Ill Will

by Cate Corvin

  Did vampires feel that sort of love?

  The professor nodded slowly. “Although I dislike attributing human emotions to vampires, it is very possible that they’ve gone silent to mourn their loss. For now, my advice to you students is to remain vigilant. Until King Thraustila issues new Laws, everyone will be treading lightly around the Clouded Court. You might find your practical missions to be a little more precarious than they were before… the first of which Professor Ermengol will assign later today.”

  “We’re still doing practicals after this?” Selena blurted out.

  Knightley looked at her like she’d grown a third head. “This is the daily life of a slayer, Miss Feldt. If you can’t figure out how to analyze and negotiate an uncertain battlefield, you’re of no use to us.”

  When he dismissed us an hour later, my nerves had settled a little.

  If Jean Guilloux had already been dead when I’d stabbed Eluned, then the Law against murdering vampires on their territory had been null. The Clouded Court might not bear me any ill will.

  Càel certainly did, but somehow the thought of facing only one vampire, versus the entire court, was a little less terrifying. Even if that one vampire was worth the entire court in a fight.

  Will strode past me, Apolline and Selena on his heels, and I finally realized I’d gained my own shadow. Sura had caught up, but today there was no good humor in his dark, chiseled face.

  There were faint shadows under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept well, either.

  He gripped my arm and we slowed to a halt outside Ermengol’s training grounds.

  “What’s going on, Tori? You looked like you’d seen a ghost in Knightley’s class, and you’ve avoided me since…” Sura’s dark eyes were like flat black onyx today, no glittering humor in them.

  My breath caught in my throat. What could I tell him? That I’d been dreaming of him since the night I’d met him, that I was terrified the vampire court would fall on my head any day now, oh, and that I felt sympathy for the vampire knight whose sister I’d murdered, even while I feared that my name was at the top of his kill list?

  I couldn’t trust Sura, either. No matter how much he flirted with me, he was still Will’s best friend. And I had no idea how Will felt about me now, only that trying to figure him out was like trying to keep steady footing on a wave-tossed ship. He veered between hate and tolerance like lightning.

  “Just trying to figure things out.” I flashed a humorless smile at Sura. “Remember the first night we talked? I’m here to learn, not to have fun.”

  Finally, a twinkle in the darkness of his eyes. “Aren’t women supposed to be good at multitasking?”

  “I’m adept as fuck at multitasking.” We were going to be late to class. “But this is more important than getting laid, if we’re being honest.”

  Not entirely true, but he didn’t need to know that.

  “Who says you can’t do both?”

  A fuzzy memory floated to the forefront of my mind: the softest scratch of Sura’s dark stubble under my lips, the faintest brush of a kiss… before he turned his head away.

  He was untrustworthy. Will’s best friend. A handsome face didn’t mean jack at the end of the day. “I’ll do both when I want to.”

  I pushed past him, into the training grounds.

  Will scowled as I walked in with Sura on my heels. “You’re going to cost us points on this assignment if you’re late.”

  “Maybe she was getting fingerfucked in the hall,” Apolline said, examining her pink-lacquered nails.

  My face went cold, then hot, my heartbeat drumming in my ears. It’d been too much to hope for that no one had seen what Sura and I had done in Club Bathory.

  “Better to do it with my own kind than drool over a vein-licker.” I couldn’t hold back a sneer. Who would want to touch a Shadowed Worlder? They were the worst kind of depraved.

  Especially Càel. Now that I knew who I’d almost gone toe-to-toe with, I was starting to wonder if it might be best to cut and run before he figured out my name.

  Apolline raised a delicately-arched eyebrow, but Professor Ermengol cut through the tension in Tenebris with her sudden arrival.

  “Practicals begin today, my sweets,” she said. Today she had two cloaked, veiled slayers with her: Mater Dolorum we knew all too well, Libra’s taciturn mistress of healing. The other was new to me. “And some of you will be gaining your first kill tattoos, which is why Mater Bellum is here. If you slay a Shadowed Worlder in the field, you will return to Mater Bellum for confirmation and your mark.”

