seen. They hadn’t believed me.
And I’d been taught that the Council, comprised as it was of both Human and Fae, worked to protect everyone. That had been wrong, too. There were council members trying to work against one another even now.
“I feel like I’m swimming through my cousin Ioana’s simple syrup. Everything is thick and sticky and I can’t get a handle on any of this information.” My heart rate rose and my stomach twisted. “I want to do what’s right. But I can’t even be certain what that is.”
The lynx-shifter tucked his knife back into its sheath, hidden somewhere in his clothes, and rubbed his eyes.
“Sorin?” My voice was small and hesitant. I feared voicing my concerns, as if saying them aloud would bring them to life. “What can we do to be sure you and I don’t turn on each other? What if we kill each other before we can save anyone, before we can do anything?”
He reached out and folded my hand in his. “Before she died, my mother always used to say that all we can do is our best.” He grinned a little at the memory. “Of course, she said that when she was trying to teach me not to hunt birds in my cat form and bring them back for her. She didn’t like it when I turned them inside out and left them on her doorstep.”
I laughed. “It must’ve been difficult for the human to raise a shifter child.”
Sorin nodded. “At the time, I thought she meant me—that all I could do was my best. Since then I’ve wondered if maybe she wasn’t talking about herself.”
“Maicǎ used to tell me that kindness had to be taught. That wasn’t born into us, but had to be cultivated every day.”
“You’re Maicǎ seems like she was a good woman.”
“She was.” Tears welled up in my eyes and I swallowed a sob. “She would want me to keep going. Even if we risk turning on each other.”
“We don’t have to do anything at all.” Sorin ran a hand over his closely shorn hair, as if trying to push his once tawny mane out of his eyes. “We could run, escape to the forest, ask the Fae for asylum.”
“And who’s to say this force wouldn’t make its way to the forest eventually? Besides, I don’t know if the remaining Fae would allow us to stay there.”
“Then we could hide out in the Patriarchal Cathedral, with the city Fae. Their goal is to make peace with humans, right?”
“I don’t think I can live with myself if I don’t act,” I finally said, but only after a pause long enough to send shame coursing through me.
“Then we continue—whatever comes.”
Chapter 16
As he stared at me, Sorin’s bright green eyes flickered, the pupils elongating into slits.
His cat’s eyes.
When he opened his mouth to speak, fangs flashed. “Right now, I’m so damned angry—but I know I don’t have any reason to be.”
“That’s got to be Gypsy.” A wave of red hazed over my vision. I gritted my teeth against the surge of violence roiling through me. “We need to get out of here.”
“I think it’s time we got more information, too.” Sorin hissed at the end of the sentence.
“I don’t have any ideas about where we could go. Do you? Or are you just flying blind, too?” My own words were snappish, irritated.
“Cats don’t fly.” Claws snicked out of the tips of his fingers. One side of his mouth curled up and a warning growl sounded low in his throat.
I scrambled to my feet, puffing my chest out. I’d be damned if I let that stupid cat-shifter intimidate me. Just because some Fae magic had contaminated one of his ancestors didn’t mean he was one iota better than I was. I had my own magic. I might not be able to do much with it but I could learn.
I need a knife.
Sorin flowed to his feet in one swift
motion. With visible effort, he retracted his claws and held in whatever comment or growling noise he was about to make. “We need to get out of here now. We should stay away from the vampires’ castle until we’re ready to do whatever it is we decide on.”
I could barely hear him over the roaring of my blood in my ears as my heart pounded, and part of me still wanted to attack him. But when he started to walk away, I followed, unsure if I planned to work with him or against him. Either way, though, I didn’t want to lose my quarry.
The farther away we got from the Officers’ Circle Palace, the more my bloodlust faded.
“Is that what it’s always like?” I finally managed to ask, breathless from the experience.
“I thought you felt it in your vision of me.”
“I did, but not that intensely.”
“Well, that was similar, yes.” He glanced at me, his face reddening. “I’m sorry for showing my claws. I try not to do that around humans.”
“It’s not your fault.” We just had to keep moving.
