Grams blinked, her nostrils flaring as she took a deep breath in through her nose. Her entire body shaking, she lifted the blade in the air and pointed it right at my throat. When she spoke, her voice was gravel and pure steel. She sounded nothing like the grandmother who had raised me as her own daughter, the woman who had kept a protective wing around me all my life. Something strange flashed in her eyes, a flicker of the Grams I knew and loved, but then it was gone before I could truly grasp onto it.
“Yes,” she said.
“See?” Wagner smiled and spread his hands to his sides. “Seems if we’re all in agreement here.”
My entire world felt ripped apart. Up was down and down was up. I could barely hear the pounding of Dorian’s fists on the door anymore. My ears were full of static, and my vision full of ants. I had to get out of here. Away from this fake Grams. Away from Ivan Wagner. Away from everything.
“You’re not my grandmother,” I whispered around a throat full of coal. “She would never point a dagger at me, even if she did want to fill this realm with demons. And she wouldn’t.”
“Mabel, prove to Zoe you are who we say you are,” Wagner said.
Grams blinked. “Belzus cast an illusion to make others see a bone mage mark instead of a shadow mark.”
Heart pounding in my chest, I blinked away the tears. There were only a few people in the world who knew I had a fake mark and even fewer who knew it had been Belzus who had cast the spell. Still, it could have been easy enough to piece together. Wagner wasn’t stupid. He could have figured it out as a way to trick me into believing this illusion was my grandmother.
Because that was all it could be. If the fae could trick the world into believing I wore a shadow mark on my neck, they could certainly make someone look like an entirely different person. Wagner could be working with the fae.
“That doesn’t convince me of anything,” I said, jutting out my chin. “Grams isn’t the only person in the world who knows who gave me my fake mark.”
“No, but she’s the only person in the world who knows you can bake a mean apple pie. Not the kind of thing a badass fighter likes to share, is it?” Wagner smiled. “Well, scratch that. She was the only person who knew. Now, two of us know.”
My heart thumped, and I glanced at the fake—or real—Grams. Wagner was right. She was the only person in the world who knew I’d gone through a phase where I cooked an apple pie every weekend, experimenting with the crust until I got it just right. And she never would have told anyone. It was our thing we’d done together, and no one else’s. She wouldn’t have shared that with Wagner. Not unless something had changed, not unless her shadow side had taken over. But I refused to let myself believe that could happen. My grandmother was strong. The strongest person I knew. There was no way she would ever let the darkness consume her.
“Kill her,” Wagner hissed.
Grams stepped so close that I could smell her vanilla perfume—the same perfume she’d used for as long as I could remember. My blood went cold as I swallowed hard, horror churning in my gut. And then she raised the blade and stabbed me right in the heart.
Chapter 13
The world was dark and cold, and I’d fallen into a tunnel I could never escape. My grandmother’s face flashed in my mind as memories of my life flipped by like faded polaroids. A deep voice spoke to me from somewhere far away. Up and out of the tunnel. I tried to lift my hand and call out, but my body was far too heavy. Everything ached.
“Have some more,” the voice said, his words becoming clearer. Something wet and warm slid across my lips, and my tongue felt coated in iron. Electric energy sizzled in my veins as the liquid poured down my throat. It was hot, deliciously hot. And it made my magic sing in my bones.
“That’s it, baby,” the voice said. It was Dorian. His hand cradled my neck as he pressed his wrist harder against my parted lips. He was giving me his blood, his life force, saving me from the horrible wound my grandmother had inflicted upon me. I tried to open my eyes, but my grief overwhelmed me. I couldn’t face the world right now. Or maybe ever again.
I woke to a crackling fireplace in a dark room that smelled of wood and whiskey. My head throbbed as I glanced around before I found Dorian perched on a leather armchair, watching me with dark and stormy eyes. He’d somehow gotten us all the way from the tiny village in the hills to his castle. I guessed he couldn’t have gotten us back to the states—he couldn’t cast the travel spell like I could.
