Stolen Secret

by Emily Kimelman Gilvey

  “Your blood is very human,” he said. Why thank you, thank you very much. “But it has more antibodies. It is—” He searched for a word. “—stronger. Stays oxygenated longer. You could sit at the bottom of the ocean, and you’d be fine.” I’ll have to try that sometime. “But it does not hold the answer to end zombies. I couldn’t make a vaccine from it because it wasn’t antibodies that protected you from the virus, from turning into a zombie. It was the magic in your blood; it’s a different texture than the zombie magic.”

  “My center is a red diamond. Theirs is a soft glowing yellow.”

  He sat on the edge of the table looking down at me, his bright blue eyes intense. “What does that mean?”

  “Can you see power, aura, influences?” I asked.

  * * *

  He shook his head. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Dimitri, who’d been leaning against a book shelf, pushed off of it, stalking toward us in that liquid way he had. Damn, the vampire could move. “Issa is young still,” Dimitri said, “but he can feel the chi of others,” he leaned against the opposite side of the library table, addressing Issa. “As you know, Vampires use their power to influence humans and other vampires. I can control you with mine.” He looked over at me and a soft smile stole over his mouth. “At one time I could influence Darling, but not now. It makes it easier to feed—suppressing fear and creating lust in a human makes the blood taste better, too.” I didn’t know that. “But vampires can not see aura as colors or shapes, just sense them.” He paused, his eyes unfocusing as he searched for the right words. “Darling’s aura…her power always felt different to me. I knew early that she was special. When I pulled up the lust, it came at me like a predator,” he smiled, his eyes finding mine, and his aura throbbed with yellows, reds and oranges—a mix of nostalgia, hunger, and lust. “A magnificent predator.”

  I blushed and dipped my head. Jeez, that was kind of sweet actually. Clearing my throat I turned to Issa. “I can see chi, feel it, and manipulate it. My power is a diamond of red at the center of me.” I placed my hand over my pelvis. “Zombies have glowing balls in their heads.” I touched my temple. “Humans, shifters, vampires…we all have auras I can see, too. They are a part of our power, an external manifestation of it. And emotions effect the color and shape. Zombies don’t have auras, at least I don’t see them. But I can see the life force inside of them.”

  * * *

  “She totally yanked their glowing balls right out of their skulls,” Megan said, grinning, all adorable and proud.

  “She what?” Tyronios asked.

  “She dropped about a million of them. Then torched them.”

  “Torched them?” Issa said.

  “That was a mistake,” I said. “I was just trying to hear the song that their energy made. But I ended up—” I cleared my throat. “—exploding them and bursting the bodies into flames.”

  Issa blinked slowly.

  “And I don’t think it was a million of them.”

  Tyronios stared hard at me. I met his gaze. He forgot to drop his and quickly lost focus. I released him, and he sagged in his chair. “I’m hungry,” I said.

  Dimitri stood, silently offering himself to me.

  “Hold on.” Issa held up a hand to stop Dimitri. The older vampire glared at his prodigy. Issa winced and dropped his arm, the lines of power between them pulsing red.

  “You forget yourself,” Dimitri said, his voice low and dangerous. Jeez, the hierarchy with this one.

  “I’m sorry,” Issa said through clenched teeth. “I just wanted to finish this conversation.”

  Dimitri turned his attention to me, and Issa relaxed. “Do you have the strength to continue?” he asked me, his voice gentle.

  I nodded. “You were saying we need my sister’s blood?”

  Issa nodded. “Yes, she is the ancestor of the architect of the spell. So her blood should work.”

  “And you need mine?” I asked.

  “I believe it can end the zombies. Your magic is the antidote.”

  My magic. I drummed my fingers on the table. Tyronios shifted in his seat, making the wooden chair creak. The vampires were as still as the books—even stiller. There was no slow erosion with them.

  I met Issa’s eyes. “What is your magic? The magic of vampires.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tyronios, you said that magic is like life and death—as inevitable as either. The grease that keeps the wheels turning. But there is no turning in a vampire.”