We moved through what had been Old Town Bucharest, with its narrow streets and old buildings. We weren’t far from my family’s enclosure. But everywhere we turned, Bucharest’s residents were at each other’s throats.
I watched a mother slap her child across the face and stepped forward to intervene, placing my hands on the woman’s shoulders. “You don’t want to hurt your child.” I poured all my memories of Maicǎ and her loving arms into my words. The woman blinked several times, tears welling up in her eyes.
“Take your child and head to the outskirts of town,” I said. “Stay there until you’re sure it’s safe to come back.” I pointed down the street where a man pushing a vegetable cart had pulled a knife and was brandishing it at several customers. The woman blinked, gathered up the boy, and hurried away.
I prayed my intervention would be enough to get them to safety.
I cringed as the vegetable merchant stabbed another man in the stomach. Blood spilled out onto the street and it was if it released a tidal wave of repressed anger.
At the best of times, Bucharest existed in a delicate balance. Magic users vying to gain power. Humans fighting for survival. Blood drinkers hunting everyone else. The Human-Fae Council kept everyone’s worst impulses in check, as did the memory of things like the forest Fae raid. No one could forget that we were trapped in this fishbowl of a city and its surrounding lands.
The new magic emanating from the vampires stronghold tore through everyone, throwing that balance into chaos. The violence swept like a wave down the street where we stood, hitting person after person and coming toward us. Fights exploded, people pulled knives and swords. Something burst into flames only a few doors down from where we stood as someone threw a bottle of alcohol with a lit fuse through a window.
“Run!” Sorin grabbed my hand as he shouted and pulled me away from the chaos rolling toward us.
We sprinted away from Old Town toward Titan Park, where the lynx pack lived.
I couldn’t help but wonder how my family would fare inside their enclosure when the violence rolled through it.
I sobbed at the thought, and tears rolled down my face as we ran.
We got far enough ahead of the swell of deeply contaminated magic to slow to a walk, but it quickly became clear that the effects were rippling outward.
Normally, it would have taken a little less than an hour and a half to walk from the vampires’ stronghold to Titan Park. It took us almost that long to get only halfway there. That’s about when whatever it was emanating from Gypsy’s tomb dissipated. We spent that time ducking fights, and I sent three more people with children heading toward the farmlands. I even suggested they continue to the Fae forest if necessary.
At one point, Sorin paused on the side of the street, putting one hand out in front of me. “There’s something nearby,” he said, his nose tilted up into the air as he sniffed. “Blood, and maybe a wolf.”
I glanced around, turning in a slow circle to try to see in every direction. Nothing.
“Can you tell where it’s coming from?”
“We’re downwind from it—it’s coming from somewhere north of us.”
North. We stood at the crossing point of two roads: Strada Traiand and Calea Călărași, almost directly south of the Fire Tower. Last I’d heard, a faction of the forest Fae had taken over the old firefighting museum and were using it as a base to begin moving back into the city.
“Do you think the wolves are planning to attack the Fae?” It wouldn’t be good if they were. The tower Fae had wings and numbers. They were the ones who’d been able to fly away from the worst of the retaliation against the woodland Fae’s raid.
“I doubt it.” Sorin sniffed again. “It’s not enough blood for anything like that. More likely the Fae caught one of the wolves spying on them.”
I shuddered. The winged Fae were fierce, and their incursion into the city itself had caused more than one bout of anxiety-ridden discussion within my enclosure. In the end, the Elders had decided there was nothing to be done about the city’s new inhabitants. I could only assume the same was true throughout all the communities within Bucharest—no one was willing to mount an attack on the winged Fae. This new bloodlust emanating from the vampires’ stronghold might change that.
The last thing I wanted was to be around when that happened. “Let’s keep moving.”
Sorin didn’t respond, but he kept going. Still, we dropped south as soon as we could, still heading east toward Titan Park.
