Heart of Stone (Alice Worth Book 4)

by Lisa Edmonds

  “If this is because of a vampire object of power, what kind of help do you think you can give him?”

  I dried my face and studied myself in the mirror. I looked better thanks to the ley line power, but I was pale and my eyes were shadowed. I needed sleep, but that would have to wait. “I have earth and blood magic, which are the closest natural magics to vampire magic. Beyond that…” I hesitated. “I have an affinity for vamp magic.”

  He moved to stand just outside the bathroom doorway. “As a result of Vaughan biting you, or from drinking vampire blood for healing?”

  “Neither, actually. Some blood mages—no one is really sure why—have an innate affinity for the dark magics, of which vampire magic is one. We can usually sense a vampire’s proximity and the bonds between master vampires and their offspring.”

  He smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes, which were still golden. His concern and frustration prickled on my arms. “You’re a never-ending source of surprises. Let me make you some food so you have time to eat before we leave.”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  For a moment, I felt inexplicable sadness as he went downstairs. A little voice in the back of my head insisted I would have preferred him to stay and keep me company. I was puzzled by my reaction. I’d never liked anyone to fuss over me, so why did I feel as if I needed his touch and comfort? I frowned and the urge to call him back vanished.

  In any case, I needed to hurry and get ready to leave. I shook my head to clear it and opened my suitcase. I pulled out a pair of slim black pants, an emerald-green top, and a pair of ankle boots.

  By the time I’d changed, done my makeup, re-braided my hair, stuck a few blood magic implements into my bag, and made it downstairs, my stomach had settled down. Sean and Ben were talking out in the garage. I found a sandwich and a salad on the dining table. I took the food into the living room and sat on the couch.

  Now that my stomach felt better, I was ravenous. I finished the sandwich and salad in record time and went to the kitchen to make coffee and find something else to snack on.

  I was eating a snack cake and pouring coffee into a travel tumbler when Ben came in from the garage. “Hey, Alice. Feeling better?”

  “Much better, thank you. And thanks for coming over here to help us.”

  “It’s no trouble at all. It’s the least I can do. Are you ready to leave?”

  I blinked. “Where’s Sean?”

  “He had to run an errand. He asked me to go with you to Mr. Vaughan’s house and he’ll meet us there.”

  I was surprised and relieved, though I wasn’t sure why that news made the last of my tummy flutters go away. Odd, but I’d have to deal with that thought later. I had kidnapped mages to find and a vampire to save. “Great. Let me grab my stuff and we’ll go. You want to take my car or yours?”

  “Sean asked me to take you in a Maclin Security vehicle, if that’s okay.”

  Given the possibility of trouble from Bell’s people, I’d expected as much. I’d gotten used to riding in Maclin Security vehicles of late. “Sounds fine with me.”

  I grabbed my coffee and bag and followed him out to the large black SUV parked at the curb. Sean’s truck was gone. It must have been an important errand for him to send Ben with me instead of driving me himself. Probably something to do with a client, if I had to guess. In any case, it was a relief to get away from him for a while, since his constant worry had become a bit smothering.

  On the way to Charles’s house, I reread everything the MOP database had on the Tepes stone. It wasn’t much. The Vampire Court’s library probably had more information than the MOP database, but I wasn’t sure they’d be willing to share it with me. Might as well try, though.

  I texted Kim Dade, the Vamp Court researcher I’d worked with a few times before, and asked her to call me when she had a moment.

  To my surprise, my phone rang immediately. “Hey, Alice,” she said warmly. “Are you feeling better?”

  I wasn’t in the least surprised that she’d heard about the day’s events. Small southern towns had nothing on the Vamp Court grapevine. “Much better, thanks. Sorry to get right to the point, but I’m on my way to Charles Vaughan’s house and I need some information.”

  A pause. “I’ve heard he hasn’t been himself lately,” she said carefully. “How can I help?”

  “I’ve read what the MOP database has on the Tepes stone, but it isn’t much. I was wondering if the Court had more information, something that could give me a clue how to help him.”

