Spellspeaker's Prophecy

by Anna Abner

  Caitlyn’s eyes went even more unfocused. “Pieces moving into play,” she murmured, her voice losing most of its personality. “Others fall from the board.”

  Frowning, Roz asked, “Did you stop by for a reason? Sounds like you’re in full seer mode.”

  With a shiver, Caitlyn came back to life. “Your shapeshifter is a hottie.”

  “Uh…” Her stomach twisted. Please don’t tell me something bad is going to happen to Lukas.

  “Do whatever you can to keep him here, k?” Caitlyn continued. “I don’t get over to Stockholm too much and he’s just so damned pretty to look at.”

  “You want Lukas to stay in Vegas?” she clarified. “Why?”

  But Caitlyn acted as if she hadn’t heard her. “Mercy. Huh.”

  Oh, goodie. More nonsense. “What did you say?”

  “Interesting. Mercy… Yes.”

  Roz blew out a frustrated breath. “Who’s Mercy?” But there was no reply. “You know what? Forget it. Your prophecies are nothing but trouble.”

  Caitlyn fully faced her, smiling again. “I’m hungry. Bye.”

  And she was gone. Vanished.

  It took Roz several long moments to comprehend what had just happened. Keep Lukas in town? Have mercy on someone? Natasha was still her friend? But the Oracle had been so freaking cryptic and illogical, it was difficult for Roz to decipher the girl’s words.

  In her note app, she typed the gist of Caitlyn’s conversation—if she should even call it that—for later contemplation.

  The back door opened and the boys emerged, all smiles, each carrying a plate of raw meat. “Let’s fire up the grill,” Connor greeted. “I’ve got steaks that’ll make your mouth water.”

  #

  From the window over the kitchen sink, the pitch-black desert beyond the circle of warm light cast by the house lights crept overhead. Roz ran the water and stared, unseeing, into the blackness. What was out there—running, crawling, slithering—that she couldn’t see, but sensed her?

  “Do you need some help?”

  Roz glanced up from a sink full of dirty dishes as Lukas approached and leaned his elbow on the counter. Instantly, her core wept at the sight of him. Tall and broad, he loomed over her, but not in a threatening way. She felt protected. Wanted. Needed, even.

  “I could use some help.” She gave him a look that spoke volumes. She wasn’t talking about cleanup anymore.

  “Wow,” he whispered. “The big, bad witch can admit she needs help.”

  “I admit it,” she said. “I invited Sara to join us, didn’t I? I’m sorry I just don’t need help as often as you’d like.” Were they still talking about hunting? She wasn’t even sure.

  “Shut up,” he teased, bumping her out of the way to make room for himself at the sink. “Give me a plate.” He grabbed a dish and a wet sponge.

  “Dinner was so good, I’m stuffed,” Sara announced, breezing into the room and smiling warmly at Lukas.

  Roz grit her teeth. The girl was incorrigible.

  “I’m going to check on the vampires,” Sara said, crossing to the back door.

  “Need any help?” Lukas called.

  “I’ll be fine,” Sara assured.

  “Isn’t she dreamy?” Roz teased after her fellow witch strolled out of earshot. She fluttered her eyes at him before dumping spoons into the dishwasher.

  “Jealous?” he whispered, bumping her again.

  “Oh, please.” She laughed. “Wouldn’t I have to care first?”

  “I’m getting better at reading your secret language, häxa. You’re jealous.”

  “I have a secret language?” She reached around him to grab a dirty bowl and rinse it in water. Why did she overheat when he called her a witch? He was ridiculous.

  “Yes. And it makes its appearance through your eyes.” He caught her gaze, holding it. “You say mean, unpleasant things, but the truth’s in your baby browns.”

  “Oh yeah?” She stared right back. “If I tell you you’re a dickwad, what do my eyes say?”

  “Hmmm.” He pretended to scrutinize her. “You actually think I’m super sexy, but you’re too damned scared to admit it.”

  She snorted and turned away, afraid he would see her reddened cheeks, or the truth in her eyes. He’d hit perilously close to the mark.

