by Myers, AJ
“What do you think, beautiful?” Tyler asked, squeezing my shoulder. “You would be the best person to do it, but you can say no if you think it would be too much.”
“Do what?” I mumbled, drawing concerned looks from all three of them. “Sorry, guys. I was thinking about something else. What did I miss?”
“We think you would be the person most likely to get the truth from Constance,” Nathan explained, kneeling down next to my chair. “We have to know what she’s told them, baby. You seem to have a way of pushing the right buttons with her. While you’re doing that, Skippy and I are going to see if we can get in touch with some old friends and Tyler has volunteered to keep an eye on Amelia.”
“Why?” I asked, frowning. “I don’t think it was Mrs. Amelia, Nathan. She really does look sick. Maybe we could just take her wherever we’re taking the other injured witches. That way, she’s safe and sound and she can get some rest.”
“We can’t do that until we’re absolutely sure it was Constance, Em,” Tyler said softly. “We have to take every precaution until we know for sure.”
They waited patiently as I thought about what they wanted from me. Could I do it? No, that wasn’t the right question. Of course I could do it. The real question was whether or not I could do it without killing her. That led to another question, one that seemed much more critical to me.
Was that the kind of person I had become?
“Yeah, I’ll do it,” I told them, grimacing at the thought of spending quality time with Constance Cantrell. Even before she sold us all out she hadn’t exactly been my favorite person. “Clear the room. If I’m going to do this, it’s just going to be me and her.”
They exchanged worried looks, but Nathan immediately got to his feet and went to do as I asked. Tyler squeezed my shoulder again, as if he understood what I was feeling, and I laid my hand over his. What I was doing was dangerous. More dangerous than facing Hamilton and his goons. More dangerous than even going up against Bastian had been.
I was about to face myself. It was time to find out exactly who I was and what I was capable of.
Nathan was back in less time than I would have thought to let me know everyone had vacated the room. He held his hand out to me and I took it, squeezing it gently, but then let it go. My father had made a good point when he said I had stopped standing on my own two feet and started depending on Nathan when I met him. It wasn’t that I minded leaning on Nathan—that was part of loving and being loved by someone. I just didn’t want to become so dependent on his strength that I lost sight of my own.
“We will be in the library on the first floor,” Skippy said, looking very proud. Of me? I thought that might be jumping the gun just a bit. I hadn’t done anything yet—good or bad. “Good luck, my sweet.”
“It’s not a matter of luck anymore, Skippy,” I told him, sighing. “It’s all a matter of time, now. And, unfortunately, that’s something we’re running dangerously low on. Now, if you boys will excuse me, I have a date with a Dragon.”
∞§∞§∞§∞
I walked back into Ms. Cantrell’s temporary holding cell with my shoulders back and my head held high. She watched me warily as I walked past her and pulled the chair from under the small writing desk beneath the window. She didn’t say a word when I dragged it over in front of her and turned it backwards. Taking a deep breath, I straddled it and folded my arms across the back, completely calm. When I rested my chin on my hands and just stared at her, she smirked unpleasantly and her eyes narrowed to the slits I was used to seeing.
“Ah, so they sent you, did they?” she said softly, her voice icy. “I thought they might. This may surprise you, Miss Blaylock, but I’m actually quite pleased. It’s time you understood a few things, and I am just the person to instruct you.”
“There’s really only one thing I want to understand,” I told her. “Why did you do it? Those people who died were people you knew, other witches. Why would you hand them over to Hamilton? Do you really hate me that much?”
Her eyes widened ever so slightly, but she kept her silence. I didn’t let that get to me. She was going to tell me what I wanted to know. I had all night to sit there, staring right back at her. It didn’t matter to me if it took an hour or a week. Neither of us was leaving that room until I got the information I wanted. I hoped she had used the bathroom before she went to bed, because she had a long wait ahead of her for the next trip if she didn’t start talking.
“Tell me, Miss Blaylock,” she sighed finally, “why is it that you believe I would betray the people who make up my entire world?”
“Sierra Lovell,” I told her, watching her face for her reaction. “It was the way you looked at that poor dead woman. Did you kill her, Constance? Did you use some kind of spell to make it look like a demon—or another darkling, perhaps—had killed her? Really, I want to know how you did it.”
“I didn’t!” she said, actually looking horrified. “I would never harm an innocent, Miss Blaylock! And, despite what she was, Mrs. Lovell was an innocent. To my knowledge, she had harmed no one in Moonlight.”
“You didn’t seem all that bothered by the fact that she was dead, though, to be perfectly honest,” I told her, studying her through narrowed eyes. “Why is that, do you suppose?”
She glared at me, her lips pursed together in a way I was all too familiar with. She looked like I had just given her a stupid answer to a question in class.
“Miss Blaylock, I know this might come as a surprise to someone like you who wears every emotion right there on her face for the world to see, but sometimes people can be upset and not show it.”
“Do you know who killed her?”