“Zoe,” he said, shifting from the chair to kneel beside me. He pressed the back of his hand to my cheek and frowned. “You’re still so cold. How are you feeling?”
“Like death,” I said, wincing when I tried to shift. My chest felt like I’d been stabbed. Probably because I had. “Grams. Did you—” My voice choked off as a storm of tears filled my eyes. This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t be true. My grandmother hadn’t just tried to kill me.
“I think I need to give you some more blood,” Dorian said. “Your heart got hit by the blade. The bleeding has been…well, you lost a lot of blood, Zoe.”
“Dorian?” I asked in a whisper. “Was it my Grams? Please tell me it wasn’t really her. Tell me it’s some illusion. A fake. Some kind of trick. I can’t believe that she would ever do something like that. Not to anyone and especially not to me.”
Dorian sighed and closed his eyes, turning his head to the side so that he wasn’t facing me full on. That was when the truth finally crashed over me like a storm at my darkest midnight. I hadn’t wanted to believe it, despite all the evidence. But Dorian’s face was impossible to dismiss.
“I’m so sorry, Zoe,” he said. “I know my senses don’t work quite as well as the Daywalkers, but I can still pick out certain people that I’ve been around enough to recognize. I got a whiff of her scent after they attacked you. It was unmistakably your grandmother. I can’t explain how this could have happened, but she was definitely the mage with Wagner.”
Tears leaked out of my eyes, splashing hot onto my raw cheeks. “I don’t want to believe it.”
“Something must have happened,” Dorian said with a shake of his head, his lips pressed into a tight line. “Wagner got to her somehow.”
“After all these years of holding down the darkness, it finally consumed her. Just like all the other shadow mages.” With wide eyes, I stared up at Dorian. “Is it just inevitable? Is that what’s going to happen to me one day? No matter how hard I try?”
“You’re too strong to let that happen.”
“Grams was strong. Far stronger than me.” My voice cracked. “And look what happened. She’s so far gone that she tried to kill me, Dorian. She stabbed me in the heart! If you hadn’t been there, I’d be dead.”
Dorian wrapped his hand around mine. “I know. But you’re stronger. And we’ll make sure Wagner never does something like this again. We just have to be more careful from now on. This was clearly a trap. He let us track him, straight to that cottage. Just so he could use your grandmother against you.”
“Well, that was the one and only time I’ll ever fall for his tricks again. Next time, he’ll be on the receiving end of a dagger. Not me.”
Chapter 14
“So, anyone have any ideas on how to find Professor Ivan Wagner?” With my hands flat on the conference table, I scanned the small group before me. Anastasia was eyeing my heart, her fangs poking out from her lips. Even though Dorian had fed me an almost endless supply of his blood, my wound was still on the mend. We’d patched it up with a bandage, but she could no doubt smell the blood on me. Laura nibbled on her bottom lip and frowned while Dorian paced back and forth from one end of the room to the other.
“You smell different,” Anastasia said.
“Thanks, Anastasia,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “That’s very helpful. Anyone else?”
“Are you sure it’s a good idea for you to go after him again?” Laura asked. “You got stabbed in the heart, Zoe. Maybe someone else needs to take a shot at him.”
/> I couldn’t help but notice her word choice. You got stabbed. She didn’t want to acknowledge the involvement of Grams in the incident any more than I did.
“It’s because I got stabbed that I have to be involved. If someone is going to take that asshole down, it has to be me,” I said, curling my knuckles onto the smooth wood table.
Dorian cleared his throat. Through our bond, I felt a hint of wariness and unease. “Laura has a point. Wagner obviously wants you out of the picture. As long as you’re alive, you’re a threat. He’ll do anything to take you out, and he has…well, he has your grandmother on his side. I worry what will happen when you inevitably come face to face with her again.”
