by A. L. Tyler
“He’s dangerous.” He pointed a log at me before tossing it into the fire. “And vampires define danger on a different scale.”
“So?”
He glanced off toward the woods where Angel had gone to walk. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
A shock wave erupted under my feet. I shot up, summoning the fire to my hand.
It exploded into a fiery blue inferno as it collided with the geyser of the ley line. Nick leapt away from me in surprise. I was distracted, trying to extinguish the growing flames around me, when I heard Angel yelling.
“Shit! Shit! SHIT!”
She came barreling back into our camp, chased by a rolling distortion in the ground. Angel leapt as it hit her heels and then tumbled to the ground in a heap.
The distortion rolled onward. It tossed our campfire skyward.
Through the raining embers I looked up to see Millie and her beguiling smile.
Then the quake hit me, and I was airborne.
Chapter 32
I STARED AT THE STARS and braced for the unwelcome impact. The air rushed past me, blowing my hair in my face...
I landed on my feet. When I opened my eyes, Nick had just set me down.
Nick and I had only ever been in one fight together before, and I didn’t count it as a real fight. One time in a bar some of his friends had gone a little crazy after being roofied. Nick held back in that fight so he didn’t hurt anyone, but he wasn’t holding back now.
And damn, could he move.
He was next to me one second, and behind Millie the next. His eyes were dark with blood lust, and his lips twitched into a sneer. As he reached out one arm to grab her, I drew in a shaky breath, sure I was about to watch him rip her head off.
And then his arm passed right through her. Confusion crossed Nick’s face. His eyes flashed to me.
That trick, plus a memory charm, explained perfectly how she’d managed to slip the burly handler Nick had left her with.
Millie spun on him and whipped something from her pocket that looked a lot like a warded rope threaded with dogwood fibers. She tried to loop it around his neck, but Nick evaded her and took another swipe.
Millie was a ghost. His arms passed right through her as easily as she passed through walls, and he was in trouble, because she’d managed to tangle his hand in her rope.
I wanted to fire a shot at her. I was afraid it would go through her and hit Nick. I was terrified it would rebound on the ley magic and kill us all.
Nick changed his tactic and tried run to me, but his vampiric speed was gone. His strength was gone.
And when Millie yanked the rope, she pulled him back.
His face contorted in rage as the rope started to burn against his skin. “Run!”
I glanced down at Angel, still unconscious on the ground.
Then I ran toward Nick.
Panic was written on his face. “Go, Jette!”
I couldn’t hear through the static of the ley magic. I laid my hands on the ropes binding him and tried to pick up a tune, a hum, a ring—anything.
Millie’s lips spread into a wide grin.
Whatever magic this was, it was too complicated, too new, and the ley line was enhancing it. And it was soaked in something oily that was now all over my hands.
I looked up from my damp palms as Nick collapsed to his knees in agony. I wasn’t like I could make the situation any worse.
I tried to light a fireball and found my own powers suppressed, so I called up the raw stuff around me and directed the chorus as best I could.
I meant to light the oil on fire and throw it in Millie’s face. Instead, I launched myself backward into a tree.
Nick collapsed to the ground, convulsing, as I raised a hand to where my head had impacted the tree. My eyes wouldn’t focus. My hand came away red.
And the last thing I saw before the world went dark was Millie, running toward me.
I SHOULD HAVE GRABBED his gun.
That was the thought that greeted me when I came to. Nick didn’t think that I needed a gun because I had magic, but I was a craptastic fighter. I needed a gun.
Maybe the bullet would have phased through her. Maybe it would have worked if I clipped one of her gloves. They only helped her avoid the pain of her injuries, but it might have been enough of a distraction.
I was going to have to see about getting a gun.
“You’re awake. Fantastic.”
I scrambled away from the sound of her voice. Wood floors, wood walls, spartan furniture—I was in a cabin. A different cabin than the one Millie had used to contain George Roost.
A dogwood rope was woven tight around my wrist. I tried to rip it off, but it wouldn’t budge. The tune in my ears told me I was hexed.
I couldn’t leave the cabin, and after my earlier performance, I didn’t dare attempt to disable her spell work by manipulating the ley magic.
“You’re lucky you brought a doctor,” Millie said. “She fixed you right up.”
I exhaled sharply. “They’re alive? Nick and Angel?”
“They’re alive,” Millie said without hesitation. She was sitting just outside the front door. “But don’t worry. They won’t find us.”
I believed her. “What’s in the rope? What is it soaked in?”
Millie lifted her chin, hesitating.
“If you hurt Nick—”
“It’s Italian salad dressing.” She laughed lightly. “Last minute thought.”
I nodded. That explained the burning. “The garlic. For Nick.”
Garlic was usually nothing more than an irritant to vampires, and especially to the Bleak’s well-armored daywalkers. The ley lines had turned Millie’s half-hearted joke into a potentially lethal reaction.
“He’s fine,” she shrugged. “Again, lucky for the doctor.”
Only then did I notice she was wearing my jacket. It wasn’t anything fancy. It didn’t have the many years of spell work and nuance that Nick’s did.
But it was mine. And she was wearing it.