  Her response was pretty much what I’d expected. “Unfortunately, I can’t release any information from our archives without clearance from a member of the Court or one of their daytime representatives.”

  “Damn it.” I sighed. “If I can get someone to sign off on this, will you send the info to me?”

  “Of course. I’ll queue up the file so I can send it as soon as I get the word.”

  “Thanks, Kim. I’ll see what I can do.” I ended the call and tapped my phone against my lower lip, debating who to call.

  Finally, I scrolled through my contacts and called Juliet LaRoche, Niara’s daytime representative. Niara and Charles were both on the Vampire Court and were frequent bedmates. That by itself didn’t mean they cared for each other; for vamps, sex usually didn’t have the same emotional and psychological component it did for most humans. But I’d seen Niara and Charles around each other often enough to know there were feelings there that went beyond physical attraction.

  I’d only spoken to Juliet a few times over the years. She was as stiff and formal as Ezekiel Monroe was friendly and outgoing. Still, I figured she was my best bet for getting info from the Court library.

  “Ms. Worth.” Juliet’s voice was brisk. “How may I help you this evening?”

  I told her where I was going and why, and what I needed.

  A long silence. “My understanding is Mr. Vaughan does not want you involved in this matter.”

  Apparently, everyone knew about Charles but me, and it pissed me off. Things had been bumpy between us of late—largely because of his actions—but he’d deliberately excluded me from this situation and I wanted to know why.

  “Well, tough, because I’m involved now and I’m going to do my damnedest to save his undead ass,” I snapped. “I know Niara cares about him and I doubt the details about that stone are vampire state secrets. Besides, I have an NDA on file with the Court that covers any info you share with me, so you know it’s going no farther than my eyes. Help me out on this, Juliet. Or ask Niara after she wakes up if you have to, but from what I understand, we don’t have a hell of a lot of time.”

  Another long silence. “Niara has just woken. I will ask her permission to send you the information.”

  I glanced at the horizon, where the sun was still visible. The older the vampire, the earlier they were able to wake, though they still had to avoid sunlight. “I’m going in there with or without that information, but it would make it a lot more likely I’ll succeed if I knew what you all know about the stone.”

  “I will speak with Niara and notify you of her decision.” Juliet ended our call.

  Ben slowed and stopped at a red light. “So, what can you tell me about this stone?”

  “I can tell you what I know. The Tepes stone—or at least that’s what I call it—is about four inches long and oval-shaped. To my knowledge, no one really knows how old it is, except that it was created at least a couple hundred years before Tepes obtained it. Originally it was undecorated except for some etched runes, the spellwork that shapes its power. Once Tepes got it, someone painted a portrait of him on its face. The database says that many of the vampire objects of power he owned bore his likeness in one way or another.”

  “Well, that doesn’t surprise me. Fifteenth-century Wallachian warlords were a cocky bunch,” Ben said. At my raised eyebrows, he smiled. “Vlad the Impaler and Dracula myth are sort of a hobby for me.”

  “A werewolf who is a Dracula fanboy,” I teased.
“Now I’ve seen everything.”

  He grinned. “So what does it do?”

  “The stone sucks the life energy out of victims and transfers it to its host, leaving vamp victims temporarily mortal and other non-immortal people dead.”

  I’d seen Charles use it the night of the auction when Vincent Barclay, a vampire from Seattle, and his entourage attacked us in an attempt to kidnap me and steal the stone.

  “Its host?” Ben asked. “Interesting word choice. Not its user?”

  “Yeah, its host. Best case, the stone is basically a symbiont. As long as the host drains people’s energy and keeps it fed, the stone makes the host stronger.”

  “And if the host doesn’t keep draining people?”

  “Then the stone turns on its host and starts eating them from the inside out.”

  Silence.

  Charles had been glib about the danger when I’d confronted him about it, pointing out that it was better he had possession of the stone than someone like Barclay. And maybe he was right, but even then I’d worried about what might happen if Charles didn’t use the stone as intended. It would appear my worries had been well-founded.