  A ball of ice rolled around in my stomach. I could claim the black drop of a vampire-kill right now for Eluned Ravensbane… but I wouldn’t. I didn’t want that mark on me yet, no matter how long I’d dreamed of my first drop.

  “There’s a moonspawn nest that needs cleared out under a human hotel. Rats.” Ermengol wrinkled her nose and named a very ritzy human establishment. “That’s on Lux. Good luck. Try not to die.”

  Aislin’s lips were set, and she was already organizing her team, decisively planning how to infiltrate the nest.

  “Tenebris, you’ve got reports of demonic activity in the old sugar factory. Bring lots of holy water. Shouldn’t be anything too serious, but don’t get cocky. Get out if it’s anything bigger than an imp.”

  Cold sweat broke out over my back. Of course we’d get the demons.

  A memory assaulted my brain, the whiff of brimstone and old copper, an ichor-slicked claw running over James’ neck.

  Will’s sharp tones brought me back to reality. “I want most of you on the perimeter. If anything flees, let it go, but I want to hear about it in detail, understand? Apolline, you and Sura will be our scouts. Selena, Tori, and I will search the basement.”

  I shook off the fear creeping down my spine. This was a blessing, a chance to earn some slayer tattoos, a chance to find out which of the skulking bastards had murdered James.

  The main armory was next to the training grounds. My heart squeezed in anticipation as I eyed the walls laden with weapons, silver, cold iron, even an axe made of star-metal. Little glass orbs were nestled in foam cases, some filled with holy water, others with old blood. Arrows fletched with feathers of every kind gleamed like rainbows on the far wall.

  It was one of the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen.

  Lux was taking all manner of the silver weapons, but we needed holy water. An angelic blade would’ve been the most ideal weapon, but most of those had been lost over the centuries. The next best thing was iron blades that had been quenched in holy water after their forging and blessed by a priest.

  Apolline was choosing some of the dainty glass orbs, and she stopped and stared at me when I grabbed several empty squirt bottles from the storage room and dunked them in the holy water tank.

  I knew how fast the tides could turn where demons were involved. I wasn’t taking chances with the beautiful but fragile orbs. Sometimes the ugliest solution was the wisest solution.

  When I turned around, Will and Sura were arguing quietly in the corner, so still and soft it was difficult to tell it was an argument at all. Only the tension in their muscles and hard glares gave away their irritation with each other.

  When they saw me looking at them, they broke away from each other.

  How odd.

  “Change in plans,” Will said smoothly. “Sura will search with us. Pheric, you’ll scout with Apolline.”

  I shot a glare at Sura. Was he trying to horn in on my kills? Didn’t he think I could handle a few demons?

  When we summoned a Libra taxi outside the Caitland-Moore, I held back my surprise to find that either a single cab had stretched itself out, or two had merged to create one long, black limousine. Each team could easily fit inside a single limo.

  Which was where I found myself pressed between Will and Sura again, no more comfortable this time thanks to the weapons we all bristled with. Several duffel bags of holy water took up all the floor space.

  Selena glar
ed at me from Will’s other side, and Apolline sat across from us, cracking her gum like we were going for a joyride.

  My veins were fizzing with anticipation. Even if we didn’t come across the same kind of demon that had killed my Jim-Jam, it would still be a demon, which was the next best thing. I found myself craving the sting of the tattooist’s needle.

  Where moonspawn kills were marked on our bodies as thin red sickles, and vampires as black drops, demons were recorded simply as dark dots because, over the course of the average slayer’s life, we were bound to kill so many demons we’d eventually run out of room. When I was younger, I’d met a slayer who’d killed so many demons, his entire back had been tattooed pitch black, and the dots spilled down over his hips and thighs.

  Fae kills were recorded as tiny, royal blue six-pointed stars. I’d met very few slayers with more than a handful of those.

  If we got lucky, today would mark the first of the swirling dotted pattern that would begin at the top of my spine and work its way down over the years.

