Deadline (Blood Trails Book 1)

by Jennifer Blackstream

  Isai was following her orders, though he raged against the idea, obviously hated her. Just like his relationship with Anton. Which meant… My head throbbed, and I closed my eyes, focused only on breathing for a moment. Which meant…

  Memories peeked into my mind, hesitant, cautious. When I didn’t suffer an aneurysm, they grew stronger, became clearer.

  “You incompetent wretch. How could you miss such an obvious spell? The spell someone else was using to spy on you.”

  “She’s used spells to spy on wizards who never noticed a thing. The only way to even sense the spell is to use a potion or a wand, something physically bonded to the magic that will touch the energy of her spell.”

  I stared at Isai, then Dabria, then back. An epiphany pressed against my mind. I just—

  My eyes flew open wide, my lips parting in sudden realization. “You figured out she was spying on me.”

  Isai’s mouth never lost its perpetual sneer, but there was a flicker in his eyes, a moment when he looked away, refusing to meet my gaze. Dabria paused with her lips on the edge of her teacup, dark eyes peering at me over the rim.

  “Is she still delirious?” Dabria asked.

  Isai’s jaw tightened. “No.”

  “But that's not possible.” My head throbbed and I winced, leaning back into the pillow. “She’s too good. You couldn’t have known just by looking at me, seconds after looking at me.” I tried to force my pain-addled brain to work faster. “In fact…you knew before you saw me. You were already mad when you opened the door.”

  Pressure built behind my eyelids, rolling to the back of my head like a tide thick with heavy-bodied sharks, threatening to pop the top of my skull off like a champagne cork. I clenched my teeth. I needed the pain to stop and let me think. My fingers felt ten times as thick as they should have, barely twitching when I tried to move them and trace out a healing spell. Before I gathered the will to push through the discomfort, force them to obey me, I remembered the wards.

  Dabria’s blue dust hadn’t worked, the spell as harmless as a summer breeze. Arianne had activated the wards. My plan had worked—sort of.

  I abandoned the healing spell and flailed for the end of my train of thought. “You knew about the spell before you saw me, so you had to find out about it from someone else.” I looked at the sorceress. “You.”

  A smile curled Dabria’s mouth. “Very good, witchling. Yes, I called Isai.”

  “Shut up,” he growled.

  She ignored him, and I didn’t think any other reaction would have infuriated him more. “He called me after Anton hired you. So frightened, so scared we would get caught. He’s hired a PI, she’s going to figure out what we’ve done.” Dabria snorted. “Of course, I knew seconds after meeting you that it was a joke. You’re just a witchling.” She rolled her eyes. “I called him from the parking lot. Told him he was worrying for nothing and to keep his head. Or else.”

  Solving that one small mystery did miraculous things for my head. The pressure eased, and my thoughts flowed more freely, though I was far from pain-free. “You guessed she’d try to spy on me.”

  Dabria snorted again. “Well, I would hope he could put that together. It was the same spell I worked on him. Fool me once,” she added.

  I lifted my head to gape at Isai. “You shouted at me and called me incompetent…when you fell for the same thing?”

  Dabria laughed, a sound of pure joy. “He yelled at you?”

  I scowled, anger chasing back more of the pain. “Yes, he did. Ranted on and on and on, in fact, called me names, said I was incompetent. I thought he would strike me, he was so angry.”

  The sorceress laughed, shaking her head at Isai. “Shame on you for being so hypocritical.”

  More puzzle pieces fell into place, each mystery solved giving me a vital piece to the next one. “Blood and bone, I know how you did it.” I shut my eyes and flopped back on the bed. “What an idiot I am.”

  I sighed and opened my eyes to look at Isai. “You did it. You did it all. You forced your way into Helen Miller’s mind. That’s what killed her. Then you killed the guards, dropped the wards.”

  Isai ground his teeth, but said nothing. His face did erupt with a few more red blotches.

