Not Just Voodoo

by Rebecca Hamilton

  “When you were born, your mother ordered you be placed somewhere safe. And her wishes were honored. But it was always part of the plan that one day you would return home and take her place as queen.”

  I shake my head at that. “No. You can make me stay, but I’m not going to be queen of a people who would kidnap my best friend!”

  Alessandro bites his lip. “I think you misunderstand, Hadley. I do not work for your mother, and I do not want you to be queen. That’s why you’re here.”

  “I’m here because you don’t want me to be queen? So, you’re just gonna keep me locked up here forever so that they can’t make me queen?”

  I really hate vampires. Apparently they’re all out of their minds. Maybe being alive for centuries will do that to a person.

  He runs his thumb across his lips. “You see, your human father did not want you ever to be called back to this life. He feared you would be in danger as a Halfling, and he sought us out. I’m not sure if he was foolish or brilliant, but he did manage to come to a compromise. A way to protect you, to keep the Vampire Court from finding you.”

  “But you still found me.”

  “That’s because I’m the one who put everything in place. And in exchange, he agreed to bear the curse of your immortality for you.”

  “My what?” It’s all I can do to keep my mouth from gaping open as I stare at him.

  “Immortality,” he replies calmly. “One of the benefits conferred to a halfling by a vampire parent.”

  My human father had taken immortality away from me? Not that I was sure it was anything I wanted. Still, seems like I should have had a say in that.

  “So my father is…a vampire now?”

  “Was a vampire,” Alessandro says. “He didn’t adapt very well to our lifestyle and was staked shortly after his turning. We didn’t have the chance to cure your immortality before he died, but I vowed I would get it done. And if you stay here, we can do that for you. After all, that was your father’s dying wish.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “Something’s missing,” I say. “What’s in it for you?”

  His smile tells me I can’t trust a word he says. “Nothing. I’m simply a man of my word. But there is one thing you should know.”

  I perk an eyebrow. “Yes?”

  “If you leave this place a Halfling, Iris will die.”

  9

  I have a lot of time to think once I’m back in my cell, mainly about the things Alessandro had said to me in the dining hall.

  I’m simply a man of my word.

  That’s bullshit. I don’t believe for a second that Alessandro always makes good on this word. However, I do believe that he makes good on his threats, and telling me that Iris will die if I leave here a Halfling is enough to make me to think twice before I do anything rash.

  I punch my pillow into shape and lie back on the bed. There must be a reason Alessandro wants me to be human. Although that’s what I want for myself, something about him wanting it, too, makes me fear letting him cure my immortality.

  At the same time, I didn’t sacrifice myself only to get Iris killed in the end anyway.

  So this is the choice I’m apparently faced with. Allow Alessandro to keep me here and cure my immortality—which I’m certain he has an ulterior motive for wanting to do—or escape before he gets the chance, damning myself to the curse forever and losing my best friend in the process.

  In short, if I leave this place, I’ll have eternity to think about how I got my friend killed. But I don’t know what the tradeoff is if I stay. Part of me feels like I could never make a decision with such unknown variables. The other part of me feels like I could never make a decision that would result in my friend’s death.

  I hear shouting from outside my cell and climb out of bed to peer out my cell window. Pressed up on my toes, I can barely make out some movement down the hall, heading this way. A struggle between two guards and a man they are dragging. The man’s kicking his feet as they carry him down the hall, and his head hangs forward to help counterbalance the movement .

  “Where is she?” he shouts. When he twists to resists the guards, I see his face.

  Finn.

  “No,” I whisper, my hand coming to my mouth.

  I push up farther onto my toes, until my toenails ache from the effort, trying to see more through the small window. As he’s hauled past my window, his gaze meets mine, and his expression softens. It’s as though the whole world stands still because he’s looking at me, and my heart is either fluttering from some kind of emotion—or from sheer panic over what they might do to him. Probably both.

  My hands press flat against the door as I press closer, trying to keep him in my line of sight as they cart him off down the hall and away from my cell. I can only see out the window on this angle so far before he’s removed from my sight.

  I pace the room. I don’t know what to do. As long as I’m in this cell, I’m helpless. If I leave… I shake my head. I can’t leave.

  I can’t stay.

  Another voice presses into my mind. Stay calm.

  I recognize it immediately. It’s Finn.

  I’m not sure it will work, but I try speaking back to him. What’s going on?

  I’m going to get you out of here.

  I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. You can’t.

  I can. I was captured on purpose so I could get closer to you. I know how to get you out of here.

  I grind my teeth together. I know how to get me out of here, too. Or at least, the first step. Some loose screw in a chair in my room. The thing is, I haven’t decided yet if I want to escape. I brace myself to tell him that.

  I’m not sure it’s a good idea for me to leave. Where’s Iris?

  She’s safe. With Esme. In the long pause before Finn “speaks” to me again, I can imagine his eyebrows pulling together. What has Alessandro told you?

  Hmmm. So he knows Alessandro. I wonder how, and why, but again, don’t really have time for those questions. I tell him what Alessandro told me.

  Finn corrects me immediately. Your father didn’t want you cured. He wanted you protected. Alessandro is the one who killed him.

