FOURTEEN
It wasn’t easy watching her leave. Victor leaned against the doorframe, unsure of what to do with himself. He smiled to himself. She brought something out in him, something he thought he had lost a long time ago.
Hope.
He didn’t feel like staying in. The cool air tempted him into the streets, and he didn’t resist. The cold air and rain of the middle of fall would soak him, but he had no need for a coat. His wolf side kept him warm in the coldest of climates.
Snowscapes and grassland popped into his head. Where he had lived in Minnesota with the pack had been a wonderland for wolves where they could run free, hunt, and love.
He shook his head; he didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole—not tonight. He let his mind wander as he walked the street. He knew she would be back. He could feel it in his bones.
***
The drive to Seattle only worsened Alexi’s already anxious mood. Even the view of the full moon hanging in the sky couldn’t distract her. Something wasn’t right. The only person Alexi could think of that had it in for her and was also powerful enough to summon this demon was Illyana. The wounds Alexi had inflicted on the witch at their last meeting would have been enough to kill a normal human—but Illyana was far from normal.
She glanced at Savanna. Nervous energy rolled off the girl. Like a mouse in a cage, Savanna huddled up against the door, her oversize coat pulled close. Neither of them spoke. Alexi was still a long way from trusting the two Arcanum agents in the front, regardless of what Connor had said about being on the same side.
“How long?” Alexi asked.
“A few more minutes,” Sing said. “Listen, we’re not authorized to share much. The director isn’t thrilled that we’ve had to come to . . . someone like you for help. These are pretty extenuating circumstances, but still.”
Alexi prickled. “You don’t know a damn thing about me.”
“We know that you’re not like the rest of your kind,” Connor piped in. “I don’t know how many vampires you’ve met, but the fact that we’re even having this conversation with you is kind of a miracle.”
Fair enough. Alexi had met only a couple of vampires, and both of them had seemed like they needed killing.
“Vampirism is . . . well, before they’re turned, some vampires seem like decent, normal folks. Something about the change, though. It makes them killers. Every last one.” Connor caught her eye in the rearview mirror. “Except you.”
Not for the first time, Alexi wondered what made her so different. If she was different . . . why?
“Hey,” she whispered to Savanna, “you okay?”
Savanna sighed. The light played with her violet eyes and reflected on the tinted window. “She killed someone. Again.”
“It’s not your fault, Savanna. You can’t control her, and you’re not responsible for her.”
The two sat in silence. Alexi wished for their telepathic link. At least with that, they could talk freely. Sadly, it only worked when she fed on Savanna, and her friend needed her strength for magic.
“If we find her, we kill her,” Savanna said quietly. “I don’t want this hanging over my head for the rest of my life.” The venom in Savanna’s words was almost chilling.
“We’ll stop her,” Alexi said. “I promise.”
Sing took them off the freeway just before the city proper and into the southern industrial zone. The ballparks, warehouses, and train tracks gave the area a steel worker vibe.
Alexi mentally nodded at the cleverness of housing a secret agency there. Delivery vans, semi-trucks and trains probably came and went at all hours. No one would notice one more vehicle in the night.
The warehouse they pulled up to looked like all the others on the block. A big sign out front showed a chubby man in a chef’s hat. It read “Fat-Man’s Bakery.”
“So, the bakery—is it just a front or does it really exist?” Alexi asked.
“It has to,” replied Sing, “or people would miss the smell. Hard to work off those doughnuts. So good.”
“You and your damn doughnuts, man,” Connor said with a grin.
Sing slipped one hand into his coat, and one of the warehouse’s cargo doors creaked open. He maneuvered the SUV into the cargo bay, coming to rest inside a painted yellow square with a sign that read “Emergency—Do Not Block.”
Alexi reached out to open the car door then paused when neither of the Arcanum agents made a move to exit the vehicle. Moments later, the car shuddered as hydraulic lifts whined, lowering them into the ground.
“Pretty James Bond,” Alexi said with admiration.
“We don’t lack for resources. What we do lack for is—” Sing paused at a glance from Connor. “Well, anyway. Here we are.”