  “But you didn’t know she was spying on you.” I glanced at Dabria. “Hit the jackpot, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, my, yes,” she breathed. She set her empty teacup on the table and let out a sigh of pure contentment. “I’d been trying to get this old goat to let me into my sister’s castle for years, but he was so stubborn.” She rolled her eyes. “I had no idea he was so mistrusted by the vampire that the castle had been warded twice. That’s why I failed to break them, failed to get inside.”

  She sniffed. “I resorted to spying on him, hoping I’d catch him going into the castle himself so I could figure out how to get in. Then to see him break into the vault, steal that book…” She clapped her hands, a little girl’s glee lighting her face. “And he took down all the wards. All those pesky wards that prevented me teleporting in.”

  “You teleported in, knocked him out, and took the book,” I finished. “Left him lying there in front of the vault, knowing Anton would think it was him.”

  “Because it was him,” she finished, an evil, satisfied glint in her eye.

  “But you couldn’t open the book,” I said.

  She shrugged. “It took longer than I would have liked, yes. But I figured it out. I have a sample of Vera’s blood, and now all I need is the light of the full moon and Anton’s secrets will be mine.”

  “Mine, you mean,” Isai snapped, striding forward.

  Dabria glared at him and rose from her seat. “No. Mine. Until you get me into my sister’s castle, the book is mine, and only mine.”

  “Or whoever wins the auction,” I pointed out. I gave Isai the most innocent look I could manage with my nerves threatening mutiny if they didn’t get a healing potion soon. “You did know about the auction, right?”

  Isai’s eyes widened and he stared at Dabria.

  She shrugged. “Just in case you fail. Again.”

  “We had a deal,” he said, his voice hoarse, his hand shaking where it gripped his staff.

  “Our deal was the book for entrance to the castle. If you do not fulfill your end of our bargain by the full moon, I will auction it off to the highest bidder who can get me past those wards. I will have my sister’s legacy!”

  “That’s why you’ve been going around begging for help with wards,” I said to Isai, pricking at his pride, urging him to get even angrier. Angry wizards made mistakes. It would likely make him even angrier if he realized he’d killed the other wizard who’d warded the castle, so in fact could now access Serafina’s castle any time he wanted. He could finish his deal with Dabria now and be done with it.

  I kept that to myself.

  “In his subtle way,” Dabria agreed, annoyance thick in her tone. “I’ve met pixies with more tact.”

  There was still one thing bothering me. I furrowed my brow. “But it was the perfect crime. Anton only suspected you because of your reputation, and your visits to Isai. Why set the bomb at my house? You were in no danger from me.”

  “But Isai was,” she pointed out. “He tried to put suspicion on Flint with his little ritualistic killing of that oaf Tybor, but, of course, that was a complete failure. Then I spoke to Arianne myself when I arrived in town. She mentioned you, said you had offered her protection against Isai.” She quirked an eyebrow, eyeing me with new consideration. “You insulted her. I daresay you have made a rather powerful enemy without meaning to.” She shrugged. “I needed you gone before you found evidence to accuse him.”

  She met my eyes then, and there was a cold finality there. “In twenty-four hours, it won’t matter what Anton knows. But until then, I’m afraid I’m going to need to hold on to you. And I’ll need the name of who else knows. You seem like the stubborn sort, so…”

  I barely saw her hand move. Pain erupted over my body, burrowing
trails of agony clawing down my body as if an eight-headed dragon had breathed fire in multiple streams down my entire form. My vision went white, my brain halting all processes, trying to dump me into shock to avoid the coming torment.

  I didn’t know how long I lay there, how long my body remained taut, arched off the bed as every one of my muscles contracted and froze, helpless against the spell. I regained my senses to find myself lying in what felt like a pool of blood. Tears slid down my face, pouring from my eyes with no permission from me. It was another eternity before I could move.

  Dabria waited, once again seated in her chair, letting me come back to myself in my own time. She lifted her teacup, and steam wafted from the fragrant liquid inside. I’d been unconscious long enough for her to get a fresh pot.