My heartbeat roared in my ears as I kept my gaze focused on the table. If I looked into the concerned faces of my friends, I didn’t know how long I could stay strong. Now was not the time to break down into tears. Now was the time to destroy our enemies. “It just took me by surprise. It won’t happen again.”
“And if she comes at you with a knife?” Anastasia asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “What will you do then, Zoe? Because I find it hard to believe you’d do anything other than stand there and take it.”
Blood rushed into my cheeks, and I whirled away from the table. “You’re asking me if I’d fight her.”
“Well, would you?” Anastasia asked.
Gritting my teeth, I closed my eyes and remembered the look on my grandmother’s face when she’d stabbed me in the heart. I’d never seen anything like it before. It was like she’d turned into something else, possessed by a darkness that had twisted her mind into thinking I was the enemy. But there’d been a moment. A flash of my Grams in there. Even if she was drowning in her magic, I knew her true mind was still alive. Somewhere in that soul of hers. “No one is going to attack Grams, whether I’m there or not.”
“Zoe,” Dorian said. “I know you’re hurting, and it’s hard to accept that she’s turned into this, but—”
“But nothing,” I said fiercely, turning to face them again. “She might be far gone, but she is still my grandmother, and I refuse to let her go without a fight. We will take down Wagner, get my grandmother back, and we will somehow fix whatever happened to her.”
Laura gave me a sad smile while Dorian crossed his arms over his chest with a frown. I could tell by the looks on their faces that neither one of them believed we could save her. They looked as though they felt sorry for me, a fact that only caused my fury to boil even more. Only Anastasia looked as though she understood.
“Sometimes, when a Daywalker is overcome by the bloodlust, we’re able to pull them back from the brink,” the vampire said with a nod.
“This is different,” Dorian said. “Her grandmother is not a hungry vampire. She’s a shadow, and they’ve never been known to turn away from their darkness once they’ve given into it. Once it’s done, it’s done.”
“Well, I refuse to give up,” I said. “We have to at least try. Either you can help me or not.”
Dorian let out a heavy sigh and shook his head. “Fine. But if it comes down to her life or yours, Zoe? I’m going to choose yours every damn time.”
There were now fifteen bone mages clustered in the Bone Coven’s living quarters. After the mansion had burned down several months before, the council members had moved into the two-level penthouse suite in a high-rise building downtown. One floor was dedicated to office space and coven business while the other floor consisted of bedrooms, a kitchen, and an expansive living space where the council could relax during off hours. Not that there’d been much time off lately.
While Dorian and I had been out of the country, Laura had ushered curious—and demanding—bone mages into the living room to wait for our return. They looked impatient and angry, to say the least. Several of them were pacing the floor, their faces lined with tension. When I walked in, they all stopped what they were doing to turn and stare. Three mages who had taken up residence on the sofa suddenly stood.
“Zoe Bennett? Are you our new Magister?” One of the younger mages asked—he had dark red hair and looked like he was only about fourteen or fifteen years old. Beside him stood an even younger girl whose hair was tucked behind her shoulders in tightly-bound braids. It was a stark reminder that the coven was far more than just the council members and the Enforcers I’d spent the past several months around. The Bone Coven was a community full of witches and warlocks of all ages. Mages who lived normal lives, going to work and raising families. And they needed our help.
I cleared my throat. “I’m, ah, not your Magister. But yes, my name is Zoe Bennett, and I’m here to try to answer any questions you might have.”
Another mage stepped forward—a man in his late forties with graying hair at his temples. “What’s happened to Magister Salvatore and the other council members? There’s rumors going around. Terrible rumors about a battle with the Sun Coven. People are saying the entire council is gone.”
“And what about the reports of demons on the news?” A girl about my age piped up from the back of the room. She wore dark, tight-fitting clothes, and she tapped the dagger at her waist. Hell, she looked a lot like me, but the tone of her voice grated on my nerves. “Seriously, it sounds like you’ve let the coven go to shit.”