The bakery disappeared and was replaced by a small parking garage. Through thick glass on one side of the enclosure, Alexi saw an open room with several desks and computers. Sing parked the SUV next to a gleaming row of identical vehicles. Outside the office area, they paused as Sing waved a security card over a sensor. It beeped, and he pushed through the glass door.
The office looked more corporate than government, with large, slim displays and sleek equipment dominating each desk. Not the dinosaur tech one might expect in a subsidized office. Aside from that, everything looked . . . ordinary. One desk held a planter in the shape of a head, with several stalks of bamboo growing out the top like thick, curly green hair. An impressive-looking coffee machine sat on a corner countertop, with a handwritten sign pinned to the wall beside it: Drink the last joe, make some mo.
“Coffee? Tea?” Connor offered them.
Alexi waved away the offer. “So . . . what exactly is it that you need from us?”
Connor motioned to Sing, who left the room. “I want you to meet the twins,” he said, pouring himself a cup of coffee and tearing open a packet of sweetener. “I think they can help us find our demon and maybe put an end to it.”
“You can’t kill it,” Savanna broke in with sudden conviction. “You know that, right?”
Connor seemed taken aback. “Uh . . . well, no, actually. We didn’t. And that’s why you’re here.” Motioning for them to follow, he led them to a secure elevator. He flashed his ID at the wall, and they waited.
“Sing?” Connor directed his voice at a camera Alexi had not noticed, mounted discreetly in the corner of the elevator. “Is the sunstone off?”
“Just a sec—” crackled Sing’s voice over the intercom.
“You have a sunstone?” Savanna asked Connor, eyes wide.
“We’re not too popular with a certain segment of the supernatural community,” Connor said. “At one time, infiltration was a big problem. Mostly vampires. We lost a lot of good scientists and engineers.”
“Good to go!” came Sing’s voice over the intercom, and the elevator surged to life.
“A few years back, our researchers found an arcane formula that can imbue a gem with sunlight,” Connor continued, taking a sip of his coffee. “Now we mass-produce them for security.”
“That’s incredible,” Savanna said.
“So a sunstone would do to me—” Alexi began.
Connor nodded. “What it would do to any other vampire, I imagine. Poof. That’s why I had Sing run up ahead of us and shield it. Somehow it doesn’t seem like it would be polite to invite you here and then—” He made a gesture with one hand, imitating an explosion, and offered her a crooked smile.
The doors dinged open, and half a dozen smells hit Alexi with brutal force. Her nose crinkled in disgust.
“Sorry,” Connor muttered. “It’s not so bad after a few minutes.” The room was a mess of old computer parts, tools, and discarded coffee cups. Display cases lined the walls, and every available surface was covered with piles of books and empty takeout containers. The click-clack of keys echoed through the room—blindingly fast. Whoever was here, they could probably type faster than Alexi could speak.
Connor led them to the back room where a bank of computer m
onitors cast an eerie blue glow on everything. Sitting with her back to the door and hunched over a keyboard was a girl about Savanna’s age. Her dark red hair hung down in a bob around her shoulders.
“Deirdre?”
The girl jumped out of her chair and clamped a hand to her chest. “Yer gonna give me an effin’ heart attack, you wanker!” She stood and turned to face them. “Can’t a guy get a little alone time once in a while?”
Alexi frowned, craning her neck to see what was on the screen. Oh! Wow. So that was the kind of alone time Dillon wanted. She snapped her head back. Apparently Savanna had noticed it as well, as her cheeks had flushed a bright red.
“Uh . . . this is Dillon McIntyre,” Connor said. “Dillon, these are our guests.”
“Well, I reckon so!” The girl—guy?—leaned back and grinned at Savanna with what could only be described as a leer. “’Ello, darlin’! What say you and I find a quiet corner around here—I promise to be a perfect gentleman.”
Connor cast an apologetic glance at Savanna and Alexi. “Dillon, we need to talk to Deirdre.”
