by Myers, AJ
“Because you’re a loser and not worth my time?” I suggested with an evil grin and a shrug. “You may as well understand this now, Trey. I don’t beg. And the only time I cry is when I’m totally pissed off and about to set something—or someone—on fire. Since your ass is at the top of my roasting list, you might want to hope I stay dry-eyed.”
He snorted in disbelief, still studying me. “You won’t be setting anything else on fire. We gave you enough of the binding compound to bind ten witches. We didn’t want to take any chances. According to our informant, you’re the most dangerous thing walking the planet today.”
Well, at least Amelia had gotten something right. I wondered what Hamilton was going to think of the monster he had created when I showed them the new me. If it hadn’t been for him, and Amelia, I would still be just a darkling with some pretty cool bandraoi powers as a consolation prize. I wasn’t sure what I had become thanks to Tyler’s blood, but I thought I might be closer to the ‘little firebird’ this creep kept calling me than he might think—wings and all.
“Aw!” I drawled, putting my hand over my heart like he had really touched me and batting my eyelashes. “I’m flattered, Trey. The most dangerous, huh? Dude! I’m really the shit!”
“You deny it?” he asked, one eyebrow arched. “Come now, Ember. Surely you aren’t going to play that game. We research our targets thoroughly. I’ll admit, you took me by surprise jumping into that fire, but it won’t happen again. I know what you’re capable of now.”
I shrugged again, completely relaxed, and his eyebrows drew down in a deep frown. I smiled at him again in response and, for the first time since he’d walked through the door, he looked a little wary. He didn’t know what to make of me, and he didn’t know how to handle that. He was used to people playing the role in his sick little games that he wanted them to play, and I wasn’t cooperating.
“Luke! Harvey!” he shouted, his gloating smile returning as the door at the end of the hall opened again. “You might not be afraid to die, little firebird, but there’s never been a witch I couldn’t break before I killed them.”
I felt a cold chill descend on the cell and the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up as a diaphanous form appeared in the corner across from me. I stared at her as Kinsley floated forward until she was between me and her brother.
Her expression was the most sinister thing I have ever seen. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought she was one of the angry spirits, the ones who were ready to take anyone and everyone to the great beyond with them. When she turned and nodded to me, I knew she wasn’t. She only wanted to take one person with her. And he was staring right through her, smiling as he mentally planned my time in the torture chamber.
“The others are nearby,” she murmured, her voice soft and low. “You don’t have to let him touch you, Ember. I couldn’t fight him, but you can.”
I shook my head imperceptibly, and she frowned as her brother smiled. I couldn’t tell her why I was going to let them attempt to beat me to a blubbering, begging mass without Hamilton realizing something was up.
Harvey was a human, the real all brawn, no brain, type. As big and scary as he looked, it was obvious in the dull gleam of his dark, beady eyes that he wasn’t all that bright. Luke, on the other hand, was a very large, very nasty-looking vampire.
I can honestly tell you that not all vampires are beautiful, after all. Luke looked like he had been drop kicked into the ugly tree. Repeatedly. His stringy, greasy hair hung around his face in clumps. His skin was a sickly, greenish-gray, and when he smiled I saw that his teeth were rotten and black.
I can’t say that eager smile of his did a whole lot for my peace of mind, either.
“Take her to the chamber,” Hamilton said, smiling even wider when he saw that I wasn’t quite so confident anymore. “You know what to do after that, boys.”
“Ember, don’t do this!” Kinsley whispered frantically. “You won’t have the strength to fight when they’re through with you. Please! For Ainsley and all those other people trying to save you! Please, don’t let them do this!”
I shook my head again, just the slightest movement of my head from side to side, as the vampire unlocked the door and grabbed me by both arms. I didn’t fight him and he looked surprised. When I turned and gave him a malicious smile over my shoulder, though, he looked downright scared. Smart man. He should be scared. Very, very scared.