  “You’re outrageous.”

  “Outrageous?” he teased, turning back to scrub a crusty bowl. “Or a genius?”

  Before Roz could reply, the back door swung open and Sara took a single step inside the house. “Can one of you grab me a towel? And about a thousand bleach wipes? Pretty please?”

  Roz froze. The girl was covered with blood and bits of flesh. “What happened?” she demanded.

  “Are you okay?” Lukas asked.

  “Oh, yeah.” She shrugged. “I’m fine, but another vampire is dead.”

  “Dead?” Roz got a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure.” She laughed, raising her arms for evaluation. “He’s not going to heal from that. He sort of exploded.”

  Roz gazed wide-eyed, a forgotten spoon in her hand, trying to sort out why Sara didn’t seem concerned.

  “What happened?” Roz asked.

  “I was experimenting.”

  “Remind me not to sign up for your clinical trials,” Roz grouched.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Sara said. “How else are we going to stop them if we don’t understand how the infection works?”

  “I can explain how it works.”

  “Not really. Unless you’ve been infected, or studied it in a lab, you don’t know how it affects the skin, blood, bones, brain…”

  “Sounds fair to me,” Lukas piped up, sliding between them and shoving Roz toward the yard. “Let’s take a walk. The stars look like diamonds.” She allowed him to pull her into the dark yard, out of earshot.

  “You keep pushing her,” he warned, “and she’ll leave.”

  “So what if she does?”

  Lukas studied her face for a moment. “I thought she was going to help you get in good with the Coven.” His eyes narrowed. “Isn’t that what you want?”

  Maybe. It would be reassuring to feel the Coven’s support. As a member, she’d have access to their many assets—libraries, mentors, spells, money, and influence. It would make life a little easier.

  On the other hand, she’d have to sacrifice some of her freedom. Her mentor would want to know where she was, what she was doing, and who she was doing it with.

  “I thought I did.” Roz crossed her arms tight and scowled up at Lukas. “But I don’t like her methods.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard the saying ‘it’s easier to catch flies with honey?’“

  “Nope.”

  “What about ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer?’“

  “That either.”

  Lukas cracked the faintest of smiles. “Fine. How about this—try being nice to find out what you want to know. Buddy up with her. Figure out her plan. Then judge whether she’s appropriate or not. Sound better than badgering her until she hates you?”

  Roz sidled closer, finding him damned sexy when he was being rational and mature. “I’m a badger?” She arched one eyebrow.

  “Yes. But a cute badger. And I think you could freshen up on your social skills.”

  “Cute?”

  “Sexy? Hot? Help me out here.” He laughed.

  She decided to go easy on him. Placing a hand against his chest and tapping an aggressive tempo, she said, “Fine, I’ll play nice. But I don’t agree with torturing infecteds for the fun of it. We used to kill them, yeah, but that was before Ali shared her conscience with us.” She glanced at the dark garage in the distance. “I need to see this.”

  “Right behind you.”

  The inside of the garage matched Sara’s clothing—covered in blood, flesh, and mess. The male vampire’s body was spread on the walls, ceiling, and floor. The female infected sat hunched in the corner, rocking sil
ently back and forth. Fear was a rare emotion in vampires of the horde.

  “I hate to say I told you so,” Roz breathed.

  “This woman is crazy,” Lukas agreed. “What the hell was she thinking?”

  If it weren’t for Sara’s first-hand knowledge of the workings of the Coven, Roz would kick her out now. But Sara knew so much about the organization, its purposes, and its spells that Roz was torn.

  “She’s a resource, but she’s also dangerous,” she said. A witch this volatile could put them all in danger.

  “She doesn’t scare me.” Lukas made to leave, but Roz pulled on his arm.

  “She should.” She gestured to the blood splatter. “She actually exploded someone. Let me talk to her.”

  “What would you say?” he asked, smirking in a condescending way.

  “Just leave it to me.”

  Sara, freshly showered and wearing a change of clothes, strolled out of the kitchen’s back door as if ready for round two.

