New Blood

by Gail Dayton

  Jax went to the door and rapped. “I’m hungry. Do you intend to starve me too?” He asked it again in French.

  “Best if your stomach is empty.” The answering voice sounded young, sympathetic, and spoke English. An apprentice? Or journeyman, maybe.

  “Can I at least have some water? My head’s pounding and my mouth’s gone to dust with the damned magic you’ve thrown at me.”

  “I’ll ask.” Footsteps clomped away again.

  Jax tried the door. It didn’t even rattle in the frame. Likely they’d added locks and bolts when they hatched their plot.

  More footsteps returned than had left. Must mean he was getting the water. A young man, over twenty but not by much, opened the door and handed Jax a mug with perhaps an inch of water in the bottom. Another man stood behind him in the shadows.

  “It’s best if your stomach is empty,” the guard said again when Jax stared incredulously at the scant swallow of water. “Given how you reacted to the first attempt.”

  “Did it occur to anyone that you might kill me, trying to break the familiar’s bond?” Jax held the water in his mouth a moment before swallowing it. He handed the cup back when the young man gestured for it. “What’s your name?”

  “Esteban.” The young man—a conjurer, according to Jax’s borrowed magic sense—gave him a pitying look much like that of Mikoyan. “Wouldn’t you rather be dead than a slave?”

  “No, actually I wouldn’t. Particularly since I’m—”

  The door shut in the middle of Jax’s protest, but he finished anyway. “—not a slave!”

  Damn and blast. They wouldn’t hear anything he had to say. The next hours promised to be very bad.

  His stomach was growling again when the door opened to admit Mikoyan, Esteban, and two other magicians, one blond, one dark like Esteban. Another man stood in the corridor outside, in the shadows where his face could not clearly be seen.

  “Will you come peaceably, or must we carry you out?” the Russian asked.

  Jax weighed his options. Four, or presumably five against one were not the best odds, especially since they were every one of them magicians. The two new faces were as young as Esteban, so might not have reached Mikoyan’s master level, but he had no way of knowing. Why start the pain before absolutely necessary?

  He stood. “I’ll come.”

  Then Esteban and the big blond man produced leather restraints.

  No. Oh no. He’d been restrained before. He had never liked what happened after. Esteban reached for his wrist and Jax exploded into motion, shoving one man into the next, fighting toward the door. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t be bound helpless like that. Mikoyan’s air spell tripped him, knocked him flat.

  “No!” he shouted, lost in the panic. “No—Amanusa! Amanusa!”

  He continued to struggle, despite the weight bearing down on his chest, his arms. He couldn’t let them do it, had to fight, even though the fight was hopeless. His vision went black, the weight crushing the air from his lungs—and she was there. Amanusa, warm and wonderful in his mind.

  Breathe, she whispered, her magic filling his veins, making breath possible. What’s wrong? Why are you—?

  The memories were already exploding through his mind, reaction to the leather cuffs that had triggered his panic. Metal shackles, ropes could be borne. They meant only pain. But leather—that meant worse. That meant Yvaine was giving him away to someone for sexual purposes, someone whose tastes he didn’t share. It had been too long. He’d lost the way of it, of enduring. He couldn’t do it.

  She flowed through him, embraced him. I’m with you. I won’t leave you. Where are you?

  “Don’t know,” he gasped, and realized he’d spoken aloud. Unconscious, he thought. When they brought me here. Didn’t see.

  “What did he say?” someone asked.

  “Get him downstairs.” This voice spoke English, but with a different accent. Not Russian, not French—but familiar. It had the flavor of a translation stone. Who? “Before the witch can animate him.”

  Jax bellowed when buckles pulled leather tight around his wrists and ankles.

  Peace. Amanusa held him tight. I’m coming.

  They hauled him to his feet and propelled him out the door, the air spell still tangling his limbs, weighing them down.

  Not alone, Jax thought at her. They are too many—five of them, at least. They want to set me free. To break the binding spell.

  So that’s what—Amanusa cut off her thought.

  “What?” Jax demanded aloud.

