by Lisa Edmonds
I couldn’t think of a downside to accepting. “Okay. I appreciate it.”
“I’ll keep an eye on the cameras until you’re safely away.”
“Thank you.”
“Goodbye.” Cyro disconnected.
I scrolled through my contacts and made a call. The phone rang once. “Miss Alice,” Bryan rumbled.
I took a deep breath. “I need your help.”
About thirty minutes later, tires crunched in the gravel outside the storage unit. My phone buzzed with a text message. Bryan: Your ride has arrived.
I texted back an acknowledgment and opened the rolling door. A black Vampire Court SUV was backed up to the storage unit, its engine running. I rolled the door closed, locked the padlock, and went around to the passenger door. I opened it and blinked in surprise.
“Hop in,” Arkady Woodall said. She was wearing a black jacket over a black shirt, black jeans, and tall black boots. Her blonde hair was back in a ponytail. The butt of a gun peeked out from under her left arm and I saw another in a holster on her right ankle.
“Sorry. I was expecting Adri.” I climbed into the passenger seat, put the box that had held the cuff on the floor at my feet, and dropped my messenger bag next to it. My door shut with a heavy sound. The Court had sent me an armored vehicle with bulletproof glass. Fancy.
She headed for the main gate. “I asked to come instead. Seatbelt.”
I buckled in. “Bryan told you why I needed a ride?”
“Yes. He let Maclin Security know the Court is taking over your personal safety until further notice.”
She slowed as she approached the gate. A second Court SUV waited on the street. Like ours, its windows were darkly tinted. I could only make out two hulking shadows in the front seats. The gate rolled aside slowly.
I glanced up at the security camera mounted above us. Somewhere, Cyro was watching and hopefully ready to erase the footage of our visit as soon as we were out of sight.
As we drove through the gate, she asked, “Where to?”
“My house, please.” My worry about Malcolm gnawed at me. Our link felt thin in a way it never had before and I feared for him. I needed to know how he was doing before I could do anything else.
Arkady turned left out of the drive and accelerated. The backup SUV fell in behind us as we headed east across the city.
“Catch me up on your case,” she said. “How did we end up here?”
I gave her an abbreviated version of what had happened since I was hired to recover the three magic objects. I left out the identity of my client and didn’t mention Malcolm.
As she listened, her eyes swept our surroundings as Sean’s did when he drove. I felt hollow without him next to me.
“What happens if you figure out how to get that cuff off and Jack Hastings tries to block access to Sean?” Arkady asked.
“I would hope he wouldn’t, for the simple fact that his alpha’s well-being should be more important to him than his objection to me. But if he does interfere, I’ll have to go through him.”
She glanced at me. “I’m your security against Kent Stevens, but I won’t be able to help you with Hastings if it comes down to that. As an employee of the Court, I can’t interfere in a pack disagreement.”
I’d figured as much. Interfering with pack business was a quick way for the Vampire Court to get sideways with the Were Ruling Council. “I don’t need your help against Jack Hastings.”
She smiled. “You don’t really think you need my help with Stevens either, but you need a ride home because you’re not sure if you can trust Maclin Security or anyone else from the pack without Sean in charge. I get it. If I were in your shoes, I’d be pissed about the whole thing too. That’s part of the reason I asked for this gig.”
“What’s the other reason?”
“Curiosity.” She slowed to make a turn. “Mr. Vaughan mentioned that he offered you a chance to be a Court investigator but you turned it down.”
I was somewhat surprised Charles had revealed that fact to her. “Did he say why I turned it down?”
“He said you preferred to run your own company and remain an independent associate of the Court. I assume there’s more to the story than that, since I’ve never known vampires to care very much about what a human prefers.”
In fact, he’d attempted to blackmail me into accepting, forcing me to turn the tables and do some blackmail of my own. Naturally, I didn’t reveal that to Arkady.