“Harvey, fetch the witch,” Hamilton said, still smiling, as we filed past him. “We had a deal. I don’t see why we shouldn’t keep it before we kill her, too. Besides, what she has in mind will help us keep our little firebird here nice and pliable.”
Harvey nodded and ran ahead of us to open the door. I scanned the other cells we passed. Tyler and the others hadn’t missed anyone, and I breathed a sigh of relief for that blessing. I was going to have enough trouble just saving myself. I didn’t think it would help if my game turned into a mission to rescue X number of witches before we were all tied to stakes and lit up like a bonfire.
“Your hair is lovely,” Luke murmured, breathing the words against my neck. His breath was foul. Tic-Tacs! God! Had he never heard of them? “It’s going to make a fabulous addition to my collection.”
This guy collected hair? No, that wasn’t creepy at all.
“Yeah, and your head is going to look really good mounted on my living room wall,” I sneered right back. “I think a nice oak plaque with a nameplate that says ‘Dumbass’. What do you think?”
“I think Trey’s right,” he said, glaring down at me. “You are a strange one. I like that. It will make it so much more satisfying when you’re begging at my feet for me to kill you.”
“In your dreams, buddy,” I muttered, rolling my eyes. “I’d swallow my own tongue before I begged you for anything.”
“You wouldn’t be the first.” He shrugged when I arched an eyebrow at him. “Electroshock. Causes convulsions, you see. We don’t bother giving them anything to bite down on. They’ve swallowed them, bit them off, you name it. I can’t wait to see how you hold up.”
“Ooh, sounds fun!” I purred, just to throw him off, but inside I was throwing up. “Can we take turns? Me first!”
That was about the point when he stopped talking to me and started pushing me down the hall a little faster. I smiled. I had learned so much from my experience with Skippy. Who knew sarcasm could be a defensive weapon? I had gotten under his skin. Phase one of my plan was complete.
I took a deep breath of fresh, clean air as he pushed me out the door at the end of the hall. Like I had before, I took in my surrounding with one sweeping look around me. Six cinderblock buildings, long, low, and windowless, formed a rectangle. In the center three stakes had been planted in the frozen ground with heaps of wood piled nearby. I could smell the gasoline soaking into them from where I was, and it burned my nose and caused my stomach to churn. Luke must have been used to the smell, because he didn’t even wrinkle his nose. Then, maybe he just couldn’t smell it over the stench coming out of his mouth.
Tyler had had a good point; the place was crawling with people, both men and women. I was glad to see there were no children. I wasn’t planning on leaving much standing when I was done, and I really didn’t think I could live with killing a child. Most of the people surrounding me were armed and they stopped to watch, a sickening eagerness lighting their eyes, as Luke pushed me across the snow-covered ground to the building at the far end of the macabre courtyard and through another steel door.
I looked around as the door clanged shut behind me, clenching my fists against another flood of white-hot fury. There was a small gas stove against the far wall and I could see the brand glowing red in the fire. A homemade electric chair sat in the corner, hooked up to a generator that was already groaning loudly. Chains attached to handcuffs hung from the ceiling and there were more chains bolted to the floor attached to shackles. Blood splattered the floor around them, and I wondered how much of it belonged to Ms. Cant
rell.
I swallowed back a scream of rage when I saw a heap of bloody clothing in the corner. Right on top was a white blouse with an embroidered logo I knew very well. Though I didn’t want to look, my eyes found the shiny gold nametag attached to it anyway. I felt my heart break when I made out the name ‘Stella’ through the blood that covered it.
I wanted to howl in misery as the truth sank in. Mrs. Stella was gone. They had killed someone special to me. I could picture her soft blue eyes and sweet smile the first time she’d told me I was old enough to have coffee. She had adopted every kid that had ever walked into her shop. She had organized bake sales for both the public schools and Oakhurst Academy. She had taken the kids of single parents trick or treating on Halloween when they had to work. She had thrown birthday parties and even wedding receptions for her favorite customers. She had been perfect and wonderful, and now she was ashes and bone. And I hoped they all rotted in Hell for it.