  “Yes,” Tyronios said.

  Something tickled at the back of my mind. “There is no music or art in vampires.” I shook my head. “No, that’s not quite right. There is music. It’s locked away though. When I tried to free it in Megan, she almost died.”

  “What do you mean?” Dimitri asked. His power floated around me, alluring, raising my hunger to a fever pitch.

  “I dove into her essence.”

  “How?” Tyronios asked.

  I felt like throwing his words back in his face—he wouldn’t understand. But I owed it to him, to humanity, to try to explain. “There is a way that you can lock down parts of a…” I searched for the word. I didn’t have language for this—it was just feelings. Just knowing. “I can become my power, put my consciousness in it. Maybe that’s why I can jump dimensions.”

  Tyronios’s eyes lit up. “Yes, that makes sense. In the void, you are nothing but consciousness. We can experience it when traveling through a designated portal. But cannot do it on our own because our consciousness cannot leave our bodies, not entirely.”

  “That is death,” I said.

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” Tyronios agreed.

  “But so, a vampire, the consciousness is still there, and”—I turned to Dimitri—“you can use your influence to control humans. You can force emotions on them or take them away.” Dimitri nodded. “But you cannot inhabit your chi.” He nodded again. I turned to Megan. “I can sense the music inside of you, and it is locked away. And if I unleashed it, that would end your existence… free your consciousness.”

  “Are we talking about souls?” Issa asked.

  I sighed. “I don’t know what the words for these things are. I can barely even understand what I’m doing. It’s instinct for me.” Exhaustion overwhelmed me.

  Dimitri laid a hand on my shoulder. “You need to feed.” Energy tingled between us.

  “You’re right.” I stood. “And then I need to go find my sister and get her blood.”

  Megan jumped up. “Are you sure you should go after her again?”

  “What choice do I have? Besides, I don’t think she can kill me.”

  “Why not?” Tyronios asked. Something in his tone made me think he had a theory as to why. I cocked my head.

  “What are you hiding?” I asked.

  His brows raised—all innocent old man but his aura clouded bruise purple with deceit. “Nothing.”

  “He is lying,” Issa said. “I can smell it.” He shook his head. “Amazing.”

  “I am not lying.” Tyronios frowned. “But I’ve wondered how she could kill you when everything we know says that only child birth can end you.” His chi cleared—he told the truth.

  Dimitri’s hand massaged my shoulder, and I leaned into him.

  “I’m not worried about her taking my diamond. But I don’t know how to find her,” I said.

  “The warlocks can locate her,” Issa said.

  He didn’t consider himself one of them anymore—that was quick. But I didn’t think of myself as human anymore. It took me more than a few days though. But I wasn’t transformed physically, just became aware of a hidden truth.

  “How can you find Ophelia?” Megan asked.

  Tyronios stood and cleared his throat. “We have some of her hair. We can direct you to her location in the worlds. Within a few hundred feet anyway.”

  “That’s useful,” I grumbled.

  “What?” Megan asked.

  I shook my head, but she h
eld my gaze, silently questioning me. “It’s dumb. I was just thinking—it would have been nice if my dad had sent a lock of my hair ahead, so that the society could find me. But, as we’ve discussed, then I never would have met you.” I smiled at her. “So it’s all for the best. I’m just tired.”

  “We will start to work on the spell,” Issa said, standing.

  “Great.”

  Dimitri put an arm around my waist. “Come.”

  Oh, I plan to.

  We had to be quick. I needed to get to my sister and gather her blood, but to be effective, I needed to feed. Dimitri’s hand fisted in my hair. His body pressed mine against the wall.

  He kissed me, moaning low in his throat. His power poured into me. My chi drifted into him as I held his face, keeping him right where I wanted him.

  Dimitri’s heart pounded once. He sucked in a breath, his mouth curving into a smile as he grabbed me at the waist, lifting me up, my legs circling his waist.

  “I dream of you,” he said.

  “Oh yeah?” I smiled against his mouth.