When I didn’t comment, she added, “I also found it rather interesting that after Stevens almost took him out, Mr. Vaughan’s first priority after saving Bryan Smith’s life was to come to your home to check on your welfare, in direct violation of Valas’s orders.”
“He disobeyed Valas to come to my house?” Hoo boy. I could only imagine how tongues wagged about that back at Vamp Court headquarters. This was not good news. I didn’t need anyone associated with the Court wondering too much about the exact nature of my relationship with Charles, or asking questions about why he’d allowed me to turn down his job offer.
“Valas ordered him to either come to Northbourne or go to Niara’s home. Instead, he jumped into the vehicle with Matthias and me and headed straight for you without even waiting for additional backup. And you answered the door in sheep pajamas.” Her eyes twinkled.
I crossed my arms. “I apologize for nothing. I love those pajamas.”
“I have a pair with cats sleeping on clouds. If you tell anybody that, I will shoot you.”
We exchanged a smile.
“So you were curious enough about me to take babysitting duty.” I dug in my bag until I found my bottle of water. “I’m not that interesting, honestly.”
“I’m also hoping Stevens shows up so I can shoot him in his kneecaps,” she said conversationally. “I liked Fortune.”
I took a deep breath and exhaled. I’d buried my grief over Fortune’s death by keeping busy, but her words brought it back full force. “He was a good guy.”
“We were sleeping together.” Her voice was flat, unemotional. I recognized that tone; I’d used it often enough myself when I didn’t want others to know I was hurting.
I stuck the water bottle back in my bag. “I didn’t know that. I’m sorry, Arkady.”
She gripped the steering wheel and stared straight ahead. “I’m okay. I’ll be better when Stevens is dead.”
I remembered the night Fortune died and Bryan was shot, when Charles had brought Arkady to my house. She had been entirely professional, hiding her pain from all of us while we dealt with the aftermath of Kent Stevens’s attack and the logistics of arranging protection for Charles and me.
I was no longer ambivalent about wanting Stevens to find me. Between Arkady’s guns and my magic, I liked our chances versus the former Marine. Sean hadn’t wanted me to use myself as bait, but something told me my new bodyguard might not object quite as strenuously to the idea.
First things first, though: check on Malcolm and try to figure out how to get the cuff off Sean. Then we’d see about arranging some payback.
When we got to my house, Arkady escorted me to my front door. I dropped the house wards briefly to grant her passage. Once we were safe inside, I gave her clearance through the wards, figuring my bodyguard needed to be able to get in and out freely without getting fried.
Once we were inside, Sean’s absence was like a punch in my gut. Everywhere I looked, I saw signs of his presence in my life, from the coffee mugs on the kitchen counter to the dishes in the sink and his clothes in the laundry room.
“Make yourself at home,” I told Arkady as I headed for the basement door. “I have to do some work downstairs. If you need me, call or text. Don’t try to come through the wards.”
“Got it. I’m going to make some coffee, if that’s all right.”
My chest hurt. I forced myself not to think about how Sean usually made coffee for us. “Help yourself. There’s some whole beans in the cabinet above the coffeemaker. The grinder is on the counter. Mu
gs are to the right of the sink.”
I left Arkady upstairs, closing the basement door behind me.
When he needed to jump to the safety of my basement, Malcolm ended up in a medium-sized blue crystal I kept on the work table. Unlike the crystal I’d kept him in after the blood mage’s failed attempt to recall him, he could release himself from the crystal in the basement. My worry grew when I realized he hadn’t this time.
When I picked it up, the crystal buzzed against my skin. Malcolm was still inside it. The buzzing felt thready, though. Something was terribly wrong.
I closed my fist around the crystal, shut my eyes, and carefully funneled energy into it. I sensed a tug on the flow of power, as if Malcolm was trying to draw more energy from me. He’d always said that being in the crystal was like being asleep, but he still had some level of awareness. He might be drawing on my energy out of instinct rather than consciously. Either way, if he needed more, he could have it.