“I have an idea, yes,” she said, nodding once, stiffly. “I believe the hunters killed that poor woman. It’s a tactic demon hunters usually use to draw out demons. They’ve even used the ploy while hunting vampires, because the fools have no idea that vampires are a completely different creature altogether. They make a very public killing, using methods to make it look like demons are responsible, then sit back and wait for their prey to come to them. Demons are territorial, you see, as are vampires. They don’t like attention drawn to them or others hunting on their turf. It’s a ploy that almost always works.”
I knew from Tyler’s Darkling 101 lectures that she was right about demons being territorial. He had made a point to cover that twice so he would be sure I got it. We don’t like company that shows up uninvited. It usually ends badly for the visitor.
“Do you have any other reasons for believing me to be such a coldhearted fiend that I would allow people I care about to die?”
“Yes, actually.” I didn’t even blink when she sucked in a hissing breath through her teeth. Her days of intimidating me were long over. “I have a source, you see. From the information he gave us, you’re the most likely suspect.”
“And what exactly did this source tell you?” she asked. The tone of her voice was very familiar to me. I had heard it repeatedly while in her class when she was trying to lead a student to the right answer.
“That a witch has been helping Hamilton try to kill me,” I told her.
“A witch,” she said, nodding as if I was headed in the right direction. “But did he name me specifically? Or was it simply implied?”
“Did you know they classify witches?” I countered, examining my fingernails like I was bored.
I had to find out how much she knew about my father before I could proceed. My dad might have sold me out to his organization, but I wasn’t going to return the favor. Somehow I didn’t think the witches and vampires in the area would be very happy about the fact that they were being watched, even if it was just to record their lives. Witches and vamps are kind of fanatical about their privacy.
“Yes, I am aware of that,” Ms. Cantrell said, smirking. “The Guild is a very old organization, Miss Blaylock. They have always been there in the background, studying us. So what did your father tell you?”
Damn. Was there anythin
g the old bat didn’t know? Okay, playing the secret source card wasn’t going to work. So maybe it was time for brutal honesty. Knowing her, she would react much better to that tactic, anyway. It irked me to no end to know we had that in common.
“That a Class A witch betrayed us all,” I told her, my voice colder than the blizzard beyond the window.
“There must be ten Class A witches in this area,” she scoffed.
“Only five, actually,” I told her, leaning forward, my hands gripping the back of the chair. “Grams and Mrs. Val, who I think we can pretty much rule out, a hermit who hasn’t left her house in years, and…”
I left the sentence hanging for effect. If she knew they classified witches, she knew what class she and her sister fell into. Her face paled visibly and her eyes widened. I smiled coldly. She knew I had her and she knew I knew it, too. Unless she was going to implicate Mrs. Amelia, she was as good as caught.
“What did I ever do to make you hate me so much that you would do this?” I asked softly.
“Oh, Miss Blaylock, you are sadly mistaken if that’s what you believe,” she said, watching me closely. “I don’t hate you, child. I pity you. I can see where you’re headed, and I know what will happen to you when you reach the end of the road you’re traveling down.”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I told her, wanting to keep her talking. We were almost there. She was going to tell me something, I just had to be patient. Not the easiest thing to do, considering what was at stake.
“Push my hair back,” she said, taking me by surprise. When I didn’t move to do as she asked, she smiled at me. “Please, Ember. I want to show you something that I hope will help you understand.”
I honestly don’t know what shocked me more, her request or the fact that she had just used my name. Frowning in confusion, I reached over carefully—I wouldn’t have put it past her to take a bite out of me—and pushed her hair back over her shoulder. For a second, I just stared at what I found, a knot forming in the pit of my stomach. It changed everything for me and I wasn’t so sure that we had the right person after all. Suddenly, I wasn’t sure of anything.
“I was seventeen years old when I found my mate, a year younger than you,” she said softly, as I stared at the mark on her neck. It was in the shape of a fleur-de-lis surrounded by flowering vines. “He gave me that the night before he disappeared. He marked me and then he left me.”
“Your mate was a vampire?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
“Yes, he was.” Her voice was hard and I saw the shadow of old agony in her eyes. “You remind me so very much of myself. Look at me now, Ember. This is what happens to the young and naïve when they place their faith in the wrong person.”
I shook my head, denying what she was saying both to her and to myself. Her mate might have left her, and that was really terrible, but mine had fought to keep me from leaving him. Nathan was a good man, despite some of the things he’d done, and I believed in him. I wasn’t going to let her shake that faith. Besides, my love life wasn’t the issue up for debate.
“Ms. Cantrell, are you helping Hamilton?” I asked, straight out.
“No, I am not,” she said, looking me right in the eye. If she was lying, she was really good at it, because I found that I believed her. “But I suggest you find out who is, and that you do it quickly. Because if you don’t, this may very well be the last conversation you or I ever get to have.”
Chapter 34: Calling In the Troops
“What did she tell you?” Nathan asked the second I walked into the chapel.
Rather than answer, I examined the amazing room I’d just entered. The walls that weren’t covered in books were paneled in honey colored oak that gleamed with oil in the soft recessed lighting overhead. The bookshelves themselves soared up two stories, the second story accessed by a catwalk with a lovely wrought iron railing. Flowers of every color filled vases in niches along the wall, filling the space with a clean, fresh scent. After seeing nothing but beige for the last several hours, so much color was a welcome sight.