  “We are in the sunshine.” His lips moved against mine. “We make love on a hillside covered in wild flowers.”

  “What a romantic,” I teased.

  His mouth found my throat and a fang grazed my skin, sending shivers of want over me. “I dream that you are mine and I am yours.”

  I leaned my head against the wall, eyes closed. My chi played over him, pulsing with the energy he gave me. He would give me anything and everything.

  His heart thumped again, and my eyes popped open. The song. It was in him. I heard it. Carefully, I followed the sound. It grew louder as I searched, as Dimitri’s kissing became more urgent.

  Where was it? Where did it sit in the body?

  His hands found my breast, and I arched into him, my concentration fading but the song growing louder. Dimitri moved, carrying me, lips fused to my neck.

  He knelt, laying me on a soft surface. A couch? In the darkness it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but that song—the music we made.

  We made it together. I never heard it alone.

  Connection. Love.

  The blood of those who loved and lost—human blood. Flaws. I chased the thought and the song, but both alluded me. Dimitri pushed his power into me, offering his life in pure bliss.

  I tore at his shirt, wanting to touch his flesh. He did not age, did not rot. But zombies did. Humans did…

  He found my center, and I gasped, my mind blanking—I couldn’t concentrate on anything but him. Nothing but us.

  His touch became rough with need. I guided him into me. We both moaned as we melted. Dimitri rocked. My eyes squeezed shut against the pleasure. Colors exploded behind my gaze. Yes, yes, yes.

  The song rose, a crescendo. I fell over the edge, the music of the universe blaring inside me. Dimitri tumbled after me. Wrapped in each other’s arms—one and yet separate. Physical and ethereal. Particle and wave. All in one song. In one breath. In one union.

  Chapter Seven

  Issa wet his lips as his eyes scanned the symbols on the floor. He nodded to himself. The entire Warlock Society stood around us in a circle. Fear floated over them—a black cloud hovering above the group of thirty men. The only thing keeping them in this room with the three vampires and me was Tyronios’s promise of safety and their brotherhood. They trusted in their joined powers.

  “I still don’t understand why we can’t go with her,” Megan said. She stood behind Issa, arms crossed over her chest, hair pulled back into a ponytail that barely contained her wild, singed waves.

  Dimitri stood next to her, his body languid, eyes on mine. He needed to feed, but then his heart would stop beating, the humanity in him would fade away with each mouthful of blood.

  We stood in the basement ritual room of the warlocks again. Issa believed that, by using the dimensional portal to draw power, we could pinpoint my sister’s location, and the warlocks could bolster my ability to find her once in the void.

  “I told you,” Issa responded to Megan. “This will take a lot of energy, especially if Ophelia is hiding her location. If Darling tried to bring us along, it could drain her. We’re dead weight.”

  “No pun intended,” I joked. No one laughed. “Get it, dead weight?”

  Megan rolled her eyes at me. “I don’t like you going alone. Ophelia will have her backup. Her giant cat, ridiculously large eagle—”

  “And that pixie,” Dimitri shuddered. “That thing is nasty.”

  Megan glanced over at him, her eyes narrowing. “You sound drunk.”

  He gave her a lopsided grin, and she rolled her eyes again. Megan drummed her fingers on her bicep, frustration radiating off her in electric blue waves. She dropped her arms and turned to the circle of warlocks. The closest ones pressed against their neighbors, trying to get further away without actually taking a step.

  Hunger pulsed off Megan, and one of the youngest warlocks, his blond hair flopping over his face, swallowed audibly. “Leave them alone,” Issa said over his shoulder, his gaze back on the symbols on the ground.

  Megan sighed and turned to him. “You’re no fun.”

  “You’re being immature, taking your frustrations out on innocents.”

  She huffed a laugh and looked back at the young man. “Are you so innocent?” Her influence infused her voice, and he leaned toward her. He might be innocent, but he didn’t want to be.