  It’s hard not to picture my father as the man who raised me. This “father” of mine everyone keeps mentioning is a faceless figurehead. And yet, knowing he once existed and doesn’t anymore leaves this empty feeling in my chest. An emotion I don’t have time to process.

  Instead, I ask, Why?

  Alessandro’s nest is the second biggest in the world. If he kills the Queen and there’s no heir to the throne, he’ll be able to overthrow the Vampire Court. And the kind of power and authority that comes with a position like that could end human existence as we know it.

  How do you know all this?

  Esme told me when I met up with her to deliver Iris into safety. That’s why I came here. I had to tell you.

  If I leave here, Alessandro will kill her.

  And if you don’t leave here, someone else will.

  The weight of his words slams into me. What the hell does that mean?

  Iris’s a decoy. Your decoy. When you were born, the Vampire Court put a magical signal inside your friend to ensure you would never be found. If anyone got close to finding you, the signal would make the hunter believe that Iris was the future queen—not you.

  A decoy? Is she … is Iris real?

  Finn’s mental tone is soothing. Yes, and she’s really your friend, too. The Court implanted suggestions in her parents to encourage a friendship—but the relationship is real.

  A magical decoy. That must have been why Alessandro kidnapped Iris first. But it hadn’t stopped him from getting to me.

  Finn continues, As long as you’re alive, Iris’s life will always be in danger. Alessandro isn’t the only person who wants to get their hands on you.

  Great. So if I leave here, Alessandro will kill Iris. If I stay here, someone else will kill her, thinking she’s me.

  But I’m still not sure what to
do, and I’m really wishing I had my tea leaves to ask right about now. Alessandro is an immediate threat. I don’t know when, or if, anyone else will find her. Maybe she’s still better off if I stay here.

  What if I become human? I ask Finn.

  Then she’s as good as dead anyway, he replies. As is the rest of humanity.

  The rest of humanity? Oh, no. That reading I’d done for Iris hadn’t specified who she’d help save the world. Is it me?

  I brush away the questions without projecting them to Finn. The answers can wait—and they won’t matter at all if I don’t get moving. I swallow, trying to work up the nerve. The only way to save my friend is apparently to put her life at risk. I don’t like it. But I know what I need to do.

  We have to get out of here.

  10

  It turns out the reason I couldn’t shift was because Finn wasn’t there earlier. Because we’d performed the shifting spell together, our abilities are linked now. It’s also what gives us the ability to communicate mentally—but only when we’re close enough to do so. That was why Finn had gotten himself arrested to reach me.

  I’m still not sure how I feel about that—the being connected to Finn part. If we survive this, I’d definitely like to get to know him better. But as it stands now, we’re little more than acquaintances fighting on the same side of a war I don’t understand. To be so deeply connected to someone I barely know feels a little…uncomfortable.

  Thankfully, he can’t hear all my thoughts. Only the ones I send to him. So I don’t have to worry too much about him overhearing how cute or brave or noble I think he is. At the same time, it leaves me completely in the dark wondering what he thinks about me.

  Of course, none of that matters right now, but as I’m unscrewing the loose screw from the chair in my room, my mind can’t help but wander.

  Finally I get the screw all the way out. I look down at it in my palm, then close my hand around it, feeling the way it digs into my flesh a little. Somehow, this gets us out of here.

  I press my lips together as I look around the room. This isn’t going to pick any locks. It’s too small.

  Then a thought strikes me. What if it’s not the screw? What if it’s part of the chair? Removing the screw had freed a leg of the metal chair, so I pick that up and consider what it might be good for. I mean, it’ll make a great weapon once I’m out of here, but that doesn’t do me much good at present.

  Finn sends his thoughts pulsing into my mind again. Did you get the screw?

  Yes. I look at it one more time, shaking my head. I drop it into my pocket, though. Just in case I’ve misinterpreted the vision and really do need it. But that’s not what we needed, I continue. We needed the chair leg.

  To do what?

  I chew the inside of my lip and shake my head, turning in a slow circle to inspect the room. I don’t know yet. But then, as my gaze lands on the window, I get an idea. I’m gonna try to pry off the bars on the window.

  I push my bed close to the window and step on top of it, then stick the chair leg between the bars. If I can lever it correctly, it might move the bars enough for me to fit my hands through and open the window. Then I can shift and fly out of here.

  Of course, I could break the window, but something tells me the sound of glass breaking in my cell won’t work in my favor.

  I lever the chair leg enough to put pressure against one of the bars. At first, it doesn’t seem to be having any impact, but then I realize that while the bar is not bending, the crumbling concrete I noticed earlier appears to be eroding more. The pressure is loosening the bar.

  What’s going on, Hadley?

  I give another firm push. I think I almost have it.

  With my next effort, a big chunk of concrete falls from the windowsill to the bed with a soft thud. I brace myself at the sound. It wasn’t very loud, but right now, every sound seems like an alarm going off. I freeze, then peer over my shoulder to see if anyone’s coming.

  The coast is clear, so I swallow and turn back to my task. The bar goes a little deeper into the concrete, and it takes another few pushes before enough concrete has fallen away to expose the bar. I’m able to dislodge it with a little muscle, and I place it gently on my bed before moving back to try to open the window.