  “Hey,” Roz greeted, jogging over. “I’m interested in your experiments. Maybe I could help?” She was damned rusty at forming partnerships. She used to make friends easily. Now she felt like a robot impersonating a human being. Maybe she’d been in Nevada too long. “We could work together, pool our power.”

  “Okay.” Sara shrugged. “Let’s give it a whirl.”

  “You girls have fun.” Lukas sent Roz a telling look, and then slipped into the house.

  Roz and Sara, shoulder-to-shoulder, trudged toward the garage.

  Inside, Sara bowed her head and spread her hands. “Blessed is my power. I call upon thee.” Invisible motes whirled, ruffling her clothes and hair.

  Roz silently called her power, settling into the comfortable feel of it around her.

  “How did you do that?” Sara asked, astonished. “You called your power without speaking.”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I focus, and it comes.”

  “But-… Not even Marta can do that. At least, I’ve never seen her do it. Magic is in your voice, not your mind.”

  “Maybe there’s more to it than we understand.” If Roz had learned anything during her tenure studying the supernatural, it was that there were no rules when it came to this stuff.

  “I’ll try.” Sara let her power wilt, and then took a deep breath. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  Nothing happened. Not so much as a hair fluttered.

  She fisted both her hands. Nada.

  “Not fair.” She scowled at Roz with a trace of venom. “Are you some kind of hybrid witch? Do you have other powers?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “What else can you do?”

  “I don’t know.” She threw up her hands. “The same things you can do.”

  “I’ll bet you can do more. Maybe we should test it out?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not? Scared?”

  Yes. Terrified, actually. She could lose her magic, burn it right out of herself. Then where would she be? Connor didn’t need a helpless human tagging along. She’d be on the first plane back to Miami. Best not to push anything too far.

  Roz suggested, “Why don’t we start with your experiments and go from there?”

  “Fine. But call your power again. I want to see you do it.”

  Roz silently awakened her magic while Sara stared hard, watching every movement. She didn’t seem happy when Roz’s power swirled around her.

  “I’ll figure it out,” Sara said. “There must be some trick to it.”

  Roz was tempted to say there was no trick, but she remembered Lukas’ words about pushing the girl too far.

  “I’ve been testing their tolerance for pain,” Sara explained, turning toward the terrified female infected in the corner. “To see how much they can take before it kills them. So far, it’s surprising how much they can handle.”

  Bile rose in Roz’s throat. “What if we tried to cure the infection, instead? Maybe together we could force it out of her?”

  Sara’s expression was cold and mean. “Alright, if you want.”

  “Focus on pulling the infection out.”

  “Okay.”

  They cast their spells, and the vampire writhed. Roz wondered if Sara weren’t adding a pain component to her spell, but she was concentrating too hard to tell. Roz saw the infection as a black cloud, and she focused on guiding it up and out of the infected’s mouth. The vampire’s nose and mouth bled. The spell hit a crescendo and the infected vomited blood, screaming in agony.

  “Enough,” Roz said, cutting her spell off. “She’s in pain.”

  But Sara didn’t stop. She kept speaking her spell, staring at the vampire with a cold, cruel look in her eyes. Roz shoved her hard, breaking her concentration, and the other girl’s power drifted away.

  “What did you do that for?” she demanded, furious.

  “I’m wore out,” Roz lied. “And it’s not working. I’m going to call it a night.”

  “Sure, whatever. But I’m not finished yet.”

  “Let’s both go inside. We have beer and wine. We could light a fire on the patio.” She was not leaving Sara to torture any more infecteds.

  “Yeah,” Sara said with a resigned sigh. “Okay.”

  On their way out, Roz waved Sara through the door first and, after a last look at the whimpering infected, locked it behind them.

  #

  Roz stretched her legs and propped her feet on the edges of a blazing fire pit as she eyed the group of supernaturals gathered on the back patio in the early hours of Monday morning—two witches, a shifter, a vampire, and a freak of nature. She couldn’t have seen this happen in her wildest adolescent dreams.

  It was actually kind of cool.

  She smiled to herself as Lukas passed her another beer.