  “Did you have to make him so heavy?” the darker man complained.

  “Would you rather fight him all the way, Paolo?” Mikoyan retorted. “Just move.”

  You felt it. Jax went still with horror when he understood. You felt what they did to me. He couldn’t bear it, knowing his pain had reached her, that the bastards had hurt her too. He reached for his “no.”

  Jax, don’t shut me out. Amanusa’s own panic flared through him. I need the connection. I need it to find you. I can bear the pain. I’ve borne it before. Worse.

  All the more reason you shouldn’t have to bear this. He paused. “I love you, Amanusa.”

  He said it in his heart and his mind, and aloud. He wanted them all to know, even if none would believe him. Then he pushed her out and locked down the connection, Amanusa’s anguished cry echoing in his head. The bond was still there, but she couldn’t reach him through it. She was protected.

  The kidnappers hauled Jax down three flights of stairs and into a parlor cleared of everything but a polished dining table moved into the center of the room, sofa and chairs pushed against the wall, apparently for resting in when they tired of their labors. Jax was lifted atop the table and placed on his back, thankfully with his clothing in place.

  He was fastened down, arms stretched over his head, and when he was pinned helpless to the well-waxed walnut, Paolo began placing candles, while Esteban marked sigils on the table around Jax’s body. Jax assumed the blond man—Oleg, they called him—was a wizard. He hadn’t confirmed it before locking away the magic-sense Amanusa shared with him.

  Jax tried once more to reason with them. “You say you’re doing this to free me from slavery.”

  “We do not say,” Mikoyan replied. “We do. We set you free.”

  “A slave is a slave because he has no choice. You are taking my choices away from me.” He yanked on the wrist restraints, trying to pull his arms down, bring them in for protection. He knew he couldn’t, but he couldn’t stop himself from trying. He hated this.

  “We are giving you your freedom,” Mikoyan said.

  God, they were stubborn. “Even if it kills me.” Even if it killed her. Would it? Jax didn’t know.

  “If you are dead, you will be free.” Mikoyan seemed to have appointed himself their spokesman.

  “I will be dead! Just because that is your choice doesn’t mean it is mine. Damn it, I don’t want to die!” Not now, when he’d discovered so much to live for. Amanusa didn’t love him, but she was fond of him. It could grow into love, if he had time.

  “We will take every precaution to ensure that does not happen.” Mikoyan stepped to the foot of the table where Jax could see him without having to crane his neck. “You have been so ensnared in the witch’s spells you do not know your own mind. You do not know how to choose. We will break the spell, then you will be free to choose as you wish.”

  “And if I choose my wife? Will you break the bonds again? Or must I choose as you want me to in order for you to leave me in peace?”

  Mikoyan exchanged a glance with the man in the shadows, at the opposite end of the long table, beyond Jax’s outstretched hands, where Jax couldn’t see him. Paolo began lighting the candles as Mikoyan went on.

  “When the spell is broken, you will be free to choose as you wish. But when it is broken, you will see the evil for what it is. You will understand what has been done to you, and you will not wish to return to your chains. Instead, you will demand recompe
nse for your servitude.”

  Jax wanted to tear his hair in frustration. Fortunately for his hair, he couldn’t reach it. “Did it occur to you that I am three-hundred-seventy-something years old? If you break the spell, you may have nothing but a mouldering corpse on your dining table.”

  “Then you will have the satisfaction of having lived a long life.” Mikoyan nodded at Oleg the wizard, who blew an herbal mixture into the flames of Paolo’s candles.

  Jax banged his head on the table. “Is that it? You’re jealous that I’ve lived so long? God, if you only knew—”

  The magicians ignored him as they began to chant a Latin formula. If someone had tried this when he was bound to Yvaine, would he be fighting it? In the early years, before he’d outlived his family, probably not. Even later, he likely would have welcomed the attempt to free him of Yvaine. But Amanusa had already done it. She’d set him free.

  There was a tremendous difference in being tied to someone without understanding what you’d agreed to, and tying yourself because you loved them and couldn’t bear living without them. With Amanusa, with the double blood-bond, he was free to be the man he always should have been.