They hadn’t burned a witch when they’d burned Mrs. Stella, they’d burned an angel.
“Someone you knew?” Luke crooned cruelly in my ear when he saw the way I was staring at the bloody shirt in the corner. “She was a fighter, that one. It took us three days to break her before we burned her.”
It took everything I had to keep the heat beneath my skin in check. I jerked my eyes away from Mrs. Stella’s nametag before I exploded like a bomb, and my eyes fell on a sight I could have done without. In the place of honor in the center of the room was an autopsy table. It looked just like the table in Skippy’s morgue, except for the restraints attached at the head and foot and the buckles hanging down the sides.
If Luke tried to strap me to that table, I was going to lose it and everything I’d done so far would be for nothing. To my relief, he dragged me toward the chains instead. I know how bizarre that sounds, but being chained and still on my feet was somehow preferable to being strapped down on my back.
“Dead people, I need you,” I whispered, barely even a breath, dragging my feet in the hopes it would keep Luke from hearing it. If they brought Amelia in and she sensed my power wasn’t bound, I wouldn’t be able to carry out my plans. “Shield, but don’t interfere. I’ve got this.”
Either he was so excited about torturing me that he was oblivious, or my ploy worked, because Luke acted like he hadn’t heard a word of my whispered instructions to my unseen friends. I felt the icy arrival of my ghosts even as he stretched my arms over my head and attached the cuffs. When he knelt down to chain my feet, the opportunity was just too good to miss. I smiled smugly when my foot made contact with his jaw, sending him sprawling.
“Oops,” I chirped, grinning, when he got to his feet with a furious hiss and started toward me again. “Reflex, I guess.”
He cut his eyes toward me as he turned his head and spat out a stream of blood—and a tooth. He was smart when he went back to chaining my feet. He knelt with his knee on one foot, pressing down hard in retaliation for me kicking him in the face, as he cuffed one ankle, and then repeated the process all over again for the other.
“You know, you have great legs for such a little thing,” he purred once I was all chained up, running his hand up my calf. I glared down at him, letting him see my revulsion, and he grinned. “I bet you’re a real piece of work between the sheets. Most redheads are.”
“If you don’t get your hand off my leg, I’m going to be mounting more than just your head, asshole,” I growled, suddenly wanting a shower more than I ever had in my life. “And just so we’re clear, I’m not talking about your hand.”
“Aw, don’t be that way,” he crooned, standing and letting his hand trail up my thigh to my hip. He squeezed hard, his nails digging into my skin even through my jeans, but I didn’t even gasp. Instead, I continued to glare at him, imagining how great it was going to feel when I wiped that smug little smirk off his face—and him off the map completely. “I’m going to touch much more than your leg before the night is out, witch. You might as well just relax and try to enjoy it. You look like the freaky type to me.”
“You have no idea just how freaky I can be,” I told him, thinking of white, shimmering wings and fire. “And I do mean no idea.”
Something in my smile must have really spooked him, because he backed away from me. I felt a brief moment of triumph when I saw fear flash in his eyes again. I just had one more thing to do, just one more, and then I could let go of the power pounding through me like a tidal wave and take his ass out. I just had to hold on a little while longer.
The sound of the door opening behind him startled him, and he visibly jumped before he caught himself. He tore his eyes from mine, a sheen of blood-tinged sweat beading his forehead, as Amelia stepped through the door followed by Harvey. I waited for Hamilton to join us, but Harvey simply motioned to Luke and walked back out. Luke gave me one more apprehensive look and quickly followed him. Without looking away from me, Amelia reached out and slid the bolt in the door home, assuring that we wouldn’t be disturbed by anyone else.
“Hello, dear,” she said, moving toward me slowly.
She sure as hell didn’t look sick anymore. In fact, she looked years younger than she had the last time we saw each other. Her color was good, her tightly curled hair shiny and lustrous. And her eyes were full of vitality.
“Finally, I have you,” she sighed with a sweet kind of smile. “You’ve been a very difficult child to catch, Ember.”