  The entire time I’m working, I’m nearly holding my breath. I remind myself to breathe as I fuss with the manual lock.

  There appears to be some kind of combination lock on this window, I moan to Finn. You’d think they’d be happy enough with the bars.

  In truth, I never would have dared dream it would be that easy.

  Any numbers recently come up in your tea-leaf readings? he asks.

  No.

  Think, Hadley. You must have seen something.

  Now he’s getting on my nerves, and I wish there was a way to block him out. I’d have remembered something as important as a life or death combination!

  Unless…unless I hadn’t thought it was important.

  I grind my teeth together, remembering my first reading of the day. There were three numbers, exactly as there are three spots on this combination lock. But I’d blown those numbers off as unimportant. I’d needed the acorn, the wheel, and the bird. Not some meaningless numbers.

  Meaningless numbers that mean everything right now.

  Footsteps echo through the hall, drawing closer. I don’t have a lot of time, but I can’t rush my thinking. If I do, I’ll panic, and it’ll take me longer to remember those numbers.

  I close my eyes, trying to get a picture in my mind of my tea leaf reading earlier.

  But it doesn’t work. I’ve got nothing.

  And as the door to my cell bursts open, I know my time is up.

  11

  This is it. Fight or flight, almost literally. With Finn close by, I could totally shift. But we need to take this nest out. Originally, that’d been part two of our hastily devised plan. Escape unnoticed long enough to attack them while they weren’t expecting it. But that window closed before it ever opened, just like the real one in my cell. Now our best odds are to kick ass on the way out.

  I adjust my grip on the metal chair leg and hope it’ll be enough to fight off a vampire. Something tells me that’s a tall order. But considering I’m part vampire, too, I’m hoping I have some super strength and speed of my own to tap into.

  As one of the vamps from earlier—Carden—comes at me, I raise the chair leg and swing. It practically bounces off him, sending a painful shudder through my elbow and up to my shoulder. Not my brightest moment, but it isn’t as though I’ve had a lot of time to think this through. This wasn’t part of the original plan.

  As he swoops his arms around me, I shift. This time goes a little smoother than the first two times I shifted, and Carden seems to find holding onto my bird form a lot harder than my human one. I fly out of the room and down the hall, peering into each cell window, hoping to find Finn.

  I assume he must be in the one filling up with some kind of smoke. That’s the kind of day I’m having. I panic and almost lose my flight, but regain control over the wind beneath my wings before I force myself away from his cell to scout the halls for something I can do to save him.

  Seeing nothing there, I turn back, calling to him in my mind. Finn? Where are you?

  There’s no answer.

  Meanwhile, more vampires are filling the halls, and I’m out of ideas. Somehow, I need to find Finn and kill these mother-suckers…and let’s face it. I’m no match for a vampire, despite being half vampire myself.

  I’m outnumbered. Even if I could find Finn, we’d still be outnumbered. And still human—or mostly human. Somehow, though, we need to take out this entire nest. Apparently the second biggest nest to the Vampire court itself. I’m really not feeling this right now.

  I flap my wings back to Finn’s cell. I can hardly see inside from all the smoke. From under the door slivers a small snake, and then Finn materializes in front of me.

  Hadley!

  Thank God. You okay?


  He nods, then opens the door from the outside with a key, letting out all the smoke. It fills the hall, obscuring us from view of the vampires. But it won’t be enough to keep them from bumping into us if they run down the hall.

  How did you—?

  Stole the key off a guard earlier, but it only works from the outside. He shifts into bird form and flutters to my side. Hey, did you have that screw on you when you shifted?

  Uh, yeah, I answer, distracted by his decision to open his cell door. Why are they pumping smoke into your room?

  They aren’t. He flies down the hall, back the way the guards had carted us both in when we’d been captured. I started a fire. The flames should take out a few of them.

  Finn’s heading toward the exit, but at that revelation, I realize I have my answer. I know how we can kill off the entire nest.

  I turn around and fly as fast as I can toward my cell. Finn’s voice pings in my mind as though he’s still by my side. We have to leave now! There’s too much smoke—you’ll suffocate.

  When I reach my cell, I peck at that cheap pillow until the stuffing bursts out. Then I grab a beak-full and head back to Finn’s cell. The fire is burning in a corner, and I dive toward it with the cotton, letting some of the fibers catch the flame. Then I bolt through the air back toward the entrance and drop the fire-starter on an exposed wood ceiling beam.

  Soon, Finn has taken note and is zipping by me, helping me spread the fire from room to room. Between that and knocking over a few wall sconces, the fire is almost everywhere. The beams above start to crack and fall, bringing the fire down to the ground. Already, a few of the vampires have caught fire.

  I don’t think it will be enough, I tell Finn. Not with these stone walls and dirt floors. We’re gonna have to drop these firebombs on the vampires directly.

  I got it, he says. You go. I’ll meet you outside.

  Like hell. I fly past him, into the smoke and flames. With some of the vampires already taken out and the rest in a panic, I shift back into human form. I’ll be able to do more if I have my hands to work with.