  Pain jolted through him and he let it out with a bellow of sound. He’d learned that a long time ago. Pain was stronger than he was and he proved nothing by keeping silent. Shouting helped. Maybe the pain didn’t actually ride out of him on the shout, but it seemed as if it did. And the noise always seemed to gratify those causing the pain.

  The agony intensified. He yelled louder, straining against the hated restraints. And he felt Amanusa probing at the edges of his mind. Grimly, he shut her but.

  “Get the gag,” Mikoyan said as the pain faded for a moment. “If he keeps screaming like this, he will disturb the neighbors and we do not want a visit from authorities, or anyone.”

  Esteban’s face hove into view, his eyes filled with pity. As he pushed the rolled leather gag between Jax’s teeth, Jax pleaded silently for help. Esteban flushed and looked away, focusing on getting the gag snugly buckled. “Where did you find these things?” he asked. “The restraints and all?”

  “At a mental asylum,” Mikoyan said. “They are used to restrain the inmates in a manic state, to prevent them injuring themselves. They will do the same for Mr. Greyson.”

  Jax pulled deep inside himself, using defenses he’d long ago learned, removing himself from his body. The pain would still hurt, but it would flow through his body and out his mouth in a scream. The gag muffled screams. It didn’t stop him from screaming.

  He found his blood bond with Amanusa, there at his core, and curled himself around it, making sure her awareness was safely barred from entry, all his permissions retracted. He would endure. Or he would die. But Amanusa would be safe.

  The pain lashed through him, inside to out. Endlessly.

  ———

  Amanusa searched for Jax the rest of the day, keeping to herself that she’d lost her sense of him, that he’d cut her off. The bond was still there. That couldn’t be severed. He was still hers, she was his. But she couldn’t find him.

  She watched the crows, hunting for some sign of their Crow. But they all looked alike, all acted the same. It seemed that more of them gathered as the search progressed through the city toward the hill of Montmartre, but she couldn’t be sure, and she had to be. Jax’s life depended on it. No one could bear that much pain and live. The heart would simply give out. Give up.

  And she couldn’t help him. Couldn’t send magic to sustain and soothe him. Jax had cut her off.

  I love you, Amanusa. He said that, and then he had shoved her out and barred her way back in.

  If he loved her, how could he do that to her? How could he push her away and leave her frantic with worry? He was the one who’d called out to her to begin with. He’d called. He’d reached. And she came. She would always come, just as he would always answer her need. Except now, when he thought he was protecting her, the idiot man.

  “Amanusa. Amanusa.” Elinor had hold of her arm. “That’s it. I’m taking you home, back to the hotel.”

  “No, I have to find Jax.” She pulled out of Elinor’s grasp, and stumbled into Vaillon.

  “I must agree, madame. You should rest.” Vaillon handed her back to Elinor, and Harry.

  “I can’t. I have to find him.” Didn’t they understand? But how could they? They weren’t the ones bound heart-deep.

  “Amanusa.” Elinor took her arm in a firmer grip and walked her toward the hired carriage waiting at the corner. “You are so tired you can scarcely keep walking. You’re so tired, you can’t use your magic to locate him. You’ve hesitated at every turn for the last hour. It’s dark. You’ve been awake since dawn when you fought off a terrible magic assault and—”

  Elinor blushed. “And I doubt you got much sleep last night. You’ve been running yourself into the ground all day, literally, and with all the magic you’ve used. You cannot find Jax until you get some rest.”

  “Grey’s arrived,” Harry said. “An’ the rest o’ the conjurers, now their spirits are awake. Most of ‘em, anyway. They’ll keep searching. Spirits are good at findin’ things that are lost. Especially people.”

  “Captain Vaillon…” Amanusa appealed to the policeman again. He’d been supporting her need to search.

  This time, he failed her. “Your friends are correct. You can do nothing more if you do not rest. Return to your hotel. Try to sleep. The conjurers will search during the spirit hours. In the morning, if your man has not been found, we will begin again with fresh energy.”