  “Your thoughts, Tenebris.” Will was taut as a bowstring, thigh to thigh with me.

  “What kind of demons?” Selena asked, phrasing it as a question.

  “Could be any kind.” Will pulled his hand out of hers. “Narrow it down.”

  It was starting to make sense why Will had been made the prefect. Despite my mixed feelings about him, he wasn’t completely terrible at directing a group of people into action and using their brains.

  I pulled my elbows in, trying to avoid contact with the men on either side of me. “Why a sugar factory?” I wondered aloud. “Is it abandoned? Might be a good place to perform a ritual.”

  Will looked down at me, but I refused to look up and see if he was sneering at me or not. It was a valid question. Most demonic summoning circles needed wide-open places without any spectators. “It would be a good ritual space,” he agreed. He kept his voice neutral; I couldn’t decipher how he felt about my contribution to the group.

  Pheric, Joshua, and Ethan just stared at us. Pheric had gone a little pale. Were they frightened?

  They should be.

  “Sugar is also a traditional ingredient in love spells.” I crossed my leg, trying to make the movement look casual, but I couldn’t stand Will being pressed up against me any longer. “The factory’s original use might’ve been of some interest to the conjurer.”

  “Love spells, sugar, and demonic rituals. So, without any other information to go on, we could be looking at a conjurer who wanted to petition or bind a demonic entity into bringing them love.” Will shook his head, looking disgusted. “Or lust. Idiots.”

  “Prince Sitri,” Sura said, running his hand through his hair. “If they’re looking for lust, they were calling on Sitri.”

  He was still tense, every muscle I was in contact with as hard as stone, and his body heat warmed me even through the leather jackets we wore. His peppery vanilla scent was only amplified by the warmth cocooning me. I tried not to breathe too deeply, or look at him, or remember what he felt like when he had me pinned to a wall and his fingers between my legs.

  Ironic, while we discussed the demonic Prince of Lust.

  “We’ll operate on the assumption of a conjurer and a summoning circle designed for Sitri, then.” Will leaned his head back against the wall of the limo. His dark hair was mussed today, like he’d run his fingers through it one too many times. “But be ready for anything else. Knowing Ermengol, it’s not going to be anything too dangerous.”

  Apolline rolled her eyes. “And what if he managed to actually summon him? Then what? We fight off a greater demon alone?”

  “What’s makes you think the conjurer’s a he?” Pheric asked indignantly.

  “Because a woman would never be so desperate and hard-up to get laid that she’d summon a freaking demonic Prince,” she snapped. Good point.

  “If there’s any sign of a greater demon on the premises, we’re getting the fuck out,” Will interrupted. “No one’s going to be a hero today. Gather intel, pay attention to everything you see, and we’ll meet back at the entrance for the debriefing.”

  Everyone lapsed into quiet conversation or just sat with their own thoughts. Sura was uncharacteristically silent, and I wrestled with my own feelings for a moment.

  “Not into scouting ahead, huh?” I whispered, looking up at the chiseled lines of his face, how silky his deep skin was. He took up more room by himself than almost anyone in the limo besides Will. “That’s the fun part.”

  A faint smile tugged at his lips. “Nah, the fun part is going into the creepy dark basement. Haven’t you ever watched horror movies, Tori?”

  Not really. Real life was too much of a horror movie by itself, sometimes. “I’ve seen like… five minutes of Dawn of the Dead. Does that count?”

  “Our blossoming friendship is on indefinite hold until you’ve seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Psycho. Or maybe the Exorcist, that might be a little more appropriate, given the situation-”

  “You won’t have a blossoming anything if you get your asses killed in there,” Will said impatiently, and a hint of irritation touched Sura’s black eyes. “Keep your heads in the game.”

  Part of me wanted to snap at Will to shut the fuck up and let us talk privately, but we were crammed together. There was no privacy.

  And Will was looking a little more tense than usual, his lips tight. As the prefect of Tenebris, he had nine other lives in his hands, and he was responsible for everything going perfectly.