  “Tell me,” she whispered. “Tell me the name of this person. There’s no reason to keep it from me. I won’t hurt anyone. I just need to keep an eye on them, make sure they don’t speak out of turn to the vampire.”

  “No.”

  Dabria’s face darkened with rage, a red flush filling her pale cheeks like an old thermometer about to burst. “You little fool,” she snarled. “I’ll make you wish you were dead.”

  “I already wish I was dead,” I mumbled. “Anything to escape you and that awful shade of purple. You look like you fell ass over teakettle into a tainted cotton candy machine.”

  Her eyes widened and Isai let out a loud guffaw, slamming his staff on the floor to punctuate the sound.

  Dabria’s attention swiveled to him, and something brushed my ear.

  “Shade!” Peasblossom whispered.

  My eyes widened, and I quickly wiped all expression from my face and held perfectly still. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t risk giving away Peasblossom’s presence.

  “Arianne found Andy,” she said, speaking under her breath directly into my ear. “She figured out what you were up to, and she was angry. She dropped the wards in this room. Says she’d going to let you suffer the consequences. She has people in the rooms on either side holding up wards to limit the collateral damage. She’s going to punish Isai and Dabria when they leave, but…but…”

  But that wouldn’t save me. Dabria was now free to torture me with magic as much as she pleased. I closed my eyes.

  “I’ll fix it!” Peasblossom promised. “Hang in there!”

  I opened my mouth then, needing to tell her to save herself, but the pressure on my ear vanished, and I knew she’d gone. I collapsed against the sheets. Peasblossom. If anything happened to her…

  Don’t think about it. Think about something else. Like the torture that’s coming your way. It was little consolation that Dabria could have tortured me without magic too. I didn’t have a high pain tolerance, never had. Too sensitive. Hysteria seeped into my brain, the only protection I had left against blind panic.

  “I could never get a tattoo,” I murmured.

  The voices stopped, then Isai growled. “Now who’s the fool? You hurt her too badly—she’s nonsensical! How will you get the information?”

  “Can’t you take it out of her mind like you did with Helen?” Dabria snapped.

  “No! She’s lived between planes for most of her life. It would be hard enough to erase a swath of her memory. Finding something that specific would be impossible!”

  “Would it be hard for a vampire to erase my memories?” I asked, realizing with a start that my eyes were closed.

  Isai muttered something, and heavy footsteps paced the floor.

  “I will get the information,” Dabria said, irritation thick in her tone.

  A cool hand touched my leg, chilling my skin through my leggings. The pain faded away. It was like being placed in a cool stream on a raging hot summer day, water flowing over me, washing away the heat and grime and sweat. I felt clean, calm, and pain-free.

  With the physical comfort came clarity. Dabria had just used a healing spell on me. After a pain spell. She could keep the pain going…forever.

  My realization must have shown on my face, along with my new clarity. Dabria smiled down at me. “Now, where were we?”

  “You’ll never find them.” Fear washed up the back of my throat on a splash of bile, my thoughts threatening to scatter like so many mice before a hungry owl. Dabria was sitting too close. She looked like an angry, feathered chess piece, but that comparison didn’t make me feel any better about being tortured by her, didn’t make my imagination less creative in thinking of everything she could do to me. “If you don’t let me go, they’ll go straight to Anton. You think I came here without taking precautions?”

  Isai’s long legs ate up the distance between the wall and the bed in two strides. The bored expression he’d worn while Dabria tortured me melted under a sudden fury. “You little wretch. What have you done?”

  “Calm yourself, old man,” Dabria said. “She’s bluffing.”

  “And what if she’s not?” He glared at her, pools of melted gold illuminating his eyes as his power responded to his emotions. “If someone goes to the vampire now, then your grand scheme is finished—then we are both finished!”

  My heart rose a little higher in my throat, threatening to cut off my air. “I’m not bluffing.”

  Dabria rolled her eyes. “Yes, you are.” Isai opened his mouth, but she held up a hand to silence him. “Regardless of what I think, we will soon know the truth of it.”