The edges of the park had grown wild over the years. I’d seen pictures of it from the time before the world cracked. When Sorin’s lynx pack, the Rascu Chain, moved in, they allowed the foliage free reign. That’s what it looked like from the outside, anyway. As we passed into the park itself and I followed Sorin down a stone path, I was stunned to see cleared land, some of it even farmed.
Sorin noted my interest. “Whatever you do, stay with me while were here. Humans aren’t allowed unaccompanied.”
“Did your mother live here?”
He shook his head. “She lived close to the Night Market. I split my time between the Chain and her home until I hit puberty. I couldn’t control my shifting for several years as a teenager—most lynx can’t. That’s when I moved to the park permanently.”
“What happened to your mother?” I hesitated to ask, but he always spoke about her in the past tense.
“She died,” he said shortly. When I didn’t respond, he glanced down at me. “She caught the flu. The one that took out so many people during the years after the forest Fae battles.” He paused. “At least it was a natural death. It could’ve been much worse.”
Many people had assumed that the illness sweeping through the city wasn’t natural at all, but a result of Fae retaliation for wiping out so many of their kind. I didn’t mention that now. With my grandmother’s death so fresh and painful, I could see that it would be easier to assume someone you loved had died of natural causes.
We moved past the park’s Rosarium, roses blooming all around us in thorny tangles that kept us on the stone path. The trail ended at another road and we turned to follow Strada Liviu Rebreanu, the wide boulevard that crossed Titan Lake at its narrowest point, splitting the park into two distinct sections—north and south.
The borders we had crossed into the park coming in from the west had seemed wild from the outside. The southern part of the park was a virtual jungle by comparison.
Sorin glanced south as if reading my mind. “And don’t ever going to that part of the park, even with a lynx.” His dark tone sent a chill racing through me.
“Why not?” I wasn’t certain I wanted to know, but not knowing terrified me more.
“It’s our hunting ground. Anything in there that isn’t a lynx is fair game.”
I clamped down on the gasp that wanted to escape me. It was sometimes easy to forget that despite everything I knew about him, despite the fact that he had saved me, despite him wanting to save all of Bu
charest from Gypsy, Sorin was still a shifter. Half beast at the best of times.
We moved on in silence.
On the other side of the bridge, I caught sight of a tall, wooden spire reaching up out of the tree-line to my left. Sorin led me through a wooden gate that matched it, and around a curve, a small wooden church came into view. Lynx-shifters in both human and animal form lounged around its perimeter, looking more relaxed than I suspected they truly were.
My suspicions were confirmed when they began standing and facing us.
None of their actions seem to concern Sorin. My heart rate, however, sped up.
“I need to see Ciprian,” Sorin said, calling out to the shifters I now realized were guards.
“Ciprian wanted to see you days ago.” A woman stepped out from a group of about six lynx, and I recognized her—Sanda, Ciprian’s second-in-command and the lynx working with the vampires.
An involuntary hiss leaked out of me, and instantly a dozen feline eyes, ears, and noses pointed in my direction.
I took a step back, and all the cats—no matter their current shape—moved in closer.
Sorin grabbed me tightly around the wrist, pulling me closer in to him as he whispered harshly out of the corner of his mouth.
“Don’t move a muscle.”
Chapter 17
The lynx-shifters closed in around us, forming a ring. I moved closer to Sorin until my back was pressed up against his. I didn’t know if I could truly help in a fight—I’d never been involved in one in my own body—but I wasn’t going to leave Sorin to fight on his own, either.
“Let them through.” The voice came from the building now behind me.
The circle of shifters opened up as they flowed back outward, managing to look as if nothing had happened at all, much in the manner of housecats caught doing something they shouldn’t.
The man who had stepped out the wooden church was medium height, but all muscle, built like a solid square block. With his silver hair and a face beginning to show lines, he appeared to be in his late forties—but with shifters it was hard to tell. Many aged more slowly than humans—something to do with the healing properties of shapeshifting. I wondered at the brightly colored tattoos covering both his arms from his wrist and disappearing into the short sleeves of his t-shirt. Would shifting heal those, too? And if so, how did he manage to keep them?
Wicked Blood (Dark Fae Hollows) Page 9