  Things rarely went perfectly where greater demons were involved.

  Okay, so maybe it was a little more stress than your average twenty-one-year-old wanted to deal with.

  I opened my mouth to tell him to chill. It would all be fine.

  “Why don’t you have horror movie night with us?” was what popped out instead. What the fuck was I thinking? Will didn’t want to be step-siblings, didn’t want to be friends, didn’t really want anything to do with me at all.

  Will glared at me. It was impossible to tell if he was actually irritated, or just bemused. “How about we get through this practical without anyone dying first?”

  I fought the urge to beam up at him. It wasn’t a hard no or an insult.

  The limo had left behind the glittering skyscrapers and lights for a section of the city that seemed to be made entirely of concrete, rust, and fog. Dark factories towered overhead, their windows busted out, chain-link fences sagged, and graffiti both new and faded covered every surface below ten feet.

  I slid out of the limo after Will, my boots crunching on broken glass.

  The factory in front of us had long gone cold. The name Sweet P’s Sugarworks was still just legible in old paint, high up on the brick face.

  A faint gust of wind carried a strange combination of scents to my nose: smog and gasoline mixed with a tinge of burnt caramel and dark resin.

  It was the thick, black sweetness that put my hackles up when I inhaled. “Do you smell that?” I asked Will quietly, out of earshot of the rest of Tenebris.

  He nodded, a muscle moving in his jaw. “We’ll make this quick.”

  Will, Sura, Selena and I went ahead. Everyone else scattered behind us, manning the perimeter of the old Sugarworks and taking note of anything remotely out of place.

  Apolline and Pheric broke off to check the interior halls.

  The smell grew thicker as we stepped inside the graffitied doors, and I pulled a dagger from my hip, every sense strained.

  I was sure of one thing: there were demons here, and my knife had their name on it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ________

  TORI

  The bright beams of our flashlights illuminated more painted concrete, dripping water and long orange rust stains streaking the walls. Sunlight was two stories overhead, where the rest of Tenebris was gathered.

  The sticky, overly-sweet scent of burnt caramel was almost stomach-churning now, tempered only by the resin and a whiff of incense, which grew st
rong the lower we went.

  I should’ve been nervous, but instead excitement was prickling through my limbs, my breath shallow and fast. It was just like old times, the hunt, the slow stalk of unwary prey.

  Will went first, followed by me, then Selena, and Sura brought up the rear.

  We stepped into a long, low access tunnel, echoing with the drip of water.

  “Left,” Will muttered, keeping his tone flat so his voice would echo less. The sweet scent was definitely stronger to the left.

  Several rats squeaked and vanished as we moved down the tunnel, which ended in a rusted metal door.

  Will threw caution to the winds and kicked it open. The loud squeal echoed like nails on a chalkboard, but nothing else moved or made a sound. “Holy water first,” I whispered. It was the perfect ambush spot, and many lesser demons were nothing if not predictable.

  “They’re long gone,” Selena said dismissively, giving me a dirty look. “Demon reek lasts forever.”

  Will threw out his arm when she tried to move forward, shining his flashlight into the room beyond. “Did I tell you to move?” he hissed. Selena tossed her blonde ponytail, the corners of her mouth turned down, but she didn’t reply.

  Will stuck his flashlight between his teeth and squeezed one of the squirt-bottles of holy water in the room, dousing the edges of the door.

  Still, nothing shrieked or fled. Maybe the demons really were gone. Perversely, disappointment swamped my anticipation. I’d been looking forward to my first demon-slaying tattoos.

  “See?” Selena snapped. “Ermengol wouldn’t send us on a suicide mission this early in the year. Leave it to the professionals, Trailer Trash.”

  She shoved his arm aside and strode into the room, the beam of her flashlight illuminating boilers and burst pipes.

  Will took his flashlight out of his mouth. “They could be long gone,” he admitted. “We should probably finish this before nightfall.”

  “Is this Clouded Court territory?” I was suddenly prickling with an emotion beyond excitement or nervousness: fear.