“You shouldn’t have tried to outwit me.” Millie flashed me a smile. “I’ve had too long to plan this, Jette. And after watching you for so long, I know you better than you know yourself. I want you to know, I would have taken him out before he got to you.” She stopped and waited for me to make eye contact. “You remind me of Mabe.”
“Huh.” I stood up, looking around the cabin and making no secret of what I was doing. Millie knew me. She knew I would at least try to escape. “I thought I reminded you of you.”
“In some respects.” The sadness in her voice caught my attention. “But you’re too innocent to be me. You still see good in the world. Suffer a few more tragedies, and we’ll see.”
I nodded, looking back down at my restraint bracelet. “You would have spared me. Now you won’t?”
“Now I’ll try,” she said testily. Her shoulders shifted inside my jacket. “In all honesty, you’ve thrown the plan out the window, Jette.”
I went to the kitchen cabinets. “Are you open to suggestions?”
“Why not.”
“You could let me go.”
Her laugh was loud and adorable. Her perfect lipstick was intimidating. She brushed a tear away from one perfectly lined cat eye. “Oh, Jette. You know what you’re asking. I’ve been watching you, remember? Studying you. I know why you did it. I know who they took from you. If you were standing at your father’s cell door right now, staring at the man who held the key, would you be able to turn around and leave? Even if you couldn’t kill the guy, and you knew that was the only way, would you be able to turn around and leave?”
“Yes.” The kitchen cabinets contained nothing that would help me. Plates, cups, spoons... Millie had taken the liberty of removing all the knives and forks, whatever she thought I would be doing with those.
She rolled her eyes at me. “You know, I considered approaching you. I didn’t, because I know what Mabe would have done, and it wouldn’t have been cooperative. So I went on, an
d I watched you, and I learned your preferences, and I eventually found the right handler.” She winked at me. “The strong, well-liked, optimistic type. I know he likes connections more than convictions, so I figured I had a good chance to keep you out of the Bleak’s custody. I also know you like dangerous men, like me, and he is a charmer. It was a calculated risk that he would be assigned, but I made sure he was in the area when the tip dropped, and it paid off. Did I choose right?”
I paused, staring directly into a drawer of linens. “You picked Nick... for me? Because you thought I would find him attractive?”
“Because he has a long history of getting friendly with his assignments and you have a long history of using dangerous men to your advantage. He’s also dead sexy, and I thought it would help light a fire under Alex if he knew you were screwing someone new and running back to the Bleak at the same time.”
Now I was going to have to kill her. Shame my demons wouldn’t let me.
“But I did want to approach you. So many times. I thought, here’s this girl who’s been hurt, just like me. She’ll understand. She has no one, just like me. I had these daydreams of us going off and killing Alex together before we freed your father and started a coup against the Bleak.” She smirked. “I had a lot of time on my hands. It was just a stupid dream. But then you outsmarted me, and I started to think, why the hell not?”
I stopped, turning to stare at her. “You’re serious. I’m not a killer, Millie. Even as much as Alex deserves it—needs it, probably, I’m not a killer. I will find him. I will bring him to justice. I will use all force necessary if he attacks me, but cold-blooded murder...” The flames in the alley flashed before my eyes. “You’ve never killed before, have you?”
Her frown etched deeper.
“Don’t cross that line, Millie. Don’t suffer one more tragedy, especially for his sake.”
“I said you remind me of Mabe,” she snapped. “But you are not my sister. Don’t lecture me. You wouldn’t do it, not even for your father?”
“My father...” I shut the kitchen cabinet, dropping my hand to my side. “Millie, I don’t even know if he’s innocent.”
She didn’t bat a lash. “So?”
I blinked. “So? If he actually committed a crime, I would want to know before deciding. There are some terrible people in this world, and after Alex, I’ve discovered that they are either very good at wearing sheep’s clothing or I am a terrible judge of character.”
Millie looked shocked. “He’s your father, Jette. You don’t need to know anything else. Do you think I need to dissect Mabe’s life to decide if she deserves vengeance? Do you think I need a scoreboard for Alex to decide if he needs to die?” She got to her feet, shaking her head. “I would do anything for my sister. Anything. And you? I guess we don’t have nearly as much in common as I thought.”
She stalked away.
I turned back to the apartment, looking for anything that could help me escape. I couldn’t break the hex with the suppression bracelet on. I needed magic to remove the bracelet.
I needed the bracelet off to use magic. Knowing the way a circle of dogwood worked, it might also be just the ticket to stop Millie from ghosting her way out of custody. If I could get it off of my wrist, and onto her...
It would be a few days—maybe even a week—before I built up enough mana burn firepower to bust out of the restraints using sheer force. Angel had assured that. Even so, the bracelet wasn’t the only devastation I could expect if I let that dam break.
No. I had to find another way out of this.
What does she want? That was simple: Alex’s head on a platter. But now her plan was shot, Nick was on her trail, and if he had half the emotional attachment she’d intended, he was calling friends to join his search.
She had to act quickly.
I ran to the door and looked out. Millie was standing about fifty feet away, cell phone pressed to her ear. She cast me a glance before looking away.