  “The fire’s not too hot?” Connor fretted. “It got a little bigger than I anticipated.”

  “It feels nice,” Roz assured. The flames were oddly soothing after a rough couple of days. Maybe, for just one night, they could pretend to be normal and no one would blow up, get shot, or bleed out.

  Connor’s phone rang.

  “It’s the doc,” he said with a frown as he set aside his beer and answered it. “Hello?” A pause, and then, “We’re not in Vegas.” Silence. “Come to us. I’ll send you the coordinates. “ He hung up and frowned at Roz. “Apparently, Dr. Burke has something important to tell us. She’ll be here in about an hour.”

  “Weird.” What could the doctor, another former recipient of Anton and Natasha’s generosity, have to tell them at quarter after eleven at night? In the middle of nowhere? It must be bad news.

  So much for one quiet evening.

  As if an unspoken order had been given, they all silently cleared off the table, put out the fire, and ambled inside.

  “I have a long drive back to the city,” Sara announced. “And I need to check in with Marta.”

  “You’re welcome to stay,” Connor told her. “Drive back in the morning.”

  “I can’t.” She waved tiredly, gathered her things, and opened the front door. “Text me next time you go hunting.”

  “Hang on,” Lukas called, “I’ll go with you.”

  Roz’s stomach flip-flopped. She wanted him to stay. “You don’t have to.”

  “I know.” He flashed a smile. “I’ll be back tomorrow.” He glanced uncertainly at Connor. “If it’s okay.”

  “Sure.” Connor shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “I’ll see you later,” he said, and then left.

  Roz returned to the armchair in the front room to research on her laptop, pretending she didn’t miss the big lug.

  When Dr. Julia Burke finally arrived, she was as rattled as Roz had ever seen her, and Roz had seen her handle vampires, magic, and one dangerous shapeshifter without breaking a sweat. Tonight, she was in tights, sandals, a backpack, and a T-shirt that read, Call me Captain Fantastic! As she crossed the living room, she left behind a scent cloud of cheap booze and cigare
tte smoke.

  “Everything okay?” Roz asked, eyeing the doc up and down.

  “Depends on how you look at it,” Julia answered, her German accent more pronounced than usual. “I’ve been working in my little lab for sixteen hours straight. I was so sure I was on the brink of a breakthrough with Ali’s blood samples.”

  “Sit down,” Connor said to her, gesturing to the leather sofa in the living room. “Tell us what happened.”

  Julia refused to sit. Rather, she paced from the front door to the mounted deer head and back again.

  “I isolated the antibodies in Ali’s blood that make her immune to vampirism fairly quickly,” Julia explained. “That, ironically, was the easy part. Then, I began animal trials.” At Connor’s bewildered shake of his head, Julia said, “It turns out, animals actually are immune to vampirism. So,” she scrubbed her hands over her face, “I have to move on to human trials.”

  God, the implications. They could attack vampires with dart guns instead of live ammunition. They could end the terrors of the horde once and for all.

  Connor could live a normal, human life.

  “You have a cure for vampirism?” Roz blurted out.

  Julia ceased pacing. “Yes. I believe I do.”

  “Great news!” Connor exclaimed.

  “Wonderful,” Ali agreed.

  “But I won’t know if it’s effective in humans,” Julia continued, not looking the least bit proud or excited, “until I inject it into someone.”

  “Uh.” Roz glanced from Connor to Ali. “Who?”

  “I have to inoculate a human being, and then infect them,” Julia said, matter-of-fact. “Of course, I could never expose an innocent person to these experiments.”

  If there were a real cure, then Roz would do anything to save other people from the horrors her best friend had gone through.

  “I’ll do it,” Roz spoke up. “You can try it on me.”

  “I wish I could,” Julia said sadly. “But you have magic, which makes your chemistry slightly different than a normal human being’s.” She scanned the room. “I can’t infect Connor. Ali is the source, so she’s out. And I would never bring in a stranger for this sort of thing.”

  “Then what do you propose?” Connor asked.

  “I’m going to inject myself with the serum, and then record the results.”