Irritation boiled in my veins, but I tried to keep my nerves steady. I couldn’t blame her reaction, as annoying as it was. They’d heard rumors and stories and had no idea what was going on out there. And what they had heard sounded scary as hell.
Several of the mages all started talking at once, raising their voices to be heard over the other. Laura frowned and glanced my way, clearly uneasy by this onslaught. With a deep breath, I raised my hands in the air and waited for the commotion to die down.
“Okay, I know everyone is concerned by what’s going on, but we need to take this one question at a time,” I said. “Okay?”
The girl in the back grumbled, but everyone slowly nodded as they settled back into their seats. A dozen expectant faces looked up at me, and a strange sensation passed through my gut. I’d never in a million years expected to be in this kind of position—taking charge and trying to calm people’s fears. But strangely, I didn’t feel uneasy about being in the hot seat. I felt almost…empowered.
“Unfortunately, what you’ve heard about a battle at the Sun Coven is true,” I began slowly. “There was a very large fight, and we lost a lot of lives. Not a single council member made it, including the Magister. Now, I know this is scary and worrying, but we will get everything back to normal as soon as we can. Dorian, Laura, and I will be taking charge until we can find a replacement council.”
A hand shot into the air, and I gave the woman a nod.
“What about the Daywalker?” she asked, pointing to Anastasia. “What’s she doing here? I thought they broke the truce with us. Is that not true?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Anastasia broke in before I could come up with a reasonable excuse for her presence in this room.
“Mages targeted my family, killing several of them. My father responded the only way he could, by dissolving the truce.” Anastasia crossed her arms and leaned against the door. “However, I know not all mages are the same, so I am here to help any way I can.”
A few grumbles went through the crowd, but I held up my hand again to stop them. One thing was for sure, I didn’t want anyone running off our Daywalker friend. She’d proven herself handy in sticky situations, and we could use the firepower right about now, especially next time we came up against Wagner.
“Isn’t Laura a blood mage?” one of the mages asked. “Why are we being led by people who aren’t even bone mages?”
“Well, it doesn’t stop there,” I said, taking a deep breath. Here was the moment I’d been dreading ever since that shadow mark had etched itself into my skin. But I’d decided to come clean, and now was the time to do it. If I was going to expect these mages to follow our hastily-formed council, they needed to know exactly who they were trusting with their l
ives. It was time for me to shed the shadows and step into the light. “Anastasia is a Daywalker, Laura is a blood mage, though she has pledged herself to the Bone Coven, Dorian is a cursed Unbound, and me? Well, I’m a shadow mage.”
The room fell silent. Moments ticked by, and the only sound was the clock that hung on the wall. Everyone was stunned, clearly taken aback by my announcement. While they’d known the truth about those who surrounded me—except perhaps Dorian—they’d never dreamed of a shadow mage amongst them, let alone taking charge of the safety of the coven. They would likely not want to follow me, and if that were the case, then so be it. I wasn’t their Magister. I was only someone who had been thrust into this position until we could find a replacement.
“You don’t seem like a shadow mage,” the young girl finally said. “I thought they were mean and evil. Full of horrible madness.”
“Some of them are,” I said with a nod as I knelt down before her. “But just like anyone else, it’s our choices that make us good or bad, not the magic we’re born with. While I’m nothing close to perfect, I’m trying to do the right thing.”
“Are the demon rumors true?” one of the mages asked. “Are we under attack? Is another war coming?”
Frowning, I looked up and gave the woman a nod. Gasps filled the room, and one of the women began to cry.
“There’s a weapon,” I began, “that can cut holes in the veil. A warlock is using this weapon as well as a spell to bind and control demons. But what he doesn’t want to admit is that it only strengthens those creatures. They can become corporeal and engage in physical fights, and they’re immune to normal magic. We’re trying to stop him, but there may come a time—and soon—where we need all the fighters we can get. Trust me on this. I’ve faced these demons. They’re hard to fight and even harder to kill.”
The Bone Coven Chronicles: The Complete Series Page 66