  Sometimes the gods get bored and decide to have a joke at we mortals’ expense. I had one of those moments now as Dabria reached down to take something beyond my field of vision. When she sat up straight again, she held something in her hand—a dried-up scorpion. She held it up to the light, a dull glow glinting on the dead arachnid’s brittle exoskeleton.

  A semi-hysterical voice in my head wondered if she’d gotten it from The Cauldron.

  Cruel pleasure twisted her features as she leaned closer, making sure the scorpion stayed in my line of vision. I couldn’t look away, couldn’t drag my eyes from the evil coming toward me. My brain, cleared from the haze of pain by Dabria’s considerate healing spell, was now all too equipped to provide me with frightening images of what was coming. What that scorpion would do to me.

  “Cease the theatrics and just do it already!” Isai said. “It is already dark. The vampire might summon me at any moment.”

  “And if that happens, you will run home like a good lap dog and serve him,” Dabria said, apparently annoyed at having her dramatic moment ruined. “I can handle things here.”

  “Why did you do it?” I blurted out.

  Dabria and Isai both stared at me.

  “Do what?” Isai asked.

  “Break your word. You gave Kirill your word that you would serve him for another five hundred years, but you betrayed him. How could you do that, knowing what it might mean for you?”

  Isai curled his lip. “You mean the old wives’ tale that I’ll lose my magic? That my spells won’t work if I’m forsworn?”

  Dabria quieted, as if she too were interested in the answer.

  “It’s real,” I insisted.

  Isai scoffed. “In the Old kingdom, perhaps. But not now.” He gestured toward the window. “Look around you, witchling. The gods don’t care about honor anymore.”

  “Yes, they do. But even if they didn’t, there are other consequences.”

  “You refer to demons and the fey.” Isai shrugged. “It is true, most of them will not do business with a wizard who is forsworn. But then again, once I have Kirill’s empire, I will not need them, will I?” He stared at me. “Wizards are not like witches or sorceresses. We are not gifted magic by some mysterious patron.” He glared at Dabria. “We are not born with it. Wizards get magic because they want it, because they want it bad enough to go out and find it. We learn magic through study, and it takes ambition for someone to become a truly great wizard. You have no idea what I had to do to get where I am.”

  “A vampire’s pet?” Dabria suggested.

  Isai’s face turned red. “I am the most
powerful wizard the Old Kingdom—indeed, any kingdom—has ever seen! That bloodsucking corpse is no more than a petty thief who rode to greatness on my shoulders!”

  “That’s not even a little bit true, and the fact that you don’t realize it is what makes you a servant, not some contract,” I said.

  “You—”

  I spoke over him. “You have no idea what goes into running Kirill’s empire, what went into building it. He doesn’t trust you enough to let you see those details. Having his book won’t get you anything but a list of names. It’s nothing more than a box full of car parts, and you’re no mechanic.”

  The analogy went over his head.

  “The vampire is weak. He is always more interested in the future, always chasing the next prophecy, instead of seizing the opportunities before him now.” He sneered at me. “Like you. The vampire is more interested in the future, in what you will be, rather than what you are now.”

  My heart skipped a beat and I strained against my bonds. “What? What do you mean, he’s interested in my future? What will I be?”

  Isai’s eyes glittered with malice. “You will be nothing.” He raised his hand. “Save your parlor tricks, Dabria. I will make her talk.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. It was that instinct that made me miss what happened next.

  A loud popping sound peeled back my eyelids with all the suddenness of a loose Venetian blind. Fear and confusion made me slow on the uptake, and it wasn’t until I saw the room’s newest occupant that I realized what that sound had been.

  A gunshot.

  CHAPTER 18

  Flint held a gun in his hand, his arm extended toward the spot where Isai had just been. His grip remained casual, as if he were used to the weight and shape. He wore black jeans and another black T-shirt just tight enough to accent every line of muscle, but loose enough to appear casual, almost careless. His clothes matched the gun, but I had the semi-hysterical thought that was probably a coincidence. At least, I didn’t think he accessorized to that level.