  “So, basically, Vaughan has been walking around with this stone in his pocket for the last month and now it’s eating him alive?” Ben paused. “Er, eating him undead?”

  I shook my head. “The stone is inside him, Ben. That’s why the person using it is called a host. When he bought it, he disappeared for about fifteen minutes, way longer than the rest of the bidders were gone paying for their purchases. Later, when I read up on the stone, I found out where he was during that time: getting his abdomen cut open and the stone put inside. He waited for the incision to heal and then came back out like nothing happened.”

  Ben muttered something that would have made Juliet LaRoche threaten to wash his mouth out. “I’ve heard of objects of power like that, but I can’t imagine sticking one in my body. The cuff that grabbed onto Sean’s arm was bad enough.”

  I’d hoped for a quick response from Juliet, but as the minutes ticked by my frustration and anger grew. I’d thought Charles would be worth enough to Niara that she would tell Kim to send me the file on the stone, but maybe I was wrong. Damn heartless vamps.

  Finally, just as I was sure I was going to have to go in with no more knowledge than I already had, my phone beeped. To my surprise, it was an email from Kim Dade with an attachment. Niara had come through after all.

  I opened the file and started reading. Halfway down the first page, my stomach lurched. “Oh, shit,” I said involuntarily.

  Ben glanced at me. “Is it bad?”

  “No, it’s worse.”

  “How could it be worse?”

  “Just trust me; it is.” I swallowed hard. “Drive faster.”

  8

  We arrived at Charles’s estate at sunset. The gate swung open as we turned into the drive.

  Black-clad enforcers patrolled along the walls and more walked the grounds. Charles had become more security-conscious after anti-vamp extremists targeted him. His beloved bar Hawthorne’s—the first establishment he’d opened in the city on his arrival decades ago—was bombed, and then one of the bombers escaped capture and attacked his entourage last month, killing Arkady’s lover Fortune and nearly killing both Charles and Bryan too. Hawthorne’s was nearly rebuilt now, but Charles had relocated his offices to a more secure suite above his much fancier downtown wine-and-cocktail bar, 1792.

  Ben parked in front of the mansion, off to the side of the wide main steps next to two Vamp Court SUVs. Sometimes it felt like everyone in my life drove a black SUV but me.

  The front door opened as we climbed the steps, revealing Bryan’s sister Adri, another of Charles’s enforcers. “Alice, thank you for coming.”

  “Why didn’t he want me to know about this?” I asked as we walked past her into the house.

  She shut the heavy door and sighed. “You’ll have to ask him that. I can only speculate.”

  “Where’s Bryan?”

  She smiled humorlessly. “He’s Mr. Vaughan’s breakfast today.”

  Ben twitched. I’d long ago stopped feeling squicky about a vampire’s eating habits, but not everyone spent as much time around the fangy undead as I did.

  As his head enforcer, Bryan drank from Charles regularly, which made him almost as strong and fast as a dhampir. That strength would benefit Charles now, as the effects of possessing the Tepes stone grew worse.

  “How long until Charles is ready to see me?” I asked.

  “A few minutes, I think.”

  “Does he know I’m coming?”

  She shook her head. “Bryan and I have decided it will be better to ask forgiveness for this than permission.”

  As far as I knew, neither Adri nor Bryan had ever disobeyed a direct order from Charles. For their sakes, I hoped their boss would be in a forgiving mood when this was over.

  Adri led us down a hallway I hadn’t taken before. Ben was on high alert, his sharp eyes taking in everything and everyone around us. Having him at my back was reassuring.

  Near the end of the hall, Adri stopped and faced us. “I’m taking you down to Mr. Vaughan’s private apartment. No one other than his most trusted employees and Niara has ever crossed its threshold. If you use the information about its location or anything you see or hear while there against Mr. Vaughan in any way, you will answer to all of us.”

  I knew Adri well enough to know her pronouncement was more of a promise than a threat. I took no offense and accepted her warning in the spirit in which it was intended. “I understand.”