Dillon frowned. “She’s sleepin’. Come back later. Maybe after I’ve had a chance to talk to this little crumpet.” He winked broadly at Savanna, and Alexi noticed that his eyes were almost opalescent, shifting from green to blue. “Yer a right beauty,” he said to Savanna. “They don’t let me out to play often and never with a class act like yerself.”
“Dillon, I’m afraid I have to insist,” Connor said. “Wake Deirdre up.”
“What if I don’t want to, ever think of that?” Dillon snapped at Connor. “All you do is come down to talk to her. I’m the one who does all the work.” He hunched his shoulders, stomped back to the computer chair, and flopped into it, one leg slung over the arm. “Come back later.”
“Sorry, Dillon,” Connor said, and then whispered, “Mutatio.”
As he uttered the strange word, Dillon jerked upright in the chair, his body shuddering. Then his shoulders relaxed, and he looked around, running a hand through his hair as though he had just awakened.
“Damn it,” Dillon—or rather, Deirdre—muttered. She reached over and hit a key on her keyboard. The porn vanished. “Uh, sorry, folks. My other half’s a complete jackass.” Her body language and mannerisms had completely changed, as had her accent. Alexi thought she could detect a slight Irish lilt, but it was so soft that she couldn’t be sure. Deirdre’s eyes had also settled into a definite shade of blue.
“Your . . . other half?” Alexi asked.
Deirdre raised her eyebrows and then cast an annoyed glance at Connor. “Really? Couldn’t you have warned them first? God, Connor, you’re almost as big a jerk as Dillon.”
“Sorry, Dee,” Connor said with a smile. “You just explain it so much better than me.”
“Well, then go make yourself useful and get me a coffee or something.” She waved one hand at him, and he disappeared with a chuckle.
“So . . . you’re . . . possessed?” Savanna began awkwardly.
“Not exactly—although that’s a pretty natural assumption,” Deirdre said. “Basically, I’m two people in one body. When I was about sixteen, I started having these blackouts. I would wake up places I didn’t remember going, and I’d found out I’d done and said stuff that . . .” Her expression took on a disgusted cast. “Let’s just say the other guy doesn’t have a lot of respect for boundaries, and he doesn’t have to deal with the consequences of his actions, so.” She shrugged. “We don’t agree on much, really, and we certainly don’t have the same lifestyle. The Arcanum keeps us locked up here—which is really the best thing for both of us, even though I know he wouldn’t agree. I work on their projects and use their resources to try to find a way to reverse what’s happened to me.”
“Wow.” Alexi shook her head. “I’m sorry—I am just having the weirdest month. Every time I think things can’t get . . . well—”
“Weirder?” Deirdre offered. “It’s okay, you can say it. Of all people, I know how strange it is.”
Alexi grinned. “Almost makes being a vampire seem kind of normal.”
The smile vanished off Deirdre’s face. “A what?” Her whole body tensed as she looked around. “What the hell happened to the sunstone? Connor?”
“Easy, Dee. She’s a vamp, but she’s our guest,” Connor said, returning with a cup of coffee. “We shielded the sunstone so it wouldn’t hurt her.”
“Are you out of your damned mind?” Deirdre had risen from her chair and taken a step back from Alexi. “Who signed off on this?”
“You know we wouldn’t be here if Monique hadn’t given the okay. Look, she’s—well, I don’t know if she’s on our side, but she’s not our enemy.” Connor put a hand on Deirdre’s shoulder and shoved the cup of coffee into her other hand. “It’s okay. Have a seat.” He turned to Alexi with an apologetic expression. “We didn’t give anyone the heads-up that we were inviting a vampire here because we didn’t want it to get around and cause problems. Fighting vampires isn’t all we do, but it is a pretty big part. Deirdre is the one that cracked the code on the sunstone. She has an innate grasp of the science of the supernatural, so she works on all the defenses we use against . . . well, you. So to speak.”
“So . . . would she have any insight on why I’m so . . . different?”
“Well—” Connor began.
Deirdre’s eyebrows shot up. “Is she the one?” She looked back at Alexi with sudden curiosity. “The holy water and the crosses didn’t even phase you.”
“To be honest, I thought he had spit on me,” Alexi said, glancing at Connor.