“It was you,” I said, finally putting all the pieces together. “It’s been you the whole time.”
“Yes, it was me,” she said with a laugh. “I almost had you so many times, but that fool of a demon kept messing things up.”
“You let him in the night he disguised himself as Tyler, didn’t you?” I asked, remembering the way she had acted when Nathan ordered her to send for Grams. “Did you bring him back from the lost plane, too?
“Of course,” she said, sounding almost impatient. “Do you believe he could have entered my home without my consent?”
“And the wards Grams put on Nathan’s house failing? And my poisoned necklace? The poison in Nathan’s blood and my tainted Nexus injections?”
“All me,” she trilled with a triumphant smile. “And it was so easy to point the blame at Constance.” The smile on her lips died and I saw a flash of anger in her emerald eyes. “Constance was always the good girl, you know? Do you know that they gave her Class A status before me? Me! And what did she do with that awesome power of hers? Nothing! She was too busy moping over that bloodsucking leech of hers!”
I felt sick. She was right; it had been easy for me to believe Dragon Lady Cantrell was the one out to get me. Our mutual dislike for each other had never been a secret. How could I have misjudged her so badly? And how could I not have seen the evil that had been right in front of my face?
“Why?” I asked her simply, almost sounding like I didn’t care. “Why would you do this?”
“To punish you, of course,” she said, frowning. If it hadn’t been for the way her eyes hardened to emerald ice, I would have thought she was explaining why I couldn’t have dessert. “Because of you, I have had to start foraging again to survive.”
“Foraging?”
I asked the question, but I thought I already knew the answer. She was talking about all the girls who had gone missing in our area over the years. She was talking about stealing other people’s lives so she wouldn’t die herself. Oh, God! What the hell was she?
“For energy!” she screeched suddenly, causing me to jump back as far as my chains would allow in alarm. She looked totally nuts. Her eyes were rolling crazily and little dribbles of spittle had formed at the edge of her mouth. “I’m talking about being immortal! I’m talking about the fact that you stole my chance! He was going to make me young and beautiful again, but you ruined everything! You!”
“You’re some kind of darkling?” I hissed, wondering how she had hidden that for so long from the people around her.
“Of course not!” she bit out, ha
ving the nerve to sound insulted. “I’m a bandraoi. A powerful blood witch. The most powerful. Even the sainted Shea O’Hare doesn’t have the kind of power I possess. No one does! No one! No one! No one!”
Yeah, that’s what she thought. I was about a second away from showing her just how wrong she was. The hard way.
She started to pace wildly in front of me, her steps the strong sure steps of a much younger woman, and I knew my time playing games was up. She stopped pacing as suddenly as she had started, pressing her fingers to her temples and taking deep breaths. When she looked back up at me, she was smiling again. It was a predatory grin, dark and terrifying.
“But I forgive you, Ember,” she said, back to sounding sweet and gentle. “I forgive you, because you are going to make it unnecessary for me to ever have to feed again. You are going to make me young and beautiful. Forever. With your essence, I could live until the end of time!”
Yeah, and pigs will fly and Hell will freeze over tomorrow, I thought, waiting for her to make her move. If she thought I was just going to stand there and let her make herself young and beautiful at my expense, she was as crazy as I thought she was.
“Such a powerful child you’ve become,” she crooned, sounding like she was praising me. “I knew the first time I met you that you were the one, the one who would give me my heart’s desire. You have a wonderful flavor, like honey and spices. Did you know that?”
I remembered the night I had met her, the way I felt like all of my strength had been sapped. I had blamed it on the rollercoaster ride my life had started on, but I had known it was more than that. I had never been that drained. She had fed on me! The old bitch had been feeding off my essence!
“You fed on me?” I snarled, sucking in a deep breath.
“Oh, yes,” she said, laughing lightly. “That very first night as you sat pouring out your heart to me in my hallway. Really, Ember. You should know better than to tell a stranger everything. You give them power over you when you reveal your secrets. And you gave me… Ah, so much more.”