  “I understand,” Ben echoed.

  She placed her hand on a small black glass panel on the wall. A flash of red light indicated it was a biometric scanner. Several heavy locks disengaged and a section of wall swung inward, revealing another hallway. I wondered what would happen if the estate lost power. No doubt there were other manual methods of opening the door, but they weren’t likely to share those with us.

  We followed Adri through the door and it shut behind us with a very imposing thud. Ben’s tension quadrupled at the realization that our escape route was effectively cut off. We passed a half-dozen doors on our way down the hall; probably living quarters for some of Charles’s most trusted employees.

  At the door at the end of the hall, Adri paused and got a faraway look that indicated she was talking to someone in her head, probably Charles, asking permission to enter.

  She opened the door, revealing a landing and a set of wide stairs going down. The passage reminded me of the original Hawthorne’s. The decor was unmistakably Charles’s style: dark wood, subdued lighting, and brass fixtures.

  We started down the stairs with Adri in the lead. If Charles didn’t know Adri was bringing visitors, he would likely be hearing our footsteps now. Given what Adri and Bryan had said and what I’d read in the Vamp Court file on the stone, I had no idea what kind of reception we would receive or what we’d see when we reached Charles’s room.

  Charles called out to us when we were three-quarters of the way down the stairs. “Alice, come no farther.” His voice was slightly hoarse, but stronger than I’d feared it would be. He must have asked Bryan who was with Adri, or maybe he recognized the sound of my boots.

  Adri’s steps faltered at his command. I nudged her forward. “Go ahead and yell, Charles, but I’m here and I’m not leaving,” I said as we reached the bottom of the steps and Charles’s private apartment.

  The room was part bedroom, part library, and part museum. Bookcases and display cabinets lined the walls. The ceiling mural featured a breathtaking sunrise painted in an Impressionist style.

  I realized I’d seen a glimpse of this room once before: when I’d used a tracking spell to find the cuff that matched the one killing Sean. Somewhere in this room was the wall safe where Charles had kept the cuff. I didn’t see a safe, but it was probably hidden behind some books or one of the paintings hanging on the walls.

  Charles’s bed was mu
ch as I’d imagined it: an enormous and imposing four-poster piece of furniture. The dark-haired vampire struggled to rise from the bed but Bryan held him back with a hand on his shoulder. Given Charles’s taste for luxurious clothing, I’d expected him to sleep in silk pajamas or something equally decadent—or heaven help me, in the nude—but instead he wore simple cotton pants and a long-sleeved tunic.

  Despite having just drunk Bryan’s blood, Charles was pale and his skin had a bluish tinge. His eyes were entirely black. Like all vampires, he’d always been slim, but now he was almost skeletal. Most telling of all, Bryan held him back with one hand on his thin shoulder and without straining very much. Charles was dangerously weak.

  My stomach contracted painfully at the sight of him. Hard on the heels of my dismay came anger. “Why the hell didn’t you ask me for help?”

  He ignored my question. “I gave orders,” he ground out. “You were not to be called.”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty ticked off about that, but thankfully someone did call me.” I approached the bed. “I told you that you had a tiger by the tail with that stone. Looks like it mauled you.”

  “You must leave.” He still had a bit of the familiar fire in his eyes but I also saw pain. Worst of all, I saw resignation. He’d all but given up and it pissed me off.

  “Make me,” I said.

  He knocked Bryan’s hand away, surged to his feet, and came at me.

  Ben moved like lightning to meet Charles’s attack. Charles got a hand on Ben’s arm, but at the same moment I hit the vampire with my hands and unleashed a controlled burst of air magic that sent him flying back to land on the bed.

  Bryan and Adri stepped between us, but Charles didn’t rise and attempt to attack again. That one burst of energy had left him drained.

  I approached the bed with Ben at my side. “I don’t know why you didn’t call me for help, and I guess I don’t care. I’m here to save you whether you want me to or not, so suck it up, buttercup, and let me help.”