Shit. Was she talking to Alex? Telling him where I was, and hoping he was dumb enough to make his move so she could make hers?
I whipped around to face the living room. There had to be something. A couch, a coffee table, an old television, a wood-burning stove.
A stove. Matches.
And the couch looked old, too. Flammable. She couldn’t hand me over to Alex if I was dead, and that meant lifting the hex to get me out of the house.
But I’d still be bound. No—that plan was no good.
No knives. I looked back down at the bracelet. It was sturdy and thick, constructed of a single quarter-inch rope woven around itself into a two-inch wide band. I held it to my ear to listen to the wards she’d laid.
It was tamper-proof, or nearly so. The windy tune of a flute was barely audible under the white noise of the ley line, and the presence of the dogwood fibers stifled some of it.
No knives. Rookie mistake. The dogwood suppressed my ability to command magic. The wards were laid on the rope that was meant to protect the dogwood from magical tampering.
But the rope... There was nothing to protect the rope, and I didn’t need magic to tamper.
Chapter 33
I WENT BACK TO THE kitchen, opening every cabinet and drawer. Towels. Boxes of cereal. Paper plates and plastic cups.
I went back to the wood-burning stove. Where were the matches?
Millie still wasn’t back, but I didn’t trust her to leave me for long. She knew me too well.
How did one start a fire without magic? The wood would be stacked outside, and the kindling...
I spied a stack of old newspapers inside a paper bag under the kitchen sink.
My heart dropped as Millie’s footsteps approached. I reached inside the bag and felt around the sides.
Nothing. I lifted it, going for the stack in the back against the wall.
And there, under the bag, was a book of matches. I grabbed them and opened the book.
Four matches. And the book felt damp. I silently cursed the idiot who chose to store matches under a sink and ripped one across the striking strip.
It flared to life in my fingers. I looked up to see Millie’s wide eyes as I held it to the band.
She charged at me and I closed the rest of the matches in my fist, but I knew she would get them if she got too close. The woman robbed banks, and my fingers weren’t even made of steel.
I had to keep moving.
I jumped the couch and whirled around the wood stove, jumping on top of the coffee table before slipping right into her grasp.
“Umph!”
I looked at Millie in shock. Most of me had fallen through her and onto the couch, but my arm—and the bracelet—had smacked her right in the gut.
Another rookie mistake. The bracelet wasn’t a uni-directional suppressant.
I got to my feet and punched her in the face with it. Millie reeled and landed back on the couch. She clutched her bloodied nose.
I pulled and struck another match, holding it to the bracelet. The white rope started to char and turn ashy.
Millie swatted the match from my hand and made another grab for the book. I could hear the magic building in her like thunder in the distance.
She was going to fire off a spell, ley lines or no.
I could see the exposed dogwood inside the rope. Swallowing, I looped my finger next to it and prayed.
Snap!
Millie’s spell stopped mid-cast as her jaw fell open. My heart skipped a beat.
The bracelet hung limp in my fingers.
Millie turned and bolted for the door as I silenced the hex that kept me in the cabin like a child closing a music box. I ran after her.
With the bracelet tight in my grasp, I ran through the evergreens and down a steep slope. I could barely hear the sounds of her enchanted gloves making a distortion in the static of the ley line. If I lost that clue, she would disappear into the forest and I would lose her.
Until she came back to try to kill me again.
Chest heaving
for air, I ran on. Tree branches and brambles ripped at my arms and legs as I charged on, blindly following the sound of Millie’s gloves. I tugged at the bracelet at I went, unraveling the braiding into a longer strand.
It wouldn’t hold as well, but I didn’t need it to. Just long enough to subdue her.
When I started to hear the familiar sounds of my warded jacket, I knew I was getting close. Too close.
Another tremor ripped through the ground.
The thought of Angel trying to jump it and falling unconscious to the ground flashed before my eyes. I knew it was risky casting near a ley line.
But I slammed my fist into the ground anyway.
The tremor rammed against my force field, sending rocks and pine needles flying into the air like confetti. It rippled past me like a tidal wave and directly in front of me it rebounded, going back toward Millie but with less force. The trees around me twisted and bent in protest, the wood screaming as trunks finally splintered and fell.
I rose and made a final sprint toward the sound of my jacket. Millie was just ahead of me, thirty feet away. She stumbled as the diminished wave rolled beneath her but recovered quickly after casting a look over her shoulder. I saw the fear in her eyes.
Twenty.
Ten.
I whipped the dogwood rope around her neck and grabbed the back of my jacket. She went down and I shoved her face in the dirt as I dug a knee into her back. I ripped off her gloves and my jacket and she snarled in protest.
It took all of my focus to keep her spell work at bay, but I managed to keep her solid as I took the rope from her neck and used it to tie her hands instead.
I flipped her onto her back. She glared at me through the forest debris stuck to her matted hair.
And the words she said next would haunt me for a long time.
“I know the truth about your father.” Her lipstick was smudged. She was still bleeding from where I’d punched her in the nose. “You will never find him. You will never free him. Not without me. I know where he is and how to get him out.”
Bold words from a woman who was about to spend the rest of her natural life imprisoned in her own mind.