I funneled energy into the crystal until I wasn’t sure how much more it could contain. My connection to Malcolm was stronger, but something was still off.
For better or worse, I had to know what kind of shape he was in. I took a deep breath, exhaled, and spoke. “Release.”
Malcolm appeared beside me. He was jumbled, like a puzzle still in pieces in its box. Slowly, as if it took a lot of effort, he reformed in human shape, but maybe half as opaque as normal and with hollow eyes.
“Are you all right?” I asked, my heart in my throat.
“I feel thin, like I’m not all here,” he said, his voice faint. “Where’s Sean?”
“I couldn’t get the cuff off him. It forced him to shift and he became aggressive. Jack darted him and took him somewhere.”
“Alice, I’m so sorry.” He floated back and forth slowly, as if trying to figure out how to move. “What should we do?”
“I’m going to figure out what that cuff is and how to get it off of him. What happened to you?”
“I tried to unweave the spells on the cuff and hit wards I’ve never felt before. The cuff was warded against ghosts or anyone who tried to interfere with the spellwork. I felt myself disintegrating.” He went quiet. “I thought I was a goner. When I jumped here, I didn’t know if I’d make it to the crystal or if I’d go poof and wake up somewhere else. Then, when I got here, I didn’t start regenerating like I normally do, and even with all the energy you gave me, I’m still not whole.”
His vulnerability and powerlessness made my heart ache. “We’ll figure out how to get you back to one hundred percent. What can you tell me about the magic on the cuff?”
“I didn’t recognize it.”
I frowned. “You mean you didn’t recognize the spellwork?”
He shook his head. “No, I mean I didn’t recognize the magic. The fire magic spellwork was easy to see and feel. What zapped me, and what made the cuff latch itself onto Sean, is some kind of magic I’ve never encountered before. It felt ancient. It wasn’t fire magic, or air, or earth, or water, or even blood magic.”
I recalled something Charles had said to me after the auction: Not all objects of power use the same kind of magic. I hadn’t sensed the magic in the Tepes stone, but it had power; I’d seen it with my own eyes when Charles used it to drain the vamp on the side of the road. I hadn’t sensed anything but fire magic on the cuff, but it clearly had much more than that in it. My studies in magic were extensive, but I’d encountered two new forms of magic in as many days and I needed to know more about both.
At this point, I’d take any clues I could get. “What color was the magic?”
He thought about it. “Brown? No, not brown. More like copper.”
Copper-colored magic? I’d never heard of such a thing. I didn’t know of any magic that was any shade of brown, but if Malcolm said it was copper-colored, that’s what it was.
Maybe the clue wasn’t the brown, but its variant shade. “So, it was a kind of dark golden brown?”
He nodded slowly. “You could say that. What are you thinking?”
“Shifter magic is golden. You said the magic felt ancient. What if it’s some kind of ancient shifter magic?”
Despite his depleted condition, Malcolm’s eyes lit up. “Maybe it was some kind of old shifter magical object and someone added the fire magic spellwork later?”
“That’s what I’m leaning toward at this point. It makes sense. The cuff didn’t react to me, so the spells must only activate when in the presence of a shifter.” I rubbed my forehead.
“Do you think Esther Aldridge knew the cuff was a shifter relic?”
I thought about it, then shook my head. “I don’t think she did. I didn’t sense any trace of shifter magic in her safe, which means that aspect of the cuff hadn’t been used while it was in her possession. She probably thought of it only in terms of what it did for her husband and never suspected it was anything more than that. Yet another good reason for non-mages to leave magic objects the hell alone.”
“The thing I don’t understand is what the damn thing is supposed to do. What’s the benefit of forcing a shifter to go furry and making him more aggressive?”
“Not all magical objects are designed to be beneficial.” I headed for my bookcases. “It could be punishment, or it could have been designed to harm the wearer outright. Or it might just have a mind of its own and do whatever it wants. If we’re right and it’s ancient magic, there’s no telling what it’s designed to do, or what it might be doing to him.”