“Nothing.” I shrugged when they all looked at me, disappointment evident on their faces. “I don’t think she had anything to tell. I think we might have made a mistake.”
They all stared at me like I’d lost my mind. I wasn’t about to tell them why I believed we had screwed up and gotten the wrong person, but I knew deep down that we had. Maybe my dad’s info had been wrong. Maybe there was a Class A blood witch they didn’t know about in the area. Maybe it hadn’t been a witch at all.
It didn’t really matter how we had screwed up, but we had. And, because of our mistake, we had lost valuable time. We were no closer to finding the traitor now than we had been when my dad showed up.
“What progress did you guys make?” If they hadn’t had any better luck than I’d had, we were screwed. “Were you able to reach your friends? Since we don’t know who betrayed us, we’re going to need all the help we can get.”
“The Nosferatu have decided not to get involved,” Skippy said, watching me as I started to pace. “The general consensus was that this is witch business and should be handled by witches. I could have ordered them to fight with us, but that would have been…counterproductive.”
“Well that sucks,” I said, grimacing and turning around to face the rest of the group. “Anybody else?”
“I’ve contacted the bandraoithe in other areas,” Grams offered, holding her hands up in a helpless gesture. “I wouldn’t expect a lot of help on that front. Word circulated quickly about what happened here and most went into hiding immediately.”
“All right,” I sighed, nodding. “Anybody else?”
“There are three more of my fallen brethren in the States,” Tyler said, drawing my attention to him. “They have offered their unique talents. One refuses to fight, but she has offered to act as a healer for us. The other two were archangels before they fell. They like to fight and they’re very good at it.”
“Hell yeah!” I said excitedly. “That’s more like it! More fallen angels! Awesome!”
I smiled at him and Tyler returned it with a tight one of his own. Somehow, that dimmed my enthusiasm. Tyler had been the one to call them in, but he didn’t look very happy about the angelic family reunion. I would have to get the particulars on why later. Maybe they just didn’t play well together.
I turned to look at Nathan when every other eye in the room turned in his direction. He was glancing back and forth between me and Skippy nervously, like he wasn’t sure how his news was going to be taken.
“You did not!” Skippy gasped, his eyes widening in horror. “Have you taken complete leave of your senses, Nathaniel?”
I turned to look at Nathan again to see him watching me. The look on his face was hard to decipher. I saw fear, but I also saw determination and a strange kind of pride.
“Mikhail and his team should be here within the hour,” he said, smiling bitterly when I gasped too. “I haven’t called on him for anything in more than two centuries. He’s eager to meet the young lady who would force me to break my vow of eternal silence, as he put it. Strangely enough, he relocated to St. Louis back in September, around the same time I returned from Spain to do a favor for an old friend and found myself enchanted by my charge.”
The rest of our group didn’t seem to be taking the news that Nathan’s creator was on his way any better than Skippy had. Grams was frowning at Nathan, like she thought there was more to his story than he was telling. Ainsley simply seemed horrified. Zan looked incredulous—which I found less than reassuring.
Tyler was pissed. He crossed his arms over his chest, his aura already starting to shimmer, and stared at Nathan with a hard, cold look on his face that I didn’t even want to try to understand. Mrs. Val and Riley didn’t look much happier.
Kim and Blake were looking confused by everyone’s reaction to the news that Nathan’s creator was on his way. I sympathized with them. I was pretty damned confused myself.
About why
Nathan would do something so blatantly stupid, that is.
“They’re an elite force,” Nathan said softly, never taking his eyes off me. “Never in four centuries have I seen them lose a fight. Mikhail assured me they would handle the situation and then they would leave. I have no reason to doubt his word.”
“Other than the fact that he’s Mikhail,” Zan said, voicing the thought I could see was going through everyone else’s minds. If I hadn’t known already how serious the situation was, I would have known then. Zan was never serious. About anything. When Nathan shot him a shut-the-hell-up kind of glare, Zan ignored it and kept right on going. “You know you can’t trust him to keep his word, Nate. What will you do if he decides he wants our Firecracker? You’re not strong enough to stop him and you know it.”
“Want me?” I repeated, giving Nathan a narrow-eyed look. He immediately dropped his eyes to his feet. “Why would Mikhail want me, Nathan?”
“Mick likes the pretty ones,” Zan said when Nathan didn’t answer me. Nathan glared at him again, but Zan just gave him a grim smile. “He especially likes the ones that can be useful to him. I’m sure he’ll find you irresistible, Firecracker. You’re beautiful and passionate and strong and you possess the kind of power that hasn’t been seen in…well…maybe ever.”
Oh, that’s just perfect, I thought as my head dropped back and my eyes drifted closed. I had hunters trying to kill me. We had a traitor helping them, and we had yet to figure out who it was. Kim and Nathan needed a full-time referee. My dad was some kind of supernatural snitch. Tyler was in love with me, and there was a chance that my feelings for him weren’t entirely platonic. And there were some seriously powerful, seriously scary, beings headed our way that weren’t guaranteed to play nice.