  Tyronios stepped between Megan and the younger man. He met Megan’s gaze, and she grinned, showing fang, but then backed up, giving the old man space. “We are ready when you are,” Tyronios said to me.

  “Let’s go over it one more time,” Issa said.

  I nodded. “I don’t need a lot of blood—but it needs to be pure, as in not mixed with anyone else’s blood. So don’t let her cut me while I’m cutting her.” Issa nodded. “All right then.” I took a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”

  Issa nodded and stepped out of the circle. The warlocks parted for him, and he retreated with Dimitri and Megan, leaving the room. Apparently their energy interfered with the warlocks’ magic. At least that was Tyronios’s theory as to why Ophelia broke through the shield they erected around her when they pulled her into this world.

  The warlocks began to chant. Closing my eyes, I formed my chi into a knife, slicing through this reality into the void. I opened my hands, palms up, receiving the magic from the warlocks, taking the spell into my center.

  As my body disintegrated, I held their power, and when I entered the void, I released it. The spell glimmered, showing me the world to enter.

  I followed.

  Snow glistened under moonlight, sparkling in gentle swells. It lay thick and rounded on top of boulders. I stood on a mountain side. My breath crystallized in frigid air. My teeth chattered as my body temperature dropped.

  I warmed my chi, staving off the freezing cold. The snow that came to my knees melted, leaving me standing in a small circle of muddy grass. In the summer the grass must wave in long sheets of green.

  I turned, scanning the world I’d entered. Behind me a valley cloaked in snow and silence lay under a star-filled sky. Thick stands of evergreens weighted with snow glittered, steep cliffs shone white in the night. Darkness hid the finer details, but the sky above blazed with starlight.

  Did this place have electricity?

  “You’ve come to our world?” a voice behind me asked. I spun. The giant cat creature stood next to one of the snowcapped boulders, silver eyes burning with human intelligence.

  “Yes.” I stood taller, pushing my chi out and melting more snow. See, Cat Guy, I’m a badass too.

  “You are brave,” he said around the long canines that protruded from under his top lip. The feline’s voice was deep—his chest as wide as a bus, eyes as big as my head. His nose pulsed with each smoky breath. Whiskers as tall as me twitched.

  “As I’m sure are you.” I stepped forward, my power preceding me. He stood his ground when my chi reached his paws. “Take me to
Ophelia.” I did not use my influence to persuade him, but we both knew that I could.

  He turned his back to me and started forward, his long tail—striped in gold and black like the rest of him—swishing as he walked. I melted a path for myself and followed. Behind me ice formed where water had been. This was a cold and forbidding world.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  He kept walking, each step releasing a crunch sound as he pressed through the snow. “Cyrus,” he answered just as I’d given up on a response.

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “I cannot say the same.” He stopped, his tail coming to a lazy halt. In front of us, the snowcapped entrance to a cave glowed with golden, flickering light. Cozy.

  He stepped back. “She waits for you.”

  I moved past Cyrus, his power clouded thick around him—warm and furry it matched his cat exterior. I paused, looking up at him, his breath pluming between us. “You’re awfully big,” I said.

  He laughed, a deep and gravely sound that seemed to come straight from his belly. “You’re tiny.”

  I smiled. “Perspective is a strange and wonderful thing.” His eyes gleamed with humor, but he did not respond. Taking a fortifying breath, I ducked under the icicles twinkling in the cave’s entrance.

  The walls flickered with light and movement. Thousands of fireflies—their little butts glowing, wings shuffling—crowded the walls, shifting, climbing over each other. They seemed busy but with what I couldn’t say. Must be some kind of magic keeping them going, and giving them purpose. They didn’t belong in this environment.

  The narrow entrance passage opened up into a larger space—no bigger than an intimate restaurant. On the low rock ceiling, fireflies flickered in lines, not as thick as the entrance way but still casting enough light for me to make out the two occupants.

  Ophelia sat on a rock outcropping, a fur throw over her shoulders. Next to her, Pinky stood. A cape of brilliant yellow feathers pushed aside, she rested a hand on the hilt of her sword.