“Do you want me to try to check on Sean?” he asked. “I have enough juice to get to him. I could keep an eye on him and let you know if there are any…developments.”
My heart hurt. I wanted to know that Sean was all right. My only other option was to call someone in the pack for updates, like Karen or Nan, but that might put them crossways with Jack. Despite what I’d declared to Jack about Sean and I being a couple, I had no formal claim on him, no authority to ask a member of the pack to go against the acting alpha.
“Please check on him for me,” I said finally. “Be careful and don’t let them sense you.”
He floated over to me. “You’ll figure this out, Alice. You’ll get that cuff off him and then you’ll deal with Jack. You and Sean are the real thing. You can’t let some stupid bracelet and a jerk beta mess up the second-best thing you’ve got going for you.”
“What’s the first-best thing I have going for me?” I asked, not quite sniffling.
He grinned. “Me, of course.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that. With a wink, he disappeared.
When he was gone, I went to work pulling books from the shelves and stacking them on the table. I grabbed anything on shifter magic or forms of ancient magic. I didn’t have much. When I finished looking through my library, I had only ten books in the pile, and I wasn’t sure any of them would have information that would be helpful to me. At times like this I sorely missed my library back at my grandfather’s cabal, which had been enormous. No doubt I could have found what I needed there. I sat down at the table and started skimming.
An hour later, I set the tenth book aside and sighed. As I’d feared, nothing in my library had anything helpful in the way of information about ancient shifter magic. I was also curious about the magic of the Tepes stone, but that had to go to the back burner for now.
I pushed my chair back, stretched, and headed for the steps. I’d almost forgotten I had a houseguest.
When I emerged from the basement, I found Arkady sitting on the couch. The TV was on, tuned to a news channel and muted.
She put down her phone as I closed the door. “Any luck?”
I didn’t tell her about Malcolm; the fewer people who knew about my ghost sidekick, the better. I shook my head. “I have a theory about what the cuff might be, but I’m having a hard time finding any information that might be helpful.”
“You could call Kim Dade, the Vampire Court researcher, and see if she has any ideas,” she suggested. “I’m not sure what she
’s working on right now, but I know you two are good friends.”
On the surface that sounded like a good idea, but I was reluctant to reveal too many details about the situation to the Court. Information was a valuable commodity, as Charles liked to remind me. There were other packs in the area, and any one of them might be interested in knowing the alpha of the Tomb Mountain Pack was temporarily out of commission. If that news got out, one of the other packs might try to make a move, and though Jack was no pushover, a beta—even a strong one—was not an alpha.
On the other hand, I could ask Kim about ancient shifter magical objects in general and see what resources she could point me toward.
“Not a bad idea,” I said finally. I sent her a text asking her to call me when she had a moment.
My phone rang as I was in the kitchen pouring myself a cup of coffee. “Hey, Alice,” Kim greeted me. “How are you holding up with all this mess with Kent Stevens?”
I added milk and sugar to my coffee and stirred it. “I’m hanging in there. I’ve got plenty of security keeping an eye on me. Arkady Woodall is over here now.”
“Stevens better hope the Hunters catch him before she does,” she said ominously. “What can I do for you?”
“This might be outside your area of expertise, but I’m needing to find some information about shifter magical objects, possibly of ancient origin. What are my best resources for that?”
“The Court has a pretty extensive library, of course. Do you know what you’re looking for? I could run a search.”
“I’m not exactly sure yet,” I hedged. “I don’t suppose I could access the library and do some searching?”
“Unfortunately, not without clearance,” Kim said, sounding regretful. “Is it Court business? You could ask Juliet LaRoche or Ezekiel Monroe for authorization if so.” LaRoche and Monroe were the daytime representatives of Niara and Valas, respectively.
“It’s actually personal. If I can’t get into the Court library, what’s the next-best thing?”
“Have you tried the MOP website?”
I frowned. “Really? The last time I used that, it was a mess. There was more false information on it than real.”