  Amanusa tried to break free as Harry led her to the carriage. He simply swept her into his arms and dumped her inside.

  Elinor gave him a look as she climbed in after. “You’d better come along,” she said. “In case she gives us trouble at the hotel. You’ve been at it all day, like the rest of us. A rest wouldn’t hurt you either.”

  Harry sighed. “Right. You’re right.” He climbed in too.

  Amanusa fell asleep in the carriage. She woke enough to walk into the hotel and climb the stairs to her suite with Harry and Elinor guiding. She didn’t remember anything after that.

  She dreamed voices.

  Chapter 29

  “It’s not working,” someone said. “Why isn’t it working?”

  “I don’t know.” This voice sounded unutterably weary. “It’s sorcery. Blood magic. We know nothing about how it works.”

  “We’ll have to convince him to share what he knows.”

  “He may not know anything. Why would the witch tell him how to break the spell binding him to her as familiar? Everything we have tried has done nothing but cause him pain. We want to free him from his slavery, not torture him. If we keep this up, we will kill him.”

  “Then he will be a free man.”

  Alarm skittered through Amanusa. Was she dreaming truth? Or was this merely her fear?

  The weary man sighed. “That is your choice, friend. Not his. He does not want to die.”

  “He doesn’t know what he wants. His will has been corrupted.”

  “Even so, a man should know if he is willing to die or not.”

  “He cannot possibly know!” This man was shouting now, angry. Amanusa thought she ought to recognize his voice, but she didn’t, quite. “One way or another, we will break the spell. John Greyson will be free of the witch. Or he will be dead.”

  Amanusa stifled her reflexive cry. She didn’t want them to know she listened, even if this was only a dream. What if it wasn’t?

  “Perhaps we could find the witch, persuade her to break the spell…” the weary man suggested.

  “You heard what Sergei reported, that police were everywhere, especially with the woman. She’s never alone. We must keep trying. In the morning, after we’ve rested.”

  Another sigh. “I can’t help feeling… if he dies with the spell still intact, she wins.”

  “No, we win. If we break the spell, we win. If he dies, we win, because we will have depriv
ed her of her familiar, and that will weaken her.”

  Dear God, if this was real, they weren’t doing this to “rescue” Jax. They didn’t care about Jax at all. She reached out to him and the magic locked in, flowing between them almost as if they touched skin-to-skin. She soothed his hurts, eased the strain on his tortured heart, whispered her love to his locked-away thoughts.

  A sharp rapping on the window brought Amanusa bolting upright in her bed, wide awake. Had it been real? Had she been able to reach Jax in dreams when he’d blockaded her out during wakefulness?

  The attack on the window glass came again, this time accompanied by a harsh caw. Amanusa stumbled out of bed to raise the window and let Crow in. No wonder her dreams were so twisted up. With the window closed, it was stiflingly hot in the room.

  No. Her dreams were tangled because Jax was missing. And if what she dreamed was true, he was in danger. She couldn’t waste any more time.

  Crow cocked his head and looked at her, seeming to say, I can’t leave you alone without you messing up, can I?

  “I know, I know. Have you found him?” Amanusa hunted through the wardrobe for one of her simpler dresses, one she could put on herself, that didn’t need too many petticoats. Crow stalked elegantly along the dressing table without answering.

  “Then why have you come, if you don’t know where he is?”

  Crow hopped back onto the windowsill and looked at her with his beady little crow eyes.

  “You do know?” Amanusa left off the last layer of petticoats and yanked her dress on. White. She might have to work magic and didn’t need to lose track of any blood. When her head emerged again from the depths of the fabric, she spoke. “And you can lead me to him?”

  Crow adjusted his wings as if settling to wait for her. Amanusa had to slow herself down as she buttoned up the front of the dress. She didn’t want to button it crooked, didn’t want to be rushing through the streets of Paris looking like a madwoman. Someone might stop her.

  She made herself take the time to button up the blasted shoes and at least run a brush through her hair and tie it back with a ribbon. Dawn was lightening the sky behind Crow. Time was critical. She had to find Jax.