Deirdre clapped a hand over her mouth as a laugh escaped. “That’s so interesting. I would love to—”
“Dee, that’s not why we brought her here,” Connor interrupted. “As interesting as it is, we do have another more pressing issue.”
“Right, demon,” Deirdre said with a nod. “Kind of a big problem.”
“So far, the demon has killed a new victim every third night,” Connor said. “We need a plan to find it and stop it.”
“I can divine it,” Savanna said. “I just need a place to work and some time.”
Deirdre’s eyes narrowed at Savanna. “A mage, eh? Won’t you need some sort of link for divination?”
“No. I mean . . . . . . yes, I do, but I already have it.” She looked down, shame coloring her face. “I’m the link. I’m a witch, not a mage—and the person who summoned the demon is my mother.”
FIFTEEN
Savanna fidgeted in the back of the SUV. Deirdre sat between her and Alexi, looking as though she would rather be anywhere else. Savanna couldn’t blame her. Witches and vampires were two of the most dangerous groups in the supernatural world—and traditionally the least concerned with the loss of human life. At the same time, Savanna wasn’t exactly comfortable with Deirdre’s presence, either. Something about her unnerved Savanna, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.
It was almost time. The divining had gone well, and the vision had come to her easily with minimal blood. The vision itself was cloudy and indistinct like she was accustomed to, with more emotion conveyed than actual images or sensations—and nothing like her bizarre, vivid vision of the future. She still couldn’t make heads or tails of that, and she hadn’t wanted to broach the subject with Alexi until she knew more.
“So, bullets?” Sing was asking her. “You don’t think those will work against the demon? Not even a little?”
Savanna shook her head. How long had he been talking to her? “No, demons have incredibly thick skin. And, like most otherworldly beings, they’re not completely in our reality, if that makes sense.”
“So they exist partially on our plane and partially on another,” Deirdre said. “That’s kind of . . . cool, really.”
“Not so much,” Savanna said. “It means you can’t kill them—”
“Because they’re not really here,” Sing finished with a nod.
“Not entirely. Enough to kill others
but not enough to die themselves,” Savanna said.
Deirdre frowned. “That doesn’t seem particularly fair.”
“I don’t think fair really enters into any of this,” said Alexi. “At least, not from where I’m standing.”
“You can banish it, though?” Connor said to Savanna.
“Yes,” she whispered, suddenly realizing that everyone was looking at her.
“We’ll do what we can to give you an opening,” Sing said.
Alexi caught her eye and mouthed the words, It’ll be okay.
Savanna wished she had even a fraction of Alexi’s confidence. She knew that she was technically capable of banishing the demon. But what if she was too slow and someone was hurt or killed? What if she . . . forgot a word or a symbol? What if, what if, what if? Savanna buried her face in her hands and took a few deep breaths.
“Almost time,” Sing said. “Dee, remember—stay in the car. You’re just here to observe.”
“Aye, don’t worry about me. I’m gonna get this bloody thing on video.” Deirdre held up her phone. “Once we see this thing in action, we’ll have good material to help train new agents.”
“Be careful,” Savanna said. “These things are . . .” Powerful didn’t seem a strong enough word. There wasn’t any way to adequately describe it to someone who hadn’t seen one in action. Her mind flickered back to a memory she had tried to banish for two years—the demon she summoned tearing through her mother’s coven, killing everyone. So many dead in a matter of seconds. “Just . . . be careful,” she finished lamely.
“One minute to go,” Connor said.
Connor, Sing, and Alexi all got out at the same time. Savanna watched them, realizing that Alexi moved the same way the agents did. Smooth and purposeful. A remnant of training from a life she could no longer remember. Savanna wondered what it would have been like to know her before.
Cold air rushed in through the open doors. Her position was behind the truck. They’d given her the chalk she requested, and as soon as the demon showed itself, she could prepare the ritual. She just needed a few minutes to do it. If he left in that time, all would be for naught. And if someone got killed trying to keep him there—no, she couldn’t think about that.
With the Dawn (Faith of the Fallen) Page 12